Speaker 1: O La La Loka Motes. Welcome to season nine of
Speaker 1: lok at Dora Radio. I'm Theosa and I'm Mala. Look
Speaker 1: at Dora Radio is a podcast dedicating to archiving our
Speaker 1: present and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning in to
Speaker 1: Capitolo two O nine.
Speaker 2: Last time on loc at Our Radio, we spoke with
Speaker 2: Esoteric Essa.
Speaker 3: We all have some sort of medicine and some sort
Speaker 3: of capacity through our own unique gifts, and I really
Speaker 3: just for me that came down to the point where
Speaker 3: I was like, listen, I grew up with all this
Speaker 3: stuff and I've always had a natural curiosity. Let me
Speaker 3: go back to learning the tiro and let me talk
Speaker 3: to my mom.
Speaker 2: Tune in, leave a comment, subscribe and share with a friend.
Speaker 2: On today's episode of look at Our Radio, we are
Speaker 2: joined by two very special guests, Samantha Johnson Yang and
Speaker 2: Mona Morales Recalde. Samantha is a cultural officer and Mona
Speaker 2: is the community outreach lead for the San Gabriel Band
Speaker 2: of Mission Indians Tongva gab We'll be talking about the
Speaker 2: history of the Tongva, their efforts to stop the poaching
Speaker 2: of white stage from southern California, wildlife reserves and an
Speaker 2: ongoing battle to protect and preserve their tribal identity. I
Speaker 2: recently worked with Mona while m seeing a music EPOCA
Speaker 2: event organized and hosted by the office of City council
Speaker 2: Member Aissas Ernandez, as well as at the grand opening
Speaker 2: of the very first CD one field office. Mona was
Speaker 2: delivering the land acknowledgment at both the events, and we
Speaker 2: thought it would be a natural fit to have Mona
Speaker 2: on Locata to bring us up to speed with the
Speaker 2: issues that the Tongva Gabrielino people are currently facing. If
Speaker 2: you live in La you've probably attended a ton of
Speaker 2: events that include a land acknowledgment of the San Gabriel
Speaker 2: Band of Mission Indians Tongva Gabrielino, which is incidentally the
Speaker 2: first and only state recognized tribe in the LA area.
Speaker 2: But how much do we actually know about the first Angelinos?
Speaker 2: Mona and Samantha are on to tell us more. Mona
Speaker 2: and Samantha, thank you so much both for being here
Speaker 2: with us today and chatting on look at the radio.
Speaker 2: Can you both introduce yourselves for our listeners?
Speaker 4: Sure? Hi, everyone, My name is Mona Morales Ricalde. I
Speaker 4: am from the Sant Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, and
Speaker 4: definitely want to say thanks to both of you for
Speaker 4: having us here today.
Speaker 5: And I am Samantha Johnson Yang. I'm the tribal Cultural
Speaker 5: officer for the Gabrilino Tongva Band of Mission Indians. Oh
Speaker 5: San Gabriel.
Speaker 2: Fabulous. Thank you both for introducing yourselves and I'm really
Speaker 2: excited to talk about your tribe, but what you guys
Speaker 2: are working on the issues that you're facing. Mona, I
Speaker 2: met you at two different events. We've done some work together,
Speaker 2: Aisa said, Nan this and her office for the city
Speaker 2: Council have like put on events. They had a field
Speaker 2: office grand opening and you were there providing a land acknowledgment.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to start there because I feel like
Speaker 2: a lot of Californians, a lot of Angelino's. Anybody who's
Speaker 2: going to events in LA has probably attended an event
Speaker 2: where a land acknowledgement has been delivered, or maybe a
Speaker 2: graduation what have you. And I think that we are
Speaker 2: aware that the Tongva, the Gabrielino Tongva, your tribe or
Speaker 2: the original peoples of this territory, but we don't necessarily
Speaker 2: know much more about your tribe and your history and
Speaker 2: the current issues you all are dealing with. So I
Speaker 2: was hoping we could start there, and what are some
Speaker 2: things that most Californians, most Angelinos don't know about your tribe.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a good question to start with. It's
Speaker 4: that we are still here. We often face issues of
Speaker 4: erasure and visibility of our people on our own ancestral land,
Speaker 4: and so doing land acknowledgments, hopefully with partnership behind it,
Speaker 4: is a great way of showing our continued presence and
Speaker 4: then with partnership showing that there is the interest of
Speaker 4: helping to increase our visibility on our land. That for
Speaker 4: me is what I would say is our number one issue.
Speaker 4: It's hard for people to visualize what Los Angeles look
Speaker 4: like before colonization, to know that this was Indian country
Speaker 4: before there were was concretes and lights in Hollywood, to
Speaker 4: imagine what this land looked like and how are people lived.
