New Mexico in Focus; 1322; Joy Harjo, Teton Saltes, Jenny Murray of Las Sandinistas, Our Land Repeat

Funding for New Mexico and Focus provided by the McHughn Charitable Foundation and viewers like you. This week on the Mexico and Focus, Brown Breaker Joy Harjo on the significance of being in the country's first ever Native American poet laureate. How do you carry the weight of history and have no words or no way to address it? Plus, UNM's Teton Celtis tackles advocacy work for his community with the same determination he does athletics. The Mexico and Focus starts now. Thanks for joining us this week on your host, Gene Grant. We here at the Mexico and Focus hope you're all enjoying a holiday weekend with friends and loved ones and we thank you as always for spending a little time with us. We've got lots of great things for you to feast on in this week's show. Starting with that story on UNM football player Teton Celtis. Also this week the amazing story of the brave women on the front lines of social reform. During Nicaragua's 1979 Sandinista Revolution, their story is the subject of a documentary

shown earlier this year right here in the Mexico PBS. We sit down with the director for more on this remarkable story. And as the Sandhill Cranes return, we'll also look back at one of our favorite our land episodes exploring one of New Mexico's natural wonders. The Busky Delepache National Wildlife Refuge. Up first though, we celebrate another New Mexico treasure, poet Joy Harjo. An enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, Ms. Harjo went to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe as well as UNM. She went on to write eight different books of poetry including her latest and American Sunrise. In earlier this year she also made history becoming the first Native American named the National Poet Laureate. And I may have corresponded to Megan Camerick had the opportunity to sit down with Ms. Harjo in Santa Fe where she read some of her poems and talked about why she sees the Poet Laureate appointment as a doorway for Native people. So this next poem is I wrote it in kind of the tradition of Muscogee Creek rabbit stories.

Now rabbit is our trickster figure. I think out here in the southwest is Coyote. We know some of those coyotes and often they are elected officials. Yes, you know what I mean. Rabbit is up to tricks. In a world long before this one, there is enough for everyone until somebody got out of line. We heard it was rabbit fooling around with clay in the wind. Everybody was tired of his tricks and no one would play with him and he was lonely in this world. So rabbit thought to make a person and when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure to see what would happen, the clay man stood up.

Rabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken, the clay man obeyed. Then he showed him how to steal corn, the clay man obeyed. Then he showed him how to steal someone else's wife and that clay man obeyed. He felt him potent and powerful and rabbit felt important and powerful and clay man felt important and powerful and once that clay man started, he could not stop. Once he took that chicken, he wanted all the chickens. Once he took that corn, he wanted all the corn and once he took that wife, well he wanted all the wives. He was insatiable. Then he had a taste of gold. He wanted all the gold. Then it was land or anything else he saw, his wanting only made him want more. Soon it was countries, then it was trade, the wanting infected the earth.

We lost track of the purpose and meaning of life. We began to forget our songs, our stories. We could no longer see or hear our ancestors or talk with each other across the kitchen table. Forest were being mowed down all over the world to make more and rabbit had no place left to play. This trick had backfired. Rabbit tried to call that clay man back, but when that clay man wouldn't listen, rabbit realized he'd made a clay man with no ears. What do you think the responsibility is of the U.S. poet laureate, given the power of

poetry? Yes, that's something I'm learning, it's an honor and yet there's a lot of responsibility because essentially you're the ambassador of poetry. What excites me about it is that it opens the door for one for native people. It's like, wow, you mean there are natives and I've run into this, I've helped put out anthologies. I mean there are natives in this country, there's a study by a group illuminative that shows there's data and that show that a lot of people think we're dead or gone or they think we're not human. Not human? Yes, you go back to the papal bulls even to the declaration of independence. Yeah, you know, heathens and savages. The need to be saved from ourselves. Why do you choose poetry to carry your voice?

