Episode Transcript
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Our ancestors traveled through salt and stars and so do contemporary Pacific Islander communities. Today in this podcast, we consider how to build good relations with the communities we come from in Oceania, the communities we live with here in the Salt Lake City area, and especially the indigenous communities whose lands we.
As Pacific Islander people who live in Utah, we are nourished by the lands of the Ute, Goshute, Shoshone and Paiute peoples. We are far from the ocean, but close to the saltwater of the great Salt Lake. We are far from the night sky over our home islands, but can look up and see the same stars. Join us as we explore and build relations of salt and stars.
Relations of Salt and Stars is a new podcast produced by the Pacific Island Studies Program at the University of Utah, and hosted by faculty members Dr. Angela L. Robinson, who is Chuukese, and myself, Dr. Maile Arvin. And I'm Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian. With the name Relations of Salt and Stars, we invoke the ties historically forged between the Pacific Islands and Utah, as well as the ones still in formation.
Welcome back. This episode split into two parts, explores stories of gardens, what they teach us, the medicine they offer, and the connections they allow us to make between the lands we live on and our homelands. Maile and I will each share our own stories of gardening. And we will also share some highlights of our recent event, planting Good Relations, which featured a panel discussion with a number of Native American and Pacific Islander leaders who steward community gardens here in the Salt Lake City area.
This land is Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone Land. None of us are of these peoples. We all have homelands elsewhere. As we talk and think about gardening this land, we hope to come into better relation with these peoples and this. As you'll hear, many of our panelists are doing this work by offering medicine grown in these gardens to the community, and by creating space for indigenous youth and families to find healing nurturance or to just be.
In this episode, we highlight and offer brief responses to some of our favorite insights panelists shared. The whole panel offered so much love and wisdom to everyone present that we had to separate this episode into two parts. So you're listening to the first part, which I, Angela am leading, and Maile will lead the second part.
You can watch a video of this panel or listen to the full audio of the panel on our YouTube page, the Pasifika Archive with the handle, the Pasifika Archive 2650. Please check out the full bios and links to our panelists, organizations in the show notes of this episode to learn more about their work and how you can support it.
You'll hear from Denae Shanidiin from the Carry the Water Garden, Dee Platero and Michelle Brown with the Pandos Three Sisters Garden at the Og Woi People's Orchard and Garden. Lusia Satini from the Utah Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Coalitions, Margarita Satini Mural and Garden, and Jake Fatisemanu Jr. With the Healthy Roots Program from the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition.
Here the panelists introduce themselves and. That's gay. Everyone, my people, my relatives. It's beautiful to see so many faces. My name is Deshaun Dean. I am born to the Deni Nation, otherwise known as the Navajo Nation. And that lineage is through my mother on my father's side. For my clan, for my mother is
Were the ones who walk around clan. And I'm also born to the Korean race. So I have that on my father's side. My grandfather, it's Clarine. It's Tini, and my father's father is the Launa White, the community. I started a garden called Carry the Water. It's located like a Rose Park area.
It's about one less than one acre. The origin of the garden started with a black relative, a black queer relative who really, from their core, understands how to be in good relation. , based on all the traumas that we experience. Shared traumas, individual traumas. And then also she ha or they had a connection to a white woman who actually works at the u Libby Haslam.
She did is on the board of the Design Build Buff program. So we know that Libby had connections with the indigenous communities, and I know that they built a lot down in Bluff, Utah. Working with Navajo students and trying to do like traditional building practices. So we really trusted, like when you're entering those relationships with white people, you're like, okay, how do I navigate this?
But she had this plot of land that she's not using for quite some time and indefinitely, like the plan is to return that stewardship over that land to. community to the Bipo community, to the indigenous community. And so that is, that's still in the process. And I think that will take like years to come to see what like that actually turns into, whether we can actually reclaim that for ourselves if we have to buy it back for ourselves.
But right now we are blessed to steward this land, get to know it and. right now, like the garden has started for about a year. We've run into some there's been so much support with community. I think that people are really starting to realize right now how important it's to support the indigenous communities, especially, the air that we're breathing right now.
