Living Local, Small, Slow: Dwelling in Place*

Leny Mendoza Strobel

Abstract: For this Filipina in the diaspora, decolonization leads to a recognition of modernity/coloniality and settler colonialism and thus re-frames experience and identity as a settler rather than as an immigrant. If colonialism is all about dispossession of the Land, as many indigenous scholars assert, how does an indigenizing Filipina settler recover a relationship with Land and participate in healing and repair of relationships between settlers and indigenous communities. In this presentation, I will talk about the local decolonial practices that I am nurturing.

There are different ways I have introduced myself since arriving on Turtle Island four decades ago:

I am a Filipina in the diaspora. I am Kapampangan from the Philippines.

I am Asian American. I am a woman of color.

I am an immigrant.

I am of Chinese and Spanish descent.

I am of Austronesian ancestry.

I might have Sufi roots because the Islam that came to my islands was the Sufi kind.

I might have indigenous roots from Turtle Island because oral history says that the galleon trade carried indigenous slaves to my province in the Philippines

I have roots in Vedanta and Buddhism because the Majapahit Empire extended all the way to our archipelago before the Spanish colonized us.

Today and in this context: I am a settler on Wappo, Southern Pomo, Coast Miwok lands.

Today I live a local, small, and slow life on these lands. I am grateful for the welcome here. I am grateful for the time and opportunity to learn how to fall in love with these Places so I can become indigenous here; this is what the local indigenous elders have told settlers like me: If you learn how to dwell here; if you learn how to fall in love with this Place, you can be part of a moving history. You can become indigenous to Place.

My decolonization began as a self-healing project in search of Wells to draw from. In my graduate studies, I focused on the cultural identity formation of Filipino Americans and then I continued to do my doctoral work on the process of decolonization for post-1965 Filipino Americans — this was informed by postcolonial studies, Filipino indigenous psychology and philosophy, radical multicultural perspectives, cultural studies, critical race theory, and phenomenological meditation. All as a counternattive or response to the discourse of empire and colonialism.

Then came the decolonial turn: “what do you do after you decolonize?” is a question that was often asked of me. I was drawn to indigenous literature and narratives — novels, poems, essays, short stories, memoirs of authors like Silko, Hogan, Vizenor, DeLoria, Prechtel, and Kimmerer, Basso, and lately Leanne Simpson and many others…

I also started to think about settler colonialism and decolonial studies: Walter Mignolo and other voices writing outside of the imperial centers; writing that decenters the western gaze, deploying indigenous world making and meaning making. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz writing about the indigenous history of the US; Ben Madley writing about the native genocide in California; Damon Akins and William Bauer writing about the Native History of California; Leanne Simpson writing about Nishnaabeg indigenous intelligence and indigenous resurgence; and Jurgen Kremer creating the framework of ethnoautobiography for decolonizing settler identities — all these texts have been Wells that I draw from.

Thus, I began to shift my perspectives on how I want to live the rest of my life: To live local, small, and slow. To grow this practice with the Land (not on the land). How then do I live my life if decolonization is not a metaphor? How do I move away from the romance of the indigenous; how do I become aware of settler attempts to be innocent; how do I not feel guilty and ashamed of complicity? If colonialism is all about dispossession of the Land, how do I do land back? How do I participate in the repair and healing of the trauma of the land, the trauma of genocide on indigenous peoples, and the ancestral trauma of settlers and the relationship between them?

In 2019, Basil Brave Heart and Hilary Giovale asked me if I’m ready and willing to write a letter of apology or forgiveness and be part of a ceremony. This ceremony of apology and forgiveness began in 2014 when Basil Brave Heart, a Lakota spiritual leader, and his community at Pine Ridge, initiated the project of renaming Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak with the support and collaboration of a descendant of General Harney. Future apologies were also offered by the descendants of Col James Forsyth who led the Wounded Knee Massacre and Benjamin Hotchkiss, manufacturer of the Hotchkiss gun used at Wounded knee and in other wars against indigenous peoples. Relatives of General Armstrong Custer and others whose ancestors have participated in the massacres of indigenous peoples offered apologies. Soon many others began offering apologies: those who have enslaved, those who have financially benefited from corporate interests that exploit the world’s waters, creatures, and indigenous peoples — apologized and asked forgiveness. Representatives from the Catholic Church asked forgiveness for the trauma inflicted on Native children within 288 boarding schools. Combat war veterans asked forgiveness for their experiences in war, by honoring the warrior, not the war. As this process continued, increasingly more people came forward to apologize, pray for healing, and offer forgiveness, including the Indigenous grandmothers of Mankato, Minnesota who offered forgiveness for the hanging of the Dakota 38 in 1862.

