Decolonizing Food with NeftalÍ Duran

Claudia Green sits down with NeftalÍ, co-founder of Holyoke Collective and I-Collective, to explore how food, culture, and indigenous knowledge can be powerful tools for community healing and resistance.

Follow NeftalÍ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neftaliduran_/

Donate to Reforestation in Oaxaca: https://www.proyectorosenda.com/donate

Proyecta Rosenda: https://www.instagram.com/proyectorosenda/?hl=en

Holyoke Collective: https://www.instagram.com/holyokecollective/?hl=en

I-Collective: https://www.instagram.com/i_collective_/?hl=en

Shop books by Molly O'Neill: https://www.amazon.com/shop/protectalllifepodcast/list/25Q1X28PPI2KD?ref_=aipsflist

Listen to talks by Ricardo Salvador: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCjPBvO8gMKj9ocncA2LvSFoUYyiMMPdr

Follow Nephi Craig: https://www.instagram.com/nephi_craig/

Order "Our Knives Will Save Us" by Nephi Craig: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/752317/our-knives-will-save-us-by-nephi-craig/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to the Protect All Life podcast. This is Claudia Green, and I am joined today by Natali, one of my favorite people on the internet. He's protecting life through projects that he's founded. The first being Holy Oak Collective, an anti-racist community organization working to create better access to healthy food in the city of Holy Oak. And the second being I Collective, an autonomous group of indigenous chefs, farmers, activists, artists, seed, and knowledge keepers. Thank you for coming on today, Natali. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Yeah. So one thing like looking at your um your background is it definitely starts with food for you. You're you're involved in so much, so much bettering of the world through food. So I would love to start the conversation about like your early experiences. How did you get into food? I know you I think you're a chef sometimes too. What are your early experiences with food and what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, I mean, food is the basis of life. One of the basis of life besides water. But my first memories of food is actually the lack of food or the scarcity of food. Even though Oaxaca is one of the most biodiverse and rich, culturally rich places in the world, it's also one of the poorest places in the continent. My love for food is having lack of access to food. And then having an abundance of food. And as a grown person, being very interested not only on growing food, eating food, but also geeking out about food, researching where things come from. How do even people think about making this thing or that thing? You know, from fermentations to mezcal, to how do people even, you know, decide to taste things that may kill you? That's that's my interesting, like really, how do people figure out that you can find life in things that that are unknown? And my journey has really been of learning and eating my way through Mexico.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

I love that. Yeah, I actually think all the time, like, how did somebody think to make this, right? Like what who first tried like mashing up acorns and cooking them this way and all of that? It's it's funny, we we benefit so much from like our ancestors and the things that they discovered. So you grew up in Oaxaca. How long did you live there for?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I lived there until I was 17, and then I migrated to the US at that time in '97. And I landed in LA, chopped the boat, and I stayed in LA for five, six years, and then I moved to the North East where I spent the last 23 years, and now I'm in Florida. I came as a teenager with like a lot of people from Oaxaca come to California mostly. Now, although now I truly believe there's people from Oaxaca all over the 40, probably the 50 states. There's representation from different commun indigenous communists from Oaxaca all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I don't know that much about Oaxaca, and I I've never been there, but from what I've seen you share on Instagram, it seems like a very special place with like a really tight-knit, strong community.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, it's a very special place in the sense that it's the what I like to call the indigenous culture in the continent. Now that there's other super important tribal communities in all over North and South America. But Oaxaca is one of the places where we still have one of the largest content concentrations of tribal communities and languages being broken per se. There's at least 14 tribal communities and at least 53, 54 indigenous languages, with variations sometimes of the same languages in one state. Although, you know, borders are invented recently, but it gives you an idea geographically, geographically, how how diverse the place is. And used in my own community, the Misteco community, there are many variations of different of the same language. People from the coast may understand a little bit, people from the from the higher mountains, but it's not the same language.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

That's fascinating. I could see why you guys have the best food. There's so much culture there. Um, how how big is Oaxaca?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

