EP 141: Indigenous Wisdom for Climate Resilience | Laura Yawanawá

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Hi. Welcome to the Radical Responsibility podcast. This is your host, Fleet Maul. In this episode, I had a great conversation with Laura Soriano and Yawanawa, who has dedicated her life to protecting indigenous people's rights from all over Latin America. As a Zapotec and Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico, she has co founded organizations to support indigenous peoples and currently serves as the president and director of the Yawanawa Sociocultural Association. The Yawanawa live in Acre, Brazil, one of the most remote areas of the Amazon.

And.

And she, along with her husband, who is chief of the Yawanawa people, are bringing back the life of their people and reclaiming their land and doing so much to preserve the indigenous way of life and preserve the rainforest for all of us. So great conversation. Give it a listen.

And here we are today with Laura Yawanawa from the Yawana peoples lands in Akre, Brazil. And I'm really thrilled to be here today with you.

Thank you so much for your invitation.

Yeah, we're really excited to have you. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today. So I'm going to share with our audience a little bit about your background and work and then we'll jump right into the conversation.

Okay, perfect. Yes, great.

Laura Soriano Yawanawa is a Zapotec and Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico. She holds a degree in international Relations focused on Indigenous peoples political affairs. Laura speaks three languages fluently, English, Spanish and Portuguese. Previously she served as the Executive Director of the south and Mesoamerican Indian Rights center in Oakland, California. She has worked for the rights of indigenous peoples from all over Latin America for many years. Together with her husband, Toshka Yawanawa, she traveled with a backpack all over Latin America, visiting remote indigenous communities to empower them with information to fight for their rights and self determination. She co founded organizations to support indigenous peoples such as the Nahua Institute and the Iniya Indigenous and Non Indigenous Alliance. She also worked for the Climate Change Institute of the State of Acre in Brazil, organizing workshops in indigenous communities about climate change and environmental services. She comes from a matriarchal culture in the Northern Hemisphere. Seventeen years ago she married Tashka Yawanawa. Since then they have worked together for the good of the Yawanawa people. She now serves as president director of the Yawanawa Sociocultural Association. She has considered herself as an instrument helping to transform a community from a deeply male oriented culture to one that is more open and inclusive of women. Again, welcome. So happy to have you be part of the best year of your life. So you are of Zapotec and Mixtec descent and from Oaxaca, Mexico. Today's theme on the summit is simplicity and earth friendly living. I spent some really memorable weeks in oaxaca back in 1972. I was actually there at Christmas time and I was traveling throughout Mexico and Central America on my way to Peru. And I remember Oaxaca is an incredibly magical place. So what was it like for you growing up in Oaxaca? And what was your relationship with the land or the earth and the culture you were raised in there?

Yes, well.

My mother, she's a Zapotec Indian from the valley of Oaxaca. And my father, he was from the Mixtec area. He's a Mixtec Indian and he was born.

On the mountains. And.

Well, I grew up, you know, as child, together with my parents and the land of Oaxaca, among the mountains. And.

We always had a very close relationship with the land. And I felt always very connected, especially with the mountains, you know, the spirit of the mountains and the power of.

You know.

How you call it, like the greatness of.

The position of the mountains. And.

Yes, and also as a child, I learned very much to always respect our elders and.

Always listen, you know, what they have to tell us for guidance. And.

So, yes, always very much connected with the art of Oaxaca too. Oaxaca is very a place full of creativity and art. And so I was always surrounded by that, by the art, by the mountains, by also the power of women. My mom, since she's Zapotec, she comes from a matriarchal heritage. And my mom always taught me.

To be a strong woman, always to be truthful and never be afraid. And so.

That was very different. That was very unique for me to grew up with.

That kind of sense of life, you know, especially for women. Instead of seeing women to be submissive.

Or.

To be somebody that is less than men, I grew up with the mentality that we women can make.

We can make everything. We can also.

