This is a reflection on the shared history between Na Ñuu Savi (Peoples of the Region of the Rain) and Chumash since the origin of their respective homelands in what are now Mexico and the United States. Santa Maria is an agricultural city located in northern Santa Barbara County on the Central Coast of California. It is the second home of Na Ñuu Savi migrants from Yucha Nchaa (Santa Cruz Mixtepec) in the municipality of Ñuu Xnuviko (San Juan Mixtepec), Oaxaca.

Between the Santa Marian earth and sky is a backstrap loom on which the history of people in this space is woven. The first shapes formed on this loom are Chumash, people who came from islands and established varying groups on the now Californian coast.

“The exercise of self-determination is a necessary task prior to the consultation because we have seen that many consultation exercises begin as a reaction to someone who wants to set up a project or a mine. Part of the community becomes active, but since the community is not consulted as a People, internal conflicts begin there.

To Whom this May Concern,

YIMOM is a network of Maya Tsotsil healer women who live in the community of Nuevo Corral Chꞌen el Ángel, Chiapas, Mexico, and work towards ensuring food security and food sovereignty for their communities by taking care of their soil.

I am a Na Ñuu Savi (Person of the Place of Rain, Mixtec) born in Santa Maria, California, United States, to Nivi Ñuu Savi (People of the Place of Rain) who migrated there to work as farmers in the California agricultural economy. Ñuu Savi (the Place of Rain) is in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guerrero, Mexico, where many pueblos are known by names that describe our history.

Cultural Survival Youth Fellow, Fermín Morales Hilario (Nahuatl), 22, is from Kalman Nimos in the mountains of Mexico, where his family grows corn, beans, and squash. His family is Náhuatl but his mother tongue was not passed down to him as his grandparents did not teach his father and mother to speak it. Fermin has five siblings and is the only one in his family to attend university. He aspires to finish his studies.

The smell of the cempaxuchitl (marigold) flower can be confused with the smell of chocolate that my mother makes at this time of year for breakfast and as an offering to the dead. In my community, the Day of the Dead celebrations begin on October 31 each year. When I was a child, my mother, my father, and my four brothers got up at five in the morning to make the fire, while I, still lying in a corner of my wooden house, listened to the noises that came from outside.

By Natalia Sánchez González
 

Este encuentro reunirá a las y los campesinos indígenas, a los y las poseedoras de conocimientos, narradores de historias, preparadoras o preservadores de alimentos, artesanos y artesanas indígenas; defensoras y defensores de los derechos al territorio, al agua, a las semillas, para que los seres sagrados del maíz que nos otorgan la supervivencia perseveren.