I don't know that I chose poetry to carry my voice. I started out as a child, I loved doing art and I love music also, but I gave up on music when I was about 16 or younger, no, I was in middle of junior high and poetry came to me when I was really a student at the University of New Mexico, an art major and poetry, there was, I think, Leslie Silco was teaching, there was a visiting writer, the very strong creative writing program and a lot of native poets coming through and I was part of Kiva Club which was a very active native student club and poetry emerged out of that, out of the need to, for a voice especially for women in those times in the early 70s and so poetry came to me and said, in a way, I choose you and it's like, why me? I'm not the best with words, I prefer to paint and hide out, I could paint all night

and I didn't have to stand in front of people and speak or to speak at all. The poetry says, well, we'll teach you what to do. In your memoir, as you said, you began to write poetry when you were a student at UNM, it was a really difficult time, you had young children, you had a partner who had become abusive, you were having panic attacks and you wrote, I must become the poem, the music and the dancer. Why do you think poetry emerged at that time, as you say, to help or to leave you? I think, if you watch the emergence of poetry where it really comes to the forefront of a cultural consciousness, is usually in times of great transition or great transformation. In the early 70s, you look at the civil rights movements, you look at native rights movements, women's rights movements, it was all coming together right there and especially for us,

for native students and for, it was all coming together at that point and then in my own personal journey as a young woman who, you know, we go through challenges, I went through challenges, everyone goes through challenges and at that age, around 21, you're coming into, for every generation, 21 years old, it's a time of reckoning, okay, where am I now and where am I going as a human being and then generational, who are we as a generation, what history are we compelled to engage with and to walk forward with ethically to make change that will benefit not the people and why I say people, I mean all people, the animals, the plants and then also the earth because essentially we are the earth.

You had some of the most important native artists teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts, were you attended in the late 60s and then at your time at the University of New Mexico, there was this emerging native rights movement, how did all those things shape you in your poetry? I'm still thinking about that, I have another memoir too, but I'm still thinking about that because I know coming from Oklahoma which has its own very distinct and disturbing history with native people to the Institute of American Indian Arts which in the late 60s was, it was a place that gave so many artists permission, a place to be together as young native artists from all over the country from tribes everywhere and that became, that became a place, it saved my life, it saved many others because, you know, art, it's

difficult being an artist and it being a young artist because we're tuned to certain, I think we're tuned to certain way and then to come into the company of incredible young artist and many whose names you would know now with teachers who understood that and who came from predominantly indigenous cultures and understood the history, it was a point of education and learning that just blew open imagination and memory so that say yes, you know we have a story, yes we're making art, yes we can be influenced by Jimmy Hendrix by all these people but at the same time it is coming through the lens of our becoming is like young Muscogee Creek people who are carrying on that culture and that place and yet we're moving forward into this world that is so, you know, it's always changing, the world's always changed but it's changing dramatically in these times.

In your memoir Crazy Brave he talked about IAA as a place where your spirit found a place to heal, why was it so important at that point in your life to find that place? Well I would not have made it and many of us didn't make it, I mean how do you carry the weight of history and have no words or no way to address it? And it happens to a lot of, it happens to a lot of young people, young native people we have some of the highest suicide rates and so on because where, what do you do with it? It doesn't go away just because you don't see our history as part of America doesn't mean it didn't happen, it doesn't mean that we're not there here present and moving forward with this story, America is a young country and America needs healing and America will not heal until the story of indigenous peoples as America is set into its correct place.

In your new collection American Sunrise the poem for which it's named that you wrote it's an homage or an evocation of the famous poem by Gwendolyn Brooks Sleepy Cool which that poem is a portrait of young black man simultaneously bragging but they're also questioning the validity of their existence, they're struggling to find their place. In American society what parallels did you find in Native American youth? Thank you for bringing that up because no one else has really seen that, that yes the poem is called it's a Terrence Hayes developed the form called the Golden Shovel where you take a line of the poem and then the last words of the poem you write are made up, the last word line, the last word of each line is that and so it is about young people, young native people years ago trying to assert themselves as human beings and assert their identity

in place with that kind of spirit you know that spiritiness that you have at that generation when you're opening your mind to imagination in the memory to what is possible from the doorway and finding doorways that only they can open and so the poem really is and really is about that kind of energetic and saying you know at the end we are still America we are you know we're here. An American sunrise we were running out of breath as we ran to meet ourselves we were surfacing the edge of our ancestors fights and ready to strike it was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight or easy if you played pool and drank to remember

to forget we made plans to be for professional and some of us could sing when we drove to the edge of the mountains through the drum we made sense of our beautiful craze lives under the starry stars sin was invented by the Christians as was the devil we saying we were the heathens but needed to be saved from them in chance we knew we were all related in this story a little gin will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing we had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz I argued with a music as I filled the jukebox with times in June 40 years later and we still want justice we are still America we. It also brings out a theme I see in your poetry but the difficulty of trying to live in at least two worlds if not more more yeah how do you try to talk about that in your poetry is for yourself and for other native people I'm I just do I just listen and I