Speaker 4: So that's an area that I think is for me
Speaker 4: the number one issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I joke that we're the skeleton in Hollywood's closet,
Speaker 5: were like the original skeleton in Hollywood's closet, because Hollywood
Speaker 5: history is in Los Angeles history is just seen as
Speaker 5: so new, like calling the plumber. For my work, I
Speaker 5: work at the Tongva Tadahapahava Conservancy, the People's Land Conservancy,
Speaker 5: and when I say Tongva, they're like Tonga, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I love my Polynesian people, but I don't identify as Polynesian.
Speaker 5: I'm not Tonga. I'm Tongva. And so that is definitely
Speaker 5: the biggest issue for me personally. I'm biased because I'm
Speaker 5: an environmental biologist, but for me, our biggest issue is
Speaker 5: the poaching of our sacred plant, white sage. So its spread.
Speaker 5: It started here in Los Angeles and like Powell culture,
Speaker 5: and it was spread across as like this great way
Speaker 5: to clear the vibe vibes and to bring blessing. But
Speaker 5: people started poaching it from the wild. And so when
Speaker 5: that started happening, you know, how can a plant that's
Speaker 5: been so distressed bring blessing? And so we try to
Speaker 5: bring awareness about that as well.
Speaker 4: The other thought that came to my mind is also
Speaker 4: to talk about education. Like you said, people from La
Speaker 4: know our name and that's it, but knowing beyond that.
Speaker 2: The education of the history of our people.
Speaker 4: And knowing what that means for the hardships and the
Speaker 4: atrocities and genocides that our people have survived and that
Speaker 4: we are still here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that education component that you just brought in
Speaker 1: because I think most children raised in LA and maybe
Speaker 1: in la Us School District, or in my case, I
Speaker 1: went to a Catholic school in Los Angeles, and our
Speaker 1: introduction to maybe a quote native history maybe would have
Speaker 1: been through like the Mission projects, which is definitely not
Speaker 1: like a people's history, but that may be the first
Speaker 1: quote educational component that we learned as children in this area.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering for you, what would a model be
Speaker 1: to educate the public, educate Angelinos and especially children from
Speaker 1: a very young age about the history and awareness of
Speaker 1: the tongue of people.
Speaker 4: I believe that Native education can be a part of
Speaker 4: every single discipline in education. So whether it's math and learning,
Speaker 4: basket weaving and multiplication, to science, to botany, to every
Speaker 4: dimension of education can include and be based in Native
Speaker 4: American studies. Our tribe is currently working with LAUSD el
Speaker 4: Hamber School District a handful of other school districts in
Speaker 4: LA to help ensure that we're teaching teachers how to
Speaker 4: teach about us. The challenge is our topics and talking
Speaker 4: about our history is difficult. We have a hard history,
Speaker 4: and so being able to say that we had state
Speaker 4: sponsored genocide in California and you're teaching that to third graders,
Speaker 4: that's a hard topic to have. And so learning to
Speaker 4: have those conversations in a way that teaches perspective but
Speaker 4: also teaches the truth is really important. Many California Indians
Speaker 4: will say that the equivalent of doing the Mission project
Speaker 4: is the same as having a Jewish person build Auschwitz,
Speaker 4: because that's how detrimental and harmful the Mission system was
Speaker 4: to our people. That being said, our tribe still holds
Speaker 4: a relationship with the Mission, and that often gets complicated
Speaker 4: because people are like, how in the world can you
Speaker 4: hold a relationship with a mission that was responsible for
Speaker 4: so much atrocity. The best way that we described at
Speaker 4: is we have about six thousand ancestors that are interred
Speaker 4: around the mission grounds. With our relationship with the Mission,
Speaker 4: we are able to do song and dance and have
Speaker 4: ceremony at the Mission. If we break that relationship with
Speaker 4: the Mission, we lose that contact with our ancestors on
Speaker 4: the ancestral land and that's important to us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that there needs to be
Speaker 5: a broader conversation about maybe the audience that the Mission
Speaker 5: Project has because maybe that isn't appropriate for elementary school.
Speaker 5: I mean, when I learned about the Holocaust, it was
Speaker 5: as early as ninth grade, which is definitely not the
Speaker 5: same as being in third grade. And so the educational
Speaker 5: models that I appreciate seeing are more based on culture
Speaker 5: when they're younger, and then go into the atrocities of
Speaker 5: history as they get older, and that automatically builds empathy
Speaker 5: for our tribe as well, which is a really important component,
Speaker 5: especially when you're also combating this racism that has quite
Speaker 5: literally erased us from the Los Angeles narrative. And so
Speaker 5: teaching kids about native plants, how we interact with native
Speaker 5: plants as a culture, how to grow native plants in
Speaker 5: their own area and have empathy for those plants and
Speaker 5: in turn empathy for the people that once cared for them.
Speaker 5: That's something that any age, any person can be introduced
Speaker 5: to as a way to really understand what we're about
Speaker 5: and what was eradicated as well.