Can develop different things just like men, and that we are also powerful and intelligent the same way as men. So that made the whole difference over my life, because I couldn't see any limitations.

Well, with that foundation, that wonderful foundation you received from your mother, and growing up there in the traditional culture in Oaxaca, it's not surprising you became an activist and a leader for, for indigenous rights and for the environment and for dealing with climate change. But could you tell us a little bit about your journey of how you went from growing up in Oaxaca to becoming an activist and not only in Mexico, but really throughout the Americas?

Yes. Well, also at that time, when I was a child, we suffered a lot of discrimination.

Things were very different at that time. Indigenous peoples in Mexico were not recognized as indigenous people. We were more seen as.

Peasants or agricultural people. We were not recognized as indigenous peoples.

With a language, with own history.

With our own.

Specificities. As a nation, indigenous peoples is really one nation. And we were never recognized like that. And at that time, there was politics that wanted basically to assimilate indigenous peoples into being.

Westernized, becoming agricultural people, and just for us to forget about who we really are. And.

I was always wondering why, you know, that was happening. I didn't know why I was being discriminated because I was indigenous, because my mom and my father spoke their language. But then also they felt kind of ashamed to teach us the language because.

They felt that they were protecting us against discrimination. So there was a lot of brainwashing.

About our identity and about the value of indigenous people's cultures. And when I left.

When I was able to get a scholarship and study in the United States.

I was able to learn what was really happening, you know, what was behind all this discrimination. At the beginning, I felt that it was my fault, you know, that I was indigenous, I was brown.

That's why we were not considered as the other people. And then I learned from other people's situations, you know, like the African Americans. And also I was learning from other indigenous peoples cultures in the world, you know, like in New Zealand and also in the US and Native American movement. And that opened my mind in order to see that's the first time I learned about what it meant, racism. And I didn't know what that meant, you know, even though I felt it, I felt that there was discrimination against indigenous peoples in Mexico, but I didn't know what that was. And then when I studied there, I wanted to.

Learn, you know, to empower myself with knowledge. But I wanted to also be able to serve indigenous peoples, you know, and I wanted.

To support.

Indigenous peoples to be valued for who we are and also to fight for our territories, for. For the biodiversity, for nature. I realized, you know, learning from different other indigenous peoples all over the world, I learned that we had a lot in common and, you know, that relationship with the land and also our way of being a community, always sharing things, not having the concept of private ownership, you Know, there was always that concept of common, common ownership and of always working as a community, you know, in solidarity. And.

So I really wanted that. And I didn't want any. I didn't want anybody to.

Yes, to make us feel that we are not valued because we are indigenous peoples or because we are brown.

So that's how I started to work for indigenous people's rights. And also I learned that.

There has been a lot, of course, injustice, but I was also learning that.

I cannot also.

Fill up myself of hate or resentment. That that wasn't a way to be able to resolve things, that in order to resolve things, in order to be able to support, to do something good, you know, for humanity, for myself, it was more to work from. From forgiveness, you know, to. To forgive and.

To work more through. Through love, you know, through love in anything I do, in anything I say, instead of promoting more division and more hate and more resentments among us. And also I learned that we cannot work alone. You know, we have to be able to make alliances, to work with other peoples.

To be able to.

Save what is left out, you know, nature in our own cultures and more languages and to value. To value everybody's cultures and thoughts and way of being. And so, yes, that's what I have been learning.

Yeah. Thank you. And it's such a powerful vision and so needed of this more love based, inclusive approach to activism and social justice work and environmental and indigenous rights work, because sometimes activism starts to slip into divisiveness and hatred. And it's understandable, but maybe not so helpful in the long run. So you've really been bringing people together. It's a beautiful vision. So you met Tashka yawanawa in the U.S. i believe. Right. And.

