Yvonne Sandoval, Dare Arowe, and Abiodun Henderson met in a virtual breakout room at the 2020 Young Farmers’ National Leadership Convergence and connected over their experiences as Black and Indigenous women. Wanting to dive deeper into questions about cross-racial solidarity within BIPOC communities, they continued their conversations after Convergence and decided to plan a week to gather together in the future. Faith talks with Dare, Abi, and Yvonne about how they came together, how their year of planning has been so far, and what values and passions drive their work and keep them moving forward. This episode is a behind-the-scenes view into the early stages of a project in which a group of farmers are coming together to heal and build a lasting community. In this episode we also hear from New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan and end with a conversation between Young Farmers Colorado Organizer Megan Davey and Western Campaigns Director Erin Foster West about a state-level farmer-led campaign for farm worker solidarity through an Ag Worker Rights Bill moving through the state house in Colorado in the spring of 2021. Edited by Hannah Beal.
Yvonne Sandoval, Dare Arowe, and Abiodun Henderson met in a virtual breakout room at the 2020 Young Farmers’ National Leadership Convergence and connected over their experiences as Black and Indigenous women. Wanting to dive deeper into questions about cross-racial solidarity within BIPOC communities, they continued their conversations after Convergence and decided to plan and host a week of gathering, healing, and prayer space for other Black and Brown Indigenous women like them.
Faith talks with Dare, Abi, and Yvonne about how they came together, how their year of planning has been so far, and what values and passions drive their work and keep them moving forward. This episode is a behind-the-scenes view into the early stages of a project in which a group of farmers are coming together to heal and build a lasting community.
In this episode we also hear from New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan and end with a conversation between Young Farmers Colorado Organizer Megan Davey and Western Campaigns Director Erin Foster West about a state-level farmer-led campaign for farm worker solidarity through an Ag Worker Rights Bill moving through the state house in Colorado in the spring of 2021.
Edited by Hannah Beal.
About Yvonne, Dare, Abiodun, and their project:
We are bad ass organizers, healers, parents, seed keepers, and farmers who are Black, Latinx, and Indigenous planning a week-long celebration for our people filled with skill-shares, hands in the soil, and foundation building in August 2022 on Pecos land (New Mexico). This week-long bonding ritual is a platform for our embodied selves to celebrate and share our budding wisdom, supporting each other’s healing along the way. We have come together in reciprocity to the land, the waters, and ourselves out of revealing conversations in spaces that did not allow space for our spiritual selves to show up fully and did not honor our histories.
The event will be hosted on various land liberation projects on Pecos territory and Pojoaque territory, based on Bueno Para Todos Farm. Young adults who are surviving racial capitalism will be prioritized. Those whose creativity and energy fuels our movements and our spirits’ work need this space to practice freedom and abolition as part of our community determination. We plan to document and archive our gathering as knowledge keepers. It is our birthright to celebrate joy. We are turning the tides as we ensure that our labors of love that protect global biomes, share stories, reverberate laughter, serve the earth, heal our collective nervous system, grow our food, and raise our children are invested in.