Native American Green News & Views August 2014
from the
y
Indigenous Solutions
S u s t ai n ab l e S o u t h w e s t
Northern New Mexico’s Largest Circulation Newspaper
Vol. 6 No. 8
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Vol. 6, No. 8 • August 2014 Issue No. 64 Publisher Green Fire Publishing, LLC
Skip Whitson
Associate Publisher
Barbara E. Brown
Editor-in-chief Seth Roffman Art Director Anna C. Hansen, Dakini Design Copy Editors Stephen Klinger Susan Clair Webmaster: Karen Shepherd Contributing Writers
Mikki Anaya, Samantha Honani-Antone, Barbara Epstein, Carolyn Gonzales, Susan Guyette, Jack Loeffler, Matthew J. Martínez, Seth Roffman, Kathy Sanchez, Roxanne Swentzell, Beata TsosiePeña, Drew Tulchin
Contributing Photographers
Ben Calabaza, Karl Duncan, Steve Elmore, Cindy Ewing, Jay García, Carolyn Gonzales, Anna C. Hansen, Jack Loeffler, Jonathon Loretto, Luís Peña, Seth Roffman, Chastity Sandoval
PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANTs
Lisa Allocco, Cisco Whitson-Brown, Susan Clair, Kelley McDaniel, Robyn Montoya
Office Assistants
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Skip Whitson 505.471.5177 skip@greenfiretimes.com Anna C. Hansen 505.982.0155 dakinidesign@newmexico.com
News & Views
from the
Sustainable Southwest
Winner of the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Outstanding Educational Project
Contents
Ancient Voices–Contemporary Contexts: A Cross-Cultural Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Culture Relative to Homeland: An Interview with Lyle Balenquah . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .9 The Santo Domingo Pueblo Heritage Trail Arts Project . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 11 UNM Institute Helps Native Communities Address Design Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Pueblo Food Experience: A Pre-Contact Diet. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 15 Everyday Green: The Native Food Sovereignty Movement . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 19 Gutierrez Family Dry-land Farm at Puye . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 20 Book Profile: Four Square Leagues – Pueblo Land in New Mexico . . .. . .. . .. . .. . 20 Harvesting Traditions: A One-Woman Show by Kathleen Wall . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 21 The Natwani Coalition: Strengthening Hopi Culture and Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Navajo Nation’s Energy Landscape. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 24 $1 Billion Allocated for Navajo Uranium Cleanup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Northern Pueblos Housing Authority’s Clean Energy Projects. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 27 Native Renewable Energy Newsbites . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 28 Op-Ed: Remembering 400 Years of Exile . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 29 OP-ED: New Mexico Tribal Families: Thriving in ‘Our Own Ways’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 OP-ED: Networking for Wellness . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 30 Growing Financial Independence at Ohkay Owingeh . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 31 Native Newsbites . . .. . .. . .. . .. . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 20, 24, 28, 33, 37 What’s Going On. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 38
Robyn Montoya 505-692-4477 robyn.greenfiretimes@gmail.com Lloyd Santiago Covens 505.236.8348 abbxnet@gmail.com
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Lisa Allocco, Barbara Brown, Susan Clair, Co-op Dist. Services, Nick García, Andy Otterstrom (Creative Couriers), Tony Rapatz, Wuilmer Rivera, Andrew Tafoya, Skip Whitson, John Woodie
Circulation: 27,000 copies Printed locally with 100% soy ink on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper
Green Fire Times
c/o The Sun Companies P.O. Box 5588, SF, NM 87502-5588 505.471.5177 • info@sunbooks.com Green Fire Times provides useful information for community members, business people, students and visitors—anyone interested in discovering the wealth of opportunities and resources in the Southwest. In support of a more sustainable planet, topics covered range from green businesses, jobs, products, services, entrepreneurship, investing, design, building and energy—to native perspectives on history, arts & culture, ecotourism, education, sustainable agriculture, regional cuisine, water issues and the healing arts. To our publisher, a more sustainable planet also means maximizing environmental as well as personal health by minimizing consumption of meat and alcohol. Green Fire Times is widely distributed throughout north-central New Mexico. Feedback, announcements, event listings, advertising and article submissions to be considered for publication are welcome.
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© Seth Roffman
© 2014 Green Fire Publishing, LLC
Children performed traditional dances and demonstrated their Tewa language skills for family and community members at the Pueblo of San Ildefonso’s Day School, May 2014.
COVER: The Three Sisters by Kathleen Wall • photo © ben calabaza Courtesy, Pablita Velarde Museum of Indian Women in the Arts (see story, page 21) Green Fire Times is not to be confused with the Green Fire Report, an in-house quarterly publication of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. The NMELC can be accessed online at: www.nmelc.org
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Ancient Voices – Contemporary Contexts A Cross-Cultural Forum: “Caring for Earth for Our Common Future” Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico Article and Photos by Seth Roffman
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n November 2013, indigenous elders f rom across the United States, and f rom Greenland and México, came to Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico to participate in a three-day cross-cultural forum organized by the Bozeman, Mont.based American Indian Institute. Feeling disenfranchised and frustrated by lack of action after years of highlevel government summits on socialand environmental-justice issues, the “runners who speak for the Earth” came seeking allies to help get their voices out. Amid the hills and mesas immortalized by painter Georgia O’Keeffe, the assembled leaders shared wisdom and prophecies with 65 non-Native delegates from across the country, who were there to listen, learn and interact. Highly aware that we live in a time of vast change, with ancient ice melts, ocean levels rising and weather patterns becoming ever more erratic, the elders spoke of the urgent need for a new direction. They spoke of the need to do something for their grandchildren and future generations.
“It comes down to ‘value change for survival’— a paradigm shift.” Discussions explored ways to influence the path into the future. The elders repeatedly said that change must come from a personal level, from individual actions. “The time for excuses is gone,” said Angaangaq, an Inuk Eskimo known as Uncle, who has been a “runner” for his elders in Greenland since 1975. “We can create a new path. It is going to come from you— not your city, not your state, not your government, not the U.N. You’re going to have to melt the ice in the heart of man. Renew your spiritual self. When you braid body, mind and spirit, you become unbreakable.” “We live in an increasingly unsustainable world. So much depends on this generation,” said Oren Lyons, who, as faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of
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the Onondaga Nation in the Haudenosaunee (formerly the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy), has spent years addressing global forums. “It’s very difficult—when you’re struggling to protect your people and you’re hanging by a thread—to instruct other people,” he said. “How do you instruct seven billion people as to their relationship to the Earth? Face the history. Face the real reality. It comes down to ‘value change for survival’—a paradigm shift. The values that are driving humanity today are economic, as opposed to moral, spiritual values. Understand where your life comes from. Instruct your people to be respectful and thankful for what they have, because it’s finite. The number one value: share what you have. Reciprocity is one of the main principles we need to flourish. If you learn how to share, you’re going to have a good life.” continued on page 35
Top: Ghost Ranch labyrinth, Danny Blackgoat (Diné); Center (l-r): Angaangaq (Inuk/ Greenland); Vickie Downey (Tesuque Pueblo), José Lucero (Santa Clara Pueblo); Seated (l-r): Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Leonard Little Finger (Minicinjou Lakota); Drummer Andy Garcia and buffalo dancers from Santa Clara Pueblo
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Culture Relative to Homeland: A Hopi Perspective
An interview with Lyle Balenquah conducted by Jack Loeffler
“Is the rest of society living in a bubble they keep blowing bigger and bigger, hoping it’s not going to burst?”
As a culture, you really have to be cognizant of what our ancestors were doing. My father and I have been out during the hunting seasons. When I come across an archaeological site, as an archaeologist what interests me is scouring the ground and seeing what kind of artifacts are there. I look at the pottery, I find arrowheads, projectile points. You find room habitations. I go back to camp at the end of a day of work or a day of hunting and I talk with people. My father will look at the artifacts I show him and he’ll say, “Just think. They survived out here with far less than we have now” And in that sense, they knew more than we do. Could we transport ourselves back 800 years and survive as they did with what we would term primitive tools? At the time, that was the cutting edge of technology. There’s a deep spiritualness in just sitting in the woods, sitting on a hill, watching the sun rise, watching the sun set, watching it go across the sky. Unfortunately, we’re not exposed to that on a daily basis. I go to work, I go to the office; I’m in an enclosed space. But I’m really fortunate that, in some of my other work, I’m able to be a daily part of what nature really is and get a true sense of experiences of Hopi ancestors that have led us to be where we are today in the world. It’s a real deep thought process. It’s one of those things I’m always rehashing in my mind. I recently came back from working on a survey project over in the Walapai country west of here a couple of hundred miles. During this project, we came across artifacts that showed they were living in a different lifestyle compared to what we find here around Flagstaff or northern Arizona in the Four Corners region. They’re still Hopi ancestors—that’s how we perceive them. But how did they come to that type of technology? How was it that they viewed their own world perspective that directed them to become who they are? So it’s a broad landscape in terms of that concept of culture as homeland and how we
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You talk about the commons, about borders, but those borders are arbitrary in some sense. We’re all a part of these landscapes, whether we’re Hopi or Anglo or Walapai, Navajo, Zuni or whatever our ethnic background is. We all have impacts in some ways on these landscapes. Through my archaeological work you see that. There’s a lot of research about how prehistoric peoples changed their landscape and what can we learn from some of their mistakes.
© Jack Loeffler
LB: Culture relative to homeland is a big idea. Homeland is something that is always in the back of my mind. I’ve been fortunate to be doing a lot of archaeological survey work beyond the political boundaries of the reservation in areas Hopi consider to be their true homeland. People have asked me to draw maps of what is a homeland for Hopi, and I find it difficult to connect the dots and say this is the boundary. I’m always more inclined to use a dashed line or some symbol that indicates that it’s ephemeral in a sense. When I’m out doing my archaeological survey, I see the artifacts, the assemblages that our ancestors used, and in a way that signifies our homeland. As a Hopi person out there in the landscape you really get a true understanding that our homeland extends across the Four Corners region.
relate to the environment, what we take from it, these experiences and how we use them in our modern-day lives to kind of direct how we live now.
Lyle Balenquah
Chaco Canyon has been used as a prime example of landscape change initiated by human interaction on a wide scale, and how the impacts prehistoric populations were having on the landscape led to their demise, so to speak. What can we learn from that? That’s one of the things Hopi stresses a lot in our teachings, that there are a lot of good things that came from our ancestral history: positive values and philosophical ways of thinking. But there are also some negative lessons we have to own up to and take responsibility for that will teach us. How are we as modern Hopis and as a society going to interact with our environment? For me, that’s where culture as homeland comes in. I get to see this huge landscape across the Southwest. I get to see how prehistoric peoples were living in landscapes separated by two, three, four hundred miles. They all had to understand that they had to live within their means. In some instances, they didn’t live within their means, and that caused turmoil and chaos and caused things to go wrong for themselves and their society. You tie all of that together, you bring all of these different examples within the Southwest of prehistoric cultures experiencing good and bad changes, and I think that’s what Hopi is trying to remember. So there’s a lot tied into that idea of culture as homeland. That is the common foundation that we all have to live by, I think.
JL: I’ve
got a question apropos of that. You have a deep, deep sense of your home culture, Hopi culture. You also have a pretty profound sense of—how to call it—monoculture, which is fast turning into global culture. Can you characterize what you see as the differences between the two points of view? There are continued on page 35 probably more than two points of view.
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Hopi Pot © Steve Elmore
JL: how do you perceive culture relative to homeland?
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The Santo Domingo Heritage Trail Arts Project
Barbara Epstein
a rich artistic history of jewelry and pottery-making, but unemployment is high and a quarter of the residents live below the poverty line. The new transit station promises public-transport access to urban centers, better jobs and educational opportunities outside the reservation, as well as an increase in tourism. Earlier initiatives worked with the tribe to envision the kind of development that would benefit the pueblo and draw upon its cultural heritage. A 2012 “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts supported a cultural district plan to document the tribe’s cultural heritage and establish
Maximizing the potential of rural transitoriented development to create a modern settlement inspired by history and tradition
The resurrection of a commuter rail between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, has meant a new station in Domingo, an abandoned mercantile town along the historic route that incorporated the Camino Real and Route 66. The town, once an active trading post, is within Santo Domingo Pueblo boundaries, two miles from the residentially dense pueblo core. The Pueblo of Santo Domingo has maintained traditional religious practices and social structure and has
livable and culturally appropriate guidelines for historic adobe structures, as well as new development. The plan, which also promoted cultural and artistic entrepreneurship, was a collaboration of the Santo Domingo Planning Department, Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority, Enterprise Community Partners, Cornerstones Community Partnerships, Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship, Atkin Olshin Schade Architects and Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative.
Photo by Svoboda from Wikimedia Commons
“T
he Santo Domingo Heritage Trail Arts Project, which recently earned a nearly half-milliondollar ArtP lace America grant, stemmed f rom years of work and collaborations that developed into a vision with an exciting scope,” says Jamie Blosser, a member of the team involved in developing the project and facilitating its implementation. “It’s tying together many different projects in a beautiful way,” she added. In a recent conversation, Blosser, associate at Atkin Olshin Schade Architects and a 2015 Loeb Fellow at Harvard, explained how the project evolved and why it’s so important for the Pueblo of Santo Domingo.
Santo Domingo Trading Post in 1970; below: restored trading post
To n y A t k i n , founding partner at Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, and Laurie Olin of Olin Studio focused on maximizing the potential of rural transit-oriented development to create a modern settlement inspired by history and tradition. Working with tribal leadership, they considered how to design 400 housing units in Domingo that build upon the pueblo’s architectural heritage but also look toward modern design and methodologies. Tribal members made clear the need for a safe pedestrian trail on the two-mile stretch between the town, the pueblo and the housing developments on each end. This idea became the seed of future development of the trail.
Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative
Joseph Kunkel, an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow working with Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative and the Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority, organized a community walk between Domingo and the pueblo core that elicited oral histories and the vision of the community for the path. What emerged from all of these efforts set the stage for the ArtPlace grant. There was a new sense of the strong connection between town and pueblo and the potential impacts for health, safety and crosscultural exchange.
Santo Domingo Heritage Trail community walking tour
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Last year, Tony Atkin and Laurie Olin committed their firms’ time pro bono
to help develop this idea of a safe and beautiful trail, by staging a charrette with volunteer staff members and the Santo Domingo Planning Department. They looked at the possibility of using points along the trail to explain Santo Domingo culture, history and the surrounding landscape. The trail presents a unique opportunity to educate and inform visitors, who will have easier access to the pueblo, thereby supporting the tribe’s entrepreneurship. With the funding f rom ArtPlace America, local artists will be invited to propose designs for stops for resting and lingering along the path. Atkin Olshin Schade Architects and Olin Studio will work with the artists to provide coordination to implement the artwork. The result will be a modern solution that preserves the history and traditions of ancient culture, reinforces the benefits of new development and responds to the realities of 21st-century tribal life. i Barbara Epstein is a writer, editor and consultant working with nonprofit, academic and community organizations. http://blogs. gsd.harvard.edu/loeb-fellows/
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UNM Institute Helps Native Communities Address Design Challenges
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n the three short years since the Indigenous Design + Planning Institute (iD+Pi) was established at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning (UNM SAAP), the institute’s faculty, staff and students have completed two major projects: one at Ysleta del Sur, and the other at Nambé Pueblo. Additionally, a project for New Mexico Main Street at Zuni is in final draft form, and a comprehensive master plan for Taos Pueblo is just a few months from completion. The need for iD+Pi’s services is matched only by the desire of the institute to meet community needs. Under the leadership of Ted Jojola, distinguished professor and Regents’ professor of Community and Regional Planning, iD+Pi is making inroads with indigenous communities in New Mexico and beyond.
The Navajo Nation
“We are in the midst of negotiating a service contract with the Navajo Nation that will serve as a template for future projects,” Jojola said, noting that approval is expected by September. That doesn’t mean, however, that Jojola is waiting for the ink to dry before actively engaging Navajo communities.“We are working on a Chaco Canyon assessment plan. We are in contact with chapters in the area to look at the economic development potential that tourism provides in the area,” he said.
A growing, vital institute with tribal, academic, student and professional affiliates
At Cochiti Pueblo, iD+Pi is developing a plaza-preservation plan. Amanda Montoya, iD+Pi program specialist from Taos Pueblo, said that they developed an architecture and children’s program by “training the trainers”—in this case, teachers who work with children. “They learned to talk to the children about plaza revitalization and helped them express what they want to see in their plaza,” she said. A Keres language component was included, which was a challenge because the language is not written. Jojola said that during a debrief with Kevin
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Lewis, Cochiti Pueblo education director, they learned of the disconnect between abstract architectural terms and the scope of the Keres language. A wonderful thing happened. “It provoked conversation. It caused the summer staff and kids to talk to their parents and their parents’ parents about the words and phrases that are true to the native language, rather than adaptations like the word ‘ventana,’ which is the word for window borrowed from Spanish,” Jojola said. “The project captured a lost part of the language through these buildings. It brought up values, meanings and symbolism that was unexpected,” he said. During the Cochiti Summer Youth Language Program, children started learning other words in Keres. “They explored the language beyond colors and food. It allowed abstract-minded kids an opportunity to grow in the language,” Jojola said. And whereas before, the children looked at the plaza with disdain, wondering why old buildings weren’t torn down, now they wanted to know why they couldn’t be rebuilt. Montoya said that Cochiti Pueblo is working with Tony Atkin of Atkin Olshin Schade Architects (AOS) in Santa Fe on the historic village area. “They asked iD+Pi to hold community meetings to get feedback on the way they want to revitalize the plaza.”
Renderings of proposed museum at the Pueblo of Nambé
Nambé has a rich agricultural history. Fields were cultivated around and adjacent to the plaza. “The life of the community was growing crops that provided for the community,” said Jojola. Students used aerial imagery to reveal the extent of agricultural land use in and around the pueblo. “Over the course of history, especially after World War II when they went to a wage economy, the inf rastructure that supported agriculture iD+Pi Director Ted Jojola declined,” Jojola said.
Jojola said an exhibit will be developed and displayed in the post office. It will show the findings from AOS, which will be useful for upcoming community meetings. “The goal is to develop consensus on restoration of the plaza area.”
Nambé Pueblo or Nanbé Owingeh
Courtesy Indigenous Design+Planning Institute, UNM
Carolyn Gonzales
What started as a request from the National Park Service to assess the condition of the buildings around the Nambé plaza became much more. “If no intervention takes place in the next 10 years, the buildings will be gone. The adobe is destabilized because of moisture. To understand why the degradation occurred, iD+Pi had to look at social, physical and cultural causes, ”Jojola said.
Nambé ancestors were adept at using a ditch network to divert surface water to fields and away from the plaza. “After the people stopped planting, the ditches weren’t maintained. The main road that went into the plaza became an inadvertent watershed,” Jojola said. The runoff traveled along the roadway and straight toward the plaza. Montoya added,“It is eroding the traditional plaza buildings.” It is clear that the ditches need to be reestablished for drainage before work can be done on the buildings. “Ultimately, farming projects need to come back to the plaza,” Jojola said. iD+Pi also created three, threedimensional models of Nambé: past, present and future.“Those models are to be the centerpiece of a new museum at
Nambé. Nambé Pueblo is working with the IAIA [Institute of American Indian Arts] on that,” Montoya said. Another challenge for Nambé is that the sense of ownership has changed. “Yards, fences and barriers affect the communal nature of the plaza. Building consensus is harder now,” Jojola said.
Planners Plan
As leaders of a growing, vital institute within UNM, Jojola, Montoya and their collaborators are hard at work on a strategic plan that will guide them. “We engaged all our affiliates—tribal, academic, student and professional,”said Jojola.“We brought in people from Ysleta del Sur and Nambé to get feedback on their experiences with iD+Pi.They established strategic directions that guide them to strengthen their core identity, widen the circle and share the knowledge.” Their greatest challenge is financial resources. They plan to go the State Legislature again next year, working with UNM’s priorities, as well as those of the Native American Caucus. And they know there are people out there who recognize iD+Pi’s good work and want to be a part of it. They can visit: http://idpi.unm.edu/ to donate. i Carolyn Gonzales is a senior communications representative at UNM. Among the topics she writes about are architecture, planning and ethnic studies.
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The Pueblo Food Experience
“Pre-contact foods” may match our genetic makeup better than newer foods. Roxanne Swentzell
T
© Karl Duncan, Center Table © Chastity Sandoval
he process of assimilation of Native Americans by the outside world, which started centuries ago, continues to this day. One aspect of this assimilation is the change in traditional diets. As a result, our health has suffered greatly. Diabetes, cancer, kidney- and liver failure, hormonal imbalances, inflammation, allergies, obesity, alcohol and drug addictions are but some of the symptoms of living in this modern time. One can blame the environment and lifestyles, but many of these symptoms come from what we put in our mouths. Native people are particularly susceptible to diabetes because of our inability to process refined sugar and carbohydrates. Overprocessed and packaged foods have become the normal diet. These foods often contain high levels of sugar and ingredients that have been sprayed with chemicals, bleached and genetically modified (GMO), the side effects of which are still being learned. These food products are harmful to all peoples, but the Native populations have been hit hard because we were not used to eating European foods. Our bodies have not had the long evolutionary time to adjust and are suffering greatly because of it. Flowering Tree put together a program in an attempt to address some of these health issues. A group of Native volunteers agreed to eat only their native foods for a determined period of time. Their health conditions were monitored. Improvement of their overall health was achieved while encouraging cultural preservation. The results will be used to show how eating this way might improve health. Recipes and food sources are being collected in order to share with others who might want to eat this way also.
Volunteers ate only their native foods for three months.
Theory
Foods that were eaten for much longer—“pre-contact foods”—may match our genetic makeup better than newer foods. Pre-contact foods tend to be less processed, less changed from their original state, and not full of chemical pesticides and herbicides.
Trial
Volunteers of Pueblo descent agreed to be tested for results, eating only food that was native to the area before contact with Europeans. The first test period ran for three months. Before they started, volunteers were given blood tests and weighed. They ranged from 6 years old to 65 years old. Their health conditions ranged from fairly healthy to dangerously unhealthy. Symptoms such as diabetes, heart issues, obesity, high blood pressure, allergies and fatigue were present among most. After three months on the pre-contact diet, the volunteers were tested and weighed again.
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© Jonathon Loretto (2)
Outline of the Diet
Eat only original food from your native area. Our bodies have adapted to our original foods over thousands of years and are better prepared to handle them. For us in the Southwest United States, this means we eat foods available to us before the arrival of the Spanish. This model can be adapted to whichever culture you originated from. What was your original diet? What were the plants and animals that were originally gathered in the area and eaten?
Collecting salt from our original source
Doctor’s Statement
Dr. Maria Gabrielle: About four months ago I had the privilege of meeting individually with a group of Native Americans who were willing to undertake the challenge of changing their diet to improve their overall health and wellbeing. Some were eager to begin and some were more hesitant, as it is difficult to change long-ingrained eating habits, especially addictions to things such as sugar and coffee. When I first met with everyone individually and read their blood tests, various health issues were apparent, specifically, pre-diabetic conditions, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high LDL (commonly called “bad fats”) and liver imbalances. Most were also overweight. After three months on the diet, there was an average weight loss of 35 to 40 lbs. One person lost 50 lbs., which is remarkable over only a few months. There were considerable changes in blood-test results, showing strong decreases in cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar and LDL. Everyone reported feeling much healthier overall, having more energy to do the things that they need to do every day. Some have decided to stay on the diet for longer than the initial three months since they feel so much better. My congratulations to all who made it through. May you continue to stay healthy and, hopefully, teach others by example. continued on page 16
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Pueblo Food Experience
continued from page 15
Some of Our Test Results
Roxanne Swentzell: My test results were great! I didn’t think it would show that much on my lab tests, but my cholesterol was way better. It’s always been high, no matter what I’ve done, but this diet changed it when nothing else could in just three months. The doctors had assumed it was genetic and that there was nothing to do about it. Also, my liver is happier and my inflammation is gone. When I started, I had a lot of “ghost cells” (dead cells) and a lot of clumping; now, I didn’t see one ghost cell and my white blood cells were happy. Cholesterol: 245 before; now 172 Triglycerides: 118 before; now 62 LDL: 155 before; now 106 LDH: 248 before; now 168 Porter Swentzell: Before this diet, my blood-test result showed that I was heading for a stroke and a heart attack. My last result showed all is now normal plus a 50-lb. weight loss! Jonathan Loretto: Yay! Got a great review from the doctor. She said my test results were near-perfect, and that I had done a swell job bringing down my cholesterol count, among other fatty contents. I weighed myself at the beginning and started off at 183 pounds. After three months, I weighed in at 152 lbs—31 lbs. lost! Feeling great and grateful for this experience. Patricia Reifel: Good results from my three-month blood work. My primary doctor took me off blood-pressure meds that I have been on for about 15 years! Thirty lbs. lost.
Food List Examples
Buffalo, deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, rabbits, fish, duck, geese, turkey, squirrels and other rodents, small birds, eggs, grasshoppers, grubs, eel, piñón nuts, wild plums, currants, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cactus fruits and pads, Indian tea, wild onions, wild parsley, juniper berries, wild spinach, osha, cottail, watercress, chokecherry, mushrooms, Indian rice grass, wild asparagus, purslane, serviceberry, sumac, mint, rosehips, corn (nonGMO), beans, squash, seeds, sunflowers, tomatillos, amaranth and quinoa.
Thoughts and Reflections
Patricia Reifel: This time we’ve all spent working together to get healthier has been very valuable. I am so grateful for the support that has come in so many ways. I can’t really understand why it has been pretty easy for me to stick with the program, except for that. I think I’ll be eating this way for quite a while. Annette M. Rodríguez: Before the Pueblo Food Experience, getting out of bed every morning physically hurt from the arthritis and muscle pain that comes from lupus. But, within a month on the diet, the swelling and pain were gone. I also lost the lupus butterfly rash on my face that has marked me for years. I won’t go back to how I ate before. Chastity Sandoval: My life has changed. I didn’t know much about the kinds of foods out there and the kinds of foods that contain horrible ingredients. After tons of research, it’s still a challenge to come across foods we like that will be okay to eat. I felt like I was a horrible parent feeding my kids junk. It’s pretty shocking, once you educate yourself about it. I no longer want my kids to eat a terrible diet; their health, my health and my husband’s health were bad. We were the American obese family. We no longer have shame to share our story, and we hope to inspire people to bring the traditional foods back into our tribes. I think this is where it starts, so we can no longer be broken, damaged, struggling with daily life, depression and alcoholism. I miss the Cokes, cookies, cakes and treats, but I also want to live. I’m living now! I’m recovering. I feel great! Marian Naranjo: I have often thought about how hard it was for our ancestors just to eat. Even though the circumstances are way different, the concept is the same. In the prayers, there are words of advice that have been passed down since the beginning.
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© Seth Roffman
Chastity Sandoval: Glad to report that my white blood cells are very happy. The rest of my other blood cells are not clumped together. Here is my list to show my improvement: Glucose: 106 before; now 85 Cholesterol: 183 before; now 122 Triglycerides: 179 before; now 99 My liver is working way better, and I’m no longer at risk for a heart attack. I’m no longer in the pre-diabetic group.
L-R: Patricia Reifel, Chastity Sandoval, Annette M. Rodríguez and Marian Naranjo
“Love, respect and care for one another, so that things will go good.” We should not live to eat; we should eat to live. And we are realizing this fact! I hope we continue the connections we have made through this venture by sharing our recipes, our food and eating our pre-contact meals.
