Collective Spirit Podcast
First Peoples Fund presents the Collective Spirit® podcast. The Collective Spirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge, and simply extend a hand of generosity. The Collective Spirit podcast features Native artists and culture bearers who discuss the power of Indigenous art and culture. The Collective Spirit® podcast is produced by First Peoples Fund, whose mission is to honor and support Indigenous artists and culture bearers through grant-making initiatives, culturally rooted programming, and training & mentorship. Learn more at www.firstpeoplesfund.org
Collective Spirit Podcast
S3E8: Ikaika Bishop (Kanaka Maoli)
Part two of our series on Food Sovereignty and its impact on Indigenous communities, we speak with Ikaika Bishop, a Kanaka Maoli leader whose work in education, film, tech, and farming is rooted in Hawaiʻi. Through Keanuenue Farm, Ikaika is restoring traditional foodways and strengthening community resilience.
Suburban, urban country. Get out there, look at what's around you, figure out. You know, is it really trash, is it really opala, is it really waste or is it a resource? Oh, if you start looking at everything as a resource, we're blessed, we're surrounded by blessings all around us, all day, every single day.
Speaker 2:First People's Fund presents the Collective Spirit Podcast. The Collective Spirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity. The Collective Spirit Podcast features Native artists and culture bearers who discuss the power of Indigenous art and culture. Welcome to the Collective Spirit Podcast, where we explore the stories, movements and initiatives shaping Indigenous communities today. This is the second of two episodes dedicated to the food sovereignty movement and its profound impact on Indigenous nations. In this episode, we sit down with Ikaika Bishop, a Kanaka Maoli or Native Hawaiian leader whose work spans education, film technology and farming. Rooted deeply in his homeland of Hawaii, ikaika is committed to strengthening community connections and restoring Indigenous food systems. Join us as we dive into the inspiring work happening at Kea Nuenue Farm, explore the resilience of the Konakomali community and discuss how restoring traditional foodways is shaping a stronger future.
Speaker 1:Mahalo, heidi. Thank you so much for bringing me into this space, and also mahalo to First People's Fund for allowing me to share some of my insights. I got started growing food really young. My parents loved to take us outdoors. Three brothers growing up, we were always usually on a friend's farm or in the ocean. Subsistence lifestyle is what I like to call it, even with the cultivation of crops. We use the word farmer, but it really is a subsistence lifestyle. And I didn't quite know that I was really into plants when I was younger, growing up. I mean, I always was, but I didn't really realize that I was.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until after I had been practicing Lomi Lomi or massage therapy for many years that I realized health and well-being is different for everybody. And one thing that I noticed was that diet and lifestyle is something that really plays a toll on a person's health and well-being. And you know, I could massage them and I could lomi lomi them and they could, you know, kind of feel better about their pain and whatnot. But I wasn't really sure how well that was helping with their overall health and well-being. You know, it was more of a just fix it as it comes kind of a gig. And then I realized, like all of the really older people that looked healthy and lived to be really old around me, when I asked them like what do you know, what did you do or what do you do, saying, oh, we grew up farming, you know, helping grandma, grandpa, our parents on the farm, sometimes before school and quite often after school it was their job, is what they did for for their family. And I looked at these people and they always seem so happy, you know, and it really inspired me. And so, after I stopped working professionally as a massage therapist, I started working at a plant nursery and I was in a lot of the memories of spending time with my mom, my dad, my tutu, my grandpa, doing the things that they love to do out on the aina, on the land.
Speaker 1:Um, it was. It was almost like, uh, having a little bit of that insight uh, gave me a good perspective when I started working at that plant nursery, on all of the things that most people were doing wrong. You know, a lot of herbicides, a lot of pesticides and definitely synthetic fertilizers, and there's always a better way to do it. You know, there's always a better way to do it, even when you think you're doing it the best. There's always a better way to do it. So, listening to a lot of these old timers, you know they did a lot of things with very little. You know they accomplished a lot with very little.