Tashka is the chief now of the Yawanawa people. And just to help people with the context of where you are, the Yawanawa tribal lands are in Acre, the state of Acre in Brazil. Right. And that's. Does that border with Peru? I mean, you're in a very remote part of the. Yeah, you're in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Right. And so bordering with Peru. So this is very remote, very remote part of the Amazon rainforest. Right. And are you there today?

Yes, yes.

You're there today?

Yes.

Yeah. Wonderful. It's great to kind of connect with you, you being there. And I have been to those parts. I spent time living in South America, so I'm, I'm familiar with that. I spent a lot of time in Peru and I've been down in the Selva In Peru. And I haven't been to Acre before, but I've been close. Yeah. Amazing, amazing, beautiful land and so important to the whole globe now. And.

And it is. It is indigenous peoples who have been protecting and stewarding the biodiversity of our planet. You know, it's. It's really, you know, we. We've given such short shrift to indigenous peoples, and, you know, and yet we're. We're. We're. We should be incredibly grateful because it's indigenous people that are taking care of the biodiversity of our planet that's keeping the rest of us alive on the planet. So, so much gratitude there. And so you moved to Acre. You moved to the Yanahua tribal lands with Toshka, and. And now, together with Toshka, you lead the Yanahuana people. And I understand that over. Over your time together, that the Yawanawa people were near obliteration. We're down to only 600 people, I think. And I think now you've doubled or maybe more up to 1200. And also the lands that you steward have been reduced to about 400,000 acres, but now you've doubled that and I guess reclaim more of your tribal lands. And so you're really stewarding the land there and stewarding your people and creating a future for your people, while at the same time protecting that land for all of us. So.

How have you managed to do that? What's the journey been like for you and Tashka to kind of renew your people and have your people growing as a community and being able to steward such a, you know, what for many of us seems like a vast territory?

Yes.

Well, something that I shared with Dashka since I met him. And I think that's what made us come together, was that vision, you know, that. That love for our peoples. And we wanted to find a way.

You know, like a model, you know, of having our people to live, you know, in peace and to be able to.

Recover our territory, to protect our territory, and at the same time enjoy.

All the traditions, the cultural manifestations of the Yawanawa.

But.

When we arrived, what we did first, it was a whole process, you know, it took some years. I think we have been here already working with his people more than 20 years. And at the beginning, when we arrived.

Working with his people.

It was. A lot of things were being lost, and the Yawanawa didn't feel proud to be Yawanawa. The young people didn't listen anymore. The elders. So what we did first was to really call all the elders, you know, Tashka's dads, the shamans, the elders, like Tata Ya Warani. And we, you know, value them. We put them in front of all the work of all the dreams. And we asked them, you know, what we needed to do as guides. I think that was the first step. The first step was to really listen to the elders, to let us know what we needed to do. And we also organized a big meeting.

With all the community, all the members of the community, children, men, women.

Everybody, to come together and have a gathering, to meditate, to think about.

What was happening to the Yawanawa, you know, what happened in the past, what is happening in the present, and what could happen in the future. And.

From there, it came out so many things. You know, the first thing was that we needed to work on reviving the culture, you know, reviving the cultural manifestations for the Yawanawa to feel proud again. So that's when we created the Yawanawa celebration, A week of dance, ceremony and.

Celebration. So all the Yawanawa come together, and for the first time time, they dress, you know, in their traditional way. And the elders were saying, you know, how. Because they. At that time, they didn't even know how to. How to dress.

Traditionally because.

They. They felt embarrassed. I think what happened is that the Yawanawa before where contacted by the robber patrons and also by the missionaries. And the missionaries were there, like about 50 years. And that's the reason the Yamora were forgetting.

All the ceremonies and traditions. But the elders had.

They haven't forgotten.

The way the traditions, the way they were dressed, the way they were using the traditional dresses and also the language and the ceremonies and the songs and the paintings. So they taught the young people how to do that. And it was amazing. You know, it was so amazing, so beautiful, that week of celebration.

That the Yahuwah, the Yawanawa, everybody felt so proud of being Yahwanaua. So that's when everything started, you know, to be.

