Take the Last Bite

We take a bite out of the First Nations Garden, a healing space for the Intertribal Native community of Chicago. Co-founder Fawn Pochel (they/kwe) shares the origins of this youth-led project, the importance of establishing and maintaining relationship with plant relatives, and how the garden has transformed the neighborhood and provided a community gathering place for celebrations, education, and practicing intertribal traditions. 

Additional Resources and References from this episode: 

Previous Take the Last Bite episodes that center food justice, the joys of growing and cooking food, and innovations in urban farming: 
  • Queers Who Make Beers – a chat with queer and trans folks in the craft microbrewing industry working to improve working conditions for marginalized service workers
  • Ferrets, Farming, and Fat-Kid Food – a segment about growing basil in shipping containers and a segment about cooking with taste-loss due to long-COVID
  • ‘Chef’ is Gender Neutral – brunch baddie Catie Randazzo talks about wanting to connect queer and trans youth to service industry skills

For questions, comments or feedback about this episode: lastbite@sgdinstitute.org

We’re on TikTok! You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or at sgdinstitute.org

Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of strategy and impact for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

Cover art: Adrienne McCormick
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Creators & Guests

Host
R.B. Brooks
Director of Programs, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity
Producer
Justin Drwencke
Executive Director, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

What is Take the Last Bite?

Take the Last Bite is a direct counter to the Midwest Nice mentality— highlighting advocacy & activism by queer/trans communities in the Midwest region. Each episode unearths the often disregarded and unacknowledged contributions of queer & trans folks to social change through interviews, casual conversations and reflections on Midwest queer time, space, and place.

For questions, comments and feedback: lastbite@sgdinstitute.org

To support this podcast and the Institute, please visit sgdinstitute.org/giving

Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality & Gender Diversity

Cover Art: Adrienne McCormick

Speaker 1:

Hey. Hi. Hello, y'all. This is RB, your Midwest matcha latte with oat milk brewing up another episode of Take the Last Bite, a show where we take Midwest nice to the sunny beach and forget to reapply its sunscreen. While Taking the Last Bite conjures images of Midwest potlucks or pizza parties, we're not technically a food show.

Speaker 1:

However, over our 5 seasons, we've featured several conversations that center food justice, the joys of growing and cooking food, and innovations in urban farming. On season 4 episode 2, chef is gender neutral, brunch baddie Katie Randazzo discussed their vision of connecting queer and trans youth to food and service industry skills. Our Small Bites episode, Ferrets, Farming and Fat Kid Food, features 2 segments related to food and farming. In one, Michelle, the Institute's Director of People and Learning, talks about urban farming and the movement to bring small scale, larger impact farming options to metropolitan areas by growing basil in shipping containers. And in the latter segment, I talk about reestablishing my queers who make beers, queer and trans folks in the craft brewing industry shared their efforts around creating better working conditions for marginalized service workers.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode contributes to our growing archive of conversations with Midwest queer and trans folks discussing our relationships with food. In particular, today's chat encourages us to examine our connections to land, our coexistence with plant and animal relatives, and challenges us to unlearn colonial concepts of food and manufacturing. I'm joined by Phan Poisal, a co founder of the First Nations Garden in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago, to talk about the origins of this youth led community project and how it has transformed the surrounding ecosystem through prioritizing native plants, traditional practices and Indigenous food ways. Grab a shovel. We're going gardening.

Speaker 1:

On this episode episode of Take the Last Bite. Why can't we be in space with 100

Speaker 2:

of other queer and trans folks and having these necessary conversations? When it comes to dynamics around privilege and oppression and around identity, well intentioned isn't actually good enough. And how far is too far to drive for a drag show? I don't know. We're in Duluth right now.

Speaker 2:

I would straight up go to Nebraska, probably. If you are not vibing or something's not right or also, like, there's an irreparable rupture, you have absolutely every right to walk away. Definitely gonna talk about Midwest Nice. And if that's if that's, as real as it wants to pick it is. Midwest Nice is white aggression.

