The Native American Youth and Family Center has hosted a series of events throughout November that celebrate survival and solidarity with the Portland Native community. The tending day on Thursday at NAYA’s garden at the Neerchokikoo community space allows people to connect with the land and honor Indigenous resilience (registration for the event is full). We learn more about the events from Lucy Suppah, Indigenous Food Sovereignty Coordinator for NAYA.
Editor’s note: Lucy Suppah is a former “Think Out Loud” intern.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Jenn Chávez: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Jenn Chávez, in today for Dave Miller. So glad to be back on live radio with you, my friends.
So, Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday. For some, it’s considered a day to spend with family and friends sharing a big home-cooked meal. And a bit later in the hour, we’re gonna be talking more about that. But first, I want to acknowledge the fact that this holiday is inextricably linked with this country’s history of colonization and genocide. So, for many Indigenous Americans, Thursday is considered a day of mourning.
In Portland, the Native American Youth and Family Center, or NAYA, has been inviting people to spend time with them this month. Mourning, yes, and also celebrating the survival of Native people and being in solidarity with local Native communities. These Unthanksgiving events are focused on reconnecting with the land, and there’s one coming up on Thursday.
Lucy Suppah is NAYA’s Indigenous Food Sovereignty Coordinator and an enrolled member of the Warm Springs and Shoshone Bannock Tribes, and she joins me now in our studios. Lucy, welcome to Think Out Loud. Thank you for being here.
Lucy Suppah: [speaks in her Native language] Good afternoon. Thank you for having me here.
Chávez: Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit more about what Unthanksgiving is and what it means? What are the ideas behind this event?
Suppah: Yeah, just to reiterate, it’s a mourning of the genocide and the atrocities and the colonization, assimilation, that was enforced on our people, and also celebrating and also recognizing that we are a strong resilient people who have made it through; and that we are not in the past, that we are here, currently, and we deserve the representation and recognition that has been long overdue. So, this Unthanksgiving event offers an alternative to participating in the fallacy that the U.S. history has sold to this society. That story of Thanksgiving is inaccurate, and it puts a pretty bow on the history of what actually happened. And again, it’s just really long overdue for that recognition and for that accountability, to recognize the atrocities that have happened to our people.
So offering this alternative event for people to be in solidarity with Indigenous and Native community, and also any peoples who have been oppressed on land. We definitely stand in solidarity with our other relatives throughout Turtle Island, throughout the world. There’s a lot going on right now that is really upsetting. And so, giving this alternative allows people to relearn history and to take action and instead of wearing a wristband or putting a sticker on your water bottle, actually giving back to these communities that have experienced inequity since time immemorial really, since colonization has happened.
Chávez: And you invite non-native people to these events, like you said, to be in solidarity with Indigenous folks. Why is that aspect of what you’re doing important?
Suppah: Our garden – Wapas Nah Née Shaku is what it’s called – and it means “holding the basket,” which was gifted to us from a Wasco elder named Tukishman. And it’s a way to partake in food justice, in food sovereignty, creating a place that Native peoples can access good healthy produce. You know, there’s a lot of programs at food banks and different things, but a lot of the quality of food that people are getting from those places isn’t necessarily the best. It’s usually the last pickings. All of our food is free to BIPOC community, and volunteers who do participate in our garden are expected to put in a little sweat equity.
This Unthanksgiving event is one of our largest events, with over 400 people – and I do want to mention that registration is closed and that we are at capacity – so having them put in this sweat equity for us takes the weight off of our people to put that in. I mean, we’ve done enough, and it’s about time that we’re also given back to.
I know there’s another alternative for Unthanksgiving, Thankstaking. There’s been a lot taken from us and it’s about time that we have something given back to us. And so a lot of these laborious jobs that we have for our expansion efforts in Wapas Nah Née Shaku are dedicated for our allies and non-native volunteers.
Chávez: And, like you said, this is happening at NAYA’s Community Garden. I personally love community gardens. Can you describe what the garden is like, what it looks like, what’s growing there? Maybe even how you feel when you’re there?