Speaker 1:And so today that's kind of my definition of regenerative practices you know being able to take a very small amount of a resource and multiply that into a bounty with a little effort. So our kupuna, our ancestors, are really good at that. They could manage their resources in making these investments. But the return on these investments are incredible. They continue to provide returns for generations and hundreds of years. So that inspires me, that inspired me early on and that continues to inspire me today. And that's the passion that I have to share with people trying to look at these food systems that we have and know that there's a better way to do it, and then start adopting them, but doing it with common sense and hoping that it really does provide for people beyond just me, my family, my community. I hope that we can put these investments in and then they can return for years and years and years to come. And that's how I got into it and that's why I still love to do what I do.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about food sovereignty as, being deeply related and connected to you, know sovereignty and self-determination as a whole right, and in what ways does your work help strengthen Indigenous sovereignty and how does access to traditional foods impact the well-being and resilience of Native communities?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an awesome topic. I got to teach a workshop called foods. We called it the food sovereignty workshop during COVID. I ran it for over a year and in the beginning there was a cap. It was 10 people per workshop. Those people kept coming back so I had to make another opportunity on the second day for the returnees and the first day for newbies, and so 20 people a week and I think a lot of people on an island's biggest fear is we're going to run out of food. Right?
Speaker 1:The food scarcity was definitely an issue during COVID the heat of it in 2020 anyway and that wasn't really a perspective that I shared. You know, growing up, subsistence, lifestyle everything around you is a resource. Food is everywhere. Lifestyle everything around you is a resource. Food is everywhere. In today's day and age, a lot of people go to the supermarket because that's where they think food is. It pains me to go to the supermarket and buy food because I know that food is everywhere. It's all around us. We're really just educated more and believe what we're educated to do is to go to the store and buy food and unfortunately, it's getting really, really expensive and it's not even top quality food anymore. You know, and I believe that if our communities can really just start to access the food around them it's kind of a painful concept too, because the food around us isn't, mostly is not, the cultural foods that we grew up, that our ancestors were growing up eating, it's. The ecosystem here in Hawaii, anyway, has changed a lot, so we like to label a lot of the things around us as invasive. Yeah, and I really do think that that's oppressing our ability to express our creative ingenuity to access these resources in a positive manner. And that is when you take a step towards self-governance, when, instead of just saying, okay, I'm gonna continue going to work and I'm gonna continue paying the bills and I'm gonna continue buying my store out of the supermarket because everything around us is invasive and invasive has negative connotations. But if we start to actually look at just throw everything negative out and look at all of the positives, what is it good for? What strengths does it have? How can you adapt its strengths to your benefit? Right, and so these invasive species.
Speaker 1:We have this seaweed here called gorilla ogle. They gave it the name gorilla ogle. It's not. Ogle is a japanese word and it's not from japan, it's from the philippines and they gave it a word like gorilla in front of it, you know, and it's like, well, when you hear people say that word, they even say it with disdain, oh, that's gorilla, or go. And I'm just kind of like, well, you know, like if you're out in the jungle and you wouldn't want it and you wanted to survive, like, what kind of animal would you want to be? Would you want to be a gorilla or would you want to be a chimpanzee? Like I would want to be a gorilla, you know.
Speaker 1:So how can we change that name and say it with positive light, so that people understand that it's a valuable resource and it can be incorporated into our cultural practices and in fact it should be? One of the advantages that our ancestors had was they looked at all of the resources with a sacred reverence, was they looked at all of the resources with a sacred reverence, right, oh, that's the body of one God and that's the body of another God and that's a body of more than one God. You know, everything had that kind of reverence. And you know, today we don't adopt that for everything. We often look at it as foreign, and then foreign is bad. What happens when it's no longer foreign? You know, are you going to be able to get rid of it? They tried, they didn't. Still here. Same as mosquitoes, right? Same as rats, still here.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm hoping that, especially with our communities and being able to provide self-governance over their natural resources, we'll be able to create these ecosystems that provide, and continue to provide, thing for us to depend on in the form of welfare. That can be helpful in the short term. But, as we all know, governments change their perspectives, they can change their methods, and so is that really something that we want to depend on, generation after generation? I don't think we should, because there's already an example of technology that provides for itself, right, and that's our aquifer systems, systems, that's our cultural lands of farming taro and our cultural oceans of farming fish in our fish ponds. And you know, it's kind of different now, and I think that's part of the problem is it's kind of different now because there is so much urbanization, there's, you know, so much gentrification. But that's the challenge.
Speaker 1:So we're going back to the same point, which is, if you look at guerrilla OGO as something negative, then you're never really going to access the strengths in it. If we look at gentrification and urbanization as negative thing we're always going to be, you know, feeling like it's oppressing us, like it's depressing us, like it's blocking us. Hey, all of the rain gutters on these houses are just like a y in our streams. They might not be as clean, but they might be cleanable, you know, if we just look at it as something that is a valuable resource, instead of trying to pipe it off of the road into a gutter, into a storm drain. You know we can make access of all of these things if we just start to adopt these practices together.