Speaker 2:

That's what it is. Super excited to reconvene with you. It's been almost exactly a year and some change, since we came into each other's ecosystem in Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia of all places, very far out of our Midwest playgrounds, confines, workplaces. So I'm happy to be reconvening with you and having, hopefully, a really joyous, lovely conversation about a project that you've been working with. So why don't we start with a bit about who you are, and if you could just kind of share what your relationship is with the Midwest?

Speaker 3:

For sure. Bujut Bon. I go by they she pronouns. And so my relationship with the Midwest has really, you know, inherited. Born primarily raised here in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 3:

Lived majority of my life here on the north side of the city. And so my mom and my grandmother, also Chicagoans, grandma's family is predominantly Irish. So her maternal lineage is from from Ireland and came to Chicago the way of the Catholic church. Her paternal side is also predominantly Irish, but has, you know, lived here in the States longer than that. And then my father is First Nations.

Speaker 3:

He was born in Swan River, Manitoba. He's a member of Key First Nations in Saskatchewan. He is a survivor of what's called the sixties scoop. And so, essentially, when he was entering those tween years, he was scooped up by the government and adopted out. So he came in his teen years to be adopted by a family out of Normal, Illinois right outside of sharp Champagne, Urbana.

Speaker 3:

I don't know why I couldn't say that. Very, you know, farm bible family. At 17, wanted a change of scenery, was hoping to go back home to Canada, ended up here in Chicago, met my mom, had some kids, and I love you, Ben.

Speaker 1:

If you are.

Speaker 3:

Here we are. So, ancestrally, through my paternal line, I've been connected to the Midwest since time immemorial, where Ojibwe and Cree, and so, you know, the Great Lakes is our our ancestral territory. And so I I grew up here in Chicago within, intertribal native community. There's not many First Nations Ojibwe folks here in Chicago, a handful of us. And so I was really lucky that through that forced removal on my father's side that we were able to grow up within our native identity, to have that and to never have to question that.

Speaker 3:

You know? There's been a lot of historical trauma tied to that in many different ways. And, also, like, being from an intertribal community really opened my understanding of what it means to be native and the diversity in that and, like, to be able to understand, like, the importance and the complicated ugliness of pan indigenous identity. And so I kind of just grew up in in native programming and having to advocate for spaces for native people to congregate. And so, you know, the city of Chicago is very segregated.

Speaker 3:

And so that is not true of the current native population, which grew in the 19 fifties from the relocation era, which was the United States government action to take native people out of reservations and place them in urban centers in order to help them assimilate within the dominant culture. A different play on kill the Indian, save the man rhetoric of the United States. And so, you know, I also through growing up in an intertribal community doing program, I also got to visit a lot of different native nations around the Great Lake. I was part of a youth council called Urban Natives of Chicago. And so land based education, well, it wasn't laid out in that way, really developed my sense of identity as an Anishinaabeg person.

Speaker 3:

Knowledge comes from the land, and that includes, like, identity development. And I think, you know, for all people, we're a product of the environment we're raised. And to some extent, I feel like my relationship to the Midwest is blank. On the Midwest, that's somebody I ain't done it. Right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. The good and the bad of it. No.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that wholly, wholly, and completely. And it it's kind of why you know, I ask that question of every human that comes on the the podcast to kind of hone in on kind of what you're talking about. Right? Like, this play space, land based, space based, kind of relationship and connection that is more than just where where you live. It's about where you've been, where your people have been, and where your people are, and what are the conditions and circumstances of the history of these spaces and these technically manufactured regions, right, but that it still has bearing on how we make sense of who we are as people based on who who is around us.

Speaker 2:

Right? So I'm hearing kind of from you this this kind of navigation in a way of, like, well, here's you know, you didn't pick where you ended up. That was kind of a a inheritance, as you're saying, like, of of your families coming together and their histories and their back stories. And now being in Chicago and having had participated in these youth programs, finding greater access or understanding and kind of making meaning of what does it mean to be Anishinaabe in a space where it's not as saturated with Anishinaabe people? You know, I think that based on what we're gonna talk about today too, I think it's so so meaningful for, like, how do you continue the practice of, like, making those connections to where you are, and the people, around you.

