Native Vote group seeks to protect sacred petroglyphs from harm
PHOENIX
On the west side of Albuquerque, private developers want to build a 238-unit housing complex on 9.5 acres of land that includes petroglyphs that were created long ago by the ancestors of Pueblo people.
These proposed apartment buildings could potentially take over land that is sacred to the Pueblos and surrounding Native American communities.
The former mayor of Albuquerque, Martin Chavez, is a supporter of this plan and says it is an effort by the Albuquerque City Council to solve the housing crisis that many cities are currently facing.
According to a local Indigenous non-profit organization, “NM Native Vote,” a social media post, they said there are solutions to the housing crisis that don’t involve desecrating sacred sites like the petroglyphs.
Peter Xyst, Laguna Pueblo, and NM Native Vote media director said, “We lost so much of our history, language, and knowledge that the pieces of ourselves that we have need to be protected as much as possible.”
Read the full story in the June 22 edition of the Navajo Times.
Highway 264,
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