Pre-contact Diet Questionnaire and Worksheet
Ancestry: _________________ (Main culture/race that you identify with) Original Location: _________(Place lived for over 20+ generations in one location) Note: It takes at least 20 generations for the human genes to adapt to a certain environment. This is how we all got our different skin, hair and features. For instance, fair-skinned people lived in colder, cloudier climates for long enough to cause their genes to produce light skin in order to soak in less-abundant sunlight—better for vitamin D—while darker-skinned people evolved in hotter, sunnier places, and their skin protected them from getting too much sun. Black people now living in cloudy places suffer diseases from not having enough sun, and white people living in sunny places have to cover up from the sun or they will burn easily. List as many food sources as you can think of from your original ancestry location: Mammals eaten; Fruits, nuts, roots and wild plants gathered; Planted crops; Fish, birds and insects eaten. So now you have a diet. This starts the journey of searching and gathering your food. Because most precontact diets have items that cannot be found in most grocery stores, it might be challenging to find them. But it also starts the amazing journey of researching where you come from and how your people lived and thrived and became you.
Things to Look For
• F inding others to join you in eating this way is extremely helpful; we are community/herd animals and work better in groups. • Trying to get organic, non-GMO products. • Preparing and cooking your food may take on forms that aren’t used today; be open to new/old ways of doing things. • Asking elders about old methods of food storage and use might be helpful. • Noticing the layers of detoxing that happen over the first few months of eating this way and the ways you feel different. • Collecting recipes and sharing within your group is a great way to expand the variety of what you are eating. • Eating meals together. • Learning about foods that were eaten that may be extinct now or in different forms than they were originally; for example, wild strawberries versus storebought strawberries. How are they different, and are you willing to substitute? • Getting blood tests done before and after a few months might be helpful to see the results of what these foods are doing for you. This is a cultural revolution using our health as our strength against the corporations and industries that are destroying our health for their profit. Every time we don’t buy that Coke or cookie, we are winning the battle for our existence. And with this diet, we have our whole ancestral line backing us. i The Pueblo Food Experience: A Pre-Contact Project is a project of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute. Flowering Tree is a nonprofit organization creating healthier communities through Native culture and permaculture practices. For more information on the project, see The Pueblo Food Experience on Facebook.
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505- 690-6272
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EVERYDA Y GREEN
The Native Food Sovereignty Movement
Susan Guyette
The high rates of obesity and diabetes present in contemporar y Native American communities are best understood in historical context. Colonialism imposed a food system not suited to Native people. Loss of much of the tribal land base necessary for traditional gathering and hunting, plus reliance on government commodity food-distribution programs—based on refined, milled foods, dairy products and trans-fats—exacerbated health problems for a genetic body type that is lactose-intolerant and not suited to high gluten.
Culturally based solutions that address wellness, economies and rebuild relationships The result is a modern epidemic. American Indian/Alaskan Natives have a 2.7 times higher incidence of diabetes than whites (CDC). Adults are 60 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites. More than 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight.
Values and Spiritual Connections
Culturally based solutions, coming internally from tribal communities, are sparking an exciting, flourishing movement that seeks to turn these conditions around. The spiritual nature of foods is the basis of the cultural connection to self-care. Respect for the body is reflected in viewing
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food as a lifeway and medicine. This worldview recognizes that food heals the body as an everyday process. This is an integrated approach to food that respects one’s place in the ecosystem, through social clans representing plants and animals, and reflects balance in the ecosystem. Traditional Native American languages express relationships to plants and animals. Stories and legends convey food-related knowledge, roles, responsibilities and relationships. The continual exchange of food and food knowledge through kinship forms a traditional food system. Native practices, such as maintaining healthy landscapes, and ecosystemspecific agriculture, such as gathering and “tending” wild plants, and deer and elk management, are intricately tied to culture. In the Native view, nurturing healthy, interdependent relationships with the land, plants and animals that provide food is a sacred responsibility. Values are also central to behavior surrounding food. Sacrificing good quality food in favor of expensive, processed foods and consumerism is a contemporary behavioral pattern in the United States, detrimental to maintaining good health, connections to family and to land. In the Native view, not taking care of one’s body and relying on allopathic medicine to repair the damage of degenerative illnesses from lack of self-care reflects a disconnect. Value awareness carries a community into building culturally based food systems: Generosity creates famil y and community connection; Family connections are strengthened by preparing and growing food together; Cooperation, a strong value in traditional New Mexico cultures, takes us from the convenience store to sharing food together, rather than in isolation in front of the television; a n d Community, w h e re t r i b a l communities are pulling together to create community farms and gardens and family gardens and co-ops to provide a nutritious and safe local food
supply based upon traditional practices.
The Movement
Native food sovereignty is a local response, addressing local history and high rates of degenerative diseases as a means of self-determination. Today, tribes are making great progress toward gaining control of their own food sources by seed saving and growing food. Generously sharing knowledge with non-Indian neighbors is a part of this evolution. The Native Food Sovereignty movement is a contemporary response based on the spiritual understanding of food as a gift and the sovereign right of tribes and tribal members to make decisions regarding a healthy, culturally based diet. According to the Indigenous Food Systems Network, food sovereignty, or independence through taking back control of diets and health, can be achieved only if individuals, families and communities are actively participating in indigenous food-related events and activities. The Pueblo Food Experience, led by sculptor Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo), is an example of a project highly successful in supporting tribal members making the shift to a healthy, “pre-contact diet” (Page 15). The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance recognizes restoring Native food systems as an immediate and fundamental need for the continued survival and physical and spiritual wellbeing of Native peoples and our Mother Earth. NAFSA is dedicated to restoring the indigenous food systems that support indigenous self-determination, wellness, cultures, values, communities, economies, languages and families, and those that rebuild relationships with the land, water, plants and animals that sustain a people. With financial support to tribes from First Nations Development Institute, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Indian Health Ser vice, the Administration for Native Americans and foundations, the restoration of Native food traditions is taking place. The formation of tribal farm enterprises,
© Seth Roffman (2)
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ood, Earth’s medicine, nurtures and heals. A growing movement in Indian Country recognizes that the future of Native cultures depends upon healthy people learning and practicing food traditions. Native people have co-evolved for thousands of years, cultivating and gathering foods and observing which nourished a thriving body and which had healing properties. As Pueblo scholar Greg Cajete points out, Native science understands this through observing connections.
Mother and daughter at a heritage seed exchange in northern New Mexico
farmers’ markets and seed banks to preserve indigenous varieties and traditional knowledge is furthering a local, fresh food supply.
How You Can Participate
Opportunities exist in New Mexico for purchasing tribally grown nutritious varieties, interacting with tribal farmers, and learning about growing and culinary practices. A couple of examples: Red Willow Farmers’ Market at Taos Pueblo offers agricultural produce, as well as bison and beef from tribal herds (Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 885 Star Road); and Pojoaque Pueblo Farmers’ Market (Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., in front of the Poeh Cultural Center and Museum, off Highway 84/285, about 15 minutes north of Santa Fe). i Susan Guyette, Ph.D., is of Métis her itage (Micmac Indian/Acadian French). She is a planner specializing in cultural tourism, cultural centers, museums and native foods. She is the author of Sustainable Cultural Tourism: SmallScale Solutions and Planning for Balanced Development and co-author of Zen Birding: Connect in Nature. susanguyette@nets. com
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Navajo Nation is a Food Desert
food sovereignty: the ability of a nation to provide food within its borders to feed its people
The Diné Food Sovereignty Report, an extensive study on the Navajo Nation’s food supply, was released in May 2014 by Diné Policy Institute (DPI), a Navajo think tank. The report reveals that, of the 230 Navajo people surveyed in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 40 percent said people in their community don’t get enough food on a daily basis, even though more than half the population receives some kind of government food subsidy. Sixty percent say there are foods they need or want but can’t find on the reservation, or that it is too expensive there. Over half of those surveyed said they spend almost all of their money on groceries and other basic necessities off the reservation, in cities such as Gallup, New Mexico, where there are supermarkets and big-box stores. Most of those people travel between 155 and 218 miles round-trip to shop.
Gutierrez Family Dry-Land Farm at Puye
© Seth Roffman (3)
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s a hawk circled high overhead, Joey Gutierrez drove a small tractor back and forth over his family’s field, still moist from the previous day’s rain, planting beans and corn. Joey, his father, Joe Val Gutierrez, and his sister Jacquelyn, who planted potatoes, were working the field their family had planted for generations at Puye, Santa Clara Pueblo’s ancestral land. Numerous cliff-dwelling ruins overlook the field. The remains of a 200-year-old log cabin lodge Joe Val’s ancestors built stand nearby. Every other year, the family plants dry-land (nonirrigated) crops, enough for eating, for seed, and extra for any deer, elk or turkeys that might browse Joey Gutierrez plants; a hawk flies the field.“It’s good to be generous, not stingy. It will over the remains of a lodge come back to you,” Joe Val said. In the fall, family, neighbors and friends help harvest and receive some of the bounty. In the off years, a cover crop of winter wheat, rye or oats is disked into the soil to help it recover. Joey has been a ranger, fighting forest fires and building dikes in the area. Joe Val has worked this land since he was a child. A former tribal councilman, he was a heavy-equipment operator for many years. He is now disabled and has diabetes.“I continue to do this to try to inspire young people to keep up the tradition,” he says. “We don’t want to lose the culture.” i
Joe Val Gutierrez
Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said that they have health problems, such as diabetes and obesity, due to having few options for obtaining fresh, healthy food. Although the Indian Health Services says that one in three Navajo have either type 2 diabetes or are pre-diabetic, the DPI study estimates that the number is actually closer to half of all children and adults. The report says that one of the reasons for the lack of healthy options is that there is little access to arable land. And historically, Navajo were not farmers. Although they eventually learned from the Pueblos to grow their own corn, beans, squash and melons—plants that became important to Navajo culture—that way of life was lost, in part because of conflicts with the U.S. Army in the late 1800s, when they were incarcerated and made completely dependent on government food rations. According to the study’s authors, the inability of the Navajo Nation to feed its people poses a threat to the Nation’s sovereignty and sustainability. The authors suggest the need to develop homegrown solutions to food scarcity. First Nations Development Institute, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, provided funding for the report. To read it, visit: http://www. dinecollege.edu/institutes/DPI/Docs/dpi-food-sovereignty-report.pdf
Acoma Business Enterprise LLC Developing Farm Produce Plan
USDA-Rural Development has provided a $75,000 grant to Acoma Business Enterprise LLC (ABE) to create a plan for marketing produce grown by Native American farmers. The money is being used to develop a comprehensive business plan and a marketing study to create a Native Food Hub, which will be the first of its kind in the nation. The food hub will be a location where producers can deliver their goods for processing and distribution to markets. Rural Development officials say that some Native farmers find that at the end of the growing season they have a lot of unsold or unused produce. ABE is owned by the Pueblo of Acoma, which has a casino, hotel and tourism enterprise, including a cultural center. ABE applied for the grant funding at the request of the 10 Southern Pueblos Council because of the company’s capacity to create the plan and administer implementation of marketing produce grown in the 10 pueblos.
Four Square Leagues: Pueblo Land in New Mexico
Malcolm Ebright, Rick Hendricks and Richard W. Hughes 12 original drawings, 4 maps, 7 illustrations, index, bibliography. 452 pages UNM Press, 2014, www.southwestbooks.org
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his long-awaited book is a detailed, up-to-date account of the complex history of Pueblo Indian land in New Mexico, beginning in the late 17th century and continuing to the present day. The authors—historian Malcolm Ebright, an attorney and director of the Center for Land Grant Studies; New Mexico State Historian Rick Hendricks; and Richard W. Hughes, an attorney specializing in Indian law—have scoured documents and legal decisions to trace the rise of the mysterious Pueblo League between 1700 and 1821 as the basis of Pueblo land under Spanish rule. They also provide a detailed analysis of Pueblo lands after 1821 to determine how the Pueblos and their non-Indian
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neighbors reacted to the change from Spanish to Mexican and then to U.S. sovereignty. Four Square Leagues is characterized by success stories of protection of Pueblo land as well as by centuries of encroachment by non-American Indians on Pueblo lands and resources. Specific studies of the land struggles of Jémez, Cochiti, Santa Clara, Sandia and Picurís pueblos are capped by Santa Ana Pueblo’s campaign in the early 1700s to buy back their ancestral lands from their Spanish neighbors, and Taos Pueblo’s successful battle for their sacred Blue Lake. This is a uniquely New Mexican history that also reflects issues of indigenous land tenure that vex contested territories all over the world. i
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Harvesting Traditions A One-Woman Show by Kathleen Wall
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he Pablita Velarde Museum of Indian Women in the Arts’ (PVMIWA) mission is to educate, preserve, exhibit and promote the work and achievements of Native women artists throughout North America across all art forms and genres. For the next six months at the new museum in downtown Santa Fe, Kathleen Wall ( Jémez Pueblo) is featured in “Harvesting Tradition,” an exhibition that focuses on the beauty and artistry of traditional knowledge in food ways expressed in her clay sculptures and paintings.
The beauty and artistry of traditional knowledge in food ways
Expressions of historical knowledge and food ways embedded in Wall’s artwork convey a larger message of what it means to live healthy. She states, “My husband had just recently been diagnosed with diabetes. This was a big eye-opener to the way he ate and his perception of food. My husband, now aware of the food he eats, says, ‘Our bodies were created hundreds, thousands or even millions of years ago, and the food we had during that time was gathered or hunted. Our bodies have not changed much since then, but our environment has changed immensely.’ I needed to explore the possibility of a show that reflected the Native American culture and its relationship with the food we eat.”
