I was born on the Crow Reservation, the reservation neighboring ours and our longtime enemies.

I was once told the government put our two tribes next to each other hoping we would kill each other off; instead we intermarry, crack jokes about each other and our babies are born in the same hospital.

I grew up on the Northern Cheyenne reservation spanning approximately 444,000 acres in Busby, a village of about 500 people.

During kindergarten my family moved to the country outside Busby which is where our family home still is.

I grew up outdoors, taking naps with our dogs, raising rabbits and helping my sister with her sheep. I remember being dusty, having flea bites and never wanting to take a bath.

Special occasions were marked by junk food: Tombstone pizza, Pepsi big slams and Doritos.

My parents wouldn’t buy us junk food so my sister and I would save our allowance and buy it for ourselves. Beyond our junk food splurges we grew up like every kid on the reservation eating government rationed commodities: powdered eggs, powdered milk, grape juice, cornmeal, meat substance, hamburger helper, macaroni and cheese, and red meat. I admit I have a special place in my heart for SPAM.

Upon graduating high school, I journeyed to South Dakota for college and it was during this time when I was formally connected with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) as a summer service worker.

For four consecutive years I attended college during the school year and worked at my home church during the summer. MCC introduced me to anti-oppression and my interest continued beyond summer until I double majored in American Indian Studies and Psychology, hoping to do mental health care on a reservation.

After college I was determined to save the world so I joined AmeriCorps, only to quit and apply for graduate school. I lasted one year and ended up with an incomplete Master of Social Work degree.

MCC opened my eyes to systemic injustice and I was attending graduate school when Hurricane Katrina hit.

My classes would discuss Katrina but no one could see the systemic injustice happening, nor was anyone willing to label it racism.

I thought of my fellow students and how many of them aspired to work in Native American communities and the thought sickened me. I didn’t want to be involved in a process of “schooling” that further buried the truth for Native Americans and other People of Color communities.

Somewhere between quitting graduate school and me deciding my next move would be with MCC, I began consultant work.

As my knowledge increased, I still had many unanswered questions floating in the air and I wasn’t connecting my analytical world to the world in which I grew up.

In my mind, they were two separate worlds.

That is, until I started having back pain and other digestive issues in my twenties. I needed my gall bladder removed and when I talked about it in my home community I discovered I was one of the few left who still had mine.

This set me on a rigorous investigation into WHY? I began to reflect on the food sources I had access to growing up and realized I didn’t eat fresh fruits or vegetables because we didn’t have access to them.

I eventually learned terms such as “food desert” and “supermarket flight” and my reservation wasn’t the only community to experience such phenomena.

These words piqued my interest and I began to relate my understanding of food injustice to the systemic injustices inflicted on Native American communities.

My learning journey would take me back to the systemic killing off of our main food source, the bison.

This along with being moved off our traditional lands made for the perfect storm of genocide through food insecurity.

We no longer had access to our foods, the knowledge was lost and we were “given” land settlers saw no use for, i.e. it wouldn’t grow anything.

Thus started the deadly cycle of government commodities, food meant to have high calories to get people through times of famine, only we were eating it on a daily basis. The result of this is what scientists call the “hunger-obesity paradox.”

I was finally able to connect my American Indian Studies degree, systemic oppression analysis and my life story into one solid reality.

I thought I had gotten to the bottom of it, and then I came to know the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.

This doctrine had its own root system by which all oppression that has been done and continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous people can be summed up.

This Doctrine or way of life is rooted in colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy, which essentially means Indigenous people, their culture, spirituality and lifeways are in direct conflict with this Doctrine that is still being used today.

The Doctrine of Christian Discovery affected the food I ate as a child and food Indigenous people continue to eat and have access to today.

We may not be “massacred” in the literal sense of the word but we are slowly being killed off through lack of access to adequate food.

Sometimes I wonder if it is better to be massacred like my people were at Sand Creek or to die slowly by being deprived of healthy food. Either way, it’s painful and it’s reality.

This originally ran in the spring issue of Timbrel, a publication of Mennonite Women USA. Republished with permission. 

Photo: Marcofolio.net.