December 23, 2024 • 47 mins
When Abby ended up at Alcatraz Island one cold winter night in his 20s, he had found himself at the epicenter of the Indian Pride Movement. It blew his mind and made him feel that he had come home to a part of himself that had been missing.
Abby is an Indigenous Chicano leader who is part of the Yaqui tribe. It’s been 50 years since that night at Alcatraz, but it stands out as a turning point in his life. Together, we look back at his family history and the history of his people to reflect on Indigenous teachings, his family’s involvement in the monumental Brown v. Board of Education case, and his own participation in historic strikes like the Grape Boycott. Personally, our interview made me investigate my own identity as a Chicana and how I live out my values. But I believe anyone will walk away from this conversation drawing strength from those who came before us.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think it's important for people to know their roots
and to know the roots of others. It helps us
to know aboudy each other.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to when You're Invisible. My name is Maria Fernandavis,
but I know not everyone can roll there are, so
it's also fine to call me Maria. When You're Invisible
is my love letter to the working class and others
who are seemingly invisible in our society. I hope to
build a community here that will inspire you to have
generous conversations with others that are different from you, conversations
(00:31):
that might help you see life in an entirely different way.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I had just never heard of Alcatraz, so I
started looking into it, and that's when the takeover was
going on, so I went up there. It was the
winter of nineteen seventy. I ended up going to Alcatraz
Island for a night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
WHOA, this is Abby and yes he's talking about that.
Alcatraz the infamous jail and cal The jail closed in
nineteen sixty three, and Alcatraz Island was essentially just sitting
there abandoned.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Alcatraz had been closed down for a number of years
and was taken over by the American Indian Movement.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The Indian Pride movement was born in the summer of
nineteen sixty eight. It actually began in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Go Minnesota, Hey,
what's up? The Native American community activists came together to
fight back against a history of genocide and to change
the present where they were facing ongoing discrimination and issues
(01:36):
like high unemployment, slum housing, and racist treatment. Activists fought
for treaty rights, the reclamation of tribal land, and advocated
for Native folks in cities dealing with poverty.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The American Indian Movement they took it over in Alcatraz
under a federal law that said any surplus US federal
lands that are not being used shall be turned over
to Native people in the United States, and the Indians
took it over as a bargaining ship for better services,
better healthcare, better education.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Abby is an Indigenous Chicano Well Plascala Yaki.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Our greeting is leos and chia maniawo get you malayas
That means the Creator be with you and have a
great day.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
He was in college when he took part in this
historic act of resistance with dozens of fellow Indigenous people.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I met Floyd Westerman. Everybody knew him as Red Crow,
who was a singer, and he came and sang at
my college.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Red Crow was a Sissiton, Dakota musician and actor. He
was a vocal advocate for Native American rights and was
involved in numerous protests.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Me and another friend introduce ourselves, and he told me
that you got to go to Alcatraz. That's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And that's how Abby ended up on Alcatraz one cold
winter night.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
At that moment in time, I felt bad that I
didn't know more of my culture because everybody seems so
at ease with their own.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It was the first time he and many others had
experienced anything like this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They had some music that night, some prayers. So I
came back with all these stories, meeting all these tribal
people from all over the country, and it just blew
open my mind. My Indian pride came back really strong
from there on ago. This is where it's happening. We're Native. Yeah,
I had come home.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I love how he says that that he had come home.
The ideas of homecoming and home building shined through my
entire interview with Abby In this particular moment, Abby comes
home to himself, especially in his identity as a native person.
Finding a home for yourself in community isn't something that
happens overnight. Abbie's story reminds me that this takes time,
(03:54):
yet it is possible. It's one of the reasons I
wanted to talk to him in the first place. Understanding
yourself and accepting things you know and don't know will
lead you to a sense of ease and awareness. And
it's not a point to be reached, but a constant exploration.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
When I look at the world now, I see it
from all my experiences, and I'm thinking, do I give
this information too. I'm in a real retrospective kind of
place looking back and I see the things that I've done.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What's the biggest or favorite thing that you've passed along?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I think the biggest thing I've passed along is awareness
for your immediate surroundings. We've been ignoring ourselves, our own environment,
but also the people that live in those environments that
are not like us. Yeah, how do I become a
good human being and also be good to the natural world?
What's my relationship? That's awareness?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
When we know who we are we can better understand
that the world around us and how we relate to others.
This is a nugget I've taken away from many conversations
with Abby.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Is my destiny to be here today, even to be
with you today, is my destiny to share some of
the stories that I've had with you, share my knowledge,
to share my stories.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I've been lucky to be on the receiving end of
Abby's wisdom for a while. I met him for the
first time when I was a recent grad freshly part
of the New York theater world. Since then, we've done
a couple plays together, including one where it was a
cast of two just us. We became friends, and despite
our more than forty year age difference, we've stayed in touch.
(05:37):
Abby is now in his seventies. He lives in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland,
and he has four kids, seven grandkids, and one great grandkid.
He's done a lot of incredible work in his life.
I mean some crazy incredible things. He's been a newscaster,
a firefighter, a professional musician, and he's worked for the
(05:57):
government for a long time. He acts and writes plays.
He also works with youth and indigenous youth, in particular
to teach them traditional environmental knowledge. What do you feel
like is at the core of everything you do.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But it's always working with people that make me to change.
So all the things that I've done, I've been in
a position to help make that direction happen and the changes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I think of Abby's visit to Alcatraz as an awakening
in his life. It was the impetus for the activism
he went on to do, the adventures he's been on,
and the wisdom he's gathered and shared with his family
and his community. For Abby, it all started by rooting
himself in his family history and his indigenous identity. That's
(06:44):
where we are going to start to where are your
parents from?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Mom and dad both born in San Diego and their
parents are from Mexico.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What parts of Mexico?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
My grandmother, my dad's mom was born in Wuinawato Gebardi.
I have family. Thought, Oh wow, yeah, so that's my
dad's side, and then my mom was up in Yaqui
land in Sona.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's incredible. Wait, so are you Yaqui on both sides?
Just my mom's side, just your mom's side.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Abby's grandparents are all from Mexico, but his mother's side
is indigenous. They're part of the Yaqui tribe. Indigenous people
in the Americas occupied the land for at least twenty
thousand years before settlers arrived. For the Yaqui and many
other tribes, it was the arrival of the Spanish that
(07:35):
altered their way of life and threatened their survival.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
We saw the Spanish come in the fifteen hundreds, and
that's when it started. By the sixteen hundreds that they
were being colonized. By the seventeen hundreds of the religious side,
I think the Jesuits, I said die or be baptized,
and so they took baptism, but they kept their language.
(07:59):
And then the eighteen hundreds the Franciscans, who were a
little bit more meaner, and so they said you will
stop doing this, you will stop doing that. But they
managed to keep some of the Yaki traditions, spiritual traditions
and webbed inside the Catholic mass it's the only tribe
where indigenous spiritual activities are still part of the Catholic tradition.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The Pascwa dancers, they're a very sacred group of men
who trained from youngsters outer dance and the interpretations of
the dance is what it means. That's still part of
the Catholic tradition down in many of the Yachi churches. Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
The Yaki are known as the only unconquered Indians in America.
Resistance runs deep in their history.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They never sent a contract or a peace treaty with
the Mexican government, and to this day they're still fighting
the Mexican government.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
The effects of colonialism and poverty have, of course taken
a great toll. It's one of the reasons that in
the early nineteen hundreds many Yaki people decided to emigrate
the southwest of the US, and Arizona in particular became
a new home for the Yaki. And this was true
of Abby's family.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I am originally born and raised in San Diego, California,
and my family is from southern Tucson, Arizona. As a child,
I went back and forth to both places. So I
feel like Arizona is also home because it's a different
environment from San Diego. But that's where everybody moved. I
think during the depression they moved that way.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Those living in the States drew on their history of
resistance and actually became an important political force. Over the
course of decades, they rallied to have their presence recognized
by the American government with a reservation. Eventually, the Yaki
nation was established in Arizona in nineteen seventy eight. By
(09:55):
the late twentieth century, the Yaki numbered about twenty five
thousand in Mexico and three to five thousand in the US.
While he wasn't raised on the res Abby had relatives
who were, and he fostered a close relationship with his grandparents,
who imparted Yaki teachings.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I wish I could remember more stories from my grandparents.
They were always talking to My grandfather spoke a lot
and what I went out once in the County of
San Diego and he was gathering. He was Atkurandero, So
I mean he was a cure cured people, and he
used a lot of herbs and stuff that he found
and he knew where to go get them. And I
(10:35):
know now that when you gather medicine from the earth,
you give thanks, and so you have to pray before
you take it, and you don't take it all. You
take what you need. So he was actually saying his
prayers and talking and telling me that he was doing
what he's doing. I didn't understand what he was doing.
I was too young, So I watched him do that once,
go out and get some herbs by a creek, and
(10:56):
then I found out later on. It was called yedbade mansu.
