‘Hey, I grew that’: the Native American school that’s decolonizing foodways
Before joining her school’s gardening program this year, 14-year-old Emilie Lyons had never encountered an eggplant. She is a freshman at Umoķhoķ Nation public school, which serves more than 600 students on the Omaha reservation in Macy, Nebraska. When she brought the vegetable home, she and her dad looked up recipes for how to prepare the peculiar purple nightshade and were surprised by how tasty it was.
Umoķhoķ Nation is just one Indigenous-focused school across the US where administrators and educators are endeavoring to introduce healthy, culturally relevant foods into their lunches and other culinary initiatives.
Though each program is unique, they have similar objectives: to help kids reconnect with their heritage; to strengthen tribal sovereignty; and to combat the marked health disparities and disproportionate food insecurity – estimated at nearly 24% – affecting tribal communities in the aftermath of colonialism. About 68% of Native American children qualify for free lunches, meaning these may be the most reliable and nutritionally balanced meals they eat.
Macy is considered a food desert, with no grocery store and just a gas station serving the north-eastern Nebraska town of approximately 1,000 residents. The village also has some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the state. To address these overlapping issues, the Umoķhoķ Nation’s farm-to-school initiative began as a state-funded Jobs for America’s Graduates (Jag) program, designed to equip youth with employable skills and improve their success in education and their future careers. It was the students’ idea to develop a community garden where they’d log their work hours.
Three years in, the summertime program employs about 50 teens, who grow and harvest more than 25,000 plants each season, including cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, sunflowers, pumpkins, beans, corn, squash and, yes, eggplant. They prepare and preserve that produce in the school’s culinary department to be served in the cafeteria’s fresh salad bar, sold at the local farmers’ market or dished up at a new cafe in town (Macy’s first). There’s also an outdoor classroom on campus, where naturalists, elders and other knowledge keepers impart traditional Indigenous knowledge.
“This was my first experience gardening,” said Lyons. “At first, I did it for the money, but I actually really enjoyed doing the activities with my friends. It was a very powerful experience to plant a seed, care for it, watch it grow, then put these food products up at the farmers’ market. When my friends and I walk by the salad bar in the cafeteria, I’ll point something out to them and say: ‘Hey, I grew that in the garden.’”
In addition to developing concrete skills and earning $10 an hour working four-hour shifts, program participants are learning important life lessons. “We have noticed a difference even in how the kids carry themselves. They’re so proud of what they’ve done,” said the Umoķhoķ Nation superintendent, Stacie Hardy. “They feel connected to the school and the community, and they’re giving back to their elders. They are also developing these strong leadership and communication skills. I never could have envisioned the impact this would have on our district.”
The project’s success is largely thanks to the farm-to-school director, Suzi French, who oversees the 14,000square-foot garden alongside Jag career specialist Ricardo Ariza. To secure the land, he worked out an agreement with the Omaha tribal council to lease 7 acres near the school for $1 per acre each year. Throughout the summer, French teaches the children not only how to care for the crops but also how to identify and forage for wild plants including chokecherries, gooseberries, mulberries and wild grapes.
“We are building farmers,” said French. “For most of these kids, this is their first job. They come to work on time. They turn off their phones. They smile and laugh. They get to just