It's probably one of the bigger states in the in in Mexico. There's and there's every climate that you can think of. Every climate that you can think of, from coast to jungle to high desert. And where my mom is, where my family comes from, is uh probably 65 to 7,000 feet above sea level. Very similar looking to like southern Colorado, northern New Mexico, similar terrain. Uh oak and coniferous forest that has sustained really people for a long, long time. Most people base their life around agriculture. Corn being squashed, mostly domesticating Oaxaca varieties, not because other people were not domesticating the same things, but because the region has the most varieties, uh, people having practiced in agriculture for at least 10,000 years. So people have been living in community, building bigger communities, building building cities for at least that long in that region.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

It's incredible. And why do you think that Oaxaca's tribal culture is still intact?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

I think the will the will of people to not only to survive, but also the will of people to fight. People from Oaxaca. Right now, as we speak, there are protests going on in the city of Oaxaca and in Mexico City, not only against the World Cup, which is happening right now, but what it represents in the sense that there's like so many people in need, in poverty in Mexico, yet we're spending enormous amount of money on a tournament that yes brings people together, but also brings unnecessary hardship on governments, on cities, on citizens, uh, the amount of ways, the amount of the amount of the amount of changes that it brings to it to communities.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

You touch on something that makes me so mad, like that we spend so much money on things that are so unnecessary and frivolous, and we can't, you know, pay to take care of people as a as a world community. Do you go back to Oaxaca often?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yes, at least two or three times a year. Uh, my mom, who a lot of people follow on Instagram, she has a big follow and she knows that she's a big deal, which she is honestly. She's turning 80, loves making videos, and she loves taking care of plants or her orchard, her community. She's still in 80, so we're having a big celebration this September. She knows a lot of people are visiting there. A lot of people want to come to to say hi, and she's very excited about it. So, other than that, I love I love going in the in the in the winter for the community celebrations. The last few years I've been going in during the rainy season, which is now, for forage and mushrooms and other things that are like super important to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

That's so fun. And then uh what kind of things do you work on when you're there? I would just love to know more about like what's happening on the ground in Oaxaca and like what people should be aware of and how people could help even.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

As you said at the beginning, I founded, I co-founded a few at least two indigenous-focused organizations or community-focused organizations. And then based on those learnings back in 2020, I co-founded a reforestation project with my mom, and then eventually with my family and community, which focuses on not only using indigenous and permaculture systems, knowledge to do reforestation, but also to perceive water. So my trips to Oaxaca nowadays are more honestly more as a connector. I my mom is the face of our projects down there, but I'm the person who needs to show face to to connect different people and to make sure that things progress in a way that makes sense. And in a way the hold these projects together with more the nuance of indigenous values in a world, in a in a world like the one that we're living in today. You know, for small projects like ours, for small communities like ours, where we cannot fight mining companies, we cannot fight the government, but we can definitely do what we can to sustain our families and communities. And I think that's really important, even if at a very small scale.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I think most people would agree, and most people know that like you can make a difference on your own on a small scale, but a lot of people are are like maybe overwhelmed or or like scared to start or don't know where to begin. What is what are the challenges of being the connector, of being kind of the person who keeps the project on track on its values? Um what is that experience like for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Mostly connected between different indigenous organizations here and in Mexico, but then also walking that fine line of being in community while at the same time needing to fundraise for the for the needs of those projects. And we've been very lucky of the we've been very lucky with the generosity of people the I've never met, that we've never met, to sustain these projects, even if even if it's at a small scale. The fact that this project has been sustained for three or five, six years now, with only receiving two grants tells you how much people believe in small, scrappy projects, especially when led by indigenous people. But I'm not unique, right? I've I've been learning from other projects and from other communities up here in the US since back in 2011 when I attended my first uh indigenous food sovereignty gathering in Arizona. And a lot of those people, a lot of those leaders they have been have gone to do amazing things, but I've been listening and learning and really taking in over the years the what I've seen, what I've experienced to my own communities in Oaxaca. I think the indigenous people, especially who speak the same language when it comes to values and when it happen when it comes to morals and understanding of the natural world. And it's just a matter of tapping into that knowledge for people to like not only understand, buy into it, but also do something about it. We went from planting trees to having more community gatherings. And this year we also started a community community language school to reclaim the the Mosteco language for the children and the grown-ups and the elders that don't speak it or they haven't spoken it in the the last few generations for many different reasons that people already understand. You know, I model those that school I'm trying to learn what I've seen in the Moha community of Aquacesny, what I've seen in the Wampanoa community in Massachusetts, and just take what I what I've learned, bring it back to my community, talk about it, and then people really take it on.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

