WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:03.120 We should dismantle the fact that indigenous peoples are seeing 2 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.600 as research subjects and areas of expertise rather than the 3 00:00:06.680 --> 00:00:08.760 scientists and experts themselves. 4 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:16.480 From futro media and PRX, It's Latino Usa, I'm Maria 5 00:00:16.520 --> 00:00:19.759 in No Rosa today, Jessica Hernandez and why we need 6 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:32.760 Indigenous environmental science For Jessica Irnandez, becoming an environmental scientist 7 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:35.720 seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She 8 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:38.360 had grown up learning about animals and plants from her 9 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:42.159 grandmother in Joahaka in southern Mexico. She loved going fishing 10 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:45.840 with her father, where she always seemed to learn something new. 11 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.960 Jessica felt that she already had so much to share 12 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.120 with other people who were interested in the environment. But 13 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:57.760 when she started studying marine science, things weren't so simple 14 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:01.279 all of a sudden. As an indigenous immigrant woman at 15 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:05.080 a university in the United States, the knowledge she brought 16 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:09.759 to the classroom was mocked or dismissed. Her professors had 17 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:13.320 no interest in what she and, by extension, her family 18 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:19.319 and her community had to say. Still, Jessica knew that 19 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:22.319 she belonged any place where the environment was being discussed, 20 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:25.680 not just for her love of nature, but because she 21 00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:28.119 had seen how being shut out of the conversation had 22 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:32.800 been so harmful to her Suppotheic and Mayachorti communities. So 23 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:36.560 she finished her degree, but didn't stop there. She got 24 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:40.800 a master's and then a PhD in environmental and forestry sciences. 25 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:45.400 She learned the formulas and specialized terms used in academia, 26 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:49.320 and she confirmed what she had always known, that what 27 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:53.200 her grandmother and father had taught her was also a 28 00:01:53.240 --> 00:01:59.920 form of science. Jessica collected her family's stories, historical accounts, 29 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:03.360 and other case studies in her twenty twenty two book 30 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:09.320 Fresh Banana Leaves, Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science, which 31 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:12.560 she hopes will change how we think about environmental science. 32 00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:15.280 It's a message that we're happy to bring back to 33 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:19.000 you today, dear listener. In her own words, here's doctor 34 00:02:19.240 --> 00:02:21.120 Jessica Hernandez. 35 00:02:21.320 --> 00:02:24.960 When the Olpaducci Bigree. My name is Jessica Hernandez, and 36 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.960 I'm from the Maya, Chorty and Sapotech nations of Salvador 37 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:34.960 and Oohaka, Mexico. I'm an indigenous environmental scientist. I currently 38 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.120 holds a position at the University of Washington, Boto, where 39 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:42.160 I teach introduction to climate science. I also conduct research 40 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:46.160 on environmental physics of climate science, and I wrote a 41 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:50.640 book entitled Fresh Banana Leaves, Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science. 42 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:54.520 One of my fondest memories is just being able to 43 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:59.040 go visit my grandmother in Wohaka, Mexico, and she just 44 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:01.240 taught me a lot about our environments. She liked to 45 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:03.560 go walking when she was able to walk, and she 46 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:06.080 would just teach me about the landscape, the mongols, and 47 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:11.880 also about the animals. My dad loved fishing, and because 48 00:03:11.880 --> 00:03:13.800 he was a fisherman, that's how he was able to 49 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:16.400 sustain his family in the Salvador, because he was the 50 00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:19.720 eldest and he used to fish. And I think that 51 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:22.280 I always thought my dad was like really smart because 52 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:26.440 like we went fishing, he didn't need a rod, right, 53 00:03:26.440 --> 00:03:28.360 Like he could make his own rod out of the 54 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:32.560 materials that he could find. He could make fish nets also, 55 00:03:32.600 --> 00:03:34.280 and I always thought that that was really cool. And 56 00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:36.920 I noticed that when I was like in elementary school, 57 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.160 my dad was learning how to read with me, and 58 00:03:39.200 --> 00:03:42.120 that always made me question, like, oh, my dad is learning, 59 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:45.120 Like what does that mean, but my dad sharing that 60 00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:47.640 journey with me as I was learning how to read 61 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:49.480 kind of inspire me to be like, oh, and my 62 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:52.080 