Before the Ceremony , we were asked to write our letter of apology or forgiveness. In my letter of apology and forgiveness, I wrote:

Dear Basil Brave Heart,

My name is Leny Mendoza Strobel. I am Kapampangan from the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. I am the descendant of Malay settlers in the Philippines, Spanish colonizers, and Chinese traders. Some of my ancestors are revolutionaries, artists, scientists, clergy, and politicians. My father was a Methodist minister. My mother was a classical pianist. I arrived on Turtle Island in 1983.

I write with a sorrowful heart.

I write with a grateful heart.

I write with a peaceful heart.

Sorrow comes from knowing that for a long time, as an immigrant/settler to Turtle Island, I didn’t know about indigenous people’s history of genocide and theft. I didn’t know about the Missions and the enslavement and massacre of California Indians. I didn’t know about the 14 grandmothers who were the sole descendants of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria on whose lands I have lived for 35 years. I didn’t know about the Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples who tended a garden and a village on Sonoma Mountain for thousands of years. I didn’t introduce myself as a newcomer to the non-human beings on this land — the creek, the redwoods, the ocean, the mountains, valleys — and I didn’t know how to Dwell properly amongst these beings. I wasn’t taught how.

For my miseducation, I apologize.

I have washed my sorrow with copious tears and the hard work of dismantling the systems of knowledge that kept me imprisoned for half of my life. This work of Decolonization saved me — a Filipina whose ancestors also displaced the indigenous Aeta peoples; a Filipina who went through an American-patterned education; a Filipina whose ancestors also had colonizer blood.

Gratitude comes from the painful labor of decolonization, of unlearning, of changing the habits of my mind and the attitudes of my heart. Gratitude for the indigenous elders and youth who have taught settlers like me. Gratitude for Haines Makes Noise, a Lakota Sun Dancer and elder who went to the same university where I teach. For many years, he visited my classes and taught me and my students what it means to be Lakota. Gratitude for Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria for writing about Mabel McKay (the last medicine woman of his tribe) and writing about the creation stories of his people. Gratitude for the writings of Linda Hogan and other indigenous scholars. I am transformed by the gift of Story.

As my heart fills with Gratitude, I’m growing in my capacity to forgive the Spanish and Americans who colonized my people. I am growing my capacity to forgive my ancestors who also became accomplices to colonial rule. I am growing my capacity to forgive my ancestors who exchanged their indigenous spirituality for Christianity. I am growing my capacity to work with the descendants of colonizers who are also unlearning white supremacy and white sense of entitlement.

I forgive and I do not forget that healing from the soul and heart- crushing civilizing process is going to be ongoing.

I am at Peace because in spite of what I now know and what has been clarified in decades-long process of decolonization, I am aware that my knowing remains partial and incomplete. So I must remain humble in the face of what I don’t know. I must remain humble in the face of the Great Mystery. I recognize that there are Big Mythic Stories that animate our being and give us a sense of purpose and meaning. I recognize that our access to the realm of Spirit may give us a sense of inner peace and calm but that this is not a permission for bypassing the work of justice, reparations, and healing that we must do on the ground.

So I ask for forgiveness.

And I offer forgiveness.

May Love and Joy be our shared compass.

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I included this letter in the prayer bundle that I sent and was received at a Sun Dance ceremony in New Mexico led by Basil Brave Heart. After the ceremony, participants at the ceremony received another invitation from Basil Brave Heart: Please continue to do this ceremony in your local communities using your own spiritual and cultural traditions.

I thought long and hard about how to do this on Wappo, Southern Pomo, and Coast Miwok lands. I knew I had to get permission and guidance from local tribal elders and leaders and I did. Two friends from the racial justice allies circle agreed to co-facilitate the first cohort with me. The indigenous elders we approached welcomed our desire to do this work but we were also admonished:

• Do your work as settlers; don’t ask indigenous peoples to teach you about indigenous issues
• Learn to build relationships with each other and then with indigenous peoples
• Learn how to ask the right way
• In time we might be able to sit with you and join you in ceremony

The first cohort started meeting over two years ago. A second and third cohort started meeting about a year ago. Two of the cohorts are locally based and the third co-cohort is non-local.