There are eight art pieces in the exhibit, including a variety of traditional, processed clay and acrylic paints with earth pigments. A unique approach in Kathleen’s work is the relationship of her clay sculptures alongside the backdrop of her paintings. In “Corn Grinders,” two clay-figured women are side by side, kneeling, grinding corn. During such an activity, men sing to keep the rhythm of grinding. The women are wearing black manta dresses and are engaged in traditional grinding, as this was (and still is) a time for families to gather and work. The accompanying painting includes the inside of a home with a fireplace and an opening to view the cornfields in the background. The interconnections of cornfields, grinding and women exude an energy of coming to life, as conveyed in their smiling faces. In a sense, women are corn; corn gives life, and without women there would be no life. Wall’s artwork not only includes Pueblo life and customs but also presents other indigenous peoples and their food ways. As examples, “Harvesting Wild Onions” is made of traditional, processed Oklahoma clay that includes Cherokee families gathering onions; “Winnowing Wild Rice,”a painting of an Ojibwe woman harvesting rice, includes a traditional canoe that is used to gather mahnoomin in the Great Lakes region; “Saguaro Picker” includes a clay figure of a Tohono O’odham woman reaching out to the painting of a saguaro cactus, using a saguaro rib pole to pull down or knock down the fruit. There are other examples
Pueblo Farmer
of indigenous food ways in the exhibit. The common theme in Wall’s work centers on relations between families and communities, traditional practices of hunting and planting, and stories of clay sculptures and painted histories, which all serve as an action call to embody a healthy and balanced life.
In Wall’s words, her hope “is to start a discussion that will help us find ways to bring together our past knowledge with our food practice today. Maybe in this discussion we can come up with ideas of reintroducing our traditional foods to be a healthier people.” i Matthew J. Martínez, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Pueblo Indian Studies and director of the Northern Pueblos Institute at Northern New Mexico College in Española.
“Harvesting Tradition” will run through January 5, 2015. As part of this exhibit, the Pablita Velarde Museum of Indian Women in the Arts is hosting Noonday Dialogues, from 1-3 pm, featuring the following topics:
Corn Grinders
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Aug. 28, Harvesting Tradition by Kathleen Wall, ( Jémez) Sept. 25, Jémez Farming by Justin Casiquito, ( Jémez) Oct. 23, Corn Grinding by Lois Ellen Frank, (Kiowa) Nov. 28, Indigenous Diet 213 Cathedral Pl., Santa Fe • 505.988.8900 • www.pvmiwa.org Green Fire Times • August 2014
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© Ben Calabaza (2) Photo of Kathleen Wall by Cindy Ewing
Matthew J. Martínez
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The Natwani Coalition: Strengthening Hopi Culture and Agriculture for 10 Years
Samantha Honani-Antone
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hen you think about it, the cuisine we put on our tables gives our families life, health and a sense of identity. Since 2004, the Hopi Foundation’s Natwani Coalition has offered a variety of community- and school-based educational programs to hundreds of our Hopisinom (people) in Hopi and Hopi-Tewa communities. These programs promote the cultivation of our local traditional foods and encourage healthy nutritional habits.
creatively in conversation about issues that concerned them. Many of these presentations and discussions were broadcast live over KUYI, Hopi Radio. Throughout the symposium’s three days, our cooks fed everyone with a great variety of delicious Hopi food. Here are a few of the symposium participants’ comments: “Great way to bring in new ideas to Hopi”; “The most
It wasn’t too long ago that our overall wellness was in balance.We all contributed to how we fed our families and ourselves. Today, we see health conditions and diseases caused by our diet and lack of physical activity. Our local food systems, farming practices and traditions may help address our health issues. The following are a few of the Natwani Coalition’s current programs.
This biennial gathering aims to improve our community’s health and wellness by teaching Hopi traditional values and culture. In June, the Coalition presented the 2014 symposium at First Mesa Elementary School. The theme was “Naa’okiwvewat akw itam naanami unangtapyani” (With humbleness we will support one another).
Local food systems, farming practices and traditions address health issues. More than 350 people attended. It started early in the morning with a Hopi Seed Run, a traditional distance-running event. Then, there were classroom and hands-on workshops such as Integrating Farming into Everyday Wellness; Songs in Hopi Farming; Preparing Nutritious Traditional Foods; Improving Local Watersheds through New and Traditional Water-Gathering Technologies; and Traditional Collaborative Corn Planting. “Open Space” discussions were used to share knowledge and ideas and allow the participants to engage deeply and
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Hopi Agriculture and Food Symposium, June 2014
meaningful thing today was learning how easy it would be to start a garden”; and “Farming and planting is a way of bringing the family together.”
youth as well. It is in honor of these cross-generational voices, concerns and interests that this curriculum is being developed.
Hopi Natwani for Youth Project: Farming Curriculum
Hopi Farm Talk
Over a period of seven years, the Natwani Coalition has been developing a guidebook that will be an essential tool for those who work with our youth to bring back their roles in Hopi farming. Because of the disconnect that has developed over the years, whether from the rise of technology or modern-day conveniences and influences, fewer youth are engaged in traditional Hopi agriculture.The Hopi Natwani for Youth Project (HNYP) guidebook is intended to serve as a catalyst for conversations and experiences that inspire knowledge- sharing between generations.
Of all of the Natwani Coalition’s programs, the HNYP is one of the most important. This community-born initiative, threaded throughout with lessons and activities, will greatly assist local Hopi and Hopi-Tewa users in advocating for the paramount importance of our Hopi culture, language and knowledge. The goals of the HNYP emerged not only from the voices of Hopi elders and the community but from the
© Seth Roffman (4)
Hopi Agriculture & Food Symposium
Prior to hiring program associate Kyle Knox in September 2012, Hopi Farm Talk, a program on KUYI Hopi Radio 88.1 FM, aired only once a year. Today, with our own Community Advisory Board member, Bruce Talawyma, as the host, Hopi Farm Talk is a very successful outreach and awareness tool for the Coalition. Each month, every third Thursday at 8:30 a.m., via public radio and online streaming (www.kuyi.net), the program addresses and discusses (in both Hopi and English) various aspects of Hopi farming. The shows encourage our local community to engage through call-ins, comments on live Facebook interaction and through active listening. We see this as a great way to educate our community on a wide scale.
An Invitation
The Natwani Coalition and its many community partners and volunteers continue to make impacts in support of Hopi agriculture and our local food system. Our community is now more actively aware of issues around Hopi
seed protection and preservation; buying, selling and bartering locally; gardening and awareness of what foods they are eating and feeding their families, including the issue of natural foods versus GMOs.The Coalition has partnered with the local grassroots group developing a Hopi Food Co-op and with Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture to help leverage community-development activities. The Natwani Coalition, a program of the nonprofit 501(c)(3) Hopi Foundation, is underfunded. We respectfully invite those who recognize the value and importance of our efforts to partner with us to celebrate our 10-year anniversary by making a donation or becoming a sponsor. For ways to provide support, please visit www.natwanicoalition.org i S a m a n t h a Honani -Antone ( H o p i - Te w a ) is the Natwani Coalition’s program manager.
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The Navajo Nation’s Energy Landscape Coal, Oil, Gas plus Some Wind and Solar
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e s p i t e c o a l ’s d e c r e a s i n g competitiveness and federal policies that are moving quickly to curb energy-industry pollution, Navajo Nation government leaders have continued to bet on coal, along with oil and natural gas. Coal and the power plants it feeds account for a significant portion of the tribe’s general fund. In a place where 40 percent of households remain without electricity, coal is a cheap, readily available resource that still warms Navajo homes and provides jobs. Last year, Navajo Transitional Energy Co. LLC (NTE), a company owned by the Navajo Nation, finalized a deal to purchase the Navajo Mine near Farmington, New Mexico, from BHP Billiton for $85 million. The Navajos are
agreement between state and federal officials to speed development of an oiland liquid gas-rich zone in the Mancos Shale, a hard rock layer in the San Juan Basin that will be made productive using fracking and horizontal drilling. The accord authorizes San Juan College to expedite land-lease agreements between energy firms and Navajo families. Navajos in New Mexico had already signed about 280 leases at the time of the announcement. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is processing the leases, which will bring jobs and wealth to many poor families.
Renewable Energy
Proposals for coal export terminals in the United States are being canceled as projected demand for imported coal in
NTE is required to invest 10 percent of its net income in research and renewable energy projects. paying for the mine with profits from the mine. The tribe expects to make $100 million a year in taxes and royalties from the mine and power plant. Coal sales are expected to bring in $1 billion through 2031. The Farmington Daily Times reported that no public meetings were held prior to the deal, which, despite some opposition, included an agreement that all of BHP Billiton’s past, present and future liabilities for Navajo Mine will be waived. Navajo Mine employs more than 400 people. It is the sole coal supplier to the nearby Four Corners Power Plant, which has retired three of its five units to comply with federal clean-air standards. In 2013, the Navajo Nation Council approved a lease extension and rate hike for the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) near Page, Ariz. The Salt River Project uses the electricity that the NGS generates to deliver water to Arizona’s most populated areas through a series of canals. A final EPA rule announced last month means that the NGS will produce one-third less energy by 2020 and cease operations by 2044. The Navajo Nation will ultimately receive less revenue from the coal that feeds the plant.
Oil and Gas Leases
In February 2014, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martínez announced an
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pollution-choked China decreases. In the past two years, the two largest U.S. coal companies, Peabody and Arch, have reportedly lost more than 75 percent of their value. Over the same period, the price of solar panels has dropped about 60 percent, and utilities around the country are now buying wind power at prices lower than coal or natural gas. Navajo Transitional Energy is required to invest 10 percent of its net income in
Smog from the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant
research and renewable energy projects. Community groups such as Black Mesa Water Coalition and Diné CARE, as well as many Diné residents, think that, in a region with existing transmission infrastructure, the way to build lasting jobs and revenues that can replace the ebbing coal era is to seize the window of opportunity to develop renewables. Aside from benefiting human health from producing power without air pollution, clean-energy advocates say that large quantities of Colorado River water now used in coal and other fossil fuel production could be redirected to improving Navajo agriculture.
Wind Farms and Solar Projects
Multiple studies have found tremendous
potential on the Navajo Nation for both wind and solar. The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) has a deal in place with the Salt River Project—one of Arizona’s largest utilities—to buy energy from the tribe’s wind farm at Big Boquillas Ranch near Seligman, Ariz. The wind farm is projected to generate 200 megawatts (MW) in its second phase. According to the Navajo Times, the project is the first of its kind to be majority-owned by any tribe or tribal enterprise. The Navajos are also planning large-scale wind farms on Gray Mountain and Black Mesa and are developing commercial solar projects sited close to existing transmission corridors and the Navajo Transmission Project, a large transmission line that will stretch 470 miles, from New Mexico to Nevada i.
Legislators Challenge Navajo Water Rights Settlement
A 1948 compact among New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming allocated San Juan River water to members of the Navajo Nation living in New Mexico. Despite the agreement, the Navajos have never received the water. In 2010, a settlement was negotiated based on the compact and signed by then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Attorney General Gary King. The agreement gives the Navajos rights to an additional 130,000 acre-feet of water for farming, above and beyond the 195,400 acre-feet they already use. In August 2013, a district judge in San Juan County approved the deal, but in May 2014, three state legislators—Sen. Steve Neville (R-Farmington), Rep. Paul Bandy (R-Aztec), and Rep. Carl Trujillo (D-Santa Fe)—and Jim Rogers, a farmer and officer of the San Juan Agricultural Water Users Association, filed suit in the New Mexico Supreme Court seeking to invalidate it, charging that it should have been presented to the Legislature for approval. Amy Haas, chief counsel for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, has disputed that interpretation.
Infrastructure Needs on Tribal Lands navajo-gallup water supply project underway
According to a report that the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department presented to the Legislative Finance Committee last month, when it comes to developing infrastructure on tribal lands in New Mexico, the greatest need is buildings for administration, cultural activities, seniors and daycare. Other infrastructure needs are related to water, wastewater and solid waste. Sixty-one percent of Navajo Nation chapters need those services. One result of the Navajo Nation San Juan River Basin Water Rights Settlement is that the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project will deliver water from the San Juan River to eastern sections of the Navajo Nation, a portion of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the city of Gallup. The Obama administration’s proposed budget calls for an $80 million investment in the 10-year project. In April 2014, $20 million was awarded for construction of the first pumping station, to be built in the Twin Lakes area over the next two years. Two additional segments are scheduled to go out to bid this year. The state of New Mexico is providing a large cash match toward the federal obligation for the main pipeline, but, according to New Mexico Secretary of Indian Affairs Arthur Allison, it will be the responsibility of the Navajo Nation and its 54 chapters in New Mexico to cover the tremendous—and unknown—cost of building pipelines to distant communities.
Green Fire Times • August 2014
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$1 Billion Allocated for Navajo Uranium Cleanup Largest Uranium Mine in the U.S. Proposed Near Mount Taylor bout four million tons of uranium ore were extracted during mining operations on the Navajo Nation from 1944 to 1986. Many Navajos worked and lived close to the mines and mills. There are more than 500 abandoned and mostly unremediated uranium mining claims. Two-hundredfifty-nine are scattered across New Mexico. Dust blows off the huge tailings piles. Drinking-water sources in some of these areas still have high levels of radionuclides. A seven-year UNM study of the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, found that tribal members exposed to uranium waste are at increased risk of serious health problems and death. More than $1 billion—part of a settlement the federal government reached with Anadarko Petroleum and Tronox, Inc., a spinoff of Kerr-McGee Corp.—will be administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean about 10 percent of abandoned mines on the Navajo Nation. Of the cleanup funds, $87 million is being set aside specifically for the Quivira Mine near Church Rock, New Mexico. Church Rock is where, in 1979, at a mill owned by General Electric subsidiary United Nuclear Corp., 1,100 tons of solid waste and 93 million gallons of radioactive liquid tailings spilled into the Río Puerco, carrying it through Gallup and 80 miles into the Navajo Nation—the largest release of radioactive materials in United States history. Immediate cleanup efforts only managed to remove about 1 percent of the waste. The Navajo Nation will receive $47 million for cleanup of the massive Shiprock Mill, where ore was processed near the San Juan River. In April 2014, several federal agencies, representatives of the Navajo Nation and others gathered in Gallup to discuss the progress made so far under an initial five-year plan for dealing with uranium contamination. The EPA is developing another five-year plan. The area near Grants, in western New Mexico, contains one of the largest, highest-grade uranium deposits in the United States. At one time, the Mount Taylor Mine employed 800 people. The
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© Anna C. Hansen
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Mount Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico
mine was shut down in 1990 because of the depressed uranium market. In 2005, the tribe banned uranium mining, processing and transporting on its land. That hasn’t stopped new proposals to mine uranium along Mount Taylor. Even if not allowed on Navajo land, companies may be able to get at uranium deposits nearby, as the area is a checkerboard of federal, state and tribal ownership. However, the companies need permission to drive commercial trucks carrying radioactive substances across Indian land.
ranchers and businesses and some Spanish Land Grant communities filed suit against the TCP designation in the New Mexico Supreme Court. In February 2014, in an opinion sought by the five tribes and the state of New Mexico’s Cultural Properties Review Committee, the court ruled that the designation of Mount Taylor as a TCP did not violate due process or state statutes. The court also affirmed that 19,000 acres of Cebolleta Land Grant common lands are not included within the designation.