Speaker 1:So you know, we call that the ahupua'a system, and the ancestors are really wise about that. They gave everybody, the community, all of the resources that they need so that they didn't have to go and be jealous over the guy next door. Right, you've got all the water you need, you've got all the land you need. But it's better if you share those resources and if you develop them together with the same mindset. That's that self-governance. Right, when the people come together and they're like hey, that sounds like a great idea, let's build some taro patches and some fish ponds. Hey, that sounds like a great idea, help us build some taro patches and fish ponds.
Speaker 1:Next thing. You know, everybody's got taro patches and fish ponds. They don't got to go to the supermarket, right, and I think the ultimate goal for that really is healthy. Healthy and security. Right, you're living a lifestyle where you're not sitting at a desk at a computer all day. Every single day, you're eating food that has not been sprayed with pesticides, from land that has not been sprayed with pesticides, from land that has not been sprayed with herbicides. So the land is healthy and the people are healthy, and that's one of the things that I've come to understand. Uh, you know, there's there's definitely a sense of balance between healthy humans and healthy land, and we can cultivate the land and we can make it healthier, and I think that's a practice that I'm not too sure if people do that anymore, but that's one thing that I hope I see more of.
Speaker 2:I really like what you're talking about. I think it's really interesting, actually, and this thing about like reconfiguring the way that we recognize or that we understand or live with this so-called invasive species. I think our ancestors, our kupuna, were always able to kind of recognize the relevance of all plants all the time and sort of their, you know, like this is what we have, this is what we're going to work with, and they were becoming resourceful. I also think something you mentioned about the ahupua'a this thing about, you know, looking at the rain gutters and how you related it to very specific ways, details related to ahupua'a systems and I think maybe that's part of the disconnect is that when we talk about these methodologies in our culture, that we often talk about it in ways that are historic, we don't reconsider like okay, well, what are the new applications of ahupua'a so that all the kids, all of our families, everyone in our community can be applying these methodologies, but in the context that we have today, right?
Speaker 2:So I think those are really two really good points that you bring up, but I do think that they're related to one another in the sense that we are also continuously living with this knowledge, but living with it in ways that continue to historicize it. It doesn't allow us to let it to evolve like it was meant to evolve, you know, as people change, as lands change, as our climate changes, and so forth. So, yeah, I think that the way that you're approaching this is really brilliant, honestly, and I guess to that sense, like you know, as we're thinking about how we navigate the political landscape of this current political era, we continue to see Indigenous lands, resources and policies under threat. How have shifting political climates impacted food sovereignty efforts, and what can Native and non-Native allies do to help fortify these movements?
Speaker 1:I was directly affected by that, you know, through the NRCS support program. Essentially, it's frozen and all communication has stopped. Personally, I'm not really a person that feels that government funding and grants should be Funding and grants should be the primary pathway to providing for oneself. Unfortunately, here in Hawaii, the land here is really expensive, and so even to have a place to farm is very hard to come by. It's rough because often, I think, for commercial farmers, there's always the need to produce more, and so if you can get grant funding, if you can get subsidized for what you're doing, then that definitely makes things easier. Unfortunately, that's not really a goal for me as far as farming goes. I don't want to farm for money. I don't want to farm for an income. I want to farm for lifestyle, health and well-being. And so you know, with this current political era going through right now, current political era going through right now, I really hope that more people are able to adopt that same perspective Grow food for ourselves, to feed ourselves.
Speaker 1:Don't grow food to be famous. Don't grow food to make the next best dish for a tv show. Um, you're not going to get rich off of growing food, you know like, especially not in hawaii, um. So it should be more about community engagement. It should be more about, you know, providing providing for your family, providing for your community and, you know, even though we have ambiguous futures ahead with our political ecosystem, even more so I think people should start growing food for themselves. You know, even when we were going through COVID and the CARES funding was basically paying for all of the food that I could possibly grow, so right, this huge pile of money, and my boss basically told me it's 100% sold. Ikaika sold. As much food as you can grow is. It's 100 sold.