do my poetry you know I don't say I think well I live in how many worlds or I don't it's not that it just it emerges that way people ask me well do you write as a muskogi creek person well I write as who I am as a human being and it's about listening and so you ask where poetry comes from will you listen and it's it comes from you know the source of life which gives us a breath you know there it comes you listen and you have all your tools there you know but the first part of it is listening and then enjoying the ride but it takes you of course it's going to come through what you are and who are you and where do you come from and who are your ancestors and you know what what plants have fed you and how you know are they speaking through you or with you you know it's it's it's a combination of all of that you call your poetry soul talk uh-huh tell me what that means to you soul talk

well I came to poetry because I needed a language that was beyond every day language which I believe is poetry and there is there's everyday reality just the hardcore physicality literal kind of reality but most of our reality is not what's seen or what can be touched we can feel it so for me poetry being soul talk is being able to go into that place of it's a place where wisdom lives it's a place where fresh ideas live that we need for food for spiritual food and I see poetry as part of that yes we need physical food you know there are always members a little kid we'd have to repeat this list which I can't you know what do human beings need to live food clothing shelter and it's and I always wondered even as a kid yes but it's not just that we need we need to be uplifted we need food for our spirits we need

food for our souls and poetry in the language of poetry leads me back to that we're at a time in our country where we're not listening much to each other how could poetry help us listen I believe that poetry can help us listen and that's what I'm thinking about as I go forward with this poet laureate because if you listen to a poem you have to stop and listen and how better for people to speak with each other than through poetry we're all humans we all have our different stories and challenges and yet you know we're all in one ceremony of the sun they're that we're in together and at sunrise it's a good place to go out and say thank you and ask for good prayers and thoughts for for all of us on this journey you know the birds are out there doing it you know the plants everybody's involved in this sunrise at this sunrise ceremony

so to speak and at this poem came about at sunset where I realized standing there and you follow that movement and the energy you let it go and it's a good time to let things go let it go as if you don't that's a lot of our illness to start from holding on to things holding on to um things often we can do nothing about just to let it go let it go let it go and this song came about for them I must keep from breaking into the story by force if I do I will find a work club in my hand and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun your nation did be side you I keep walking away though it has been an eternity and from each drop of blood springs up sons and

daughters and trees a mountain of sorrows of songs I tell you this from the desk of a small city in the north not far from the birthplace of cars and industry geese are returning to mate and crocuses have broken through the frozen earth soon they will come from me and I will make my stand before the jury of destiny yes I will answer in the clatter of the new world I have broken my addiction to war and desire yes I will reply I have buried the dead and made

songs of the blood the marrow every night during the summer and into the fall here in the homelands there is a huge concert of the insect orchestra now the orchestra is shutting down for the season last night I heard two or three stragglers trying to carry on a song they reminded me of the last remaining souls at a 49 dance blirey eye dragging blankets and still singing though everyone else has gone home well I don't care if you're married 16 times I'll get you yet and you're here thank you

we appreciate the time Joy Harjo gave us and wish her well and her appointment as poet laureate also keep an eye out in the coming days and weeks on our facebook and youtube pages we will have more videos from Miss Harjo's poetry readings and we have a first edition of her new book of poetry and American Sunrise we want to give away just head to our facebook page for a link on how to enter one element that really attracted me was the fact that women were generals women like Dor Maria Teyes and Daisy Zamora for example Monica Bultedano I fought his combatants in generals and led giant battalions that won some of the key battles of the revolution witnessing the return of the sandhill cranes to the Boscadella Pache National Wildlife Refuge is a uniquely New Mexico holiday tradition and in 2019 it marks the

32nd year for the festival of the cranes which takes place this weekend now not many people realize all that goes on behind the scenes to take care of the land and the wildlife that call Boscadella Pache home this week we'll look back at one of our favorite episodes of our land as correspondent Laura Pascas goes behind the scenes along the Rio Grande the best time of year to visit Boscadella Pache is in the winter when thousands of cranes add white to a landscape that doesn't seem much snow this time of year hi cabin hey Laura welcome to Boscadella Pache come on in my cabin cobble is the manager of the National Wildlife Refuge welcome to our visitors center this time of year who's coming to visit we get people from all over the United States and all over the world this place is world renowned for the birds during the winter time visitors can travel along two loops that cover 12 miles and offer spots to stop