It's a plant that has spectacular healing powers it and
my mom used it, my grandmother used it. I used
to use it with my kids, and my daughter grew up, she's, dad,
do you have any of that voodoo plant? And I said,
go to antialysis house. She has it in the backyard
and tell her you want something. Yet it by that wants.
(11:17):
He just boiled it and it heals cuts, wounds internal external.
My favorite time was being out with my grandparents, just
out in the natural world. I loved it. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
While he's always cherished his indigenous roots, his identity was
also from As the child of immigrants. He was not
only balancing his indigenous identity with his Mexican identity, but
he was also navigating his American one. When your identities
are at odds or in question, there's this feeling of
(11:49):
being in constant ebb and flow. You can feel ungrounded
at times. I know this from personal experience. Home becomes
something you yearn for, a sense of understanding or belonging physically, socially,
and internally.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Early on, my parents identified us as Mexican Americans, and
then my grandparents taught us our Indian ways, or taught me. Yeah,
for sure. It was interesting because I've always had this
duality in my mind. So when people ask you what
you were, they automatically said, oh, you're a Mexican. I
said no, I'm not, and so they yes, you are,
(12:27):
and I said no, I'm not. I was just a kid.
So then to stop the fighting and bickering about who
I was, I would say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
While you may see yourself as one thing, you are
very much influenced by your family and society. The outside
world's oppression and perception can jeopardize your safety and your dignity.
This affects people individually, but can also harm a whole population,
leading to widespread erasure and invisibility assimilation.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
In the fifties, in San Diego it was still a
very kind of a backward town, and so if you
are Indian, you were treated worse than a dog. If
you're Mexican, not so bad, but still treated poorly. So
you tried to say, oh, no, no, no, y'all from
here we were, but people automatically assumed that you're from Mexico.
And then we'd go to Mexico across the border and
(13:19):
they would call us Boschos because we were from California. Yeah,
so we couldn't take. We couldn't win.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There's no winning on both sides. Coming to terms with
who you are in your full history and heritage at
times comes with creating new terms in order to create
your own agency and space.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So when I heard the word Chicano and I asked
about it, my dad goes, that's who we are, and
so then I took Chicano because it's something that we
made up that has some historical documentation to it. So
I grew up as a Chicano, knowing my Indian roots
right in my Indian side, very strongly identified with that
from a very young age.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I identify as Chicana to lots of Mexican Americans do,
but not all. For a lot of us, it means
the owning of this complex identity of accepting our mestizo
or mixed roots and also our americanness. Chicano culture has
taken on a life of its own. Oftentimes, the chicano
(14:19):
esthetic is the long nails, the winged eyeliner, the cool,
chunky jewelry, baggy clothes, and low rider culture and look
this identity looks like and means different things depending on
where you are and who you are. It's awesome that
it also has such a distinct and unique boy because
there's so much pride that people take in it. But today,
(14:42):
when you see Chicano's portrayed, you will often learn about
these front facing parts of the culture, and you don't
hear as much about the origins of the term and
its connection to indigenous identity. Abby loved this word because
it drew on its roots. But even though most Mexican
people are part indigenous, not everyone connects to that side
(15:02):
of them. You know, in my own family, we've been
slow to acknowledge that and to learn what our indigenous
Mexican lineage is. When I do see Mexican indigenous practices
make it into the mainstream, maybe it's using stage or bruchadia,
it's great, but it can also feel generalized. I love
(15:22):
that people want to claim this, but it can feel
one size fits all, rather than being rooted in specific histories,
traditions or tribes, and I find myself craving that information. Miyah,
it's no one's faults. I'm talking about this because I'm
wondering for myself, how do I want to move forward
(15:43):
with my identity and my practice. It's layered and complicated.
It may sound like I'm an authority on this, but no,
this is a conversation. I love the idea of creating
new traditions, but I also want to know what it
means for the wider population and culture. A lot of
(16:04):
this historical knowledge about our traditions has been lost over
time and erased systemically.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
People didn't really care about the elders and what they
knew in the language. We lost our language tremendously. We
lost our language through assimilation and through If you went
to a boarding school, they beat it out.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Of you, and like quite literally too, not justmitally and mentally,
but physically.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, there are adults my age who are still traumatized
by that experience in the boarding schools, mostly run by
religious organizations.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, for a period of almost one hundred years, US
Native children were forcibly taken from their homes to quote
unquote schools where they were punished for speaking their native
language or showing signs of their culture in any way.
Many were abused physically, sexually, emotionally. Also, many children never
(16:59):
returned home and their fates have yet to be accounted
for by the US government. The idea was to kill
the Indian, save the man.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And it wasn't until I think the nineteen seventies that
my family finally woke up again. Right because the seventies
changed started the sixties. As we went into the seventies,
that was a game changer.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Thank God for this game changing movement. The seventies is
when Indian pride was thriving and when Abby made his
way to Alcatraz. Even though Abby's grandparents planted a seat
inside him by teaching him yacky ways as a young boy.
There were so many factors preventing its growth, but eventually
it bleomed. When you ground yourself in your identity and
(17:42):
really embrace the world you come from culturally, racially, nationally,
your roots can reach deep and help keep you solid
even when the tough moments come. A feeling of home
and a strong sense of identity also become so important
in the face of erasure. When the wider world doesn't
(18:05):
want to see you. It becomes vital to create spaces
to see yourself and look. Identity isn't everything, but I
know for me it has helped to guide how I
see the world and it brought me self worth when
people threatened to make me feel otherwise. And that's what
the Indian Pride movement did for Abby. It was a
(18:28):
homecoming for so many people. When Abby experienced this, he
started thinking about the world in new ways. It encouraged
his path as an activist. That's coming after the break
(18:50):
an hour're back. Abby's trip to Alcatraz and his embrace
of the Indian Pride movement awakened not only a sense
of a warm, reliable home, it also offered a new
understanding of how his people viewed their collective role in
the world.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Our indigenous ways teaches to be a better person than
that it can be. It's a respect that you have
for yourself and other human beings, but also for the
natural world too. Those are the things that reverberate in
my soul all the time. I thought, that's where I
could claim that came from. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
His desire to make the world a better place also
resonated with the values he was raised with. Abby's family
is actually filled with genations of activists, which is what
I found insanely cool and such a privilege to come from.
He actually starts the story with his grandfather, my.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Grandfather, my mom's dad. He already had that sense of revolution.
He was a young man from the Mexican Revolution, and
he was a bugler. And if you know anything about
the war, whether it was a drama or a bugle,
the bugler sounded the decisions. Okay, certain sounds and go
forward or back up or retreat. And so the buglers,
(20:12):
just like in Vietnam, the radio guys for the first people,
they should try to shoot because you cut communication. So
he got shot in the face and came to recuperate
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He moved to Arizona, where he met Abby's grandmother. They
were farm workers, and Abby's grandfather was always trying to
build power with others.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
My grandmother would be carrying one child two in her
cotton sack, and she's picking cotton and she turns around.
And as my grandfather organizing people and talking politics and
philosophical things.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
It was hard to get work though. So the whole
family moved from Arizona to California.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
He was living in a town called Lemon Grove, which
is a part of the city of San Diego. And
in Lemon Grove they were picking lemons for ten cents
an hour. And see he organized the union called Obrerosi
Campesinos nineteen thirty five and they went on strike for
ten cents more an hour, and they won the strike.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Abbi's grandfather used his revolutionary heart to be a part
of the fight for the farm workers, but it wasn't
the only thing he got involved in. While laborers were
fighting for better wages and working conditions, Latinos and Natives
were also fighting against segregation.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
The governor of California at the time was trying to
deal with education. They were building up the public schools,
but they didn't want Mexicans or Indians in their school
or Native people, so he deemed that we were a
federal issue, so we didn't have to go to their school.
So they put all the Mexicans and natives that in
one building and they built a brand new school for
(21:51):
the white kids. And my grandfather sent his kids. He said, no,
you go to the new school.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
The kids his grandfather is talking about are Abby's mom
and her st blings. This is not far from Abbey
or our recent history.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
They turned them around. No, you're not coming to the school.
You're brown. You're brown, your white come in. So they
boycotted the school. They organized a boycott and shut down
the school. And that case when they went to court
in San Diego, my grandmother very had a lot of
pride and she was not embarrassed. But they were poor
and if I if you ever saw pictures of my
(22:26):
uncles when they're in their childhood, they got these rough
looking clothes. She made a lot of their own clothes,
but they had no shoes. So my grandfather went to
court with the attorney that he knew, and he said,
her son's gonna have to go testify how they treated them.
And my grandmother didn't want her kids to go in
court with their clothes that they had. And they knew
(22:48):
a family called the Alvarez family, and the kid had
shoes and a suit. So they put the Alpharez versus
the Board of Education and they went to court and
they won that it was unconstitutional for them to separate
these American citizens from going to school. And when the
Brown versus the Board of Education the National Trial for segregation.