Speaker 1: Anywhere Locomotives, We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: And we're back with more of our episode. Thank you
Speaker 2: all for all of that context and for our listeners
Speaker 2: who are not from California who don't know what a
Speaker 2: mission is. In the state of California, we have twenty
Speaker 2: one missions that were constructed by the Spanish and the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church to colonize the California territory and to convert
Speaker 2: the indigenous communities all up and down California to Catholicism Christianity.
Speaker 2: So most missions include a Catholic church, a lot of
Speaker 2: them have a school cemetery. And then I think back
Speaker 2: in the day, right almost like plantations where they were
Speaker 2: growing crops and Native peoples were enslaved like to work
Speaker 2: the mission grounds. So that's what a mission is. And
Speaker 2: in California, if you go to a California school, usually
Speaker 2: what in the third grade we are as students, we
Speaker 2: are assigned or we like build a model of one
Speaker 2: of the twenty one California missions and then do a
Speaker 2: project where we report back on like the history and
Speaker 2: the architecture and the different indigenous communities.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and what's really fascinating about the twenty one California
Speaker 5: missions is that only one of those missions, even though
Speaker 5: they all have very detailed records of the tribes that
Speaker 5: we're enslaved. There only one mission Indian tribe is federally recognized,
Speaker 5: even though we have centuries of documentation from you know,
Speaker 5: a quote unquote official organization, the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: Can you clarify that for me? So, of in the
Speaker 1: mission system, the missions, one group, only one tribe is
Speaker 1: recognized by the missions.
Speaker 5: By the federal government.
Speaker 2: Can you say more?
Speaker 1: Can you talk more about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So, the reason why only one mission is federally recognized
Speaker 5: down the coast of California, I'm sure if you asked
Speaker 5: a government official, they would have a lot of really
Speaker 5: wonderful political reasons. But if you look at the property
Speaker 5: value of where each of those missions is at, it's
Speaker 5: in some of the most expensive property in the country,
Speaker 5: including Los Angeles. We have three different reality TV shows,
Speaker 5: if not more about just trying to find a house,
Speaker 5: and multimillion dollar houses in this county. And so to
Speaker 5: be a federally recognized tribe, you have to get a
Speaker 5: certain amount of land back for a reservation. And so
Speaker 5: the federal government does not want to hand over such
Speaker 5: expensive land. And so there are hundreds of federally unrecognized
Speaker 5: tribes in the country who have the same story as us.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting and so it brings us to
Speaker 2: our next piece of the conversation. And so if we
Speaker 2: think about the name of your tribe, you're the San
Speaker 2: Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrielino Tangva, which directly relates
Speaker 2: back to the San Gabriel Mission where your community very
Speaker 2: deep roots. And there are some issues right now as
Speaker 2: far as like your tribal identity and there are there
Speaker 2: is a tribe that is seeking federal recognition. Can you
Speaker 2: talk to us about like the status of your tribe
Speaker 2: and like where you guys are recognition wise, and then
Speaker 2: this other tribe and some of the issues that you're
Speaker 2: facing with identity.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen ninety four, the Chief, Anthony Morales, the
Speaker 4: chief of our tribe, received a state resolution that identifies
Speaker 4: in the resolution that it was for the San Gabriel
Speaker 4: Band of Mission Indians. In two thousand and one, Hildas
Speaker 4: Elease proposed a bill for our tribe to receive federal recognition. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: nine to eleven happened that bill got shelved. At that time,
Speaker 4: our tribe was known as Gavulino Tongue venation San Gabriel
Speaker 4: Band of Mission Indians. So if we fast forward to
Speaker 4: current day, there is a we call them, a group,
Speaker 4: not a tribe that was recently formed that calls themselves
Speaker 4: the Gavulino Tongue Venation, and they are seeking federal recognition
Speaker 4: for purposes of a casino, as stated in an LA
Speaker 4: Times article, and that is it causes confusion because of
Speaker 4: the name, because they're using the name that we were
Speaker 4: formerly known as, which is problematic. In addition to that,
Speaker 4: we support and understand the need for gaming with tribes
Speaker 4: and the importance and benefit it can provide to the
Speaker 4: Native community. That being said, at this time, our tribal
Speaker 4: focus is definitely around cultural preservation and education. And so
Speaker 4: seeing someone that is taking a name that we used
Speaker 4: to be known by and stating that the state recognition
Speaker 4: that we received is their recognition, it's problematic and causing
Speaker 4: a lot of confusion within the LA Native community.
Speaker 5: Great answer, I mean, I guess the only thing that
Speaker 5: I would add is that there are other additional groups
Speaker 5: that are not hunting for federal recognition right now, and
Speaker 5: they branched off from our original nation in the nineties
Speaker 5: and now they specialize on different things. So some do monitoring,
Speaker 5: which is like if you're building a building and you
Speaker 5: find a and ancestral remains, they focus on figuring out
Speaker 5: how to handle those remains. That's monitoring. There is groups
Speaker 5: that focus on just doing tongva art and representing us
Speaker 5: within the art community. They all kind of found their niches.
