#opheliarivas — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #opheliarivas, aggregated by home.social.
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The Hungry Hounds: US #BorderPatrol Lurks at #TohonoOodhamNation Border
@bsnorrell.blogspot.com ,
August 19, 2026"The U.S. Border Patrol lurks awaiting its prey at the border of the #TohonoOodham Nation, near the Nation's new 'NO TRESPASSING" signs directed at border wall contractors.
"The US Border Patrol is part of Homeland Security and its plan to #seize the Nation's land for the border wall. The US #BorderPatrol already has open access to the Tohono O'odham Nation, and a #SpySystem in place to track #Oodham and watch them.
The #Israeli built #Elbit Systems spy towers track O'odham on the Nation, with live video feed. US Border Patrol agents have been arrested for murder, serial rape, assault, kidnapping, drug running and spotting for the cartels all along the border. The facts are ignored by #MainstreamMedia.
"US Border Patrol agents in this area murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, at his home. His body showed 11 bullets, and the wounds of rifle butts and broken bones. Raymond told #CensoredNews before he was murdered that he had video-taped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home at the border. This evidence disappeared after it was submitted.
" #OpheliaRivas , Tohono O'odham, points out that the three US Border Patrol agents who murdered her lifelong friend have never been charged. A tribal police officer, a non-Indian, had a vendetta exposed in the voice evidence. He was never charged for his role leading the agents to Raymond's home where they murdered him."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hungry-hounds-us-border-patrol.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol
#DefundDHS #DefundCBP
#NativeAmericanNews #NoWall #NoBorders #SurveillanceState #JusticeForRaymondMattia
#MurderPatrol #ProtectTheSacred #NativeAmericans #IsraeliWarCrimes #Elbit -
The Hungry Hounds: US #BorderPatrol Lurks at #TohonoOodhamNation Border
@bsnorrell.blogspot.com ,
August 19, 2026"The U.S. Border Patrol lurks awaiting its prey at the border of the #TohonoOodham Nation, near the Nation's new 'NO TRESPASSING" signs directed at border wall contractors.
"The US Border Patrol is part of Homeland Security and its plan to #seize the Nation's land for the border wall. The US #BorderPatrol already has open access to the Tohono O'odham Nation, and a #SpySystem in place to track #Oodham and watch them.
The #Israeli built #Elbit Systems spy towers track O'odham on the Nation, with live video feed. US Border Patrol agents have been arrested for murder, serial rape, assault, kidnapping, drug running and spotting for the cartels all along the border. The facts are ignored by #MainstreamMedia.
"US Border Patrol agents in this area murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, at his home. His body showed 11 bullets, and the wounds of rifle butts and broken bones. Raymond told #CensoredNews before he was murdered that he had video-taped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home at the border. This evidence disappeared after it was submitted.
" #OpheliaRivas , Tohono O'odham, points out that the three US Border Patrol agents who murdered her lifelong friend have never been charged. A tribal police officer, a non-Indian, had a vendetta exposed in the voice evidence. He was never charged for his role leading the agents to Raymond's home where they murdered him."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hungry-hounds-us-border-patrol.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol
#DefundDHS #DefundCBP
#NativeAmericanNews #NoWall #NoBorders #SurveillanceState #JusticeForRaymondMattia
#MurderPatrol #ProtectTheSacred #NativeAmericans #IsraeliWarCrimes #Elbit -
The Hungry Hounds: US #BorderPatrol Lurks at #TohonoOodhamNation Border
@bsnorrell.blogspot.com ,
August 19, 2026"The U.S. Border Patrol lurks awaiting its prey at the border of the #TohonoOodham Nation, near the Nation's new 'NO TRESPASSING" signs directed at border wall contractors.
"The US Border Patrol is part of Homeland Security and its plan to #seize the Nation's land for the border wall. The US #BorderPatrol already has open access to the Tohono O'odham Nation, and a #SpySystem in place to track #Oodham and watch them.