(23:09):
They referenced that case, my grandfather's case into the Brown
Versus Board of Education.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Honestly, I feel a little ashamed that I wasn't taught
these stories early on. I only learned them from conversations
like these, whether it was with my brother, my friend Sophie,
who's a Builo was also involved Abby, and then eventually
the books I picked up, like an African American and
LATINX History of the United States. These moments root me.
(23:40):
This is where we come from, from a tradition that
fought to protect everyone. Knowing these stories can help give
us direction in our moral and societal compass. I'm always
asking myself what do we want to leave behind for
our loved ones and the generations after us. These are
(24:01):
some of the questions at the heart of this podcast.
And I think about the moments and the cases that
led to big, momentous change, and that they were because
of the bravery of everyday people. I especially love hearing
about the Indigenous and LATINX people we don't always learn
the names of who had an incredibly grounded sense of
(24:23):
fighting for what's right. I can't believe how lucky I
am to know and sit down with someone from this
incredible legacy.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
It was a big deal back then. When you're part
of it. It's a story that's handed down and handed
and talked about, but you didn't think it was history
at all, till now we look back and go, oh,
my God, for this thing.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
His parents grew up around that, and so did Abby,
and they all wanted to be a part of making
a better future too.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Having known that history. My dad was in the Union,
my mom was in union, so I grew up around unionism.
So when I was in high school and a guy
came to talk about the Great Boycott, and I said wow,
So I went to go find out more information about
the grape boycott.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
In nineteen sixty five, over eight hundred workers in Delano, California,
took part in the grape strike for better wages and
basic labor rights.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And I went to a meeting and they go, oh,
we're looking for somebody with a station where I got
to take some food to the strikers in Delano. I
thought about it, and I said, I have a station wing,
but I don't think my mom's going to let me
drive it to Delano from San Diego. So they go,
I ask her. So I asked my mom. She said no,
So I went. I was there. They didn't have wherewial
that nobody had a truck or so, I said, literally
(25:38):
in my car and we took off and I took
off to Deleno early one morning, dropped the food off,
came back, and my mom didn't know until she saw
the credit card. I used her mobile credit card for gas.
She wasn't mad. So then right away they weren't mad
at me. They were just like surprise that I was
getting political at such a young age. Mom is a
(26:00):
farm workers that though was a farm worker. I'm just
helping our people.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, I think a lot of us can agree that immigrants,
especially Latin migrants, do a lot of the intense manual
labor in this country. Work that's long hours, severely underpaid,
and often in dangerous conditions. They're often forgotten in our society.
They are labors underappreciated, and the workers themselves are seen
(26:26):
as very passive. Yes, the exploitation of these workers still exists,
but Latinos have done a lot to fight for their rights.
There are many inspiring examples in history where these folks
have taken action to change their circumstances.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And then I went back again with my brother and
we're all in college in our first years of college,
and we went up there to delaye or to check
it out. We ran at Assessor Travis and we're just like,
awe struck.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
If you don't already know him, Cesar Chaois is someone
I'd definitely recommend looking up. He was an incredible Latino
activist and labor leader who co founded the National farm
Workers Association now called United farm Workers. He emphasized non
violent tactics. He was also involved with the Mourriento Istulenti
(27:16):
Chicano the asset Lan, which translates to the Chicano student
movement of Assetlan. It was all about Chicano unity and power.
Abby followed his lead and got more involved with these movements.
He kept turning out to actions in support of farm workers.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
We came back a couple months later for a rally
in the Valley in Coachella and for me, Cochella people, oh,
it's a party place. Now. Coachella was the hub of
where the fight was in some of the first contracts
for the United farm Workers. So it was just a
combination of working people who sacrificed a lot. It was
not easy work. And when we were striking in Coachella
(27:57):
it was one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty degrees
and I can imagine the workers are working in that
we're standing out there. It was killing us.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But they won. The workers in Coachella got a new contract,
and then Abby and other organizers moved on to the
next farm, allowing the movement to ripple across the area.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
The strike moved to Arvin Early Mark, closer to the Leno,
and then we went to Arvin Lamont area and I
got beat up on a picket line. What yeah, there
was at the Giumara vineyards. They came out with sticks
and all that, and they and we're non violent. That it
was the true test of nonviolence in my part because
I was I love to fight it in those days.
(28:38):
I had a flag and I was blocking his He
had a handle from a tool and he kept hitting me,
trying to hit me, and I fell in the ditch.
I said, you're going to prison. He stopped, and when
I got up there was a sheriff sitting there in
his car watching the whole thing. And he was a
famous sheriff dodge, white hair guy with a cowboy hat
and cowboy boots from a current county, and he was
(29:01):
waiting first see who got beat up first, and then
he was going to come up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
It's hard to swallow the fact that so many nonviolent
movements are met with violence. It's such an act of
bravery to show up again and again knowing this. So
many people lost their homes and were blackballed from working
at other farms. But in the end, the workers got
forty big growers to sign a new contract. This was
(29:28):
a huge win.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
When the strike was over, Caesar was asking us, so
what do you want to do, And I said, I
want to work for the union, but I want to
go back and I want to finish college. He says, no,
got to make up your mind. I said, well, Caesar,
I want to stay with the union. He was okay,
but I want to finish college. You got to pick one.
You can't serve two masters, you have to pick one.
I go, oh wow, okay. So then my brother had
(29:54):
already talked to Caesar, so what are you going to do?
And he goes, I'm staying. So I went home and
my brother stayed with the un And that's where he
met Caesar's daughter Anna and then and then they got married.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Not only was Abby present, but he's family with these
labor activist giants. I think a huge takeaway for me
is really understanding this concept of coming home to your
community and your purpose in life. We build community and
home all the time locally. The pride we gain from
these stories can ground us further in what we love
(30:28):
and need to be strong together. Part of this legacy
still carries some erasure, even without meaning to today when
we look back, sometimes we celebrate the Latino community and
forget the fact that this was also a coalition of
Native people, or that a lot of the principles we
use when organizing are rooted in our indigenous traditions and
(30:51):
views of the world. We are indeed interconnected. There's so
many shades of our community and Chicano Native and everything
in between. Well hear the ways that Abbi has worked
to cultivate, preserve, and share Native history with the next generation.
After this break, welcome back to when You're Invisible. Since
(31:21):
that night at Alcatraz, Abbi has been on this lifelong
journey to reconnect with his native roots. Not only has
he undertaken a constant exploration of where he comes from,
but he's also become a steward of this information. He's
learned about indigenous language, food, and history. He participates in
sweat lodges and ceremonies, convenes with Native folks from across
(31:45):
the Americas to exchange ideas and write together, and he
keeps close ties with family. He even teaches traditional environmental
knowledge to kids and educators across the US, integrating math
and science curriculm alongside an appreciation for plants and animals.
Over the years, the Yacky Reservation in Arizona has remained
(32:09):
a home base for him, a place where he can
go to reflect and deepen his knowledge.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I know when I go to Arizona, there's something happens
to me. I went to the church that I used
to go to with my grandmother. It's on the tahonah
Autham Reservation. It's called Santabier the Mission. And as soon
as I went in there, I felt all the generations
of people that have been going there for hundreds of years,
and I started to cry. It was just it just
(32:37):
it was overwhelming, that that sense of remembering it was
good and bad, but it just I started to cry.
I started to feel like, wow, this is It was
just overwhelming, the feeling I got. I've had homes in
California and now I have a home in other states.
It's just a place of mind in my heart that's
still there. So that's what the residts do more than
(32:58):
more of the people know, because at one time, you
can imagine this whole country, there was no fences here,
there was no maps, there was no roads.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
It was just.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Territory that people knew. I go here for winter, I
go here for the spring, I go hunting here. We
grow here. It's the last of the seed that we had.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is a beautiful reminder of what the land we
all live on once was. Abby's experience also reminds me
that we can always be growing and learning, that we
can be the ones who heal or change the trajectory
not just of our own lives, but of the ones
of the generations to come. Do your kids identify as native?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh yeah? Oh yeah. Now they wish we had more
reds connection because I've had a semi connection and they
don't have that at all to work off of.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
What traditions do you guys feel like you carry most gosh.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I think it would be I tell my sound songs.
He goes with me more to advance that I'm aster
go pray or do a land of acknowledgement or an
opening prayer or bless uh. There's a lot of environmental
things that go on here that they ask me to come.
He'll go with me, and since he was a kid,
he's my entourage. He'll hold a when we're Bernie Sage
(34:16):
while I'm talking and he'll keep it lit and I'll
do my prayers and he's there to help. So he's
learned that kind of thing of sharing prayer.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Are you passing on your stories to your kids? Have
you passed them on?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I do every time I try to think, here's another story, Dad,
we know that one five times? Okay, good, un least
you know it. Yeah. So I tried to share those
stories and I share it with my grandkids. They're old
enough now to remember a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We've all rolled our eyes out, our parents, our grandparents before.
