🎙️ Rooted Wisdom – Season 2, Episode [X]: “Native Imagery in Agricultural Art” with Dr. Browning Neddeau

🧠 Episode Summary

In this thought-provoking episode, host Tish Mindemann sits down with Dr. Browning Neddeau, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and professor at Chico State University, to explore the intersection of Native American imagery, agricultural crate labels, and public perception. Dr. Neddeau shares his personal journey, research insights, and the cultural implications of how Indigenous peoples have been portrayed in agricultural art over time.

🧾 What You’ll Learn

• The history and evolution of agricultural crate labels from the 1880s to today.
• How Native imagery has been used—and often misused—on food packaging.
• The impact of these visuals on societal understandings of Native identity.
• Why representation matters in art, agriculture, and cultural history.
• The story behind iconic labels like Land O'Lakes and their transformation.
• How Dr. Neddeau’s research contributes to material culture studies and educational awareness.

🧑‍🏫 About the Guest

Dr. Browning Neddeau is an associate professor of Elementary Teacher Education and American Indian Studies at California State University, Chico. He serves on the National Advisory Council for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education. His research focuses on Native American representation in agricultural art, particularly crate labels, and how these images shape cultural narratives.

🖼️ Key Topics Covered

• The four eras of crate label art: Naturalistic, Advertising, Commercial, and Modern.
• The persistence of outdated imagery and its cultural consequences.
• The role of gendered depictions in Native imagery.
• The importance of tribal specificity and avoiding generalizations.
• How collecting and curating crate labels can be a form of storytelling and cultural reflection.

📚 Resources & Links

• Learn more about Dr. Neddeau’s work and research collections.
• Explore the Intertribal Agricultural Council for Native-owned agricultural products.
• Support IFAI and its mission to promote Indigenous food and agriculture initiatives.

🛒 Takeaway Challenge

Next time you're at the grocery store or farmer’s market, take a closer look at the labels. What stories are they telling? What histories are they preserving—or erasing?

00;00;04;16 - 00;00;31;00

Tish Mindemann

Welcome back to Rooted Wisdom. We hope you've enjoyed our season so far, but if you've missed any of our episodes, be sure to go back and check them out. This episode features Dr. Browning Neddeau, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and professor of Multicultural and Gender Studies at Chico State University. Dr. Neddeau's research specialty is Native American imagery on agricultural crate labels and their significance.

00;00;31;03 - 00;00;53;25

Tish Mindemann

Join us as we explore what these crate labels are, how they've generally portrayed Indigenous peoples, and what those images mean for public perceptions. Good afternoon, Dr. Neddeau. We are so glad to have you on the podcast to share about your research. I'd like to jump right in with a little background about yourself and your research. Can you tell us a little about that?

00;00;53;28 - 00;01;33;05

Browning Neddeau

Boozhoo gishnawkwé. Browning Neddeau nindizhinikaaz. [Introduction in Potawatomi.] My name is Browning. Hello. And in Pnashwa is my Potawatomi name. I am from Chico, California, but I'm originally from Hollister, California. I am enrolled Citizen Potawatomi Nation and I come from my - my father's side is Potawatomi, and his name is Donald Leroy Neddeau Paso. And my paternal grandparents are Marjorie Lucy Neddeau Te-Quah and Leroy Bernard Neddeau.

00;01;33;08 - 00;01;59;27

Browning Neddeau

And on my mom's side, I'm Jewish and my mother's name is Madeline Neddeau and my maternal grandparents are Irmgard Sarah Clark and Robert Clark. I think that's important to me because without all of those folks, I wouldn't be here. So I like to honor them in my talks. I'm named after my Uncle F. Browning Pipestem, who also is the person who welcomed me in as a Southern straight dancer when I was about five years old.

00;02;00;02 - 00;02;27;04

Browning Neddeau

And I serve as an associate professor of elementary teacher education in American Indian Studies at California State University, Chico. And I serve on the National Advisory Council for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education and Core. Prior to being in higher education, I was a public elementary school teacher. So I come to this work with agricultural crate labels and Native imagery

00;02;27;06 - 00;02;53;11

Browning Neddeau

as someone who's been interested in agriculture, but also someone who's interested in curriculum and instruction work in elementary school, high school and college, and that Native imagery on that cultural labels was something that came to me a bit later because my work was originally on agricultural crate label art not specific to Native imagery on agricultural crate labels.