Speaker 1:And so we grew all this food and you know, to this day I I don't know how much of it was eaten. You know, I don't know how much of it got ate because I wasn't actually handing it to the people that were eating it. It was going on a food bank truck, which is a welfare program, and then I never saw who was eating it. I would have preferred to continue putting it in bags and continue handing it to people and seeing the people, because the people actually look at me and they say, if they've never eaten it before, the first thing they say is what do you do with it? You know and I was getting asked that question with sweet potato and cassava and you know, or even eggplants, and we grew this spinach leaf hibiscus called lau pele, that's another one. We were like, what do you do with it? I mean, it's food right, like you can get creative, but at the end of the day, like what does it look like? Everybody likes most people like garlic, salt pepper, put it on it and eat it.
Speaker 1:And the one question everyone kept asking was how do we help the farmers? How do we help the farmers? How do we help the farmers? But to go back to my point is, even though we were growing all of this food, I'm not sure how much of it was getting eaten. And so, number one, I think how do you help the farmers? Start growing your own food. You know, if, if you can start a little, if you can't do some sprouts in a jar, you know. But start growing your own food, start having a relationship with your food.
Speaker 1:And I believe when people can do that, when they can start growing their own food, you know that that gives them some political leverage. You can say like, oh, because I can provide for myself, I have value to add to the community and that community can support me and I can support them and we can start to leverage for self-governance right. And one of those things in Hawaii that we could really use support for is having our land resources and water resources restored so that we are able to create these bounties, these bountiful ecosystems. You know, and that's the part that I think it's really hard to when you have a technology like an ahupua'a system. It's an ecosystem, it's not a farm right.
Speaker 1:And so, even though today's day and age, there's a lot of language out there that may not be helpful for somebody who's a cultural practitioner of growing our cultural crops, there is a lot of language out there about ecosystem technology advancement, right, and the issue is we don't necessarily speak that language and they don't recognize our technological advancements. So one of the job that I like to do and I don't know if I'm very good at it, but I try to act like translator I try to say OK, you know, this is not a cultural practice, this is a technological advancement, and so once you start to have discussions with those kinds of words in it, more people, more people understand and more people are willing to adopt those practices. Um, I feel like sometimes as well from myself. Anyway, speaking from myself, um, it's easy to use the word culture, culture, culture, practice, practice. It's different when you start using the word investigator and researcher, yeah, or practitioner. It's a little bit different and I really like to use those, especially because during COVID, most of my participants came from the continent. Most of them were not local people, you know, and I really did want them to feel like they could stake a claim at adopting these practices with confidence, you know, and not feeling like I was trying to shame them or put them down in any way, shape or form, and I started adopting that language instead, you know, instead of always saying, oh, this is how the Hawaiians did it, this is how the Hawaiians do it, and stuff like that. You know, it's great to be proud to be a kanaka maoli, but at the same time, how do I make sure that I'm giving them the opportunity to enjoy these practices as well? And it was great, it was very receptive and I made a lot of lifelong friendships because of that. And you know, in a small sense, I feel like you know my tiny agenda of food sovereignty and self-governance, kind of left with them. Right, they took it back to Maryland or they took it back to Arizona or wherever they call home, and they continue to have these healthy discussions and talk about fondly, about the things that they learn when they work with me, and that's why I continue to be an educator and that's why I continue to have these workshops like this.
Speaker 1:I do have one currently at a aquaculture facility in Kaneohe. We're growing seaweed, we're growing our native limus, our native seaweeds, and it's an open invitation by word of mouth. People come down between 9 and 11 am In fact I was just there this morning and we learn about using the effluent. The water that is coming down the stream has nitrogen in it, has phosphorus in it, has nutrients in it, and we pump it into the system and it grows food, it grows seaweed for us and you know my hope with. That is pretty much the same thing. I'm not adding any fertilizer to it. That's extensive, it's coming from the ecosystem, it's flowing through the system and it's providing the plant with the nutrition that it needs and that plant is growing into a resource that provides us with the nutrition that we need.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time, hawaiians diet consisted of over 20, almost 30% seaweed daily. Today, less than one if you eat any seaweed at all. I'm sure Very, very rare to have seaweed in your meals nowadays. And you know I'm showing these people like look, the seaweed grows in the ocean all on its own. We can grow the seaweed for ourselves and we don't need to buy it. You know, and I'm hoping that more people will come and adopt that kind of a practice and look at it as you know, and I'm hoping that more people will come and adopt that kind of a practice and look at it as a technology, right, regenerative.