Canada and Japan have submitted applications for another mine, about nine miles from the peak of Mount Taylor. The Roca Honda Mine would be the largest uranium mine in the United States, mining 1,000 tons a day for about nine years. A spokesman has said that the companies are committed to avoiding damaging culturally sensitive sites. According to the draft Environmental Impact Statement, the project has the potential to create about 2,400 jobs and over $1 billion in economic activity.
$87 million is being set aside specifically for the Quivira Mine near Church Rock, NM.
New Uranium Mining Projects
The EPA, the Navajo Nation and corporations have performed some remediation at several sites, but after more than 30 years, areas of Milan, Church Rock and other northwestern New Mexico sites have not been significantly upgraded. “They continue to contaminate the air, land and water,” says Susan Gordon, coordinator of MASE. “The communities that are members of our coalition have been irreparably harmed by uranium mining and milling in the Grants Mineral Belt. Our position is that no new uranium mines should be allowed to open until the toxic legacy from uranium mining has been cleaned up.” i
Determined to protect the extinct volcano and nearby mesas from what they see as further desecration, in 2008 the pueblos of Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, and also the Hopi and Navajo, released an unprecedented report detailing their ancestral and spiritual connections to Mount Taylor, where medicine men gather edible plants and herbs for prayer and healing purposes, and families set up summer camps and graze sheep. The report’s release resulted in state approval of “Traditional Cultural Property” (TCP) designation, bolstering, to some extent, the tribes’ role in the decision-making process in relation to uranium mining and other development on more than 400,000 acres. In 2009, mining companies, local
By 2012, several companies, claiming technological advancements that would allow them to operate safely, addressed the Navajo government, begging for permission to mine uranium once again. In April 2014, Río Grande Resources Corporation applied to the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division to revise its “standby” permit for the Mount Taylor Mine. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center, representing Amigos Bravos and MASE (the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment), is currently appealing that permit in state District Court. The NMELC contends that the proposed operation would, among other things, imperil the area’s water supply. Meanwhile, multinational corporations from
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Northern Pueblos Housing Authority’s Clean Energy Projects
Article and photos by Seth Roffman
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he Northern Pueblos Housing Authority (NPHA) has been the federally recognized,Tribally Designated Housing Entity for the pueblos of Picurís, San Ildefonso and Tesuque since 1971. The Authority contributes to the quality of life of those pueblos by developing high-quality housing and business and community facilities. The NPHA is governed by a board of commissioners appointed by its member pueblos. The leaders of NPHA’s member pueblos see steady development of renewableenergy (RE) power production as a practical way to fulfill their common commitments to the values of tribal sovereignty, responsible stewardship of the Earth and cost-effective government. They support state and regional positioning of sunny northern New Mexico as an economic cluster hub for model green-building demonstration sites and RE businesses.
Enhancing northern New Mexico’s energy profile
Over the past five years, NPHA has completed more than $10 million in community-improvement projects in Native communities, including RE and energy-efficiency initiatives. The organization has worked independently and cooperatively with publicly funded energy-efficiency providers, such as Los Amigos and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, to retrofit dozens of existing homes on the three pueblos with
The new fire station will achieve net-zero energy usage. Solar photovoltaic panels will provide primary electrical, building heat and water heating. There will be low-flow plumbing fixtures. Natural lighting will be maximized.
improved insulation, weather stripping and energy-efficient windows and doors. In 2010, NPHA used a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency Community Development block grant to install a solar-power generator demonstration project on the Pueblo of San Ildefonso’s Community Learning Center. NPHA is paving the way for larger projects by developing plans to enhance northern New Mexico’s energy profile by powering facilities such as Tesuque Pueblo’s Intergenerational Center with photovoltaic (PV ) technology. The Authority is exploring the feasibility of providing all 300 of the occupied homes in its service area with solar-powered electrical and water-heating systems. Picurís Pueblo is a sparsely populated, remote, traditional community located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains 24 miles south of Taos. Most residents have low incomes and strongly support RE
Meeting with Picurís Pueblo Governor Richard Mermejo (center)
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initiatives that would reduce their energy bills. Pueblo officials believe that a solarpowered microgrid would be a reasonable step in moving toward greater energy selfsufficiency. In the meantime, This structure has been removed to make way for the new NPHA will significantly fire station. The pueblo’s fire truck has lacked a heated enhance fire protection for storage facility, so it couldn’t store water in the winter. Picurís and surrounding LeBeau and Thomas develop national communities by constructing a Net-Zero energy policy and programs related to Energy Building (NZEB) standard fire Indian energy development. As a followstation. PV panels will supply primary up to their discussions and tour, NPHA electrical, building heat and water heating. has received a Technical Assistance Grant The fully funded project is underway. for planning with a team from Sandia NPHA is working with AlbuquerqueLaboratories’ Tribal Energy Office. based Sacred Power on the project. A DOE-led, tribal, strategic energyIn April 2014, NPHA Executive Director Scott Beckman and NPHA staff accompanied Tracey LeBeau and Pilar Thomas, director and deputy director of the DOE Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, on a tour of the pueblos, where they met with the governors.
planning workshop will commence with three days of community engagement at Picurís Pueblo at the end of August. “This is encouraging support for potential pueblo-wide implementation of alternative energy,” says Jaime Gaskin, NPHA’s development director. i
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N a t i v e r e n e wa b l e e n e r g y N E W S B I T E s Markets Emerging for Renewable-Energy Development on Tribal Lands
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has estimated that Indian lands contain substantial generating capacity for renewable-energy (RE) resources, with more than 23,000 million megawatt-hours of generation capacity from solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and small/low-power hydro technologies. Tribes are looking to diversify power-supply resources and create jobs and a sustainable revenue source to benefit local communities. Many tribes are actively pursuing ownership and development of utility-scale RE projects on their lands. In recent years, they have worked with Congress to clear federal regulatory hurdles. Securing sites and project financing can now be streamlined. Tribes have been successfully partnering with RE developers or developing projects on their own. Their investments not only expand access to electricity, they could even lead the way in making clean energy available on a larger commercial scale throughout the United States.
Jémez Pueblo Renewable Energy Initiatives Impact Internal NNSA Procurement Procedures Geothermal resources at the Pueblo of Jémez are continuing to be evaluated. The pueblo recently won a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior to conduct a full suite of tests on its recently completed 5,657-ft. geothermal exploration well.
There was one significant accomplishment from the overall effort, however, reports Greg Kaufman, Jémez Pueblo’s Natural Resources Department director. In attempting to sell the solar power to the Los Alamos County/ LANL pool, it became clear that there were some inefficiencies in how the government procures renewable energy (RE), particularly from tribes. Kaufman and Pueblo of Jémez Jémez Pueblo geothermal well during drilling and testing
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Jicarilla Apaches’ New Electric Utility
The Jicarilla Apache Nation has taken control of the electrical needs of its tribal lands. The tribe spent nearly $6 million to acquire about half of the Northern Río Arriba Electric Cooperative, which had been providing the tribe with electricity. On May 9, the tribe established a new utility, the Jicarilla Apache Nation Power Authority ( JANPA), which required formalizing an agreement with Public Service Company of New Mexico to supply the electricity. A new 115 kV transmission line, switchyard and substations have been built. The new tribal power authority serves about 1,300 customers within the Apache Nation’s boundaries, as well as some families near the reservation. Tribal members now pay their electric bills to the tribe. JANPA has installed a photovoltaic (PV) demonstration project at its offices in Dulce, New Mexico. The Authority is collecting data on the system’s performance over a three-year period and conducting a PV information-dissemination program. The project is being linked with an innovative outreach effort aimed at Jicarilla members and other New Mexico tribes and pueblos to help them better understand the energy use that occurs on their respective reservations—and its attendant environmental impacts—and to better understand how even simple buildings can be designed to utilize renewable resources and energy-efficient technologies.
A long-planned, four-megawatt (MW ) solar project has been discontinued because the pueblo was unable to secure a power purchase agreement (PPA) with any of the three potential customers: PNM, Jémez Mountains Electrical Cooperative, and the Los Alamos County Utilities/Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) power purchasing pool.
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Governor Joshua Madalena made a trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for LANL operations, to convince it to change internal procurement procedures, so tribally generated RE could compete for federal power contracts on a level playing field with fossil-derived energy and the government-owned hydropower plants. This effort resulted in a directive from former DOE Secretary Chu and the DOE formally changing its procedures to create a purchasing preference for tribally generated renewable power. Jémez Pueblo has not yet benefited from the change, but all tribes seeking to sell RE to the DOE can use this preference.
Pueblo of Laguna’s Off-Grid Renewable Energy Project
The Pueblo of Laguna’s renewable energy program is establishing the Majors Ranch, a Laguna-owned operation, as a self-contained community with its own source of electrical power, utilizing its solar and wind resources. The facility, located 10 miles off the closest utility grid, is currently used for a youth program and retreat. Under this project, the pueblo will design, install, operate and maintain a wind turbine, two photovoltaic (PV) arrays, two PV-powered water pumps and two active solar waterheater systems. The systems are designed to meet the electrical and hot-water loads of the buildings.
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OP-ED: Remembering 400 Years of Exile
Matthew J. Martínez
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Today, Yungeh continues to be my family’s residence, where I grew up as a kid, running and fishing along the banks of the Río Chama and Río Grande. Just like the confluence of the rivers, so too have new peoples, animals and cultures influenced the landscape of how we come to understand northern New Mexico. While the city of Española continues to celebrate fiestas and honor Juan de Oñate, it is imperative that we all commemorate and recognize a truthful history. It is with the intent of broadening a larger historical discussion and bringing some light to the Española Valley’s history that I was asked to attend the city of Española’s City Council meeting last month. Prior to being introduced, Mayor Alice Lucero read an official proclamation presented to the Fiesta Council Royal Court proclaiming “2014 Fiestas del Valle de Española” and introduced members of the royal court. The proclamation was entrenched with colonial language, such as “when the lands of northern New Mexico were explored by Don Juan de Oñate and claimed by Spain,” and that the Española Valley is “where cultures unite and live in harmony, as our ancestors did for many years. In spite of the atrocities, we learned to live peacefully in our community.” Following the proclamation were applauses and cheers of “¡Qué viva las fiestas!” and “¡Qué viva Don Juan de Oñate!”
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Painting © Douglas Johnson
his year, 2014, marks the 400th anniversary of Juan de Oñate’s exile from New Mexico. In 1598, Oñate traveled north from México, accompanied by a caravan of a thousand soldiers, colonists, m i s s i on a r i e s a n d T l a xc a l a n Méxican Indians, along with cattle, sheep, goats, oxen and horses, and arrived in Yungeh—Place of the Mockingbird—in present-day Ohkay Owingeh. It is said that Oñate’s dusty procession could be seen for miles and that even the odor of cattle preceded his arrival. I often wonder what Pueblo people at that time thought of this new wave of European arrivals to a relatively quiet farming community. I imagine there were emotions of curiosity, awe and fear.
I was next on the agenda to provide a historical context. Meanwhile, the Fiesta Council sat in the audience dressed in their “period clothing of royalty.”
Confronting historical amnesia
I proceeded to state that, 400 years ago, in 1614, Oñate was exiled from what is now New Mexico and charged with mismanagement and excessive cruelty, especially at Acoma Pueblo in 1599, where he ordered the right foot chopped off of 24 Acoma warriors. Males between the ages of 12 and 25 were also enslaved for 20 years, along with all of the females above the age of 12. When King Phillip of Spain heard the news of the massacre and punishments, Oñate was brought on 30 charges of mismanagement and excessive cruelty in suppressing Indian uprisings. He was found guilty of cruelty, immorality and false reporting and returned to Spain to live out the remainder of his life. To t his d ay, Oñ a te re m a in s a controversial figure in Native American history, as well as Latin-American
history. Based on historical facts, it seems fair to state that Oñate’s own people would not tolerate such behavior and that banishment—at the least—would be a fair punishment. My question to the city asked how this year’s Fiesta Council plans to commemorate this monumental date in history. If we are a city of honoring all cultures and histories, what would be an appropriate way to recognize the 400th anniversary of Juan de Oñate’s exile during the city of Española Fiestas? The council chambers were silent and awkward. Councilor Pedro Valdez chimed in to claim that “the past is the past and doesn’t matter today,” which was followed Mayor Lucero’s comment, “We need to celebrate the good things the Spanish brought; that’s why we are all here, even the Pueblos.” As I heard these comments, I wondered what the Royal Court was thinking, not only the young man who was portraying Oñate, but especially La Reina, who more accurately represents Oñate’s mistress. In 1598, Oñate was already married in México to Doña Isabel de Tolosa, who stayed behind while her husband was
sent to colonize the upper Río Grande. Today’s La Reina, like other princesas, problematically remains nameless as a mere submissive backdrop toward a celebration of patriarchal colonization. My comments to the council very much embraced both my Pueblo and Hispano roots in an attempt for all of us to better appreciate celebrations with a clearer historical context. From an indigenous perspective, 400 years is still considered relatively recent, in which the exile of Oñate continues to be remembered as a significant event in New Mexico history. In spite of historical atrocities, we must recognize that we are a people of complex— often violent—histories and, more fundamentally, is that an indigenous solution involves taking the right steps for the next 400 years and beyond by exiling historical amnesia. i Matthew J. Martínez, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Pueblo Indian Studies and director of the Northern Pueblos Institute at Northern New Mexico College in Española.
