In Arizona, Indigenous-owned farms are preserving Native history while offering a window to the future Harvesting Heritage
BY NYLAH BURTON
A
We check into the Sheraton at Wild Horse Pass, an immense Native-owned resort located in the Gila River Indian Community, home to the Maricopa and the Akimel O’odham. For us, the most unique part of Wild Horse Pass is Koli, the horse stables. Koli (“corral” in Pima) is owned by Chuck and Robert Pablo, a father-son team. As one of the original wild horse and cattle wranglers the resort hired, Chuck’s been here at Wild Horse Pass for 21 years, and his family has been operating the stables for 17 of them. After a ride, we speak to Chuck about his childhood. “People used to grow squash, watermelon, corn, and honeydew,” Chuck tells us. “I remember as a kid going to one of the community member’s houses. They farmed all these crops. If you helped pick it, you took stu ff home. My mom and dad went to help with picking and we went to play with the kids, and then, after, we all had a feast.” He recalls the adults grinding mesquite beans into bread and the children plucking the pods directly o ff the trees as snacks. “They’re so sweet,” he remembers. “They had moisture and nutrition, and that’s how you could be outside all day and still be good.” That night, we have dinner at Tia Carmen, where the menu makes use of Indigenous and heirloom foods. I order lamb kebabs on a bed of white tepary bean purée. The tepary beans come from nearby Ramona Farms, owned by Akimel O’odham farmer Ramona Button, her husband Terry, and their daughter Brandy. It’s a preview of what’s to come. I’ll return up here to see Ramona Farms in a few days. The next day, we check into Canyon Ranch Tuscon, where we’ll spend days lounging by the pool and getting facials at Miraval Resort’s day spa. Then it’s time for our first farm visit in Tucson. At San Xavier Co-Op,
fter I pick up my friend Adrienne at the Phoenix Airport, we head straight to the Heard Museum, an organization dedicated to advancing American Indian art. Part of this girl’s trip is unconventional: We’ve planned days of touring Indigenous-owned farms in the heat of Arizona June. But Adrienne, whose late father was an Oklahoma farmer, and I, a food writer who explores Indigenous foodways, are excited. At the Heard Museum, we see baskets, ceramics, and jewelry from many Indigenous nations of this area, including the Navajo, Yavapai, Havasupai, Yaqui, Maricopa, and Tohono O’odham. It is the perfect place to begin learning about the foods we are about to experience: cholla buds, 60-day corn, tepary beans, yellow-meated watermelon, squash. As Black women with family from the South, there is so much here Adrienne and I can relate to, especially resilience through colonization and the importance of reclaiming heritage foods.
109 SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE
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