The #Israeli built #Elbit Systems spy towers track O'odham on the Nation, with live video feed. US Border Patrol agents have been arrested for murder, serial rape, assault, kidnapping, drug running and spotting for the cartels all along the border. The facts are ignored by #MainstreamMedia.
"US Border Patrol agents in this area murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, at his home. His body showed 11 bullets, and the wounds of rifle butts and broken bones. Raymond told #CensoredNews before he was murdered that he had video-taped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home at the border. This evidence disappeared after it was submitted.
" #OpheliaRivas , Tohono O'odham, points out that the three US Border Patrol agents who murdered her lifelong friend have never been charged. A tribal police officer, a non-Indian, had a vendetta exposed in the voice evidence. He was never charged for his role leading the agents to Raymond's home where they murdered him."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hungry-hounds-us-border-patrol.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol
#DefundDHS #DefundCBP
#NativeAmericanNews #NoWall #NoBorders #SurveillanceState #JusticeForRaymondMattia
#MurderPatrol #ProtectTheSacred #NativeAmericans #IsraeliWarCrimes #Elbit -
The Hungry Hounds: US #BorderPatrol Lurks at #TohonoOodhamNation Border
@bsnorrell.blogspot.com ,
August 19, 2026"The U.S. Border Patrol lurks awaiting its prey at the border of the #TohonoOodham Nation, near the Nation's new 'NO TRESPASSING" signs directed at border wall contractors.
"The US Border Patrol is part of Homeland Security and its plan to #seize the Nation's land for the border wall. The US #BorderPatrol already has open access to the Tohono O'odham Nation, and a #SpySystem in place to track #Oodham and watch them.
The #Israeli built #Elbit Systems spy towers track O'odham on the Nation, with live video feed. US Border Patrol agents have been arrested for murder, serial rape, assault, kidnapping, drug running and spotting for the cartels all along the border. The facts are ignored by #MainstreamMedia.
"US Border Patrol agents in this area murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, at his home. His body showed 11 bullets, and the wounds of rifle butts and broken bones. Raymond told #CensoredNews before he was murdered that he had video-taped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home at the border. This evidence disappeared after it was submitted.
" #OpheliaRivas , Tohono O'odham, points out that the three US Border Patrol agents who murdered her lifelong friend have never been charged. A tribal police officer, a non-Indian, had a vendetta exposed in the voice evidence. He was never charged for his role leading the agents to Raymond's home where they murdered him."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hungry-hounds-us-border-patrol.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol
#DefundDHS #DefundCBP
#NativeAmericanNews #NoWall #NoBorders #SurveillanceState #JusticeForRaymondMattia
#MurderPatrol #ProtectTheSacred #NativeAmericans #IsraeliWarCrimes #Elbit -
The Hungry Hounds: US #BorderPatrol Lurks at #TohonoOodhamNation Border
@bsnorrell.blogspot.com ,
August 19, 2026"The U.S. Border Patrol lurks awaiting its prey at the border of the #TohonoOodham Nation, near the Nation's new 'NO TRESPASSING" signs directed at border wall contractors.
"The US Border Patrol is part of Homeland Security and its plan to #seize the Nation's land for the border wall. The US #BorderPatrol already has open access to the Tohono O'odham Nation, and a #SpySystem in place to track #Oodham and watch them.
The #Israeli built #Elbit Systems spy towers track O'odham on the Nation, with live video feed. US Border Patrol agents have been arrested for murder, serial rape, assault, kidnapping, drug running and spotting for the cartels all along the border. The facts are ignored by #MainstreamMedia.
"US Border Patrol agents in this area murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, at his home. His body showed 11 bullets, and the wounds of rifle butts and broken bones. Raymond told #CensoredNews before he was murdered that he had video-taped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home at the border. This evidence disappeared after it was submitted.
" #OpheliaRivas , Tohono O'odham, points out that the three US Border Patrol agents who murdered her lifelong friend have never been charged. A tribal police officer, a non-Indian, had a vendetta exposed in the voice evidence. He was never charged for his role leading the agents to Raymond's home where they murdered him."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hungry-hounds-us-border-patrol.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol
#DefundDHS #DefundCBP
#NativeAmericanNews #NoWall #NoBorders #SurveillanceState #JusticeForRaymondMattia
#MurderPatrol #ProtectTheSacred #NativeAmericans #IsraeliWarCrimes #Elbit -
Of course they do! #MurderPatrol !
