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Hi, there, I'm Aileen. Welcome to my kitchen.

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I just finished preparing charred eggplants with onions, tomatoes, and ginger

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for my toddler, Ila. I love to cook these vegetables not only because

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Ila is this total fiend for them, but these kinds of crops are

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what help me pass on roots to her using all of her senses.

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When I was growing up, my relatives used to teach me Filipino nursery

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songs about beloved and everyday vegetables. This taught me that, in so

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many ways, our food connects us not only to our taste buds,

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but to our eardrums. The aromas of this dish make me think about

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connection, and this is what brings me to a topic that we're gonna

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Memories and songs that shape our homes.

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I brought together two leaders with deep wisdom on this topic.

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Lilian Hill is an indigenous land steward who works to create community

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based indigenous led organizations that address resource extraction, food

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and housing inequities, and infrastructure that builds resilience. Shorlette

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Ammons is a food equity educator who works to confront the role of

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institutions in creating a more just and equitable food system for all people.

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Settle in and enjoy our conversation. Hello, Lilian, and hello, Shorlette.

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Welcome. Thank you for making time to come around our virtual kitchen table.

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Something I wanted to learn more about, and I feel like a conversation

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would be so incredibly rich, is about the memories and songs that shape

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our sense of home. And I think that a conversation with the two

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of you will just brings so much truth and so many first hand

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stories about what this could mean. And before we jump in,

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I want to invite us to center our minds with a question:

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When you hear the word "home" what kinds of memories or songs come

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up for you? And, Lilian, could I invite you to kick us off? When

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I hear the word "home" I am taken to a place where I

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was born and where I grew up, which is on the Hopi Reservation

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in Northern Arizona on the High Mesa tops where, when you look all

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around you, you can see the landscape, you can see the sunrise and

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move through the sky and see it set. And I grew up in

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the home of my great grandmother below a kiva, which is a sacred

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place where a lot of our ceremonies take place. And during part of

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the year, there would be singing, and there would be the sound of

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a drum at night when our spiritual beings would come into the village,

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and they would prepare for ceremony, so home is hearing these songs and

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hearing the drum. And also, behind my great grandmother's home, there's

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a mesa and there's some rock outcroppings where I would go and sit

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up on the rocks, and just roam and play and just be.

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Growing up in the village, I felt secure and I felt that I

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was a part of not only my space and my place,

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but part of the larger universe, or part of the larger paradigm that

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exists in the natural world. Thank you for transporting us there, Lilian.

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And, Shorlette, what kinds of memories or songs of home come up for

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you? In hearing Lilian's reflection, I instantly thought of dirt.

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I'm from the country, but I think the thing that comes to me

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first, instantly, I get smells and sounds when I conjure home that just

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have seemed to follow me around. Some of it is about place,

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but it's mostly about an experience or what I feel is kind of

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this presence, similar to Lilian, that just kinda stays with me,

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she described it as a part of a larger universe,

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feel that connection. Home is not necessarily about a specific location,

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but a place that just kind of follows me around, that's deeply embedded.

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We used to call my cast iron skillet a spider, so I can

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smell and hear the grease from frying chicken on Sunday mornings.

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Cooking in the spider, I hear the crackle of

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me and my twin sister's hair being straightened with a hot comb. In

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that same kitchen, a lot happened in the kitchen, it was kind of

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like the center of our family. Instantly hear a lot of laughter,

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a lot of overlapping conversations, we had a lot of folks living in

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one place. I hear the scraping of hog hair with a mayonnaise lid, that

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was our role as little people on hog killing days. And in terms

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of songs, I hear a mix of both secular, kind of '70s soul

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and juke joint kind of music, like Betty Wright and Green Onions, and

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then a lot of gospel 'cause we grew up in the Black church.

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And I instantly think of what I think was my granddaddy's favorite song,

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"Will the Circle Be Unbroken." But we grew up in the choir,

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so a lot of choir practices that we went to kicking and screaming,

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'cause we'd rather be outside playing in the dirt,

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but a lot of cousins laughing and a lot of communal singing.

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Good memories. Thank you for sharing the soundtrack, I can hear it starting

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to build in my mind as you're both telling these stories.