Speaker 5: In my opinion, it's it's a little bit like funny
Speaker 5: because it happens also in federally recognized tribes. But that's
Speaker 5: just kind of what happened with our little with our little.
Speaker 4: Group, and our current status is one day we would
Speaker 4: love to be federally recognized for sure. The major benefit
Speaker 4: that I see a federal recognition is that if an
Speaker 4: ancestor is found on our ancestral land, the ancestor has
Speaker 4: to be handed over to a federally recognized tribe. So
Speaker 4: it requires us to have relations with federally recognized tribes
Speaker 4: in the area for our own ancestor, which boggles my brain.
Speaker 4: And so that to is the main reason why we
Speaker 4: want federal recognitions is to ensure that we're properly entering
Speaker 4: our ancestors on our own ancestral land, which right now,
Speaker 4: due to the laws, is prohibitive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we don't have a lot of rights. We can't
Speaker 5: even gather native plants without a special permit if we're
Speaker 5: not in a federalized tribe.
Speaker 1: And what's that stake for your community and your peoples
Speaker 1: if this other group is federally recognized.
Speaker 4: Locally, what is at stake is more rasure. So in
Speaker 4: the Native community, we often speak of lateral oppression where
Speaker 4: one tribe definitely tries to seek or overpower another, or
Speaker 4: a group one group tries to seek or overpower our tribe.
Speaker 4: And so that's what we call lateral oppression, where it's
Speaker 4: trying to keep native against Native harm, which happens more
Speaker 4: often than I wish to say. It happens, so that
Speaker 4: I would say the continue to rasure of our people
Speaker 4: and our tribe, where the tribe that's been here since
Speaker 4: time immemorial because of our relationship with the mission. You know,
Speaker 4: as we start out talking about the history, right, and
Speaker 4: so we have that longitude and that history and the
Speaker 4: government to government relationships, and so to have a new
Speaker 4: group pop up and then take our history and say
Speaker 4: that it's you know, take everything that's ours and say
Speaker 4: that it's theirs, it causes more confusion and more harm.
Speaker 4: And we all know, you know, our people have gone
Speaker 4: through a ton of generational harm that's continued. So we
Speaker 4: really try to focus on what can we do from
Speaker 4: a healing perspective, and how can we move forward in
Speaker 4: a healing in a good way. And we found for
Speaker 4: us that focusing on cultural preservation and education is a
Speaker 4: good way to promote healing. It's also a good way
Speaker 4: of promoting visibility to say that we're still here and
Speaker 4: then to also show that we're here in a good way,
Speaker 4: because none of us can go backwards and change what's
Speaker 4: happened to our people, right, but what we can do
Speaker 4: is help to make sure that we're working together in
Speaker 4: a positive way to help promote the right messages of
Speaker 4: healing and then also finding ways to find the visibility.
Speaker 4: You know, think about it. I always like to share
Speaker 4: this in our pre contact what the staple to food
Speaker 4: to us as food was acorns. When we would gather acorns,
Speaker 4: we would gather acorns for the entire village. Today, if
Speaker 4: we had to rely on acorns and gathering for sustenance,
Speaker 4: we would gather only for our own homes. And why
Speaker 4: do I say that, Like, look at what happened with
Speaker 4: COVID and toilet paper, right, people are so focused about
Speaker 4: just their own world, not the community. So I think
Speaker 4: that moving from the idea of a more community centric
Speaker 4: way of living is the right way to go and
Speaker 4: helping to move people into that thought process of thinking
Speaker 4: about others and how do we service one another, because
Speaker 4: that's how we lived pre contact, and I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot of wisdom in that in this time and history.
Speaker 5: Of where we're at.
Speaker 1: We hope you're enjoying this interview.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned, we're back, and we hope you enjoy the
Speaker 2: rest of the interview. Yeah, thank you for that. I
Speaker 2: do think that's a really interesting sort of way of
Speaker 2: painting like there was a very community focused way of
Speaker 2: operating and existing and now in a post colonization, capitalist society,
Speaker 2: we operate very differently. We're very individualistic, single family home
Speaker 2: and like you illustrated with the pandemic, I think we
Speaker 2: learned a lot about resource hoarding and how that works
Speaker 2: in our society. For our listeners who are following the
Speaker 2: history and the conversation as it's being laid out in
Speaker 2: this interview, I want to help tease out a little
Speaker 2: bit for our listeners some of the like we talked
Speaker 2: about before we started recording, like the name and the semantics,
Speaker 2: and how the details are very important here because our
Speaker 2: listeners might be tuning in and thinking. But the names
Speaker 2: of these two of one group and one tribe sound
Speaker 2: very similar. Gabrielino Tongva nation versus San Gabriel Band of
Speaker 2: Mission Indians Gabrielino Tongva. How do we know, Oh, who's
Speaker 2: who and what's what? And this other group? Were they
Speaker 2: originally part of the tribe and they splintered off? Did
Speaker 2: they kind of just pop up out of like? Where
Speaker 2: is there like a common root with these two? And
Speaker 2: why are the names so similar between the two.