take pictures and wait for wildlife the south loop is more marsh type habitats and on the north loop is where we have our farm and so that tends to be where most people go they really like the farm because when we we provide corn for the cranes and the real cold parts of the winter they'll be up in the corn feeding pretty heavily so that's where most people like to go see the large concentrations you can see four or five thousand birds in one place the greater sand hill cranes spend the summers and have their young up around the Yellowstone area in Idaho and Wyoming the bulk of them stop here in the middle real grand valley now and so we provide that resting habitat and the food to get them through the winter in good shape for the next year the refuge has a farm that grows corn to feed the birds that's to keep the birds from traveling outside the refuge and feeding on local crops on private land and Kabul says the design of the ponds where geese and cranes gather to feed is also intentional we try to manipulate our wetlands to simulate what the

real grand used to do so you would get a big flood of water in the spring when the snow melt came and the river would change channels and it would scour areas along here and then it would drop down and then you'd get a lot of native plants growing up in the wet areas then you get the monsoons that would come in and reflug the lot of those areas so you'd keep it wet and then it would dry out or some of them would stay wet into the fall so since we have dams on the river and it doesn't act that way anymore well we come in and we we do it mechanically with tractors and discs and plows we'll disturb in the spring or fall and then we manage the water to flood it and then drain it slowly to get the right suite of plants to come up and then in the fall we have all this native vegetation between our corn crop and then what we grow here we we provide a pretty complete diet for all the birds so what we have over here is about 30 to 40,000 snow geese on one of our wetland units when they're sitting like this of a bald eagle flies over the whole 30,000 of them

will get up and fly around they're just a big like a tornado there they go there's a few of them right there along with helping ensure the birds have enough to eat refuge managers are helping adapt the landscape to a warming climate they're already seeing the impacts of higher temperatures in the west last year a lot of the geese they never left Montana because Montana didn't get cold enough

it didn't freeze over and push them down here so a lot of some of the birds now are stopping in Colorado and spending the winter in Colorado and historically they never used to do that the refuge is an important source of economic activity for the mostly rural secoro and seara counties about 25 people are employed there right now and each year thousands of visitors attend the festival of the cranes and the refuge estimates that event contributes about two million dollars into the local economy but cobble says it's difficult to put a price tag on the value of the refuge there's a value that we don't understand yet and we may never understand it but there's also a lot of people you know once again is you know there's people that can do without wildlife and those that can't and there's an awful lot of people that can't do without I mean it's it's something that that we evolve with and it's to me it's the sound of a crane is such an ancient call and what you know that we should preserve that forever for our for generations to come

for New Mexico in focus in our land I'm Laura Pascus we're talking a lot about holiday traditions this week of all types and for many families college football is a big part of the festivities but for one UNM football player tradition goes much deeper a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe junior offensive lineman Teton Celtis works among native communities struggling with suicide often at a rate higher than any other racial or ethnic group and I may have corresponded in 20 in Gonzalez introduces us to the remarkable young man on a mission at six six two hundred and eighty four pounds red shirt junior Teton Celtis is a force to be reckoned with on the field the 21-year-old also excels in the classroom as an athletic scholar and as a self-taught musician but it's his work outside of sports and academics he's most proud of no where I come from on the reservation one of the most fundamental

beliefs that we have is as children are sacred and if you don't do a good job in raising strong and passionate children then you're doing a disservice to yourself your people and and ultimately this country and that's been instilled within me from my mother who's been instilled within her from my grandmother and so on and so forth whether it's making rounds on Capitol Hill was safe that children network or back at his home in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge reservation as a life-awareness mentor with the bear project he's a tireless advocate for children bear project stands would be excited about reading so it's acronym initially as a literacy mentorship program we would go around the reservation up there and teach families and children how to read you know not just the children but there's also like their parents will be reading at like a second or third grade level we actually have this bear bus we called it as an old you know yellow school bus that we convert into a mobile library so you walk in there and as computers and carpet and being bag chairs we would take that and drive it around the

reservation 2.2 million square acres we would mentor students have after school programs education based eventually there was a suicide epidemic that hit within the mid mid to late 2000 and so we kind of changed our platform from education and literacy to life awareness and suicide awareness suicide prevention and that's kind of the work that we do now the bear project works to educate students families and the community about suicide through theatrical skits the group travels on and off the reservation to schools community centers and anywhere they're invited the actors are often suicide survivors some struggle more than others you know suicide doesn't discriminate and so we actually perform skits about life regardless of what what's going on with the skit there's always a central theme that we that we go through no there's a community in disarray there's a community plagued with violence and suicide you know domestic abuse substance abuse entire community that's just wild going crazy the plays tackle everyday issues native youth