All the stuff that's going on and how it affects our bodies, these industrialized societies, it all reflects in our bodies, our minds, our spirits, the noise not having a safe space just for indigenous people. And so I think that's what we, those are our values to begin with. Hi all. I'm Dee Pitero.
I am born for Edge of the Water clan and my mother is from Pioneer Settl. So my paternal side is from, I'm a tribal member of the Navajo Nation as well. So I'm I've lived in Utah for my whole life, so I like to say I've traveled around the state a little bit. Lived in southern Utah and northern Utah, and I've loved every bit of it.
So I love the Red Rock and I love the mountain. and I just love being outside, enjoying the nature here. It's a very special place to me because it has a lot of familial or roots for myself on both sides of my family. . But I'm here from the PDOs organization and that has brought me a lot of community and also a chance to express interests through my indigenous like interests as well.
Everyone. I am also Navajo from my father's side and Panamanian from my mother's side. My father was raised in two gray hills, New Mexico. I was lucky enough to live on that land for a short time and also visit as often as I possibly can. I work with Pandas as well, and I'm the current chair of Murdered and missing Indigenous relatives.
and we work really closely with the Oii Garden here in Salt Lake City. The OII has been a wonderful place to be able to have the Three Sisters garden. What's really incredible about that and then working so closely with murder Missing Indigenous relatives as well. Is that what we do is ensure that like the medicine that is grown there is available to the community.
We actually have founders of the Oak opioid here with us today in the audience. Tom and d they have put their life blood into the garden, and of course it's a community space. And having that designated plot to grow medicine and to access that and offer that to families has been insurmountable so much.
And I know that we always have some bag of plants with us of whether it's sweet grass or sage or any other sacred medicine. And having that plot and having the relationships with the community has been really incredible. My name is Lucia Saini, and I am in connection. She mentioned Awe. So I'm bring that I was asked to be here on behalf of a family member.
So we have a mural that sits at the awe garden. I love how she shared. about the mural and the event. So when I think about what kind of events or what kind of work we've done we do a lot of, she mentioned networking, collaborating healthy roots. When she talks about there's not space or land they've donated plot.
where just with our j o youth program, the kids were able to learn about nourishment and nutrition and adding that part into just their lifestyle. And then as I mentioned before, margarita, she was one of the founders for yusak, which is the Utah Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Coalition, which.
connected heavily with our, we're all connected with the health coalition and we don't grow in all four seasons, we're very tropical. . And so when you go to the garden, there's a raised garden bed, and you'll see some tropical flowers there. , And thank you for Healthy Roots bringing that.
Thank you. everyone. I'm Jacob
Jr. I'm here on behalf of the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition. And when we speak up we're born, we typically refer to the place where our umbilicus is buried. And so my umbilicus is buried on the island of Take Maui in a place called ua. More commonly known as New Zealand, but my mom's family is has roots in Hawaii as well as China and Korea.
And my dad is from Samoa. So that's where this gorgeous mix comes . Very blessed, blessed and honored to be here with this with my sisters here on this amazing panel and I'm looking forward to learning.
Healthy Roots is a program that we've been running through the Pacific Islander Coalition for almost six years now, and it started with a pretty selfish self-serving motive, which was our foods are sometimes hard to get here, and when they do get here, they've survived weeks on a ship and sometimes they're not that great or they're coated in wax.
And they're expensive. And and which is why our people eat a lot of canned foods actually, and preserved foods. And that's not great for nutrition in the end. And that's not what our ancestors ate. That's not our indigenous food waste. And a few. Of us really wanted to just try it here. We knew the growing season was short, as was mentioned.
We knew the soil was different than the composition, so we nerded out and we went out and said, who can help us? And we called into gardening shows. We got folks from Utah State Master Garden Program to help us. We went to our own elders in the community who know how to grow these things back home and started pretty small scale with about three families.
And the next year that turned into. and the next year turned into 25 and the next year we had a commitment with or contract with Wasatch Community Gardens, which was now giving us space cuz a lot of our folks live in the urban areas or apartments and don't have that space. And then we started taking it to people's backyards.
