"The best journeys in life are those that answer questions you never thought to ask." - Rich Ridgeway, American mountaineer and environmentalist

Nothing about us without us

Somos una radio integrada por Mapuche Lafkenche del Budi, territorio ancestral que se encuentra en la novena Región de la Araucanía, Walmapu, Chile. Somos campesinos Indígenas, subsistimos de la crianza de ganadería en baja escala, somos adultos hablantes del idioma Mapuche.

De acuerdo con el Informe de de Evaluación Biológica y los Servicios de Ecosistemas, realizado por la UNESCO en 2019, “los principales factores mundiales que impulsan la pérdida de la diversidad biológica son el cambio climático, las especies invasoras, la sobreexplotación de los recursos naturales, la contaminación y la urbanización”.

This is a reflection on the shared history between Na Ñuu Savi (Peoples of the Region of the Rain) and Chumash since the origin of their respective homelands in what are now Mexico and the United States. Santa Maria is an agricultural city located in northern Santa Barbara County on the Central Coast of California. It is the second home of Na Ñuu Savi migrants from Yucha Nchaa (Santa Cruz Mixtepec) in the municipality of Ñuu Xnuviko (San Juan Mixtepec), Oaxaca.

Between the Santa Marian earth and sky is a backstrap loom on which the history of people in this space is woven. The first shapes formed on this loom are Chumash, people who came from islands and established varying groups on the now Californian coast.

Por 51 años, Cultural Survival se ha asociado con comunidades Indígenas para promover sus derechos y culturas en todo el mundo. Visualizamos un futuro que respete y honre los derechos inherentes y las culturas dinámicas de los Pueblos Indígenas, profunda y ricamente entrelazados en tierras, idiomas, tradiciones espirituales y expresiones artísticas y arraigados en la autodeterminación y el autogobierno.

In 2022, The Zienzele Foundation identified the need for a communal space in the Chiware region of Zimbabwe for Shona women’s cooperatives to host their organizational meetings, health clinics, and marketing of traditional handicraft work. In collaboration with Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund, they have since built a community center complex near the village of Mupagamuri to serve the five surrounding villages.

Black History Month begins in the United States. Like Native American Heritage Month (November), Oaxacan Heritage Month (July/August), and Indigenous Peoples’ Day (October), I celebrate the awareness those months and that day bring about Black and Indigenous Peoples and histories, the steps it has taken for our respective and intersecting histories to be recognized by the same nation that inflicts its violence on us. 

“Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field,” featuring essays and images of Native American photographers, is on exhibit at the New York City branch of the National Museum of the American Indian until March 12, 2023 and features the work of photojournalists Donovan Quintero (Navajo), Tailyr Irvine (Salish and Kootenai), and Russel Albert Daniels (Dine’ descent and Ho-Chunk descent).