Claiming My Ancestral River Through an Indigenous Fronterizx Cosmography

• In Event: 28.021 - alterNative Perspectives: Indigenous and Settler Relational Borders

Abstract

In my community of Laredo, Texas, our Rio Grande/Rio Bravo is the main source of clean water. The river is also a militarized, international border between Texas and Mexico. In this paper, I share the process of revitalizing one of the many land-based epistemologies of the Indigenous communities nourished by the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. I created an Indigenous Fronterizx Cosmography to understand what life is like in the sister cities of Laredo/Nuevo Laredo, from the perspective of community elders and knowledge keepers with deep ancestral roots connected to the land and river. This framework served as the theoretical orientation to guide my dissertation research, and honors the sacred, ancestral landscape of south Texas.

Author

• Marissa Munoz, The University of Texas - San Antonio