Vena A-dae Romero: Asserting sovereignty through our food

Perhaps one of the most critical formations of identity is the attachment to certain food. For indigenous people, our food sources are physical manifestations of a relationship between person and earth that has developed over hundreds, if not, thousands of years. Food reminds of where we come from and, in so many ways, determines our future. So when we look at the majority of food served in tribal schools, we see few, if any, of the mainstay food items that are so vital to our community life. In fact, the celebrated “Let’s Move Initiative” that is so widely celebrated and is authorized by the Health Hungry Fee Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA 2010), a federal legislative act that, among other things, seeks to provide healthy food in our schools.

Yet, funding is funneled and directed at States NOT Tribes. With funding disseminated through state education systems which may or may not be working with tribal partners. Then tribes are at the mercy of state agencies and local school districts for school lunch program funding and even processes and requirements which to hire school food worker personnel. With such indirect control over the schools that serve and educate tribal children, there are a few brave tribal educators who campaign for and win school board positions to solidify the voice of a tribal community in school leadership. Or even those brave leaders who seek to operate their own schools such as the Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC), the nation’s first American Indian Montessori language-immersion school. As these enter into an education system that is wholly meant to create a uniform “American” citizen, its no feat to advocate for lessons and support networks that allow for tribal citizenship learning.

Likewise, the tribal farmers and ranchers throughout the nation who have managed to keep farming and ranching despite the climatic changes, economic hardships, land issues and who still manage to produce food are often left out of our school cafeterias. School cafeterias are paying customers and often the closest and largest food purchasers in our most rural tribal communities. Yet, few or any local tribal farmers have been able to penetrate the closed doors of local cafeterias because of the sheer bureaucracy that a farmer must encounter trying to get products in their local school.