face they don't shy away from some of the tough realities of life including broken homes and substance abuse titan says the message is clear anyone can make a difference one of my favorite skits where the person who does it who who is that person that that brings people together the person falls to their knees because they're so weak from all that they've done for the community and as you see in the background community comes together and they lift the person up and they become the strength in the backbone of that person all it takes is one person you know that's kind of our message is all it takes is one person to stand up and to create change to impact people in a positive way for titan that person is his grandmother tiny decroy who navigates people through thoughts of suicide and is often the one to help in the aftermath

when someone takes their own life reservations in particular incredibly beautiful places especially where I'm from that's my home I love it but we do have our problems you know I can spot off all the statistics and whatnot but I always tell people we're more than we're more than statistics you know we're people we live in breathing human beings at have our problems just like everybody else but we we do acknowledge that there is huge issues at least twice in the last decade Oglala Lakota officials declared a state of emergency due to a rash of suicides titan sees similar problems in New Mexico as he does at home it's a delicate issue in Indian country you know you can push it aside all you want you can not talk about it but the problem is going to continue to persist unless we do talk about it unless we do work to to create change more communities have opened up and realized that it is a huge issue and more and more communities out there are starting to to help prevent suicide which again no bring us in or no bring in other

suicide groups life awareness groups thought of the teachers counselors I mean everybody they're starting to train them in signs of suicide titan sees his advocacy linked to his role on and off the football field he says being in the spotlight helps elevate his effort to help people and be a voice for children and the voiceless after the UNM academic senior leaves college sports he has aspirations as an attorney and in politics and continue to give back to his community on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota I didn't come from a home of money or wealth you know of abundance but it came from a very educated home with and I had a great support system not a lot of kids have that background from and that's really different between me and them is you know people always ask me how come you

made it out and and they didn't and I said I guess I was just lucky to have a great family who really really cared to to instill that within me and for those that where I come from they there isn't a lot of people that that do make it out like that that um or if they do make it out they don't they don't come back you know and so for a lot of the young people to see that there's somebody just like me who grew up just like me who was lived where I lived who's had similar experiences to what I'm experiencing for them to go out and do it and to make it off the reservation for me it's very powerful because we don't have enough positive role models and that can that can really show our children a better way. For New Mexico and Focus I'm Antonia Gonzales and we have more good news to share about Saltis he was recently named a semi-finalist for the Whirlpool trophy awarded to the player who best combines exemplary community service with athletic

and academic achievement he'll find out if he won on December 10th. Plants are so much more interesting and they support so much more life that they're all around more helpful for people as well as for wildlife. Civil unrest in Central America has been a big story in 2019 unfortunately it's not a new phenomenon it was back in 1979 that Nicaragua went through the Sandanista Revolution which led to the ensuing U.S.-backed control war that revolution is the focus of a recent documentary Los Sandanistas which sheds light on the story of the women at the center of the fight both in the military and in political realms the director of Los Sandanistas sat down with our very own correspondent Russell Contreras to talk about the film and how these women changed their country forever. Ms. Murray thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having

me. First off tell us who were the women of Los Sandanistas. So the women of Los Sandanistas made up almost 30 percent of the army that fought to successfully overthrow dictator Anastasia Samosa in 1979 they came from all backgrounds they were farmers teachers lawyers and many of them were also poets and writers and left their lives any comfort that they knew to go and fight so that the society could be more just to fight for a more equal society and risk their lives and again successfully overthrew the dictator and then implemented massive social reform throughout the 1980s and fought again in the control war and today are fighting again for basic rights in their country. And what attracted you to this subject? So many different aspects of the story attracted me. What women had done the incredible lengths they went to to fight for a more just society and how successful they were. One element that really attracted me was the fact that women were generals. Women like Dora Maria Teyes and Daisy Zamora for example Monica Bultedano

fought as combatants and generals and led giant battalions that won some of the key battles of the revolution and helped win the war to overthrow the dictator. And then they went on to envision and create these really visionary ministries really for health and education that raised literacy by nearly 40% in the first year in 1980 and health care. I mean really did great things for infant mortality, malaria, preventable disease like polio. So this society was greatly improved in so many ways from these women's work and vision. You mentioned Dora Maria Teyes. Who was she and how does she get involved in the revolution? So Dora Maria got involved at a very young age. She was a young medical student and she was remarkable. She had trained in weapons like very casually as a child on a farm basically with her father. But then through her work especially in poor rural health clinics as a medical student she saw a great need I think to reform the society

