Jose is with us today helping Stephen in the yard, clearing out the woodshed in preparation for winter, sorting through the detritis of a cluttered garden shed, and making a haul or two or three to the dump. He and his wife just had a new baby boy, his third, three weeks old. They named him for the king of birds. “It’s a Native American name,” he tells me. “Those are my roots. I am indigenous.” His high cheekbones and sculpted Mayan-like profile speak to that. Jose is from Veracruz, Mexico. It is a place I’ve never been, but he speaks of it fondly. His parents and some siblings are still there. He hasn’t seen them since he came to the U.S. some years ago. I suspect he is not documented, but it’s another version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” This is his third boy, age three weeks. All the children were born here in North Carolina and that makes them citizens. When we talk about this, I can see Jose is proud. The two older ones, age seven and eight are getting an education and there is hope that there will be work for them that pays a good wage when they come of age. Not like home.
We are talking about food. “Did you know chipil is growing in my garden,” he says to me, more of a statement than a question. Chipil is a green leafy herb that grows wild in the Oaxaca countryside. It is plentiful in our village of Teotitlan del Valle, is gathered and sold in the daily market, and used for flavoring much like cilantro. “I don’t know how it got there” Jose says. “Maybe a bird brought it in.” I think, perhaps, or another immigrant in his neighborhood missed this herb so much that he brought it back with him when he returned and the seeds scattered. I think of how indigenous people use what is given to them from the land — a centuries, millenia old practice.
Ah, chipil, I say. The aroma of a mint-like parsley comes to mind. That’s what is used to flavor tamales and squash blossom corn soup, yes? “Yes,” says Jose, and I see the faraway look in his eyes. Are you homesick, I ask. “Sometimes,” he says. “But, the work here is good and I am happy to be living here.” We are grateful for his work, too, and for his company. He is a bright, handsome young man who gives us a hand when we need it most.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chipilin
Oaxaca Cultural Navigator : Norma Hawthorne
NAFTA, Hybrid Corn, Oaxaca Milpas and Climate Change: Which Corn Will Survive?
June 16, 2010, The Nation, Retreat to Subsistence by Peter Canby
http://www.thenation.com/article/36330/retreat-subsistence
Here is a lengthy and worthwhile article written about the breakdown of NAFTA promises and the pressure on the indigenous Oaxaca farmer to give up small plot farming of native corn, beans and squash (milpas) in favor of supposedly more highly productive hybrid corn. Never mind that it takes fossil fuel energy in the form of chemical fertilizers to feed hybrid corn. Never mind that insecticides and herbicides required for this type of farming destroy the wild herbs and vegetables that could be the source for food evolution and seed adaptation. The author suggests that it is the indigenous farmers who will develop the crops that will sustain drought, heat, cold, etc. because they will need to continue to feed their families and communities. Just as maize was cultivated 8,000 years ago, the evolution of food will continue as long as adaption is politically and economically supported.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Food & Recipes
Tagged chemical fertilizers, corn, food evolution, growing corn in Mexico, milpas, NAFTA, Peter Canby, politics of corn, Retreat to Subsistence, The Nation