That's so beautiful. I feel like the world could learn a lot from you guys of how to move forward with all the various like crises that we're facing. I especially love that you guys are um keeping the language alive because that's something that makes me so sad to think about is like these languages dying out.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

By design, right? Language, you know, those languages have been dying, dying, dying off by design. My mom's generation didn't speak their language because they were they would get physically punished at school for for speaking it. Uh so literally they beat it out of a few generations to the point where like people were not interested until this new resurgence of indigenous pride. But it's also not it's you know, it's the whole system, not only the church and the school system, the government, the week heavy that legacy of trying to take salvage out of indigenous people per se. But we're lucky enough to be living in this in times right now where a lot of people are interested and ready and willing to not only give their time but also to to fight for this these things that we're the like we that are in danger of losing.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah, I agree. The language and and so much more. What do you think? I mean, you touch on something that I think about a lot, just what indigenous people have gone through at the hands of like the church and the government here in in the states and obviously in Mexico as well. I guess what kind of future do you want to see for Indigenous people in the America? I you know, I kind of told you before this like part of this podcast is I want to help like speak a better future into existence. So I'd I'd love to kind of pick your brain on like what do you want to see happen?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I'm of two minds on on this on this question and this answer. I think they in an ideal world, larger society would learn from indigenous values and indigenous leadership. Sadly, you know, 500 years after after first contact, we know that that's not realistic. The we haven't, you know, the larger society hasn't learned enough about allowing or letting indigenous people take a take a seat at the table. So from that perspective, I think that it's important that indigenous communities remain strong, remain in kinship with other other indigenous communities, and allow people, individuals that want to participate in in those in those systems come together. But I think that we're living in very interesting and really hard times in the sense that the natural world is you know droughts away from collapsing, you know, and we don't we don't have we don't see the urgency, the unity in people in the front lines. You have communities you know, you know, in the southwest, in Mexico, in South America experience droughts, rain, extreme weather conditions, then people understand that. But I feel that in the US, in Europe, in the first world, people are not exposed enough to that enough to understand the severity of what we're experiencing at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

I agree. I often like daydream about just all of like the world leaders like being set aside and like indigenous being allowed to leave again and make make the choices for us. I feel like the wisdom there is just so, so needed and so right, obviously. And it's it feels like we're living through a future that like indigenous cultures would have predicted. It's it's kind of like a recognition, a reckoning of the path that was set with industrialization and colonialism. In my mind, it's like what has to happen? You know, there's there seems to be maybe there's like some debt to be paid by colonial forces and and imperial forces. Like they need there's a lesson that they need to learn, right? But to what extent does like the entire world have to learn that too? Um, and what to what extent does everyone have to suffer as well? And I I just really hope that we can lift indigenous leaders and indigenous wisdom up and and understand that that is the way. So I I might be a little bit more hopeful for you. Like part of me feels like, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make that happen. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna help raise that up. Does that make sense? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And I think that at the beginning of our conversation, you were you mentioned a little bit about like the idea or like the the clans, right? The clan, the clan mothers, the indigenous structures, indigenous governance. And I think the in these movements, we need people like you to balance people like me. You know, uh not that I'm not a pessimist, but I'm a realist. I you know, I I exit things as a reality. And we need people that can dream the future, and we need people that can do the things that need to be done right now. And I feel that I'm better at uh doing than than than dreaming. And going back to your comment about a reckoning, I think that for any progress, especially we're talking about understanding the hard harm that has been done. Let's just, you know, there's harm that has been done to people, but let's put that aside. But let's let's think about the harm that has been done to nature. And I think that first there has to be a reckoning and uh recognition that a harm has been done, that is being is being done right now to be able to move forward. I don't know. I don't think they I don't think that a lot of people are ready for those that to recognize that.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

