How to Engage with Tribal Communities Around Food System Work
Ciara Minjarez - member of the White Mountain Apache tribe and Local First Arizona Indigenous Foodways Program Manager
Three Sisters Bean Farm Beans
Shonri Begay of Three Sisters Bean Farm in Winona, in Northern Arizona, grows nine different varieties of heirloom and drought-resistant beans in vibrant colors like pink and yellow. Before she plants a seed, Begay breathes on each one and then thoughtfully places it in the ground. As a member of the Diné Tribal Nation, she believes doing so breathes life into every bean, and it works: there isn’t a bean she has planted that hasn’t grown. Tribal cultural practices like these are taught intergenerationally and show the intimate interconnectedness that Native communities have with their food systems.
Local First Arizona is collaborating with ten tribal partners around the state through food system and economic development initiatives centered on supporting tribal communities in restoring traditional lifeways and foodways to build healthy communities.
Over 25% of land in Arizona is tribally-controlled by members of the 22 federally-recognized tribes that live throughout the state. Rafael Tapia, Jr., Director of Tribal Community Connections at Local First Arizona, stresses that there is no one approach to working with tribes.
“There’s not a Native American tribe. There's a community dynamic that is different among different tribes. A good way of approaching tribal partners is to go in as a listener and learner. This helps to create a base of understanding of the tribal community.”
Tapia is a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and was raised in the Old Pascua Village in Tucson. Growing up, Tapia learned about the importance of building community, leveraging resources, and valuing connection with one another. It’s this experience that guides his thinking when engaging with tribal communities.
Other Local First Arizona team members are also finding ways to develop trust, create relationships, and work alongside tribal structures. As more non-Native organizations begin to work with Indigenous communities, their insights on how to connect and collaborate with tribal members can guide others through an Indigenous approach of slow, thoughtful partnership.
Ciara Minjarez with yucca blossoms
Trust Takes Time
Ciara Minjarez was raised on the east-central Arizona White Mountain Apache Reservation and grew up with her family in Cradleboard, with her ancestral roots in Cedar Creek. She is the Indigenous Foodways Program Manager at Local First Arizona, and through her work with Chaghashe Bidan Siine, a community-led child food security team based in her hometown, Minjarez shares several ways of entering a space with tribal communities.
“If you want an exchange of information with tribal communities, do not come empty-handed. And gifts don't have to be material items. The best gifts to us are sweat, stories, and laughter,” says Minjarez. “By sweat, I mean getting your hands dirty. There are always things that need to be done on a farm. Help with your labor. Stories mean sharing your experience. Also, listening to others as they share theirs and understanding where they are coming from. This can be easier than asking questions. Laughter can be a way to build trust. This is one approach I use when entering communities. We are regaining trust. Rebuilding our past. Our parents and grandparents before us have a lot of hurt, and we are striving to mend it. Laughter helps.”
Intentional disruption or destruction of Indigenous food systems through colonization affected not only the availability of traditional foods, but also disrupted the stories, language, cultural practices, interpersonal relationships, and economies used to sustain those food systems. Working with tribal communities is centered on trust-building and this can often take longer than anticipated using a Western approach mindset.
Often, it can take many months or years to earn a level of respect with tribal members and leadership. Historical mistreatment from institutions focused on accomplishing a short-term objective has created a need to rebuild trust. Tribal communities deeply value partners that are focused on long-term and lasting relationships. Tribal members are not interested in a quick fix or one-off transactional relationship.
“It’s hard to build trust,” explains Minjarez. “Tribal communities may give very little response. It’s, perhaps, our own test to people. We need to build that trust before we can trust you. This is our ancestors and tribe. We don't want to sell out our culture and traditions. So, there can be some tension when building relationships.”
Through her work, Minjarez also focuses on intertribal collaboration by connecting tribes with other Native communities and resources. “It’s about building sustainable people and programs. Our elders have taught us ‘I want to see you run past me.’ Meaning, they want us to do better than them. Go farther than them,” she explains. This also includes intergenerational participation.
In a recent Wild Food Walk, Minjarez guided Apache youth on how to forage, process and prepare traditional Apache wild foods, like yucca blossoms and wild tea. The event included collaboration with over half a dozen partners and organizations all working to revitalize ancestral foodways and support local growers and foragers. By preparing a Yucca blossom soup from recently harvested flowers and serving a ‘Wild Kool-Aid’ made from sumac berries – staples in a traditional Western Apache diet – Minjarez hopes to inspire Apache youth to be a part of efforts towards food sovereignty and food security.
Relationship-building Doesn’t Follow a Linear Timeline
While working with Arizona tribal communities, Tristan Kitch – Local First’s Resilient Food Systems Program Manager – has learned that flexibility and openness are key to building tribal relationships.
“Each tribal community is different and has their own history and culture. I’ve learned cultural humility, and instead of focusing on trying to know everything, being humble and open about learning what tribal communities would like to share. I’ve also dropped preconceived notions or expectations; it’s about honoring that I’m entering a space in which people have much more context and knowledge of community dynamics than I do, and following their lead,” shares Kitch.
Tristan Kitch – Local First’s Resilient Food Systems Program Manager
Kitch further explains: “Something that has been useful in partnering with tribal communities is an openness to different structures, whether that be working with different tribal departments or nonprofits that are beginning or already established. This openness helps address issues and root causes in a holistic way.