Speaker 1:I'm not bringing inputs in, I'm not importing anything, I'm just putting the plant, giving it the space that it needs and it grows. And that sounds too simple for most people, I think, and that's why it doesn't. It's not, I don't know. It's not cool, it's not catchy when you say, oh, I do nothing and I get something for it. You know people want to hear all the complicated sides to it. I think the other side to that too is also the output. Right, there's definitely a sacrifice at putting very little effort into it. Your output is relatively small compared to other methods. I call them intensive.
Speaker 1:So, adding fertilizer, injecting with whatever to make it grow faster or bigger, you know that all comes at a cost, and where is that cost coming from? But also, what is the return? Larger amounts, all right, cool. How much of that are we wasting? You know, I don't know that I want to produce more if I find out that a lot of it is getting wasted. So if I'm putting nothing in and it's actually growing enough for me to eat, that's great, and if it's growing enough for two of us to eat, that's great. And then if it's not enough for three people to eat, hey, guess what. I'm doing nothing. Why don't we get another person over here doing nothing, and then maybe we'll get twice as much? I mean, yeah, I'm doing nothing. Why don't we get another person over here doing nothing, and then maybe we'll get twice as much? You know, I mean, yeah, I'm doing a little bit, I'm rinsing it and I'm sorting through it, sometimes to pick up things that don't belong in there. Um, but it's not, I'm not working my butt off, right, and I'm also, uh, more or less giving the plant tender loving care. When people ask, oh, why does this look like it's growing so well, it's mostly just tender loving care.
Speaker 1:You put a lot of insight into the succession of things. How is it going to grow into the succession of things? How is it going to grow and you know, I even look at that mostly with governance and political ecosystems like tides on the ocean. There's a high tide and there's low tides, but you know that when there's a higher tide, what comes after it as a much lower tide, so you know everything's going to swing up and down, back and forth. Um, I really hope that if there are a lot of people out there, those who are suffering, those are feeling depressed, those are feeling, um, held back or held down, the energy has to shift. It's gonna shift positive, it's gonna shift up and you just gotta have the confidence to push through and do on your own. Get together with your community and start doing what you guys have the common sense to believe in. Hopefully, that'll bring people together.
Speaker 2:Something that you said. As you're talking about, you know how things went down during the pandemic and a lot of this food was being sent out to the food banks. And then you're also talking about, like, how you know people just need to like start growing their food and like using it. Are you finding that? Also, with growing the food and making it available to the public, are you finding that people are also needing to learn how to even use the ingredients, like use the? They have to relearn or learn how to make their own food, like how to utilize these ingredients. I guess to that degree, have you guys been able to support that type of learning as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, heidi, that's a great point. A lot of these people didn't even know what our indigenous foods were when they were coming over. Right Like I grew up eating papaya, sweet potato, ulu, breadfruit, taro None of that. None of these people have seen that before. So even for the things I was comfortable with, um, I had to educate them how to cook it. And then there are things like cassava or lao pele, which are even less common and, you know, strange to local people too. Even so, I ended up falling in love with cooking, honestly because of this.
Speaker 1:I love cooking, I love meal prepping and I love cooking and one of the tricks that I used and recommend today to people because they asked me the same question like oh, I got a lot of this, but I don't know what to do with it Spam, spam or Portuguese sausage. I found that if I just cut up a block of spam for a big wok, a big fryer to saute or stir fry, it doesn't matter what I put in there. I just got to put one block of chopped up spam in there and most people will eat you know all of it, because there's the spam in there. And so I tell them you know, start off with a block of spam. Next time use half a block Time. After that use a quarter of a block. You know, and that's your you know beginner's intro into eating. What get is what we say. Eat what get, whatever it is, it'll taste better if you throw a block of spam in there. And then you start to learn to use seasoning. You start to use less salt. You start to use less sugar, a little bit of vinegar. You start to learn your spices.
Speaker 1:I haven't gotten so far as to begin collecting my own spices from the Aina. I know that I could probably start creating my own spices from whatever is growing around here. It's convenient to have a bottle of cumin and some chopped up garlic in a jar. You know, it's definitely convenient. But I think the point to all of this is we're not buying it from a grocery store and it's not getting shipped from a large farm. These are foods that are accessible in our own front yards, on our own backyards. You know, in hawaii we're pretty fortunate. We're surrounded by oceans filled with food, but again, people just they just don't recognize it.