Speaker 4: So the names are so similar because they chose to
Speaker 4: make it similar to cause confusion, is my guess. Our
Speaker 4: history is rooted in the Mission system for all California Indians.
Speaker 4: You can't talk about California Indians and not talk about
Speaker 4: the Mission system. So our tribe definitely is the tribe
Speaker 4: that has been here since time immemorial. What happened in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine was the Indian Gaming Compact, So Pachanga
Speaker 4: went from being a bank bill hall to now this
Speaker 4: fabulous casino and hotel and all of this great many
Speaker 4: great things. You know. That's just an example. And when
Speaker 4: that happened, there were a lot of factions that happened
Speaker 4: within our tribe. And based on those factions that happened,
Speaker 4: as Samantha said, everyone's kind of found their lane. But
Speaker 4: in addition to that, there is a lot of confusion
Speaker 4: about the na and like to add to that just
Speaker 4: for fun conversation, the way that Govulino is spelled is
Speaker 4: often very It can be different, so it can be
Speaker 4: spelled with an E and O at the end or
Speaker 4: an I and O at the end, But we prefer
Speaker 4: the E and O for two reasons. One, that's the
Speaker 4: way it's documented in the church records as well as
Speaker 4: are we have what's called a certified degree of Indian
Speaker 4: Blood where the government gives us a number and a
Speaker 4: name and identifies us as Govilino. It's spelled E and
Speaker 4: O in that documentation, so we stick with the traditional
Speaker 4: way of E and O. That being said, there are
Speaker 4: other groups that have taken I and o as well.
Speaker 4: We know that we're Govulino, you know, and the name
Speaker 4: Goviulino comes from the San Gabriel Church. The word Tongva
Speaker 4: was documented, I want to say back as far as
Speaker 4: like eighteen thirty nine, and that means people of the earth,
Speaker 4: and that's the Native American ward or name for our
Speaker 4: for our tribe. And so you can't get away from
Speaker 4: those two words if you're going to say that you
Speaker 4: are tied to us, right, but then where some of
Speaker 4: the intricacies come are beyond that and what does that
Speaker 4: look like? And you know, for us specifically because we're
Speaker 4: tied to the mission, where the same Gabriel Band.
Speaker 5: I think it's really similar to just kind of spotting
Speaker 5: any scam. I don't want to deny the Native heritage
Speaker 5: or the Tongva heritage from other people from other groups,
Speaker 5: because they did some of them really did originate with
Speaker 5: our original tribal group and so they still do like
Speaker 5: some really good work. So I would say that, you know,
Speaker 5: if if you're unless you're like a big government official
Speaker 5: or you're you're making some really major decisions, you could
Speaker 5: probably respect someone's heritage if that's how they identify. But
Speaker 5: if you need to do stuff that digs a little
Speaker 5: bit deeper, and the person that you're working with starts
Speaker 5: getting really defensive, like just doing the standard like scam
Speaker 5: defense thing, then maybe it's time to find someone else
Speaker 5: in the community.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also I think that a lot lot of our
Speaker 2: listeners are LATINX like and we definitely identify as Latina's right.
Speaker 2: And I think in the Latini God conversation, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of like, well what is it? Is it culture?
Speaker 2: Is it language? Like what does it mean to be
Speaker 2: Latino LATINX. If you have one parent who's from Latin America,
Speaker 2: then you can identify as Latino. If you have like
Speaker 2: a grandparent who's from Mexico, you know, then you have
Speaker 2: a Mexican grandparent. And I think that there's a very
Speaker 2: different way of constructing an understanding indigenous identity versus Latino identity,
Speaker 2: right because somebody might be listening and thinking, well, if
Speaker 2: this other group has some Native blood, then what's the problem.
Speaker 2: But the way that Native identity and formal recognition is
Speaker 2: figured out is not the same as it like other
Speaker 2: people groups.
Speaker 5: You hit it right on the head because with that,
Speaker 5: that's what's so messed up about how federal recognition and
Speaker 5: tribal identity works in this country is that there's not
Speaker 5: really any other race. Well, I identify as Afro Indigenous,
Speaker 5: and so I. In my opinion, there's not really any
Speaker 5: other race except for when they were doing things like
Speaker 5: towards black people, and like the Chinese Exclusion Act. They're
Speaker 5: still kind of doing that to Native people, where like
Speaker 5: we have to have a certain amount of blood, we
Speaker 5: have to have a certain heritage, and then we get
Speaker 5: these benefits. We get these special benefits that no one
Speaker 5: else gets because of our specialness as native people. And
Speaker 5: what we want as like a special specialness as native people.
