Our Existence Is Resistance

The transcription discusses the importance of acknowledging the history of indigenous peoples in relation to the topics being discussed. It highlights the impact of colonization on indigenous communities, including the enslavement of indigenous peoples and the erasure of their cultures. The conversation also touches on the importance of reconnecting with ancestral roots and the significance of indigenous foodways in empowering indigenous women and promoting physical and mental well-being. Additionally, it discusses the need for decolonization and the role of ethnic studies in disrupting and addressing historical and ongoing injustices. The conversation emphasizes the importance of education and understanding the truth in order to heal and create a more equitable society. Before I introduce myself, I would first want to open up with a land acknowledgement. We want to formally and with great respect acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands of the Yokut Nation. Our campus, Stanislaus State, is built on the unceded ancestral lands of these Indigenous tribes. Thank you for letting us honor them and give our thanks to their ancestors and descendants for their constant and careful stewardship of this land. Hello everybody, my name is Raylene, I am a student at Stanislaus State, and I will be hosting this podcast with my fellow peers. My name is Bethany Ambrose, my name is Catherine Acevedo, and my name is Tristan. Okay, so before we get into our three topics that we selected, I think it is important that we go into the history before, and I wanted to add that I had listened to Corinna Gold's podcast, and she talks about several things. One, that we have to go back to the missions, the California missions, and we also have to talk about the settler colonialism from Spanish going into Mexico. So the Indigenous peoples were not only slaves on these missions, but they eventually became slaves on ranchos. And even with the Treaty of Guadalupe that had promised these Indigenous people land back, the land was not given back, instead it was given to Mexican gentry and military. And with that, then there was the gold rush, which I have a quote right here. Not everybody could find gold, but they could find Native people to hunt down adults, $5 a head and $0.25 an ear. Children, they could sell them into servitude, about $300 for a little girl, $180 for a little boy. In the article, This Benevolent Experiment Indigenous, they kind of talk about how the boarding school started with Carlyle, which was headed by Pratt, and he had believed that military marching was necessary to increase the student discipline, and he basically placed students in work as farm laborers or domestic help, and in his view, the best option for Indians and half-bloods to be merged and lost within the nations, and that was quoted directly from him. What would you have to say about this? Anybody, any of my peers, to add? Okay, what I mean when it comes to the topics we are about to talk about, the reason why it's good to give a history rundown is because it acts as the reason or, yeah, the reason why the topics we're talking about are topics that we are talking about, right? Like if this didn't happen when it did, then these things that we're talking about wouldn't even be issues or things that we feel the need to be brought up, right? This wouldn't happen. If this history wasn't a thing. So I feel like it's important to acknowledge and realize that we need to learn about the history and know why it happened and why it affected things that are happening today. Yeah, I agree with you, Trish, and actually it's very saddening because the European view of indigenous men was that they were lazy because the women did agricultural work. You know, seeing that women contributed a lot to the community was just unfathomable. For Europeans, thus the gender roles changed as men took to the field and women learned domestic skills. You know, even during all of this happening, it was much easier to take Spanish surnames and speaking Spanish was actually safer than speaking their indigenous languages. And you know what, just having them on these reservations, the poverty was so high, so it kind of pushed people out. It kind of made the parents think that, you know, maybe education, this European education is just better to escape this poverty, to escape the alcohol, everything that was going on, the abuse. And maybe this could be the best way for my child to adapt to this world, you know? Unfortunately, they thought they could probably hold on to their cultures, but it was just taken away from them, just like they cut their hair. So going from that, I think that has a lot to do with the indigenous identity politics, but also more as those who do not identify as indigenous or native. It has an impact on us as individuals because this land was not ours to begin with, and the history of colonialism all has an impact on who we are. I as a Mexican-American, I think about the Zoot Suit Trials. I think about how the propaganda would say that we were savages because we had it in our blood. We had Aztec blood running through us that required the Zoot Suiters to want to draw blood. It was just in the nature, and that is not true. That is not true at all. Would anybody else like to add to that as far as their identity? How it has shaped you into who you are and how you could better co-liberate with the indigenous people? Me, personally, I am Portuguese, so