To reborn, you know, to be a new beginning of the Yawanawa. And then we also.

Together, we develop.

Our social and economic and environmental plan together with the communities. Because we needed to know how we are going to survive economically. Now we have to depend on certain. Certain things that come from the Western world. We need money, you know, we need money in order to protect our territory, in order to secure our education, in order to secure our health, in order to.

Protect our biodiversity and all these aspects, you know. And.

So together we came with now what we call our life plan, which basically is like a strategic planning of what we need to do in order to. For the Yahuwah continue being the Yawanawa for the next generations. And how to protect.

To protect our territory, to do.

How.

We need to do the education, you know, the health and all these. All these areas.

And at the same time, we work very hard on empowering the women.

We create a new model of governance. Before.

Only the men took the decisions in the Yawanawa tradition. And now we have the women that have the same power of decision as the men. But this was a whole process of.

Many things happening. It didn't happen just, you know, from one day to another. It was a lot of years of. Of.

Processing all this to get to this point where now the women.

Have power decision in all the Yawanawa affairs. And we created the Yawanawa leadership council that is composed by women and men and.

Women. This council has the purpose, you know, to guide all the works of the Yawanaua association, everything that we do, all the projects and all the aspects of the Yawanawa affairs. So it's more or less, you know, I guess it's to be inclusive.

And.

First, you know, to secure our land. You know, like you said, we double our land. Because at the beginning, the territory was demarcated just part of it, and, like, the sacred cemeteries were left out. But then we were able to make alliances with some government people, local government people, and also with.

Some allies from, like, our partners, you know, business partners like Avida and other partners we had all over the world that help us to pressure the government to be able to. For us to double the land. And that was a big. A big thing. You know, it also taught us, you know, how we cannot do things alone. We have to be able to come with allies, you know, and together we were able to make that. To secure the Yawanawa territory and to double it.

That's an amazing story. And it's. It's so.

That you had the wisdom to go to the elders and ask them what to do, and that the elders had the wisdom to focus on culture, because it's our culture that holds our energy, our magic, our wisdom as any human peoples. And then even the Yanawana culture had been somewhat patriarchal, and you were able to bring in that influence from your own mother's Zapotec culture, which was more matriarchal, and bring in equality to the Yanahua people, equality of gender. So it's just such an amazing story. And it's like. It's such a lesson to all of us. So, you know, we Modern humans, people like myself, non native people like myself, we've become so disconnected. You know, as human beings, we have these incredible cognitive capacities and we focus there, which is an amazing part of our abilities. But we've gotten disconnected from our body, from our hearts and from the earth, especially from our first mother of the earth. And. And as a result, we've created this climate emergency and really an existential threat to future generations on this planet, which when I was young, I mean, I've always been concerned about the environment, always heard about environmental issues, but I never thought in my lifetime we'd actually be talking about an existential threat to humanity in the near term. Right. So hopefully we're waking up to that. But for. What would you call, I mean, where can we begin, you know, as, as Westerners who haven't grown up with that rootedness in the land and our culture has not been rooted in the land. How do we begin? How do we begin to shift our consciousness and actually, you know, get back in relationship with the earth and.

Yeah, how do we begin?

Yeah, I think.

I think the best. I think what we.

Did, you know, with the Yawanawa was it's first to know who we are to going back to our roots, to be proud of who we are.

And. But I think because everybody in a way, you know, is indigenous. Indigenous means to be original, right, to be native. And I think.

We have to find our, like our spiritual.

Indigenous, you know, we are spiritually.

Beings, you know, that.

We have everything to contribute, you know, to be in solidarity, to be comparative. And instead of, I guess, of people feeling empty, they should feel full because, because.

Their spiritual identity is full. And we need to know that. We need to understand that.

People are not empty beings. We are full spiritual beings. And I think.

Just by contributing, just by loving, just by.