Speaker 2:

So the so the it's kind of Zumacint kind of project that you've spent some time with that I wanna hear more about is this First Nations garden. Can you share a bit about the First Nations garden, maybe where this originated?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So, the First Nations garden is just under a half of acre of land here on the city's north side, Albany Park area, which breaks down to 5 city locks. And so the way that it started was actually youth organizing. So my nephew, Adrian, attended school, elementary school here in Albany Park, was moving on from middle school to high school still in Albany Park, and our neighborhood was going through mass gentrification. We lost over 500 primarily Latin, Latinx families from the neighborhood.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

And he was also feeling very isolated as one of the only native indigenous students, in his school system outside of, like, you know, his direct family. And so one day in middle school, he had mentioned to us, like, one of the ways that he kinda grounds himself to, like, combat a lot of the issues around identity and being misidentified as something other than native is that he would go for walks and identify plants. And so the fact that he could identify plant relatives kinda helped him to combat his feelings of isolation and loneliness, especially as he's dealing with a bunch of his friends disappearing from his life, essentially. As he went into high school, he started attending community neighborhood meetings, and there was a group of primarily cis het white men homeowners who wanted to create a community garden, and so that appealed to him. And, you know, it just as a a native person, you know, finding place and access to land, to practice traditions, to grow plants within his neighborhood was, like, something that, you know, he jumped on the idea to participate in and be a part of.

Speaker 3:

Unfortunately well, fortunately for us, I guess, his ideologies did not align with the other planners, and he leaned on my sister, Janie, at the beginning to, like, bring her into these meetings to have a a, quote, unquote, adult voice in the room to, like, negotiate what a community garden would look for the current community of Albany Park, which is vastly gentrifying. And then at the time, I was working for a nonprofit organization, and, they pulled me in to see if we could utilize that organization as a fiscal sponsor to get the ball rolling. Things didn't work well with that organization either. A proposal was submitted to turn into a community garden to the the alderman Mhmm. Of the war that we were in.

Speaker 3:

And so the alderman like, the idea of a community garden, When we read the proposal and seen what they were advocating for to participate within that community garden came with a, in our opinion, a hefty price tag that the majority of the community could not afford. And so my oldest nephew, Anthony, was like, well, why don't you guys just go and talk to the alderman about it and other, you know, local politicians and see what they have to say? And we're like, okay. Because you can just go talk to your alderman. Right?

Speaker 3:

And so me also being in high school was like, yeah. And went and talked to the alderman.

Speaker 2:

Let's go.

Speaker 3:

At the meetings for us to to advocate why we were against the proposal that was submitted with our names on it. And so the alderman's like, well, then write your own proposal, and I'll choose between the 2. So we did. Our proposal was favored by the alderman. And we started talking about, like, well, now what is the process to get into the space to transform it into a community garden?

Speaker 3:

And part of building the relationship with the alderman was the construction of, a land acknowledgment resolution, for city council to be, you know, cognizant of, you know, whose lands they're on. And so we partnered our youth council, which both of the boys are are members of. I was one of the founding youth members of the youth council. My sister has always been in an advisory position of the youth council. And so the youth council stepped in to work with the alderman's office to construct a land acknowledgment, which was submitted to city council in November of 2018.

Speaker 3:

Had to go through the the law department of the city council where they removed a lot of mentions of genocide and things that we were like should be in there. But, eventually, they reached a consensus of what they thought could pass as a resolution, and ended up passing at the end of November of 2018. And from that resolution, the action item was that Alderman Carlos Rosa, was going to be in full support in creating the First Nations Garden as a permanent community space in the Albany Park neighborhood. And so right after we got word that the land acknowledgment was going to pass in city council, we planned an event with the alderman to access the land. We erected 2 teepees the end of November in 2018 as a symbol that, like, we're going to create a native space.