I'm white, completely. I don't have any indigenous roots, and for me, it makes it very difficult to connect, but having the opportunity to learn about Native American and indigenous experiences, it's enlightened me beyond compare. It's made me understand that when we see and learn from indigenous and Native American identities, we're looking at people. We're not looking at things. Throughout history, the United States government has liked to treat these people as mere objects, things to be dominated. I've learned that through this class, we need to speak up about these issues. We need to address these issues, even the ones that happened in the past. We need to talk about them, and we need to address that these are people's identities we're dealing with, not just mere things. It's interesting you say that because race, the concept of race, it wasn't even a thing back then. It was created due to the Enlightenment in the 1800s by a bunch of probably white men who just wanted to categorize people, and they wanted to basically say slavery is okay. They have these scientific drawings and images comparing a European's head bust and a normal skeletal head, and they compare it to an African image, and they compare the African image to it looks like an ape here that I'm looking at. That's just basically saying these people, they could work harder. They could tolerate all this. They're not human. They're just lucky to be here working for us. That goes all into the settler colonialism. I did write here that the other day, I was filling out a medical paper, and the question about race, I left blank because for so long, I would always just check off white because there was nothing there out for me to check because I do have Portuguese ancestry in me too, but I am not connected to it because it's something that had to do with my father's side, and I haven't seen my father since I was three years old. I don't know much about other than the fact that they came, they conquered, they stole. That left a lasting legacy that we feel to this day. Why should I continue to add to the categorization and erasure of Indigenous people? No. I have to find out who I am. We have to find out who we are and get back to our ancestral roots. Yeah, I want to add also to that as a Mexican-American as well. I didn't really grow up learning about my Indigenous side until in this class when we had an assignment, or it was an in-class discussion, and that's when I looked up where my parents were both from, and it said that they were originally, the people there, the Indigenous people were Urupecha, I believe I'm pronouncing it right, and it was really interesting. That's when I asked my mom if she knew anything about it, and she mentioned that her great grandma was the one that knew about this language, so it was something different. I think if it wasn't for this course, I would have not really looked into maybe my ancestors in that way. Maybe I just only know my past two generations, and my parents immigrating here, you unconsciously get colonized, like my parents too. Maybe the way of expressing ourselves, the way of still following along our cultures just because it seems like we should be ashamed, going to a store. Even myself, with dyeing my hair, it sounds pretty, maybe it doesn't make much sense, but it's like this thing you see on social media, or in school, or in person, that if you have lighter skin, your face looks lighter, you tend to be treated better. Growing up, maybe the past two, three years, I realized that I hadn't been doing that throughout my life. I didn't want to stand in the sun, because I would be getting darker, and it would be a way of being ashamed, because going to an all-white high school, everyone was blonde, blue eyes, there was very little percentage of Latinos, and obviously I stood in that percentage. As far as knowing where to stand, like you were talking about filling out papers, when I was filling out the college application here, when I was in high school, I didn't know what to put as my ethnicity, and that's when it clicked, and they told me that I was considered white, because I was born here, and my parents were from Mexico, and I consider myself Mexican as well. But it just felt weird, because I'm a dark-skinned person, and then putting in white, it just feels awkward, and I feel like I'm betraying my family, and my roots in a way, and it shouldn't be like that, but it's kind of sad how we have to be categorized by a word, whether it's the color white, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's crazy to think you're considered. That actually goes with the whole erasure. They don't want us to think about the truth, but like Dr. Cuervo-Consochi says, only through truth can we heal. And not even just as individuals, but as a nation, as a people, you know? So, going into the indigenous food ways. Oh, yes, this is a big, big topic. I'll let you speak about that a little bit. So, indigenous food ways. Indigenous food ways, well, that's it all, you know? Food ways, that's how we live. And the way we live, and the way we eat really matters. And I think when we think about indigenous food ways, we have to think not just about the food that we cultivate, but how they affect the people that grow this food, and the people that then consume this food. So, for Native American and indigenous people specifically, it's really important to reignite ancient indigenous food ways, and especially for women. And when we get to topics about