that women whose babies were dying in labor and people that were dying of preventable diseases it became obvious it was a systemic problem and that if she just became a doctor in the traditional way she wasn't going to be able to help these people. She said they would get sick and just return and it was really devastating for her. And that's how she became I think more and more involved politically at first just as an assistant to the leftist movement. And then as the government became more brutal under who they called the dictator Anastasio Somosa throughout the 1960s and 70s she'd become a leader in her student movements supporting hospital workers and teachers fighting for pensions and striking and became more and more radicalized as the dictators repression became more brutal. And I think she took it upon herself to really get more involved and to take the big stride to leave her family to go underground to risk everything that she had. She didn't even tell her family when she was leaving. And yeah she was I think a teenager when she had begun

and then yeah by age 22 she was leading the biggest battles and some of the most impressive victories of the sand and eastern revolution. And she knew the risk. She said one thing that they told you when you joined was you had to be willing to die and they tested her from what I read. They said you know are you ready to go to the mountains and she knew people died in the mountains and she was a teenager at this point and they said get your backpack and you have to leave tomorrow morning. And they came to test and see if she was ready on the doorstep and she had her back back and and then they said that was just a test. Now we know that you're going to do it. And so then they began the real training. It was a very very secretive clandestine movement and they had to be willing to give up everything. Now rhetorically the Sandinistas talked about equality. I made imperialism and economic inequality. Why did these women face marginalization after the Sandinistas came to power? It's a really good question and the truth is I don't actually know the answer. That's part of the reason I made the film because they rose to such great heights in battle and did such great things leading ministries for social reform. It's unclear to me why they couldn't rise

further once they had power. And sadly what happened was sort of maybe with the opposite of they they hoped. They had to fight as women to have their own organization. They had to fight even harder for women's rights in many ways. So the right to organize and to really fight for women's health and women's issues. And also really to stay at the tops of the ministries. Daisy Zamora was kind of sideline and harassed sexually, sadly, throughout the 1980s as the control war began. And so there were different kinds of marginalization. You know once the Sandinistas had power these women, even they were doing incredible work, were slowly and kind of systematically pushed to the sidelines. Many of them, especially the ones willing to question what was going on in the government. And how did these women attempt to reshape the society despite them being marginalized? So yeah, I think really a lot of these women that I spoke to cared so much more about the ideals than their own power or their own prestige. And that's another thing that really moved me.

Success for them was creating a world that was fair for the most people. And giving especially kids and people in the rural communities access to education and health care and preventative health care. So I think they, they really were willing to work 24 hours a day. You know some of them, even with their kids, would bring their kids to the office and just worked constantly to make sure that, you know, these programs were implemented in a very hands-on way as widely as they could. So you know, while they weren't given maybe the highest titles and the best ranks in the different ministries are in, you know, the national directorate. For example, Dora Maria wasn't considered. They asked her to not run, you know, to be a part of the national directorate candidate. You know, and there were only men in the nine member national directorate of the FSLN. And Dora Maria, having done such a great job as a health minister and obviously in the revolution, being such a star, would have been a natural candidate and wasn't even, was essentially asked to leave as many of the women were. So I think they kept doing the work because they cared and it was very

effective because they worked so hard, but sadly they weren't recognized the way that they should have been. But they continued their lives as mothers and in other ways as civil society too as well. Absolutely. And some of them were still members of Congress, like Monica Baltedano for many years until the corruption of the current Sandinista Party, I think, made her question and Dora Maria as well. They continued and founded their own parties. Dora Maria is called the Sandinista Renovation Movement, the MRS, as it's known, and continued to fight Dora Maria, let a hunger strike, you know, in the mid-2000s. And continues to speak out against what she considers to be undemocratic and unjust practices by the current Sandinista government. And many, yes, the workers' mothers still work writing. Jokondas are a very successful novelist, Jokondabelli, and Daisy's Moore is a wonderful poet and professor. So many of them continue with very, very interesting and complex lives in spite of the tragedy that they had to live after and during the revolution. Today, these women veterans of the revolution are coming together again. What is bringing them back and forming coalitions? What's driving that?