Speaker 3:

And so that fall to winter through winter, we were able to host community meetings in one of the 2 teepees to envision what a community garden space meant for the Chicago native community and what would people like to see out there. And so we officially opened in the spring of 20 19, and we had a lot of cleaning up to do. So the lot was vacant for some time. The local community utilized it as space to throw their junk and walk through the logs. So we had a lot like, the 1st year of entering into that space, we had a lot of cleaning up to do.

Speaker 3:

We had a lot of explaining what we were trying to accomplish in the space to the neighbors. Adrianne, and Anthony really led those those efforts. Anthony continuing to communicate with local officials about, like, where we're at in the stewardess of making the the space accessible to folks in whatever way that meant. Mostly meaning we're picking up a lot of dog shit, and we're throwing out a lot of tires. You know?

Speaker 3:

And then Adrian really organizing around, like, picturing what could go where and how are we going to fight or remediate the land, utilizing the support of me and my sister, and then all of our networks of folks coming together to really support us, and Chai Nations to create a community space. So that 1st year, we were able to to construct, I believe, 12 raised beds and pretty much clear a lot of the debris out. And we were also able to construct our first prairie sites on land. So we have multiple micro prairies now. But in that 1st year, myself, my sister Janie, and our nephew Adrian went around the space to try to identify as many plants as we could.

Speaker 3:

And from there, we chose to left the native plants that were still growing as the sites of our our where we would build out our native prairie ecosystems from.

Speaker 2:

I really love that it it's truly this, like, family and kinship affair that, like, all all of the folks in your, you know, ecosystem, like, young folks and siblings all, you know, really invested what I'm sure was a lot of time and energy and research into kind of trying to speak the language of, like, city politicians to kind of frame it in a way that would get y'all's proposal compared to the other option on the table as the one that was selected. Right? And, you know, not to say it happened instantaneously, but it doesn't you know, there's so many things that when it goes through kind of a municipal, like, government system can take years years years. And this certainly took some time, but it seems like the turnaround and being able to, you know, start doing what y'all wanted to do with the land didn't take as long as it could. I'm also thinking timeline wise.

Speaker 2:

Right? So spring spring of 2019 was kind of the the ground was kind of broken, but the breaking dog shit, it sounds like where where we started was spring of 2019. So within that whole COVID thing landed in our labs. So how how did that maybe shift or shape kind of what came together within a year of officially starting this project? You've got this garden started and this pandemic, came hot on its trails.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So, you know, the pandemic came in and really did switch up a lot of our original plans. We shifted a lot of things. One of the the major things that we shifted was, at the start of the pandemic, the youth council had raised money to attend a national native youth convening. And so, obviously, that was canceled.

Speaker 3:

And so they, being an autonomous group, were able to shift that funding to mutual aid work. Mhmm. And so they were able to, like, start delivering fresh food to community members and giving them, you know, small pockets of money to do what they needed to to survive during that time. And so as we were drawing into spring, we were thinking about, like, ideally, what we wanted to do was only have community gardeners grow heritage food to the Great Lakes Mhmm. In order to talking about, like, what does it look like to have a food system that doesn't deplete the native landscape.

Speaker 3:

But then we were like, people need, you know, to practice their own culture and, you know, any relationship to land and food literacy, especially, you know, in the city of Chicago, should be looked at as a good relationship. Right? We don't wanna shame anybody into doing something that they may give up on. And so we reduced it to, you know, you can grow whatever as long as it doesn't cross pollinate with our heritage corn, beans, squash, and watermelon that we decided to grow and had seeds gifted to us from different tribal entities and nation. But that also meant, like, we needed a lot more than 12 beds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So, originally, our proposal, I think, only had up to 15 raised beds or 20 raised beds, and we had connected, with this local Dakota artist who had moved back to Chicago a year before the pandemic. And he was, you know, interested in, like, what he could do to support the garden efforts, growing up here in Chicago himself. And so he had some carpentry skills, you know, Started to help us build more raised beds, and he put a lot of his time and his own money into ensuring that we we have those items. And then we were able to also, during the pandemic time, get a small grant from a local organization for cultural arts programming. And so our friend David, the Dakota artist, had this idea of creating an outdoor exhibit on our fence.

