Ay Mariposa tells a story of La Mariposa, Zulema, and Marianna in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas whose lives are upended by plans to build a US-Mexico border wall. As the director of the National Butterfly Center, Marianna Trevino Wright has become a leader of wall resistance, a position that has resulted in violent threats from pro-wall factions and an emotional odyssey as she tries to navigate the ever-shifting sands of border policy. Zulema Hernandez, a life-long migrant worker, immigrant and great grandmother, has been a dedicated advocate for all migrants, both wild and human-kind. Meanwhile the butterfly, La Mariposa, fights its own daily battle for survival in a landscape where more than ninty-five percent of its habitat is long gone and much of what remains lies directly in the path of the wall. This story is a single symbolic tale of all that is being lost in the rush to build border barriers along the 2,000-mile meeting place of the United States and Mexico.
Biography:
Krista Schlyer’s work has focused heavily on documenting the US-Mexico borderlands and the changes brought about by US border and immigration policy. Her book about the borderlands titled Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, received national recognition with the National Outdoor Book Award and the “Best of the Best” of university presses honor from the American Library Association. A senior fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, her stories have appeared in a wide array of outlets including Orion, BBC, National Wildlife and The Nature Conservancy. She is a past winner of the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography and Vision Award from the North American Nature Photographers Association.
