DAILY LOBO new mexico
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Community rallies against a week of tragedy
April Torres / Daily Lobo / @i_apreel
After the group formed two circles, leader Rita Navarrete, center, leads the way to gather members to do an activity where incense was burned. This group plans to meet every week as a way to reach out to the community.
By Johnny Vizcaino @thedailyjohnnyv On Friday morning, members of the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) and Generation Justice came together with Remembering Ancestors Inspiring Culture Empowering Self (RAICES) at Tiguex Park for a ceremony, at the end of a week filled with news of violence across the country. The gathering was the latest installment of the “Interfaith and multicultural project of standing together in light and love against violence and hate.” RAICES, a group dedicated to educating the community on traditional medicine, said that healing has been important in the region for generations, especially healing together as one. “Especially here in New Mexico, we like to say that we are all one, but we have to work at it,” RAICES member Tonita Gonzales said. Circled around a makeshift multicolored altar, participants shared messages of deliverance from vengeance and hatred into the light and love of human spirituality. Gonzales said everyone was encouraged to attend. “Regardless of religious and cultural backgrounds, everyone is welcome – today and always. We plan to hold this sacred space with us every week,” she said. The ceremony was conducted in both Spanish and English, and emphasized the importance of healing, Gonzales said. Not only bodily healing and the physical wellbeing of individual participants, but of the community as a whole, which is a matter of spiritual justice. “We give thanks for the love of life, but also for the lives of those who have passed,” she said. “Also, for the children, because they are the future of tomorrow.” Frank Quintana, a RAICES member, said things have got to change on a societal level. “Our greatest task, but a most necessary task, is bringing about a revolution,” he said.
“A revolution of the heart. A revolution that has to start with each one of us.” Quintana said people tend see the pain and suffering they inflict on each other, send their requisite thoughts and prayers, and then turn away, ignoring the continuing pain. Javier Benavidez, executive director of SWOP, said the recent events that have garnered widespread attention have revealed long held traumas within various communities, but these communities have made a cultural habit of overcoming the struggles with which they are faced. “We wanted to be very clear that this was a sacred space, not one for political speeches. We wanted to create a space that is different from what we’re seeing on TV,” he said. “It’s about creating a space where we can heal together.” SWOP plans to assist in organizing similar gatherings on a weekly basis, Benavidez said, expressing his appreciation for hope, love, tolerance and respect for New Mexico held by many of the young people in the community. “It’s going to take some time, but we’re going to get there because of our young people. We know that our best days are ahead,” he said. “We hope that you don’t lose faith, that you stay in this. We love you and we’re hopeful because of you.” After asking members of the circle to read just themselves, to open up the space next to them to allow those outside the circle to join, Roberta Rael, founder and director of Generation Justice said, “that’s the work that is before us, and so frequently we forget that, just to move over, to open up.” Rael expressed her thanks to RAICES for taking community healing into consideration during times of widespread societal turmoil. In her time working with the young people of Generation Justice, she said she has witnessed the pain being suffered across generational divides, and that the hurt seems to be growing. “We have been out on the streets, and we have been writing the letters, and we have been creating the media content. We have
April Torres / Daily Lobo / @i_apreel
Antoinette Tayfoya talks about how her daughter asked her about the dynamics of interracial families on July 8, 2016 at Tiguex Park. The organization’s goal was to spread awareness about the importance of unity
been doing all those things, but what I know from my own heart is that at times, there’s this imbalance,” Rael said. Emphasizing that when using social media to connect with the attitudes of others, it is the divide, not the love, that tends to linger. “What is being left out is this connection to the spirit, connection to the ultimate love,
to the connection of who we are as a people, as a family. Not just in New Mexico, all over,” she said. “Trying to connect by doing media, and by writing, and doing all of those things is valuable, but it cannot happen without being connected to the spirit, without connecting to each other. That’s what the vision of today was for.”
On the Daily Lobo website In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Albuquerque joined numerous cities nationwide in calling for police accountability last week during a peaceful protest. You can find the story in the news section of the Daily Lobo website.