00;02;53;13 - 00;02;57;24

Tish Mindemann

So you mentioned Native imagery and agricultural crate labels.

00;02;57;24 - 00;03;01;27

Tish Mindemann

What does that mean for those of us who are unfamiliar with those terms?

00;03;01;29 - 00;03;33;20

Browning Neddeau

Sure. So Native imagery and agricultural labels, agricultural crate labels are those pieces of artwork or things that say what's inside of something that's carrying fruits, vegetables or whatnot from different industries, Like maybe you have corn or apples or pears. And those boxes or crates have artistic value on the front of them to say what's in the crate.

00;03;33;22 - 00;04;05;13

Browning Neddeau

00;04;05;18 - 00;04;37;29

Browning Neddeau

00;04;38;01 - 00;04;55;23

Tish Mindemann

We run into that a lot in Indian Country, where people are often, “well, Native American still exist?” And it's like, Yeah. So what initially drew you to study Native imagery on agricultural crate labels?

00;04;55;23 - 00;05;16;18

Browning Neddeau

At a young age, elementary school age. I don't know the exact age I was, but it was elementary school. I lived in San Benito County, kind of almost in the middle of California, and I was fascinated with agricultural products and their artwork on the products.

00;05;16;20 - 00;05;39;15

Browning Neddeau

And I recall my first label that I was able to own was from Monterey, and I'm pretty sure it was a sardine can label. And I wasn't interested in sardines, but I was interested in the artwork on the can label. And it was supposed to be like an antique label, vintage label, which now people say vintage around here

00;05;39;15 - 00;05;43;06

Browning Neddeau

00;05;43;09 - 00;05;53;21

Tish Mindemann

00;05;53;23 - 00;06;18;22

Browning Neddeau

00;06;18;24 - 00;06;44;01

Browning Neddeau

And during the research for that installation, which was not specific to Native imagery, but that was the time that I noticed there was Native imagery on the labels, like many different labels. And I wanted to investigate Native imagery on agricultural crate labels further after I finished the initial installation. So that brings me to this ongoing work with Native imagery on agricultural crate labels.

00;06;44;01 - 00;06;54;04

Browning Neddeau

00;06;54;06 - 00;06;59;04

Tish Mindemann

So how did the use of Native imagery on these labels evolve over time?

00;06;59;11 - 00;07;15;03

Browning Neddeau

Thank you. So McClelland and colleague in their book about California orange box labels shared that there are four eras in the art on agricultural crate labels.

00;07;15;06 - 00;07;47;21

Browning Neddeau

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Browning Neddeau

00;08;23;02 - 00;08;36;25

Browning Neddeau

And one of them is Native imagery. Another is flowers, birds, animals and pioneer heroes. Let's take a breath before I say pioneer heroes. What does that look like? What does that mean?

00;08;36;25 - 00;08;38;13

Browning Neddeau

Right.

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Browning Neddeau

00;08;56;15 - 00;09;32;04

Browning Neddeau

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Browning Neddeau

00;09;59;02 - 00;10;22;14

Browning Neddeau

00;10;22;17 - 00;10;43;17

Tish Mindemann

Yeah, I remember growing up when we would get Tootsie Pops, everybody would look for the Native American shooting the Arrow on the Tootsie Pop, and like I remember the you know, you're always looking for that imagery on there because it meant you got a free Tootsie Pop.

00;10;43;20 - 00;11;04;21

Tish Mindemann

So that's what I remember as because we weren't Land O'Lakes people. We were Highland butter people. But that's like the Native American imagery that like I remember on food products when I was growing up.

00;11;04;24 - 00;11;08;14

Browning Neddeau

I remember those too, that’s fun.