But these stories are a form of oral history. With
how much has been lost from previous generations, there's an
added sense of urgency to share and listen. Because Abby
struggled with his identity growing up, he wanted to cultivate
a sense of home for his kids that they would
(35:02):
always be able to access inside themselves.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As I grew older and I became grounded in knowing
who I am. That mean me a stronger person because
of the wealth of knowledge that I've gathered through my
own life and plus what I know from what my
grandparents and my uncles and aunts told us. Yeah, that
makes me understand a little bit more about life in
the history of our people. If you don't know your history,
(35:27):
you're going to be lost.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
When you feel like you don't belong somewhere or anywhere,
it can be isolating. Or if you feel like your
people weren't good people, you can feel like why should
I try? Or I have nothing to be proud of.
But I think stories like Abby's are part of American history,
Chicano history, Native history that anyone can choose to be
(35:50):
proud of. We can be proud of those in our lineage,
familiarly or socially that made things happen, and we can
drust from them no matter what your history is. I
think this is a lesson we can all take away,
and it's never too late. What would you say to
(36:11):
someone who's still going through the process of finding themselves
and grounding themselves.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's not overnight. I think it's important to keep learning
as much as you can about your past, talk to people,
talk to relatives and see what their perspective is on it,
and then make up your own mind who you want
to be because you are who you are.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Do you feel like people have this knowledge? Do you
feel like my generation has this information?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I think this generation there's more of an empathy for
all people, not so much the history of it, and
then once they find out the history of it, it
strengthens their result.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Slowly but surely, though, knowledge is becoming more accessible, and
among Native people it's giving way to a sense of discovery, reclamation,
and homecoming on a whole new scale.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Everybody's going back heavily into their language, so more and
more speakers are happening. My younger brother takes classes and
know what. You can take classes online, you can take
classes in the schools. In Pasquayaki, there's classrooms to get
back the language. Because without the language, you lose who
you are, you lose your culture, and that's the European method.
(37:21):
You take away the language and culture and that's how
you disseminated people.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Like my family has both European and indigenous roots and
thinking about it, Oh, the tongue that we think is
our native tongue, Spanish is not actually our mother tongue.
Like there's a step further and how much that has
been assimulated or taken away.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
That's what happened in the seventies as well. A lot
of the Chicano and Mexican Americans realize that we're indigenous,
our colonizers' language is Spanish, and so a lot of
people went back into the dance, to the foods, to
the language. They sing it in the songs and our
ceremonies when we do sweat lodge, make you us sing
songs that are what So we are trying to get
(38:02):
our culture, our language back.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Growing up, one of the ways I learned about my
culture roots was through food at home or on trips
to Mexico. We'd learn why each part of the country
has its unique cuisine. For instance, there's deep agricultural traditions
of eating venison in the Yucatan or eating steak in Chihuahua.
We also learned about the different mayisas we used and
(38:25):
so much more. When we connect back to our culture
like this, we can also gain something really fundamental and
intuitive in our bodies.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
The foods that we eat, our European style that retavic
and has retavioc with Indigenous people for decades and decades.
A lot of us don't know what we're allergic to
wheat because our indigenous we didn't have that. We had corn,
and we had beans and tomato. You know, we had
our indigenous language, which happens to be gluten free.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
This return to listening to native ways was some thing
Abby's ancestors could only imagine.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
My grandfather talked about that jesuys people don't listen to us.
They listen to us, but not enough. And someday that
will change. And we see that happening now at the
federal level, at the state levels, at local levels, more
and more efforts to communicate and bring all the people
to the table.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Not only are Native folks empowering themselves with knowledge, they're
trying to share it with the world. Native people have
an understanding and a sense of home on the planet,
but I think many people lack today after so many
centuries of erasure and oppression. I think more people are
starting to look towards Indigenous folks for ways to cope
(39:38):
with issues like capitalism and climate change.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
It's sad, and it's also happy that we're still here, though.
See everything the government designed was to eliminate us, but
we're still here. It's twenty twenty four and we're still
here and resilient as ever.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Ever since I met Abby almost ten years ago, he's
always seen. I'm so sure of what he believes and
who he is, and that was reinforced by what I
learned when I interviewed him. But in having this longer conversation,
I also understood that, of course there are still times
where he feels dismissed or unseen. It's part of the
(40:18):
reason he cultivates such result. When do you feel invisible?
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I feel invisible in this community many times, because I
think people are very judgmental. In the community I live in,
it's very I think it's not in ninety percent white,
And so when I go places and do things, if
I'm standing someplace and people walk through me, I have
to I remind I'm standing here. Yeah, oh I didn't
(40:44):
see you. So I have to remind people I'm standing here,
and now if you're in a suit, people will not
bother you that way if you're dressed casual. I feel
invisible at time. I have to go out of my
way to where I had do something. So I feel
invisible times in this community that I live in, but
not everywhere I go. I'm out a visits.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Abby has taught me about being open to and aware
of the world around us, and it's an unpleasant truth
that as much as you work at that, it won't
always be reciprocated. But he's never been one to wait
around for external validation. His energy is better spent and
reciprocated when he creates meaningful bonds and community.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Here in Maryland, there's one tribe left, but there's because
it's DC. I've met people from twenty different tribes here
right because DC brings people to work here in the governments.
So we have a vibrant community and it's in pockets everywhere,
but it's functioning and even bringing in the Native Indigenous
(41:47):
people from South America. We have a loose group called
the Blended Water and it represents artists want to be writers,
aspiring actors, playwrights, and we get together every couple of
months and we read each other's place, and we give
talkbacks and stuff, and we have pot lucks, we'll have
some prayer. Sometimes there's a sweat, So we're trying to
(42:10):
incorporate and keep the Native community strong and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
These gatherings are fulfilling on a personal level, a communal level,
but also professionally. Meeting like this with other writers and
actors inspires his own work as an artist. His work
often centers around Indigenous stories and experiences. When do you
feel most seen.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
When I have the stage, when I have the mic,
I think being able to have something to say and
so people are focused on you. And it's not an
ego thing. I don't need that to survive. But I
feel most listened to when I'm on a stage, whether
I'm singing or acting or talking.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Aby and I relate on this point. I mean the
stage is where we first got to know each other.
We both found theater to be a beautiful way to
create connection and visibility, the space where we can breathe
together and where people can be seen in their full selves.
Of course, there are different ways to cultivate that feeling
(43:10):
and wherever you find it, then creating a space for
others to feel full and seen is an honor and
one of the most beautiful and important parts of our
human experience. What's something that you think would make the
world a better place that you would like to share
with us.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I think we're in a hurry. If we just slow
down and think it out, maybe we won't be so
impetuous with each other. I think being cognizant of other
people's feelings, other people's thinking, we all don't think the same.
We have to also give space for that, those communication
gaps that we have. And I think sharing our humanity
(43:52):
with each other and being human with each other, we're
not enemies when we look at it. The same thing
we breathe air, we need food, we need water. We
all need the same things that live. What is it
that we can't agree on?
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Abby is a fountain of information, and despite the immense
knowledge and experience he carries with him, something I noticed
is that he's never judgmental, and he never acts like
he's bubby when you talk to him, and as you're learning,
he's always willing to share and be curious, and he
has this gentle disposition to correct me when my own
(44:24):
bias shows. For instance, at one point I was asking
him about Yaki history, and I said, can you tell
me about how they were? And he said, you mean
are we are here? And I was looking right at
him and had not acknowledged them. It's heartbreaking to feel
(44:45):
how invisibilizing people can be so ingrained, even when they're
your own people. One of the first steps of resistance
is working through the micro ways we hurt ourselves and
each other. I think of how resistance and resilience exist
in the acts we choose every day, whether it's to research,
(45:08):
to say a prayer asking permission from the earth, to
take something really seeing the people around us. There are
so many ways to be present and to be actively connected.
So many of us feel lost, especially in a seemingly
ever tumultuous time, and Abbi's story is an example of
how we can move through our lives with grace and curiosity.
(45:31):
Abbi has taught me how coming home to ourselves, our history,
and our sense of connection and community can really help
root our lives in a sense of purpose, action, and kindness.
Next week, we'll be listening to young Latina in New
York City who feels like she has a lot to
(45:54):
give the world, but hasn't always been seen.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
The hardest thing for me was for people to understand
that I want to grow and they don't give you
the opportunity to grow or to show what you're truly
capable of, because they set such limitations to you.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yahira was a team mom who has been underestimated time
and time again. But whether at school, at home, or
today at work in the service industry, she's determined to
prove how far her skill and ambition can take her.
Thank you so much for listening to When You're Invisible.
