Reconciliation as Ritual

How a river in Tucson became a “casa de cultura” for lessons in community and transformation 

Story and Photographs by Angelantonio Enriquez Breault

The following excerpt is from a piece initially published in Border Lore a publication that focuses on the heritage and culture of the Southwestern US and Northern Mexico borderlands. “Reconcilation as Ritual” was graciously edited by Kimi Eisele and Maxie Adler- the rest of the essay can be read online here on the Border Lore website.

I spotted the golden Arizona poppy peeking out from a forgotten Polar Pop cup under the Cushing Street Bridge. It was growing along a new ribbon of green in the otherwise sandy-dry Santa Cruz Riverbed. I had never seen poppies here before, and after I shoved the Styrofoam cup into my backpack, I noticed in fact many flowers rising from the sand and trash. Moving towards them, I unknowingly began a practice of reconciliation with the river. 

As a kid growing up in Tucson, I couldn’t imagine the banks of the Santa Cruz lined with anything other than scraggly palo verde and tamarisk trees. I would have rolled my eyes if you told me to listen for trickling water and rustling rushes in the shadow of I-10. Back then, I didn’t know the word bosque and I had never climbed a cottonwood tree. I had no idea I lived on stolen land, that the rich heritage and legacy of Chuk-son had been hidden from me. I accepted dry, littered arroyos as normal and dreamed of one day living somewhere with a real river.

It has been nearly three generations since water flowed perennially in the Santa Cruz near downtown Tucson. But less than a century ago, the river cut through a five-mile-wide mesquite bosque, with trees reaching sixty-five feet high. A forest where jaguars from the south and grizzly bears from the north could travel unnoticed between sky islands. 

Early western ecologists described this dense, biodiverse riparian corridor as an ecosystem with no planetary equivalent. Looking east from the summit of Chuk-son,¹ A-Mountain, you would have seen miles of verdant riparian habitat. Today we see miles of asphalt, vehicles, and the scars of development and injustice—the consequence of capital-driven urbanization and unjust water politics.

But miracles are possible. In 2019 the City of Tucson’s Santa Cruz River Heritage Project restored flow to a stretch of the river in the heart of our desert community. Groundwater recharge now supports volunteer Goodding’s willows and cottonwoods that were extirpated from this stretch of the river nearly a century ago. Federally listed endangered and threatened species including Gila topminnows and Sonoran mud turtles again inhabit the marshland habitat. Reintroduced native grasses like giant sacaton, mesquite vine, and pappusgrass weave their roots strengthening the soil, and providing new real estate for whiptail lizards, Sonoran Desert toads, and other reptiles. Round-tailed ground squirrels and road runners romp through these floodplain barrios. The Heritage Project has demonstrated how simple actions renew even our most degraded ecosystems. Water brings life. Water is life.²

he river still faces challenges. Restoration initiatives are continuously under threat along the Santa Cruz from reckless development and chaotic water politics. Therefore, the river and its stewards are constantly adapting to changing conditions. The term “restoration” itself is misleading. Development of the built environment across the Tucson valley means these bosques and riparian galleries will never look or function exactly like they did historically. Still, healing and repair can happen in this ecosystem. With our help.