Dispatch From the Fifth Annual Uplift Conference
BY LYRICA MALDONADO
In March of 2019, I joined ten other young people from around the region to participate in a fellowship with the goal of organizing the fifth annual Uplift Climate Conference. We came from and lived in different areas, grew up in different organizing spaces, and shared a commitment to acting for climate justice on the Colorado Plateau: the four corners area that spans Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, and is home to over a dozen Indigenous nations.
Through six months of organizing, I developed friendships with other youth organizers that I have to this day, and I learned in detail about specific communities across the Plateau that remain resilient in the face of environmental injustice.
After surveying the region for the next location of the conference, we settled on Church Rock, New Mexico. Church Rock is adjacent to Gallup, New Mexico, a border town to the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe. Church Rock is the site of the largest radioactive waste spill in the history of the United States. Because of its location on tribal lands, the clean up of the 1979 spill, has been slow to initiate, and to this day Navajo people of Church Rock still endure the effects of that spill.
Uplift believes in centering impacted communities and lifting up their narratives. We asked elders from the nearby communities to speak about the spill and their resiliency. We centered stories from the community of Church Rock so that the 200+ participants became aware of one of the worst environmental injustices in the country.
It is not by accident that this spill, and the communities affected, were overlooked by the country and the larger environmental movement. Environmental racism, centuries of colonialism and settler colonialism have invisibilized the effects of extreme extraction on tribal lands and in Native communities.
Elders Night was particularly powerful for many young people as it brought together Indigenous matriarchs from around the region who have experienced similar types of extractive industries and environmental racism. Seeing five elders from native communities come together for the first time to share their wisdom, knowledge, tears, and hopes inspired and brought energy to this youth movement that is guided by our elders.
By uplifting impacted communities in the same space as workshops and trainings, we not only honor those who have been endangered or lost their lives to the climate crisis, but also envision and build an alternative future. From the workshops and panels, I learned about mutual aid, healing from intergenerational trauma, the power of seed bombs, and the intersections between queer liberation and climate justice. I gained knowledge on different struggles across the Colorado Plateau and greater Southwest, including the uranium mill in the White Mesa Ute Mountain Ute community, the Church Rock radioactive waste spill, nuclear testing near Pueblo communities, and Indigenous struggles and migrant aid in the US — Mexico borderlands.
Organizing the Uplift Climate Conference brought me into relation with so many good friends, people who are resilient in the face of the climate crisis, and movements across the region for climate justice. There is something healing about bringing together young people to rebuild our futures, share food and conversation, and learn from each others struggles and communities.Young people are often left out of conversations about our futures and Uplift provides youth a space to create resiliency and hope for our futures.
Originally published at https://upliftclimate.org on December 11, 2019.
