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Annesha Dey: Okay. Hi everyone. My name's Annesha and I am a researcher on this project. Calen Redic: Hello, my name is Calen and I'm also a researcher on this project. Annesha: And Itzel, if you want to introduce yourself. Itzel Abrego: Hi, my name is Itzel Abrego. I am a participant in this project.

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Annesha: Thank you. Yeah. So the first category we kind of want to start with is demographic and identity. So we want to know, the first question would be where were you born and did you move around a lot after that? Where is home to you? Itzel: Okay. Well, I was born in San Antonio, Texas. We did move a lot within San Antonio and in Houston, so I grew up in both those cities and then I moved out to San Diego when I was about 16 and then moved back to San Antonio. I guess San Antonio would be my home because the majority of my family members lived there. And then Houston probably being a close second. Annesha: Got it. And do you have any kind of tribal affiliation, and if so, what is your tribal affiliation? Itzel: Yeah, I do. On my mother's side we are Coahuiltecan, Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan, from San Antonio and on my dad's side we are Nahua Otomi.

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Annesha: Awesome. And kind of about your family life and structure, your childhood, more memories I guess. Can you describe to us just how you grew up, who were important figures in your life, some childhood memories that stand out to you? This is one of those questions, I think, that will go on a tangent, but you could just answer it from wherever you'd like to start. Itzel: Okay. Well, my parents were super young when they had me, so they were both sixteen. So it's pretty safe to say that my grandparents raised me. I did live with my grandparents for a good amount of time, so a lot of my formal years were with them and them raising me . M y grandfather — and it's so funny because they grew up very, what they believed to be American and Americanized. My grandparents also were very heavily religious, but they would always tell me it was because they had to be, it was a safety thing more than just a faithful thing. I feel like their faith was definitely strict, but it was mainly, it felt more like it was a necessity. They had to do it. Itzel: When I was growing up, they told me a lot of different stories. One of my very earliest memories is with my great-grandfather who was a World War II Air Force guy, and he got a Purple Heart and stuff and he was very reserved, but for whatever reason he was very open to me about his experiences. And I remember one of my first memories being four or five years old and him just asking me, are you Black or are you white? And I'd be like, I don't know cause I didn't feel like— I was like, I don’t feel like I identify with either. And my grandfather was like, well, it's cause you're Chicano and you're brown, and they don't list that anymore. You have to only list — the choices w ere only white and Black. And he was very adamant about telling me why it was so important for my generation to really push those barriers through because we weren't fitting in either of those categories. Itzel: We're in a category of ourselves. So he would always tell me, never choose B lack or white because those are neither yours to identify with. And it was like the first time I ever heard the word Chicano and explained to me, he would say, well, Chicano means that you have Mexican heritage, but also you are an Indigenous person. It was a big deal for us to know. And everybody would tell me like, oh, well your grandpa's a hundred percent Native American, but he doesn't like to admit it. And so when I got older, probably about teenager years is when I started to hear their stories and they would tell me about how they weren't allowed to speak any other language other than English and how they were in their schools, they were heavily disciplined to not not just speak any other language but fit in a specific way.

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Itzel: The men had to have their hair cut specifically. And I remember it was so embedded into my grandpa that he was getting his haircut every two weeks. He's had his hair cut every two weeks until he passed. But it had to be specifically this way. And it was such a shame too because he had the most beautiful straight hair and I can only imagine what it would've looked like if you just allowed it to grow out. It was so straight and so beautiful and so full. And he also didn't even gray until he was in his seventies. He had a full head of black hair up until about 70 and then it just turned white and it was really beautiful. But he would always tell me stories about them growing up. And my grandmother was a little bit more detailed in the what was being done. Itzel: She would tell us how they would get spanked, they would get a ruler on their hands to correct them every time they spoke a different language other than English. And a lot of them grew up with their families only speaking Spanish. And the thing was , it’s like people confused them for being people who had come from Mexico to this country. So they would assume that we were all immigrants because my grandmother would speak only Spanish or my great grandmother would only speak Spanish, but especially on their side of the family, my mom's side of the family, that's all they spoke until before the colonization. And people forget the Spaniards own Texas for such a long time. So of course all of the Indigenous people were being told to speak Spanish and corrected into speaking Spanish. So then my grandmother was telling me about how some of us had come from the Missions and how a lot of us were being housed out there and they were also having to go to school out there and how great grandparents going to those specific schools. Itzel: And that's what they were called. They were like, oh, well you're going to school. That was public school. And the last time I went out there before my grandfather passed, I think I was kind of explaining to them, I was like, those weren't schools, they were not public schools, they weren't schools that everybody went to. It was just specifically us and specifically you and your heritage because it had to be corrected. And I'm like, and not only did you get corrected and made to speak English, but somewhere down the line in the ancestors, you guys were also made to speak Spanish. And so that's why. And so they only spoke Spanish because the current political climate at the time, they were being a made to speak English and they were corrected using the ruler. And I remember my grandmother just kind of passively just being like, yeah, that was what we did. Itzel: You had to do this. And she told me that it was finishing school that they all participated in. And I was like, that's not finishing school at all. And I felt bad because when she told me it was really hard to digest and it made me pretty pissed off cause I was just like, and there was a moment where I kind of had to sit with it and kind of go into the emotions of it cause I was just like, I can't believe that they're telling me this. And it is just very casual for them to say, oh, well this is how it was done, and I'm over here like I want to cry, I want to yell, I want to scream. I want to hurt these people who hurt my grandparents because they were babies. And she told me that they started them out really young when they went to school. They were all little kids. And so for them they never knew that that wasn't a typical thing for them to have this because they were assuming, well, everybody had corporal punishment at their schools and maybe that was true, but for them it was different. It was just more not even a correcting of a behavior, it was a correcting of an entire identity. And so my grandmother too, her hairstyle, she never grew her hair long and neither both of them did. And she never grew her hair long.

