On her alumni page of the Hispanic Theological Initiative, Adriana Pilar Nieto describes herself as “a daughter of Denver’s dust,” whose ancestors have migrated up and down the path from El Paso, Texas, to Denver for generations.
Nieto is now professor of Chicana/o/a/x Studies and chair of the Department of Chicana/o/a/x Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver; among her research topics are oral history and water in the West, with special interest in acequia culture and practices in southern Colorado. Among her writings is shared authorship of “A Brief History of Water Interdependencies the Colorado Plateau” in A Journal of World Affairs by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She joins the Interfaith Lecture Series’ Week Eight exploration of “Water: A Metaphor for Life” at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy.
“We need to approach the climate crisis not to blame people but to take a look at how we got here to be able to undo it,” Nieto said in an interview with RED, MSU Denver’s publication of Colorado news and culture. “We do this by listening to indigenous voices to undertake the decolonization process — and that’s not just decolonization of people, but of philosophies.”
Nieto’s other research interests include Latina spiritualities and practices; women of color feminisms; mental health among Xicanas in early 20th century New Mexico and Chicana protestants in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Nieto serves on the steering committee of the Hispanic Theological Initiative, she earned her Ph.D in religious and theological studies from the Joint Doctoral Program and the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology.
In “A Brief History of Water Interdependencies the Colorado Plateau,” co-authored with MSU, Denver’s history chair Matthew S. Makley, Nieto writes that more-than 40 million people in the Southwest depend on water from the Colorado River, and seven states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have rights to the river. The Colorado Plateau encompasses over 150,000 square miles, and includes “geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon, Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation, Canyonlands, Arches, and Rainbow Bridge, among others.”
In the article, Nieto and Makely “recommend that we turn to the past and include the perspectives of diverse communities, who have ties to the region and its waters going back centuries to avoid a water shortage in the future.”
