Speaker 1: We should dismantle the fact that indigenous peoples are seeing
Speaker 1: as research subjects and areas of expertise rather than the
Speaker 1: scientists and experts themselves.
Speaker 2: From futro media and PRX, It's Latino Usa, I'm Maria
Speaker 2: in No Rosa today, Jessica Hernandez and why we need
Speaker 2: Indigenous environmental science For Jessica Irnandez, becoming an environmental scientist
Speaker 2: seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She
Speaker 2: had grown up learning about animals and plants from her
Speaker 2: grandmother in Joahaka in southern Mexico. She loved going fishing
Speaker 2: with her father, where she always seemed to learn something new.
Speaker 2: Jessica felt that she already had so much to share
Speaker 2: with other people who were interested in the environment. But
Speaker 2: when she started studying marine science, things weren't so simple
Speaker 2: all of a sudden. As an indigenous immigrant woman at
Speaker 2: a university in the United States, the knowledge she brought
Speaker 2: to the classroom was mocked or dismissed. Her professors had
Speaker 2: no interest in what she and, by extension, her family
Speaker 2: and her community had to say. Still, Jessica knew that
Speaker 2: she belonged any place where the environment was being discussed,
Speaker 2: not just for her love of nature, but because she
Speaker 2: had seen how being shut out of the conversation had
Speaker 2: been so harmful to her Suppotheic and Mayachorti communities. So
Speaker 2: she finished her degree, but didn't stop there. She got
Speaker 2: a master's and then a PhD in environmental and forestry sciences.
Speaker 2: She learned the formulas and specialized terms used in academia,
Speaker 2: and she confirmed what she had always known, that what
Speaker 2: her grandmother and father had taught her was also a
Speaker 2: form of science. Jessica collected her family's stories, historical accounts,
Speaker 2: and other case studies in her twenty twenty two book
Speaker 2: Fresh Banana Leaves, Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science, which
Speaker 2: she hopes will change how we think about environmental science.
Speaker 2: It's a message that we're happy to bring back to
Speaker 2: you today, dear listener. In her own words, here's doctor
Speaker 2: Jessica Hernandez.
Speaker 1: When the Olpaducci Bigree. My name is Jessica Hernandez, and
Speaker 1: I'm from the Maya, Chorty and Sapotech nations of Salvador
Speaker 1: and Oohaka, Mexico. I'm an indigenous environmental scientist. I currently
Speaker 1: holds a position at the University of Washington, Boto, where
Speaker 1: I teach introduction to climate science. I also conduct research
Speaker 1: on environmental physics of climate science, and I wrote a
Speaker 1: book entitled Fresh Banana Leaves, Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science.
Speaker 1: One of my fondest memories is just being able to
Speaker 1: go visit my grandmother in Wohaka, Mexico, and she just
Speaker 1: taught me a lot about our environments. She liked to
Speaker 1: go walking when she was able to walk, and she
Speaker 1: would just teach me about the landscape, the mongols, and
Speaker 1: also about the animals. My dad loved fishing, and because
Speaker 1: he was a fisherman, that's how he was able to
Speaker 1: sustain his family in the Salvador, because he was the
Speaker 1: eldest and he used to fish. And I think that
Speaker 1: I always thought my dad was like really smart because
Speaker 1: like we went fishing, he didn't need a rod, right,
Speaker 1: Like he could make his own rod out of the
Speaker 1: materials that he could find. He could make fish nets also,
Speaker 1: and I always thought that that was really cool. And
Speaker 1: I noticed that when I was like in elementary school,
Speaker 1: my dad was learning how to read with me, and
Speaker 1: that always made me question, like, oh, my dad is learning,
Speaker 1: Like what does that mean, but my dad sharing that
Speaker 1: journey with me as I was learning how to read
Speaker 1: kind of inspire me to be like, oh, and my
Speaker 1: dad is like doing this with me, maybe I should,
Speaker 1: you know, look into school. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: what motivated me to love education, because my parents had
Speaker 1: been denied and they instilled in me like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can get education, go for it. Being introduced
Speaker 1: to the environment from the lens of my grandmother and
Speaker 1: my father, it kind of fostered that interest in me
Speaker 1: to want to learn more about your environments. I always
Speaker 1: noticed how my communities and my relatives back in my
Speaker 1: ancestral lens were always dismissed, right, Like if they wanted
Speaker 1: to advocate for something in the environment, they'll be like
Speaker 1: alsos indios, no savin, Like they don't know anything. They're
Speaker 1: you know, ignorant, Like what are they talking about? And
Speaker 1: I think that that's something that my grandmother staled in
Speaker 1: me because she was like, oh, you have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to pursue education, even my parents, right, Like my dad
Speaker 1: didn't get any Western education, right because he was busy