00:11:05.000 - 00:15:55.000

Itzel: She always had it in the ‘50s style haircuts. She was very into that. She had curly hair, so she would curl her hair all the time and always look like this little Latin pinup when she was growing up, with her little victory rolls. But her whole thing, both of them, and because I was living with them, it was constantly being ingrained. You have to conform, you have to speak English all the time and you can't have an accent and you're going to want — you need to go and basically make a life for you outside of where we live because you'll be given a chance and to expand upon your vocabulary so people feel, so that the white people basically can be comfortable. And she would always tell me, you cannot speak Spanish around white people. They don't like it and it's not the American thing to do. Itzel: Which, my parents were different. They grew up in the late ‘60s, so they were very much a little bit, my dad was very Chicano Raza, all that stuff. And he would tell me, your grandpa's a hundred percent Native American to Texas and he conforms to a lot of this stuff and it's not okay, but he does it anyway. So just letting you know about how that is and it's okay or this is wrong. And my mom was a little bit different. You can tell she was very ingrained with that knowledge that they also taught her, and she took it in a different way. So it was very much like, you better not be like everybody else in this hood. You have to be better because you don't want to be considered stupid or somebody from the other side or not being taken seriously because white people are not comfortable with you. Itzel: So it was just very much like, you're not allowed to speak Spanish at all because I'm not having you speak Spanish. And I stayed with my grandmother, my other grandmother, my dad's mother for a year in Mexico. And so when I came back, I spoke, read and wrote in Spanish, and my mom was like, absolutely not. You're not. And she would correct me for that and tried to basically shame me for speaking Spanish. And not only that, but learning from my grandmother's culture. My other grandmother was very open and honest about our Indigeneity and being like, this is where we're from and this is our beautiful culture. And she was always teaching me about how beautiful our culture was. Whereas on the other side it was just like, no, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to like it at all. So it was very kind of conflicting growing up in that way. But I enjoyed my culture and I wanted to learn more, and I did think it was really beautiful. So I was constantly butting heads with my grandparents about what they felt I should do versus what I felt was right Itzel: So it was constantly like, I'm going to speak Spanish, I'm going to learn Spanish, I'm going to wear this as part of our culture cause I'm very proud of it. And they would just be like, no, no, you can't do that. You can't be that way because then you're not going to get taken seriously and they're going to think you're from the other side. And that was always like, they're going to think that you're from the other side. They're going to think that you're not one of them and you're never going to have any opportunities because you're embracing this part of your culture. And it's funny because eventually as they got older, their viewpoints changed. And before my grandfather passed away, he was very outspoken about it and about how he felt discriminated against and how my grandmother is now still and she's still alive and she's very vocal about discrimination and being anti-Chicano and or people who are anti-Chicano and people who are anti-Indigenous, she's a lot more vocal about and she gets upset and angry.

00:15:55.000 - 00:20:33.000

Itzel: She used to be a Republican and she is not anymore. So there's so many changes of that because of what we're learning, but it makes me really proud that she's relearning and getting connected back to that part of her life because I know that that affected her as well. And she always claimed, always would claim, oh no, we're not Indigenous. We're Spaniard. We're Spaniard. And so finally I took a DNA test mainly to prove to them that we weren't, I was just like, no grandma, no grandma, no constantly. And so she was like, I don't know why you're going to get one of those things. It's just going to tell you that we're Spaniard. And I'm like, so when the results came out and we were like 20% Spaniard, I was just like, we were not Spaniard grandma and you on your side are full-blooded with a smidge of Spaniard. Itzel: I'm like, the amount of Spaniard that I have in me is literally a spit of Spaniard because of how we all were and we were all connected and we were all intermarrying with one another. So it's literally the little pieces of it left. But she was always like, no, we can't claim that there was a word that was given to us, which is mestizo . And I was like, grandma, that is a slur now. So I'm like, was teaching her that as well recently about it. I'm like, grandma, that's like a slur. You don't know that. But that's why they would call us this because they didn't want us to identify as Indigenous. They wanted us to believe that there wasn't enough of it for us to claim because we were these mixed breed type of things. I don't know what their thinking —what their thought process was on that, but that's literally what I was trying to explain to her. Itzel: So she was always like, no, we're mestizo. And then there would be times where I'd be like, cause she’d be like, oh no, we're not traditional. I'm like, oh my god, grandma, we are so traditional. You have absolutely no idea. You do the candles, you're praying to La Virgencita, you have an altar. All of these things that are very much a part of our culture, she didn't realize that that was a part of. It was like grandma, we had ways of hiding that. And my grandpa was a little bit more stubborn about that as well. So I'd always be explaining that to them as a teenager. And they were always very dismissive, like, oh yeah, when you're a teenager you want to fight for all these things. And then as you get older you ’ll get it, you'll learn. And my grandmother would just be like, I know that was our ways back then, but it's not like that anymore. Those are not a part of our ways anymore. That's not a part of our life. I was like, no, grandma, it very much is still a part of our life. It's just evolved into a different way because we've had to hide it for so long. Itzel: Thanks to my dad, I feel like that was the only way that I kind of kept it here and not go down that same rabbit hole as my mom. Because my grandma — my dad would just be like, no, that's not it. Or on my dad's side, they would tell me stuff like, oh yeah, you know, La Virgen is actually Tonantzin. And she didn't show herself to a peasant boy asking for a church. She showed up as Tonantzin. She didn't show up like the Virgin Mary, that little boy just said that s o he didn't get whipped and he didn't get murdered. And so just little things like that would come up. We'd just be nonchalantly talking about, oh yeah, we're going to go to the Mission. And oh, you know, that's where they used to keep us. That's where they were at. I don't know why you go to those Missions. They're just full of all of this stuff. And so it was just constantly these little things that would come up.