dad is like doing this with me, maybe I should, 63 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:55.840 you know, look into school. And I think that that's 64 00:03:55.880 --> 00:03:59.120 what motivated me to love education, because my parents had 65 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:02.200 been denied and they instilled in me like, oh, you know, 66 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:06.600 if you can get education, go for it. Being introduced 67 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:09.440 to the environment from the lens of my grandmother and 68 00:04:09.480 --> 00:04:13.520 my father, it kind of fostered that interest in me 69 00:04:13.640 --> 00:04:20.120 to want to learn more about your environments. I always 70 00:04:20.200 --> 00:04:23.479 noticed how my communities and my relatives back in my 71 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.359 ancestral lens were always dismissed, right, Like if they wanted 72 00:04:26.400 --> 00:04:28.919 to advocate for something in the environment, they'll be like 73 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:31.800 alsos indios, no savin, Like they don't know anything. They're 74 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:34.720 you know, ignorant, Like what are they talking about? And 75 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.520 I think that that's something that my grandmother staled in 76 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:39.800 me because she was like, oh, you have the opportunity 77 00:04:39.880 --> 00:04:44.159 to pursue education, even my parents, right, Like my dad 78 00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:48.240 didn't get any Western education, right because he was busy 79 00:04:48.400 --> 00:04:51.720 as a child trying to support his family after his 80 00:04:51.760 --> 00:04:55.120 father passed away, so he never stepped foot in a classroom, 81 00:04:56.520 --> 00:04:59.280 and I guess I will be my naiveness because I thought, 82 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:01.719 you know, like oh, I bring in my family's teachings 83 00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:04.440 into the curriculum. I could bring it to the professors, 84 00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:08.400 They're gonna really accept it. But when I went into 85 00:05:08.440 --> 00:05:11.479 the classrooms, oftentimes, you know, I was ridiculed by professors 86 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:13.200 because there will be like, oh, you need to cite this, 87 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:17.240 you know, you need to go towards peer review articles, 88 00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:19.760 or you know, is this Jessica's theory? Where is this 89 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.400 information coming from? When I was sharing testimonies or lift 90 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:28.320 experiences that will hint towards the topic we were discussing, 91 00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:32.120 but because it wasn't published or it didn't have any 92 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:36.680 scientific credibility, it was like dismissed and oftentimes ridiculed by 93 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:39.600 my professor's right. Even as a graduate student, I had 94 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:42.280 to sit in classrooms while they were laughing like I 95 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:44.279 had just like set a joke or something, and I 96 00:05:44.320 --> 00:05:48.520 was like, okay, but that just shows you how professors, 97 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:54.320 you know, especially why scientists can be dismissive towards indigenous peoples, right, 98 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:57.039 And that was me, somebody who had privileged to be 99 00:05:57.080 --> 00:06:00.280 in that classes. So I could just imagine how they 100 00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:03.240 would treat our communities if they went to our communities, 101 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:05.279 and they will share all these stories as well, right, 102 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:06.799 they'll probably laugh. 103 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:07.279 As well. 104 00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:14.080 To see how they were very dismissive. Kind of like 105 00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:17.039 made me understand that you know, what I had mbitioned 106 00:06:17.200 --> 00:06:20.400 environmental sciences to be as a field wasn't necessarily what 107 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.760 it was going to be. The sciences have the lowest 108 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:27.800 diverse populations of students and even professors. I don't recall 109 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:33.599 indigenous professor throughout my undergraduates. So even in my graduate degree, 110 00:06:33.640 --> 00:06:36.480 like if I wanted to work with an indigenous professor, 111 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.839 I had to go to the Department of American Indian 112 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:41.839 Studies or the Department of Ethnic Studies. But it wasn't 113 00:06:41.880 --> 00:06:45.680 necessarily within the College of the Environment or the departments 114 00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:49.240 of the Environments. But my grandmother always told me, like, 115 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:52.400 if you can learn how the colonizers, so you know, 116 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:56.599 the Gringo speak, you can help us advocate for our environments. 117 00:06:56.640 --> 00:06:59.480 Right because now, like they're not going to dismiss our 118 00:06:59.520 --> 00:07:07.400 way of no, because we can use that Western terminology. Personally, 119 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:10.560 I prefer to use the term indigenous science as opposed 120 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:15.360 to traditional ecological knowledge, because oftentimes I think that traditional 121 00:07:15.400 --> 00:07:19.960 ecological knowledge has this connotation that it's knowledge that no 122 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:23.480 longer exists, or that it's kind of like traditional in 123 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:26.280 the sense that it belongs to a museum, as opposed 124 00:07:26.320 --> 00:07:31.040 to it's alive and has adapted over the years. Our 125 00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:34.280 knowledge systems are a form of science, if anything. They're 126 00:07:34.400 --> 00:07:38.440 like the longest living in science on planet Earth because 127 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:43.000 it has been kind of created or passed down through generations. 