Speaker 5: In my personal opinion and my personal passion is we
Speaker 5: just want land back. We want land back so that
Speaker 5: way we can practice our food sovereignty, practice our culture,
Speaker 5: practice our language, and mostly be left alone. That's the
Speaker 5: benefits that I feel like a lot of tribal people want.
Speaker 5: And the casinos became an issue because we became like
Speaker 5: there's this analogy of we became these crabs in a
Speaker 5: bucket where you know, if we all together, we could
Speaker 5: all leave the bucket. But because every crab is trying
Speaker 5: to pull the other crab down, we're just constantly fighting
Speaker 5: each other. And so it created this extra form of
Speaker 5: conflict that I don't think is seen in other cultural identities.
Speaker 5: And that's part of the reason why it's so touchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to read from your website, you know,
Speaker 2: like the way I my understanding and correct me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, but the way that someone is basically counted
Speaker 2: as like a formally recognized Indigenous person, like there's like
Speaker 2: records and documentation, and the same is not true really
Speaker 2: for other people groups. So from your website, all enrolled
Speaker 2: Tribal citizens SLASH members have direct lineages from historics and
Speaker 2: gabral Band of Mission Indians Gabrilino, verified by certified genealogists
Speaker 2: and church records as directed SGBMI Indian lineal descendants on
Speaker 2: the California Judgment Fund rolls of nineteen fifty three and
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two, and or have certificates of degree of
Speaker 2: Indian Blood issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Right,
Speaker 2: So native identity is very complicated because it's all also
Speaker 2: wrapped up in government recognition exactly.
Speaker 5: It's a cluster, isn't it.
Speaker 4: And it's colonization it worked.
Speaker 5: Can I swear on this podcast it's a cluster?
Speaker 4: Fun?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so I you know, I bring this
Speaker 2: up because I think this maybe helps our listeners to
Speaker 2: sort of like contextualize the issue that you guys are
Speaker 2: waiting through here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and with certified degrees of Indian blood, it then
Speaker 4: that in itself could be a whole podcast because you
Speaker 4: have two different parts there. You have certain people that say,
Speaker 4: I'm numbered and so that makes me the equivalent of
Speaker 4: like a purebred dog or a racehorse, and I don't
Speaker 4: want to be numbered, but that's what the government does.
Speaker 4: You have certain people that say, because you have a
Speaker 4: CDI B, it makes you a legit Indian. And then
Speaker 4: you have other people, which this is more newer as
Speaker 4: of this year. I've heard it that just because you
Speaker 4: have a CD I B it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 5: It's just I don't know, it's it's a it's growth
Speaker 5: on top of more racism and systemization, because if you
Speaker 5: look at the history of degrees of Indian blood, there
Speaker 5: are plenty of examples where it benefited you because you
Speaker 5: were Indian enough, and there were issues where things were
Speaker 5: taken away because you were too Indian, and so it's
Speaker 5: just this I think it's racism still at work personally,
Speaker 5: but I also think that because of the way that
Speaker 5: we've experienced genocide as a tribe. We've experienced three waves
Speaker 5: of genocide personally, and a lot of tribes in America
Speaker 5: have experienced some form of genocide, and so that documentation
Speaker 5: has been warped just like everything else, to promote a genocide.
Speaker 1: Thank you for giving all of that context. I think
Speaker 1: it's so helpful for listeners, especially outside of LA and
Speaker 1: outside of California. And one of the things we also
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to you all about is the use
Speaker 1: of white sage, because I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but Latinas and Chicanas love to use white sage, yes,
Speaker 1: and there are ethical ways to consume it, and there's
Speaker 1: also harmful ways to consume it, and it's being poached,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, So we want to hear more about
Speaker 1: that and how can people, if possible, even to ethically
Speaker 1: consume it, and let's just have that conversation here.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I would say that the cultural appropriation that
Speaker 5: we experience as tongue of people is not necessarily like
Speaker 5: in Halloween costumes. I mean, like fuck the Halloween costumes also,
Speaker 5: but they're usually more directed towards like plain Indian culture.