Speaker 1:Toao is an invasive fish. We have this ta'ape, which is another labeled as an invasive fish. There are great programs out there targeting those species and trying to get them into local food markets and onto local plates. Those species and trying to get them into local food markets and onto local plates. Downside is quite often they're just usually filleted, and sometimes sashimi, sometimes made into poke or fried right. Rarely do I hear people saying, oh, I steamed it or I wrapped it in a laula. So we definitely have room to level up, but I'm just.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm just, you know, starting out with this. I know there's a lot of chefs out there that are doing it much better, but for me it's mostly look at what's around you. If there's a lot of it, find out what it is, and if it's edible, find out how to start eating it. Uh, I've got a great story about this plant that my whole life I thought was a weed right negative connotation it's a weed, what's good about it? Nothing. I've seen the plant my whole life. Then, like not even three months ago, I'm looking at this channel and it's talking about this edible plant and I'm like, oh, that plant looks really, really familiar. I'm like, wait a minute, that's the plant that we've been mowing and chopping down in the mountain like my whole life Turns out it's 100% edible. The leaves are edible, the flowers are edible, the roots are edible. The flowers are edible, the roots are edible.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't know it by its you know botanical name, but it was referred to as, uh, chinese violet and it grows everywhere. And so the next time I was walking through the forest great, and you know why it's not on a commercial shelf. It doesn't really have good shelf life. It's a very delicate, very buttery, think of like a very buttery lettuce, not like a leathery, tough lettuce, like a very buttery, soft lettuce. There's no way you could put that in a bag and ship it somewhere without it getting completely bruised. You know it'll get fully bruised, it'll look ugly, it'll oxidize. Nobody will want to buy that. But when you look at it in a forest, it's beautiful, you know. It's lush, it's crisp, it's light green, it's got flowers all over it and uh, yeah, it would be hard for me to sell that in a salad, but I think if people just were willing to eat for themselves, um, harvest it for themselves and prepare it for themselves, um, I think that could be a real game changer.
Speaker 1:Now, mind you, there's issues with pests and diseases and vectors for pathogens and stuff like that. So I can see how promoting that practice subsistence of just gathering forest plants to eat could have a potential health risk. But then there's. You know, that comes with technology adaptation, right, like learning how to mitigate things like pathogens that could be growing on top of these plants. Don't just go off in the forest and start picking and eating. You know, look at the bottom of the leaf. Is there anything on the bottom of the leaf? Rip the flower open. Is there anything inside of the flower? You know, those are things that should be common sense but, like you had mentioned earlier, I'm finding that even my own insecurities are causing me to ask myself is this a safe practice? You know, I do like to go swimming in the ocean and just start picking the seaweed and eating it.
Speaker 1:Ok, then I talked to a researcher a couple of weeks ago and we've got this bacteria called Cigar Terra and it it accumulates inside of our fish and if you eat a fish with high amounts of Cigar Terra, you can get Cigar Terra poisoning and it can be very, very bad for you. Um, not realizing it, but the reason why the fish get ciguatera is because it grows on the seaweed that they're eating. So the lady, the researcher, tells me. She's like oh, do you mind if I test your seaweed to see if there's this bacteria growing? And I'm like sure, sure, sure, sure. So then I asked her you know, are you guys finding that there's more or less of this on on in certain areas? And she's like no, it's. It's not really certain areas, it's certain types of seaweed, and the one that she listed is one that I like to eat, and the one that she tested is a space from where I like to eat it.
Speaker 1:So even myself, I'm kind of like oh, maybe I shouldn't, you know, just keep doing things the way that I'm doing. Maybe I should adapt my practices and get smarter about it, you know. So, even though I am fond of just going and picking and eating, you know, maybe I should find out, like is there a better way to do it? And the answer is yes. I believe that there's always better ways to do things. You know, getting into the habit is one thing, but then, you know, remembering that you can always learn and you can always continue to develop these skills is another thing, and that's another thing that I try to hope to pass on to people that share these passions with me.
Speaker 2:Just a quick question, then, as we're talking about working with community. Your work is community-based and intergenerational. How do you see food sovereignty shaping the lives of current and future generations?