128 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.920 It has also adapted as our environments adapted. Because you know, 129 00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:52.400 our indigenous science that probably our great grandparents had, it's 130 00:07:52.440 --> 00:07:55.120 not the same that you know we have because our 131 00:07:55.240 --> 00:08:01.040 environments have drastically changed because of climate change, ury and 132 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.240 everything that colonialism introduced to our lands. And I think 133 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:09.840 that one of my biggest push is that indigenous peoples 134 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:14.280 are scientists, and that oftentimes we are told, because we 135 00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:17.560 live in under this Desettler frameworks, that we have to 136 00:08:17.640 --> 00:08:22.440 obtain degrees for our knowledge to be validated. But you know, 137 00:08:22.520 --> 00:08:27.040 all of indigenous peoples who have that knowledge to steward 138 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:31.520 their lands, to co manage their resources with their entire 139 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:35.880 community tribes or pueblos, hold on to that science that 140 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:40.360 is the foundation of our existence and resistance. They might 141 00:08:40.400 --> 00:08:43.920 not be peer review or published as much as you know, 142 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.680 the Western sciences, but it holds as much credibility as 143 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:52.520 the Western sciences do. I was always interested in trying 144 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:56.079 to write a book that boys my father's story, especially 145 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.840 history as a child soldier who fought in the Civil War, 146 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:05.120 and I think that once I was able to get 147 00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:08.680 him to sit down and tell me his whole story, 148 00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:11.320 it kind of like spark an interest for me to 149 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:15.880 write it. I wanted to be able to share his story, 150 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:17.800 but I also wanted to be able to tie in 151 00:09:17.880 --> 00:09:21.840 the stories of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my relatives, 152 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:25.800 my community members, and other people that I'm in community with, 153 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:31.280 so that we can amplify how indigenous rights, even if 154 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:35.559 we're talking about immigration rights, are all interconnected to our environment. 155 00:09:37.520 --> 00:09:40.560 Through the book, I weave different scenarios or case studies 156 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:44.040 of communities who have led that movement, and hopefully that 157 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:47.280 also shows people and the readers that you know, it 158 00:09:47.400 --> 00:09:51.120 is something that they can support instead of co opting 159 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:53.400 or stealing. Because I also tends to happen right in 160 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:55.720 the Western framework where people are like, oh, that's a 161 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:57.920 great idea. Let me go steal it and name it 162 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:01.199 something else and then pretend I'm the founder when it's 163 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.560 like indigenous knowledgists that were shared to certain people and 164 00:10:04.600 --> 00:10:08.160 then they take that ownership. One of the examples that 165 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:11.680 I can give is permaculture. So permaculture is this like 166 00:10:11.800 --> 00:10:15.760 holistic way of doing agriculture where you're not necessarily putting 167 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:20.320 much labor into the agricultural system, but the agricultural system 168 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:23.000 is sustaining in itself. And when you look at the 169 00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:26.480 history of permaculture, it was founded, you know, and I 170 00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:30.440 quote that founded by a white man who went to 171 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:36.839 Australia and learned from some Aborigine communities, and permaculture then 172 00:10:36.920 --> 00:10:41.880 became this like really expensive certificate that you can get. 173 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.880 That's one of the critiques that I make in the 174 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:47.760 book on how we should dismantle the fact that Indigenous 175 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:50.800 peoples are seeing as research subjects and areas of expertise 176 00:10:51.280 --> 00:10:55.319 rather than the scientists and experts themselves, even without degrees. 177 00:10:57.000 --> 00:10:59.280 There's a lot of research articles written about the Sample 178 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:02.520 Tape community. But when I have asked people in my 179 00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:04.920 community or did you know this and that you know 180 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.040 that was written about our community, They're like, oh, I 181 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:09.439 had never heard that, So that shows you how many 182 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:12.600 of the times indigenous peoples are used as the research 183 00:11:12.679 --> 00:11:16.800 subjects and not the research experts. I'm really careful with 184 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:21.920 like not sharing any medicinal remedies or sacred knowledge because 185 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:23.719 it's kind of hard, right, because you don't know who 186 00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:26.679 to trust. And I think that being exposed to all 187 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.720 these stories of co optation, our knowledge theft made me 188 00:11:30.800 --> 00:11:33.040 a little bit more guarded on the knowledge I will share. 