And long story short, this summer this year we had 52 families that were engaged in this. And they're not only growing tomatoes and corn and the great things that are meant to grow here or that have been growing here in this. But we're growing tarot. We're growing tapioca, we're growing turmeric, we're growing banana trees, we're growing hibiscus, we're growing lau tea, we're growing sweet potatoes.
Things that our people will eat because we don't eat kale and we don't eat celery and, some of these other things, . And not because they're not good, but because we're not familiar and then we don't have recipes already with these things built in.
At least once a week I FaceTime with my mom and it's a rare occurrence if she isn't working in her garden. What are you tenting today? Pulling up to our IEA Heights home in Oahu over 30 years ago, she saw the beautifully manicured shrubs, small pines, plumeria. And decorative rocks. The former Japanese owners had lovingly cared for since the 1950s.
Today, the front and backyards are still lovingly cared for, but the trees, plants, flora, and animals have changed dramatically. The Pua Kenny Tree leans over the rock wall of the driveway, pregnant with its sunshine, orange, sweet smelling flowers. The gardenias wild roses and banana trees lined the other side of the driveway.
The puma tree is still there, but has entangled its branches with the guava tree, the favorite front yard tree of my childhood. When I would gather its small brown fruits into the front of my shirt, spread like a bowl and climb into the big Norfolk pine to savor them while looking out over the view of Pearl Harbor.
Enter the backyard and the first creature to greet you will be Oliver Mama's 400 pound KU mix pig whose presence as our domestic pet is always causing some kind of trouble, whether it be the noisy baby PAH or wild boar who gather at the fence, separating the backyard from the mountain forest, and attempts to find refuge with him or when he makes a mess.
Digging up the tasty roots. Mama just planted. Or when the neighbor is attempt to evict him from our home by calling animal control. Thankfully, he's just too big for anyone to move, so he remains our cherished squatter of the neighborhood. Hand him a cookie. Betty's best chocolate chip Macadamian are his favorite thanks to being my favorite, and he'll happily make his way back to his muddy red dirt corner of the backyard with the white ginger and Bird of Paradise.
Across the yard, you'll find the sweet potato pumpkins, tarot peppers, and the breadfruit tree she planted just for me, in the center of the yard is our or as Hawaiians call it, or Engan. Umu our underground oven, hand dug and lined with stones by my uncle, where mama cooks Turkey fish, tarot, and breadfruit on special occasion.
On the other side of the fence leading down into the Kau Al Valley are the huge 50 foot mango and leche trees whose shade we sit in on hot days and weave lay with the garden flowers. Nestled between them is a small patch of my cousin's tobacco plants, which he dries himself, then rolls into homemade cigarettes.
The newest residents of the garden include the two varieties of mountain apple. One that birds the short biting, spongy apples, and the other with the longer juicy sweet apples. A favorite back home inuk and the ice cream bean tree. The seeds of which travel to Oahu with us in a gently wrapped damp paper towel from a recent trip to Hilo in making this space more familiar to her home and caring for it in the way our ancestors.
My mother has transformed an orderly unblemished suburban plot into a wild, abundant enclave of Oceania memory and relationality, which the land seems to embrace and celebrate with. Its enthusiastic nurturance of these leafy, flowering, fruiting and snorting beings. When listening to our panelists, I'm reminded of these various plant relatives my mama has cultivated in her yard, nato.
My mother and I are daughters of the Whito clan. Our clan's origin story begins with a plant. It is sad that long ago a chief was banking his rounds through the dense brush of our island Piar when he witnessed a woman growing out of a large grassy. From her Theto Klan was born. As many of our panelists discussed, plants go beyond a mere food source.
They are ancestors and relatives relations in and of themselves. Through these shared relations with our plant relatives, we can come into better relation with each other. I also been thinking about plants, the soil. Plants that we see nowadays especially maybe in these areas oh, this plant's interesting.
It's not from here, but it's beautiful. We're gonna plant it here. And that's done some damage with, the whole landscape as in the bigger picture with like invasive species. But I had a. A relative, a sister from the Chenga los band in California, and she was talking, there's a lot of invasive plants in California that take over their traditional medicines.
But when she was talking about it, she talked about it in a way of empathy. These plants are also so very much. From their homelands and look at them, thrive and survive. And when I think about what it means for displaced relatives, even being like a climate refugee, so many of us are climate refugees.