I I agree. I think setting aside the harm that's been done to people t is a a smart idea because a lot of people would get defensive about having to to face that, right? I think a lot of people do get defensive even like in conversations about reparations or things like that. People get so heated. So if you could take like the personal aspect out of it for a second, you might be able to get more people on board with like, hey, like look at the earth, you know? And then really once you I think fully understand, you know, how beautiful and important and special and like life-giving the earth is, it's hard not to extend that to human beings too, right? Like it becomes very clear, like we're part of this and then the earth provides for us and we care for it. And then I think naturally people might be able to kind of weave back in understanding the harm that has been done to people. Because that is an important part of it, like not to be overlooked. But I I agree with your with your approach there.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, but also in this IM kitchen that would have time to do all of that, or do we just get to to the work now?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

No, for sure. And that's the situation we're in, right? It's like the it's on fire, like we gotta go. There's there's for sure, there's no time. Okay, let me ask you, I want to know when when did you feel like food is my passion, like my domain, my my territory? I can pursue this and make a difference with this.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Took me a lot more a lot a lot more years to get to that conclusion or to start to understand. I don't know if I've told this story before, but back it probably 2010, 11, I wanted to, I wanted to throw a barbacoa. I wanted to cook a goat in a pit in the ground, as we do in Oaxaca. You know, and uh so I I told my partner at that time, this is what I want to do, and I want to have a party and I want to invite friends. And she was like, Yeah, let's do it. I just want to taste home. And that party happened, and this wonderful person who since then passed, Molly O'Neill, who was a food writer, food researcher, food scholar, showed up out of the blue. She showed up with a photographer and a and a little recorder, and she's like, I'm here and I'm gonna interview you, and I want to know who you are. And she was a force of nature, she was an amazing mentor to many of us, but but she was like uh she introduced me to a different way of thinking about food and really uh honestly a different way of like believing in foods. They were not mainstream at that point. We're talking about like the 2000s, you know, the 90s, 2000s, Mexican food was not seen as uh as something that you pay too much too much money for it. It was seen more of like uh a stereotypical American kind of uh food chain kind of food. And it was not valued yet for the for what it is. Mexican food has indigenous roots, but it holds it, but it also holds a set of uh knowledge that can they can go against any cuisine of the world and still hold its place in the culinary world, but it wasn't seen like that at that point. So what Molly O'Neill helped me realize and uh is that I needed to go deeper into that conversation, not only within myself, but with my family and my community, and sort of decolonize my mindset about food from Oaxaca, but also decolonize and learn unlearn the things that we were told about who we are or what we how we eat. And that really that one gathering really changed the trajectory of my life. And as I said, back in then 2011, 2012, I started attending indigenous food conferences where I met people from many different tribal communities who have gone out to do amazing things, including Sean Sherman. Nefai Craig was the host of those gatherings. He has a book out this year. He is White Mountain Apache. I met many other mentors, many other friends. They really in some way pushed me and allowed me to pursue food in a way that is more in a way the in a way that is more complex than use understanding a recipe or reading a book.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah, because it is much more complex than that. And I feel like we have lost a lot of that in the industrialization of food. Like things are so mass-produced and and yeah, store all the store-bought and processed stuff is just a lot. And it's so it like has no soul to it anymore. Um but when you think about food, it's so um personal and and important, and there's so much that goes into it. And I I mean, I love I love what you're saying. I've been on a similar journey myself with it, and actually aided by my husband's grandmother who like loves to bring everyone together and cook the meal, and like it's her traditional recipes, and everything is measured by the size of her hand, right? Like there's and there's there's so much value there. What are you cooking today? Are you cook are you do you cook traditional Oaxaca cuisine regularly today?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yeah, I I cook a lot of uh um. I cook a lot of food from Oaxaca with local ingredients. So basically the roots of my cooking remain uh remain in Oaxaca, but I will use ingredients of you know where where I am, where I'm living or where I'm visiting, where I'm invited to cook, where I'm invited invited to participate. So um that's uh that's super important to me. And also going back to your comment about food and process food and the way we think about food, I think uh it's important also to recognize that we're living in a society where we have so much more food than we ever had in the history of the of the world. Yes, we waste so much food. We food doesn't get to the people who who need it the most. I were I've been working a lot on uh on different projects, but one of the some of the projects that we've been working on is the stigmatizing poverty and the way the people think about food and the way people think about how other people eat, in the sense that uh we need to shift the blame, the blame of like how people eat from the consumer, from the person to the system and to the to the society that allows this these kinds of things, you know?