feminism, and advocating for the missing and murdered indigenous women, and Native American women, it will be more important later on. But as of now, especially for women, indigenous food ways can empower Native American and indigenous women, because it enables them to take control over their bodies. Many Native Americans, and not just for Native American women, but for Native American men, women, and children, who live mostly near stop and shops, drugstores, and they can't really find healthy food, good places to get healthy food. Either they live too far from the supermarket, or they have to walk. And it makes it really difficult to pick foods that can help their bodies grow and thrive. So, when we reignite these ancient indigenous food ways, we allow them to take control of their bodies again. And that's really important moving forward. Because when they eat balanced diets, and they maintain good health, they are maintaining their physical and mental well-being. And this is self-care. And when I think about self-care, I always think about Audre Lorde's quote that I have here. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. And because food, food is, I think, directly linked to consumerism in a way, even. The foods we eat, you know, they can be commercialized as well. Chips, fried foods, McDonald's, all of that stuff, you know, they are designed to keep you, you know, going back for more. And it can't be that way. And because so many minorities are affected by this, it's really important that we need to address this immediately and get away from it. Because people's lives, people's health are at stake. So I think that talking about this, and finding ways in which we can explore how we can actually reignite these ancient indigenous food ways is extremely important, not just to our advancement as a human community, but also to help Native Americans, especially women, walk the path Waila June, she stated in her presentation, we are gardeners of the land and architects of abundance. For thousands of years, indigenous people and their ancestors developed complex irrigation systems, shaping hillsides into even flat areas. When there were setbacks, for example, like with El Nino, religious ceremonies would be held to appease the deities they worshipped. That spirituality played a significant role. What would you have to say about spirituality and the food? I feel like when it comes to that reignition, I feel like a whole, like a really big part of it would come to not only how we would come about bringing back those kinds of foods, but how we think about those foods that we want to bring back. Because I remember a professor, she talked about, she brought up this point that if you thought about food that you grew and that you ate more as your ancestors or as your relatives, they would be treated with much more care, right? More care than ever, right? Because you don't want to treat your family members like crap, right? So same thing goes with the food that we eat, the food that we consume, the food that we grow, you want to treat that with as much care as you can. And I feel like if we acknowledge that and adopt that as something we do, then this reigniting of ancient indigenous food would be much easier. Yeah, it's like a way of connecting to the land and thanking the land. And it's this whole cycle, the professor also explained. And back to what you were talking about, we tend to go back to the unhealthy food. And it's also more cheaper because if you're on the go, it's very quick for us to say, oh, I'm just going to go through the drive-thru and buy a quick hamburger or quick fries to just keep me feeling satisfied for a while now. And healthy food, which is like the vegetables and everything that you grow that you buy at the stores, they tend to be more expensive than actual, already pre-made fast food. So, and then growing your own food, I think you said you were going to talk about further that you're doing that. I think it takes a lot of love and you need to be really disciplined to grow food and take care of it with love, like you also mentioned about taking care of our family members. And I think Professor talked about corn. Corn is a big thing with, or a big- One of the three wonders. Yes, for indigenous people. So, I tend to eat elote and corn with sour cream and cheese and tajin. But that's just the way cultures take on it. And just knowing about the different types of corns and the meaning of a corn is different and all that. You get to buy, what would it be, like machizo and antojo, right? Yeah, you crave it. But you know what? It's interesting how you crave the things that are contaminated with corn. Going back to the corn, all these processed cooking oils, frying your food. Back in the day, they would just, even now, if you're in a Mexican household, you use the comal. With the butter. To just heat up your, that way, to heat up your salsas. And going back with being active in the land with nature, I started growing my own chiles. You know, I had never used to make salsas when I was younger. I hated spicy food. I hated beans. I had never tasted nopales, which is cactus. Never. Oh, it's delicious. This morning, I had it. I had it with, sautéed with onion, because I love, I love onion, grilled onions, anything. I sautéed it with onion and some garlic, and it's so delicious. And I love using pink salt. I love using Himalayan pink salt, you know. I wish there was somebody that I knew that I could buy it from instead