So many of our homelands have been destroyed. The radium. Water contamination. Like that Gold King mine that was built into the San Juan that ruined farming for years for our relatives. And so I think bringing in the medicine that you need in your space is like reclaiming that and also healing that part of you, that connection to home that you don't have access to, and that.
It's like it hurts for everybody and I think there's like a beautiful grace in that, in like thanking the land, like you provide something for my traditional foods to grow and like really thinking it, like thinking the land for doing that for you. So it's really fascinating. I have recently, like since moving to Utah, I went from Alaska to New York and I lived in New York for seven years in the city.
And then when I moved here to Utah, I decided I was gonna start committing to having plants again cuz there was no way out of Manhattan apartment I was gonna start growing anything and then having to move or something like that. So I committed to having a tree in my house and. . I've been cultivating that tree for probably three and a half years now and it's amazing that it's still alive.
But I've also found that technology has helped me a lot in terms of trying to figure out how to keep this alive and it's this huge bird of paradise tree and. I, it's almost like too big for my place now at this point, but I feel really accomplished having done that and having learned about this particular plant and developing this emotional relationship with it.
It made me sad when I saw like the, like little parasites starting to come out and I'm like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? The leaves are starting to wilt. And so through the years I've had to repot replant, it's been teaching me how to take care of it. S I feel like its size itself was unignorable for me.
So it like taught me. I'm like, okay, I can't let this huge thing like die. I need to figure out what it needs from me. What do I need to do for it to keep it going? Cuz I want to keep it with me. Which it's crazy to think that you have such an emotional tie back to. to plants, but really as indigenous peoples, we know that, our ancestors saw ourselves not so different from them.
And as a part of them, and as you pointed out as our ancestors themselves, a space where we come from that we're derived from. So I've developed this relationship with this plant and it's taught me so much, and I'm so grateful for that. I like to garden at this point. I don't think it was something.
I was super interested in back in my early twenties, but when I was a kid, I remember the magic of it all and I feel like that magic is coming back to me. That interest is reignited and connecting with others and figuring out new possibilities, new things to grow and new ways of doing. So I feel incredibly grateful to that.
Tie back to community and the ability to. outside of that and to invite people to know that's available to them. And just to share like as much knowledge as possible. It's, I for my own like home space, like I don't have a garden plot to plant anything, probably kill it anyways if I was doing everything on my own.
But that's what's the beauty of having a community to teach you that I'm not used to this type of soil, like I said. I grew up in Alaska mostly, and so you put a seed anywhere and it just blew up in the summer. Because we have such a short growing season, but the soil hill here is really different, so it's amazing to see how much I've learned just like from community events, even at the water carry, the water garden as well.
The community events there have been really impactful and I've attended a couple and just being able to eat and gather in that space has been really magical for. and transformative. I've only been here for probably a little over four years now, and becoming involved and connecting more with my community through these types of like events and programs and through the garden itself has been really like transformative and beautiful for me personally, especially since that's not something like I have at my house at home.
I don't only land technically, so it's a cool escape to go to and then also share that with other. . What's also been really great too is the former chair, Jen, she has moved to Seattle, but she also has connected with gardening communities there. We've been working with coalition there called Canoe Journey and they've also been supplying US medicines as well and that we've been able to share with individuals here too.
So just like building networks and I think that's really beautiful and. very rare, I feel like, in everyday life just to, to have that space in those types of relationships, to talk about plants and how they nourish us and also how they develop like relationships like one-on-one within the community. Say, why garden?
So the first thing that came to my mind was it's the Pacific Islander way really is , our attire, if you see the clothing we wear , to celebrate, it's, you'll see bark, you'll see feathers, you'll see leaves. We wear it. We eat it. Land is everything to us. It's a time for us to.
Even if I, I've been to Jake's house and he'll tell me like, whatever he's growing and I get excited. That's, but I'm like, it's a time to connect. Even I tell Chi Molly who's here we had the Sea Lass, which is the Tong and Bikers Club. They came and helped out, set up the community chef.