00:20:33.000 - 00:24:02.000

Itzel: My grandpa would show me ways. I think he was surprised to learn that the way that he knew how to make brisket, cause he is — even the foods that we were doing were so traditional and so explaining to him about how he would smoke. So he would smoke his brisket and the way that he would do it was make a hole in the ground and make a smoker using the ground and the charcoal and all this stuff and putting the seasonings on it. And that's how he did his little smokehouse cause he didn't have a smokehouse. And so while I'm sitting here trying to explain that to him, where do you think that came from? Itzel: This came from here grandpa. But yeah, he would dig a hole up and you would show me how to stack the charcoal or stack the wood in a way. And he liked to smoke his brisket in m esquite, which is native to Texas. And so he would take the bark and chop it down and scrape off the bark part of the tree and then use the chips underneath to make a very light flame fire. And he would blow it into where it was just kindle and then he would put the meat down with all of the spices and marinades and then cover it up. And that was his smoker. And I didn't know that, even I didn't know what that was until I was much older and I was just like, holy shit. Itzel: That was our traditional way. Little things like that, my grandmother always making sure that we had, what is it, a mountain laurel tree in our yards that was such an important part of our lives growing up. If you got a new house, you got a mountain laurel tree. And that was something my aunt had bought her house and there's still a mountain laurel tree still there. And for her, my grandmother, she would tell us it was important to have in our houses because it brought good luck and good fortune and stuff like that. And then I learned later that mountain laurel was a big part of Coahuiltecan culture and a really big part of their daily uses and stuff. And then the same thing with pecans. I remember growing up and my grandpa making pecan everything and not realizing where that came from as well. Just little things like that. It was just a constant thing like that. Annesha: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. And it's really cool to see, I guess, how you are learning more about your own identity and educating your family too. Generationally a little bit behind, but it's cool that you were like, the DNA test is awesome, and we've been talking to a lot of folks who have been doing DNA tests and stuff, and I think it's great. I just wanted to,

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Itzel: Yeah, my dad was like, I don't know why you want to do that. He would be like, it's just going to tell us we're Mexican. And I'm like, yes, I understand. But before we were Mexican, we were something else. But he was very, he was interested. I ended up getting him a DNA test and then he found out that he had Oaxacan and Peru, Peruvian blood, and he was just like, what? He's like, I know we have family in Oaxaca, but I had no idea. And I was just like, so it's right. It's so interesting how it helps us find out more about our heritage, more about where we come from. Annesha: And I guess how does being given different identities and this test telling you a certain identity, how does that affect you? How you view yourself before and after learning that information or telling your parents about that information? How have you been able to come to terms with all of that, process all of those things, just in terms of yourself? Itzel: Yeah, I think it really made me feel special, you know, like I had an identity and it was because so many times we would always be told that we were just Mexicans and we were basically kind of this bottom of the food chain type of people. And so I remember just being kind of angry about it and the way that some of my family was is like, oh, we're here and we need to be up here so that the people up there can notice us and we can't use our heritage. We have to basically transform into this very assimilated version of who we are. Even though being living in San Antonio, the culture is around all the time. Everybody from every race celebrates Fiesta or they'll celebrate different holidays or they go to the Posadas downtown and they don't realize how rooted that is in Indigenous cultures and , specifically, to Texan culture and not realizing that that's very much a part of the Indigenous cultures of Texas. Itzel: I grew up in San Antonio, so we had the field trip to Texas Institute of Culture, and so there was a big part of us being exposed to that as well. But there were so many moments where my dad was very passive about that, and he was a construction worker, so he felt like he was so used to having white people telling him what to do and how to do it and what they wanted. And he was so used to building white people's houses. And my grandpa was always used to having white men bosses who would allow him to do and what wouldn't allow him to do, wouldn't allow him to go home for certain things. Or my dad just being completely content with just being like, well, we wake up at five in the morning to go to work and we get home at 6:00 PM and we're just very thankful for everything that we have.