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And, Shorlette, you started to take us there with some of the kitchen

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noises or sounds, the music of the kitchen. Food is so visceral,

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so sensory, so connected to our bodies, and want to invite you to

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share any personal connections or relationship with food that you feel has

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really shaped your path today and the kinds of work that you're doing

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in your community. Food has been a huge part of my life and

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part of my cultural upbringing and background has been really in understanding

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my relationship to food through being out there with my great grandparents

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and with my parents and others, gathering seasonal greens or roots or different

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berries that grew within my people's homeland, so really knowing where these

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foods are in their own space and their own landscape, bringing them home

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and trying them or eating them fresh off of the plants themselves.

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So a lot of wild foods was part of my upbringing and background,

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as well as the meats that we ate, most of the meats came

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from my dad or my uncles, my great grandfather going out and hunting

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during different parts of the season, so ate a lot of jackrabbit, and

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a lot of dove, different types of birds that are out there on

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the land. My family farmed a pretty large area that was handed down

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from back in the day, so we grew

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lots of corn, beans, squash, and chilis. There will always be something

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cooking in the kitchen, whether that's tortillas or yeast bread, green chilli,

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there was just always a lot of food cooking in the kitchen.

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So my connection to food has always been through everyday experience,

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as well as during times like when a baby was born or when

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people were getting married, there was always a lot of food that was

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brought into the spaces, like lots of corn being ground and hot water

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being poured over cornmeal, and that smell is just a very visceral of

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blue cornmeal, and people staring pots and stews brewing over fire.

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And so there's just a lot happening all the time, with ceremonies and

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events happening, so I feel like my food experience was really shaped by

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the community around me and by extended family sharing food and bringing

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food during different times. One of my memories of my grandma was she

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loved potatoes and green chilli, and she loved to cook, and having beans

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sizzling and boiling over the stove was something that I always look forward

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to. And as a young person visiting other families within the village where

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I grew up, there was always grandmas cooking, baking or making cookies,

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or there was always bread or something to eat all the time.

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That's what I remember growing up. And as part of my experience is

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wherever I would go, people would always be either preparing or there would

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be food around for people. No one was ever really hungry.

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Yeah. I would say, similarly, I just have this kind of relationship to

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abundance, what it feels like to have enough in a world of scarcity,

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because even though we were definitely poor, we just always had food either

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right out the door. And it was good food.

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I won't like just kind of Stone Soup Bible of throwing things in a pot.

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It was very intentionally well made, delicious, the kind you would want

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seconds of, which maybe that was the reminder that we were kinda poor,

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'cause you would be limited in the amount of times you could come

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back for more. So that part of my relationship to food feels really

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easy and comfortable, especially coming from a lineage of people who operate

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with this level of discomfort around food systems. So that part of whenever

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I got older and started doing work in food systems, if you come

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from where I come from, it jacks up our relationship with food in

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a lot of ways, because it was so innate, it's hard to see

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a beginning of that relationship. It's just always been. It's definitely

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shifted over time. Maybe that's part of being a grown up,

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really reconcile the systems piece and understanding my role in it,

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and what can I do as a result of that connection to it,

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that joy and that love of the culture and the tradition of food

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that's brought me this far, the ways that people are connected and that

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keeps us connected and creates relationships to each other across cultures.

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Just in Lilian's description of food being all around and somebody always

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preparing food, it was either my grandma or my aunts inside the house,

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but then outside the house will be my granddaddy or my uncles doing the

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physical work of raising hogs. And my granddaddy also had a little side

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hustle, a nab business. He sold nabs and sweets

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at the poultry plant, so it's kind of this industrial connection,

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because even if my family left our little home place, which,

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I don't know, call it a little mini farm, it was more like

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a tenant farming situation. Even if they left that, they left to go

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to another food industry that they didn't have a big stake in or

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a big role in, which is like the poultry industry or his little

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nab spot or something. In terms of how it looks in my work,

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I think my relationship to food, growing up working in the farm as

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a farm worker, it created and instilled my work ethic, my willingness and

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want to work hard, my willingness and want to be efficient,

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not waste my time or other people's time. That has been as early

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as I can remember, so it also informed me working hard in school,

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that same work ethic, but also inspired me to work hard in college

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so I wouldn't have to go back to the field, so I don't