Caring, you know, for everything, you know, that we find in our way. Caring for ourselves. Yeah, of course. But caring for ourselves means to care for the, for the others, you know, in anything that we are doing, you know, on the street.

At the park or wherever we are, I think we can do something to contribute, to feel good with ourselves, to water a plant.

There are simple things, you know, that instead of always just.

Complaining, you know, because things in the way world are terrible, this is the end of the world.

The government is like that. No, let's. Instead of complain, let's feel grateful, let's feel grateful for. Because I am alive and maybe I can do, I can do something now in this minute, you know, that can contribute with humanity and maybe Helping, you know, my neighbor or.

I don't know, cleaning my garden and planting more trees.

I don't know. There are so many simple things that are being maybe more honest each day. If we are against corruption, then. Well, if I cannot change my government, at least I can change myself, you know, so I can be at least more honest myself.

Or, you know, if I want.

Whatever, you know, whatever. I think it's inside of us and we just have to do our best that we can to feel connected again, you know, with our own identity, with our own self, you know, by just giving, you know, just giving and doing our best and not feel separate from anybody. You know, we are one. You know, we are one human family, really, you know, including all the beings, you know, the natural beings, too. We just have to change that perspective, you know, that. That animals or that plants are something separate from us. We are all one family. So I think that's why we need to change that perspective, you know, that we are. We don't have a black family. We are all one family. So that means that you are my brother. So I see you like a brother, and I will help you. I will do anything you for. For my brother or for my sister. It doesn't matter where, if you have my blood or not, you know, or all different beings, you know, living beings. I think that's what we need to change in order for us to, you know, to be more human. Just to learn to be more human, I think.

Oh, wow. Thank you so much for that, Laura. It's, again, such a beautiful message of love and inclusivity and, you know, although I think, you know, modern people, we need to really see what we're doing that's not working and the damage that's being caused. But I think there are many that somehow think that we need to just feel bad about ourselves or feel bad about ourselves as humanity. You know, we're all doing the best we can, and human life evolved on this earth. It is what it is. There's a lot of us, there's more of us all the time, and we're trying to figure it out. And I don't think feeling fundamentally bad about ourselves as human beings is going to help us move forward. So I love what you said about rediscovering our own sense of our innate goodness, our own spirituality, our own fullness, and then through there, coming to our connectedness with each other, that we're all connected, that we're one humanity, and that we need to find our way through this together. It's Just such a beautiful, inclusive message. And it's really.

The activism and the justice work, so resonant of Martin Luther King or Gandhi. It's that message of love and inclusivity. And it's so powerful. And I thank you so much for that.

What are your hopes for the future this summit is about? You know, the summit came about. We did our first one last January, and it came about because a lot of times at the beginning of the year, and of course, that's the Western calendar. There are different calendars. There's the Chinese calendar and the Hopi calendar and different. The Mayan calendar. And, you know, but they're all kind of related to some cosmology. And so in the west, we have this calendar. We're almost towards the end of the year now. And so a lot of people make resolutions at the beginning of the year to start something fresh, but they quickly forget about them. Right. And so we're trying to figure out, how can we help people really not give up hope, especially in this time of the pandemic and the climate emergency, that we don't give up hope, that we keep embracing life and step into the future and do our best to have a positive vision for our lives.

So that's what this summit is really about. So I'm wondering, what. What are your hopes? What do you see as possible for you and your people in Accra as well as for indigenous people around the world and humanity altogether? What's your vision? What do you see us moving into?

Well, I can see that.

All these crisis, all these crises that we are living environmentally and also with the health, with these pandemics and so many other things. Well, I know we just. It's horrible because, yeah, it looks very ugly, but at the same time, you know, it's like.

It's like an opportunity, you know, there are opportunities for humanity to come together and learn from it and become more inclusive and become more gentle, you know, gentle with nature and all living beings, you know, So I have a lot of hope. I see many good things happening. I see, you know, opportunities coming out of all these crisis.

