Dreaming of Greater Alternatives

On "Alligator Alcatraz"

The first time I went hiking in the waters of Big Cypress National Preserve, my mom scorned my drenched, muddy clothes and sent me straight to shower. To her, those waters carry the unknown, some of which I may have carried back home with me. But leaving Big Cypress, there was no uncertainty left in me. My girlfriend and I had signed up for a community-led event called Queer Swamp Walk. It was one of the first outings we did together after she moved from Los Angeles to live with me. We waded through the waters with a group of about thirty people. We worked together collectively and developed a simple system of calling out poison ivy, tree roots, and sudden drops ahead for those behind us. Couples, friends, and even strangers held hands to help one another keep steady and rooted throughout the journey. When we made it to the center of the cypress dome, waist deep in clear water, our eyes looked up to the giant trees towering over us. We dedicated fifteen minutes to soak in the aroma of crushed Lemon bacopa and the near silence that was only broken by distant calls of red-bellied woodpeckers. A person passed around homemade sea grape taffy for the group to share. In a state where our safety and livelihoods are repeatedly under threat, my girlfriend and I were embraced by the elusive parts of Florida not everybody gets to experience. In Big Cypress National Preserve, I felt baptized and married all at once.

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For the past month, I have struggled to fully articulate and digest the grief in learning about and witnessing the construction of a jail for migrants in the Everglades. “Alligator Alcatraz” was announced on June 19th and began operations eleven days later without public approval or inquiry. Like the rapid increase of ICE raids across the nation, there is violence in this quickness—a fascist ploy to signal a sense of false urgency to aid their agenda and an attempt to keep local immigrant families, mine included, unprepared and frightened. Their scare tactics show up in their descriptions of the Everglades: a barren wasteland crawling with man-eating creatures waiting to swallow up whoever the government deems disposable. It’s an unsurprisingly familiar narrative rooted in a long colonial history of viewing wetlands like the Everglades as useless, dangerous, and in need of control (the slogan “Drain the Swamp,” as famously used by Alligator Alcatraz backer Donald Trump, comes straight out of this harmful history). But anyone who has visited the Greater Everglades ecosystem can attest to these statements as pure falsehoods. The mythical scary Everglades does not exist, but Alligator Alcatraz is the beginning of its creation.

Contrary to popular belief, the Everglades isn’t one big stagnant swamp, but a slow moving river, finding its way throughout the state. It is the opposite of an inescapable dead end or a punitive wetland as often portrayed in horror films. In reality, the Everglades is booming with life and movement. According to Friends of the Everglades, over 60% of birds in the area are winter residents who migrated south for a temporary seasonal home or a brief resting spot for their continuing journey. Manatees and various species of insects are also migratory creatures, huddling in the warm pockets of the Everglades during the winter months and dispersing once late spring comes around. After the Third Seminole War, the Everglades became a refuge for local Indigenous populations and remains a home for Seminole and Miccosukee communities. It’s a home for other Floridians as well, whether they’re birders, hikers, hunters, photographers, or fishermen, multigenerational Floridians or recent dwellers from New England or another continent. Building a prison to punish migration in the middle of a place like the Everglades, which welcomes so many species all year round, is an audacious betrayal of the land.

Last month, I came across Audubon Florida’s messaging campaign against Alligator Alcatraz: “Alternatives Exist. There’s Only One Everglades.” The latter is undoubtedly true to science and conservation; the Everglades is a unique ecosystem, no other like it in the world. But the first sentence erases the fact that human beings are singular, too. There is no “alternative” to someone’s parent, sibling, grandparent, child, spouse—parts of a family unit, an ecosystem in its own right. Unfortunately, Audubon Florida’s statement isn’t a one-off sentiment, but a recurring attitude in multiple South Florida environmental organizations and individuals since the announcement of Alligator Alcatraz. But in their efforts to gain as much momentum and support for the Big Cypress ecosystem as possible, these groups alienate and erase people like me and my family who are expected to love the land enough to stand next to the people who wish to imprison our communities elsewhere. I love the Everglades—I love this land that I’ve called home for the last twenty years—but my immigrant family and community are not exchangeable for my love for the environment; they are both my home. Immigrants and refugees are in no means ever inseparable from any ecosystem, and believing otherwise is giving into the xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric that wants you to place high value on your homeland and worthlessness in human lives, especially the humans who are unfamiliar to you. I dream of a greater alternative.

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The first time I took my dad for a tour of the Western Everglades, he switched out his fast-paced walk he’s developed as a hustling delivery driver for a leisurely stroll. We walked on the boardwalk at Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary where he pointed out birds to me and helped me steady my camera to take a picture of the rare, recently-bloomed ghost orchid. I remember taking a photo of him looking at the trees because I rarely get to see him casually exploring nature, his face full of wonder. Because of his status and ethnicity, my dad is probably not the first person that comes to mind in people’s fight for the Everglades. But what I saw as an environmentalist and a daughter was a hard-working Belizean man—someone on his feet twelve hours a day to provide for his family—finally being able to take in the world around him. And that is my Everglades.

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THE COMPOST

Thank you for reading this vulnerable piece that was so difficult to write since it hits so close to home (in many ways). This newsletter exists as a creative nature journal dedicated to my experiences as a queer and disabled person living in the swamplands of Southwest Florida. These mini essays are my way of documenting my complex love for this complex land, as well as my complex interpretations and thoughts that could only derive from a place like here.

This part of the newsletter is for you. It will offer prompts and instructions to help you begin your own nature journal, whether you keep it on paper or carry it in your mind. Let it be a guide to the many worlds around and within you.

Let us dream of a greater alternative. One that fights for everyone, including immigrants and refugees, to experience the wonder of the Everglades—and all nature—as free people and not behind cages. Let us celebrate migration and resiliency in all species.

Think about the migratory species in your area. What animals do you see seasonally? What are their migratory patterns and what does that mean to you? What is a “greater alternative” you dream about in your green space or home?