00:27:44.000 - 00:31:02.000

Itzel: And it's like, that's great. We are very thankful, but we have so much more to be thankful for than the labor that we're doing for white people. And so from that, it brought pride back into my identity, and I didn't feel like all those feelings I had when I was a kid were just kind of validating itself. There was just something off or just something that I was just like, I don't really feel like making white people happy or manipulating this identity because of that's who I am. Or having, it wasn't okay for me to be like, oh, well they like you because you're a good Mexican. And I'm like, what does that even mean? Or just being okay with people calling you exotic even though you were from Texas, like you're some tropical plant. And so it brought so much pride and positivity to me because I'm like, no, it's so much more beautiful than that. And it's a part of a culture, it's a part of a way of life that is celebrated and should be celebrated more by its people rather than it being a trendy thing, like a super food or whatever. So it's brought a lot —i t's actually saved my life, honestly , I feel like. Annesha: That's awesome. Calen, do you want to take the next question? I love this conversation we got going. Calen: Yeah. Again, once again, thank you for sharing. So how would you say that you keep your culture alive in your daily life? Itzel: Well, I am a two-spirit drag performer out here in Oakland. I've been a drag performer for about nine years now, and I use a lot of my culture in my drag in my performances. I've done performance art at storytelling. I work with a lot of Indigenous groups, just kind of using my knowledge to give to others because I know that there are people who are much younger than me who don't know. They don't have that same education about it. And so it's just a part of saying, oh, this is what we used to do. And teaching that and making that a big part as a matter of fact. And then also, especially being out here in Oakland, I'm exposed to so many different cultures and so many different backgrounds, Indigenous people from California area, Indigenous people from Mexico who have moved over here or working with people in Canada, but it's become almost a part of my daily life already.

00:31:02.000 - 00:35:31.000

Itzel: So it's just an everyday thing. And it's funny too, because last night a friend of mine who is African, is Black, was like, okay, it's the last day of Black Heritage Month. I want to make you food from my culture, and we're going to watch a documentary about where it comes from. And specifically for her , her heritage is a West African heritage. So we were watching it and there was several of us. It was me who, my family's from Texas and from northern Mexico. And then I had another friend whose family's from Jalisco, and then I had another friend who was from Colombia and we're watching this documentary about West African food and we're connecting dots. We're like, oh my God, we have those same dried peppers in our food, or, oh, that looks like this, and oh, that looks like that and there's similarities. Well, then we were talking about it and we're just like, oh yeah, when they were bringing people from West Africa, they were dropping 'em off in Oaxaca. We have family in Oaxaca, and we have legends in Oaxaca about this man who helped us fight off the Spaniards and the conquistadors, and he ended up becoming like a god in that culture. Itzel: So just little things like that where we're learning and we're just sitting there, we're like, oh my God, we're connecting the dots. And at the same time bonding over that culture and how it's all connected and how we're continuously connected with one another, even though we don't grow up in the same backgrounds, we don't grow up in the same heritage. We're still in many ways connected. And so that's what I do, I try to do every day, almost. Annesha: Awesome. And we wanted to ask a little bit more about art to you, and that was actually one of our major categories. So yeah, we just want to hear more about your art, how you express yourself with your art and what art means to you in your life, because I can get a sense that it probably has a pretty big part, so I kind of want to just open up that door and just let us all about it. Itzel: Yeah, very much. My art is bringing back a lot of what our culture had before, which was a lot of storytelling. That's how stories were told. They were told through art. They were told in spoken form, they were told through dance, they were told through costumes, they were told through masks. And there are so many different ways that these stories were told and that they become public knowledge for us. So I try to do that a lot with my drag. Don't get me wrong, I do other stuff, but if I have a specific thing that I have to do, I have an act that I do that's about fifteen minutes long and it's like I start off as this very, and I look like a Frida Kahlo type person where I have the long hair, the trenzas, little braids, my hair kind of naturally my eyebrows naturally bushy and stuff because it's a big part of our culture and kind of like the little hairy lip because that's also a part of our culture. And just turning into like I'm this little girl and transform into an androgynous person that's just completely wearing rainbow colors and finding myself in that rainbow. And then transforming into somebody who does drag and uses drag to express not only their Indigeneity but their sexual preferences and how that was also a big part of our culture to do and okay to do.

00:35:31.000 - 00:39:39.000

Itzel: And so like I said, I'll use a lot of those different things. I'll pay homage to certain deities. I've done a performance where I'm Coatlicue, with the belt full of snakes, but they're not snakes, they're like yarn. And then it's got also rubber snakes and also human arms and fingers and the necklace full of fingers because that's where she's from or where she comes from. And so paying homage to her being mother earth, her being this nurturing person, her being somebody that embraces her divine femininity. And then, I'm trying to think what else. I've done o ne, I did one last year and it was an homage to my grandfather cause he was—that one was a really tough loss. And I did this kind of story book story performance where I come in and I'm using mainly black lights. So my costume super orange, the props that we use were UV-reflective, so they were bright colors that would show up under the black light. Itzel: And then I had my son play my grandfather. So he would wear these glasses that had light because my grandfather wore glasses, but everything else was black. So you just see these glasses and it's supposed to be his soul with these glasses on. And we're going through the different levels of Mictlān. And at the very end when he's shedding himself, cause every level is different. And it was like a ten minute performance, and I knew nobody was going to understand what Mictlān was, but I wanted to show that there was these little levels that people were going through, or when people go through in that heritage in the afterlife, and towards the end, he sheds his entire body and his self from this realm. So there's a little slideshow of him growing up and becoming the very end, and then at the very end, he turns into stardust. Itzel: And just little things like that, just like those are our stories. If we are not telling our stories, if we're not talking about these stories, they're going to die. They're never going to be revived again. Nobody's ever going to remember them again, or they're going to be told by people who have no knowledge of it, whatever they see, whatever they see on a book or something. And it's never going to be, it ’s not going to hit the same way, I guess, than if somebody who is from our heritage whose story tells it. I tell people, I'm like, I hate that movie Apocalypto cause i t's not even our story. I mean, it's beautiful in a sense that there was so many — they did get our costumes accurate, but the storyline, it's so bad. And I think about that every time when I'm storytelling is like, we have to tell our stories because if we don't, then they get made by somebody else and it's completely inaccurate. So that's what’s a big part of why my art is, what I try to do with my art. Annesha: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. That all sounds really exciting. So And usually or how often, I guess, is do you pursue art as a job or is it kind of a hobby? How much of it is part of your day?