“Also, being flexible in how we define things. Food system work is not just farming; it's economics, transportation, logistics, the level of communication between organizations and partners. Tribal communities emphasize food system work is about lifeways and culture and existence of the people. If you're coming into the tribal space to define food from a sole focus of income, you're not understanding what they are trying to support.”
A non-Native approach to work often wants, or expects, to achieve a goal within a specific timeframe by following a clear roadmap. Tribal engagement work, however, doesn’t lend itself to that linear process or approach. In fact, imposing strict timelines when working with Native partners can prevent or even destroy a relationship.
As a non-Native collaborator, Kitch has embraced processes and priorities that evolve over time, as the relationships evolve.
While working with the Colorado River Indian Tribe (CRIT), he explains how an initial meeting evolved into a deeper conversation.
“In partnering with CRIT, we began meeting around food sovereignty and a community assessment survey and brainstorming on how to create a path forward based on the survey results. Branching from this involvement, we then met with the Department of Revenue and Finance and learned that 90% of local tribal entrepreneurs are food businesses that need a place that is up to code to be able to sell their products. This led to a conversation about developing a food incubator kitchen and community garden on site, which can be a place to exchange intergenerational knowledge, hold traditional food demonstrations, and share ancestral nutrition education,” says Kitch.
Additionally, Kitch has learned to remain open to what terms like “technical assistance” may look like, as defined by the needs of tribal members and businesses. Through listening sessions, strategic partnerships, and on-the-ground support, he has more intimately learned about local tribal growers and community members and only then designs technical assistance based on those needs and relationships.
Understanding Tribal Structures & How to Approach Them
Understanding how tribes are structured, and the historical context of how it came about, is important in order to most effectively engage with them.
Prior to colonization, tribal structures and communities varied widely among the North American Continent. Pre-contact, Indigenous cultures had flourishing economic trade routes and food systems that were localized and regionalized.
Rafael Tapia, Jr., Director of Tribal Community Connections at Local First Arizona
Federally recognized tribes hold a status with the US government and are designated as “domestic dependent nations.” Modern tribal structures are a reflection of colonization. Through federal legislation like the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, tribes were incentivized to adopt US-style constitutions and governing councils. However, these centralized and rigid systems are different from pre-contact tribal structures that were decentralized, autonomous, and self-organizing.
When engaging with tribal communities, the type of tribal structure and leadership can vary. Local First Arizona collaborates with tribal governments around the state in areas such as food sovereignty initiatives, strategic planning, business development, sustainability, and technical assistance.
“It is important to understand that partnering with tribal communities doesn’t just mean working with one group or organization; it involves collaborating with different tribal leadership structures. Some have a tribal administration to work with versus a tribal community. [Local First’s] goal is to be part of the community. Learning about it versus just how we can help you,” explains Tapia.
Tapia stresses that partnering with tribal communities and governments involves some internal personal work.
“It’s best to understand what we [as partnering organizations] are bringing into a relationship. And that includes our own biases and views. Sometimes we go in with the lens of what's missing in the community and fail to understand what’s there. Often we just see the struggle; it takes a lot to have at least the struggle going on. Tribal communities have survived and managed to be here when the plan was to exterminate them. There's something there in that. We have failed to appreciate the struggle.”
Tapia says this kind of self-analysis helps in then taking an approach based on listening, learning, and appreciating. Rather than being so driven by outcomes and deliverables, allowing for a relationship to evolve within tribal partners can lead to a more holistic experience and different destination than originally anticipated. For example, what might begin as a conversation about food sovereignty, can over time become part of a larger conversation about strategic planning or even an evolution of tribal structures themselves.
“When working with three districts in Whiteriver [White Mountain Apache Tribe] for nearly 15 years, they thought they had to go to tribal council for approval. They then asked, “Why is there a community board set up if we have to go to council for approval every time?” Eventually, they realized that for local matters, the council was a place to receive support, not permission. That shift has activated them into establishing a nonprofit, deciding how to bring in resources into their community and asking how they can work with an entity like Local First Arizona,” says Tapia.
Eating is a Spiritual Act
Arizona has the largest concentration of Native-operated farms, with Indigenous farmers and ranchers making up over 60% of the agricultural operations in Arizona. For Native communities, food is more than what to eat. Food is part of everything – wellbeing, culture, language, ceremony, and the ability to leave something for the next generation. Starting a conversation around food access is often the entry point into work that evolves into much more comprehensive community needs, like mental health, supporting business development, or forming nonprofits that create more opportunities for the tribe.
An Arizona-based initiative, the “Elements of a Healthy Tribal Wheel,” highlights the holistic and interconnected tribal perspective of what it means to be healthy: one centered on balance, wellness, environmental and cultural knowledge, and how that all influences relationships that lead to good overall health. As tribal communities are approached to partner on other projects like climate-smart agriculture, this perspective must be respected and integrated in the design of the collaboration. New, trending terms are being used for what Indigenous cultures have been practicing for centuries. Success with tribal engagement comes from being open not only to non-conventional ways of working together, but also by recognizing that for tribal communities, food involves more than an act of eating.