189 00:11:33.280 --> 00:11:35.920 So I feel like I always walked the fine line 190 00:11:35.920 --> 00:11:39.560 of sharing my Indigenous knowledge with other people because you know, 191 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.120 it can either be copt this stolen, or it also 192 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:46.439 invalidated or dismissed. What I want readers to take away 193 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:49.640 from this book is to learn more about the indigenous 194 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:53.600 movements that are happening across the Americas, because oftentimes we 195 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:58.480 fail to recognize how our certain identities contribute to sellar 196 00:11:58.559 --> 00:12:02.400 colonialism back in Latin America. In the United States, we 197 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:06.000 focus more on being oppressed because we are oppressed as 198 00:12:06.040 --> 00:12:09.200 people of color. But when we go back to Latin America, 199 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:12.880 is after indigenous, black and Indigenous people who are oppressed 200 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:15.480 by you know, some of us. And I think that 201 00:12:15.559 --> 00:12:19.199 hopefully that brings a new perspective to the whole narrative 202 00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:22.520 of the oppressed and the oppressor, and how we can 203 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:28.280 work together to undo that. One of the things that 204 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:31.520 I talk about in the book is that conservation is 205 00:12:31.640 --> 00:12:35.640 a Western construct because in our languages, like if I 206 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.080 were to try to translate conservation to the Sybotech language 207 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:43.360 or the Miotority language or other languages that many Indigenous 208 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:47.560 people speak, there is no word that directly translates to conservation. 209 00:12:47.760 --> 00:12:51.319 Most of the words that kind of tie or are 210 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:57.679 interconnected to conservation focus more on protection, like protecting our environment. 211 00:12:58.280 --> 00:13:01.120 Most of the words in our languages hint towards healing 212 00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:05.960 rather than you like conserving. Is not only that it 213 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:09.160 cannot be directly translated to our languages, but sometimes it 214 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:13.760 comes in conflict where a way of life and oftentimes 215 00:13:14.040 --> 00:13:17.920 in the name of conservation. There is this oppression used 216 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.440 against indigenous peoples, especially when it comes to their inherited 217 00:13:22.520 --> 00:13:26.640 rights to have access to certain natural resources, and we 218 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:30.320 see that in national parks. When national parks were created, 219 00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:35.079 it was under this framework to conserve the natural, pristine wilderness, 220 00:13:35.520 --> 00:13:38.319 when in reality there was a lot of indigenous communities 221 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:42.280 who lived in those lands that are now national parks 222 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:47.040 that were exploited, oppressed, and kind of removed from their 223 00:13:47.040 --> 00:13:49.960 ancestral lands. And I think that it kind of shows 224 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.559 the nuances that need to be discussed in the national 225 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:56.480 park system because a lot of these monuments have names 226 00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:00.559 of violent people that perpetated that violence against Indigenous communities 227 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:04.480 that were violently ripped off or remove from their lands. 228 00:14:07.760 --> 00:14:10.840 So the project that I conducted for my dissertation was 229 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:15.280 to indigenize restoration in Discovery Park, located in Seattle, Washington, 230 00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:18.360 is the largest urban park in the state of Washington, 231 00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:22.240 and that's an interesting park because it has a really 232 00:14:22.280 --> 00:14:25.680 beautiful Indigenous history behind it. I decided to use my 233 00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:29.280 PhD to try to restore and heal some of those 234 00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:33.080 twenty acres of land. But in that way, what I 235 00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:37.440 decided to do was to amplify and center the Indigenous 236 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:41.440 ways of healing our earth. And one of the teachings 237 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:46.120 that our elders were able to teach us to practice 238 00:14:46.160 --> 00:14:50.840 was that under Western conservation, in basis species, they're like 239 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:55.760 known as pests or weeds, but for Indigenous communities, we 240 00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:59.640 should see them as displaced relatives because there are someone's 241 00:14:59.680 --> 00:15:03.160 relative tists that have been displaced, like many of us have. 242 00:15:04.280 --> 00:15:07.160 I gotten a lot of fights with the Seattle Parks 243 00:15:07.160 --> 00:15:10.360 and Recreation Department because you know, even the way that 244 00:15:10.760 --> 00:15:13.120 they wanted us to take care of the weeds was 245 00:15:13.160 --> 00:15:15.200 different than the way we were told to take care 246 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:17.920 of the weeds by our elders, because you know, for them, 247 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:20.320 it's like their weeds they just have to be removed 248 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:22.600 versus you know us. We will do prayers and we 249 00:15:22.640 --> 00:15:25.640 will ask for their permission to leave, you know, the 250 00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:29.000 land so that native species can come back in. So 251 00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:30.600 