00:39:39.000 - 00:43:11.000

Itzel: I mean, it's definitely at the level where it's a second job. I get paid pretty well, not enough to make me a full-time person, but definitely enough that it supplements my income. I perform in San Francisco in Oakland, but I've also performed, I've been in New York Pride. I did, I tour with the LaLaLand Back tour, which is a troupe of Indigenous performers. So you have different Indigenous performers from different heritage, and they do the same thing where we're all kind of storytelling from the point of view of our culture and using our performances as a way to speak about different issues that Indigenous people have, like MMIW and stuff like that. So we talk about these things and we've traveled to Denver. We went to Edmonton’s Two-Spirit Pride. I'm going to go back there again, which is in Canada, the Two-Spirit BAAITS Powwow, I've performed there. Itzel: Oh yeah, we got to go and we got to perform at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in New York, which was like, wow. Which sucks too, because also side note is that after we performed there, a bunch of conservative people were like, this is the Smithsonian. It's not allowed, blah, blah, blah. So now they're no longer allowed to invite drag performers, even though we all identify as Two-Spirit. We all believe that we should be able to speak. We're all using it as storytelling. The conservatives are now censoring that specific side because it's a part of the Smithsonian and, yeah, we're no longer allowed to be invited, which sucks, but we got a chance to go and do it. So that was really, really cool. That was definitely my favorite thing that we've done. But yeah, I perform and usually what happens is that I've got a reputation. Itzel: So I have people who will want to book me for their act. Oh, we saw your act here. We really like your work here. We want to know if you want to do a performance. I'm supposed to go this year, I'm supposed to go back , I’m supposed to go to the University of Santa Barbara to go do their Latine Heritage Week, and then I'm going to be doing Seattle Pride, possibly Tacoma Pride, Edmonton Pride, little things like that. But like I said, that people see me and they're like, oh, we really want to book you, and specifically they do like the storytelling. Annesha: Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all that with us. I'm actually from the Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland area, so if you're ever performing o ver the summer, I would love to go anytime.

00:43:11.000 - 00:45:43.000

Itzel: Yeah, yeah. I'm right by the lake. So yeah, I love it. I love it here in Oakland. Annesha: That's great. That's cool. Okay, so yeah, that's kind of all we have, I guess from our art or Calen, did you want to ask a question about art actually? No. Okay, cool. So I think unless you have anything else you have to share about art, because I know that it's such a big part of your life and I want to do justice to it in this interview. So if anything else comes up, definitely please feel free to share any of that with us. But we're going to transition to our next category, which is going to be food. Annesha: So I guess we're going back a little bit to childhood. Do you have any memories that stand out involving food or cooking? Maybe what was your favorite meal growing up? Some interviewees have shared with us specific holidays and family around meals, and we would just like to hear your perspective on that and from your childhood. Itzel: Yeah, I feel like I was lucky enough to have a lot of food and really good food growing up. I remember, oh gosh, I loved all the food honestly. On my grandmother's side, on my dad's mother's side, it was like my grandmother would make us traditional albondigas. She would show us how to make menudo. She lived in Allende, San Miguel de Allende. So a lot of the stuff, the memories that I have over there is her having this gigantic molcajete and using it to get the corn and shredding it off and making the masa from the start. And her showing me how to make nixtamal tortillas, which is you have to use the corn and you have to soak it in lemon juice and water, so you get all of the nutrients. And so I grew up watching her do that. I loved, of course, got to love tamales on both sides and learning the different ways that my grandmother's side, my mother, I keep saying my grandmother's side, but it's like, which one?

00:45:43.000 - 00:49:31.000

Itzel: My father's mom, who made it very traditional Mexican style, Nahuatl style with the blue corn and traditional that way. So it tasted a lot lighter than say, my grandmother from my mom's side, who used lard and pork, which was traditional in that area. So there was always two different sides of food that I would get on my dad's mother’s, very traditional Mexican. And on my mom's side, it was traditional Mexican-ish and Texan. So yeah, I loved, I love both sides of the food. And then of course, my grandfather made the best brisket I'd ever have in my entire life, and nothing ever compares to it. I'm always real skeptical about people and their brisket. I'm like, nope, nope, nope. Doesn't compete with my grandpas or traditional ways. How on my dad's side of the family, they liked to hunt. So I remember growing up and hunting with them and helping them make venison and smoking the venison or going fishing and getting catfish and learning how to filet the fish and how to season it. Itzel: We grew up eating catfish all the time. Little staples like that. Food was a big part of our get-togethers for sure. And everybody usually chipped in on what they were going to do. So if my grandfather was gonna be — if we were doing a barbecue, my grandfather was going to be in charge of the brisket, my grandmother's in charge of the sides, and then my aunt and my mom would be in charge of helping my grandmother with the sides. And we always got together for Thanksgiving and for Christmas on my mom's side and my grandpa — on my dad's side , we'd go up to Mexico for the long month, come back, and he was usually, we'd go in around Christmas time and leave after King's Day or something like that. He would occasionally do that. Itzel: I have memories of different, I have funny memories of food experiences, like learning what cabrito was for the first time on my dad's side because my cousin was like, hey, remember that goat you were playing with? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I remember that goat. And they're like, yeah, well that's the soup that you're eating right now. And just little things like, oh my God, we were eating goat and I remember eating rattlesnake, tamales, which are really good. So big part of that, harvesting techniques and things like that. I feel like I was fortunate enough to have that part be a big part of my families, both my families. Calen: Alright, thank you so much for sharing. A lot of the meals you shared sound really delicious. This is my first time in Texas, so I can't waste try some authentic Texan brisket specifically. Have you had any hurdles in sourcing specific ingredients in some of the foods that you shared?