Who would've thought bikers, club and gardening, right? . So it's a time to. . So I think connection when you talk about gardening, but I think it's just our Pacific Islander way to just garden. It's part of us who we are. We, like I said, we wear, we eat it. It's everything. Yeah. So with gardening, I think it, a lot of you mentioned how it provides a resource for us as a community.
and the importance of sharing that even with our younger age community members, because of course the more generations here in the us they'll forget. They forget what it is like to live in the island and to understand what our foods are. He talks about canned foods. We didn't have sugar and flour.
Those things weren't as not a norm in the Pacific Islander Diet. But the healthier foods, the tarot, the, tarot plants, the bananas. And so I think to maybe have a greenhouse that, and I always, I'll text Jake and say, Hey, these guys have a greenhouse. Because I underst. That the season, the climate is not, friendly for the food that we grow.
And that's a dream to be able to see that. And if I get add on that, we're such humble people, so much has been taken away from us. So anything that we are given, we're just like, thank you. But that is not too much to ask for. I want the tallest, biggest greenhouse bringer community. They're taking notes over there.
Those are the bosses over there, . No, I'm serious. Yeah. If this can happen with that much money that can happen and should happen, like I know my partners Kanaka, having that abundance is doing something and sharing it. It's just, it's the way that you all operate. Yeah. And it's beautiful. And I want that for you guys here because you are such beautiful community members and you too take care of everyone.
And you think about all the indigenous relatives here and you include them in that process. And I personally feel your gratitude and that respect and walking in a good way here. We all come from different places. This might not be my land or, but. We share this space together and yeah, I want good things for you guys that way.
Thank you so much. I don't know for me, myself I think about how growing up I didn't necessarily have the education I wanted, outside or having teachers or elders to guide me, but I have an opportunity. . And so I think about the seventh generation, what can I do for, being a matriarch, I guess in my family?
What can I do for my nieces and nephews? What can I do for their children? And it always comes back to gardening. I'm, I feel fortunate because my mother was a horticulture agent for the county growing up, and I wish I had all of her knowledge, but I definitely don't. My grandmother and grandfather.
We're farmers and same on my fraternal side. So I just feel like no matter what I do with my life, as long as I am indigenous, wherever I am, I will leave a lasting impact on all of my relatives. And that's the kind of person I want to be. So through land and through that connection, like I hope I can lead a small little imprint here and wherever bright.
Last year in an anti way writing retreat led by Yakima Scholar, Michelle Jacob. She asked us to meditate on a beloved place that brings feelings of warmth and peace. The first place that came to my mind was my mama's backyard surprised me. Our home has not always been a place of. I spent the majority of my adolescence looking out over the city, fantasizing about running away, or asking friends parents to drop me off on a side road.
Too ashamed to let them see our overground yard busted, but still in Use outdoor furniture and garage turn makeshift kitchen where my cousins use the yard hose in the driveway to wash the dishes and kerosene stoves to make aala paua with a delicious sweet coconut dumpling. Or Alon p a Hardy pumpkin rice stew with coconut milk.
But that morning I meditated on all of those things that brought me embarrassment as a teenager, all of those things that my mama had worked so hard to nurture and cultivate, all of those things that made me ch, and they brought me peace. My Mama's Garden teaches growing beyond borders, welcoming, unexpected.
And finding relations among the various beings that call a place home, especially the original inhabitants of that place. As our panelists discussed, gardens, our powerful tools, teachers and bears of indigenous knowledges. I just wanna know, do anyone have indigenous teachers growing up, like K through.
Yeah, me neither. Okay, so one person, I'm already jealous, , but I, what has been really impactful to me about the garden or, what Tom has provided us, where we have an opportunity to do this is learn and practice like indigenous teachings, which I didn't have the space before. And even if I had, my own space at home, it's not the same.
It's bringing together as a. Braiding sweetgrass together and learning. How about just these plants that we're growing is really beautiful. That's my, actually, my favorite part about the gardening is that the plants teach us, the plants in our culture are, they have stories, they have genealogy. There are sorts and vegetables that are our ancestors that we descend from.
And it's cool to work with these kids at the Granite School District and teach them not just about the nitrogen cycle and all these cool, biological photosynthesis but also remind them like, bro, we have an actual connection. Our genealogy links us to these plants and they nourish us, not just physically, but.
