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LOCAL COLUMN

OPINION: Our name is not your brand: Reclaiming Acoma

Published

Acoma people have stood and walked upon these lands for more than a thousand years. Aakʼu, our home that was prepared for us after our epic migration, is our identity, our covenant with the Earth, and the living inheritance of every generation of Aak'u meh Hanu'tra, Acoma People, who came before us and every child who will follow. Our name is not a brand. It is not a marketing tool and it is not available for corporate appropriation.

We are profoundly concerned about the decision by the developers of Project Jupiter to register a corporation named "Acoma LLC" in New Mexico to advance one of the most environmentally consequential industrial projects this state has ever seen.

Let me be clear: The Pueblo of Acoma did not authorize the use of our name. We were not consulted. We were not notified. We were not asked.

A web of out-of-state corporations incorporated "Acoma LLC" last October, weeks before filing applications to build massive natural gas power plants to fuel a hyper-scale artificial intelligence data center in Doña Ana County. This company did not exist in New Mexico until that moment. But "Acoma" has existed for millennia.

By wrapping itself in our name, this company sought to borrow our credibility, our deep connection to this land, and our reputation as careful stewards of our natural and cultural resources. Other Project Jupiter subsidiaries bear names like "Red Chile Ventures," "Green Chile Ventures," and "Yucca Growth" — a deliberate effort to appear locally rooted.

The Pueblo of Acoma is a federally recognized sovereign tribal nation. Our name carries the full weight of that sovereignty. To appropriate it without consent is not only disrespectful but a reflection of corporate ignorance of this state's history and its first inhabitants. It continues a centuries-long pattern in which outside interests have seized what belongs to us: our land, our water, our culture and now our very name.

We are a people who measure our decisions across generations. We ask not what the land can yield today, but what we owe to those who will inherit it tomorrow. Project Jupiter proposes the opposite.

According to air quality permit applications filed under "Acoma LLC," this project will emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases annually. Neighboring communities of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa already sit in a federally designated nonattainment zone — a place where the air already fails federal health standards. They did not choose this burden and are being asked to bear whatever environmental cost the market will tolerate.

Acoma knows what it means to be told that someone else's prosperity requires your sacrifice. We have heard that argument before from uranium mining, from water rights claimants, from oil and gas development around Chaco Canyon. The answer has always been, and will always be: no.

To those who named their entity after our pueblo: You do not know what "Acoma" means because you did not ask. It means something that cannot be purchased, incorporated or filed with the Secretary of State’s Office.

We call upon the developers of Project Jupiter to change the name of "Acoma LLC." We call upon the state of New Mexico to recognize that the unauthorized commercial use of tribal names demands legal remedy. And we call upon every New Mexican who cares about the integrity of this land and its peoples to stand with us.

The Pueblo of Acoma has outlasted every challenge to our existence. We will outlast this one too. But we should not have to spend our sovereignty defending our own name from those who never had the right to use it.

Charles Riley is the governor of the Pueblo of Acoma, one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America.