Suppah: I first want to mention that our garden is on a piece of land that was ancestrally a Native trading village called Neerchokikoo, and the vision of the space was to heal the land and also heal ourselves. So having the ability to put our hands in the dirt, and sing to our plant relatives, to be in reciprocity with the water, the land, and our plant relatives is truly, truly a blessing to us and it feels really good in there. We’re a highly spiritual people. And for me personally, as well, it’s definitely been a spiritual journey for me, partaking in the garden.
We have a regular market garden with produce that you would see in a normal grocery store. We also have our First Foods Garden which has a variety of First Foods. Also, from across Turtle Island, as at NAYA, we represent over 380 Tribes in the Portland Metro alone. So the diversity of our First Foods Garden, we’d like to represent the people we serve.
So, we have our Three Sisters Garden. We have huckleberries. We have choke cherries, [7:20] [speaking in native language] which is our camas. We have couch, which is… I’m just going to say couch…there’s so much variety.
We also have a medicine garden that is for our people. We like to believe that plant medicine is not an alternative medicine, it was our first medicine. So we definitely like to encourage our community to come and purchase in that. We also have a Native hedgerow, which is all native plants as well.
Chávez: And I know you’ve been intentional with these events about creating BIPOC-only spaces. Why is that important to you, to offer that type of space at an Unthanksgiving event?
Suppah: I just think it’s really important that people understand that we are Native and Indigenous every day, every single day. And a month out of the year is not the only time to stand in solidarity with us. A day out of the year is not enough to say that you’re standing in solidarity to us. You could do different efforts every day by donating to Native-led programming, nonprofits, businesses, nursing homes, youth programs. Standing in solidarity with us to protect our water ‒ our First Food ‒ and ceded territory rights, standing in solidarity to enforce the Tribal sovereignty that was promised to us, standing in solidarity to honor the treaties, which has yet to happen. And not inundating us with the burden of educating you about what colonizers did to us – the trauma, the atrocities, the colonization, the boarding schools, the missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives – take that upon yourself to go and educate yourself and find those resources. We have the internet now and there’s so many resources that you could take upon yourself. We should not be the ones burdened with that story.
Those apologies you want to tell us on these days to make yourself feel better only create more hurt for us and retraumatization. Just really consider that when you’re thinking about supporting Native people and how you’re going about it. Even if it’s well intentioned, sometimes your words land a lot differently than you intended. So I think it’s just really important to remember, and also with Thanksgiving, our ceremonies, our traditions, our songs, we give thanks all year. We don’t… this day, like I said, it is a fallacy, and our respect and our reciprocity with all life forms is an everyday way of living for us.
Chávez: You know, you mentioned that it is not your responsibility to educate non-Native people who might be coming to an Unthanksgiving event, and I’m really happy you brought that up. This day of service in NAYA’s garden is focused on food and the land. What else do you hope people hold in mind when they’re participating in this day with you?
Suppah: Just about the intention of the way that they are working with our space that we’re holding. Everything we do in our garden, we talk with people, especially if they’re working with our First Foods or any foods, is that those foods are going to go into a person, and that food is used for sustenance. And if you’re in there angry or mad or not in a good way, it’s our belief that you can carry that on to the next person. Also respecting that, when we are harvesting these foods or breaking up the ground, it is that being giving its life to us, and respecting that life. So just making sure that we’re very intentional and that we’re doing things in a good way.
These lands and these plants are giving their life to us. So the little bit that we can do in respecting that and giving gratitude is highly essential and important to us and to our communities, and investing in our ways of life is about sustaining life. And we’d like to share that with people, and hope that that changed their minds about the way that they go about doing things as well.
Chávez: Lucy, thank you so, so much for being here with us today to talk about Unthanksgiving.
Suppah: [speaks in Native Language] Thank you.
Chávez: Lucy Suppah is the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Coordinator for Portland’s Native American Youth and Family Center, or NAYA. She’s also a former Think Out Loud Intern from 2022.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.