Each cohort is a mixed group. We limited each cohort to 15 people and invited only the folks who expressed interest in the vision of a ceremony of apology and forgiveness.

Cohorts began with the sharing of ancestral stories guided by these questions: What does being a settler mean to you? When and how did your ancestors come to settle in this place? How does the history of native genocide impact your sense of self and belonging to this Place?

Doing this work in a mixed group of white, indigenous, and people of color and queer folks — the challenge of interrupting the dominant narratives around racial supremacy and navigating our differences emerged as expected. After we shared our ancestral stories, some settlers began to see how their personal ancestral histories are connected to the larger history of native genocide. For others this was easier to acknowledge intellectually but more challenging to understand how it is embodied. Reading “decolonization is not a metaphor” (by Tuck and Yang) was a challenging read for most. Some of the white folks feel that doing relational justice work is not as productive and they prefer to focus on problems to be solved or projects of tangible repair that can be manifested in material form. And some folks prefer to build relationships of trust and respect over time unencumbered by deadlines and expected outcomes.

As we are learning to dive deeper into understanding modernity and coloniality, I feel a generative and dynamic tension within the cohorts; we strive for transparency and vulnerability as foundations to developing trust in one another. Reflecting on our own modern conditioning and seeing its shadows and being challenged by emergent questions has been revelatory. For most of us, looking at racialized capitalism and “development narratives” as dispossession of the Land from indigenous peoples turn our worlds upside down. In my own experience, coming into my indigenous awareness was a self-healing project at first…and then slowly transformed into the necessary alchemy that continues to churn away in my heart and soul as I build community. For white and non-white settler folks who are far removed from their own indigenous roots and who are drawn to indigenous ways of being and knowing, we ask ourselves: “how can these engagements be ethical, non-extractive, non-utilitarian, non-idealizing, non-romanticizing”?

Leanne Simpson, in As We Have Always Done, discusses the importance of recovering Nishnaabeg intelligence; they call for the re-creation of systems of accountability; ways to regenerate indigenous modes of scholarship; ways to organize and mobilize. Simpson however emphasizes that indigenous folks may have to learn to “escape enough before we can mobilize”…referring to the process of Self actualization as the relationship between ourselves and the spirit world that takes place in the context of family and community…and within the larger context of ongoing violence of the settler nation-state intent on the dispossession of lands of the indigenous peoples.

Reading Simpson as a settler, I do not know if I have “escaped enough” from the shadow and malaise of my modern conditioning, of being complicit with the settler state. I am never certain of the results or consequences of what I am manifesting until a community offers affirmation or validation that what we are doing together is meaningful towards an indigenous future that we envision.

At this time I don’t know what a public ceremony of apology and forgiveness might look like. We don’t know when we would finally have a sense of having done the inner and outer work of healing and repair as settlers on Wappo, Southern Pomo, and Coast Miwok lands.

What I do know is that I draw from many Wells:

I draw from the Well of my Filipino indigenous memory; the Well of Kapwa — my Filipina sensibility is shaped by a resurgent indigeous mind that grounds my sense of Being.

I draw from the Well of daily rituals of grounding and rooting. I am making ritual a daily practice: making an offering plate at every meal; sitting in meditation regularly; putting my hands in the garden and offering a song.

I draw from the Well of community and relationships. I am taking time to cook for and feed friends. Hospitality to build relationships. Community is my Immunity.

I draw from the Well of liminality and liminal spaces — the awareness of my location in the in-betweenness of spaces. This is a creative and generative space that can be lonely at times but ultimately soul-nourishing.

I draw from the Well of indigenous scholarship because intellectual pursuit is sacred. Study and phenomenological meditation is sacred. Is prayer.

I want to draw more from the well of Curiosity. Curiosity is what I ask of you; what I ask of us. How does my story get entangled with yours? What are the threads that connect us? What is the curious question you’d want to ask about my story?

I leave you with these questions.

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• Paper read at the The Society of Indigenous and Ancestral Wisdom and Healing Virtual Conference on Sept 5, 2022.
• Bio: Leny Mendoza Strobel is Kapampangan from the Philippines and has lived on Wappo, Coast Miwok, and Southern Pomo lands for four decades. She is Professor Emerita of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University. She is the author of books and other publications on the process of decolonization and indigenization. She is a Founding Elder at the Center for Babaylan Studies. Find her at lenystrobel.com