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ever see not having a relationship or connection to food,

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so it's hard to say how it's shaped who I am,

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but it's been that constant informer of who I am. The sharing of

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food is so communal. It's not this individual thing, it's so communal,

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it's so linked to relationships and family. And both of you just shared

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this story of being rooted in the love and celebration that can come

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with food and the abundance that can come with food shared in a

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communal way. And I wanna actually lift up this question, this theme that

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you touched on, Shorlette, in your sharing, which was about going from food

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relationships to food systems and how that starts to get real sticky and

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more complicated, I want to ask both of you, in the ways that

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you've been practicing these abundant communally rooted experiences of food,

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how have you seen these changes happening? Are there traditions that you

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see disappearing that feel important to protect or to keep going?

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I think the changes can be subtle, but it can also be

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a shock in a lot of ways. I think within my own experience

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growing up during those times on our Reservation, I've seen a real shift

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in the way that my own food culture are within... My own traditional

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food system has changed dramatically, and I think a lot of change has

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come about through change in an economic experience. And for a lot of

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folks living on the Reservation, people who don't have a lot of access

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to 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM jobs, or this cash market economy is

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hit and miss out there where I'm from, 'cause I'm from a very

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rural place as well. And so people living on the Reservation are and

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were back in the '80s and '90s, more self sufficient, had their own

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hustle, or were artists who stayed home and worked and just made however

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much income they needed to live and to survive. And I think that

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really changed within the past 15 20 years perhaps, where folks have become

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more mobile and have become more economically supported in different ways,

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either through leaving Reservations for jobs and then coming back home,

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and sending more resources home to the community. But for my own experience

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from my own parents and for a lot of folks in my community,

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being self employed, there was more freedom to do the things that needed

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to be done around preparing food or growing food and being connected to

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food in that way. And so when folks moved away from that lifestyle,

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I see this drastic change. And there was a lot of commodity food

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also coming into the reservation from food banks and from outside of the

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community, and so that created a lot of dependents for the community as

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well. Leaving or stepping away from subsistence or farming lifestyle to

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be more dependent on this larger corporate food system and not really knowing

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what the repercussions of that would be, but more so seeing it as

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a stepping stone to this American dream, or a stepping stone for a

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better life for the next generations or for the little ones coming up,

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through that change, through the folks leaving the Reservation or more resources

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coming in, somehow I feel like more and more people have stopped farming,

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have stopped being connected to the traditional food ways in general,

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and are moving more towards being supported by a larger food system,

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where folks don't know where this food is coming from, they don't know

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if it's even healthy or what's in it.

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More and more so, I feel like our communities are becoming less connected

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to food and to the traditions and to the knowledge and wisdom that

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has been there for us for a very long time.

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In 2004, there was a food assessment done for the Hopi community,

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and what that revealed is that less and less people are farming or

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are directly harvesting or gathering food than ever before, and that a large

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percentage of people are sourcing food from outside of the community,

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so that creates a number of issues and a number of problems.

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One of them is that the economic resources are leaving the community,

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food that is basically foreign to our communities and our people is being

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imported into the community, which causes a whole slew of health issues

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and health problems, and so we're seeing increases in diabetes and obesity,

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and those are issues that come with this food system. And so we're

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definitely not removed from that system, we're directly a part of that.

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Looking into the future and the future of our own communities and our

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own people and the health of our community, we have to return to

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the ways that have been left for us, the ways that we oftentimes more

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and more so cast those things aside, or we say, "Okay,

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those are things that they did in the past." We have to be

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modern people, and being modern people means that we let go of our

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traditions and our culture and our rootedness to accept this larger paradigm,

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which ultimately is rooted in capitalism, is rooted in a system that doesn't

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care about us, that exploits us over and over again.

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Once you start making that connection, once you start to understand this

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larger food system and this larger paradigm, you really begin to understand

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the fact that our original food systems and our original food ways are

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the path that we should be under, the path that we need to

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return to, and we need to make those systems relevant, and we need

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to strengthen them and begin to understand our positionality around food.

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I can get with that. It makes me think about college,

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etcetera, came back home, my degree is in Library Science, so I went

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back to the public library, started gardening on the grounds of a public

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library in Eastern North Carolina, technically not rural, but come on now.