of a corporation like Costco. But, you know, I think that's just a part of transforming, transformative resistance is what it is. You know, you want to ignore a lot of things. You want to be comfortable in your own bubble. You know, I seen this one video about critical race theory being banned in Florida, and there was this, it was an interracial marriage between a white man and somebody of darker color. And she was basically saying, why would I want my kids to go picket, to riot, when they live in an affluent neighborhood? You know, that's ignorance. You know, that's just, it's not about fighting. It's about getting together and supporting one another and just saying, I hear you. I am sorry for what you went through. How can we go about this? How can we heal? What can I do? What can we do for not just us, but for the neighborhood? You know, and that just goes into the whole topic of decolonization, you know, decolonizing education, because it starts with the little ones. You know, you're supposed to want the future generations to get better, but it's just that whole internalized colonialization that things should be a certain way. But that's what I love about ethnic studies, is they disrupt everything. They look at things with facts. They say, you know what? No, these are the facts. Yes, they're hard truths, but we are going to present them, and we do not care about, you know, your white tears. This is not about you. You are not the victim here, you know? And I think that's the whole thing with Florida and other states like that, that have that mentality. They just don't want to know the truth. They want to be in that ignorance, that little bubble. They don't know when to stop covering it up and sugarcoating it. Yeah, that might, that kind of reminds me of, like, you know, my weekly topic was state sanctioned violence, right? That's a perfect example of, you know, ignorance and a perfect example of not, you know, realizing the facts, right? Because in state sanctioned violence, all this bad stuff's happening, and everybody knows it's happening, but everybody just wants to turn away from it, right? They want to avoid it. They're not going to own up to it, right? And that's a whole part of it. It's like, these people, you know, go missing. These people get murdered, right? Nobody's talking about this, right? And why? Just because they don't want to talk about it, that's why. Very few schools, or, like, high schools in general have ethnic courses that they provide as an elective, and I think during college is when we're, us as adults, we tend to be more interested, either if it's, well, I mean, not everyone takes an ethnic course because it's, like, a GE requirement or an upper division requirement, but by being, as in, like, an open-minded person and as an adult and learning about all these issues that were back then, we tend to be more open and not so close-minded into learning and the truth, the reality of the truth, because I think that if we were to, I know that there's probably still people, and they're still trying to get courses, ethnic courses, into high schools, but for college, maybe it's just something that I've just seen. I think I've taken, like, two or three courses throughout my college career, but again, they were, like, every year. The people in the classes, they tend to be from different minorities. They're not necessarily, like, white people, I would say, so I don't know everyone's reason why they're in the courses, but it seems like I've seen a lot of Latinos because I've done assignments just like this, and I feel like it's the way that we can, in a way, identify whether it's with this Indigenous course or with Indigenous experiences or with the, I think it was a Mexican-American war class, but it's just something that I've seen that they tend to be, the people that are in the courses or in these classes tend to be, like, small minorities in general, you know, because they're more interested or they want to see more of what's out there, if that makes sense. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up about the ethnic studies, because I do know that Assembly Bill 101, it has already passed, and that basically states that California high schools, you have to take a general education course in order to graduate, and that's going to start going into effect, like, maybe 25, 26 in the school year, so it hasn't happened yet, but it makes me very curious how the ethnic studies curriculum will look going across different districts, you know, it kind of makes me want to go interview Modesto City School, because that's where I live, like, what are you going to be teaching, how much are you going to limit, you know, right, so, and then that whole, what we're dealing with right now, what I see a lot is intersectional feminism, how are the schools even handling, you know, people that identify as different genders, because I feel like that's a big part of ethnic studies, too, is not to exclude, but how do these schools, what are they doing? My husband was telling me a story about, they call it an it, an it creature at their school, I guess, he had heard that there was a fight, this person was beating up a girl, I don't know for what reason, but, I mean, I would assume that this person is much more stronger, because they were born with other body parts, I'm not really sure how to speak, it's very sensitive, but, yes, more male characteristics, testosterone, whatever you want to call it, so, he was beating up this