Part one: What Is colonization? Decolonization? And how do they relate to food justice?

November 18th 2024

This is part one of our three-part series on decolonization and food justice, where we explore what decolonization is, how we can decolonize food systems by following Indigenous leadership, and how Oregon Food Bank’s work toward food justice is inseparable from the decolonization movement. Read part two and part three here.

According to The Conversation, colonization is an invasion: ”a group of people taking over the land and imposing their own culture on Indigenous people.” They note that colonization is not simply the physical act of taking land. “It is also cultural and psychological… colonization not only impacts the first generation colonized but creates enduring issues.”

The legacy of colonization — this cultural, psychological and physical invasion — endures in part due to intentional myths, misrepresentations, lies and revisionist histories. Consider, for example, the myth of the “first Thanksgiving” — Native Americans welcome pilgrims to share in their bountiful harvest with a celebratory feast. “That’s the story,” says David Silverman, author of This Land Is Their Land. “It’s about Native people conceding to colonialism. It’s bloodless.” In truth, the colonization of Plymouth Rock was achieved through violence, kidnapping and enslavement.

These myths about colonization begin early — in storybooks and elementary school classrooms. As writer Heather Davidson explains, “Racism toward Native people is normalized, so much so that many people do not see it as racism at all. Racist stereotypes of Native people are seemingly ingrained into the psyche of people starting in childhood, some subliminal, some direct.”

This is why it’s so important to develop a strong understanding of what colonization is and how it endures. Colonization is often thought of as the moment in history when settlers stole land, food and resources. But colonization is an enduring reality — a root cause of poverty, inequity and violence happening today.

Decolonizing our diets means going back to the original foods that we used to eat, the foods that we had before they were highly processed and with a lot of corn, a lot of corn syrup, a lot of wheat, a lot of the things that are just cheap that Big Agriculture produces for us. Before, we had more regional foods, regionally-specific foods, we had more foods that had cultural impacts. In the South it might be okra, it might be sweet potatoes. In places like in Texas, you would have had more variety in things like, believe it or not, potatoes.

— Rachelle Dixon, Zenger Farm, Portland Oregon — Rachelle Dixon, Zenger Farm, Portland Oregon

Decolonization seeks to reverse and remedy colonization. Decolonization is not one singular action — it is a series of interconnected actions and value systems centering Indigenous peoples. It “is about ‘cultural, psychological, and economic freedom’ for Indigenous people with the goal of achieving Indigenous sovereignty — the right and ability of Indigenous people to practice self-determination over their land, cultures, and political and economic systems.”

Consider, for example, the growing movement to bring back First Foods — the more than 300 foods, from Chinook salmon to camas bulbs, that were staples of Indigenous diets and medicine in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years before colonization.

The history of fry bread illustrates how the First Foods movement is an act of liberation for Indigenous communities. Navajo fry bread is said to have originated in 1864 when the United States government forced Indigenous people living in Arizona to relocate to New Mexico, a 300-mile journey known as the “Long Walk.” The Navajo people were forced to leave their traditional food sources and fertile land to rely on government rations. The government provided white flour, sugar, salt and lard — the makings of fry bread.

Commodity foods from the USDA Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) also created this complicated history of government-provided food. Writer Andi Murphy explained how commodity foods are seen as both a source of comfort and tradition and a source of disparate health outcomes. They “have a legacy that includes government control, poverty, and health disparities, as well as creativity, and Native resilience.”

Valerie Segrest, a Muckleshoot Indian Tribe member and Native foods educator, explained how preserving First Foods liberates Indigenous peoples by offering choice and promoting physical, cultural and spiritual health. “It was always based on food,” she said of the treaties. “That is what we ceded all our lands for. It was important to us because in our creation stories, our foods teach us who we are. If we didn’t have access to our foods, we would not be a Native person.”

“I was always forced to take on a national identity. I was always told I was Mexican American, but no one ever said to me ‘Do you know what that means? It means that you are an indigenous person colonized by the Spanish.’ I decided to reclaim my indigenous ancestry because that’s important to who I am today and who I am tomorrow, and also for my offspring.

… When we begin to supplement and remember our cultural heritage foods, then in essence and practice, we engage in decolonizing our diet and our minds. This is something that can be done today in our dishes.” — Claudia Serrato, Mesoamerican Indigenous Chef and Culinary Anthropologist

Understanding Indigenous Sovereignty

According to the Urban Native Collective, Indigenous Sovereignty is “the inherent right of Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native communities to govern themselves and manage their lands, resources, and cultural heritage. This concept is fundamental to the understanding and respect of Indigenous peoples' unique position in the history and contemporary society of the United States.”

Indigenous sovereignty should be a built-in value in food justice work. Indigenous communities have the right to preserve traditional food systems, native plants, growing practices, land stewardship and cultural practices.

Land Back

Indigenous communities started the Land Back movement to reestablish sovereignty and political and economic control over their stolen lands. NDN Collective describes Land Back as “the reclamation of everything stolen from the original peoples:

Land

Language

Ceremony

Food

Education

Housing

Healthcare

Governance

Medicines

Kinship”

Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective, explains how the Land Back movement encompasses land and so much more: “Through the treaties, [land] was taken. The American Constitution was violated in the taking of it. So when we say ‘land back,' we're talking about actual land return. We're also talking about the dismantling of many of the systems of white supremacy that have been created to maintain our land being stolen from us. So at the same time we're fighting for physical land back, it's not possible for goals to be fully accomplished if we're not dismantling the system.”

Ellen G. Bradley, Indigenous skier, scientist and storyteller, explains what Land Back can look like in practice:

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A Just Transition

The Just Transition movement, closely related to the Land Back movement, is by and for Indigenous peoples and works to create a healthy and more just future for us all. Just Transition principles address the root causes of hunger through economic, environmental and food justice. Indigenous Environmental Network explains: “Just Transition is a new term, but to most of our Indigenous peoples, it is understood, first by our heart, and secondly by our mind. Just Transition is a framework, a set of principles, to shift from a ‘stopping the bad to building the new.’ In Indigenous thought, it is a healing process of understanding historical trauma, internalized oppression, and de-colonization leading to planting the seed and feeding and nurturing the Good Way of thinking. It is lifting up Original Instructions and Teachings of respecting ourselves, our clans, our family systems and how we are all related with all living things and our relationship with the spirit, personality and consciousness of the sacredness of Mother Earth and Father Sky.

Just Transition initiatives shift the economy from dirty energy to energy democracy, from tribal housing with black mold and energy inefficiency to energy efficiency investments and green affordable sustainable buildings, from landfills to zero waste, from poor diets and high costs of buying food from industrialized systems in reservation border towns, to reestablishing our indigenous agricultural systems and from destructive development to ecosystem restoration.”

Black and Indigenous communities in solidarity for liberation

The origins of the United States are rooted in a settler colonial system. The system that perpetuates the genocide of Native people and lands is the same system that enslaved Black people indigenous to the continent of Africa. And it is the same system that continues to perpetuate hunger and poverty in Black and Indigenous communities today.

We often think of Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty as siloed, independent struggles. In fact, they are interwoven by so much more than their shared histories of oppression. They are interconnected by the living legacies and sacred traditions of Black and Native people’s love, hope and resistance.

“Decolonization is not a metaphor. It’s messy but this is hopeful work rooted in the belief that we can take the mess and actualize futurism. For all Natives and all Black relatives, I want to encourage us to choose one another over our mutual oppressor.” — Amber Starks (@MelaninMvskoke), Afro-Indigenous Activist