Speaker 1:And what role do youth and elders play in sustaining this work? Yeah, I currently teach a class at the Wynwood Community College in partnership with the non-profit I work for, purple my Ah, and it's called the Ahupua'a System, and basically it's very heavy about natural resource management and practices for regenerative development, about food sovereignty, and you know it's interesting because I know there's a lot of adults out there that don't have the opportunity to practice that. But even more so, what I see is that the children, the younger groups um, my main age group right now is ninth graders. Uh, it's really cool to see their mindset catch, catch a lot of this uh perspective and and kind of identify with it and embody it, rather than kind of like externally learning about it and knowing that it's like it's interesting. What I see adults kind of do is they're like okay, that's a fact that I have. But then the younger generation, they're kind of like, okay, that's something that I do, you know, and it's really really, when I look back at my, at my past and my youth growing up, that was something I didn't really understand that what we were doing were things that we were learning. It was just things that we were doing, you know, and so working with the students now it's really awesome to know that their conversations are going to be speaking from experience. We have a saying here that's often overused but should be used more because it's so profound it's makahana ka ike, which is in the working there is learning, and so in my class my number one goal is to get them out on the land and to get them working with it, even if it's in some small way.
Speaker 1:So we went to a fish pond complex near Pearl Harbor area in our of Pu'uloa and Hono'uliuli, and once upon a time there was 12 fish ponds bordering that district. Today there's only three. But the nonprofit that was stewarding the area lost funding and so they no longer have their caretaking program at this site and they were supposed to host me in my class and they couldn't because there wasn't a paid position to host us and I was debating whether or not I would cancel going to the site. But then I remembered and I was reminded that we can go there without a host and we can take care of that site. So we took kukui nuts and we took a coconut and we took a taro plant and I had the students pick an area and they had to plant those seeds into that area, you know, not not really knowing whether or not they would survive, but more so just doing the work, right, um?
Speaker 1:And then also showing the students that it's okay to do this kind of work, right? Uh, we're not renting it, we're not leasing it. We're not claiming it as our own. We're not saying we own it, uh, we are just caring for it. We are not leasing it, we're not claiming it as our own, we're not saying we own it, we are just caring for it. We are going there to honor it and we are going there to care for it. And I think if more people can adopt that practice, you know, you would be amazed at how bountiful the sidewalks around our suburbs could be. You would be amazed at how bountiful the sidewalks around our suburbs could be. You would be amazed at how bountiful our beaches could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really hope that the students may not understand what's going on right now, but they'll get older and they'll realize it's not something that they learned, it's. It's something it's who they are. Yeah, it's a, it's a part of who they are, and a lot of the things that we do. It can be done by anyone and everyone. Right, we all have the capacity to be doing these practices and, yeah, I think my students have fun. That's kind of the number one goal with my class. I said are you guys having fun? Say, yes, kumu. All right, guess what? I'm having fun. So you all get A's and that's the root of what I do. Um, true learning comes in the form of emotions, right, and so if we're out there and I'm drilling them, well, sorry, if we're in a classroom and I'm drilling them with a quiz and I'm telling them, nope, that's wrong, nope, that's wrong, nope, that's wrong. What kind of emotion do they get out of that? What are they going to learn when that's the emotion that's driving them to learn?
Speaker 1:Versus, taking my class to a beach where there are tide pools and telling them okay, so we learned about the different mea kai, the different animals that are mentioned in our first wall of the kumulipo. Uh, they're. They're usually like seashells and and invertebrates and stuff like that is in the first wall, but also limu seaweeds. And I said, okay, you guys have 30 minutes to walk up and down the tide pool and find me at least two animals that are listed, or biotics animals or plants that are listed in the first wall of the Kumulipo 30 minutes. Everybody got an idea of what we're looking for. Yes, kumu, all right, go, they run away. And they're all running all over the rocks and they're like crawling underneath caves and luckily nobody slipped on the seaweed because they all brought good shoes.
Speaker 1:And I was amazed at what they were able to find. One student actually walked up with a sea urchin, a spiny sea urchin, we call it Vana here. That's in the first wa. Another student walked up with an Opehe, a limpet that's another animal listed in the wall. Another student came up with pipipi and every time they came up they were like kumu, kumu, look at this. Oh, look what I found. Oh, kumu, what is this? And you know what? Sometimes I didn't know what it was. So even I was in awe, even I was having a great time not knowing, and exploring and learning with them, alongside them, you know. And so that's really what I try to do with my classes. Doesn't matter if you're an adult or a student.
Speaker 1:The main goal is to, above all else, have fun, share that passion, enjoy that passion, know that we're blessed to be able to have these opportunities and confident that we can keep having these opportunities and confident that we can keep having these opportunities. Right, and that's what I kind of hope is suburban, urban country. Get out there, look at what's around you, figure out, you know is, is it really trash, is it really opala, is it really waste or is it a resource? Oh, if you start looking at everything as a resource, we're blessed. We're surrounded by blessings all around us, all day, every single day, right?
