The climate crisis is uniquely understood by folklorists as a threat to cultures and livelihoods and an opportunity to highlight practices of mitigation and adaptation within folk, traditional, and Indigenous communities. In the US-Mexico borderlands, such communities are vulnerable to losing livelihoods, cultural practices, and significant cultural sites, due to heat, prolonged drought, and invasive species—all of which threaten food security, water availability, plant and animal species, and access to sacred sites, traditional knowledge, and traditional homelands. Our Climatelore initiatives showcase stories from the US-Mexico borderlands, underscoring inextricable connections between us, the land, culture, and nature as we seek to build equitable cultural and ecological futures.
“I think that particular time is gone. We don’t tend to have a cold period like that anymore. It’s like a part of the cycle is skipped. The way I look at it is the plants are kind of confused, because it’s not the normal process that they’re used to going through. It’s like that for the willow and cattails. What we believe is that people—you, me, everybody—we go through a process, starting as children, when we start to learn different things. We believe that you’re supposed to crawl first. But when babies get their balance and start walking all of the sudden without crawling, they’re missing something. I feel the same way with a plant. It’s missing whatever little process it needs—like that season of coolness. If they don’t live through that and go straight to the next phase, they’re not as strong as they could be. They miss something.”
-Alice Manuel, basketweaver in the Onk Akimel O’odham tradition
& a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
From “What Are We Going to Weave With?” BorderLore, August 2020
ClimateLore 2.0 (2023-2024)
This partnership between Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), Tohono O’odham Young Voices Podcast (TOYVP) on the Tohono O’odham Nation and La Semilla Food Center (LSFC) in Anthony, New Mexico documented oral histories of climate risk, loss, and adaptation in two desert regions of the US-Mexico borderlands. The project drew on our shared philosophies that collective narratives must include people who have been historically and systematically excluded from resources, land, and narrative-shaping in both the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts. Convened by SFA, oral historians from TOYVP and LSFC gathered monthly online to share skills and perspectives and traveled to each site to learn about landscape, climate risks, and cultural heritage. A team of LSFC oral historians conducted interviews with community farmers, artists, cultural workers and others focusing on climate histories, threats to folklife and cultural heritage practices, and adaptive strategies. An unforeseen permissions issue meant the TOYVP was unable to gather oral histories.
This program was one of 260 other humanities projects receiving support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 2024-25, and one of 18 grants awarded within the NEH’s Cultural and Community Resilience program. The program ended in 2024, when the NEH cancelled funding for the project, citing misalignment with the new administration.
Listen to LSFC ClimateLore interviews through the Border HeritageCenter Digital Collections at the El Paso Public Library
Culture & Climate in Community (2021-2022)
This program gathered community storytellers, journalists, documentarians, ethnographers, and artist-researchers to dive deep into the intersections of folklife and the climate crisis. Participants from California, Arizona, and New Mexico attended monthly peer sessions to share stories, skills, and perspectives in a collaborative environment; hear from climate scientists, climate justice advocates, folklorists, and documentarians/ethnographers; participate in peer learning and support circles; and work with a developmental editor to create and finalize stories for publication BorderLore. Culture & Climate in Community was funded by Southwestern Foundation for Education and Preservation.
ClimateLore 1.0 (2020-2021)
This inaugural iteration of ClimateLore brought stories from tradition bearers and climate scientists about climate adaptation, climate impact on traditional artforms and heritage practices, and methods and practices of community listening, adaptation and resilience to SFA’s online journal, BorderLore. It was funded by Arizona Humanities.