Speaker 3:

So he tapped into a network of artists here in Chicago from various cultural identities to ask them to put together pieces, in order to, 1, have them, you know, have outdoor time in order to, like, do something other than being inside and do it safely. And the only prompt he gave them was, like, you know, we're just trying to capture relationship to land. So, well, however they took that is how they took that and developed their own art pieces. And so we were part of that COVID time was also a lot of we're giving this bed to this person. They're gonna schedule to be out there at this time.

Speaker 3:

This artist is coming to do their work at the garden at this time. Mhmm. And really utilizing social media and text to, like, figure out a schedule of how people can access the space and get some artistic relief out or start growing their connection to land. And so I believe in that 1st year, we got up to about 30 raised beds

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

During the pandemic. And we were also able to build the state shade structure. Prior to the pandemic, we did build a teaching lodge at the garden. My sister led a group of youth to Pokagon, Michigan, to harvest trees, and then we had a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi teach us here in Chicago how to construct a traditional wigwam. It's the same wigwam we have out there right now.

Speaker 3:

And so we have this teaching lodge out there. So during the pandemic, we weren't really able to utilize

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Of that space. I think towards the end of that 1st year, we were able to, mask up and hold a storytelling event for winter solstice. So that 1st year of the pandemic, we were able to still have people access the garden space outdoors on a schedule because we had a wood stove in the wigwam if they wanted outdoor space. And, again, continuing that structure of, like, providing this outlet for folks throughout the year. And then also, like, our our prairies expanded tremendously.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm. And just people out there working the land. I think that those two summers during the height of the pandemic, we got the majority of of the work done. That second summer, we got up to 70 raised beds. I think at the time, we were at 5 or 6 microbreweries.

Speaker 3:

And so the garden, the amount of labor has been unmatched. Right? I mean, this year, we're like, how do we have so many weeds? You know? Or people that know about us.

Speaker 3:

And it's essentially, like, we were all out there all of the time and at different times, and the space is so big that we were able to quadrant off even and be like, oh, I'm going to the garden to work on this section and weed, and someone will be over here. And that doesn't happen anymore. Like, when we go out there to weed, we're usually, like, weeding in the same areas as each other being all social.

Speaker 2:

Social. Yes. Things have adjusted. But, yeah, that sounds oh my god. And that that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2:

Like, obviously, nobody can say that the pandemic was a good thing, but when it comes to kind of the the ways that community was able to come together in certain ways, right, like, this feels like a pretty emblematic version of kind of what is possible when folks have the opportunity to take their time and be together in intentional ways to do things together even if it's in these complicated, you know, social distancing confines of a pandemic. There was something you mentioned. I always think it's very important in talking about, like, food justice. Right? Like, the cross pollinating and the seed exchange that you were talking about.

Speaker 2:

Right? Like, just like the the concept of cross pollinating and what the impact of that can be, especially when you're prioritizing traditional foods, heritage foods, and then kind of the the conversation around seed exchange and the value of being able to access seeds to be able to then incorporate into the garden. Maybe that's where we're headed. That's what I'm trying to ask.

Speaker 3:

So for us, we're in an urban center. Cross pollination is always a possibility. Right? Mhmm. But we definitely wanted to try to reduce that.

Speaker 3:

1, just because we want viable seeds. When you cross pollinate, sometimes the offspring are not viable seeds. Also, like, you don't know what you're getting when cross pollination occurs in some instances. You know? We're just trying to reduce that so we know, like, what to expect from when something produces.

Speaker 3:

But also for us, the idea of having those heritage seeds, you know, from I'll speak for my family as Anishinaabe. There's there's a certain amount of years that need to pass to know that a seed is acclimated to that condition. And so since we live in such a urban environment, which creates harsh harsh conditions, we wanted to make sure that our seeds, you know, are urban seeds. Like, these are Chicago plants now. And so my family started growing our rainbow gen corn prior to having the First Nations garden.