U.S. #BorderPatrol Agents who Murdered #RaymondMattia, #TohonoOodham, Want Qualified Immunity
Agents insisted to the Ninth Circuit that Raymond Mattia posed a potential threat when he removed his #cellphone from his pocket during a standoff.
via #CensoredNews, August 12, 2026
" #OpheliaRivas, Raymond's lifelong friend, said the Border Patrol's military tactics are used on the people. The three border patrol agents and tribal police officer responsible for Raymond's murder have never been charged, Ophelia told Censored News in July."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/us-border-patrol-agents-who-murdered.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol #DefundDHS #DefundCBP #NativeAmericanNews
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Of course they do! #MurderPatrol !
U.S. #BorderPatrol Agents who Murdered #RaymondMattia, #TohonoOodham, Want Qualified Immunity
Agents insisted to the Ninth Circuit that Raymond Mattia posed a potential threat when he removed his #cellphone from his pocket during a standoff.
via #CensoredNews, August 12, 2026
" #OpheliaRivas, Raymond's lifelong friend, said the Border Patrol's military tactics are used on the people. The three border patrol agents and tribal police officer responsible for Raymond's murder have never been charged, Ophelia told Censored News in July."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/us-border-patrol-agents-who-murdered.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol #DefundDHS #DefundCBP #NativeAmericanNews
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Of course they do! #MurderPatrol !
U.S. #BorderPatrol Agents who Murdered #RaymondMattia, #TohonoOodham, Want Qualified Immunity
Agents insisted to the Ninth Circuit that Raymond Mattia posed a potential threat when he removed his #cellphone from his pocket during a standoff.
via #CensoredNews, August 12, 2026
" #OpheliaRivas, Raymond's lifelong friend, said the Border Patrol's military tactics are used on the people. The three border patrol agents and tribal police officer responsible for Raymond's murder have never been charged, Ophelia told Censored News in July."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/us-border-patrol-agents-who-murdered.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol #DefundDHS #DefundCBP #NativeAmericanNews
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Of course they do! #MurderPatrol !
U.S. #BorderPatrol Agents who Murdered #RaymondMattia, #TohonoOodham, Want Qualified Immunity
Agents insisted to the Ninth Circuit that Raymond Mattia posed a potential threat when he removed his #cellphone from his pocket during a standoff.
via #CensoredNews, August 12, 2026
" #OpheliaRivas, Raymond's lifelong friend, said the Border Patrol's military tactics are used on the people. The three border patrol agents and tribal police officer responsible for Raymond's murder have never been charged, Ophelia told Censored News in July."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/us-border-patrol-agents-who-murdered.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol #DefundDHS #DefundCBP #NativeAmericanNews
-
Of course they do! #MurderPatrol !
U.S. #BorderPatrol Agents who Murdered #RaymondMattia, #TohonoOodham, Want Qualified Immunity
Agents insisted to the Ninth Circuit that Raymond Mattia posed a potential threat when he removed his #cellphone from his pocket during a standoff.
via #CensoredNews, August 12, 2026
" #OpheliaRivas, Raymond's lifelong friend, said the Border Patrol's military tactics are used on the people. The three border patrol agents and tribal police officer responsible for Raymond's murder have never been charged, Ophelia told Censored News in July."
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/08/us-border-patrol-agents-who-murdered.html
#JusticeForRayMattia #USPol #DefundDHS #DefundCBP #NativeAmericanNews
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Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands
by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik
"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.
"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.
"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.
"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."
Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity -
Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands
by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik
"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.
"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.
"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.
"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."
Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity -
Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands
by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik
"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.
"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.
"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.
"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."
Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity -
Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands
by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik
"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.
"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.
"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.
"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."
Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity -
Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands
by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik
"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.
"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.
"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.
"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."
Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity