November 2018: Trip to Cultural Conservancy

By: Carol Garcia, People of Color Sustainability Collective Coordinator

On Saturday October 6th, Interns from the American Indian Resource Center (AIRC) and the People of Color Sustainability Collective (PoCSC) attended The Cultural Conservancy’s Fall Harvest event in Novato, CA.

Lian Utsumi, Valeria Paredes, Margarita Vargas, Ashley Carrillo 

The Cultural Conservancy (TCC) is a Native-led organization based in San Francisco, CA that collaborates with communities, organizations and individuals to restore and protect native-foodways and support the wellbeing of Native communities in the Bay Area, Northern California and beyond.

Ashley Carrillo

On the day of the Fall Harvest student interns enjoyed a tour of the farm and talks by the TCC team and native community members on the different crops being grown in the garden. Students enjoyed listening to the crackling of Iroquois white maize as they walked through the stalks and looked for the beans and squash growing intertwined with the maize, a planting technique known as the “Three Sisters.”

Stephanie Hernandez, Lian Utsumi

AIRC and PoCSC Interns were also put to work to harvest chilies, a Hopi variety of black sunflowers and tepary beans. Each of these crops were introduced with a story of their cultural history and resilience. Students learned, for example, about the “Cherokee Trail of Tears” bean being grown with the maize, a bean that the Cherokee carried with them when they were forced off of their land east of the Mississippi River and walked to present-day Oklahoma.

Students also learned that tepary beans, native to the southwestern United States and Mexico, are more drought-resistant than other beans and resist monocrop agriculture as their pods require an intricate movement to break open.

Ashley Carrillo, Lian Utsumi, Stephanie Hernandez, Valeria Paredes, Margarita Vargas  

Through these stories that provided cultural, historical, political and ecological context, students left feeling inspired and humbled by the ecological knowledge found within Native communities.

To learn more about the People of Color Sustainability Collective, please visit their website.