SPEAKER_02 23:22

I completely agree. That's something I'm so passionate about. It's like we have too much food, not the right food, food that is like kind of out of match with our environment. Like, you know, should we be eating bananas in like Canada in the middle of winter? Like that doesn't make a ton of sense, and like nobody needs to be doing that, right? And like this morning, I'm my stepson's been asking me for croissants. And I'm like, how do I make croissants? I don't know. I never to to kind of go into more depth. My mom never taught me to cook. When I was like a young adult living on my own, I just didn't even know anything about it. And I ate like pumpkin seeds for protein. Like I just got by on like a little squirrel diet. And then I was a vegan. And then when I was dating my husband, his grandmother was like, no, no, no, like eat my food. And that changed my life, like changed the way that I feel inside so much. Like I feel so much more energized and like cared for. But this morning, my stepson's like, I want to make croissants, you know? And I was like, okay, let me just find some like kind of healthy store-bought croissants I can make for him. And he keeps telling me, like, oh, it's gonna be so hard to make croissants. We need a lot of butter, we need a lot of butter. And then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna look at the ingredients. I bought the, I bought the store-bought croissants. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna look at the ingredients. I'm probably gonna hate it. And I turn it around and there's not a drop of butter in them. It's all like palm oil. And it I am just like, oh my God, it kills me so much inside. Like it's it's such a metaphor for like you have this item that, you know, is simple ingredients, like you're saying with bread. And then we substitute it out with just something that's so soulless and mass-produced and cheap. And like that's not the point of food. And we're like eating to satisfy ourselves, but like at what cost and to what end? Like it's not really satisfying to eat something that you know has been prepared to like make someone the most amount of money, and they're not giving any thought to how it's like nourishing you. Like that pisses me off so much. Um go no, go for it. Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, I think as as you know, as we were saying earlier, this is the system is designed like this. I really recommend you want to understand how the food system works and how it's the global food system is now, as you said, because we expect avocados and we expect bananas, and we as we expect coffee as we expect all these things now. You know, there's this amazing scientist who's also from Oaxaca, but uh was here in the United States, Ricardo Salvador. He has an amazing way of explaining. There's tons of videos on the internet of him explaining how the food system works and why. And I think that that's we all can benefit from learning learning a little bit. I think when it comes to eating things, I have gone to like different phases of the of the spectrum. In the sense that like once you understand that it's not people who are wrong, but the system is meant to like make sure the people don't have the best quality in uh ingredients, the know-how, the time. I think the most important thing for people forget to be able to cook for yourself, you need time.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