Speaker 1: as a child trying to support his family after his
Speaker 1: father passed away, so he never stepped foot in a classroom,
Speaker 1: and I guess I will be my naiveness because I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, like oh, I bring in my family's teachings
Speaker 1: into the curriculum. I could bring it to the professors,
Speaker 1: They're gonna really accept it. But when I went into
Speaker 1: the classrooms, oftentimes, you know, I was ridiculed by professors
Speaker 1: because there will be like, oh, you need to cite this,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to go towards peer review articles,
Speaker 1: or you know, is this Jessica's theory? Where is this
Speaker 1: information coming from? When I was sharing testimonies or lift
Speaker 1: experiences that will hint towards the topic we were discussing,
Speaker 1: but because it wasn't published or it didn't have any
Speaker 1: scientific credibility, it was like dismissed and oftentimes ridiculed by
Speaker 1: my professor's right. Even as a graduate student, I had
Speaker 1: to sit in classrooms while they were laughing like I
Speaker 1: had just like set a joke or something, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, but that just shows you how professors,
Speaker 1: you know, especially why scientists can be dismissive towards indigenous peoples, right,
Speaker 1: And that was me, somebody who had privileged to be
Speaker 1: in that classes. So I could just imagine how they
Speaker 1: would treat our communities if they went to our communities,
Speaker 1: and they will share all these stories as well, right,
Speaker 1: they'll probably laugh.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 1: To see how they were very dismissive. Kind of like
Speaker 1: made me understand that you know, what I had mbitioned
Speaker 1: environmental sciences to be as a field wasn't necessarily what
Speaker 1: it was going to be. The sciences have the lowest
Speaker 1: diverse populations of students and even professors. I don't recall
Speaker 1: indigenous professor throughout my undergraduates. So even in my graduate degree,
Speaker 1: like if I wanted to work with an indigenous professor,
Speaker 1: I had to go to the Department of American Indian
Speaker 1: Studies or the Department of Ethnic Studies. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily within the College of the Environment or the departments
Speaker 1: of the Environments. But my grandmother always told me, like,
Speaker 1: if you can learn how the colonizers, so you know,
Speaker 1: the Gringo speak, you can help us advocate for our environments.
Speaker 1: Right because now, like they're not going to dismiss our
Speaker 1: way of no, because we can use that Western terminology. Personally,
Speaker 1: I prefer to use the term indigenous science as opposed
Speaker 1: to traditional ecological knowledge, because oftentimes I think that traditional
Speaker 1: ecological knowledge has this connotation that it's knowledge that no
Speaker 1: longer exists, or that it's kind of like traditional in
Speaker 1: the sense that it belongs to a museum, as opposed
Speaker 1: to it's alive and has adapted over the years. Our
Speaker 1: knowledge systems are a form of science, if anything. They're
Speaker 1: like the longest living in science on planet Earth because
Speaker 1: it has been kind of created or passed down through generations.
Speaker 1: It has also adapted as our environments adapted. Because you know,
Speaker 1: our indigenous science that probably our great grandparents had, it's
Speaker 1: not the same that you know we have because our
Speaker 1: environments have drastically changed because of climate change, ury and
Speaker 1: everything that colonialism introduced to our lands. And I think
Speaker 1: that one of my biggest push is that indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: are scientists, and that oftentimes we are told, because we
Speaker 1: live in under this Desettler frameworks, that we have to
Speaker 1: obtain degrees for our knowledge to be validated. But you know,
Speaker 1: all of indigenous peoples who have that knowledge to steward
Speaker 1: their lands, to co manage their resources with their entire
Speaker 1: community tribes or pueblos, hold on to that science that
Speaker 1: is the foundation of our existence and resistance. They might
Speaker 1: not be peer review or published as much as you know,
Speaker 1: the Western sciences, but it holds as much credibility as
Speaker 1: the Western sciences do. I was always interested in trying
Speaker 1: to write a book that boys my father's story, especially
Speaker 1: history as a child soldier who fought in the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and I think that once I was able to get
Speaker 1: him to sit down and tell me his whole story,
Speaker 1: it kind of like spark an interest for me to
Speaker 1: write it. I wanted to be able to share his story,
Speaker 1: but I also wanted to be able to tie in
Speaker 1: the stories of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my relatives,
Speaker 1: my community members, and other people that I'm in community with,
Speaker 1: so that we can amplify how indigenous rights, even if
Speaker 1: we're talking about immigration rights, are all interconnected to our environment.
