He engaged the young people in learning about the culture of one of the Indigenous peoples of this area, called “Chumash” by linguists. They also learned about the importance of the tomol (canoe) that was revived by the Brotherhood of the Tomol in the 1970s. This was especially important for the Encampers because they were looking forward to a group tomol paddle with the Native people in Santa Barbara Harbor. They learned about safety, paddling techniques and paddling songs. This 7-minute video is an excerpt from this lesson, including a song.

Click links for videos — they are slowed down to reflect the experience.

On the water.

High fives!

“Marcus had the most impact on me because, well, for one thing, we spent the most time with him, his family and his community, and spent the most time engaging in their culture. It was so fun to learn about their traditions, as well as their hardships and what they were doing to fix them. Going to the beaches and islands and eating the food, going in the tomol — all of it was special to me.” — Sonisai, Amherst, MA

“I loved the tomol canoe. I was really excited to go in, and it was an honor beyond words to be the first Encamper in my group to paddle with y’all!” — Max, Austin, TX

Dr. Dibinga provided questions and time for the Encampers to explore aspects of who they are beyond external characteristics, look at triggers that impede engaging in deeper conversations and images to challenge the idea that there is a single correct perception.

“You [Dr. Dibinga] had a significant impact on my mindset and understanding of how to be an effective leader, which was absolutely vital to my time at the Encampment.” — Piper, Camarillo, CA

To read more about Dr. Dibinga’s workshop, click here for our Week One blog.

Ms.Segrest started by asking the Encampers to “Turn to a person next to you and identify one issue that seems ‘in front of you’ that you would like to better understand.” What followed was a deep conversation discussing gender, class and race issues and their intersectionality, including the key concepts of Critical Race Theory and Settler Colonialism.

“I want to thank you for going more into Critical Race Theory (CRT). This is something I didn’t know a lot about until you spoke to us on Zoom. When we got into the groups, I felt like we had a good conversation about CRT. I now understand how laws were shaped by white supremacy and how it is an attack on history.” — Abigail, Blythewood, South Carolina

To read more about Ms. Segrest’s workshop, click here for the Week One blog.

… Being there with the tour guide and experiencing that session made me think about why we haven’t learned more. Even though I have studied it, I never really looked at the American response — it was a very self-reflective process. I also learned how children were treated. At my school, we had a broad overview of the Holocaust. At the Holocaust Museum, I could see in detail what happened, why and how the Nazis used propaganda, and how they got a lot of their methods from Jim Crow in the U.S.: Create a big lie, make it believable, say it often and keep pushing on a narrative that isn’t true.

“At the Japanese American National Museum, we participated in a virtual process of internment. I didn’t know anything about the Japanese and the racism they faced. They also had this virtual reality experience where I got to see and be in the whole process. It’s one thing to read about it and its totally different thing to actually see it and experience it. It made me want to bring this information back to my school and community.” — Jason, New York, NY

Outside the museum, all the Encampers and staff gathered for an enthusiastic group picture. Click here for an Encampment shout-out.

They also went to LA Plaza de Culturas y Arte, which focuses on art and culture — two key components of the summer program. There is a permanent exhibit about the history of LA that “presents an alternative to traditional interpretations of Los Angeles history, aiming to change what we know about Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the city.” In addition, Encampers and staff had dinner with David Sandoval, an EFC alum (1966 DC) and one of the organizers of the East LA Chicano Rights Movement. Click to see Encampers sidewalk dancing!

our summer intern Sarahi recommended that we take some time to visit the Oxnard Swap Meet, where, in addition to many crafts, there is traditional food and music. Sarahi created a curriculum component focused on a cultural exchange for that evening. Sarahi talks about the experience in this video.

Mr. Vasquez told the Encampers that when the group first got together at MICOP, they chose the name to honor their roots. “Tequio is an indigenous philosophy of community service — you don’t get paid; you just do it for the love of the community. And that’s our philosophy. One of our first strategies was to go to the school board and ask that they ban the word ‘oaxaquita’ [ethnic slur: little Oaxacan]. We were all excited and we did not know the challenges we would face … we went to school board leaders and allies and did some planning and we had several spokespeople and within a year, we were able to ban the word oaxaquita in Oxnard schools.” https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-may-28-la-me-indigenous-derogatory-20120528-story.html

Mr. Vasquez shared some of his own personal journey, from studying law as a way to help his community to realizing he was more drawn to agriculture and could help that way. He told the Encampers that his grandfather had always planted beans, corn and squash together and he didn’t understand why but, when he studied agriculture in college, he understood the value of this and other Indigenous traditions. He has brought this knowledge and understanding to his work with the Farmworker Resource Program. In addition, he made sure that all the information about resources was recorded in Spanish and Mixteco, as well as English, and spread the word digitally so the community would know about these resources.