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Op-Ed: New Mexico Tribal Families:
Thriving in ‘Our Own Ways’ Kathy Sanchez and Mikki Anaya
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ew Mexico is about 121,356 square miles in size. Approximately onethird of our population lives in rural communities. Our tribal lands are found in rural New Mexico. Many of us live in these communities because they are our ancestral homes, the land where generations of our families have lived. Also, many rural working families have no choice but to live here because the cost of housing, whether it is to rent or purchase, is generally much lower than in urban areas.
The voice of rural communities in the policy change arena has been marginalized. But there are trade-offs. For working families, living in rural communities and on tribal lands presents unique challenges not faced by our urban counterparts. Few big businesses operate in or near these communities, other than Walmart. Other big businesses that do operate here tend to pollute the environment. Jobs that pay a living wage are virtually nonexistent, so many of us have to drive great distances to earn our paychecks. The price of gasoline,
with all of its added-on taxes, is a budget line-item working families must contend with. Access to adequate healthcare is also an issue. Many of us must travel an hour, or several hours, to receive more than just a basic screening. Living paycheck to paycheck increases the appeal of payday loans that end up trapping the working family in the predatory lending debt cycle. A simple loan, taken to make ends meet, can snowball, with the borrower paying three to four times what was borrowed. In the area near our Española office, there are loan shops on many streets, competing with the liquor stores. The system of assistance to those in need is also a repressive one. For example, a teacher receiving government assistance such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—otherwise known as food stamps—or assistance with energy bills cannot get a short-term job during the summer break if that work puts her in another income bracket. Once this small amount of income is reported, she might find her assistance reduced. The result is that working families remain stuck in poverty.
Because rural communities are not heavily populated, our voice in the policy-change arena is marginalized. Tribal communities face the unique situation of dual citizenry: we are citizens of the state of New Mexico and citizens of sovereign nations. We have to work particularly hard to have our voices heard, especially in our battle over what we strongly believe are highly toxic environmental effects created by Los Alamos National Laboratory. “The Lab,” the birthplace of the nuclear bomb, is the largest economic driver in the region. It is situated in the center of the home of the Eight Northern Pueblos and many traditional Hispanic communities.We are very concerned about nuclear toxins emanating from the Lab into land, air and water and continuing to have an effect on our families. In the tribal tradition, to strengthen our communities’ lifeways, the way in which we make a living, or work to live a good life, means money has to feed the spirit of communal livelihoods in a sustainable way. Therefore, decisions regarding income generation and the jobs we work
have to be acknowledged within the fabric of our communities. In spite of all of the challenges faced by working families living in rural and tribal communities, we are wise, resilient and self-reliant. We attempt to overcome all of the difficulties and thrive in our own ways. i Kathy Sanchez (Wan Povi) is a founding member and former executive director of Tewa Women United, based in Española, New Mexico. The group works with indigenous women to create stronger communities. Mikki Anaya, whose family has lived in New Mexico since the 1600s, is a lifelong resident of Santa Fe County. She works on community issues. A version of this article appeared in Equal Voice News.
OP-ED: Networking for Wellness
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n these times, we are incorporating our personal truths and ancestral knowledge, reclaiming our Native ways of being and knowing as we interact and honor all our relations as part of our living Earth. Indigenous knowledge is being turned to more and more in the struggle to develop solutions to global challenges. Permaculture principles, organic agriculture, solar energy, earth structures, rainwater catchment and conservation, dry-land farming, seed saving, Earthhonoring spirituality, simplicity, anti-consumerism, and a return to Pueblo/Native foods are some examples of indigenous/land-based knowledge that have great potential for preserving humanity within a systemic culture of violence. A culture of peace is there for us to reclaim. Collectively, we need only open ourselves up to what the memory of this beloved place has to teach us and balance that knowledge with restorative justice and what is good within Euro-American culture.
Preserving humanity within a systemic culture of violence
I have been fortunate to learn from the mentorship and guidance of amazing activists and women-led organizations in northern New Mexico—Tewa Women United; Honor Our Pueblo Existence; Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety; New Mexico Acequia Association; Interfaith Worker Justice; Tularosa Basin Down-
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winders Consortium; a n d D r. M a u r e e n Merritt—as we tackle toxicity and impacts arising f rom nuclear weapons production and environmental violence in the Pueblo peoples’ ancestral homelands and the state of New Mexico. This network Las Mujeres Hablan members (l-r): Joni Arends, Marian Naranjo, of collaboration and Beata Tsosie, Kathy Sanchez, Quita Ortiz, Holly Beaumont shared exper tise is known as Las Mujeres Hablan (LMH), The Women Speak. Other collaborations addressing these issues include The Food and Seed Sovereignty Alliance and Communities for Clean Water. LMH recognizes that our Native peoples hold much wisdom and knowledge of equal worth to that held by scientists and Ph.D.s. We have many allies and equally amazing organizations within our state that are working together, the collective work of which combines continued on page 33
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© Luís Peña
Beata Tsosie-Peña
Growing Financial Independence at Ohkay Owingeh
Drew Tulchin
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orthern New Mexico has long been one of the poorest regions in one of the poorest states in the United States. Compounding this, Native American people statistically have been at the bottom of earned-income indicators. Fortunately, there is a bright spot coming out of the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh, just north of Española: Cha Piyeh, Inc., or CPI. Cha Piyeh means “lending money” in Tewa. CPI is a nonprofit, missionbased lender, incorporated in 2009. CPI provides affordable loans, financial education and financial empowerment. The organization currently serves enrolled members of Ohkay Owingeh and their families. “We are here to help people with their financial needs and shortfalls,” says Rose Marquez, CPI’s director. CPI’s staff consists of Marquez and loan officer Cindy Ortiz.
CPI is a Community Development Financial Institution
Marquez says she was drawn to this work to help her neighbors. “When I heard about the interest rates tribal members were paying, it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I would really like to see a law to cap interest rates in New Mexico. We need more financial resources in rural areas.Those populations are in most need of assistance.” An affordable mortgage over 20 years can save thousands of dollars in interest, compared to payday loans, where Native people have faced predatory and usurious practices.“When people around here have trouble making ends meet, they often go to payday lenders, especially towards the end of the month,” Marquez said. “Most of our tribal members don’t realize how high the interest rates are—often above 100 percent APR.” People commonly get stuck in a cycle, borrowing regularly from payday lenders as a gap solution, living paycheck to paycheck. CPI is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), a designation provided by the U.S.Treasury (www.cdfifund.gov).There are now nearly 1,000 CDFIs throughout the United
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States. The New Mexico Loan Fund, ACCION and WESST are three in New Mexico that predominantly serve small businesses and nonprofits. As a Native American institution, CPI joins Native Community Finance, which began in the Pueblo of Laguna, and Navajo Partnership for Housing in serving Native people in New Mexico. CPI offers five loan products: home refinance, home rehabilitation, youth credit opportunity, signature loans and, now, mortgage loans. The organization has made more than 90 loans to date. Melanie (Lori) Sedillo lives with her boyfriend and their poodle at Ohkay Owingeh. She received a small CPI loan in June. Like all of the 1,600 members living on the reservation, Melanie was preparing for the annual feast days to celebrate the tribe’s patron saints. As a tribal member, if you are not dancing in the historic pueblo plaza, you are feeding people in your home all day. To do this well costs money, which Melanie did not have on hand.
account at a local credit union but had never used online banking. She set up a recurring payment online. Through this, CPI was able to show Melanie’s family how to better use the formal banking Melanie Sedillo (l) meets with Cha Piyeh’s Rose Marquez system and help very little. The majority of its funding Melanie stay on track to build good has come from an initial grant from credit. She paid off the loan on time in six the Department of the Treasury. As a months. Today, Melanie has established nonprofit 501(c)(3), the organization and follows a monthly budget. She doesn’t can accept donations online. For more have Internet at home but wants to take information, call 505.852.1628 or visit a computer class and to be able to pay www.ohkayowingehhousingauthority. other bills online. CPI has a computer at org/cdfi.php i its office to help clients do this. As Cha Piyeh, Inc. reports to the credit bureaus, the organization is helping build income, wealth and assets in Indian Country. CPI operates on a modest annual budget and does a lot with
Drew Tulchin is managing partner of Social Enterprise Associates. www. socialenterprise.net
During the application process, Melanie met with CPI’s staff, who explained the process, provided some financial education and helped her develop a budget. In addition to ensuring that the loan can be paid back, this process helps clients manage their resources. CPI requires financial literacy classes, a new concept to many applicants. The staff teaches clients about the financial system and their personal financial history. For many, this is an empowering step. Marquez explained that she has been able to reach people to the point that they really understand and can control they own money. “I like helping people,” she said. “It is great when clients tell me ‘thank you’for helping them move toward a more secure financial future and I see the clarity in their eyes.” Melanie would not have been able to get a loan from a bank. Her credit report had no score. This wasn’t because she was a bad credit risk; it was just that she didn’t have formal credit experience. CPI offers rates and monthly payments within the clients’ repayment abilities. One repayment requirement is automatic payroll deduction. Melanie had an
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© Jay Garcia
Networking for wellness continued from page 30
into a holistic frame that addresses social justice and human-rights issues beginning from birth to creating healthy families and outward into community. As we continue to join forces throughout our urban and rural networks, our impact and potential for change and true sustainability are greatly magnified. We need to be extremely conscious at this time; the overarching systems of oppression are constantly working to break down and destroy our unity through mechanisms of systemic and internalized forms of oppression. That is also part of our ongoing legacy of historical and generational trauma. Our ancestors need us to grieve, to do the hard work to release our childhood hurts, and to end negative cycles in order to be free from what was enacted upon them (and us) through centuries of genocide and dominant power. This legacy was as harmful to the oppressors as the oppressed and, as a result, we share the same social challenges across cultures: violence within our homes and communities, abuse, poverty, addictions and mental illness. Through shared healing modalities within both indigenous and Western medicine, we have the collective knowledge to recognize and heal ourselves, as whole people and resist the numerous forces Beata Tsosie-Peña and her aunt Paula Tsosie, that would split our spirits and keep us among three generations of Santa Clara from clarity. Pueblo dancers In these times, we watch clouds form above us full of hope, even while we are bombarded with all that is wrong in the world. We grieve for loved ones who left us too soon from violence and illness. We are socialized to live in fear and support the system that keeps us from wellness. There is much work to do; the time is now. Go outside and rebuild community, nurture and mentor children and young people, commit yourselves to helping the work Native organizations and their allies are doing, reform relationships with our natural world in reciprocity and respect. Do the work of unlearning your own superiority and internalizations. Learn or pass on your Native languages, and participate in traditional spirituality. Research your immigrant roots and lifeways from across oceans, and be cautious of exploiting or co-opting Native culture. Strengthen local networks. Love yourself and the place you are a part of, fully and unconditionally, and protect it from harm. Be generous and share what is good. Invoke your body, mind, heart and spiritual sovereignty, and make choices that affirm and protect life. Follow the original instructions given to humanity since time immemorial to love, respect and take care of one another.i Beata Tsosie-Peña is a mother, poet, educator, gardener and seed saver from Santa Clara Pueblo and El Rito. She works for Tewa Women United’s Environmental Health and Justice Program. http://tewawomenunited.org
Buwah Kwi wa Tewha Project at Santa Clara Pueblo
Guided by traditional teachings, Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), a nonprofit organization based at the Pueblo of Santa Clara in northern New Mexico, works on cultural restoration and reclamation projects within the pueblo, and also on environmental issues within the pueblo’s ancestral homelands.
The Cerro Grande and Las Conchas wildfires destroyed 78 percent of Santa C lara’s watershed, including sacred sites, leaving the Marian Naranjo with Buwah community in a precarious position in regard traditional cooking stones to some cultural teachings and experiences that must be passed on to future generations. The pueblo’s residents have been mourning their loss and looking to traditional lifeways that can be revitalized. One ancestral practice, which included planting, growing, harvesting, processing and cooking, provided a healthy food source, but ended in the 1930s. Buwah is a form of finely ground corn made into a batter and skillfully cooked on cured cooking stones using a variety of ingredients and methods. The bread is paper thin and rolled to represent the shape of an ear of corn. HOPE is building a Buwah Kwi wa Tewha, a women’s bread house made of adobes, vigas and earthen floors, with structures for the cooking stones and a ventilation system. A greenhouse will eventually be added. The house is intended to rekindle a lifeway that can empower women and girls from the pueblos to gather, cook and recapture cultural practices. For more information or to make a donation, contact HOPE’s director, Marian Naranjo at 505.929.2151; or mariann2@windstream.net
Wisdom Ways of the Grandmothers
A national project to preserve the stories, practices, herbal remedies and other traditional birth practices is being launched this summer at Taos Pueblo. Tribal elders, who maintain this knowledge, are being audio- or videotaped in their native language, sometimes with an English translator. The recordings are then made available to tribal members. Young women interested in these practices and midwifery are being recruited from various tribes to assist with interviewing the elders. Madrona Bourdeau and Erin Bad Hand initiated the project. Bourdeau is a Haudenosaunee grandmother and midwife. Bad Hand is an author and daughter of Howard Bad Hand, a Lakota singer and medicine man. To learn more or to make a contribution in support of the project, call 575.779.7571, email madrona@ wisdomofthegrandmothers.org or visit www.youcaring.com
Native American Treatment Center at Taos Pueblo
Native American youth rank high in teen pregnancies, suicides, unemployment and substance abuse. A new, 25-bed, adolescent residential treatment center is now operating at Taos Pueblo under the auspices of the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council (ENIPC). It is a place where Native youth, primarily from the eight northern pueblos, can recover from problems with substance abuse and mental health. Many of the youth will be court-ordered to the center for 90-day stays. Treatment there will be culturally specific, reflecting Native beliefs, and the staff is Native American. Native community members are invited in to teach skills. Outpatient programs that include families follow the youths after their release. ENIPC’s Circle of Life program also operates a 14-bed substance abuse residential treatment program for men, New Moon Lodge, at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.