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Definitely culturally rural, even it was kind of in town, in Goldsboro.

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But these young people were absolutely content to come and work in this

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garden, and when I reflect on that time and being down there,

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we didn't start that garden to be in terms of a lot of

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community garden programs and work, it's about a program, it's about being

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adjacent to a housing project and wanting to feed the whole projects,

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like teach the projects how to eat or something like that.

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And there's nothing wrong with that either, but I say that to say,

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these young folks came to the community garden with this willingness to

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be content, to be happy about this experience, so they brought joy to

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the garden with them. It wasn't like this kind of kicking and screaming

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thing because there was a willingness to learn about this aspect of their

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culture and who they are in terms of thinking about the connection to

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libraries and intellectual freedom and intellectual curiosity, and being

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in the south and being in a rural place. Libraries make sense to

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have gardens and to play the extension of a story role through a

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community garden, not just for the sake of saving a community from food

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insecurity, because I don't think that was the role for that garden at

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that time. I just see it in terms of those traditions.

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Even now I can reflect back on my time growing up as a

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farm worker, there was a lot of content and a lot of joy.

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But then like I said, when you add that systems piece into it,

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I don't think the discomfort necessarily that I had was in the system

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itself, but it was in my willingness to not accept to complicate the

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system. That's where a lot of people was just comforting, it's like,

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"I'm not gonna ride with this system, this don't make sense.

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And also reconciling that uneasy feeling I had when I was in the

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field, when I was little, where me and my cousins, 8, 9, 10

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years old, bend over and picking cucumbers, and then seeing this white kid

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ride by on the tractor to kind of supervise us. He was probably

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our age or younger, supervising me and my aunts and them.

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So I just felt like there's something innately wrong with that dynamic,

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I felt uneasy. I think there's been a willingness to just really do

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the work of reconstructing either completely dismantling this kind of hierarchical

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systems, where this young kid can look over us is kind of overseeing

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role we've seen a lot, particularly during this pandemic time, people being

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really intentional about connecting people to Black food and Black farmers,

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but there are specific realities that exist in rural places and among country

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people and indigenous communities that can't operate within that bubble

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in the same way, because of infrastructure, lack of resources, this kind

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of influx of "help" through this charity model of feeding people,

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especially during times like these. Yeah, definitely. Also I wanna add on

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that you brought up this model, this charity model, and for a lot

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of our rural poor communities, that's something that has become prevalent

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is the religious organizations or governments continually are importing

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or exporting this food into poor communities without consent or without

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really understanding the realities that exist within our communities.

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And so that to support on one hand can be seen as,

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Oh, this is a great thing. These people are poor, they're impoverished,

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they're hungry, let's give them whatever the food system doesn't want anymore.

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And so, when this food enters our communities,

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it enters our communities in a way where a lot of it is

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junk food, a lot of it is expired, it's rotten a lot of

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times. Even through the COVID pandemic, there's tons of funding being brought

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in and all of this food being purchased from this large food system

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that is continuing to create some serious issues for our communities,

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so rather than saying, Okay, these communities need infrastructure, these

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are the things that we're working towards, or rather than working with those

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on the ground who are trying to disrupt or dismantle or even challenge

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the system or create new systems, there's just this continual imposition

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and this domination that occurs. That's right. And is just so problematic,

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and I think that it's important to be able to understand those systems

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and how they can cause harm to our communities. Peace ya'll. I'm Mark Winston

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Griffith, an alumnus of The Castanea Fellowship Program. As the executive

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director of the Brooklyn Movement Center, I was looking for a community

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of peers who also saw a world where food truly became a source

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of health, equity and well being for all, Castanea brought those very leaders

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together and invested in us to make it happen. Since then,

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I've collaborated with a cadre of Castanea fellows on a national initiative

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to hold philanthropy accountable, and have tapped into game changing support

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from my food systems work here in Central Brooklyn. So I'm looking forward

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to what's ahead in my professional as well as my personal journey along

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with following the impact I know my friends from the program will continue

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to make. Learn how Castanea can support your journey. Visit Castaneafellowship.org.

