Dustin Chavez-Davis
On November 2, the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter and the Bosque Action Team, including members of the Bosquitos youth group, came together to make a float for Albuquerque’s Dia de los Muertos y Marigold Parade, with the theme of protecting and preserving the Rio Grande Bosque.
Dia de los Muertos originated in Mexico, from a fusion of the Aztec and Catholic traditions of honoring the cycle of life and death. It is widely observed throughout Central America and in the American Southwest, especially in ‘minority majority’ states such as New Mexico. The Muertos y Marigold Parade takes place in a primarily Hispanic part of the city, in a community with many ties to agriculture and livelihoods that directly depend on water and land resources. In recent years, several studies have shown that Hispanic communities are extremely concerned about environmental issues, and care in overwhelming numbers about clean water, breathable air, and intact ecosystems.
So, it seems fitting that this year’s Muertos y Marigold Parade should have a theme of “El Agua Es La Vida” -- Water is Life. Because, in the most literal sense, it is. In a time of extreme droughts and rivers that no longer run to the sea, and where the futures of Southwestern cities and waterways hang in the balance, the importance of water to life cannot be overstated.
The Rio Grande River cuts directly through the center of Albuquerque, flanked on both sides by the nation’s largest bosque, a type of riverside forest that grows in the American Southwest, a bright green ribbon through the stark desert. It is incredible that such a large, undeveloped riparian ecosystem should exist in the center of the largest city in the state, providing a unique habitat for beaver, waterfowl, fish, and coyote, not to mention hiking, biking, horseback riding, and paddling opportunities for locals. Although it’s a far cry from a wilderness, the bosque is protected in the Rio Grande Valley State Park, and is a wild, open space in the center of a developed city.
The Sierra Club’s float was decorated with marigolds (traditional for Dia de los Muertos), a “Save our Bosque” sign depicting the leafless skeletons of cottonwoods, as well as trees sculpted of paper mache with leaves made up of people’s thoughts on the meaning of wilderness. Twenty members and volunteers donned calavera (skull) face paint to walk the parade, bringing along hand-painted puppets of wildlife that live in the bosque. These volunteers took signatures for a petition to Albuquerque’s mayor, asking him to protect the bosque from rushed, unthinking municipal development. Despite the cold and drizzling conditions, they gathered dozens of signatures.
Although the light rain made the event turnout smaller than the year before, the Sierra Club’s participation in the Dia de los Muertos parade signifies its connection to the larger Albuquerque community, just as the Rio Grande and its bosque connects to the water that sustains the lives of all people, everywhere.