(46:33):
Please leave us a rating and a review to let
us know what you think. You can find this episode
and future ones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. When You're Invisible is a
production of iHeart Podcasts and my Pudura podcast Network. I'm
your creator and host Maria Fernanda Viev. Our story editor
(46:54):
is Dylan Hoyer. This season was produced by ME with
additional production from Dylan. Sound designed by Dylan Hoyer with
additional support from ME. Mixing and mastering by Laurence Stuff.
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. Our executive producers are
Anna Stump, Antisell Bante and special thanks to our Lean
(47:15):
Santana
I think it's important for people to know their roots
and to know the roots of others. It helps us
to know aboudy each other.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to when You're Invisible. My name is Maria Fernandavis,
but I know not everyone can roll there are, so
it's also fine to call me Maria. When You're Invisible
is my love letter to the working class and others
who are seemingly invisible in our society. I hope to
build a community here that will inspire you to have
generous conversations with others that are different from you, conversations
(00:31):
that might help you see life in an entirely different way.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I had just never heard of Alcatraz, so I
started looking into it, and that's when the takeover was
going on, so I went up there. It was the
winter of nineteen seventy. I ended up going to Alcatraz
Island for a night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
WHOA, this is Abby and yes he's talking about that.
Alcatraz the infamous jail and cal The jail closed in
nineteen sixty three, and Alcatraz Island was essentially just sitting
there abandoned.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Alcatraz had been closed down for a number of years
and was taken over by the American Indian Movement.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The Indian Pride movement was born in the summer of
nineteen sixty eight. It actually began in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Go Minnesota, Hey,
what's up? The Native American community activists came together to
fight back against a history of genocide and to change
the present where they were facing ongoing discrimination and issues
(01:36):
like high unemployment, slum housing, and racist treatment. Activists fought
for treaty rights, the reclamation of tribal land, and advocated
for Native folks in cities dealing with poverty.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The American Indian Movement they took it over in Alcatraz
under a federal law that said any surplus US federal
lands that are not being used shall be turned over
to Native people in the United States, and the Indians
took it over as a bargaining ship for better services,
better healthcare, better education.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Abby is an Indigenous Chicano Well Plascala Yaki.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Our greeting is leos and chia maniawo get you malayas
That means the Creator be with you and have a
great day.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
He was in college when he took part in this
historic act of resistance with dozens of fellow Indigenous people.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I met Floyd Westerman. Everybody knew him as Red Crow,
who was a singer, and he came and sang at
my college.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Red Crow was a Sissiton, Dakota musician and actor. He
was a vocal advocate for Native American rights and was
involved in numerous protests.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Me and another friend introduce ourselves, and he told me
that you got to go to Alcatraz. That's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And that's how Abby ended up on Alcatraz one cold
winter night.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
At that moment in time, I felt bad that I
didn't know more of my culture because everybody seems so
at ease with their own.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It was the first time he and many others had
experienced anything like this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They had some music that night, some prayers. So I
came back with all these stories, meeting all these tribal
people from all over the country, and it just blew
open my mind. My Indian pride came back really strong
from there on ago. This is where it's happening. We're Native. Yeah,
I had come home.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I love how he says that that he had come home.
The ideas of homecoming and home building shined through my
entire interview with Abby In this particular moment, Abby comes
home to himself, especially in his identity as a native person.
Finding a home for yourself in community isn't something that
happens overnight. Abbie's story reminds me that this takes time,
(03:54):
yet it is possible. It's one of the reasons I
wanted to talk to him in the first place. Understanding
yourself and accepting things you know and don't know will
lead you to a sense of ease and awareness. And
it's not a point to be reached, but a constant exploration.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
When I look at the world now, I see it
from all my experiences, and I'm thinking, do I give
this information too. I'm in a real retrospective kind of
place looking back and I see the things that I've done.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What's the biggest or favorite thing that you've passed along?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I think the biggest thing I've passed along is awareness
for your immediate surroundings. We've been ignoring ourselves, our own environment,
but also the people that live in those environments that
are not like us. Yeah, how do I become a
good human being and also be good to the natural world?
What's my relationship? That's awareness?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
When we know who we are we can better understand
that the world around us and how we relate to others.
This is a nugget I've taken away from many conversations
with Abby.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Is my destiny to be here today, even to be
with you today, is my destiny to share some of
the stories that I've had with you, share my knowledge,
to share my stories.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I've been lucky to be on the receiving end of
Abby's wisdom for a while. I met him for the
first time when I was a recent grad freshly part
of the New York theater world. Since then, we've done
a couple plays together, including one where it was a
cast of two just us. We became friends, and despite
our more than forty year age difference, we've stayed in touch.
(05:37):
Abby is now in his seventies. He lives in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland,
and he has four kids, seven grandkids, and one great grandkid.
He's done a lot of incredible work in his life.
I mean some crazy incredible things. He's been a newscaster,
a firefighter, a professional musician, and he's worked for the
(05:57):
government for a long time. He acts and writes plays.
He also works with youth and indigenous youth, in particular
to teach them traditional environmental knowledge. What do you feel
like is at the core of everything you do.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But it's always working with people that make me to change.
So all the things that I've done, I've been in
a position to help make that direction happen and the changes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I think of Abby's visit to Alcatraz as an awakening
in his life. It was the impetus for the activism
he went on to do, the adventures he's been on,
and the wisdom he's gathered and shared with his family
and his community. For Abby, it all started by rooting
himself in his family history and his indigenous identity. That's
(06:44):
where we are going to start to where are your
parents from?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Mom and dad both born in San Diego and their
parents are from Mexico.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What parts of Mexico?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
My grandmother, my dad's mom was born in Wuinawato Gebardi.
I have family. Thought, Oh wow, yeah, so that's my
dad's side, and then my mom was up in Yaqui
land in Sona.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's incredible. Wait, so are you Yaqui on both sides?
Just my mom's side, just your mom's side.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Abby's grandparents are all from Mexico, but his mother's side
is indigenous. They're part of the Yaqui tribe. Indigenous people
in the Americas occupied the land for at least twenty
thousand years before settlers arrived. For the Yaqui and many
other tribes, it was the arrival of the Spanish that
(07:35):
altered their way of life and threatened their survival.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
We saw the Spanish come in the fifteen hundreds, and
that's when it started. By the sixteen hundreds that they
were being colonized. By the seventeen hundreds of the religious side,
I think the Jesuits, I said die or be baptized,
and so they took baptism, but they kept their language.
(07:59):
And then the eighteen hundreds the Franciscans, who were a
little bit more meaner, and so they said you will
stop doing this, you will stop doing that. But they
managed to keep some of the Yaki traditions, spiritual traditions
and webbed inside the Catholic mass it's the only tribe
where indigenous spiritual activities are still part of the Catholic tradition.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The Pascwa dancers, they're a very sacred group of men
who trained from youngsters outer dance and the interpretations of
the dance is what it means. That's still part of
the Catholic tradition down in many of the Yachi churches. Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
The Yaki are known as the only unconquered Indians in America.
Resistance runs deep in their history.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They never sent a contract or a peace treaty with
the Mexican government, and to this day they're still fighting
the Mexican government.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
The effects of colonialism and poverty have, of course taken
a great toll. It's one of the reasons that in
the early nineteen hundreds many Yaki people decided to emigrate
the southwest of the US, and Arizona in particular became
a new home for the Yaki. And this was true
of Abby's family.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I am originally born and raised in San Diego, California,
and my family is from southern Tucson, Arizona. As a child,
I went back and forth to both places. So I
feel like Arizona is also home because it's a different
environment from San Diego. But that's where everybody moved. I
think during the depression they moved that way.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Those living in the States drew on their history of
resistance and actually became an important political force. Over the
course of decades, they rallied to have their presence recognized
by the American government with a reservation. Eventually, the Yaki
nation was established in Arizona in nineteen seventy eight. By
(09:55):
the late twentieth century, the Yaki numbered about twenty five
thousand in Mexico and three to five thousand in the US.
While he wasn't raised on the res Abby had relatives
who were, and he fostered a close relationship with his grandparents,
who imparted Yaki teachings.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I wish I could remember more stories from my grandparents.
They were always talking to My grandfather spoke a lot
and what I went out once in the County of
San Diego and he was gathering. He was Atkurandero, So
I mean he was a cure cured people, and he
used a lot of herbs and stuff that he found
and he knew where to go get them. And I
(10:35):
know now that when you gather medicine from the earth,
you give thanks, and so you have to pray before
you take it, and you don't take it all. You
take what you need. So he was actually saying his
prayers and talking and telling me that he was doing
what he's doing. I didn't understand what he was doing.
I was too young, So I watched him do that once,
go out and get some herbs by a creek, and
(10:56):
then I found out later on. It was called yedbade mansu.
It's a plant that has spectacular healing powers it and
my mom used it, my grandmother used it. I used
to use it with my kids, and my daughter grew up, she's, dad,
do you have any of that voodoo plant? And I said,
go to antialysis house. She has it in the backyard
and tell her you want something. Yet it by that wants.
(11:17):
He just boiled it and it heals cuts, wounds internal external.