I think that's the same thing that really drove them initially. They really want to see a justice society. They really want to see Nicaraguan's told the truth. They want fair elections. They want transparency and government spending and government policy. And, you know, some especially Sophia Montenegro, who still is and was an incredible woman's rights activist and is a big part of our film, what drives her is really equality for women. And, you know, under Ortega, sadly, the current Sandinista government, they've outlawed abortion. There's a federal ban, which the Sandinistas have supported. And there are terrible policies that force women in abusive situations to go into mediation and not be able to prosecute the people that are abusing them. And there's a huge rate of femicide, you know, which is the murder of a woman often by someone close to her, a husband or a boyfriend. And with huge rates of femicide, the fact that Ortega would sign into law something forcing a woman in an abusive situation to wait for help and support from, you know, legal aid is incredible and really, really sad.

So these women continue fighting because they want the best lives for Nicaraguan's and especially Nicaraguan women that they deserve. And how are their efforts being received now? Oh, oh, it's a very, very dangerous situation for many of these women. So, if you Montenegro and Monica Baltenano were pulled into prison, just for convening to protest on the streets this March. Luckily, after a lot of public outcry, they were released from prison, but many students, for example, that protested against pension reforms under the Ortega government were pulled into prison and tortured and held and disappeared. There are still many people disappeared in that country and hundreds of political prisoners. So these women are under persecution again, Dormeria Tejas. Her house was just raided. She's on the terrorist list. She's living in clandestinity again. It's almost as she was in the 1970s. So these women, you know, and many of them are in their 60s and 70s, are leading really, really dangerous lives that have great meaning to them, but at the same time put them at horrible risk every

single day as they fight for what they believe is a more just and more equal society. So Dora is someone you would consider a founding mother of this new government is now almost the next aisle in within their own country. Exactly, and many see it as a kind of treason or betrayal by her former allies. Someone that again helped found this new government essentially is now being persecuted and considered a terrorist who has to hide to stay alive. And she's going to stay and keep fighting. What did you learn personally by diving into La Sendenistas? I learned so many things. I learned how how meaningful a life can be. I think these women taught me all kinds of things. How humane you can be, how bold you can be, and really that women can be visionaries and still win a battle and still be a mother and and live such multifaceted, incredible lives. I mean, these women are, you know, Sophia calls Dora Maria a genius. I mean, many of them have PhDs, have written novels, published all over the

world and yet still fought for their country in battle, still fought on the front lines for a more equal society and had families and were able to do such remarkable things personally and professionally and in battle. So really how wide, how vast, and how dedicated a life can be. And what do you hope audience get out of the film? I hope that for me at least, and especially as an American, I was reminded how much one individual who bands together with others can really change and how these women, just a few hundred of them at first fought and then thousands, but still in a country of a few million, they change the entire country. And so how powerful one life can be if it's really dedicated and really full of conviction and organized for something, especially something that is really for the benefit of something greater than yourself, which these women, I think, all fought for and had no doubt about their commitment to and really did give their lives to women from all classes and all backgrounds. What's the other thing? I think we don't have

to be limited in our society by where we come from or what we look like. I think that we can all come together and find much more in common than we have that that keeps us separate. With the current humanitarian crisis along the U.S. border and the challenges facing Central America today, how is this story relevant to what's going on? I think it's incredibly relevant, sadly. I think and from what I studied, it seems very clear to me that this is a very emblematic crisis in Central America and that the roots of this are responsible for the current crisis that we're experiencing at our borders and in our country. Obviously, in El Salvador, that is a similar issue and similar set of wars in over a decade and many people had to flee and the U.S. had a very complicated role in backing regimes in Honduras as well, even up to 2009 when there was a coup in Honduras and our government supported the people that put the democratically elected leader on a

plane. Essentially, we've had for decades many, many decades policies throughout Latin America that have been very detrimental to the majority of the people in many of these countries in Guatemala as well. Because that policy continues to this day in many of these countries where the U.S. has a strong relationship with the government and a very influential relationship, I mean, we see El Salvador in crisis, we see Honduras in crisis and that is no coincidence. And what I hoped from this film is that that role, the origin of that imperialist policy, which really oppresses people and keeps people ignorant and the country's quite violent can be remedied and can be countered with diplomatic solutions and dialogue with different individuals in these countries that can really help and help shape policies that are more humane and that allow these countries to be places people want to leave and not flee. Because I believe many of these people don't want to come to our slums, as Nome Chomsky said. Many of these people had beautiful lives in their countries