Question: When you realized you wanted to be an activist, what was the first thing that you did?

“I started by learning who I was. I thought I was Aztec, but I’m Mixteco. Once I learned that, I started to learn what the issues are that affect my community. I worked with my uncle and aunt, helping them navigate through their issues. I started with my family and then got more involved in my community.”

Encampers hiked at Rocky Peak Park, a panoramic 2,715-foot summit on the border between Los Angeles and Ventura counties in the Santa Susana Mountains. Click link for a peek of the hike.

Ms. Pharr explored with the Encampers the ways in which the Right builds its power and why it chose public education as one of its main centers of work. She began by asking the Encampers to name their principal areas of concern about attacks on public education (such as Critical Race Theory, sex education, trans issues). The Encampers reported several concerns.

“I was able to reflect on what you said in a group discussion and I noticed how so much of what you said related to my situation in previous school experiences. I remember being taught stories about Black history only revolving on slavery. I read articles today where they are trying to remove the harsh history from textbooks — specifically talking about slavery and the Holocaust — to change the narrative. I realized how important the education system is because once you control the schools, you control people’s minds.” — Jason, Harlem, NY

Click here to read more in the Week Two blog.

John Zippert and Faya Ora Rose Touré told the Encampers about their work with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the lawsuit against Texas state agricultural commissioner Sid Miller, who, with other litigants, is challenging a law passed by Congress intended to help cover the debts of thousands of “socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers” and correct the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s historic discrimination against Black farmers. Miller depends on the support of America Legal First, a group that was brought together by former President Trump’s senior policy adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller. The statistics are that, nationally, Black farmers have lost more than 12 million acres of farmland over the past century due to biased government policies and discriminatory business practices. Data suggests that the USDA continues to disproportionately reject Black farmers for loans.

In March, lawyers for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives joined with the USDA lawyers in creating a united force against this lawsuit.

In the Q&A, an Encamper asked: “I’m from the city and that means that I have a real disconnect from rural communities. How can city kids like me try to learn more about these issues that seem so distant from us?”

Mr. Zippert replied: “Part of my answer to that is that everybody eats. Everybody eats food and food is coming from the work of farmers, the basic work of farmers, so you are connected to it. And you can find farmer cooperatives in the city, urban agricultural projects — you can seek them out where you are. And community organizing and community development collectives are relevant in any community. They can be used by organizers to make a difference and to solve the needs of people in any community … One strategy is to bring people together to form study groups to spend some time reading and studying what other people around the country and around the world have done through self-help and self-development to make a difference in their lives.”

Ms. Touré spoke about the importance of land to self-reliance and the long history of land being taken from people of color in the U.S., starting with the Indigenous people and the African people being taken from their land as slaves. She noted that this is the root of the wealth gap and cited the unfair distribution in the Homestead Act. She took the Encampers through the history of resistance, saying, “We take one step forward and then several steps back because we’ve always had to work in a system where White supremacy was always in charge of the policy and the policymakers. Each time there was some progress made is because people had consciousness and resisted, and were determined to make that change because they understood that power concedes nothing without the struggle and demand.” She also referred to the power of collective action because the lawsuit referred to earlier is a class action suit on behalf of Black farmers.

When an Encamper asked how they could help, Ms. Touré’ responded that they could make sure that at a local level, people get elected who care about justice. “You can be a support group, you can organize young people, and one of your platforms can be to help Black farmers, but it should also include political activity, to make sure that the right laws are passed.”

Ms. Touré added that early organizing efforts in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s were initiated by young people in high school under the leadership of Bernard Lafayette, who was a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) member at the time. She recommended reading his account, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma (Civil Rights and Struggle).

“During our time at the Encampment, I learned a crucial lesson when [Faya Ora Rose Touré’] said ‘Making change is an inside-outside game.’ I find it applies to community-building in general. To reform any system, it requires effort from the outside and in.” — Ursa, Amherst, MA

The example is Manhattan, but you can use the link to explore this issue in your community — as did all the Encampers: https://dsl.richmond.edu/socialvulnerability/map/#loc=15/40.807/-73.946&city=manhattan-ny

This resource from the Othering and Belonging Institute features an interactive racial segregation map:

“I found out that Oxnard is 80% Latinx, but the bulk of the waterfront is owned by White people.”

