Decolonization Praxis in Practice:

Walking Gently and Moving Forward in A Good Way

By Zephyr Elise N.

Presented at the 2015 California Indian Conference

Decolonizing Academia, Decolonizing Every Day Life:

Walking Forward in a Good Way

U.C. Berkeley, Boult Hall

Oct. 16, 2015

Cualli Tlaneci! Notoca Zephyr Elise. Tlazocamati pampa cualli intlacaquih! Niñhuñha, nizapoteca, Ninahua.

Good morning, my name is Zephyr Elise. Thank you for hearing me this day. I was born for my father's clans of Gaelic, Scottish, and Spanish Romani and born to my mother's clans of the Hñähñu , Zapotec, Nahua, Mexica (countless nameless Nican Tlaca) nations, as well as Sephardic Jewish, Irish, Italian, and French. I ask my ancestors and all the ancestors represented by us here present to watch over and guide my words today. May the elders present forgive my brashness in speaking boldly.

My Ohlone relative, Kanyon asked me a while ago to join on this panel to speak this morning on, "doing that thing you do...how you walk gently on lands not yours." Perhaps my relative sees how millennia-worth of my ancestors walking gently across lands in the four directions of Grandmother Earth has inscribed in me a way of being and moving through this world. Like so many other stories, Some of my ancestors were here when the first European invader arrived... My ancestral history is a case of colonizer- Juan Ortiz arriving with c. Columbus on his maiden voyage and eventually settling and becoming governor of Pueblo, Occupied-Mexico colonizing my indigenous or Nican Tlaca ancestors of Anahuac. Still further back, Other ancestors lived indigenously to the isles and lands which would be colonized first by Romans then later by British and other empire builders. Still others made the long voyage from Palestine over countless generation through North Africa eventually arriving in Spain.

Most of the blood running through my veins are acts of resistance by the unwanteds and others wherever empire occupied. When one has been tiptoeing across the centuries that long, it becomes natural to walk softly and leave very gentle footprints. After all these generations, the voices of my ancestors still reached across the ages to direct my indigenous grandfather, my assimilated mixed-indigenous mother, my undercover white-passing father,and me to honor spirits, ancestors, original histories, and peoples of the places we have travelled and lived. So to do my part to decolonize academia, I will speak as the blood heir of those teachings and not as one who has delved through academic texts to regurgitate static knowledge from ethnographic notes.

For me, decolonization is not just a theory to discuss in academic circles, classes, or workshops... Instead it is a living, active practice that must be exercised as often as one breathes or thinks. It is a process and not merely a destination on our course of societal evolution. But why do we need decolonization? What is colonization anyway?

To begin with, let me offer a definition of colonization given by Waziyatawin a Dakota author, activist, professor, and one of the editors of "For Indigenous Eyes Only: A decolonization Handbook" during an interview with healing the earth radio said,

"[C]olonization is... all the systems and the institutions that we bump into on a daily basis; where our children go to school, where we go to work, the economic system that we're participating in, how the government is structured, what foods we eat, what language we speak, what currency we use. All those things are examples of colonization in context of the Western Hemisphere. They were brought here and imposed on indigenous peoples by foreigners who were interested in invading our lands, taking our lands, exploiting the resources, exploiting our labor, and in some cases, killing our populations if we stood in the way. So when we talk about colonization today and how that impacts our life, we realize that there are very few things, very few activities that we engage in on a daily basis that are really free from those outside impositions, those outside systems and institutions."

Colonization for me then can also be described as the societal construction which (re-)orders hierarchies of gender/class/race/religion/culture/language/species, removes understanding of the interdependence of all beings, erases indigenous names, languages, and cultural practices of first inhabitants; and demands acquiescence from any who would seek to maintain power and privilege or merely survive in this new order of things. It is important for me to note here that Gentrification as we are witnessing here in the Bay and beyond is the latest version economic, cultural, racial, and political colonization. Causa Justa, a local Bay Area grassroots organization devoted to tenants' rights advocacy for communities of color recently mentioned that Huchin (Oakland) has displaced approximately 1000 residents each month in the last year by means of unlawful evictions! These evictions make way for multi-national developers building insanely profitable new condos and lofts for the incoming wave of neo-colonizers. So if we are to speak about colonization we must speak to gentrification, for they are both symptomatic of an overarching societal and spiritual imbalance. These processes are the polar opposite of the teaching I learned from my grandfather. He made evident how all beings are connected in a circle of life, sometimes referred to as the medicine wheel or the sacred hoop. Why does this cycle of consuming all that was in the name of progress keep repeating? Paula Gunn Allen offers us a pretty good answer.

In "Who is your Mother? Red roots of White Feminism (1986) Laguna Pueblo author, professor, literary critic, and activist Paula Gunn Allen wrote "The American idea that the best and the brightest should willingly reject and repudiate their origins leads to an allied idea—that history, like everything in the past, is of little value and should be forgotten as quickly as possible. This all too often causes us to reinvent the wheel continually. We find ourselves discovering our collective pasts over and over, having to retake ground already covered by women in the preceding decades and centuries."

I believe this last part to be true for native and non-natives alike. Ms. Allen continues stating that, " ...in the view of the traditionals, rejection of one's culture—one's traditions, language, people—is the result of colonial oppression and is hardly to be applauded. They believe that the roots of oppression are to be found in the loss of tradition and memory because that loss is always accompanied by a loss of positive sense of self. In short, [indigenous] think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget."