Speaker 1: Through the book, I weave different scenarios or case studies
Speaker 1: of communities who have led that movement, and hopefully that
Speaker 1: also shows people and the readers that you know, it
Speaker 1: is something that they can support instead of co opting
Speaker 1: or stealing. Because I also tends to happen right in
Speaker 1: the Western framework where people are like, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: great idea. Let me go steal it and name it
Speaker 1: something else and then pretend I'm the founder when it's
Speaker 1: like indigenous knowledgists that were shared to certain people and
Speaker 1: then they take that ownership. One of the examples that
Speaker 1: I can give is permaculture. So permaculture is this like
Speaker 1: holistic way of doing agriculture where you're not necessarily putting
Speaker 1: much labor into the agricultural system, but the agricultural system
Speaker 1: is sustaining in itself. And when you look at the
Speaker 1: history of permaculture, it was founded, you know, and I
Speaker 1: quote that founded by a white man who went to
Speaker 1: Australia and learned from some Aborigine communities, and permaculture then
Speaker 1: became this like really expensive certificate that you can get.
Speaker 1: That's one of the critiques that I make in the
Speaker 1: book on how we should dismantle the fact that Indigenous
Speaker 1: peoples are seeing as research subjects and areas of expertise
Speaker 1: rather than the scientists and experts themselves, even without degrees.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of research articles written about the Sample
Speaker 1: Tape community. But when I have asked people in my
Speaker 1: community or did you know this and that you know
Speaker 1: that was written about our community, They're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: had never heard that, So that shows you how many
Speaker 1: of the times indigenous peoples are used as the research
Speaker 1: subjects and not the research experts. I'm really careful with
Speaker 1: like not sharing any medicinal remedies or sacred knowledge because
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard, right, because you don't know who
Speaker 1: to trust. And I think that being exposed to all
Speaker 1: these stories of co optation, our knowledge theft made me
Speaker 1: a little bit more guarded on the knowledge I will share.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I always walked the fine line
Speaker 1: of sharing my Indigenous knowledge with other people because you know,
Speaker 1: it can either be copt this stolen, or it also
Speaker 1: invalidated or dismissed. What I want readers to take away
Speaker 1: from this book is to learn more about the indigenous
Speaker 1: movements that are happening across the Americas, because oftentimes we
Speaker 1: fail to recognize how our certain identities contribute to sellar
Speaker 1: colonialism back in Latin America. In the United States, we
Speaker 1: focus more on being oppressed because we are oppressed as
Speaker 1: people of color. But when we go back to Latin America,
Speaker 1: is after indigenous, black and Indigenous people who are oppressed
Speaker 1: by you know, some of us. And I think that
Speaker 1: hopefully that brings a new perspective to the whole narrative
Speaker 1: of the oppressed and the oppressor, and how we can
Speaker 1: work together to undo that. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book is that conservation is
Speaker 1: a Western construct because in our languages, like if I
Speaker 1: were to try to translate conservation to the Sybotech language
Speaker 1: or the Miotority language or other languages that many Indigenous
Speaker 1: people speak, there is no word that directly translates to conservation.
Speaker 1: Most of the words that kind of tie or are
Speaker 1: interconnected to conservation focus more on protection, like protecting our environment.
Speaker 1: Most of the words in our languages hint towards healing
Speaker 1: rather than you like conserving. Is not only that it
Speaker 1: cannot be directly translated to our languages, but sometimes it
Speaker 1: comes in conflict where a way of life and oftentimes
Speaker 1: in the name of conservation. There is this oppression used
Speaker 1: against indigenous peoples, especially when it comes to their inherited
Speaker 1: rights to have access to certain natural resources, and we
Speaker 1: see that in national parks. When national parks were created,
Speaker 1: it was under this framework to conserve the natural, pristine wilderness,
Speaker 1: when in reality there was a lot of indigenous communities
Speaker 1: who lived in those lands that are now national parks
Speaker 1: that were exploited, oppressed, and kind of removed from their
Speaker 1: ancestral lands. And I think that it kind of shows
Speaker 1: the nuances that need to be discussed in the national
Speaker 1: park system because a lot of these monuments have names
Speaker 1: of violent people that perpetated that violence against Indigenous communities
Speaker 1: that were violently ripped off or remove from their lands.