You know, let's say you have a kitchen, you have a home, you have gas, you have, you know, whatever you need, then you need time. I think the people forget about that oftentimes. And people like, you know, there's there's been many trends, including, you know, 30 minutes me 30 minute meals, you know, you can wipe out a ki a a healthy food for your a healthy meal for your family in 45 minutes, in 25 minutes. Let's wait until you absolutely do it. You actually do it, and then I think that the regular person out there, out there in the world doesn't have the skill that someone that has worked in the kitchen has to be able to cook something that fast. Yeah, right. Doesn't have the tools, the ingredients, and stuff. Not to say that it's not possible, but it takes time. There's a learning curve. There's a learning curve. Cooking is a craft and you have to practice at it to be able to get to it. The other thing that you know, talking about the state of food in this in this society, you know, if everything has been capitalized, everything is extractive in the sense that like even vegan, even when you're vegan or you do this diet or that diet, is someone designed that, someone, someone like made you think so oftentimes that like, okay, if if you do this, you're gonna feel better about about yourself. And yeah, there's probably a lot of benefits of about like the philosop the different philosophies that people are borrowing from. But it's very hard for me to not see through the the way of making money out of that, right? Yeah. And not not only making money, but also not understanding the different the different ways that those same diets that people are selling you could be better if you just like do a little bit more research or or go to the source. I I oftentimes tell people, uh, you know, I used to I used to I used to work with a lot a lot of college students and high school students, and I used to not make, but I used to offer to take people to the slaughterhouse because I I believe that if you eat meat, you should see a life of an animal being taken. It is that primal thing of actually seeing an animal die really should like shake you and it and inform the way you eat, right? But I but I also feel the same way about people that feel strongly about not eating animal protein. Because it's it's also on the other end of the spectrum, it is also a privilege. The fact that you don't that you don't eat animal protein probably means that you have access to other proteins, whether it's beans, nuts, berries, you know, whatever it is that you're supplementing, and you should be supplementing your your diet with like other proteins if you're not eating meat. There's a certain level of privilege, right? There are people that don't eat don't eat meat out of poverty, out of necessity, and then there when you have a choice, but then we get we get into deeper conversations, right? There's plenty of societies around the world, especially indigenous communities, that don't eat a lot of meat. Or they they eat meat a lot more responsibly. So, for example, my mom, for her to be able to eat beef or chicken, she has to go half an hour one way, half an hour another way to buy chicken, to buy beef, to be able to eat. The amount of protein that she the amount of animal protein that she eats is very small. It's very small in comparison to what to what I eat, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

But it also over the years, we've had, I've been in these conversations where, like, yeah, you're allowed to be vegan, you can be vegan, but don't push that into communities. Don't shame indigenous communities. They need to hand gather fish for the protein to be able to survive. And then the other conversations is like, for example, uh, farm working, farm working communities, especially indigenous uh migrant farm worker communities where women are breastfeeding, working in the field eight, 10 hours a day, and at some point realize that they're anemic. Right? They're anemic because you're not you're literally not eating enough protein in your diet to be able to sustain what your body needs to do everything you need to do in a day. So how are we gonna tell these sisters to, you know, they eating animal protein is bad?

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a it's that's what I'm saying. Like food is so personal and intimate to your situation, to who who you are as a person, to your resources. It's and it's I feel like it's a daily struggle, right? Like, what am I gonna eat today? Where is it gonna come from? How am I gonna make it? When am I gonna eat it? And it's I feel like we don't talk about it enough. But the it's it's obviously the US government and colonial forces have known for a long time the importance of food, right? Like we've seen how it's been weapon at weap weaponized. And I I think that there's an intention for us not to think about where it comes from and not to know that much and and maybe not to be able to cook. And I know that our at the same time, our food chains are really, really weak. You know, like the I think I heard that like if if Walmart's like supply chain collapsed, like people would be starving within like three days because they feed so many people in this country. And and it's sometimes it seems to me like if we could get back to growing our own food and like each individual household, or you know, at least in community at least, and being more connected to it and you know, through that the earth, that things would start to write themselves. But what do you think? Is that is that me being like I idealist?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

No, I think that is uh a super important step that is not, but it has to be communal, not individualistic. Yeah, the sense that uh especially in recent years, a lot of the back to the landers people are thinking of them of themselves as a family unit that doesn't need other other people. And I think that's the wrong approach. I think the building community while also learning how to uh how to sustain yourself is what is what can save many different communities, literally from from hunger. And we saw this during the pandemic. I know if you remember during the pandemic, but a lot of people were bargaining, were exchanging, were sharing with each other. And I think that that gave us a little bit of a snippet of a window of what could be. Not everyone needs to learn how to grow everything. Not everyone needs to know how to slide a chicken, not everyone needs to do to have every single skill. We all need one skill or a few skills that we can share, and then we can be a we can be a community. We need one person that the one person that has enough land to do to do protein, whether it's chicken, eggs, yeah, beef, whatever it is, and we need someone that knows how to grow corn and we need to be able to buy that. And I think that those are the lessons that we could they go back to not only indigenous communities, but many communities in them in this country, they they know how to do that. They know they have the knowledge how to how to sustain themselves with what they have. That's also there the other thing, you know, we'll get to be back to the land kind of people, will solve these things that are like, oh, you have to read the books, oh, you have to watch this documentary. When in reality, I think that if you have the time, even if you have if you want to be if you want to belong to a community, you make the time and show up and someone will teach you. I've been part of many different communities, many different projects in which people are more than happy to teach other people, more than willing to share.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah, that's true. I that's very true. I I feel like maybe anyone who thinks otherwise is that's part of the way that they try to keep us apart, right? But people are very willing to share and very willing to teach. On the heels of this, I want to ask you, I want to ask everyone that comes on the podcast, what do you think is the biggest problem that we're facing today?

