Theresa Pasqual, director of Acoma Pueblo’s Historic Preservation Office, shares her vision for historic preservation for the Obama Administration on PreservationNation.org. A mesa-top settlement in western New Mexico, Acoma Sky City (a National Trust Historic Site) is known as the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America. A tireless advocate, Pasqual has dedicated her career to protecting what matters most to the people of the pueblo, including one cherished resource that rises into the piercing blue of the desert sky right outside her office.
Located 17 miles north of the sandstone bluff that boosts Acoma’s adobe homes some 367 feet above a vast valley, Mount Taylor is a stunning place that means many different things to many different people. For the Acoma, the mountain is a sacred living, breathing entity because of its association with the elements and the cardinal direction, north – or the starting point for all things.
“We must remind ourselves of the history of this country and the strong cultural and historical connections that Native Americans have to this land,” Pasqual said. “Our history is not contained in textbooks; it is contained within the landscape. Protecting Mount Taylor and other cultural landscapes is more than ‘environmentalism;’ it is protecting places we continue to visit with our children to show them where we came from, who we are and who we will continue to be. Without that, we are Indians only in name.” She provides a good reminder that historic sites are not just about buildings, but landscapes as well, including those we own jointly in common.
To read her entire recommendation for preserving public lands (and to read what others are proposing for transportation, sustainability, and other topics), visit PreservationNation.org.