Speaker 3:

And we grew it for a few years in different spaces around the city, and we just kept the seed in order to plant because we never had enough to plant enough corn where we wouldn't have to hand pollinate it or help it in some way until we got the garden. But we wanted to ensure, like, if we were to ever give those seeds away or have enough space to plant, you know, those seeds would be Chicago seeds. We're like, okay. Let's just assume it's gonna take 7 generations of this corn. And we weren't able to grow every year because we didn't have access to land every year, but we never ate it.

Speaker 3:

When we started to grow beans and squash, you know, we still haven't really eaten any of our beans because we never produce enough beans to be able to plant the next year. So our idea is always making sure that that next generation is gonna be sustainable. If that means we don't eat, that means we don't eat, and that's fine. Right? Because we don't need instant gratification.

Speaker 3:

However, we found out, like, very much in this community garden, larger context community, it was almost some thought of of producing food to not eat and to just save this seed. And to us, like, we went into being like, how are we making the strongest seed? How are you insuring the next generations? And so that was, like, our initial thought. We never even thought that other people would think of, like, only growing to produce for that short amount of time.

Speaker 3:

And then on top of that is, like, folks entrusted us with these seeds. Right? Us urban native folks can't just, like, go and be all like, let me pick up this heritage variety of squash at my local supermarket. We had to make relationships with people for our rainbow gem corn was gifted to us through the Cherokee Nation. Our Gitoya Ocotsam and squash, was to us through, the LCO, community farm, and so was a lot of our beans that we grow.

Speaker 3:

The tobacco the first variety of tobacco we started to grow was also gifted to us from a community member who got it from another community member who attended a summit at the LCO community farm. Just understanding, like, the story of the seeds themselves and how they've traveled to come here and grow in Chicago or come back to Chicago was important for us to capture as well. And if they start cross pollinating with these seeds that someone picked up at a supermarket, well, we don't know that story anymore. And so while cross colonization happens, we would like to know how it's happening and, like, what are the stories of those 2 coming together. Right?

Speaker 3:

Because we're creating a new relationship through cross pollination. Mhmm. And we just wanna be as intentional how we're fostering relationships to take place through the growing practices and the stories of the seeds themselves.

Speaker 2:

That's really, really helpful perspective because I I live in Duluth, Minnesota. Right? And one of the constant, you know, conversations and battles for indigenous populations up here is the conversation manoomin, wild rice. And I recall being at a at a session with a panel of of ricers at a larger conference talking about wild rice, and cross pollination came up as kind of this threat to kind of the the native wild rice plants in in these areas, and how kind of the Monsanto, like, corporate, like, agro eco, whatever. I don't know what it's called.

Speaker 2:

There's better language. I don't have it. Just that these big corporate, like, seed companies are also trying to limit or copyright isn't the word, but, like, they're kind of trying to patent. Yes. To say you can't grow wild rice because we are thinking of seeds and plants as relatives and and and with stories is certainly not how the dominant culture thinks of food.

Speaker 2:

That concept of you go to a grocery store and you expect something to be there, and it's there, and you buy it, and you have no concept, of where it comes from. Sleuthing, right, on the First Nations, garden Instagram. Right? It looks like the days of not really being able to use the the structure, the Wigwam as an educational space, has changed and that there's all kinds of really great awesome conversations and sessions happening there. So what has been some of the, you know, spaces and conversations and cool stuff that have been going on, from, like, the educational perspective.

Speaker 3:

Very early spring of this year, we were able to hold space for indigenous and Palestinian solidarity. And so we were able we had an overwhelming amount of people come out in support of that event, and we were working with local Palestinian activists to kind of hold space and conversations about the parallels of settler colonialism in our differing parts of the world. And so the Wigwam housed part of that conversation. Right? There was too many of us just to be in one circle.

Speaker 3:

We had fire pit outside going and then, you know, folks inside of the big one. One of the conversations we were able to have or just organically came up, was one of the participants, who identify as black was talking about how the fact that, you know, Palestinian resistance utilizes the watermelon really has helped them to embrace their their own relationship as someone living in Chicago, family coming from the great, right, migration, you know, understanding that watermelon is, a traditional food in many parts of Africa and also understanding that the racism and the stereotypes, that get placed on folks through, you know, watermelons really helped him in his own, you know, understanding of, like, how systemic issues are perpetuated globally, especially in the sentiment of, like, antiblackness and Mhmm. Racism in general. We started talking about, like, oh, you know, we grow watermelon. Right?