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That's C A S T A N E A F E L L

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O W S H I P.org. This is

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incredibly powerful. What I'm hearing from both of you is just really reflecting

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on how food security or food access can get framed in these charity

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driven ways and aren't driven by what's on the ground. Right. And how so

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much of that is rooted in these really deep histories of colonization and

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imperialism and slavery and how food systems are so incredibly complex.

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Right. And often at the expense of communities on the ground,

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right? Mm hmm. Simple access and security over simplifies the complexity

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of a situation that Lilian just described. Security is relative. Who is

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secure? Who decides? And if you're bringing more junk into my community

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because you are a charity and you have this excess food,

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how is that making me more secure, more safe, if it's creating more

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harm in terms of long term health conditions and health disparities down

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the road, 'cause you're not investing in the infrastructure that's needed

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to really make communities more secure, and the pandemic reminds us,

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it's not just about access. We go... At the beginning of the pandemic,

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we were going to the grocery stores, even when we had jobs and

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there was no food there, I could walk to the grocery store and

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there was no food there. And respect, that's a part of it,

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but it's not to the change the real transformation that's truly required.

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What could that transformation look like, what does that sovereignty, that

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self determination look like, in all the ways that you've been guided by

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your community stories and memories of home and ancestral memories and cultural

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memories. What does sovereignty look like? I want Lilian to tell us, I'm

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really looking forward to Lilian's answer, 'cause I'm gonna write this down

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and like... Go for it. I mean, when I think of what our

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communities could look like and will look like one day, I think I

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really am inspired continually by those who aren't here anymore, by those

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who left a legacy, perhaps for us to remember and who left really

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a road map or a path that isn't very clear, it's not always

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clear, but I think that we as humanity as human beings,

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we have the ability to recognize patterns. On the land, we have the

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ability to recognize our own connection to the Earth and to the water

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and to the weather, the patterns that come through as well,

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we are pattern language people. When I think about the future of food

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systems, I think about the ways that people have moved on the land

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and the ways that they were more mobile, I think than the times

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that we live in today. And I'm talking about within the region where

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I lived in the Southwest, this area prior to European colonization

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was not only occupied, but we actually had a very large stable population

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of people within their own areas, and their own communities that actually

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had a very high level of knowledge and understanding of their landscape

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and their connection to the landscape, as well as a high level of

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mobility or roads and trade routes were constructed and forged and navigated

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during ancient times. This was like pre industrial revolution times where

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people travelled by foot basically. And so when we look at our own

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feet and how fragile and how soft and how delicate they are,

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I also think about those that lived before and those that were more

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mobile and more emergent, and where it wasn't anything extraordinary to

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travel hundreds of thousands of miles on foot, back in the day.

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And so the food systems that existed and continue to exist,

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they're still here. Our food systems back in the older times and the

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ancient days, these food systems were more food scapes, so they were on

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the landscape and people were free to navigate and to gather and harvest

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and trade, and there was whole societies and communities that emerged in

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this way, to provide food and medicine for their own community,

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so I think moving forward, looking and reflecting on those systems,

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those were regionalized and some were hyper local, some were micro food

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systems and others were larger food systems. So when we look at sovereignty,

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each of our nations and each of our people have developed food systems

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that were dynamic and that continue to be dynamic, and we traversed and

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navigated through mountains, through deserts, through oceans and through

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rivers to access food. And I think more sovereignty in that way,

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more control over our lives and our own choices as people,

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because our food systems were directly connected and related to the environment

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or to the world around us, and so I think moving forward as

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people, the more that we're able to take control and ownership of our

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food and build power through our food systems, the more that we are

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going to be sovereign people in the future, so as long as we

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allow corporations and institutions and conglomerates to control our food,

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we are always going to be subservient to this system and to this

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paradigm and our sovereignty as human beings and as humanity is always gonna

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be compromised. So I think that moving forward, that's our challenge as

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humanity is to grow and cultivate our own food systems that are really

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owned by us, we have ownership, we have control, we have power over

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these systems, but to do so in a way where we're understanding this

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larger paradigm of where we're at as generations living in a time of

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change like global climate catastrophe and change in different predictions

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that are coming to light. And so I think that our food systems

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really need to be able to be resilient and to be stable,

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and we have to do that by being directly connected to them and

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honoring them and respecting them and having a deep level of commitment

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to this work in whatever way that we see ourselves in it, if we're chefs,

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if we're policy makers, if we are farmers, if we're gatherers,

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if we're hunters, fisher people, in whatever sector we find ourselves in

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within our food system, we always have to be cognizant and to understand

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that we are living in the present, but that there's generations coming after

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us so if we can align ourselves and align our work in this

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place and time to pivot towards a more dynamic, a more robust and a

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more community controlled food system, it's gonna have an effect because

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it's directly challenging the paradigm that we find ourselves in right now.