Speaker 5: For us, our cultural appropriation, the main harm is in
Speaker 5: the inappropriate use of white sage and also abalone shells
Speaker 5: and hawk feathers along with that. So all three of
Speaker 5: these items are currently being poached from the wild from
Speaker 5: coyotes or people who are being exploited by coyotes, and
Speaker 5: so right now it's really problematic because the migrant workers
Speaker 5: who don't really know any better are the ones that
Speaker 5: are getting in trouble for poaching white sage, when really
Speaker 5: it's like these big wholesalers who are exploiting these micro
Speaker 5: workers and basically screwing them over so they could make
Speaker 5: a lot of money off of a poached plant. And
Speaker 5: a couple of years ago, we received three hundred pounds
Speaker 5: poached from Edewanda Preserve and I thought it was going
Speaker 5: to be this big, beautiful gift. I was really excited,
Speaker 5: but then when we got it, it was it was
Speaker 5: like sad. It was really sad. It was like it
Speaker 5: was like expecting to adopt a dog and just like
Speaker 5: the saddest, most abused dog like showed up on your
Speaker 5: doorstep and you were like, oh my gosh, who did
Speaker 5: this to you? Baby? Like, Because for us, our plants
Speaker 5: are our relatives, like we love them the same way
Speaker 5: we love our family. Members and so to see that
Speaker 5: was really devastating, and so now we tried to spread
Speaker 5: the words. So I actually brought some little Regarlitos for
Speaker 5: you guys, thank you. I brought a little packet of
Speaker 5: stickers that say protect white Sage, and so we like
Speaker 5: to have people, you know, put those on their water
Speaker 5: bottle and spread the word. And then we also I
Speaker 5: have some like little stickers of native plants that I.
Speaker 2: Hear so much.
Speaker 5: Oh those are beautiful, which just fun. And then my
Speaker 5: last thing was just these little bundles of white sage.
Speaker 5: So these are like probably a third of the size
Speaker 5: that you would see in stores. Right, They're really tiny,
Speaker 5: and that's because we grew them at home and we
Speaker 5: wrap them ourselves with our care, and that's that's where
Speaker 5: the blessing comes from. And so I wanted to bring
Speaker 5: those as a gift to you know, thank you for
Speaker 5: having us on the podcast where gift givers as a culture,
Speaker 5: but also to just so it shows an example what
Speaker 5: like the real homemade stuff like grows like because here
Speaker 5: in southern California and if you're in like the desert area,
Speaker 5: like you could probably grow white sage really successfully if
Speaker 5: you're in like a hot climate like we are here.
Speaker 5: In fact, white sage grows natively almost in the entire
Speaker 5: La County basin, and I would love for more people
Speaker 5: to grow white sage. We always joke that we want
Speaker 5: like white sage to be like like where lemon trees are.
Speaker 5: Like everyone's got a lemon tree. Everyone needs to have
Speaker 5: a white sage plant. Yeah, Mona has two in her
Speaker 5: in her yard and we do.
Speaker 4: And this is what I would say. We hope that
Speaker 4: everyone grows their own. When you asked about how to
Speaker 4: get white sage, we also hope that when you grow
Speaker 4: your own, you gift it to other people because of
Speaker 4: the thought that it's gift from Mother nature. And at
Speaker 4: the point that currency is exchanged for it, it loses
Speaker 4: its ability to give you a blessing. So it's something
Speaker 4: that imagine like going back to the thought of a
Speaker 4: community and we have everybody that's gifting each other white sage.
Speaker 4: How beautiful that would be.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: Actually, you can get the seeds right now, just like
Speaker 5: wherever you see white seede, right, I mean, please don't
Speaker 5: gather from the wild. I would prefer if you didn't
Speaker 5: gather from the wild, but a lot of places I
Speaker 5: see it in people's yards all the time. This is
Speaker 5: actually the time to gather the seed right now is
Speaker 5: like late July through August. So I'll tell you a
Speaker 5: secret about the seed pods, because there's there's way more
Speaker 5: medicine and white stage than just burning it. But I
Speaker 5: don't really tell people that medicine unless they're growing it.
Speaker 5: But I will tell everyone how to collect the seed
Speaker 5: because right now it's ready. So the flower stocks are
Speaker 5: going to dry up and they're going to look dead,
Speaker 5: and then when you shake them, you're going to hear
Speaker 5: a rattle and that's all the seeds inside. So you
Speaker 5: can take one of those stocks, you can snap it
Speaker 5: right off. It's ready for it to leave the plant,
Speaker 5: and you just shake it. You can shake it like
Speaker 5: into a little plastic container or whatever, and you'll have
Speaker 5: little brown seeds that come up and you can plant
Speaker 5: those directly into the soil. I've heard of people having
Speaker 5: success with putting a little liquid smoke or burning a
Speaker 5: little bit on top of it and then like extinguishing
Speaker 5: the fire, so just like a really really tiny fire
Speaker 5: for like maybe ten seconds and extinguishing it. I did
Speaker 5: that once and it was it worked pretty well, and
Speaker 5: so there's different ways of planting it. It's not always
Speaker 5: going to come up, but it's something that can be
Speaker 5: worked on. And then if you have it, if you
Speaker 5: get it too wet, it will get moldy, so you
Speaker 5: can't really have it like right next to your lawn sprinkler.
Speaker 5: But maybe that's just an opportunity to kill your lawn
Speaker 5: and plant more natives. That's what I usually tell people.