Speaker 1:Important thing to remember, though, is that, for me, anyway, the most valuable resource are people. Right, it's the relationships that we have with people, with our environment, but people especially. You know, we're the ones who are making decisions for our future. So you got to get out there, you got to talk to people, and I enjoy what I do. So what I like to do is I share my passion, right, I share what I do, and next thing, you know somebody's like that sounds cool, I'd like to do that too. Well, guess what? If that sounds cool to you, then I know we're going to have the right emotions going down this journey together, right, and so I try every day to surround myself with people that are cool. Right, they like to do what I do. So, always reaching out, always trying to share that space, always trying to have that discussion, seems healthy and it seems to work.
Speaker 2:For our listeners who might not be directly involved in farming right now or food production what are some ways that they can support Indigenous food sovereignty, whether in their local communities or in a broader scale?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, knowing your farmer is probably one of the key pathways to providing for yourself if you can't actually be a grower. I know, not everybody has access to farmers. It's a tough one here in haw, hawaii, it's. You know, it's pretty scarce to find somebody that grows food for a living. But maybe you can start reaching out to like your community garden networks. So, even if you don't know farmers per se, maybe there are gardener networks with people who have surplus. Reach out to them. Even if you can't help them grow, maybe you can support them with other kinds of resources. Obviously, money is the resource even gardeners would love to have, but maybe even just helping them through promotion right, putting a post out there or doing a video about cooking the things that they eat. You know, I know for myself, I really don't ask for money for a lot of the things that I do, but gratitude comes in many different ways, and so if somebody is just kind enough to say, oh, look what I got and I made this dish with it from Ikaika, that's like that's worth all the money in the world to me Just knowing that they enjoyed something that I cultivated and it provided sustenance for them and it provided nutrients for them, but it also provided positive outcome, positive emotions for them, right, they're like so appreciative that they took the time out of their day to make a cool video and highlight how much they enjoyed it. Highlight how much they enjoyed it that really fills me. I think, most importantly, people really should try to look at the resources around them and see if there's anything that they can take advantage of. You know, the less we put into the waste stream, the less we put into our landfills waste stream, the less we put into our landfills um, the better it's going to be for our environment. So, you know, recycling, reusing um, leveling things up, adapting things, having that more of a subsistence mindset where you know and I'm not going to say I'm perfect at this either but how many times do you fill your trash, your trash can in your kitchen and take it out to throw away? A week? Is it once a day? Is it once every two days? Is it once every three days? And how much of that is something, something that you, you that you may not necessarily need in your life.
Speaker 1:I try very hard to not use any consumable dishes. We don't use paper plates, we don't use plastic forks. We use dishes that need to be washed. Now, yes, sometimes they don't always get to be washed, but that's okay because that's less paper and less forks in the trash can, right, and sometimes it's just those small things and in the end, really, really, really, really, it's helping the environment.
Speaker 1:You know, this idea of everything is disposable or everything is consumable. If we can really try to take that out of our lifestyle, I think that'll be a lot better off for the environment. And, at the end of the day, if the ecosystem is healthy, right. If there isn't microplastics all over the reef, if there isn't all of these pesticides and herbicides going into the ocean which are consumables, maybe the health of the land will return, maybe the fish will start to come back, maybe the shrimps will start to come back in the masses of olden days of historical times, to the point where we can catch big fish from shore. Nowadays we don't have to go out in boats for miles and miles and miles just to get a trophy.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it starts with each individual making these small choices every day to change their mindset from being a consumer, from being extractive, and adopting the tiny successes of being regenerative, of being cognizant of your consumables, reusing, reducing and adapting. And I say adapting because you know I hoard stuff a little bit over here, but when I need it I need it right. I'm like oh, now I know I kept that rubber slipper because the door keeps slamming and it's making a mark on the wall, so I'll just tack it over here on the bottom of the door and that's why I kept that rubber slipper right. It makes me feel good.
Speaker 2:Um, maybe don't collect too many rubber slippers. The collective spirit podcast is produced by firstoples Fund, whose mission is to honor and support Indigenous artists and culture bearers through grant-making initiatives, culturally-rooted programming, and training and mentorship. Learn more at firstpeoplesfundorg. Thank you.