Indigenous Heritage Month: Immersing in Knowledge, Understanding Our Food System History, and Creating Change

(There are suggested texts and links to resources throughout this article to encourage a deeper and continuous understanding of our history at your own pace.)

I recently had the opportunity to hear chef, activist, and author Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe, speak at the National Museum of American History. When he said growing up, 75% of the adults in his community were unemployed I was so angered. I was embarrassed. For a moment, I had a feeling of being trapped. I had to take deep breaths.

Knowing that his ancestors had lived such a rich and full existence on this land that was taken and reshaped beyond their control and hearing this statistic for his community made my eyes bulge. I audibly made noises of discomfort, not because of the horrific statistic itself, but from knowing that statistic, from my vantage point, had been normalized — just the way things are, unavoidable, unchangeable, and certainly unchallengeable.

This isn’t a statistic we should settle into. How the United States is designed today affects all of us, even if we are personally doing “okay.” Chef Sherman is using his experience, knowledge, and talents to welcome us into a story from a vantage point unknown to many of us. He is inviting us into his experience through the healing properties of food. He didn’t have to share his stories, his words, his recipes to all of us, but in doing so he has offered us an opportunity.

— -

At Food Recovery Network, we understand food intersects almost all aspects of society. Despite having a deep tradition of cultivating and sharing food that nourishes people and culture, systemic inequalities like racism and formal and informal policies that discriminate, extract, and cause harm continue to create barriers to food security for people of color, especially individuals who live on tribal lands.

Historic oppression of U.S. tribal communities has led to staggering injustices when it comes to hunger. Another statistic that evokes the same emotions I felt when hearing Chef Sherman speak — 1 in 4 Native Americans face food insecurity — double what white people experience in the U.S.

Learning more about historic inequities, and the history of our land is important to finding a way to heal our future and heal our food system. We cannot, and should not, untangle the history of this land and the history of our food system in the U.S. from our Indigenous community, family, and people.

Our history includes the attempted genocide of our Indigenous communities for land and wealth acquisition and a food and agricultural system built from the forced Black labor to work the land through enslavement, enriching those who engaged in this “national sin” and “who profited by this theft every hour that they lived.”

Our history includes Jim Crow laws developed to maintain the racial hierarchy of white men at the very top, thereby producing the refined blueprint of continued systematic denial of access to purchase land or pass land onto families for Black people, for people from Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Pacific Southwest. For our Indigenous community, during the same time period of Jim Crow laws, formal and informal policies produced a bleak outcome for Native communities who continued to see a loss of land and culture.

For those of us interested in our collective history, there is much to learn and much to do. To begin to understand or deepen our understanding means interacting with a full story that includes all of our histories and experiences of our ancestors, whoever they may have been.

For all of us in the United States, we must not ignore, paper over, romanticize or even deny: our history includes the systematic killing of indigenous peoples, the burning of their crops and trade posts, the killing of their domesticated animals, their forced assimilation, broken treaties by the government of the newly established United States of America, broken business deals by individuals set on acquiring land by any means necessary, forced removal from their land, privatization of their lands, and forced removal of their children (part of the assimilation) from their families to destroy the fabric of the next generation.

How then can the US society come to terms with its past? How can it acknowledge responsibility? The late Native historian Jack Forbes always stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past. Assuming this responsibility provides a means of survival and liberation. Everyone and everything in the world is affected, for the most part negatively, by US dominance and intervention, often violently through direct military means or through proxies. ― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Author

For all of us, our history is our present, and that means understanding some of the very, very devastating decisions Indigenous ancestors and their children had to make to survive. Their decisions of peace, or battle, of daring and resistance, the incredible perseverance to continue passing their knowledge, culture, and sometimes even their collective trauma to this very day — so much of that richness of experience can be explored with respectful curiosity over the course of our lives if we want.

And for me, I have chosen to learn as much as I can as often as I can. In doing so, I’m acknowledging our history and our present and using that knowledge to look for ways to move forward.

Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense. — Vine Deloria Jr., Author of God is Red.

Learning about Indigenous groups by interacting with resources created BY Indigenous groups is an onramp to expanding what we know of our history, present moment, and future — what we know of ourselves, too. Embracing their wisdom can lead to positive shifts in our collective relationship with the natural world and to one another and can foster holistic change. We can, as Matt Birkhold of the Visionary Organizing Lab encourages, “culturally transform ourselves into people who believe our lives are worth saving, and each other’s lives are worth saving.”

Many Native and Tribal communities and people like Chef Sean Sherman are currently working tirelessly to reclaim their food sovereignty and ensure access to plentiful healthy foods for themselves, for us, and for future generations. By listening to these groups, reading their words, accepting their invitations for visits, and supporting them materially by purchasing their wares and food, we all have an opportunity to weave into our lived experience threads of care, peace, and a present and future lived together.

Talking about the formation of the United States, our history, can be hard, awkward, scary, and troubling. But it can be energizing, uplifting, informative, deeply joyous, and connecting to know our ancestors lived here and shaped the places we now inhabit. I believe it is important for all of us who want to support a food system that nourishes us all to remain firm in our resolve to continue to learn. We should invite others to connect to the work in ways that make sense for them. We can invite one another, as we are learning as we are engaged in work, to rest, to let ourselves rest, and to continue onward, always together. Always together.

As you move forward in your journey of learning and taking action, I invite you to keep in mind the words of Audre Lorde, with a quick note that the use of the word enemy may be counterintuitive to our fight. The full sentiment offers so much to those of us seeking to change the food system for the better and therefore the quote is left intact. Lorde gave this speech in 1982, reflecting on the 1960’s:

Through examining the combination of our triumphs and errors, we can examine the dangers of an incomplete vision. Not to condemn that vision but to alter it, construct templates for possible futures, and focus our rage for change upon our enemies rather than upon each other. — Audre Lorde

These are a few of the suggested texts and links to resources throughout this article to encourage a deeper and continuous understanding of our history at your own pace.

  1. Deloria Jr., Vine, “God is Red”

  2. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” and other various works

  3. Lorde, Audre, various works

  4. Page, Cara and Woodland, Erica, “Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety”

  5. Patel, Raj, “Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice”

  6. Patel, Raj, “Stuffed and Starved”

  7. “Doctrine of Discovery” American Indian Law Alliance: LINK

  8. “Vatican repudiates Doctrine of Discovery which was used to justify colonialism” NPR Religion, Bill chappell: LINK

  9. “Indigenous Education: Safeguarding Our Knowledge for Future Generations” Cultural Survival: Youtube LINK

Food Recovery Network recognizes that food security, economic security, and climate justice are inextricably tied to racial equity, and achieving ground across any of these areas is dependent on addressing the root causes of these inequities. FRN is committed to racial equity and inclusion through all aspects of our organizational development and programming.

As an organization we acknowledge that the land our headquarters office resides is land inhabited by the Kinwaw Paskestikweya Clan, English translation is the Piscataway Conoy Clan.

We will always acknowledge the Kinwaw Paskestikweya Clan who were the traditional inhabitants of these lands and water well before we were here and continue to live here. To learn more about the tribal lands on which our chapters reside, please see https://native-land.ca.