00;11;08;16 - 00;11;21;07

Tish Mindemann

What ways do you think that that Native imagery on those food packaging labels and those kinds of things, how do you think that that shaped societal understandings of Native history and culture?

00;11;21;10 - 00;11;50;04

Browning Neddeau

Thank you. This gets at the main crux of what I'm currently doing the research on, and it appears that Native imagery has either sustained or advanced that naturalistic era image that was mentioned earlier that does not take into account region specific tribes, villages and pueblos. This is not to say that agricultural labels should appropriate region specific tribes, villages and pueblos.

00;11;50;07 - 00;12;17;02

Browning Neddeau

They should not do that. However, what seems to be occurring is westward expansion in imagery. As history shifts expansion to the West Coast, where there's a lot of agriculture done in California, the settler state of California. So do stereotyped images of what makes an Indian on the labels, including the use of feathers, masculinity and femininity and headdresses that cannot be generalized.

00;12;17;04 - 00;12;49;24

Browning Neddeau

So even though we have these labels still existing, people start looking at the labels for understanding Indians, and they're getting this false idea that all Indians look the same and/or looked the same, because they don't think we are here anyway. And I argue that Native imagery has not evolved over time on the agricultural labels because some of them are still using labels from the naturalistic era where Native Americans were specifically mentioned as something that would be beautiful on an agricultural crate label.

00;12;49;26 - 00;13;23;21

Browning Neddeau

00;13;23;23 - 00;13;43;24

Browning Neddeau

And that was during World War Two, where shifts in people who were available to make agricultural labels were off, sent to war. And some people haven't updated the labels since that time, including the Native imagery that might have occurred decades before that time.

00;13;43;26 - 00;14;20;27

Tish Mindemann

So when we're thinking about these agricultural crate labels and you were talking about how it you know, Native Americans are not a monolith, peoples that lived on this land looked differently. They had different agriculture structures, they had different governance structures. So when we look at these labels, how accurately do these images present or represent these tribal nations and their citizens, and what are the implications of those inaccuracies?

00;14;21;00 - 00;14;35;12

Browning Neddeau

Thank you. So in terms of the non-American Indian owned agricultural crate labels, the images in my experiences with doing this research do not represent tribal nations and their citizens.

00;14;35;14 - 00;15;02;21

Browning Neddeau

The Intertribal Agricultural Council can point listeners to the American Indian owned agricultural products, which could tell a different story than what this question is asking about, what you asked about. So I don't think that they accurately represent tribal nations and their citizens, but it creates this false narrative about Native people and what we're supposed to look like in the eyes of these generalities.

00;15;02;23 - 00;15;44;03

Tish Mindemann

Now, when we interact at different places with Native peoples, I often hear people say, “I know I don't look Native,” and it's like there's no Native look. Like you look Native because you are Native. How do you think that the general public perceives the Native imagery on agricultural labels? Do you think it's a positive or a negative? And when I say general public, I'm not talking about Native circles or circles like ours where we're interacting with tribes and those kinds of things, like just the general public.

00;15;44;03 - 00;15;46;10

Tish Mindemann

How do you think they perceive that Native imagery?

00;15;46;16 - 00;16;31;09

Browning Neddeau

I feel like there might be that connection back to that naturalistic era still that Natives in the past tense are beautiful, strong. And there's gendered roles on these agricultural labels where we see people who are male presenting on agricultural labels as someone who is very strong, and then the person who is, I suppose, looking like a female on the agricultural crate label is leaning on the male identified person in the illustration, and not as in a powerful position as the male figure on these agricultural crate labels.

00;16;31;11 - 00;17;00;05

Browning Neddeau

I think there needs to be greater awareness about cultural misappropriation on agricultural crate labels and the harm this does to our people and communities. Not only do we not all look the same, but we can't apply caretaking of feathers to all tribes, villages and pueblos, and do not think that the general public takes much notice of the harm the agricultural crate labels do to peoples and communities.

00;17;00;07 - 00;17;45;07

Browning Neddeau

Perhaps because they think it's a beautiful thing and kind of a relic of the past and more of an object than of a peoples. And some of this work with objects is seen in the arts research, which is material culture, where we try to look at collecting and collections and objects or things. In my other work with wooden Indians or cigar store Indians, they look at how Native work is also, our plant relatives, people and all these different connections and humans are just one of the pieces, but not objects.