New Santa Ana Pueblo Wellness Center
Supporting Local Business in Southern New Mexico 221 N. Main Street, Las Cruces. 575-‐323-‐1575 www.GreenFireTimes.com
In an effort to combat rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other health problems that plague Native American communities, in April 2014, Santa Ana Pueblo broke ground on a $20 million health and wellness center. The pueblo, along with corporate and private donations and state capital outlay, has funded the project. Native adults are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health. American Indians and Native adults are 60 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites. The health and wellness center will offer a fitness center, basketball courts and a family recreation area as part of the first phase of a wellness project. There will also be a room for childcare and a commercial kitchen and demonstration area where healthy eating habits will be taught. A computer lab and library are planned for a later phase of the project. The center has been designed so it can also serve as an emergency shelter during disasters such as wildfires and flooding.
Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Lyle Balenquah
continued from page 9
Hopi Pot © Steve Elmore
LB: Well, I guess in some ways Hopi culture is what I’ve been taught, and it has kind of instructed me as to how I should live. It’s about that concept of sustainability, knowing what your limitations are as an individual and as a society, as a group of people living in a specific area. You look at Hopi culture; we’ve come to understand that we live in a desert environment. That understanding means that we have to live a certain type of lifestyle that doesn’t push the limitations of the environment. You look at our farming lifestyle, what we’ve been able to achieve with our agricultural products, most importantly corn. The corn is a direct product of us living in this desert environment. It’s well known that Hopi have strains of corn that are drought-resistant, grow well in desert environments and are suited to the types of soil we have. Then, with that come all of those philosophical ideas of understanding. We all hear that term now—“water is life.” That’s part of the basic foundation of Hopi cultural perspective; it’s one of them, there are multiple. I think that the landscape dictates how we structure our world view and come to terms with where we choose to live. Take Phoenix, for example. You drive down the valley and get past Black Canyon City, and immediately, within five, 10 miles, you start to hit all of the outgrowth, the subdivisions that are popping up. How are they going to be able to sustain those communities, not only with water but just in terms of basic resources? I don’t know if people really understand the limitations they’re pushing in certain environments. I think there’s a contrast there in terms of how Hopi have viewed understanding our limitations versus a monoculture or dominant culture relying on technology to see them through. As we all know, technology will only get you so far, and it comes down to human ingenuity and perseverance to see you through some of the harder times. That sense of having a spiritual basis ties into that as well. You really have to have faith, not so much in the technology, but in your own understanding. As Hopi, we understand where we live. We live in a desert. That sets our boundaries. Does the rest of society also have that boundary, or are they just kind of living in a bubble that they keep blowing bigger and bigger and hope that it’s not going to burst? I think that’s one of the basic differences I see between Hopi versus the outside dominant culture. I think maybe there are always a few people who realize the imminent danger of what’s going on, but they are few and far between; their voices aren’t heard, and progress is always put ahead of sustainability. I see that at home as well. Even as Hopi we have to be cognizant of our own progress in terms of development. We have limited resources. Unless some worldwide catastrophe happens, we’ll never go back to those days of the ancestral sites I visit. We’ll never be living in those types of conditions, unless we bring it upon ourselves. So we’re in an almost cyclical way of thinking. Are we just holding onto certain things, the good parts, and forgetting some of the negative changes that were brought upon us by our own actions? We have to learn to apply these broad philosophical ideas of how to live to our modern way of living. I think that a lot of people for a number of years have looked to Hopi as a model of how to live sustainably. If we can do it in such a limited environment with limited resources on a small scale, maybe those types of examples can be applied to the larger global society. And it’s not just Hopi but all of those indigenous cultures around the world that have learned the hard way. We didn’t have the technology we have now. Whatever the Earth provided is what we lived off of. We weren’t able to coax more from it. So I think as a Hopi, and listening to other Hopis talk about how we’re supposed to live against how the modern society lives, that’s one contrast I can see in terms of using one as an example to help the other. i Lyle Balenquah has a master’s degree in Archaeology and is currently working with the Hopi Cultural Tourism Office. He is also director of the Native American River Runners Association and rows his raft down the San Juan, Green, and Colorado rivers. Bioregional documentarian Jack Loeffler and his daughter Celestia Loeffler’s recent book is Thinking Like a Watershed. www.loreoftheland.org
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Ancient Voices
continued from page 7
“FYI: focus your intention,” teacher and agriculturalist José Lucero, of the White Corn and Winter Clan at Santa Clara Pueblo, urged the forum. “The work that we have is for all of us to do. To move into the face of fear is courage. Every day you don’t make that change is a day lost.” Lucero was echoed by Vickie Downey, a clan mother from the Pueblo of Tesuque, who works with the nonprofit Tewa Women United. “Your whole life is a ceremony,” Downey said. “It’s very important that you find a good mind. Become conscious of your thoughts. What are you thinking about? And where is it being directed?” Lucero, Downey and Navajo language educator/relocation resister Danny Blackgoat (Diné), as respected tribal elders of the region, cohosted the gathering. Each day began with a sunrise ceremony on the land, followed by an address from an elder to lay the foundation for the day’s discussions, small group sessions and activities related to indigenous cultures. “We were a problem all over the world because of our being, really,” said Lyons. “The indigenous people who remain are very resilient, very tough. Indigenous
people, almost above everything, we value relationships.” Lyons encouraged people to “really be concerned with the person you’re shaking hands with.” Leonard Little Finger, great-great -grandson of Sitanka (Chief Big Foot), has twice been a presenter to the U.N. Draft Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva. He founded the Lakota Circle Village and Sacred Hoop School in Oglala, S.D. He told the forum, “In Lakota language, we have no word for ‘love.’ We use ‘respect.’ We’re not the leaders. Nature is the boss. Have respect for all of the powers that exist within nature. You don’t ‘fix’ nature. Get in line with it, you’ll be fine. Get out of line, you’ll suffer the consequences.” “Climate change is not something that is far away,” added Lyons. “Watch out for the acceleration.” The forum concluded with a plenary roundtable and closing ceremony. As they headed to traditional Feast Day dances at the pueblos of Jémez and Tesuque, many of the participants seemed to leave with new eyes, a sense of reconnection to the sacred quality of the Earth and an expanded sense of purpose. i
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Native NEWSBITEs Fort Sill Apache Receive N.M. Recognition
In April 2014, the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered the state to recognize the Oklahoma-based Fort Sill Apache Tribe, formerly known as the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches. They—including Geronimo—had been forced from their tribal land in New Mexico in 1886. Currently, 147 New Mexico residents identify themselves as Fort Sill tribal members. The tribe owns 30 acres along Interstate 10 near Deming, where a restaurant and smoke shop are located. The tribe has tried to start gambling operations there.
help funders find programs they might want to support and help Native programs find others with whom they may want to partner or collaborate. The site also includes pages where Native programs can list open staff and volunteer positions and upcoming events. Native nonprofit or tribal New Mexico–based programs can register at the site. For more information, call 505.670.7900 or email Robert@teoxihuitl.com
Governor Susana Martínez’s office issued a statement disagreeing with the ruling. The Governor’s Office views the tribe’s bid for recognition as a step toward opening a casino, which would compete with existing Native American-owned casinos in the state. Tribal Chairman Jeff Haozous has said, however, that the primary goal of the lawsuit that resulted in the ruling was to be able to join other tribes at the annual state-tribal summit, where it can plead its case for resources to improve human services and infrastructure to benefit its members. Haozous said he also hopes the ruling will encourage younger generations to relocate to New Mexico.
Debra Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo tribal member, is the Democratic Party’s nominee for New Mexico lieutenant governor, on the ticket with Gary King, who is running for governor. She would be the first Native American to hold statewide gubernatorial office if the Democrats win on Nov. 4.
Cochiti Pueblo Receives EPA Grant
The Pueblo of Cochiti has received $60,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prepare a plan for integrating green infrastructure into land-use planning and improve its stormwater management. The EPA also awarded $60,000 to the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority (AMAFCA) to design a rooftop vegetable garden using rainwater for irrigation. “Investing in green infrastructure pays off for our environment and our economy,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “It reduces water pollution and energy consumption while creating jobs.” The EPA has awarded $2.2 million in green infrastructure grants to 37 communities over the past three years.
New Resource for Native Programs in N.M.
NativeNonprofitsNM.org is a new website built around a searchable database of Native American nonprofits and tribal programs that serve Native communities in New Mexico. The database is designed to help community members find services,
First Native American on a Major-Party Ticket for Governor
Haaland, 53, is chair of Laguna Development Corporation’s board of directors, the first woman elected to that position. She is also a tribal administrator for San Felipe Pueblo, where she manages a variety of programs and departments while directing and assisting the tribal administration’s interests. Haaland is a member of the 2014 class of Leadership New Mexico. She graduated from law school at the University of New Mexico and formerly chaired the Native American Democratic Caucus of the state Democratic Party. She is a member of the party’s Platform and Resolutions Committee and was the author and primary advocate of the successful 2005 NM Senate Bill 482, which provides in-state tuition to enrolled New Mexico tribal members regardless of residency. During the 2012 election cycle, Haaland was the state Native American vote director for Organizing for America New Mexico. As a grassroots community organizer, businesswoman and administrator, she says she brings to the campaign a passion for the state and an understanding of its people and their problems. Her website is http://debfornewmexico.com
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
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What's Going On! Events / Announcements Sept. 26 Fall Solar Fiesta CNM Workforce Training Center
A full day of engaging presentations sponsored by Central NM Community College. Presented by the NM Solar Energy Association. http://www.nmsolarfiesta.org
ALBUQUERQUE Through Aug. 3 2014 ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference Embassy Suites Albuquerque
Tesla Technology, magnetic motors, zero-point energy, energy saving devices, more. Speakers, demonstrations. 520.563.1994, http://teslatech.info/ ttevents/2014conf/2014ETCall.pdf
Aug. 5-7 Native American Fish & Wildlife Society Southwest Regional Conference Isleta Resort & Casino
“The Challenge of the Future: Working Smarter with Less & Embracing Our Traditional Values” 28th annual conference hosted by the Pueblo of Isleta. $175. On-site registration only. 505.753.1451 or 505.563.3408, http://www.nafws.org/events/regionalevents
Aug. 6, 6 pm Pueblo Revolt Lecture Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th St. NW
Dr. Matthew J. Martínez will present an overview of the events leading up to the Revolt of 1680 and discuss how Pueblos continue to honor and remember legacies. Free. 505.843.7270
Aug. 17, 1:45-2:45 pm Home Composting Basics Albuquerque Tomato Fiesta, ABQ Gardening Center, 10120 Lomas NE
Learn the science, materials and methods of drought-proofing your garden soil in order to grow vegetables, fruits and berries. $5 fiesta admission.
August 30, 10 am– 12 pm Home Composting Basics Los Volcanes Senior Center, 6500 Los Volcanes Rd. NW
Learn the science, materials and methods of drought-proofing your garden soil in order to grow vegetables, fruits and berries. Free. Registration: 505.836.8745 or register@ nmcomposters.org
Sept. 6 TEDxABQ Popejoy Hall, UNM
Full-day stage program featuring innovative, dynamic, homegrown ideas from people who are stimulating dialogue and putting ideas into action to improve communities. $65/$25. Tedxabq.com, (http://facebook. com/tedxabq)
Sept. 19-20 Globalquerque National Hispanic Cultural Center
10th annual celebration of world music and culture. Diversión para todos. Fun for all. www.globalquerque.org
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Oct. 15-19 National Wilderness Conference Hyatt Regency ABQ, ABQ Convention Center
Presentations, panels, exhibits, field trips and skill-development workshops focusing on recent advances and emerging issues in wilderness stewardship. The companion Wilderness Celebration Exhibition will showcase organizational booths for gradeand middle-school students. Conference registration: $350/$200. Scholarships. Get Wild Festival (public) on Oct.18, 2-10 pm on Civic Plaza. http://www.wilderness50th.org
Daily, 10 am-6 pm Wildlife West 87 N. Frontage Rd., Edgewood
122-acre park/attraction with educational programs dedicated to native wildlife and ecology. $7/$6/$4/children under 5 free. 7/25-27: Wildlife Music Festival. www.wildlifewest.org
Through May 31, 2015 El Agua es Vida: Acequias in Northern New Mexico
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, UNM Groundbreaking, multidisciplinary exhibit. Free. 505.277.4405, maxwellmuseum.unm.edu
SANTA FE
Aug. 3, 1 pm John Stephenson’s 100th Birthday Party SF Community Farm, Agua Fría and San Ysidro Crossing
Stephenson is the nonprofit Community Farm’s founder. The farm supplies area food agencies.
Aug. 3, 1-5 pm Opening Footprints/The Inspiration and Influence of Allan Houser Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Museum Hill
Honoring the 100th birth year of the worldrenown artist. Exhibit features Houser and 13 Native American sculptors he influenced. 505.476.1250, indianartsandculture.org
Aug. 9, 10 am-12 pm Planning a Xeric Garden SF County Fairgrounds, 3229 Rodeo Rd.
Monthly education series presented by the SF Master Gardeners. Learn to plan, install and maintain a xeric garden. Happens during the County Fair. Free. 505.471.4711
Aug. 9, 10 am-4 pm Annual Benefit Art Show Kindred Spirits Animal Sanctuary, 3749-A State Road 14
A wide variety of donated original artwork shown throughout the barns and shady grounds benefits the animals. 505.471.5366, kindredspiritsnm.org
Aug. 9-10, 10 am-5 pm Rag Rug & Art Marketplace Museum of Intl. Folk Art, Cam. Lejo
Handcrafted rugs, home furnishings, fashions, personal adornments and gift of all
Green Fire Times • August 2014
sorts. An economic development program for women and girls presented by the NM Women’s Foundation. By museum admission. 505.476.1200, info@nmwf.org, nmwf.org
Aug. 12. 10 am La Bajada Mesa Mining Application County Administration Building, 102 Grant Ave.