Speaker 5: But it's time, This is the seeding time, and so
Speaker 5: you can gather the seeds right now and you can
Speaker 5: get a free sage plant from like that way.
Speaker 2: So what I'm hearing is we really shouldn't be buying
Speaker 2: white sage at all, not really. And that's really interesting
Speaker 2: because I think everybody wants to know, like, oh, what's
Speaker 2: a less harmful way to buy something? But there's not
Speaker 2: a less harmful buying option here, really.
Speaker 5: Buying the plant and putting it in the ground. You
Speaker 5: can get it from a lot of a lot of
Speaker 5: native plant gardens, theater pain Foundation, a lot of places
Speaker 5: where you can grow it, will have it, and if
Speaker 5: you don't, like if you live in a colder state,
Speaker 5: then I recommend alternatives. There's like hundreds of different stage varieties.
Speaker 5: There's rosemary, there's pine, there's ceedar burn, something else that
Speaker 5: you grow.
Speaker 1: Pos to that's its own conversation in like the Peruvian Amazon,
Speaker 1: it's it's a thing as well.
Speaker 2: And so we're using this word poached, which I feel
Speaker 2: like most listeners probably hear poaching with regards to like
Speaker 2: the animals. Yeah, it's a poaching an egg like style
Speaker 2: of technique. Yes, no, but like poaching like going on
Speaker 2: safari and like poaching rhinos and you know, exotic animals.
Speaker 2: But when we say poaching with regards to white sage,
Speaker 2: what does that mean specifically?
Speaker 5: It's incredibly similar. It's where people are, like people who
Speaker 5: are desperate are exploited to go out and grab as
Speaker 5: much as they can. And so for white sage specifically,
Speaker 5: like if you grow it in your ear ar like
Speaker 5: mona does, like if every spring you can trim it
Speaker 5: back and you will have like two dozen bundles plus
Speaker 5: to give to your friends and family. But what these
Speaker 5: poachers do is they just find whatever is available and
Speaker 5: they cut it all the way down before it has
Speaker 5: a chance to flower or seed. And so sometimes the
Speaker 5: sage grows back. Sometimes it gets crowded out by invasive species.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's too traumatized to keep growing. And so it's
Speaker 5: abuse of a plant the same way that it's an
Speaker 5: abuse of an animal.
Speaker 4: And it's taking it from a federally usually from a
Speaker 4: federally protected space, or from a space that they did
Speaker 4: not grow it themselves, and then taking harming the plant
Speaker 4: by removing.
Speaker 5: It, and the same thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, and so we're talking about like a corporation or
Speaker 1: like a business. It's hiring workers to then go out
Speaker 1: and do that. That's like the distinction it words, not
Speaker 1: just like individual people. And maybe that does happen right
Speaker 1: going in and like taking some white stage in the wild,
Speaker 1: but it's like companies with the or businesses with the
Speaker 1: intent of exploiting it and selling it for like twenty dollars.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, and they will not like claim it, you know,
Speaker 5: they have their networks, of course, but they sell it
Speaker 5: at five below, they sell it at Spencer's, they sell
Speaker 5: it at whole Foods, and they sell it just like
Speaker 5: wholesalers will sell it to small businesses as well. And
Speaker 5: so usually you can ask someone where they get their
Speaker 5: white sage and they'll be like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Some guy and that's how you know that it was
Speaker 5: probably poached. And the same thing happens with a baloney
Speaker 5: shells and hawk feathers, and so that's why I recommend
Speaker 5: like incense bowls or my friend maybe this really pretty
Speaker 5: little bowl that I actually burned my sage. And I
Speaker 5: don't even use an abaloney shell because I'm aware of
Speaker 5: the poaching as well, even as a tongue of a person.
Speaker 5: And so I think with any natural resource that you grab,
Speaker 5: like shells, that kind of thing, Like it's always good
Speaker 5: to question, like how did this get on this show?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And from so folks can actually go to your website
Speaker 2: and I'll have you guys give the website address again.
Speaker 2: But I thought it was in doing research on the
Speaker 2: white stage topic. I thought it was interesting, like, so
Speaker 2: there's not really farms that produce white sage necessary.
Speaker 5: I think there's like two in Mexico and one in
Speaker 5: Washington or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if it's coming from somewhere in California, it's
Speaker 2: being taken from a southern California wildlife reserve.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they'll call it wild gathered or like ethically
Speaker 5: wild forge just because they put an ethically in front
Speaker 5: of it. Does not mean that it's ethical.
Speaker 2: Right, and so can you guys give for our listeners
Speaker 2: your tribal website once again so they can come and
Speaker 2: visit learn more about your tribe and the issues around
Speaker 2: the poaching of white sage.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is www dot Gaviolino dash nsn dot us
Speaker 4: and you spell Gavolino ga b r I E l
Speaker 4: e n O amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you both so much for joining us today. This
Speaker 1: was so informative. It's just so great. Thank you both.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
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