Before I became a lawyer, I was a full-time farmer. I had always dreamt of a world where my farming could be embedded into a larger vision of environmental justice based on  rematriation. Rematriation, as many of us have learned from Sogorea Te Land Trust’s definition, is not only a return of land, but more importantly, a return of sacred Indigenous relationships to the land. And it’s one based on Indigenous-women led work, which is meant to highlight the sanctity of nurturing life and connection. During my time as a farmer, a campaign for land access for young farmers was ramping up, and there was virtually no talk about how this campaign would advance rematriation. Instead, many folks envisioned a land access campaign that could take us back to the harsh homestead days, which was only made possible through the forceful removal of Indigenous people and Indigenous cosmologies. It paired well with small-scale farms, which was seen as the ideal mode of production. Homesteading was also the antithesis of Indigenous-women led work. It was a property system that saw survival in isolated self-sufficiency and patriarchy. I was so horrified with this vision that I decided to transition careers by becoming a lawyer to support farming embedded in rematriation and environmental justice. I needed to learn how to create the conduits for giving the Land Back, and, alongside others, learn how to change our relationships to land altogether. Since becoming a lawyer, I’ve refined my vision, though it hasn’t come exclusively through my legal training. A combination of organizing, research, and lots of listening has reshaped my vision, along with asking myself this question: What does intimacy mean when thinking about the land?

Back to the Land

I came to the land because I felt disconnected from my own sustenance. At that time, small-scale farming was the most accessible avenue for me to feel connected. It also felt like an obvious antidote to large-scale corporate farming, with its labor and environmental exploitation, and the feeling of alienation I felt towards my food. There’s an old idiom that says “the farmer’s footprint is the best fertilizer.” I had come to believe that I needed to live this idiom by focusing on a small-scale farm that I could travel, in its entirety, by foot. In a sense, I thought this is what connection to my sustenance meant. But as I began to feel a deeper sense of connection with the landscape beyond the four corners of the property, I started to believe that I could feel something more expansive. I traded my limited feeling of connection with the farm for a larger feeling of intimacy for and with the landscape.

UPDATE on the Neighborhood Food Act and a Call to Action!