Continued public meeting of Board of County Commissioners
Aug. 14, 6-9 pm Objects of Art Opening Night El Museo, in the Railyard
Benefits NM PBS. More than 65 exhibitors showcase the new, the old, the unique and the unexpected from around the world. $50. Show runs 8/15-17. ObjectsofArtSantaFe.com
Aug. 14, 6:30-8:30 pm Ernest Thompson Seton Birthday Celebration Academy for the Love of Learning Seton Village
Gallery opening and reception (7:30 pm) with curator David L. Witt. Free to the public. 505.995.1860, learn@aloveoflearning. org, www.aloveoflearning.org
Aug. 15, 3-4:30 pm; Aug. 16, 8:30 am-5 pm Inaugural Symposium: Women’s INT’L Study Center Drury Plaza Hotel, 228 E. Palace Ave.
Risk & Reinvention: How Women Are Changing the World. Panel discussions about women in the arts, sciences, cultural preservation and business. With keynote speaker, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and attorney Roberta Cooper Ramo. 505.983.6538, info@wisc-amh. org, wisc-amh.org
Aug. 15 Registration; Aug. 31 event Farmers’ Symposium Luncheon Rancho Encantado
Aug. 19, 6-9 pm Benefit Preview Antique American Indian Art Show El Museo Cultural
Benefits the Institute of American Indian Arts student scholarship fund. $50. Show runs 8/20-21, 11 am-6 pm. http://www.antiqueindianartshow.com/openingNight.php
Aug. 20-Sept. 23 Sustainable Land Development Code Amendments Public Meetings
• 8/20, 6:30 pm: SF County Fire Station, 1 Municipal Way, Edgewood, NM • 9/16, 6 pm: Pojoaque Valley School Multipurpose Bldg., 1797 State Hwy. 502 • 9/23, 6 pm: SF County Fairgrounds, 3229 Rodeo Rd. Meeting on matters of local interest concerning the SLDC amendments and Zoning Map Adoption Draft. 505.986.6200, www. santafecountynm.gov/dldc
Aug. 21-23 Indigenous Fine Art Market Railyard Arts District
Inaugural market featuring native art, music and culture. Kickoff dance party, youth programming, film screenings. indigefam.org
Aug. 22-24 Santa Fe Indian Market Santa Fe Plaza 505.983.5220, www.swaia.org
Aug. 22-23 One World Beat Camel Rock Casino Showroom
With Robert Mirabal, Dancing Earth, Native Roots, Jémez Pueblo Dancers, more. Oneworldbeat.lumenscapes.com
Aug. 23 Santa Fe Pow Wow Genoveva Chavez Center
Evening social pow wow. Dancers, drummers, singers, artist booths. 505.955.4005
Second annual Farm to Table luncheon followed by educational forum about current trending topics in farming such as water, bees, labeling GMOs, small-company buyouts, local vs. global sourcing. $35. RSVP: 505.946.5802, nichole.lujan@fourseasons.com
Aug. 23-24, 9 am-4 pm Cerrillos Village Yard Sale Cerrillos, New Mexico
Aug. 15, 5 pm-Aug. 17, 1 pm Transforming Suffering Upaya Zen Center 1404 Cerro Gordo Road
Aug. 24, 6 pm Dancing Earth Skylight Music Hall 139 W. San Francisco
A Five Energies Approach to Service and Social Change, taught by Acharya Fleet Maull, M.A. CEUs for counselors, therapists and social workers available. $285 includes meals. 505.986.8518, registrar@upaya.org/ programs, www.upaya.org/programs
Aug. 15-17; 22-24 Haciendas – A Parade of Homes
Tour of fine homes provides opportunities to meet the builders. Tickets: $15 at area businesses and the Lensic. Self-guided tour. 8/22, 4-9 pm: Twilight tour. 505.982.1774, sfahba.com (See ad, page 2)
Aug. 18-21 Soul Renewal Wilderness Retreat SF National Forest
Nurture your nature and resiliency skills. Co-hosted by leadfeather.org and Larry Glover, wildresiliency.org. 505.690.5939.
Yard sale tables throughout Cerrillos full of unique items, treasures, crafts, kids’ toys and what-not. Free. 505.438.3008, www.cerrillosnewmexico.com
Indigenous contemporary dance troupe. Tickets/Reservations: dancingearthtkts@gmail.com
Aug. 28-31 Santa Fe Yoga Festival Bishop’s Lodge Resort
International instructors, speakers and musicians, hikes, cooking classes, farm-to-table dinners. $149/$399. www.santafeyogafestival.org
Aug. 30-31 Fiesta de los Niños – A Children’s Celebration El Rancho de las Golandrinas, La Cienega
Living history museum. Children 12 & under free. 505.471.2261, golondrinas.org
Sept. 3, 6-7 pm Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh James A. Little Theater
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Lecture/Dialogue with Geoffrey West. Presented by Creative SF, the SF Institute and St. John’s College. Hsieh is behind a major urban experiment to revitalize Las Vegas, NV’s downtown. $20. Lensic box office, Tickessantafe.org
Sept. 12-14 FUZE-SW 2014 Food & Folklore Festival Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Museum of Intl. Folk Art
Explore the customs of NM’s many cultures that created a unique culinary tradition in a series of keynotes, talks, panel discussions, breakout sessions, creative interludes and – lots of food and drink. 200 tickets available (9/12-13): $250 with early bird discounts. Single-day tickets may be available for $150 after Aug. 21. Free marketplace event (9/14) open to the public. 505.476.1144, fuze.sw@gmail. com, fuzesw.museumofnewmexico.org
Sept. 19, 6:30-9:30 pm Wild Earth Guardians Guardians’ Gala SF Farmers’ Market Pavillion
WEG’s 25th anniversary benefit dinner. Celebrate being a force for nature. Tickets: $100. 505.988.9126, ext. 0, http://www.wildearthguard ians.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=16701.0
Sept. 19-21 Startup Weekend SF Business Incubator 3900 Paseo del Sol
Dynamic entrepreneurial event. Pitch an idea, form a team, build a startup. Registration: $75/$35. 505.424.1140, soshea@sfbi. net, www.santafe.startupweekend.org
Sept. 24, 7:30 pm Buckwheat Zydeco SF Farmers’ Market Pavillion
A benefit for KSFR SF Public Radio featuring zydeco’s most revered band. $25 adv./$30 door. Brownpapertickets.com
Sept. 26, 1:30-4:30 pm SW Women in Conservation Forum Randall Davey Audubon Center
Forum on freshwater. Guest speakers Letty Belin of the Dept. of the Interior and Audubon NM’s Beth Bardwell. Moderated by Laura Paskus. RSVP: 505.983.4609, ext 24, mmiller@audubon
Sept. 27 National Public Banking Symposium SF Community Convention Center
With SF Mayor Javier Gonzales, Rep. Brian Egolf, authors Craig Barnes, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Ellen Hodgson Brown, Richard D. Wolff and others. 505.501.1779, waphemail@gmail.com
Oct. 4, 3-8 pm 3rd Petchesky Conservation Award Petchesky Conservation Center 5430 S. Richards Ave.
NM Land Conservancy’s celebration of land conservation. Tickets: 505.986.3801, ladkins@nmlandconservancy.org
Oct. 11: Public Conversation; Oct. 13-16: Retreat Leading by Being: Exploring a New Vision of Leadership Conversation: The Lensic; Retreat: Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, NM
Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Chung Hyun Kyung will explore ways to support the growth and development of the feminine voice and balanced leadership. Lensic tickets ($35): 505.988.1234; Retreat ($455$900): 877.804.4678, ext. 4152 or Registrar@ GhostRanch.org
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Sunday Afternoons Informal Kite Flying Meet-up MRC Park, Caja del Río Rd.
All welcome, beginners to experts. Fun family outing, picnic. Follow entrance road all the way to the end. Kites_over_cactus@yahoo.com
Become a Site Steward Santa Fe National Forest
Monitor archaeological and historical sites on a regular basis for evidence of natural deterioration or vandalism. www.sfnfsitestewards.org
Española
Aug. 8, 8:30-5:30 pm 3rd Bi-Annual Fatherhood Forum Northern NM College Fine Arts Center, 921 N. Paseo de Oñate,
“Being There from the Start – Dads/Granddads and Earliest Childhood” Registration: $25 includes lunch. Limited scholarships available. Presented by the NM Alliance for Fathers & Families. Registration coordinated by the NM Community Foundation: lmilbourn@nmcf.org
Aug. 12 Santa Clara Pueblo Feast Day Santa Clara Pueblo, NM 1-800-753-7330
Veterans Green Jobs Academy Northern NM College, Española, NM
Workforce training and specific degree programs to support military veterans in fully accredited academic certificate and degree programs in areas of environmental science related to renewable energy, hazardous materials response, forestry, sustainable agriculture, wildland fire science, construction trades and others. A partnership with the NM Dept. of Veterans Services. For more info, call Dr. Biggs at 505.747.5453 or visit www.nnmc.edu/ vetacademy.htm
TAOS
August 2 Los Jardineros Garden & Home Tour
$20 in advance; $25 day of tour. 575.751.0191, Schedule and venue info: www.gardencluboftaos.org
August 5-8 Sustainability Institute: Humanitarian Design UNM Taos, Taos, NM
Innovative seminar, workshops, demonstrations and field trips with local & international experts on sustainable, resilient design for a changing world. Open to sustainability professionals, architects, designers, advocates and the general public. Class credits and CEUs available. Lectures, films, informal social gatherings. Full pass: $300. Other rates available. 575.737.3737, info@sustain taos.com, www.sustaintaos.com
Aug. 20-Feb. 28, 2015 Art through the Loom Weaving Guild Show Old Martina’s Hall, Ranchos de Taos www.artthroughtheloom.com
Sept. 30 San Gerónimo Feast Day Taos Pueblo, NM • 575.758.1028
HERE & THERE
Aug. 2 Nuestra Señora Corn Dance Jémez Pueblo, NM 575.834.7235
Aug. 6-10 93rd Intertribal Ceremonial
Red Rock State Park, Gallup, NM 505.863.3896
Aug. 10, 7 am-3 pm Pueblo Independence Day Jémez Historic Site, NM
Sept. 1-7 68th Annual Navajo Nation Fair Fair Grounds in Window Rock, Ariz. 928.871.6647
Commemorating the successful rebellion against Spanish colonization. Pilgrimage run from Jémez Pueblo to Jémez Historic Site (13 miles) begins at 7 am. Festivities begin at 10 am: traditional dances, music, Native arts & crafts, food vendors. Free. 575.829.3530. nmhistoricsites.org/Jémez
Aug. 10 San Lorenzo Feast Day Acoma and Picurís Pueblos, NM 1.800.747.0181
Aug. 11 Application Deadline Rocky Mountain Youth Corps
Join a nonprofit organization working on conservation projects in northern New Mexico as a paid AmeriCorps volunteer. Earn a college scholarship. Rocky Mountain Youth Corps is hiring young women and men, ages 18-25, for seasonal, full-time conservation and energy efficiency positions. Multiple Locations. Applications and details: 575.751.1420, www.youthcorps.org
Aug. 15 San Antonio Feast Day with Corn Dancers Zia Pueblo, NM • 505.867.3304 Aug. 17 Opening, 4-7 pm Invitational NM Painters Exhibition Kennedy Alumni Hall, Highlands Univ., 905 University Ave., Las Vegas, NM The largest show of its kind in decades. More than 50 contemporary NM painters and original printmakers. Figural and representational artists. Continues through Oct. 15.
Sept. 2 San Estévan Feast Day Acoma Pueblo, NM • 1.800.747.0181 Sept. 4 San Agustín Feast Day Isleta Pueblo, NM • 505.869.3111 Sept. 11-15 Americas Latino Eco Festival Denver and Boulder, Colo.
2nd annual festival produced by Americas for Conservation & the Arts and the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. With environmental leader Jean-Michel Cousteau, actor/social activist Edward James Olmos, scientists, artists, community and policy leaders from across the Americas. Americaslatinoecofestival.org
Sept. 27-28, 9 am-5 pm Heart of NM Fiber Festival Moriarty City Park, Moriarty, NM
East Mountain fiber artisans and suppliers. Natural fiber products, equipment, materials. Demos, competitions, hands-on booths. Music, food. Free admission. 505.384.2293, Heartofnmfibergathering.com
Sept. 27-28 Gathering for Mother Earth Gathering Site, Pojoaque, NM
18th annual community gathering for all cultures and ages. A call for male and female unity in support of earth-water wellness. 505.747.3259, tewawomenunited.org
Aug. 19-21 Indian Housing Training Conf. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Catoosa, Oklahoma
Sustainable housing and best practices technical assistance program. Resources for housing professionals to build developments for Native families. Free registration for Native Americans and those working within Indian Country. Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative instructors Jamie Blosser, Nathaniel Corum and others. Course descriptions: http://nativelearningcenter.com/2ihtc_registernow/
Aug. 22-24 Valles Caldera Restoration Project
Organized by the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation. Activities may include building structures to induce meandering, planting native vegetation or removing/repairing fences. http://abq.nmwildlife.org/
Sept. 1 Nomination Deadline Quivira Coalition’s Clarence Burch Award
$20,000 award recognizes individuals and organizations who lead by example in promoting and accomplishing outstanding stewardship of private and/or public lands consistent with the mission of the Quivira Coalition: to build resilience by fostering ecological, economic and social health on western working landscapes. http://www.quiviracoalition.org
Green Fire Times • August 2014
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Green Fire Times • August 2014
www.GreenFireTimes.com