Cultivating Resistance through Food, Language, and History: A New Mexico Love Story

Plenary Address

Abstract

I am surrounded by seed savers. The people I work with, my chosen family, we save harvested seeds, but we also save the varied seeds of our many languages and the seeds of wisdom our elders softly and often silently pass on to us. For me,I think these seeds manifest themselves through my intense emotions and deep, unrelenting drive to root myself in this land and in the messy, complicated history of my family. New Mexico, this place I’m from, is so very special. Colonization has never truly won here, though we are familiar with the taste. Through resistance and resilience, we’ve saved the seeds of our sacred culture, the seeds of our languages, and the seeds of our foods. I seek out the seeds of my history to plant in the hearts of my daughters, through reclaiming the words, recipes, and traditions our colonizers were never able to erase.