The Cucapa indigenous tribe continues to struggle to survive

The Cucapa people, an indigenous tribe that since time immemorial has lived on the banks of the Colorado River delta in a binational zone that today occupies the states of Arizona, Sonora and Baja California, is fighting against the current to avoid extinction.

Over the years, the Cucapa people or people of the river lived off the abundance on the banks of the Colorado River and on the coasts of the upper Gulf of California. Now they have been reduced to hundreds, most of them settled in the Yuma reservation in Arizona, while others survive precariously in the riverside villages of the delta on the Mexican side of the border.

Their traditional source of livelihood is fishing but it has been disappearing because the Colorado River’s abundant waters have been trapped in dams upstream to serve the needs of lucrative agribusiness.

The water is depleted of nutrients and cannot sustain the fish hatcheries of the Gulfina curvina, shrimp and other species, which also suffer from predation by large fishing companies.

In addition, the Cucapa fishermen were persecuted and abused for years by the Mexican government, which declared their fishing areas an ecological reserve zone, that is, an area closed to fishing.

Our journalist colleague Alejandro Macias spoke with a group of women who lead a cooperative of Cucapa fisherwomen and artisanal fishermen known as the Cooperative Society of the Cucupá Indigenous People (Sociedad Cooperativa del Pueblo Indígena Cucupá).

Women who keep the fishing tradition alive, such as Rita Hurtado, a member of the Cooperative Society, explains what happened and why the fish species are disappearing.

Ines Hurtado, treasurer of the cooperative, says that due to the dams on the Colorado River and an earthquake that affected them a few years ago, everything has changed and they are losing their traditions.

Ines Hurtado also explains how their culture and food has changed.

Rita Hurtado reiterates that before they had abundant fishing and now they even have to look for food.
Ines Hurtado recognizes that all these changes endanger their fishing and vegetation traditions.

Rita Hurtado even remembers that when she was a child in her house they used to prepare the traditional atole de Mezquite and that is being lost.

Rita Hurtado recalls with nostalgia that they didn’t need candy or bread because they had mesquite atole.

This is produced in part by The Walton Family Foundation and is part of the series Cuando se seca el Arroyo.