Fighting Food Colonialism in the Hopi Nation
November 25, 2019 10:57 AM Subscribe
Hopi leaders are restoring food sovereignty for the tribe’s 2,500-square-mile reservation—which has only two grocery stores.
For Rosalie Talahongva, a former business analyst and a member of the Hopi tribe, weekends on the reservation are sometimes like battles. Unlike urbanites, who might get to enjoy a relaxed morning, her Saturdays start at dawn. She often leaves her home at 6 a.m. and drives more than 100 miles southwest from Second Mesa in the northeast corner of Arizona to a nearby town to do a week’s worth of laundry, buy gas for her car, and shop for groceries.
“You need to get everything set up,” said Talahongva. “Because if you forget something, you might have to wait another week.”
For Rosalie Talahongva, a former business analyst and a member of the Hopi tribe, weekends on the reservation are sometimes like battles. Unlike urbanites, who might get to enjoy a relaxed morning, her Saturdays start at dawn. She often leaves her home at 6 a.m. and drives more than 100 miles southwest from Second Mesa in the northeast corner of Arizona to a nearby town to do a week’s worth of laundry, buy gas for her car, and shop for groceries.
“You need to get everything set up,” said Talahongva. “Because if you forget something, you might have to wait another week.”
The corn looks very different from the yellow corn I'm used to. I wonder how it tastes. I bet it's got a better nutritional value.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2019
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2019
The Hopi and the Navajo have a dispute over land and thus, the size of the herds of sheep were also disputed. 2014 story
Livestock permitting on HPL
posted by Ideefixe at 1:22 PM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Livestock permitting on HPL
posted by Ideefixe at 1:22 PM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Looking at Google maps, it looks like the grocery stores are Bashas', a chain you find all over Arizona. Both the Hopi and the Navajo reservations are dry--no alcohol sales--and I wonder if that makes a profit difference for the stores. There are a bunch of gas station type stores and their comments are all about the prices being too high. The population of the Hopi reservation is only 9000 people, but the surrounding, much larger (more than 10 times bigger) Navajo reservation is 350,000. These are very rural areas, though they get a significant amount of tourist traffic, which usually makes for better grocery stores. In east Texas, dry counties usually don't have as nice stores as wet counties.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:10 PM on November 25, 2019
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:10 PM on November 25, 2019
I was trying to put the food desert situation in Hopi in the larger context of America and came up with a couple of comparisons. No Car and No Supermarket Within a Mile. And in search of food deserts. Neither are quite what I was hoping for, which was just a simple map of grocery stores per capita on a by-county or otherwise finer grained level. But they both show that Four Corners is severely lacking in grocery stores compared to many other parts of the sparsely populated West.
But Hopi isn't like the rest of the US. It's a sovereign nation with its own culture and a very specific history. I appreciate how this story frames things in terms of colonialism and the Hopi trying to solve problems for themselves. Here's a direct link to the Hopi Farmer's Market info site. Looks like they have six a year.
posted by Nelson at 3:47 PM on November 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
But Hopi isn't like the rest of the US. It's a sovereign nation with its own culture and a very specific history. I appreciate how this story frames things in terms of colonialism and the Hopi trying to solve problems for themselves. Here's a direct link to the Hopi Farmer's Market info site. Looks like they have six a year.
posted by Nelson at 3:47 PM on November 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
I was hoping to find what “food sovereignty” meant but didn’t really see it. If they mean “growing enough food to feed their people,” there are a lot of larger groups in the U.S. that don’t do that. I’m not sure I see why it would be desirable vs. people having access to a healthy diet at a reasonable price that they can afford. Of course, maybe that is what they mean.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:54 PM on November 25, 2019
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:54 PM on November 25, 2019
The corn looks very different from the yellow corn I'm used to. I wonder how it tastes. I bet it's got a better nutritional value.
That is likely not eat-the-kernel corn. It's most likely corn for grinding and using to make some kind of bread, probably flat like piki bread only not blue. The whole mano/metate culture is found strongly throughout the entire southwestern US.
Add in the lack of access to grocery stores with lack of access of (to varying degrees and in varying combinations) plumbing, clean water, electricity... A lot of lives on a lot of reservations are lived in circumstances that are difficult to grok in the second decade of the 21st Century. I wish the US Government would step up and honor the treaty commitments, but history doesn't give me much hope about that.
posted by hippybear at 6:38 PM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
That is likely not eat-the-kernel corn. It's most likely corn for grinding and using to make some kind of bread, probably flat like piki bread only not blue. The whole mano/metate culture is found strongly throughout the entire southwestern US.
Add in the lack of access to grocery stores with lack of access of (to varying degrees and in varying combinations) plumbing, clean water, electricity... A lot of lives on a lot of reservations are lived in circumstances that are difficult to grok in the second decade of the 21st Century. I wish the US Government would step up and honor the treaty commitments, but history doesn't give me much hope about that.
posted by hippybear at 6:38 PM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by parmanparman at 11:05 AM on November 25, 2019 [2 favorites]