Speaker 3:

And so we grow red seeded potawattamie watermelon. And, you know, the act of growing watermelon in the First Nations garden where we don't have access to running water, where we have to haul on the water is, like, one of the big flexes we have. And kind of the way that, like, seeing Watermelon for me also, you know, kinda made me grapple with, like, the parallels of what's happening, and the gravity of, like, what are we accepting on a global level? So many people were just sharing their their watermelon stories. And so the root worm really has served not only for a place for us to to pass down traditional native knowledge.

Speaker 3:

It's been a way to hear people's stories and from their own experiences. And what does it look like, you know, for watermelon to even, like, be a symbol of, like, against heteronormativity because you can get, like, a bisexual blossom.

Speaker 2:

Let's go.

Speaker 3:

And so, like, all of these stories of oppression were being told in a way that was hopeful. And it all started because of watermelon. And, like, I think we often forget when in conversation with each other, like, how connected we all are to food and how food really plays a significant part in our gatherings across cultural and class barriers. Right? And that was, like, the coolest thing that I think happened in the Wigwam all year.

Speaker 3:

We're able to gather out there throughout the summertime. The Cheyenne Youth Council was able to hire a elder in residence for the summer. The garden is going to go through redevelopment, so right now it's not very accessible to folks who have mobility, issues. And so, it's been the space where we were able to interview elders who were looking to be the resident. We're working with the Chicago Park District, which is the largest landholder in the city of Chicago, to do art pop up art programming.

Speaker 3:

And so they're able to utilize the wigwamish shade. And we've been doing that programming with them for a few years now. We're able to host different gatherings, in the space, and then, you know, it's been a pretty hot start of the summer. So every Sunday, we or almost every Sunday, we try to hold a native gathering space. And you'll usually, we're, like, under the shade or around the fire pit.

Speaker 3:

But this summer, it is primarily we have been in the. So And so it's just our living room of the garden, I would say. Mhmm. We all go to chill.

Speaker 2:

What have been kind of moments you've had that have just been, like, super memorable or super impactful so far in being part of the the project?

Speaker 3:

For me, being an auntie, like Mhmm. This is, you know, an extension of, like, my nephews. Mhmm. So, like, the whole project is super special to me, and I hope, you know, it continues on. Recently, we were able to get the garden land transferred into, Urban Community Land Trust under an organization called NeighborSpace.

Speaker 3:

So there's safety against development, which has been a huge win. And we've been able to host, end of life ceremonies for folks out at the garden as well as baby showers, and birthday parties. There's so many. My most enjoyable thing to do at the garden, though, is to kind of just self isolate and and get to experience, like, all of the movement around the garden that has nothing to do with humans. At the beginning of the garden, me and my sister were like, I wonder how many insects we can create meaningful homes for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so, like, watching the bees and the different bugs has been really cool. Also, sometimes really, like, oh my god. Don't touch me.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

But mostly cool. I was able to, like, really learn more about butterflies. Right? Because there's this idea that, like, we have to plant as many milkweeds as we can in order to save the monarchs, which, yes, but monarchs are actually kind of bullies to swallowtails and other butterflies. Although We have created, like, areas of the garden that we grow well, the garden create areas that like to grow milkweed in, and so we propagated that more.

Speaker 3:

In other areas of the garden, we have started to plant a lot of golden alexander for different as a host plant for different butterflies. Been very meaningful of, like, how do we keep some of these spaces at distance? So, like, they can all have fun and have fun. And then recently, we've been finding, like, holes in the garden, and immediately, we were like, oh my god. I hope we don't have rats.

Speaker 3:

And then we found out it's skunks. So, that was really exciting for me. For other gardeners, not so much. They're all, like, trying to pin that skunk. I was like, I just want a photo.

Speaker 3:

They'll tell me if I'm getting too close.

