Anti-Jaguar Wall

The wall being constructed on the border between the US and Mexico is also becoming a barrier to the migratory range of the jaguar, reducing further its ever-precious habitat at a time when Central American countries are seeking to preserve jaguar corridors. Jaguars in the southwestern US are rare today. Nonetheless, their habitat still extends as far north as New Mexico and Arizona.

In Olmec, Aztec, and Mayan jaguar myths, the jaguar was a creature of authority and strength, as well as mobility between different physical and spiritual worlds due to its rare feline capacity for inhabiting not only the trees and the earth, but also water. It is a symbol at the core of indigenous identity in the Americas so profound that its non-existence would entail the evolution of a completely different culture over the last three millennia. In the name of racial identity and spurious economic arguments, the jaguar in North America will also end with the wall, its non-existence the symbol of reactionary weakness and cultural immobility.