00:49:31.000 - 00:52:02.000

Itzel: I'm sorry, can you repeat the last part? Calen: Have you had any issues or hurdles in sourcing ingredients in some of the different recipes that you shared? Speaker 3: In California it is so hard to find certain items for sure, but there's also so many ingredients that I'm able to find that are a lot more scarce in Texas. I remember growing up with nopales, but for whatever reason I couldn't find nopales as abundant out here in California. I can find that at, sometimes even at a farmer's market. But yeah, certain things that were sourced, sometimes it was like whatever was in season and if they had a bad season, we would know because we wouldn't be able to find certain things. I remember one year — my grandfather loved making pecan pie. He loved my grandmother making the pecan pie, I should say. But he would go out and get the pecans and that was kind of his thing he liked to do. He liked to pick all of the pecans that were going to be made, used for the pecan pie. Speaker 3: And I remember one year, this area that would always get, or the tree that we had, we also, he had a lot of fruit trees. We had a really bad year of pecans and he was upset cause he didn't want to have to buy them. So we ended up going somewhere alongside the highway to go and pick the pecans off the ground cause he didn't want to buy them. He was real stubborn like that about it. But yeah, I remember one year the pecans being really bad and him just finding a different way to source those pecans. Fishing was a big part of my life growing up because sometimes, especially if I was living with my parents, we would have zero food, but at the same time my dad would be like, alright, we got these fishing poles, we're going to go fishing and we're going to get food. So yeah, if we were food insecure, then we would end up hunting.

00:52:02.000 - 00:53:27.000

Calen: Alright, thank you again. So we’re gonna be moving on to the next topic or section and it includes broader health and wellbeing. So just to start off, have you had any struggles with your mental health at all? Itzel: Yes, so I have C plus or complex PTSD and I have ADHD as well. I've had ADHD all of my life. I have been diagnosed recently with general anxiety disorder as well. And then depression, clinical depression when I was about 12 years old. Sorry, I'm hearing my cats. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Calen: Alright, thank you again for sharing. So I know you mentioned nature and fishing, so have you been able to find ways to spend time in nature? Itzel: Oh yeah, absolutely. Especially living out here in Oakland. I'm a drive away from a beach. I love to go to the beach, but I also love the Redwood forest, so I'm always able to go and spend time in nature out there for sure. Go for hikes.

00:53:27.000 - 00:55:40.000

Calen: Yeah, if possible, I would love to hear more about the beaches. I'm from a big city, so it's not really a big thing, but if you want to share more. Itzel: Oh my gosh. So yeah, I mean I grew up in San Antonio and in Houston too. In Houston there's Galveston, but it ’s either people are, it's a big party area and it's kind of polluted. And we would go to Corpus or South Padre growing up and when the beaches out here in California, they're so amazingly beautiful and clean and beautiful that you're just like, wow, this is what a beach looks like. You don't have rocks all over the place and trash or whatever. But yeah, the beaches are gorgeous out here. They're cold though, so especially if there's this one beach in San Francisco, it's Ocean Beach and it's gorgeous, gorgeous. You can walk on the sand, it's so pretty and sometimes, especially on a hot day, it's really nice to be out there. That's the only way that you can really, really enjoy it is on a really hot day because the rest of the time you go over there and it's windy and the wind just kind of cuts right through you and it's cold and you definitely don't want to put your feet in that water because it's like forty degrees. So it's gorgeous, but it's cold. Itzel: That's my only complaint about it. But I love it too. I love being around it. And those times where I do, I am brave enough in putting my feet in the water. You get used to it, it's nice. It's nice being so close to a beach for sure. I love beaches and growing up in Texas, it was just like you had to wait until spring break or summer to go. Calen: That sounds so beautiful. I can only imagine. Would you say there are any specific aspects of the natural world that hold special value in your life?

00:55:40.000 - 00:58:28.000

Itzel: Yeah, like I said, I really like the beaches out here. There's one specific beach that had a little bit of everything. It has the sand, it has the big gigantic rocks. You can see the red forest from the same area. You can basically hike up this one rock and be surrounded by redwood trees and still see the water and also look up into the distance and see mountains. So I always am like, this is my little slice of everything. It's beautiful. And if you climb up to that hill, where all beautiful redwood trees are, and you can see the mountains, you can see the big gigantic ocean, you can see whales sometimes with their little spouts out. And that's like chef's kiss, beautiful, perfect space. Love to be out there. I love to meditate out there. It's my favorite place. Calen: So kind of moving from meditation, would you consider yourself a spiritual person at all? Itzel: Yes, yes. My mom was strictly atheist because she was so angry with the religion she grew up in and my dad was just like neither here. He felt like he was more spiritual. So he kind of raised me like that, but not really supporting a specific religion. And my grandparents were strict, strict, strict Catholic. And my dad's mom was a lot more spiritual and connected to the Indigenous side, so she taught me a lot of that. And so that's kind of where I am. I used a lot of the ways that she taught me and I just continued to participate in that, to do that, to basically follow that. And it's just spiritual ways of our ancestors' style . So I definitely am a spiritual person. Calen: Alright, thank you so much. So we're moving on to the next section. Again, I was living vicariously through you when you were sharing the stories about the beaches. I cannot wait to see a real beach sometime, hopefully in the future. And I know you mentioned a lot about community and connection, would you say how has community played a role in your life?