Speaker 2:

Facts. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

We've experienced a lot of birds, more birds coming out to the garden. At first, we would get, you know, just regular brown fringes here and there and then some geese. But we've been seeing a lot more robins and golden finches and cardinals. And so that it's been cool to see, like, what plants each of those different birds Mhmm. Kind of gravitate towards and when they're coming around.

Speaker 3:

We've seen hawks in the area, which usually don't come that far into the neighborhood. They usually stay by the river. So it's been just really cool taking a moment to realize, like, there's so much happening here that, like, I don't get to witness, and that is probably better for the garden than me spending 12 hours out there, like, weeding. Growing that ecosystem has has really, like, transformed the way I even, like, observe. One of my favorite things is to just go out there and sit.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm. Could be me getting older too.

Speaker 2:

But we live a life where we before I press record, right, we were talking about just the the pace of our places of work are chaotic and complicated and tough. It sounds like finding solace in kind of the the very counter pace. Working towards maybe a a version of putting a bow on this because I could continue to nerd out about this with you for a while. What are maybe some of the you talked about the elder in residence, component. What are maybe some other personal or kind of collective wish list items kind of going in to the foreseeable future for First Nations Garden and for you as part of that project?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So the garden, part of it going under community urban land trust was we did get a substantial amount of money to redevelop the space. Mhmm. So we'll have water access out there, and I'm like, whoo. But we'll also be able to put in, more accessible planter boxes and even out the land, so it'll be more accessible to folks in general.

Speaker 3:

And so we're starting to finalize what that looks like, what the gathering spaces look like, what the raised beds will look like. And then we're also able to start realizing, like, all of the the labor to ensure, like, this transfer of land happens isn't there anymore. So it opens up some of our time to be like, well, what are the next steps? Some of us have already started to propagate, small micro prairies around the city through gorilla gardening or helping people transform their lawns into native Prairie scapes. And so we're also thinking about, like, what does it look like in the future to intentionally put together trays of native plants here for people to continue to create microperies across the city of Chicago, and what kind of support structures do we need to go into that.

Speaker 3:

So myself, my nephew, Adrianne, best friend, David Birnie, and then one of our community gardeners, Lucas, who is also Ojibwe, have started to plan to create our own nonprofit called Indigenous Crowns, in order to support the work of transforming the city of Chicago into a hospitable native scape or reconnecting the indigenous landscape to the folks who live here, I should say, and also growing out opportunities to engage in land based education through an indigenous lens.

Speaker 2:

That all sounds really, like, really cool directions for especially with just kind of getting the boost from the land trust, and that sounds huge because that means essentially, like, the land belongs to itself. Right? Like, and is entrusted to cannot be yes. Mhmm. Yes.

Speaker 3:

As long as it

Speaker 2:

I'm getting nods. Yes.

Speaker 3:

As long as it's being actively used as a community gathering space, the land trust, I believe, is for 99 years. Scrut. You know, as we're thinking about, like, what does the redevelopment looking look like? We're asking the question, like, do we foresee this as staying a Prairie scape? Do we see this being more of a wooded area considering our location to the the Cook County Forest Preserves and the where we're located on the Chicago River or off of the Chicago River.

Speaker 3:

Right? We're not that close, but we're pretty close. So having those conversations of, like, this isn't just like we're thinking of the garden next year and the next few years. We're thinking of, like, what does this garden look like at the end of that land trust in 99 years? Like, how many generations of people are gonna use it and how many generations of plants are gonna be here.

Speaker 3:

We're really excited about, like Mhmm. Opportunity to, like, envision it that long term because for so long, like, we are like, yes. We're envisioning long term, but we've never had the safety of being like, this will be here after I'm gone. And now we're like, oh, this is gonna be here past me.

Speaker 2:

That's lovely. Any any other final parting thoughts you wanna name or talk about before we close out on this chitchat?

Speaker 3:

I'm good. Good conversation. This was nice. I love breaking up my my mundane day to talk about gardening.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm glad to offer, a breakup of your mundane day to talk about gardening. Yeah. Just immense appreciation for holding space for this.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

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