There lies the paradox of our differing cultures that must be altered if we are going to move forward together in a good way. Decolonization is the act of refusing to forget any longer. It is the act of actively remembering and seeking and restoring that which has been amputated, disconnected, hidden, and buried for so many generations. It is a refusal to be complacent and complicit any longer with empire, systemic oppression, and it's required amnesia. It is rejecting the colonial lie that languages, cultures, traditions, customs, stories, spiritualities, and ancient knowledges are gone forever never to be returned if they have been consumed already by empire and "progress." My ancestors from here and places far distant still whisper to me. Yours can speak to you as well. The spirit world doesn't understand statutes of limitations or gag rules nor do they generally conform to our concepts of time or place.

Colonization has disrupted the circle of life/ the medicine wheel. This circle imbalance has fostered so many of the modern day ills we now face from environmental degradation and climate change to imperialist wars to global economic disparities to the prison industrial complex to the violent police assaults on red, black, and brown bodies across the nation. To change the course of our conjoined hyrstories, we absolutely need to regain our indigenous knowledges and remember those original instruction if we are ever to re-envision a more equitable and just society. This is the work of indigenous peoples. For those settlers here striving for solidarity the work looks slightly different. It is an act of rejoining the circle, unlearning the doctrine of white supremacy/entitlement; honoring what was and is still here. It is in becoming local to place and growing deep roots in the soils and communities with which you interact. It is in seeing all those creatures and beings from smallest to largest with whom you are cohabiting . It is in remembering and unburying one's own deep root knowledges that live in soils across oceans and continents, time and space. It is in regrowing souls long sought to be stolen by toxic governments, economies, and religions. It is in pausing the capitalist sense of progress and productivity to hear the distant whispers of ancestors and spirits of the place you reside. It is in asking the caretakers of these lands how best to move forward.

Fortunately Professor Paula gives us all some insight into that last point. She writes:
 "The traditional [Indigenous]' view can have a significant impact if it is expanded to mean that the sources of social, political, and philosophical thought in the Americas not only should be recognized and honored by Native Americans but should be embraced by American society. If American society judiciously modeled the traditions of the various Native Nations, the place of women in society would become central, the distribution of goods and power would be egalitarian, the elderly would be respected, honored, and protected as a primary social and cultural resource, the ideals of physical beauty would be considerably enlarged... Additionally, the destruction of the biota, the life sphere, and the natural resources of the planet would be curtailed, and the spiritual nature of human and nonhuman life would become a primary organizing principle of human society. And if the traditional tribal systems that are emulated included pacifist ones, war would cease to be a major method of human problem solving."

When we step back into the sacred circle, the ultimate act of decolonization, it becomes impossible to live narrowly in our own individual experience. In rejoining the hoop, we see that there is no higher or lower order of living beings. Work/labors cease to hold capitalist hierarchies in favor of honoring all our work as a contribution towards the collective whole. We are all important points on this sacred sphere. The highest CEO of the firm wouldn't get very far in a day without the persyn unlocking the doors or cleaning the toilets. And don't get me started about the labeling of who is an immigrant in these lands! Seriously can we please stop with the immigration rhetoric immediately?!

 In fact Hierarchies which lead to inequalities of racism and other prejudices of all manner begin to fall away when we move back into the medicine wheel. The meat on my plate made no greater sacrifice than the plants... Both are due honor and offering for giving life so that I might live. In driving my car, accelerating to cut off someone else seems foolish given we both have someplace to go and perhaps can get there faster by cooperating rather than competing. It is seeing that the energy I use in my home might be taking from the salmon nations so vital to indigenous relatives north and south of here. It is understanding that recycling and reducing waste as much as possible is caring for the Grandmother Earth that sustains me. It is in seeing elders and the young for the amazing resources of wisdom that they are. It is in relearning the indigenous names of the places I live and discovering, honoring the First Nations who once were there pre-contact or joining their modern day descendents in solidarity with whatever acts of sovereignty they might be undertaking.

Here in Huchin there are many to join. From Corrina Gould's Ohlone land trust project to the occupation of Gill Tract as a sovereign Ohlone land defense against corporate incursion to the defense of  knowland park from poisoning and clear cutting to make way for a zoo expansion to the repatriation of the bones of Kanyon's Ohlone ancestors and so many others held hostage unceremoniously in open wooden boxes here in the damp basements of U.C Berkeley!

For those who already are involved with decolonizing efforts and actions such as these, let me challenge you then to some advanced homework of decolonization. Learn the languages of your ancestors, learn the names of the missing branches in your family's tree, eat only or as much as possible the foods your ancestors did. Grow the foods of the ancestors of the lands on which you are living did. Try to access resources outside of capitalism. Start a resource or people based economy in your neighborhood or community. Learn the indigenous plants of your region then plant them in your yard replacing the grass and other colonizing plants. Sing and dance and pray as if only the ancestors are watching. Learn medicines and healing methods of your ancestors outside of big business pharmaceuticals. Greet every persyn you interact with in a day by actually seeing them. Dream a world beyond this current failing one. Spend time with an elder just because... And when you do, listen more than you speak.

We must do this deep healing work and we must do it now. Our families, our communities, our next seven generations demand this of us. Our grandmother earth that we walk upon demands this of us. Our ancestors demand this of us. We can and we absolutely must do better than what we have done thus.

Ometeotl! All my relations! Aho!

Works Cited


Allen, Paula Gunn. "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism | Paula Gunn Allen (1986)." Web log post. Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism | Paula Gunn Allen (1986). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. .

"Towards a Turtle Island Without the United States and Canada with Waziyatawin." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. .

For more information:
Unsettling Ourselves blog
Decolonization.wordpress.com
For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook
Accomplices Not Allies zine
Idle No More-Two Spirits on Ohlone Lands (Facebook page)