00:58:28.000 - 01:02:01.000

Itzel: I feel like it really has shown me a big way to be present. And also it's shown me that honestly, I feel like community is a big part of what is going to help us mentally thrive. All of us as a people. I heavily believe that with the current political situation that's going on, I feel like that is the only thing that's going to help us move forward and build a better future is if we are communal. Growing up, the whole assimilated talks that we would get, you've got to do this. It was always taught that you grow up, you go get a career and you get your house and you coach the little league, but you don't really, my mom was like, you don't really invite people over and stuff like that, which was completely different from my dad or even her mom. Her mom was different. Her mom was always, my grandmother was always like, let's entertain, we're going to feed. You got a friend coming over, great, I'll put up another chair . There ’s always, there's plenty for everybody. She always had that attitude. Whereas my mom was very like, no, we cannot feed anybody else. Hoard, hoard, hoard. This is ours. So yeah, when I was exposed to the communal part, I could see the benefit of that. Itzel: And it sucks because I wanted a lot of my mom's approval at the time when I raised my children, I kind of kept them close to me and not involved community until they were much older, almost teenagers at that point. But also it made me frustrated. I wish I was able to have that community for when they were little because I think that would have benefited their mental health in so many ways. And I honestly feel like community is a big part of what will help us continue being mentally fit. We are not a people that we have to be individualists. We are definitely not from a people who can be that way. We have to be communal. It's a part of our blood. Calen: Alright, thank you. So my colleague has another follow-up question about culture and tradition. Annesha: So I wanted to ask whether you have kids or if you don't, whether there's community members that you are sharing your culture with and how you envision yourself passing it down, I guess to subsequent generations. Because you've talked about so many wonderful ideas of that the point of having this knowledge is to share it and to make sure that the right people are talking about it and advocating for themselves. So I guess how do you try to make an effort to make sure that the next generation can carry that rhetoric through?

01:02:01.000 - 01:07:18.000

Itzel: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's a big strong point when I raised my kids . I have four, they're all older now, so I have a grand baby, I’m soon to have another grand baby. And that's a big part of my life is to make sure that they are of our history. I want them to know who my grandparents were. I want them to know who my great-grandparents were. I want them to know where we come from and have pride in that as well and not be ashamed. I think that's a big part, unfortunately, of the assimilation is that we have so much, like, we don't have as much pride as we should. We don't know enough to have pride in that because we're only limited of what we have. And so it is a big important part of making sure that my kids know where we come from and oh look, that's tradition or this and that, or even not even just that, because a lot of them are, I've got two in Washington, one in Reno, and one down here with me. So they're all kind of spread out. I want them to go and seek community and seek people so they can continue learning and they can put those practices and teach their kids as well. So yeah, that's a huge big, it's super important. Annesha: Yeah, definitely. Thank you very much for sharing that. And it's wonderful to see that you have been able to, I guess, teach your kids that. And I think it's definitely an important thing as someone who's, my parents are also immigrants with assimilation. I totally understand that and I really appreciate my parents passing on their knowledge. So yeah, our next category that we're going to be talking about is your sense of safety and belonging , back to you personally within your community. And if you're comfortable talking about this, what does feeling safe look like to you in your day-to-day life, given I guess where you currently live or maybe in the past experiences, but yeah, I just want to open up that conversation. Itzel: A big reason why I moved out. I would say the main, one of the main, main reasons aside from everything, is that I wanted to feel safe in my skin and to be able to walk around with my partner and feel safe and be the person that I want to be. And my family was very upset anytime I moved out of Texas, if I moved to San Diego, they were upset, why don't you live here? And my grandmother will still be like, I'll be like, I have big news, and my grandma will be like, you're moving back to San Antonio. I'm like, no, grandma, I'm not moving back to San Antonio. I love San Antonio, but I also have a lot of trauma growing up there and not feeling safe for being queer, feeling like I had to worry about the machismo part, the toxic masculinity part of my community, and feeling not safe around them at all. And there's been, unfortunately, some past trauma where I've been chased. Itzel: I've had threats against me, sexual threats against me because they found out that I was queer, that I was gay, that I — so, and I know now it's not that same wa y cause I have a lot of friends still living in San Antonio and they're also gay, and I can see that it's thriving, but for me, that's what it holds. It holds that memory of those times where I'd have to run right after school home because some guy threatened to take me out to the shed in the school or something. Or if I had a secret relationship with anybody that I was worried about them finding out or just feeling like I had to keep it a secret, which kind of sucked because nobody should feel that way. So a big part of me moving out here was to make sure that, and of course the current legislation in Texas is making it really, really, really scary for anybody who's queer live out there in Texas. So that was also a big part of my decision to come out here cause I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to make sure that I lived in a city that allowed me to marry my partner, be with my partner, walk around with my partner, and be gay by myself with my friends, and not have to worry about anybody threatening that.