And so we do have to work with greenhouses with the Granite School District. We have a contract with their GTI program where their young students in GTI are growing the seedlings in December, January, February, March, so that by the time we can plant them around Mother's Day. They're already big and strong.
We can put 'em in the ground and they can last and we can harvest. Our old folks have been watching the stars this past this week, Wednesday, just a couple days ago. The mat, which is an important constellation that marks our harvest season rose for the first time this year at Sunset. Which means that next Thursday, which is the New Moon after the rising of mat, is our new year.
This is our harvest and our bountiful season. It doesn't look like it here in Utah, but in Samoa and in Toga and other places in the Pacific. They're celebrating their first fruits festival next Thursday, and I'm really happy. And grateful for our partners here that we'll be doing the same in this very building and out here watching the New Moon and the Stars rise next Thursday or next Wednesday, and presenting those fruits. we present them to our families, to our chiefs, to our ancestors. don't even know if they were called gardens. Like when I go back to thinking about how my people grew food, I wasn't a garden. It was it. The connection to the season, the stars how we pray with our corn, Poland how we bless our young ones, how we communicate with the holy people and all these plants, relatives who like teach us things who really, when you're in pain or you're grieving, there is a certain medicine that has a certain teaching.
that really eases like your heart and your spirit and it nourishes and you also can see it when, like you gift it to somebody else. When you minister that medicine to somebody else. I feel like from the earliest memory I have of actually like planting something and watching it grow, it's almost like it's teaching you about what's gonna happen to you itself, like the cycle of your own life.
In a smaller, like more visible way. I think just the observation of it is really remarkable and fascinating, but just to a reminder that everything has its season and there are cycles to everything. I think you see some of the seeds that don't come up and do not grow and that fail. And I felt a lot of that failure because I am not super good at gardening.
And so I feel grateful for those who have taught me better ways of doing. But I think, like I've seen a lot of seedling failure for me, and it reminds me about something about us as human beings that, some of us cannot. And some of us do, and we have our, our fruits that we bear and, eventually we will die as well.
And so I think there's something really spiritual about that type of knowledge being taught to you in a non-verbal way. Yeah. As I mentioned, I stumbled across gardening quite accidentally not intentionally. And now I see it as y gardening. I see it as such a powerful. tool for pedagogy and learning.
And now that I have little kids and I realize that I'm not getting younger, I feel this sense of urgency to pass on whatever I had gleaned from my parents and grandparents and what I continue to learn. And we learn in pedagogy, right? That there are folks who are visual learners and auditory learners and tactile learners.
And the more of those different contexts we can present information. the better. Hopefully it will stick with students. And so with my kids and I, when I say my kids, I mean everybody's kids. , whoever's participating around us. I have learned that gardening like touches on everything because you're hearing the wind rustling through, you're seeing things grow.
You're touching the soil and the seeds, and you're harvesting and you're tasting, right? You don't get that from flashcards. You can't taste well, you could taste the flashcards, , but you're using all the senses. And not only that to what my sisters have mentioned, there's a spiritual connection to it, right?
And not in terms necessarily of religiou. Fervor. But I think that's one that as professional educators, we don't talk about a lot. We talk more about, the auditor, auditory and visual and tactile and interpersonal connections. But I think gardening touches on all of our senses and also connects us to the things that are not seen and are intangible.
And for me, that's why I see gardening is working. We're passing on stories as well as scientific knowledge and a little bit of school stuff here. . But it's a way that presents that material to young folks and old folks and adults in a way that touches all the different senses and also touches the soul.
There's so many cool ways to integrate indigenous knowledge and into the, into what we're trying to do with our little garden program. But I, for me, I think one of the coolest results I guess, of this. Reestablishing connections that are intergenerational. . And so having, really young kids learning from grandparents or great-grandparents who have living memory of growing these things in the islands that we don't necessarily have, and even though the context is different here, reestablishing, that connection to me has been really rewarding to see.
Because the reality is, as immigrant peoples, when we come here we seek e. Outside of our community because we're new here. And so if we are looking for, to get into college or to get a home loan, or, if you're the first generation coming the people at your sides are asking the same questions.
