Photo by Lara Aburamadan
Photo by Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik
Photo by Lara Aburamadan
FIRE WALK
mutsun & awaswas land | central coast
Thank you to the Mutsun and Awaswas people, who steward the land that holds us on this walk.
The third section of our walk grounds us in the element of FIRE.
The seed of our journey was sowed amidst Tongva land (Pasadena, Altadena, LA) in the deeply nourishing soil that is “community as shelter.” And what was sowed has been watered by the life-giving waterways and the protection of its access by our comrades in Yokut land (San Joaquin Valley).
As we now journey through Mutsun and Awaswas land (Central Coast), learn and move in solidarity with comrades navigating flood and fire, we give ourselves and the seed of our project to the crucible of change. And learn, step in step, what is forged in the fire.
Photo by Lara Aburamadan
“We see fire as a gift from Creator. Like all gifts, it is important to respect and recognize it in that way...Fire is used as a light, and used as a land management tool. Our ancestors divided the land into management units, they then burned segments when needed, on a rotating cycle, until the cycle was complete. Fire has a critical role in maintaining the coastal grassland prairie...one of the most viable landscapes and rich in biodiversity in North America before Europeans arrived.”
Image by hải võ
How do we steward our relationship with the land in the face of systemic forces?
Find out more questions we explored in our FIRE WALK Field Guide.
Peoples and places we met
the tobera project
The Tobera Project educates and raises awareness of the plight, struggle, vitality and contributions of the Manong generation who first settled into the Pajaro Valley in the early 1920s by highlighting and depicting their experiences (first-hand family accounts) to broader community.
watsonville is in the heart
The Watsonville is in the Heart digital archive preserves and uplifts the stories of the “manong” generation (Ilokano/Tagalog for "older brother"), the first wave of Filipino migrant farmworkers to arrive in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.
Rosalinda Taytayon and Loren Cawaling in a strawberry field from Watsonville is in the Heart archives
tierras milperas
Tierras Milperas is an assembly liberating livelihoods from the extractive agroindustry by reconnecting their ~110 campesino/a families to the living memory of native seeds, customs, traditional forms of social organization, and innovating alternative forms of community exchange and community economics.
Photos by Fox Nakai
PARAJO RIVER
“Monterey County community of Pajaro was flooded after a levee failed during an intense storm on March 10, 2023. Within hours, streets, homes and businesses of this mostly Spanish-speaking town of 3,000 people were under several feet of water.
The flooding has aimed a spotlight on decades of inequity in this agricultural region, where migrant farmworkers have long been marginalized. Runoff from record storms has left large areas of the low-income and mostly immigrant community under several feet of water, and facing a long recovery.
Officials had long known the levee could fail, but repair efforts have been met with long delays. One official told The Times last week that an improvement project didn’t pencil out, in part, because “it’s a low-income area. It’s largely farmworkers that live” there.”
- “How a long history of racism and neglect set the stage for Pajaro flooding” by Susanne Rust and Ruben Vives for the LA Times
Photos by Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik
bitter cotelydons collective
Collective of cultural workers/artists centering, archiving, and sharing the stories of queer Asian American Pacific Islander community through the lens of ancestral foodways; Uplifting the relationship between Asian plant cultivation and queer/api community as a creative method of resilience.
Photo by Lara Aburamadan
Photo by hải võ
Photo by hải võ
czu fires
On August 16, 2020, the CZU lightning complex fires which started as a result of thunderstorms in the San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, spread to ~86,000 acres, affecting buildings, communities, and farms including Brisa Ranch.
Through many difficult decisions, immediate action, and community support, Brisa Ranch was able to navigate this difficult experience.
Here are their calls to action for supporting farmers in future wildfires:
1. Provide Ag Passes that allow farmers to travel back and forth through mandatory evacuation areas, so that they can carefully tend to crops, livestock, other resources during evacuations.
2. Help coordinate more collaboration between other land managers (BLM, State and County Departments that manage land) and farmers.
3. There should be a new state program that provides farmers the opportunity to apply to get a no/low-cost generator(s) to help farmers weather frequent power shut-offs due to threat or actual wildfire.
Survival Skill: Fire making and abatement
“Also, cold camps are safer than cheery campfires. Yet tonight we cleared some ground, dug into a hillside, and made a small fire in the hollow. There we cooked some of my acorn meal with nuts and fruit. It was wonderful.”