This Land is Not Our Land
Wonderland of Rocks. That’s the old name for the Chiricahua National Monument in Southeast Arizona. It’s otherworldly, like Bryce Canyon in Utah or the Badlands in South Dakota. Hiking through them gave me the feeling of being in a sacred place and made me think about the massive and wondrous geologic history of the earth and about the Apaches who used to live here. The nutshell history: The Apaches were fierce warriors and resisted Spanish colonization beginning in the 1500s. Then, after Mexican independence in 1821, they resisted the flood of Mexican migrants coming to their territory from the south. Then came the U.S. with its settlers and calvary. In 1886, Geronimo surrendered to the U.S. and the Apaches were “relocated” to reservations in Oklahoma and New Mexico. And we know what has happened after that. I call Cochise and Geronimo to mind. Presente! Being here in the midst of the US militarization against immigrants, I remember the historical context ...