Two-spirit storyteller, educator helps find connections

Even as a kid, it was always important to Juan A. Reynoso (whose Ipaikumeyaay name is “nemuuly”) to provide as much context and background as possible in order for him to be comfortable sharing his perspectives. He would eventually realize that it was part of his natural talent as a storyteller, communicator and bridge between different groups of people.

“I am a cultural storyteller and public speaker … weaving connections among communities that, maybe historically, don’t commune in the same spaces,” he says. “And finding commonality within our intersections, within our identities, our culture, our experiences.”

Reynoso, whose name “nemuuly” (neh-mool) means “grizzly bear,” is a Two-spirit member of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians. He’s also a co-founder and co-executive director of The Queer Sol Collective, a nonprofit centering 2SLGBTQIA (Twospirit, LGBTQIA) leadership and voices in land and social activism, and a deaf and hard of hearing specialist for the Valley Centerpauma Unified School District. He took some time to talk about his desire to help people connect through stories, his understanding of his Two-spirit identity, and his framing of Thanksgiving through a lens of survival, resilience and gratitude. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version of this conversation, visit sandiegouniontribune.com/sdutlisa-deaderick-staff.html.)

Q:

How did you first develop a personal mission of connecting people through storytelling?

A:

Many, if not all, cultural groups have oration, or oral histories, oral stories that were around before written texts. In my family line, everyone in our community, there are different roles and capacities. Some people carry our songs, our bird songs; or they carry our dances; some people are natural teachers or spiritual healers, or community builders. I always found my life as a weaver, as a community person who brings connections to people, but through stories. In doing a lot of identity work, when I was able to listen to different people’s stories, it was very easy for me to find the similarities in people’s stories as an observer and also find myself in those stories. So, I just naturally started to grapple with bringing people together and saying, ‘OK, well, I can see how this looks this way and how you can see it that way, and how my story can also evolve or kind of move this story into a different direction.’ It was very natural and organic, coming into it as I got older. For me, storytelling has just been an evolution of my inherent gifts, just a natural calling, a natural teacher, natural oration.

Q:

On your website, you identify as Two-spirit. Can you help us understand what that means, in general? And, what it means for how you see and understand yourself?

A:

“Two-spirit” really is an umbrella term for people who can be and identify as nonbinary, as trans, as bi, as gay, in any part of the LGBTQIA-PLUS community. Anyone who’s gender expansive, but particularly only used by Indigenous people. It’s a term that was created in the early ’90s through a conference, an LGBTQIA kind of symposium with a bunch of Natives, and they decided to create a pan-indigenous term, to create an identity that not only speaks to our genderqueerness and who we are in relationships or expressively, but really our cultural and our community responsibility.

As Kumeyaay people, we have our own terminology that we use; we would say we are “ipai” and it means “the people.” “Ipai” is a northern Kumeyaay word, which means “people” and if you are down in San Diego’s south or east area, you’ll hear “tipai.” It sounds the same and it’s with a “T” versus an “I,” and means the same thing, it’s just a different dialect for northern and southern Kumeyaay. As queer people, we would say we’re “ipai hellyaa” (ee-pye shlah). In a modern context, I would say it means genderqueer, gender expansive. It’s anything that exists outside of the binary. When we look at language, it’s interesting because even our concepts, our Indigenous understanding of the world, our original practices don’t place them in these boxes. It’s very

Juan A. Reynoso expansive. It’s more of, ‘You are beyond gender.’ For us, literally, “ipai hellyaa” means “person of the moon” because “hellyaa” is also our word for “moon.” Basically, “moon people” and when you think about the association of the moon in other cultures, it’s usually equated to emotion or energy field. When I heard that, I was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense. I am naturally a very emotional person. I hold a lot of emotion. I can show it, I can give it. I can absorb it.’

To answer the second part of your question of what it is to be and live as an “ipai hellyaa,” Two-spirit person, sometimes it’s being more empathetic or more compassionate, which, in a modern social context is usually equated to being more feminine. On the other side where there’s “logical” or “linear,” “structure,” “doer and provider,” all of these kinds of characteristics are what might be considered a masculine identity. When I think about how I’ve navigated the world, from a young child to now an adult, and still evolving, I’ve really seen how all of those intertwine and have worked in my life at all times, within every second of the day. It really feels like being a chameleon, being very fluid with monitoring and seeing the interaction I’m going to have with certain community members. That makes a lot of sense for me, seeing how those characteristics and those energies, the feminine and masculine and everything in between, really drive how I commune with people, and really drive how people see me and whether they are comfortable around me. For me, it’s about being a weaver and being a bridge amongst different community people, genders, and things that might not really see each other.

Q:

This is the time of year when a lot of people are focused on the story of Thanksgiving — a myth, really, that imagines a largely benign interaction between the Wampanoag people and the early English settlers in 1621. Are you comfortable sharing the kind of story and connection you find yourself focused on during this time?

A:

This timeframe, for Kumeyaay people, is our new year. Our new year is in September. It’s the beginning of harvest season and that’s how we start our calendar, in the fall. So, for us, we start the season with gatherings. We start the season with community, and it’s always been community that drives all of that, no matter what season we’re in. I think, ‘Well, what a beautiful way to remind us, when we come into the season, that it’s all about familial connection and community connections.’ When you look at that intersectional story of, ‘Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? What is the beautifully wrapped picture of what it means to be thankful? What are you thankful for?’ For me, this time of season is about family. It’s about reminding myself of those who are no longer here and being grateful for their fight, their contribution to their stories and their community spaces because, if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t have those teachings.