You know, like, so we have to see that, you know, more than the bad things, you know, that we. I guess.

Maybe this pandemic taught us, you know, that we depend more on each other, you know, that this doesn't affect only certain kind of people, certain kind of, you know, economic class people. It affected all of us. So I think that taught us a lot, you know, that we are very dependent on each other and we have to work Together and.

About the vulnerability of life, you know, that one day we can be here. Tomorrow, we are not going to be here anymore. So we have to take advantage of each second, each minute to.

Appreciate more, you know, to be more with our families, to forgive each other, and to learn more about.

What is really most important. You know, it's money, it's material things.

What is most important are the things that we don't buy, you know, the things that.

Maybe we don't see. We only feel. So I think.

I can see that. I don't know if you feel that too, but I think there is a lot of hope. I think new things, new things are coming. And.

As long as we do.

Ourselves as individuals, we do our best. I think it will be fine. I think we will always, at least ourselves, we will feel good that we are contributing to make a better world. And little by little, things will be transforming.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I share that hopeful vision with you, and I've always been an optimist. I have to say. My optimism has been challenged in recent years. But nonetheless, I do. I really think these. Even the pandemic, many people regard, especially some of our indigenous leaders and teachers regard the pandemic as kind of a teacher. Right. These crises come to us as teachers and help us awaken and come together and realize we all are interdependent and we need each other and we have to find our way through together. So, yes, I share that hopefulness with you and really a sense of tremendous possibility. You know, there are some, you know, not great things going on in the world, but there are always some really fabulous things going on in the world. There's some real progress on so many fronts. So I think we just have to not give up on ourselves, not give up on each other. And your message is so beautiful and so powerful that way. I just appreciate you and your work and thank you for what you and Tashka are doing and really modeling something for all of us. One thing that stood out to me, that you said.

Today'S focus, in part, is about simplicity.

And. And you all, you know, traditionally and other people living in tribal areas in the Amazon have lived very simple lives and what you might call subsistence kind of.

Gathering and farming and so forth. And. And. But I think what I heard you say was you also need livelihood and resources and money, actually, because to protect your land, for your health and so forth. So you're having to figure out how to create livelihood for yourselves while at the same time preserving your culture and preserving your way of life. So there's some balance. I get the sense that you're looking. You see the future for your people not being somebody's idea of simple, old way of doing it, but more a balanced way that brings together the best of the new and the old. Am I accurate in that?

Totally. Totally true. Yes.

We look for the balance, for the equilibrium to also use some knowledge, you know, Western knowledge, You know.

We use the technology a lot, you know, like now in all the communities we are used. We have Internet, we have solar power that we use. We have our boats and motors, you know, for the protection of our territories, territory. And so all these are tools, you know, tools for us to.

Continue being Yawanawa, for the protection of the territory. Tools to.

Teach the children the language, you know, using a tablet or, you know, so we. I think technology is good as long as we use it as.

A tool that can empower and strengthen even more the culture, the language, and can help us to preserve the land. And we, like I said before, we always look for partnerships, you know, for alliances with business enterprises, with the government, the local government, even the federal government, you know, so we always are. Or NGOs, you know, so we are always looking for alliances also so we can.

Continue doing our work and keep this equilibrium and learning also new technologies, learning, you know, like, even speaking English, you know, it's. It's a. It's a tool, you know, that have helped us a lot.

Wow. Again, just so much wisdom, and thank you so much and for everything you're doing. And I really encourage our audience to learn about the Yawanau people. You can go on the web and find out a lot about Laura and her work and her history and about Tashka and their work with the Yawanawa people. And, you know, you can find out about NGOs and that are supporting your work and the work of protecting indigenous rights in the Amazonian region, as well as protecting the rainforest, which is absolutely essential to all of us on Planet Earth. And so thank you for your leadership and everything you're doing, and thank you for spending time with us today.

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

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