And so we go outside and then we almost put folks on a pedestal because we're grateful for the help that they've given us and the expertise that they have. And sometimes that comes at the detriment of acknowledg. and honoring the expertise and the intellect and the , the wonderful depth of knowledge that we have in our own families and in our own communities because we've, we've relied on that expertise from outside, so at least with gardening that's been a really cool thing to see.
And CIA shared a story of one of Rose Park gardening sites, even that individuals who weren't even part of that group, of that was the formal. Notice these plants growing in the com, as they drive by and, they'd see people out there who weren't part of the group, but they wanted to help and they were watering, or they were just sitting in the shade and just admiring these, reminders of home and then being able to work with the youth and be like, OHS, why are you guys doing that?
You need to do it like this. And those kinds of things. I think that integration has or that experience has been really, I've met so many young indigenous people who have been kept from their traditional beliefs and traditional ways, whether that be through colonization directly or through religious reasons and missing out on many traditions that they should be entitled.
but being dissuaded by religion itself I've, I feel like a lot more indigenous youth are sharing those types of stories. And I think the gardens have been ways to reconnect with the ways of knowing and a path back to tradition in ways as an adult you can freely do and express, whereas a lot of.
These youth or young adults had been suppressed from that, whether through a parent or whether through an adoptive system where they weren't able to really practice their traditional beliefs. I think that's been really powerful and that's been incredible to see. So I think like other indigenous gardeners showing the next generation the way forward has been really powerful and just new ways of doing things that it doesn't have to be a huge garden.
It can. as simple as a single pot in your house. And start with that and start with that medicine. I think social media has been really incredible for indigenous peoples in terms of learning and how to learn from another, whether you're on the different side of the world has been really incredible.
I know even just with experience with Jen and her working with. Collective called Canoe Journey in Seattle of Hey what is this? Like tea? How am I supposed to they sent it to us and I'm like, how am I supposed to make it into tea? Like how much water? Like how much this or that? Do you guys have seeds?
I really like this, so I'd like to make it myself. So those types of things. So just reconnecting with our communities and learning about other indigenous communities that I wasn't so familiar with has been really incredible. I'm really grateful for that and just to be the ability to share what I do know, or, even just oral storytelling of things that I remember like off of my father's reservation.
Being able to stop at the side of the road and pick up Indian tea, take it home, dry it for the amount of time that was right and then, make myself and my sisters a cup of tea To me is just such a, an incredible memory. Like the smell itself. Whenever I smell it now, I can see all those moments that have passed.
So I really appreciate that and I think like working with other like elders and just those who already know the way, they're not gonna be here forever. So I think gaining that knowledge has been really incredible and I'm just grateful for that and continue to share as much knowledge as I have with anyone that I may connect with, but also with my son this idea of sovereignty and self-sufficiency.
, and again, I know that our garden is still small, but those are the kinds of principles I think about. . Another big thing that's always in my mind is always climate change. And no matter what kind of avenue I seem to go down, whether it's, social justice, human rights, all these big kind of things that are coming, I always come back to gardening as the solution.
And I think the experts in our gardening space are indigenous people cuz they've had the most experience over time and land and wisdom. Yours that they have that knowledge. So to me, it just makes sense that we need to remember or connect with however you see that in yourself.
In part two of this episode, Milee will share her story of gardening and highlight the wisdom our panelists shared on healing, grief, medicine and home. In the meantime, what have you learned from Gardens?
Our theme song is Lift Me Up by Hadum. Special thanks to our panelists, d Shandin, Michelle Brown De Platero, Lucia Sini, and Jake Fati Mono, Jr. Thanks to our hosts at the Tracy Aviary, Jordan River Nature Center, CEO O Tim Brown, co-directors Marissa Beckstrom and Daniel Hernandez and other Nature Center staff.
Our thanks also to Kayani, Yvonne UA and Laura. For organizing this event with us. Finally, we thank our sponsors, the Mellon Foundation, the University of Utah's School for Cultural and Social Transformation, and the University of Utah's College of Humanities. This has been relations of salt and stars with hosts Miley Arvin and Angela L.
Robinson
for listening. Join us next time.