girl, and the brother basically stepped in, because the campos, the campos supervisors, they weren't quick enough, and plus they have this weird policy that says hands off, no hands policy, so, it's kind of like, you see these students getting hurt, when do you intercede? Are you going to get, especially if it's somebody that presents as a different gender, this person basically was like, if you touch me, I'll sue you, oh, and by the way, I didn't get to eat lunch, so, chop chop, fix me up something, so, I was like, okay, fix me up something, and they had started the fight during lunch, and while you're at it, you know, escort me to class, because if you don't, so, how are these schools dealing with it? It's just so much, you know, so, I think it is important for an ethnic studies course, because it's important to hear different perspectives, to learn, to not exclude. I feel like these courses should be taught by a person, a professor, that they're taking courses, and that they are not just leaning towards one side, they're talking in general, because if we have people that have like credentials, or that they're working as teachers, it's easy for them to say, oh, I can teach this class, and they're going to teach it based on what their beliefs, you know, so, I think it wouldn't be fair, and maybe it sounds bad to not have like a teacher, because they have like a bachelor's degree, or they have a master's degree, and they're working at a school, but I think it would be only fair enough to have people that are really focused on this, and they have very much experience, and not necessarily experience as in like being able to relate to the history, but experience as in being very knowledgeable about going to these types of events, reading books, history books in general, I think it's only fair for that to have our future generations learn about this like the correct, proper way. I think it's kind of hard, because going back to your, what you said earlier about how they would come about districting, and maybe figuring out how they would teach these classes, and how they come about intersectionality in schools, I think it's kind of difficult, because at the same time, there are some people who can represent those people in these different intersectionality groups, right, but at the same time, not a lot of those people may be present at certain schools, so without representation, they would have a difficult time to teach these new generations how things should work, or how they can handle and approach specific things, right, so I feel like it's just kind of hard, because you know, at least when I went to high school, right, the closest thing we had for like intersectionality was people who identified different genders, races, you know, that kind of stuff. We have like a club, right, but the thing was that that club wasn't really ran by like, yeah, they had an administrator, right, but that administrator wasn't as involved as the people in the actual group, right, so the representatives were the students, right, there's not a lot of teacher representatives in that case, but like I said, it goes, it's kind of hard, because in some schools, there may be teachers that are more passionate about these type of things than there are, and... Another one just want to go to Semperfication. No, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting, which is, you know, speaking for myself, I was an English major, but I changed to social sciences, because there is not an ethnic studies curriculum right now as we speak, and I don't even know if there will ever be one, so one of my questions was, okay, well, who's going to be able to teach these courses, and it's most likely going to be the people with the social sciences degrees. They're probably going to have to undergo some extra classes and courses they have to take, but like I said, I think it is important they take those ethnic studies courses, because it gives perspectives on everything. It's not biased, you know, history books are mostly written by the winners, so to read these stories that have been excluded, it's important, I think, and is there anything else peers wanted to add? Maybe just touch on indigenous feminism. So, personally, I was always really interested in learning more about Native American and indigenous feminism. As a white woman, I found it very difficult at the beginning of this course to even relate to any of Native American experiences, because, you know, as I said, I am white, and that made it really difficult, but then my perspective shifted, and I decided to focus on what it means for me being a woman, and then turning to the experiences of Native American and indigenous women, and how my experience can help me, in a way, understand why maybe I should value the experiences of other women who don't have the opportunity to speak about the issues that they confront every single day. So, for me, personally, since I was 10, I struggled with acne, and over years, over the years, I was criticized in school because of it, it became more and more severe, and then finally, it hit a breaking point, everything was terrible, my skin did not look okay, and I remember one time, going to the bathroom at school, I was feeling very self-conscious about my face that day, and I went into a stall, and I scratched at my face, at my neck, and I hated myself for it, hated my skin, and then when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw, and I left, but over time, I started