00;17;45;13 - 00;17;58;11

Browning Neddeau

And I think that might be for this particular question. I don't know if the whole general public has that same feeling if you're not in that community. There's a lot more education to do.

00;17;58;11 - 00;18;40;28

Tish Mindemann

For sure. Yeah, because when we think about that label where the female isn't as strong as the male in those visual representations, there are so many tribes that are matriarchal and like women are strong, fierce individuals in those. And so when you generalize like that, it takes away from that strength and power that our mothers have and those kinds of things. So as we close out, how do you envision your research contributing to broader discussions about art and agriculture and cultural history?

00;18;41;00 - 00;20;01;25

Browning Neddeau

00;20;01;25 - 00;20;29;23

Browning Neddeau

00;20;29;23 - 00;21;12;01

Browning Neddeau

As the visual arts, agriculture and culture continues to thrive and we're moving forward and not something that situates in past, I believe that my research will contribute to raising awareness, specifically cultural awareness and how Native imagery is part of material culture as I mentioned earlier, and not only on agricultural crate labels. Something that I think is beautiful about collecting and collections is that everyone may have a different way to do it. How I collect and store agricultural crate labels might be different from my neighbor or someone else.

00;21;12;04 - 00;21;43;11

Browning Neddeau

Perhaps my research will encourage other people to consider how they are collecting and how they're sorting and sifting through their collections, and how they choose to explore the full potential and understanding the world in which we live through how they're collecting in the stories they find from their collections. Because I started collecting specifically Native imagery on agricultural crate labels, not as my first area of work.

00;21;43;13 - 00;22;17;18

Browning Neddeau

I was just noticing it as a theme as I was collecting agricultural crate labels to explain or understand the history of agriculture and art, mostly in the Salinas valley of California. And that's when I started noticing all these Native images. So maybe if people found my collection, maybe they - my research or my collection - they might be interested in looking through theirs and rethinking about how they organize their collections to better understand the world.

00;22;17;20 - 00;22;44;26

Tish Mindemann

I love that this, for you, seems to be about educating and bringing awareness and really showing people that there are these images, but we don't have to continue in that way and you can think that the art is pretty, but understanding the story behind the art is just as important.

00;22;44;29 - 00;23;06;29

Browning Neddeau

There's so much more to just what people put on - and it also tells us, besides what they put on the label, it tells us a little bit about what was going on during the time, like what was societal thinking during that time. But a challenge with the labels are people are still using the same agricultural crate labels from decades ago, and times have changed. Understanding has hopefully changed.

00;23;07;01 - 00;23;15;09

Browning Neddeau

But then people go back to look at the labels, and that story has not changed because the labels are still the same, right?

00;23;15;16 - 00;23;35;05

Tish Mindemann

00;23;35;07 - 00;23;49;21

Tish Mindemann

I really appreciate you speaking with us today. And this is a fascinating dive into how agriculture and art blend together. And I wish you much luck on the rest of your research.

00;23;49;28 - 00;24;01;15

Browning Neddeau

Thank you so much. I think as Native people, we have an interesting vantage point in this work as we're intertwined with our connection and relationship to the land and plant relatives.

00;24;01;17 - 00;24;14;25

Browning Neddeau

That brings a different perspective and entry point for this type of work. So I'm just happy to be able to share. And thanks so much for inviting me today.

00;24;14;27 - 00;24;25;11

Tish Mindemann

We would love to thank Dr. Neddeau for his time and expertise. We hope you've enjoyed this episode and next time you head to the grocery store or Farmer's Market, take a look at the labels for yourself.

00;24;25;14 - 00;24;43;29

Tish Mindemann

Maybe they might inspire you to find out more about the backstory of the imagery or think about the impacts that these visuals can have on public opinion. If you would like to see more of Dr. Neddeau’s research, or if you would like to support IFAI and our work, check out the show notes for more information. As always, stay rooted in wisdom.