“Protect Our Heritage”

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

By Jim Lamb

Green Valley News & Sun

Two congressional representatives agreed Tuesday that the land along the Santa Cruz River is so rich in history that it should be a nationally recognized heritage area.

Reps. Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva, both Arizona Democrats, stood at the Tumacacori National Historical Park and said they would offer a bill to Congress to create the Santa Cruz National Heritage Area.

The area would stretch from the Mexican Border to the Pinal County line north to south, and from the Pima County and Santa Cruz county lines on the east roughly to a line that generally parallels the Santa Cruz River and the Anza Trail on the west.

It’s rich in history, starting before the Spaniards came here in the 1500s. There are mountains, deserts, the lands of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Pascua Yaqui Tribe and an international border.

Tucson, a metropolitan area of about a million, is within the proposed area.

Standing at a lectern before the centuries-old Franciscan Church, an optimistic Grijalva predicted the bill to create the heritage area would clear the House before this session ends.

He’s chairman of the subcommittee that will hold the first hearing on it.

Grijalva said creating a heritage area would reinforce efforts to “to further highlight, protect and enhance the treasures of this area.

“It’s a precious area. Protect it.”

Grijalva evoked laughter, saying that as a boy growing up in this area, “I thought the Carmen Store was a mall.”

The store is a tiny, aging general store in Carmen, about five miles north of Tumacacori. Grijalva’s father worked on a nearby ranch.

Giffords, a first-term Representative, said she also had an early childhood memory of Tumacacori.

Her mother Gloria was an art preservationist and sometimes visited the mission church in her work, taking the young Gabrielle with her.

Giffords said she remembers running through the adobe church and the surrounding grounds.

Giffords said the special designation of the vast area as heritage area will honor the people “who have lived on this land for thousands of years” and the cavalcade of heroes who followed.

Towns and cities such as Marana, Oro Valley, Sahuarita, Patagonia, Nogales and Tucson will be in the heritage area.

She answered some of the worries people express about creating such an area by saying it would not infringe on property rights.

She said a study by the General Accountability Office, the GAO, never found a case of property rights being diminished by a national heritage area.

More than 100 people sat on folding chairs in 80- plus degree heat and bright sunshine.

Another speaker, Pascua Yaqui Tribe chairperson Herminia Frias, said she was glad to see so many people supporting the preservation of the area.

She said, “We’re glad to see that it’s just as important to you as it to us.”

Julie Ramon-Pierson represented the Tohono O’Odham Nation. She said the area is unique and that “its history and ecology” should be preserved.

Ramon-Pierson is a councilwoman of the Tohono O’Odham Nation’s San Xavier District.

If Congress does designate the 3,000 square miles as a national heritage area, the groups supporting it and National Park Service will receive some federal money during the initial phases.

The main support now comes from the Santa Cruz Heritage Alliance, www.santacruzheritage.org.

The supporters say there are many things besides scenery and history here.

For example there are more than 100 “Heritage Experiences” a year in the area, everything from horse races, the Tucson Rodeo, an Indian art fair, mariachi festivals, the celebration of Cinco de Mayo (that crosses the international border), a Celtic festival in Tucson that includes the music of the bagpipes and bird and butterfly watching.

Click here to read the article in the Green Valley News & Sun