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Water. Water.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

The writing has been on the wall. People have been saying it, and you know, when I was younger, I used to like, oh, dismiss it. But water wars are coming, water wars are here, not only with data centers, but the scarcity of water, the way societies have been designed to not save water, to not have water seeping to our aquifers, depleting all the water. I think that that's one of the greatest challenges that we're gonna be facing. Name any name any city in the US, that those are probably very few cities, few places in the Great Lakes, maybe don't have to don't worry about water, but everyone else should be worried. It's probably worried. The governments have been talking about it. The fact that there's probably the fact that there's watered futures and people are buying buying uh rights to water should tell us what's what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah. What what kind of things are you guys doing to conserve water through your project with your mom in Oaxaca?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

You can save water down there by reforestation. So the greater the density of of of ecosystems, the more water is gonna seep into our uh into our water tables. We also, everyone down there also saves water, rain water, which it is not hard to do. Anyone can do it. If people, if people in those communities that have very little can do it, we all can do it. We also have been utilizing permaculture systems techniques, indigenous techniques to make sure that the water is not running away. And that goes that that can be as simple as introducing, slowing down the run of water in arroyos, in rivers, to introducing spacious species that slow down the water runoff, to making swells, and treacherons, water gardens, all of those things help. All of this, all of those things are important. One of the most beautiful experiences in the last few years in my own family, in my own community, we brought back an ancestral water spring in the it that has been sustaining my family, my community for many, many generations. And right now we're that's the water that we're using, we are using to water our our trees. And and the next steps for that project is that we're gonna, I wanna build, I wanna, I wanna build a solar power water purification system so that we so that my community, even if it's 200 families, is not buying water, purified water from other places. Even if it's 10 miles down the road, if we can do it in a way that is sustainable in our community, do it with solar energy. That's that's a goal.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

That's awesome. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you, because you to me are like such an incredible resource for what's going on in the world. I love opening Instagram and seeing what you're sharing. And then Neftali knows like what I need to know. Who do you get your information from? Like what are resources that you love, and who do you think other people should be listening to and tuning into?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah, I think that based on this conversation, everyone should read, read a book, you know, browse a book by Molly O'Neill, who was the person who had who I mentioned. She did an amazing food anthropology. She has a book that is like 500 pages, but she visited a classic Molly O'Neill way, Molly O'Neill way. She visited many, many different communities and has many, many different recipes, but also has a lot of background on how what people eat and how people eat across the United States. Uh, Ricardo Salvador is another pension, another person that I mentioned, amazing scientist, uh, same thing, amazing mentor to a lot of us. There's a lot of videos of him lecturing about about food and food systems. Who else? I mentioned Nephi Craig, whose whose book is coming out this is coming out this year. I think the indigenous voices, especially in literature, need to be need to be uplifted, need to be supported. And uh who else listen, listen, listen to listen to your elders, listen to people they they have been there. I assure you, if you like talk to all the people, girls will remember droughts, they will remember other things that we haven't experienced ourselves, but uh, but people do remember, say, you know, same thing as uh same thing as the land, you know, people remember things that we don't know we need to know yet.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yeah, very true. And speaks to the power of community for sure, like reaching out to one another and bringing each other in and listening to one another and sharing all that good stuff. I think we can wrap up here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna link all the people that you mentioned in the show notes. I'm gonna link your Instagram, I'll link Holy Oak and I the iCollective. And there let me know if there's any other projects you want me to link of yours. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a great conversation.