My favorite time was being out with my grandparents, just
out in the natural world. I loved it. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
While he's always cherished his indigenous roots, his identity was
also from As the child of immigrants. He was not
only balancing his indigenous identity with his Mexican identity, but
he was also navigating his American one. When your identities
are at odds or in question, there's this feeling of
(11:49):
being in constant ebb and flow. You can feel ungrounded
at times. I know this from personal experience. Home becomes
something you yearn for, a sense of understanding or belonging physically, socially,
and internally.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Early on, my parents identified us as Mexican Americans, and
then my grandparents taught us our Indian ways, or taught me. Yeah,
for sure. It was interesting because I've always had this
duality in my mind. So when people ask you what
you were, they automatically said, oh, you're a Mexican. I
said no, I'm not, and so they yes, you are,
(12:27):
and I said no, I'm not. I was just a kid.
So then to stop the fighting and bickering about who
I was, I would say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
While you may see yourself as one thing, you are
very much influenced by your family and society. The outside
world's oppression and perception can jeopardize your safety and your dignity.
This affects people individually, but can also harm a whole population,
leading to widespread erasure and invisibility assimilation.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
In the fifties, in San Diego it was still a
very kind of a backward town, and so if you
are Indian, you were treated worse than a dog. If
you're Mexican, not so bad, but still treated poorly. So
you tried to say, oh, no, no, no, y'all from
here we were, but people automatically assumed that you're from Mexico.
And then we'd go to Mexico across the border and
(13:19):
they would call us Boschos because we were from California. Yeah,
so we couldn't take. We couldn't win.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There's no winning on both sides. Coming to terms with
who you are in your full history and heritage at
times comes with creating new terms in order to create
your own agency and space.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So when I heard the word Chicano and I asked
about it, my dad goes, that's who we are, and
so then I took Chicano because it's something that we
made up that has some historical documentation to it. So
I grew up as a Chicano, knowing my Indian roots
right in my Indian side, very strongly identified with that
from a very young age.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I identify as Chicana to lots of Mexican Americans do,
but not all. For a lot of us, it means
the owning of this complex identity of accepting our mestizo
or mixed roots and also our americanness. Chicano culture has
taken on a life of its own. Oftentimes, the chicano
(14:19):
esthetic is the long nails, the winged eyeliner, the cool,
chunky jewelry, baggy clothes, and low rider culture and look
this identity looks like and means different things depending on
where you are and who you are. It's awesome that
it also has such a distinct and unique boy because
there's so much pride that people take in it. But today,
(14:42):
when you see Chicano's portrayed, you will often learn about
these front facing parts of the culture, and you don't
hear as much about the origins of the term and
its connection to indigenous identity. Abby loved this word because
it drew on its roots. But even though most Mexican
people are part indigenous, not everyone connects to that side
(15:02):
of them. You know, in my own family, we've been
slow to acknowledge that and to learn what our indigenous
Mexican lineage is. When I do see Mexican indigenous practices
make it into the mainstream, maybe it's using stage or bruchadia,
it's great, but it can also feel generalized. I love
(15:22):
that people want to claim this, but it can feel
one size fits all, rather than being rooted in specific histories,
traditions or tribes, and I find myself craving that information. Miyah,
it's no one's faults. I'm talking about this because I'm
wondering for myself, how do I want to move forward
(15:43):
with my identity and my practice. It's layered and complicated.
It may sound like I'm an authority on this, but no,
this is a conversation. I love the idea of creating
new traditions, but I also want to know what it
means for the wider population and culture. A lot of
(16:04):
this historical knowledge about our traditions has been lost over
time and erased systemically.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
People didn't really care about the elders and what they
knew in the language. We lost our language tremendously. We
lost our language through assimilation and through If you went
to a boarding school, they beat it out.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Of you, and like quite literally too, not justmitally and mentally,
but physically.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, there are adults my age who are still traumatized
by that experience in the boarding schools, mostly run by
religious organizations.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, for a period of almost one hundred years, US
Native children were forcibly taken from their homes to quote
unquote schools where they were punished for speaking their native
language or showing signs of their culture in any way.
Many were abused physically, sexually, emotionally. Also, many children never
(16:59):
returned home and their fates have yet to be accounted
for by the US government. The idea was to kill
the Indian, save the man.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And it wasn't until I think the nineteen seventies that
my family finally woke up again. Right because the seventies
changed started the sixties. As we went into the seventies,
that was a game changer.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Thank God for this game changing movement. The seventies is
when Indian pride was thriving and when Abby made his
way to Alcatraz. Even though Abby's grandparents planted a seat
inside him by teaching him yacky ways as a young boy.
There were so many factors preventing its growth, but eventually
it bleomed. When you ground yourself in your identity and
(17:42):
really embrace the world you come from culturally, racially, nationally,
your roots can reach deep and help keep you solid
even when the tough moments come. A feeling of home
and a strong sense of identity also become so important
in the face of erasure. When the wider world doesn't
(18:05):
want to see you. It becomes vital to create spaces
to see yourself and look. Identity isn't everything, but I
know for me it has helped to guide how I
see the world and it brought me self worth when
people threatened to make me feel otherwise. And that's what
the Indian Pride movement did for Abby. It was a
(18:28):
homecoming for so many people. When Abby experienced this, he
started thinking about the world in new ways. It encouraged
his path as an activist. That's coming after the break
(18:50):
an hour're back. Abby's trip to Alcatraz and his embrace
of the Indian Pride movement awakened not only a sense
of a warm, reliable home, it also offered a new
understanding of how his people viewed their collective role in
the world.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Our indigenous ways teaches to be a better person than
that it can be. It's a respect that you have
for yourself and other human beings, but also for the
natural world too. Those are the things that reverberate in
my soul all the time. I thought, that's where I
could claim that came from. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
His desire to make the world a better place also
resonated with the values he was raised with. Abby's family
is actually filled with genations of activists, which is what
I found insanely cool and such a privilege to come from.
He actually starts the story with his grandfather, my.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Grandfather, my mom's dad. He already had that sense of revolution.
He was a young man from the Mexican Revolution, and
he was a bugler. And if you know anything about
the war, whether it was a drama or a bugle,
the bugler sounded the decisions. Okay, certain sounds and go
forward or back up or retreat. And so the buglers,
(20:12):
just like in Vietnam, the radio guys for the first people,
they should try to shoot because you cut communication. So
he got shot in the face and came to recuperate
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He moved to Arizona, where he met Abby's grandmother. They
were farm workers, and Abby's grandfather was always trying to
build power with others.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
My grandmother would be carrying one child two in her
cotton sack, and she's picking cotton and she turns around.
And as my grandfather organizing people and talking politics and
philosophical things.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
It was hard to get work though. So the whole
family moved from Arizona to California.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
He was living in a town called Lemon Grove, which
is a part of the city of San Diego. And
in Lemon Grove they were picking lemons for ten cents
an hour. And see he organized the union called Obrerosi
Campesinos nineteen thirty five and they went on strike for
ten cents more an hour, and they won the strike.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Abbi's grandfather used his revolutionary heart to be a part
of the fight for the farm workers, but it wasn't
the only thing he got involved in. While laborers were
fighting for better wages and working conditions, Latinos and Natives
were also fighting against segregation.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
The governor of California at the time was trying to
deal with education. They were building up the public schools,
but they didn't want Mexicans or Indians in their school
or Native people, so he deemed that we were a
federal issue, so we didn't have to go to their school.
So they put all the Mexicans and natives that in
one building and they built a brand new school for
(21:51):
the white kids. And my grandfather sent his kids. He said, no,
you go to the new school.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
The kids his grandfather is talking about are Abby's mom
and her st blings. This is not far from Abbey
or our recent history.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
They turned them around. No, you're not coming to the school.
You're brown. You're brown, your white come in. So they
boycotted the school. They organized a boycott and shut down
the school. And that case when they went to court
in San Diego, my grandmother very had a lot of
pride and she was not embarrassed. But they were poor
and if I if you ever saw pictures of my
(22:26):
uncles when they're in their childhood, they got these rough
looking clothes. She made a lot of their own clothes,
but they had no shoes. So my grandfather went to
court with the attorney that he knew, and he said,
her son's gonna have to go testify how they treated them.
And my grandmother didn't want her kids to go in
court with their clothes that they had. And they knew
(22:48):
a family called the Alvarez family, and the kid had
shoes and a suit. So they put the Alpharez versus
the Board of Education and they went to court and
they won that it was unconstitutional for them to separate
these American citizens from going to school. And when the
Brown versus the Board of Education the National Trial for segregation.
(23:09):
They referenced that case, my grandfather's case into the Brown
Versus Board of Education.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Honestly, I feel a little ashamed that I wasn't taught
these stories early on. I only learned them from conversations
like these, whether it was with my brother, my friend Sophie,
who's a Builo was also involved Abby, and then eventually
the books I picked up, like an African American and
LATINX History of the United States. These moments root me.