to, especially when I went to high school, and I saw that there were other people like me, other different people like me, who struggled with acne as well, and who struggled with even worse issues, and it made me realize, I can't feel sorry for myself, I can't pity myself for a problem, you know, that, you know, others know the struggle, they also know the struggle about this too, and sharing it with my friends, and, you know, that really helped me get out of that shell, it helped me look at myself differently, and even after, you know, I got my acne treated, I took Accutane, and it got better, I still try to look at my imperfections, and see the strength in them, you know, like, these do not define me, I am more than my skin, I am more than this, um, and when I look at Native American and Indigenous women, you know, many of them, because of mainstream white feminism, their problems, the very same problems I struggled with, you know, most of the time the media overlooks them, nobody cares, nobody wants to know, um, and that's not even the worst part about it, the worst part is when we get to horrific issues, like the missing and murdered Indigenous women, what about that, what about that, you know, um, when are we going to talk about this, when are we going to bring these issues into the light, um, when are we going to start caring, when are we going to start putting our own, you know, experiences aside, and start being selfless, and looking at the experiences of others, we've had it so much worse, and what we can do to help. So, you make me think of the white woman syndrome, you know, when a white woman goes missing and the news gets all in a frenzy to search for this one white woman they get, where are, what's with all the other women that are missing, yeah, so, wrapping it all up, I think it's important that we each say something we would like to change, and then something maybe that we find joy in, as part of a resistance to, to white slaver colonialism. I think that I will go first with saying that, well, I don't even know what to say, honestly, sometimes I just want to just give silence for all the people that have hurt, things they've gone through, things that they're, they're still trying to grapple with, especially when they start asking that important question of who am I, because a lot of, a lot of, a lot of us are, we just have that, that film over our eyes, that, that veil, that's just, we don't want to lift, I think that's from Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois, but I think an important part is soaking in that joy, I think that's the ultimate, ultimate resistance, is finding joy, yes, this happened to me, yes, this happened to my ancestors, but you know what, I am here because of this resilience, I am here because my existence is resistance, and what am I going to do, I'm going to try to get back to my roots, how am I going to do that, well, we all have to do our own investigating, and it's going to look different for all of us. You guys want to add something? I feel like something that I can kind of see joy in, is just the amount of people that are willing to put in the effort and, you know, spread the, you know, knowledge of what's going on, what's actually going on, right, I'm kind of, you know, I'm happy that there are people, like, like-minded enough to realize that they need to, you know, that people in general need to acknowledge things that are happening, and realize that there's something we can do, it's just a matter of if people are willing to be selfless, right, so I feel like that's something that, I don't know, I'm pretty happy about. For me personally, I'd say I'd find joy in the fact that I'm not alone, for me personally, I'd say I'd find joy in education, I find joy in the education of these teachers, these ethnic studies teachers who fight every day to disseminate important aspects of our past, and how we can overcome them, and look forward to a better future as a community of humans, because that's really what we are at the end of the day, we're all human beings, and we all need to look out for each other, and I think the only way we can get there is through education, people need to know about these things, it's the only way we're going to heal, by confronting the truth as Raylene said a while ago, you have to do it. Yeah, I would say that all this information is still available to us, and it's still available for us to learn, and be aware and acknowledge, because the way of acknowledging this information is a way of also taking the first step to see in a way we can help make a change, and not let this happen again, which we're not really, sometimes we're not even in control of what we can do, or what others can do, and all of this information is still not gone, and it's still not let this conversation take upon, we still have all this information, kind of like what you were mentioning about the professors, and the joy and the passion that they have into teaching us, or making us aware of the issues that had happened, and inviting us into being more proactive, I would say, into this cause. Yeah. Okay, if you are hearing this message, you've listened to the entire episode, and for that we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you learned something about yourself, or something that you could contribute to your journey of collaboration in relationship to BIPOC communities, please share this with a friend, and again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.