before they were destroyed by policies, which often the U.S. government supports. Thank you for joining us, Ms. Murray. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Climate change experts say we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction in the United Nations warns that 1 million species worldwide are at risk of dying off due to habitat loss and pollution. That's a lot of bad news and two simple sentences, but there is some good news too. Thanks to the friends of the VAE Day Oral National Wildlife Refuge, we end our show this week by looking back at another of our terrific Arland segments. Correspondent Laura Pascas explores the group's unique program that helps people make a difference in their own backyard. For most of us, the problems of climate change and its impacts feel overwhelming. Often it seems like there's not much one person or one family can do to help wildlife, especially if you live in a city. But Laurel Ladwick, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, has some ideas

to help wildlife and also connect with nature. Albuquerque ABQ Backyard Refuge Program has a major partnership between tons of organizations here in the city. The Friends of VAE Day Oral got it started and brought all these people together to create habitat for wildlife here in the urban area. VAE Day Oral National Wildlife Refuge is an urban refuge on a former dairy farm in Albuquerque's South Valley. And the goal of the Backyard Refuge Program is to create islands of wildlife habitat to support and connect urban wildlife to VAE Day Oral and other public lands in the area. Laurel says creating a backyard refuge is a way of sharing our space and intentionally creating places for wildlife. And it doesn't have to be hard. If you don't have a lot of time and money to invest, all you have to do is do a few things like leaving leaf litter. Don't rake up all of your leaves, leave some spots that have

where butterflies can lay their eggs underneath and other bugs can hide and those bugs can be found by spotted Toys, booking around and thrashers and all sorts of great birds. In Albuquerque's Midtown Neighborhood, landscape architect Jill Brown has already turned her backyard into a refuge and it's a place she and her family spend a lot of time. The yard is a combination of outdoor living plus the wildlife and just a nice aesthetic design. So we have hummingbirds, bees, butterflies using a lot of these plants in here. You don't have to be a landscape architect to participate in the Backyard Refuge Program. In fact, you don't even need a Backyard. There are things that you can do with your apartment that make a difference for wildlife and for you. I'm not a landscape architect and I don't have a ton of time or money, but having wildlife habitat in my backyard is important to me.

And so I asked the programs Judith Phillips to come on over and give me some ideas. So how would you fill in some of the like holes for wildlife here? Well, that wall is a great wall for maybe the native climatists, the Western Virgin's Bower. Well, just more layers. So you could put some ground cover, something maybe like the native four o'clock in front of the chickens or one of the evening prim roses, they attract hawk mods and that would drive the chickens crazy. At my own house, I've spent plenty of time ripping up landscaping fabric that doesn't allow water to seep into the ground and reach tree roots and hauling off gravel. I think it was a really unfortunate thing that people interpreted zero-scape as meaning you

pull out the plants and spread rock everywhere because that's not what it was about at all. And I really think that the only reason that happened is because that's sort of a no-brainer. Plants are so much more interesting and they support so much more life that they're all around more helpful for people as well as for wildlife. Judith says people should come up with a plant before heading to the nursery. Think about what you have space for. If you're looking for load of the ground plants or something that will grow bigger and understand when plants bloom so your new plant support wildlife from spring all the way through summer and fall. And yes, sometimes neighbors question changes. Even in Albuquerque, some people want manicured lawns and they're used to seeing non-native plants. If you participate in the program, you can get a yard sign that helps people understand what you're doing and Judith has other ideas too. I also think that good idea is spread down the block and so when people I really always try

and when I'm designing a landscape put something several things that are really showy out front so that the neighbors will walk by and say, what is that? And then pretty soon there's one a few houses down and it's some of the plants are quite irresistible. I know they follow me home from nurseries, right? For Laurel, the backyard refuge program is a way to change the idea we have that nature is out of place in our cities and suburbs. By providing micro habitats we can create a mosaic across our city for wildlife. That's especially important as the climate changes. Some plants will survive better than others as the region warms and wildlife will face greater and greater challenges. Actively taking care of something especially in your yard makes them almost part of your family really paying attention to how they live their lives and thinking about how you might be able to make that easier in this very challenging time. So that act of caring

is very fulfilling and important for the wildlife. For our land and New Mexico in focus, I'm Laura Pasquist. Thanks for joining us and for staying informed and engaged. And remember, you can now take the show with you wherever you go. Just download the podcast on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Have a terrific week. We'll see you again next time in focus. Funding for New Mexico in focus provided by the McHughan Charitable Foundation

and viewers like you.