Commentary: Sin miedo, this Latinx Conservation Week we take up space that's already ours

Stay low, stay quiet, keep to yourself. Por la sombrita. Don't provoke. Don't stand out. Don't give them a reason — a survival manual for a body the state always presumes guilty until it produces the right documentation, no matter who is in office. 

For generations, governments have raided our neighborhoods, doubted our citizenship even with the documents in hand and treated our skin like probable cause. Somewhere along the way, existing in the open became the radical part.

'Our roots are in nature:' Latino Conservation Week celebrates connection to the outdoors

The weeklong celebration will include group hikes, kayaking, a burrito run and a dance party

This year, from Sept. 12 through Sept. 20, Latinx/e Conservation Week asks of us something riskier than getting by: to be visible, to laugh, hike, breathe, plant our feet in the dirt of this land and take up space that's already ours. This year's theme, "Rooted in Nature, Thriving in Community," isn't a pretty line; it's a battle cry.

Our roots run deeper than any border wall, deeper than any Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. They run through the Grand Canyon, the trails of the Sonoran Desert and the Colorado River. The Hispanic Access Foundation established Latinx/e Conservation Week in 2014 to get our gente outdoors. 

Under a government that treats our existence as a crime, that mission has become resistance.

They don't want us here and they've said so in the language bureaucrats use when they mean it: fees. Eleven of the country's most-loved parks — the Grand Canyon among them — now charge non-U.S. residents an extra $100 a pop. The “America the Beautiful” annual pass runs $250 for a nonresident, $80 for everyone else and fee-free days only count if you're a resident. 

Prove you belong; hand over a passport, a state ID, a green card — basically another checkpoint by another name. They turned the entrance booth into La Migra and made the ranger station its accomplice. Revenue's got nothing to do with it. This is about who gets to feel safe at the rim of a canyon that's been sacred for thousands of years.

We know the tactic works because Chispa AZ canceled its annual trip to the Grand Canyon last year. Not because anyone stopped caring about visiting the outdoors, but because we love our families more than the view. We weren't about to ask our elders or our youth to risk a run-in with the state over a sunset or a hike. This administration didn't just take a 60-person gathering away from us; it made us choose between safety and joy, then made that choice for us anyway.

However, retreating isn't in our roots. This year, Chispa AZ, Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, Mi Familia En Acción, Poder Latinx, Latino Outdoors, Protectors of the Salt River, AZ Land, Desert Alchemist, Reinas Who Hike, Mountain Mamas, FUGA Tucson and The Wilderness Society are showing up regardless. We are hosting caminatas and river cleanups and conservation conversations over coffee. We’re planting and painting, gardening and biking, gathering and dancing. Nobody's hiding; we're celebrating out loud, and every attempt to erase us just guarantees we show up louder.

This isn't just about who is granted access to a park. This is about power; about refusing to let them shove us to the margins while our neighborhoods breathe the worst of the pollution, our lungs carry the worst of the climate crisis, data centers drain our rivers dry and extraction tears up our land. Our Indigenous relatives have stewarded this land since time immemorial. Our own people built the infrastructure of the West with our hands and tended this earth before it had a name on a map. We're not asking permission to belong here. We're asserting the right to protect what was always ours.

This administration has gutted the crews that kept the trails safe, fired hundreds of park workers and seems more interested in selling what's left of our public lands to the highest bidder than fixing a single trail. They'd rather build a wall than repair a footbridge; would rather criminalize our families than welcome them home to the land that raised them and their abuelos.

They expect us to shrink, to go quiet, to stay low. To be fearful.

We won't.

This land is our land, sin miedo, and we're not going anywhere, except to the outdoors. Find out how to join us at chispaaz.org/take-action.