“I already knew a lot about redlining, but actually being able to look at the maps and see the history and the actual documentation of what was done was really striking. It was informative, but also hurtful because of the way they described my community, and the potential, and what actually happened. It was good that we did that activity, because I can bring that back to my school and show how redlining developed in so many different communities.”

Ms. Lopez shared a bit about her life and her family, letting the Encampers know that she found it hard to go to the mission because of the history of the Spanish and the Indigenous peoples. She described some of the history and conditions of abuse of the mission system. She told them that the Chumash who converted to Catholicism were called “people of reason” and held positions of influence in society. She pointed out that the people who didn’t convert were beaten and starved. “Our families were withheld from us. They say we came willingly but, as a mom, if you took my children, I would go where they were and I would stay there if you wouldn’t let them go … So yes, our people came ‘willingly’ when they took our children — yes, our people came ‘willingly’ when the lives of our families were threatened.”

Further deepening the Encampers’ exploration of critical thinking, she pointed out museum artifacts that had nothing to do with the Chumash but were from other tribes in the Southwest or other places ,,. and a stylized painting with a tall priest and a tiny Indian, an example of portraying Indigenous people like children … “which is why they can justify the treatment of our people.”

She talked about how the Chumash were separated from their families, and the sexual and other abuse, including slave labor and the disallowing of their language and ceremonies, that they were inflicted with. In addition, the padres (priests) sent family members to other missions all over California so it was hard to find them again. The more they let go of their language and cultural practices, the more freedom they had to connect with their family members, so this was a powerful incentive to abandon their culture. This memory still reverberates with people today.

 

The Encampers were accompanied by descendants of the original inhabitants — members of the Chumash people — who are lobbying to have the island’s name changed back to Limuw Island.

In this five-minute video, Encampers share their experiences on the ferry trip, where some Encampers saw dolphins for the first time, and on Limuw Island itself — a sacred place of the Chumash people.

Mr. Byrd said that trend still carries true today with such deaths being recorded and shared in social media. “We discussed how art, culture and technology can be vehicles to create and spread change, while combating negative social perspectives and messages, by promoting ourselves, our talents and positive messages about who we are as the next generation,” he said.

“We also talked about how negative messages and stereotypes against youth are being funded and pushed by particular entities, and that we must push to control our own narratives, especially since art is historically attacked by fascism and capitalism as a tactic to destroy peoples’ connection to their culture.

“In closing, we landed on the fact that capitalism is destroying the world and if we don’t do something, who will? As youth, we did not create these conditions or problems, but we must be the solution or we will be the ones to suffer the consequences. However, our art, our passions and talents, are ways to embody, create and spread change while healing ourselves and others, as opposed to having to put our bodies and lives in harm’s way to move progress forward.”

Encampers were inspired by this powerful conversation:

“Hausson inspired me to continue making videos and films as a way to resist. No matter how much they try to defund art programs at schools, we can’t let them stop us.” — Basil, Harlem, NY

“Hausson had the biggest impact on me because of the way he uses his words to get his point across. He’s a genius when it comes to word play and poetry, and that’s something I am interested in.” —Ariella, San Diego, CA

 

Click to hear “You May Think”

Click for the lyric video shown at the 2022 InterGen.

Click to see the audience reaction.

Jason, Jessica and Jonah discuss their process in creating the lyrics on this video.

We would like to thank the Puffin Foundation for their support of the project, “Songwriting for Social Justice,” that made the creation of these songs possible.

Click here to read more about the song writing process in the Week Three blog.

Click for Sunday’s rousing keynote and Q&A by Miles Rapoport (100% Democracy) and Nsé Ufot of the New Georgia Project about the importance of voting and voter suppression and its relationship to systemic racism. 

Comments from the chat about the InterGen presentations:

Sandy: “Thank you for getting me up, physically, mentally and emotionally! ‘And Now’ — this song — love it!”

Pinky: “Awesome! So glad that our young people are learning truth and history!”

Sadeqa Johnson: “My heart is full! So amazing!”

Monique Moody: “Amazing work!”

Andrea R: “This is beyond wonderful.”

Steve Leibman: “Awesome! I’m loving your courage and creativity!”

Eloise Paterson: “Our future is so bright with all of you as leaders!”

Click here to learn more (and see photos and videos) in the Week Three blog.