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That's it. That's absolutely it right there. Imagine in our conversations

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about food access, food security, if we thought about it like that,

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access in terms of the broader globe around us that we're being offered

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on these particular landscapes as the world shifts and moves and not limiting

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how we think about access to the grocery store around us,

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but the landscape, what the landscapes are offering us,

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that's phenomenal and profound. How do we get free as human beings as like

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a human species, how does that level of freedom serve the land,

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the earth, all the things that we've input to create these systems,

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every particle, so that we can then break it apart and really re

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defined sovereignty in terms of a human experience that is not just about

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the individual, but everything that the individual touches and interacts

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with. Lilian has this layer of just sense making, it feels like common

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sense to really think about it and explore it through that kind of

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indigenous lens. I also wanna mention too that in speaking of our connection

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and in relationship to food, I think in this Western paradigm or this

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different world, there's a lot of disconnection as well to recognize the

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invisible or the unseen elements that exist in the world and in the

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realm of where we live, or in the oceans and the rivers and

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the valleys, and in the springs and different places, there's actually spiritual

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beings who reside in the soil, who reside in these different areas,

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and they wanna be acknowledged and recognized as well

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within our work and within our life to dismantle, to change,

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to challenge these larger systems, these are the invisible and the spiritual

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elements and the beings that reside in the corn, the corn mothers and

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the corn maidens and the serpents that live in the water,

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and the fish and the eels, and all of the different birds and

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those beings aren't always recognized by humans as being as important.

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Right. Right. Those are the beings that need to be recognized,

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and need to be protected as well, and their voices need to be

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elevated as we move forward, so within our food systems work,

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we need to move towards a different paradigm of

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recognition and of honoring and giving life the rights that humans have

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as well, or giving not even the rights, but the respect and the

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recognition that they deserve to. So in moving forward, I see that I

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am a farmer and I am a gardener, and that I am a

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orchard keeper or water harvester, but really I'm just doing the bidding

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of the snakes and all of the different creatures and beings that actually

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come and partake in my efforts as well. So I'm not alone,

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and I'm out there and making a home and nurturing space and place

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and time for others that aren't human, they don't look like us,

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but they have eyes, they have ears, they have a brain,

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they have an intelligence that we don't always understand. Oh, Lilian, oh,

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Shorlette, thank you for taking us on this arc of home that starts

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so personal and it expands so deep and so wide, and it comes

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back to home again, and it's just a joy to be in conversation

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with you all. I know that both of you in your own families

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as parents, as teachers, coming from a librarian background, as tenders

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of the soil in so many ways, you're nurturing

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and passing on encouragement and support in different ways, so as we get

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to wrap up and come to the end of this episode,

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I want to ask any advice or encouragement from both you.

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What is one simple thing that you would encourage any listener to do

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that can make a huge difference in their own local homes and local

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communities? Listen and share some mutual respect and then act on what you

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hear that makes sense for your larger purpose. Yeah, I think finding clarity

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through all of the chaos and the madness and all of the disarray

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and all of the catastrophe that we find ourselves in within this larger

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global society in context, just trying to navigate and sift and find clarity

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and trying to be in balance with the natural world, I think is

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super important moving forward, because these industrial hard systems that

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have been created by those who don't care about life,

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we can use tools and different things from that world, but I think

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ultimately it's important to shed things that aren't ours and that don't

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belong to us, that don't serve us anymore. And by shedding those things

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and by finding clarity, we can then recognize and start to pick up

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the tools and the things that are gonna serve as deeply as we

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move forward and as we navigate and as we shed, and as we

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create a new future for our families and our communities.

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Thank you so much Shorlette, and Lilian for making this time today and

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appreciate and grateful for our conversation. Thank you, thank you both,