Speaker 1: So the project that I conducted for my dissertation was
Speaker 1: to indigenize restoration in Discovery Park, located in Seattle, Washington,
Speaker 1: is the largest urban park in the state of Washington,
Speaker 1: and that's an interesting park because it has a really
Speaker 1: beautiful Indigenous history behind it. I decided to use my
Speaker 1: PhD to try to restore and heal some of those
Speaker 1: twenty acres of land. But in that way, what I
Speaker 1: decided to do was to amplify and center the Indigenous
Speaker 1: ways of healing our earth. And one of the teachings
Speaker 1: that our elders were able to teach us to practice
Speaker 1: was that under Western conservation, in basis species, they're like
Speaker 1: known as pests or weeds, but for Indigenous communities, we
Speaker 1: should see them as displaced relatives because there are someone's
Speaker 1: relative tists that have been displaced, like many of us have.
Speaker 1: I gotten a lot of fights with the Seattle Parks
Speaker 1: and Recreation Department because you know, even the way that
Speaker 1: they wanted us to take care of the weeds was
Speaker 1: different than the way we were told to take care
Speaker 1: of the weeds by our elders, because you know, for them,
Speaker 1: it's like their weeds they just have to be removed
Speaker 1: versus you know us. We will do prayers and we
Speaker 1: will ask for their permission to leave, you know, the
Speaker 1: land so that native species can come back in. So
Speaker 1: it was a lot of like I wouldn't say, like
Speaker 1: really bad conflict, but a lot of like fights with
Speaker 1: Seattle Parks because of the way that we practice restoration
Speaker 1: wasn't aligned to their rule book. One of the interesting
Speaker 1: metaphors that I use in the book is that banana
Speaker 1: trees are invasive to Central America, yet we have embraced
Speaker 1: them our relatives, right. And I think that that's a
Speaker 1: metaphor that I use for my lift experiences and the
Speaker 1: lift experiences of many displaced indigenous peoples that as banana trees,
Speaker 1: we have also been displaced from our ancestral lands, yet
Speaker 1: we adapt to our environments, and in this case, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we're welcome into those environments. Like in the case
Speaker 1: of banana trees, like you know in Central America, they
Speaker 1: have been used in our traditional foods to make our
Speaker 1: tamalis platanos. We you know, we fry them. Yet they're
Speaker 1: displaced relatives, right, They're not native species. They come from
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia, but they were introduced. And I think, like
Speaker 1: banana trees, displaced indigenous peoples, we're forced to adapt to
Speaker 1: our new environments and hopefully, you know, for some of us,
Speaker 1: we're working to become welcome into those new environments. One
Speaker 1: of the teachers on my grandma always told me was
Speaker 1: that anywhere I walked that wasn't my lands, I wasn't
Speaker 1: a welcome guest, right, because it was like, we're going
Speaker 1: into other people's homes, and those other people are the
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples whose lands were walking on. And I think
Speaker 1: that one of the things she always told me to
Speaker 1: think of about was how do you become a welcome guest, right?
Speaker 1: Because I have to still navigate that as a displaced
Speaker 1: indigenous woman, and the same way that I want people
Speaker 1: to form those relationships with my communities once they're in Wahaka.
Speaker 1: One of the beauties of being an Indigenous instructor, especially
Speaker 1: in the college setting, is that I can support other
Speaker 1: Indigenous students. I want to inspire students to find that
Speaker 1: sense of belonging, because like I always crave to have
Speaker 1: an indigenous professor teaching me about the environmental sciences, but
Speaker 1: I never got that. In a way, sometimes I question, like, oh,
Speaker 1: do I really want to become a professor? Go for
Speaker 1: ten years? But then I think about my younger self,
Speaker 1: and I think about that eighteen year old who crave
Speaker 1: that indigenous professor that she could approach after class and
Speaker 1: talk to them, right, And I think that being an
Speaker 1: Indigenous instructor now kind of allows me to cater to
Speaker 1: those students.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Victoria Strada. It was edited
Speaker 2: by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. It was mixed by Gabriel Labiez.
Speaker 2: The Latino USA team includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Dominique
Speaker 2: Estrosa Rinaldo Leanos Junior, Stephanie Lebo, Luis Luna Marta Martinez,
Speaker 2: Norsaudi and Nancy Trujillo, Penille Ramirez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garcia
Speaker 2: and myself are your co executive producers and I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Mariao Morosa. You can find us on your podcast feed
Speaker 2: at Latino Usa. Also on our website Latino Usa dot org.
Speaker 2: We have extended versions of our stories dropping every Friday
Speaker 2: and Sunday. Join us again on our next episode. Dear listener,
Speaker 2: in the meantime, I'll see you on social media. Estell approxima.
Speaker 3: Yes, Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,
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Speaker 3: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for more than fifty
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Speaker 3: is Coverage of a culture of health is made possible
Speaker 3: in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the title of the book is Fresh Banana
Speaker 1: Leafs Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science.