it was a lot of like I wouldn't say, like 252 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:33.080 really bad conflict, but a lot of like fights with 253 00:15:33.520 --> 00:15:37.800 Seattle Parks because of the way that we practice restoration 254 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:43.280 wasn't aligned to their rule book. One of the interesting 255 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:46.280 metaphors that I use in the book is that banana 256 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:50.160 trees are invasive to Central America, yet we have embraced 257 00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:53.400 them our relatives, right. And I think that that's a 258 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:56.360 metaphor that I use for my lift experiences and the 259 00:15:56.400 --> 00:16:01.080 lift experiences of many displaced indigenous peoples that as banana trees, 260 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:04.800 we have also been displaced from our ancestral lands, yet 261 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.320 we adapt to our environments, and in this case, you know, 262 00:16:08.920 --> 00:16:12.040 sometimes we're welcome into those environments. Like in the case 263 00:16:12.040 --> 00:16:15.000 of banana trees, like you know in Central America, they 264 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.520 have been used in our traditional foods to make our 265 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:21.640 tamalis platanos. We you know, we fry them. Yet they're 266 00:16:21.680 --> 00:16:25.360 displaced relatives, right, They're not native species. They come from 267 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.120 Southeast Asia, but they were introduced. And I think, like 268 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:33.440 banana trees, displaced indigenous peoples, we're forced to adapt to 269 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:37.200 our new environments and hopefully, you know, for some of us, 270 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:42.000 we're working to become welcome into those new environments. One 271 00:16:42.040 --> 00:16:44.440 of the teachers on my grandma always told me was 272 00:16:44.520 --> 00:16:47.840 that anywhere I walked that wasn't my lands, I wasn't 273 00:16:47.880 --> 00:16:50.400 a welcome guest, right, because it was like, we're going 274 00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:53.200 into other people's homes, and those other people are the 275 00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:57.040 indigenous peoples whose lands were walking on. And I think 276 00:16:57.080 --> 00:16:59.400 that one of the things she always told me to 277 00:16:59.560 --> 00:17:02.600 think of about was how do you become a welcome guest, right? 278 00:17:02.640 --> 00:17:05.640 Because I have to still navigate that as a displaced 279 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.240 indigenous woman, and the same way that I want people 280 00:17:08.280 --> 00:17:15.280 to form those relationships with my communities once they're in Wahaka. 281 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:19.040 One of the beauties of being an Indigenous instructor, especially 282 00:17:19.040 --> 00:17:21.640 in the college setting, is that I can support other 283 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.240 Indigenous students. I want to inspire students to find that 284 00:17:25.320 --> 00:17:28.439 sense of belonging, because like I always crave to have 285 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:32.960 an indigenous professor teaching me about the environmental sciences, but 286 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:36.080 I never got that. In a way, sometimes I question, like, oh, 287 00:17:36.119 --> 00:17:38.159 do I really want to become a professor? Go for 288 00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:41.040 ten years? But then I think about my younger self, 289 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:43.920 and I think about that eighteen year old who crave 290 00:17:44.040 --> 00:17:47.959 that indigenous professor that she could approach after class and 291 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:51.119 talk to them, right, And I think that being an 292 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:55.119 Indigenous instructor now kind of allows me to cater to 293 00:17:55.160 --> 00:17:55.840 those students. 294 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:29.520 This episode was produced by Victoria Strada. It was edited 295 00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:33.680 by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. It was mixed by Gabriel Labiez. 296 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:38.320 The Latino USA team includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Dominique 297 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:44.000 Estrosa Rinaldo Leanos Junior, Stephanie Lebo, Luis Luna Marta Martinez, 298 00:18:44.040 --> 00:18:48.960 Norsaudi and Nancy Trujillo, Penille Ramirez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garcia 299 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:52.080 and myself are your co executive producers and I'm your host, 300 00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:55.320 Mariao Morosa. You can find us on your podcast feed 301 00:18:55.320 --> 00:18:59.440 at Latino Usa. Also on our website Latino Usa dot org. 302 00:18:59.840 --> 00:19:03.080 We have extended versions of our stories dropping every Friday 303 00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:06.439 and Sunday. Join us again on our next episode. Dear listener, 304 00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:09.359 in the meantime, I'll see you on social media. Estell approxima. 305 00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:19.200 Yes, Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment, 306 00:19:19.520 --> 00:19:22.840 building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians, 307 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:27.919 The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for more than fifty 308 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:33.800 years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better 309 00:19:33.840 --> 00:19:39.240 world at Hewlett dot org, and funding for Latino USA 310 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:42.360 is Coverage of a culture of health is made possible 311 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:50.200 in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Okay, yeah, 312 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:50.879 I know that. 313 00:19:51.040 --> 00:19:55.840 Okay. So the title of the book is Fresh Banana 314 00:19:55.880 --> 00:19:59.040 Leafs Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science.