(23:40):
This is where we come from, from a tradition that
fought to protect everyone. Knowing these stories can help give
us direction in our moral and societal compass. I'm always
asking myself what do we want to leave behind for
our loved ones and the generations after us. These are
(24:01):
some of the questions at the heart of this podcast.
And I think about the moments and the cases that
led to big, momentous change, and that they were because
of the bravery of everyday people. I especially love hearing
about the Indigenous and LATINX people we don't always learn
the names of who had an incredibly grounded sense of
(24:23):
fighting for what's right. I can't believe how lucky I
am to know and sit down with someone from this
incredible legacy.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
It was a big deal back then. When you're part
of it. It's a story that's handed down and handed
and talked about, but you didn't think it was history
at all, till now we look back and go, oh,
my God, for this thing.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
His parents grew up around that, and so did Abby,
and they all wanted to be a part of making
a better future too.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Having known that history. My dad was in the Union,
my mom was in union, so I grew up around unionism.
So when I was in high school and a guy
came to talk about the Great Boycott, and I said wow,
So I went to go find out more information about
the grape boycott.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
In nineteen sixty five, over eight hundred workers in Delano, California,
took part in the grape strike for better wages and
basic labor rights.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And I went to a meeting and they go, oh,
we're looking for somebody with a station where I got
to take some food to the strikers in Delano. I
thought about it, and I said, I have a station wing,
but I don't think my mom's going to let me
drive it to Delano from San Diego. So they go,
I ask her. So I asked my mom. She said no,
So I went. I was there. They didn't have wherewial
that nobody had a truck or so, I said, literally
(25:38):
in my car and we took off and I took
off to Deleno early one morning, dropped the food off,
came back, and my mom didn't know until she saw
the credit card. I used her mobile credit card for gas.
She wasn't mad. So then right away they weren't mad
at me. They were just like surprise that I was
getting political at such a young age. Mom is a
(26:00):
farm workers that though was a farm worker. I'm just
helping our people.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, I think a lot of us can agree that immigrants,
especially Latin migrants, do a lot of the intense manual
labor in this country. Work that's long hours, severely underpaid,
and often in dangerous conditions. They're often forgotten in our society.
They are labors underappreciated, and the workers themselves are seen
(26:26):
as very passive. Yes, the exploitation of these workers still exists,
but Latinos have done a lot to fight for their rights.
There are many inspiring examples in history where these folks
have taken action to change their circumstances.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And then I went back again with my brother and
we're all in college in our first years of college,
and we went up there to delaye or to check
it out. We ran at Assessor Travis and we're just like,
awe struck.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
If you don't already know him, Cesar Chaois is someone
I'd definitely recommend looking up. He was an incredible Latino
activist and labor leader who co founded the National farm
Workers Association now called United farm Workers. He emphasized non
violent tactics. He was also involved with the Mourriento Istulenti
(27:16):
Chicano the asset Lan, which translates to the Chicano student
movement of Assetlan. It was all about Chicano unity and power.
Abby followed his lead and got more involved with these movements.
He kept turning out to actions in support of farm workers.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
We came back a couple months later for a rally
in the Valley in Coachella and for me, Cochella people, oh,
it's a party place. Now. Coachella was the hub of
where the fight was in some of the first contracts
for the United farm Workers. So it was just a
combination of working people who sacrificed a lot. It was
not easy work. And when we were striking in Coachella
(27:57):
it was one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty degrees
and I can imagine the workers are working in that
we're standing out there. It was killing us.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But they won. The workers in Coachella got a new contract,
and then Abby and other organizers moved on to the
next farm, allowing the movement to ripple across the area.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
The strike moved to Arvin Early Mark, closer to the Leno,
and then we went to Arvin Lamont area and I
got beat up on a picket line. What yeah, there
was at the Giumara vineyards. They came out with sticks
and all that, and they and we're non violent. That it
was the true test of nonviolence in my part because
I was I love to fight it in those days.
(28:38):
I had a flag and I was blocking his He
had a handle from a tool and he kept hitting me,
trying to hit me, and I fell in the ditch.
I said, you're going to prison. He stopped, and when
I got up there was a sheriff sitting there in
his car watching the whole thing. And he was a
famous sheriff dodge, white hair guy with a cowboy hat
and cowboy boots from a current county, and he was
(29:01):
waiting first see who got beat up first, and then
he was going to come up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
It's hard to swallow the fact that so many nonviolent
movements are met with violence. It's such an act of
bravery to show up again and again knowing this. So
many people lost their homes and were blackballed from working
at other farms. But in the end, the workers got
forty big growers to sign a new contract. This was
(29:28):
a huge win.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
When the strike was over, Caesar was asking us, so
what do you want to do, And I said, I
want to work for the union, but I want to
go back and I want to finish college. He says, no,
got to make up your mind. I said, well, Caesar,
I want to stay with the union. He was okay,
but I want to finish college. You got to pick one.
You can't serve two masters, you have to pick one.
I go, oh wow, okay. So then my brother had
(29:54):
already talked to Caesar, so what are you going to do?
And he goes, I'm staying. So I went home and
my brother stayed with the un And that's where he
met Caesar's daughter Anna and then and then they got married.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Not only was Abby present, but he's family with these
labor activist giants. I think a huge takeaway for me
is really understanding this concept of coming home to your
community and your purpose in life. We build community and
home all the time locally. The pride we gain from
these stories can ground us further in what we love
(30:28):
and need to be strong together. Part of this legacy
still carries some erasure, even without meaning to today when
we look back, sometimes we celebrate the Latino community and
forget the fact that this was also a coalition of
Native people, or that a lot of the principles we
use when organizing are rooted in our indigenous traditions and
(30:51):
views of the world. We are indeed interconnected. There's so
many shades of our community and Chicano Native and everything
in between. Well hear the ways that Abbi has worked
to cultivate, preserve, and share Native history with the next generation.
After this break, welcome back to when You're Invisible. Since
(31:21):
that night at Alcatraz, Abbi has been on this lifelong
journey to reconnect with his native roots. Not only has
he undertaken a constant exploration of where he comes from,
but he's also become a steward of this information. He's
learned about indigenous language, food, and history. He participates in
sweat lodges and ceremonies, convenes with Native folks from across
(31:45):
the Americas to exchange ideas and write together, and he
keeps close ties with family. He even teaches traditional environmental
knowledge to kids and educators across the US, integrating math
and science curriculm alongside an appreciation for plants and animals.
Over the years, the Yacky Reservation in Arizona has remained
(32:09):
a home base for him, a place where he can
go to reflect and deepen his knowledge.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I know when I go to Arizona, there's something happens
to me. I went to the church that I used
to go to with my grandmother. It's on the tahonah
Autham Reservation. It's called Santabier the Mission. And as soon
as I went in there, I felt all the generations
of people that have been going there for hundreds of years,
and I started to cry. It was just it just
(32:37):
it was overwhelming, that that sense of remembering it was
good and bad, but it just I started to cry.
I started to feel like, wow, this is It was
just overwhelming, the feeling I got. I've had homes in
California and now I have a home in other states.
It's just a place of mind in my heart that's
still there. So that's what the residts do more than
(32:58):
more of the people know, because at one time, you
can imagine this whole country, there was no fences here,
there was no maps, there was no roads.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
It was just.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Territory that people knew. I go here for winter, I
go here for the spring, I go hunting here. We
grow here. It's the last of the seed that we had.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is a beautiful reminder of what the land we
all live on once was. Abby's experience also reminds me
that we can always be growing and learning, that we
can be the ones who heal or change the trajectory
not just of our own lives, but of the ones
of the generations to come. Do your kids identify as native?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh yeah? Oh yeah. Now they wish we had more
reds connection because I've had a semi connection and they
don't have that at all to work off of.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
What traditions do you guys feel like you carry most gosh.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I think it would be I tell my sound songs.
He goes with me more to advance that I'm aster
go pray or do a land of acknowledgement or an
opening prayer or bless uh. There's a lot of environmental
things that go on here that they ask me to come.
He'll go with me, and since he was a kid,
he's my entourage. He'll hold a when we're Bernie Sage
(34:16):
while I'm talking and he'll keep it lit and I'll
do my prayers and he's there to help. So he's
learned that kind of thing of sharing prayer.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Are you passing on your stories to your kids? Have
you passed them on?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I do every time I try to think, here's another story, Dad,
we know that one five times? Okay, good, un least
you know it. Yeah. So I tried to share those
stories and I share it with my grandkids. They're old
enough now to remember a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We've all rolled our eyes out, our parents, our grandparents before.
But these stories are a form of oral history. With
how much has been lost from previous generations, there's an
added sense of urgency to share and listen. Because Abby
struggled with his identity growing up, he wanted to cultivate
a sense of home for his kids that they would
(35:02):
always be able to access inside themselves.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As I grew older and I became grounded in knowing
who I am. That mean me a stronger person because
of the wealth of knowledge that I've gathered through my
own life and plus what I know from what my
grandparents and my uncles and aunts told us. Yeah, that
makes me understand a little bit more about life in
the history of our people. If you don't know your history,
(35:27):
you're going to be lost.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
When you feel like you don't belong somewhere or anywhere,
it can be isolating. Or if you feel like your
people weren't good people, you can feel like why should
I try? Or I have nothing to be proud of.
But I think stories like Abby's are part of American history,
Chicano history, Native history that anyone can choose to be
(35:50):
proud of. We can be proud of those in our lineage,
familiarly or socially that made things happen, and we can
drust from them no matter what your history is. I
think this is a lesson we can all take away,
and it's never too late. What would you say to
(36:11):
someone who's still going through the process of finding themselves
and grounding themselves.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's not overnight. I think it's important to keep learning
as much as you can about your past, talk to people,
talk to relatives and see what their perspective is on it,
and then make up your own mind who you want
to be because you are who you are.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Do you feel like people have this knowledge? Do you
feel like my generation has this information?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I think this generation there's more of an empathy for
all people, not so much the history of it, and
then once they find out the history of it, it
strengthens their result.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Slowly but surely, though, knowledge is becoming more accessible, and
among Native people it's giving way to a sense of discovery, reclamation,
and homecoming on a whole new scale.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Everybody's going back heavily into their language, so more and
more speakers are happening. My younger brother takes classes and
know what. You can take classes online, you can take
classes in the schools. In Pasquayaki, there's classrooms to get
back the language. Because without the language, you lose who
you are, you lose your culture, and that's the European method.
(37:21):
You take away the language and culture and that's how
you disseminated people.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Like my family has both European and indigenous roots and
thinking about it, Oh, the tongue that we think is
our native tongue, Spanish is not actually our mother tongue.
Like there's a step further and how much that has
been assimulated or taken away.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
That's what happened in the seventies as well. A lot
of the Chicano and Mexican Americans realize that we're indigenous,
our colonizers' language is Spanish, and so a lot of
people went back into the dance, to the foods, to
the language. They sing it in the songs and our
ceremonies when we do sweat lodge, make you us sing
songs that are what So we are trying to get
(38:02):
our culture, our language back.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Growing up, one of the ways I learned about my
culture roots was through food at home or on trips
to Mexico. We'd learn why each part of the country
has its unique cuisine. For instance, there's deep agricultural traditions
of eating venison in the Yucatan or eating steak in Chihuahua.
We also learned about the different mayisas we used and
(38:25):
so much more. When we connect back to our culture
like this, we can also gain something really fundamental and
intuitive in our bodies.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
The foods that we eat, our European style that retavic
and has retavioc with Indigenous people for decades and decades.
A lot of us don't know what we're allergic to
wheat because our indigenous we didn't have that. We had corn,
and we had beans and tomato. You know, we had
our indigenous language, which happens to be gluten free.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
This return to listening to native ways was some thing
Abby's ancestors could only imagine.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
My grandfather talked about that jesuys people don't listen to us.
They listen to us, but not enough. And someday that
will change. And we see that happening now at the
federal level, at the state levels, at local levels, more
and more efforts to communicate and bring all the people
to the table.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Not only are Native folks empowering themselves with knowledge, they're
trying to share it with the world. Native people have
an understanding and a sense of home on the planet,
but I think many people lack today after so many
centuries of erasure and oppression. I think more people are
starting to look towards Indigenous folks for ways to cope
(39:38):
with issues like capitalism and climate change.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
It's sad, and it's also happy that we're still here, though.
See everything the government designed was to eliminate us, but
we're still here. It's twenty twenty four and we're still
here and resilient as ever.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Ever since I met Abby almost ten years ago, he's
always seen. I'm so sure of what he believes and
who he is, and that was reinforced by what I
learned when I interviewed him. But in having this longer conversation,
I also understood that, of course there are still times
where he feels dismissed or unseen. It's part of the
(40:18):
reason he cultivates such result. When do you feel invisible?
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I feel invisible in this community many times, because I
think people are very judgmental. In the community I live in,
it's very I think it's not in ninety percent white,
And so when I go places and do things, if
I'm standing someplace and people walk through me, I have
to I remind I'm standing here. Yeah, oh I didn't
(40:44):
see you. So I have to remind people I'm standing here,
and now if you're in a suit, people will not
bother you that way if you're dressed casual. I feel
invisible at time. I have to go out of my
way to where I had do something. So I feel
invisible times in this community that I live in, but
not everywhere I go. I'm out a visits.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Abby has taught me about being open to and aware
of the world around us, and it's an unpleasant truth
that as much as you work at that, it won't
always be reciprocated. But he's never been one to wait
around for external validation. His energy is better spent and
reciprocated when he creates meaningful bonds and community.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Here in Maryland, there's one tribe left, but there's because
it's DC. I've met people from twenty different tribes here
right because DC brings people to work here in the governments.
So we have a vibrant community and it's in pockets everywhere,
but it's functioning and even bringing in the Native Indigenous
(41:47):
people from South America. We have a loose group called
the Blended Water and it represents artists want to be writers,
aspiring actors, playwrights, and we get together every couple of
months and we read each other's place, and we give
talkbacks and stuff, and we have pot lucks, we'll have
some prayer. Sometimes there's a sweat, So we're trying to
(42:10):
incorporate and keep the Native community strong and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
These gatherings are fulfilling on a personal level, a communal level,
but also professionally. Meeting like this with other writers and
actors inspires his own work as an artist. His work
often centers around Indigenous stories and experiences. When do you
feel most seen.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
When I have the stage, when I have the mic,
I think being able to have something to say and
so people are focused on you. And it's not an
ego thing. I don't need that to survive. But I
feel most listened to when I'm on a stage, whether
I'm singing or acting or talking.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Aby and I relate on this point. I mean the
stage is where we first got to know each other.
We both found theater to be a beautiful way to
create connection and visibility, the space where we can breathe
together and where people can be seen in their full selves.
Of course, there are different ways to cultivate that feeling
(43:10):
and wherever you find it, then creating a space for
others to feel full and seen is an honor and
one of the most beautiful and important parts of our
human experience. What's something that you think would make the
world a better place that you would like to share
with us.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I think we're in a hurry. If we just slow
down and think it out, maybe we won't be so
impetuous with each other. I think being cognizant of other
people's feelings, other people's thinking, we all don't think the same.
We have to also give space for that, those communication
gaps that we have. And I think sharing our humanity
(43:52):
with each other and being human with each other, we're
not enemies when we look at it. The same thing
we breathe air, we need food, we need water. We
all need the same things that live. What is it
that we can't agree on?
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Abby is a fountain of information, and despite the immense
knowledge and experience he carries with him, something I noticed
is that he's never judgmental, and he never acts like
he's bubby when you talk to him, and as you're learning,
he's always willing to share and be curious, and he
has this gentle disposition to correct me when my own
(44:24):
bias shows. For instance, at one point I was asking
him about Yaki history, and I said, can you tell
me about how they were? And he said, you mean
are we are here? And I was looking right at
him and had not acknowledged them. It's heartbreaking to feel
(44:45):
how invisibilizing people can be so ingrained, even when they're
your own people. One of the first steps of resistance
is working through the micro ways we hurt ourselves and
each other. I think of how resistance and resilience exist
in the acts we choose every day, whether it's to research,
(45:08):
to say a prayer asking permission from the earth, to
take something really seeing the people around us. There are
so many ways to be present and to be actively connected.
So many of us feel lost, especially in a seemingly
ever tumultuous time, and Abbi's story is an example of
how we can move through our lives with grace and curiosity.
(45:31):
Abbi has taught me how coming home to ourselves, our history,
and our sense of connection and community can really help
root our lives in a sense of purpose, action, and kindness.
Next week, we'll be listening to young Latina in New
York City who feels like she has a lot to
(45:54):
give the world, but hasn't always been seen.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
The hardest thing for me was for people to understand
that I want to grow and they don't give you
the opportunity to grow or to show what you're truly
capable of, because they set such limitations to you.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yahira was a team mom who has been underestimated time
and time again. But whether at school, at home, or
today at work in the service industry, she's determined to
prove how far her skill and ambition can take her.
Thank you so much for listening to When You're Invisible.
(46:33):
Please leave us a rating and a review to let
us know what you think. You can find this episode
and future ones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. When You're Invisible is a
production of iHeart Podcasts and my Pudura podcast Network. I'm
your creator and host Maria Fernanda Viev. Our story editor
(46:54):
is Dylan Hoyer. This season was produced by ME with
additional production from Dylan. Sound designed by Dylan Hoyer with
additional support from ME. Mixing and mastering by Laurence Stuff.
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. Our executive producers are
Anna Stump, Antisell Bante and special thanks to our Lean
(47:15):
Santana
Host
Maria Fernanda Diez
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