01:07:18.000 - 01:10:03.000

Annesha: Yeah, I can totally understand that. That makes sense. Calen: So, I just wanted to ask a follow-up question about how your career identity has shaped your culture or your sense of culture and belonging. Itzel: Yeah, it's actually helped my identity as a queer person a lot because there's so many different identities on the Coahuiltecan side. I found out we had five genders. Same thing with Nahuatl. There's five genders and there's a word for being somebody who w as afab person, assigned a female at birth, but identifies masculine . That there's a specific word for that, and that there were no pronouns. You're just called by this way. So learning those types of things is just like, oh. So we did exist back then, and it was a lot more accepted. And the only reason why we are not being accepted right now is because of colonization, assimilation tactics, and things like that to take away these identities for us. Because in our cultures being two-spirit, being queer often meant that you were in touch with the ancestors, you had a connection, a way of connection. Itzel: It'd make you better than anybody for sure. It doesn't, even if you held a specific part, whether you were a healer or you were a leader, or you were a warrior, you weren't the deity warrior, you weren't above anybody, but it was your job to guide because you had this direct line to the ancestors. You are obligated to help lead people into the right way of thinking. And that's usually what it meant. If you have a family and one of your children is two-spirit, then that meant that this baby is supposed to teach your family something special. What that is, who knows? You won't know until you see them grow up and thrive and make decisions on ourselves. But either way, it was a good omen to have that because it meant that the ancestors had something to teach you. And you guys, it was generational wealth.

01:10:03.000 - 01:14:46.000

Itzel: Like, oh, here, there's this blessing. You're going to learn something amazing from the ancestors, or they regarded your family, or they see you in that way. And sometimes the lessons weren't that great, but nonetheless, it was like a blessing that the ancestors saw your family and said, you guys deserve a lesson. And it was common to have two-spirit people in each family. So it wasn't like a lottery system or anything like that. So yeah, I mean learning all of those types of things, learning about the deities who were born women, had babies with another deity, another God, and saying, all right, I'm done being a girl. I'm going to turn into a boy. And it being kind of this socially accepted thing and being like, oh yeah, that's what happened to that person, that deity, that goddess, she went from goddess to god, or the beautiful stories that you would hear about the muxes, which were a third gender, and how highly regarded they were. And so that, it's a big healer for the queer community, for sure. If you're Indigenous and you're learning about this thing, it can be very gender affirming. It could be very queer joy, it can give you queer joy because you're like, oh, we existed back then. Annesha: Yeah, I can understand that. That makes sense. I'm also interested in getting some insight to what has been your interaction with people that are non-Native and non-Indigenous people that live in your area and your community, just across the span of your life. Has that changed at all? And how has that impacted your view of your identity and your sense of safety? Itzel: Yeah, so when I was growing up, because my grandfather was telling me that we're Indigenous and all that stuff, I remember growing up and people being like, you're not N ative. You're Mexican. You're from Mexico. Y'all are from Mexico. And sometimes when we come from our own people, because we didn't know any better. And that was the thing was I was regarded that way for such a long time that I was just like, well, I guess I'm just a Mexican person. I don't remember. And they would be like, oh, when did your family come over? Did they cross the river? And I'll be like, no, they were born here. And they're like, well, how do you know that you're from Mexico? I'm like, because everybody’s telling me. So I'm like, I don't know what to think. And they ’d just be kind of confused themselves. And there's also moments where I've had conversations, it's usually with white women and they'll be like, oh, well I've got Indigenous in me. Itzel: I've got this amount of, usually that's how I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm Indigenous. And they'd be like, oh, well I'm indigenous too. I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. And I'd always have people be like, are you sure you're Indigenous and you're not just Mexican? I'm like, the Spaniards came here when they came here from Europe. They didn't just make a race of people, the people, there was people who were occupying Texas and Mexico for such a long time before that. And we come from those people and that's who we are. So yeah, I've had different interactions. I still continue to have those interactions, especially touring with some of these Indigenous people, these Indigenous groups, and having non-Natives come up to me or, like, I have this tattoo right here. So that's usually a conversation starter. Oh, what does this mean? Where did you get that from? Oh, that's either, oh, that's really cool. Or they just kind of be like, you know, so I'm still getting those kind of same reactions of how did you know? Or you don't look specifically Indigenous, and I'm like. You look Mexican, I'm like. So I'm constantly having those conversations, unfortunately.

01:14:46.000 - 01:17:15.000

Annesha: And I think the last question we have, which I wanted to keep a little bit open-ended as well, thank you so much again for sharing all of this with us and kind of just talking us through over the past hour and a half, the story of your life. And we're so honored to just hear it and just be able to sit here, learn from you. Itzel: Thank you. Annesha: And I guess I'm really inspired by just your grit and your journey with learning new things about yourself, about your family, having to be that person to reeducate your family and teach people that are elder than you about history and your culture. And I know you've probably learned so much across this journey, and I just wanted to let you know for the people that are going to be listening to this and watching this, I know that some of them might be in a similar place or feel similar pressures from family and stuff like that. And so I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk directly to those people and share any advice or maybe the biggest things that you've learned or something that you try to stay true to despite the challenges you face with your own mental health. Yeah. So I just want to let you share whatever it is you'd like to. Itzel: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I learned is that we're always growing. We're always growing, and we're always learning. So nobody has all of the answers. Nobody's an expert of anything except the elders because they've lived. And even the ones that weren't 100% a part of the life and a part of, they weren't in council or anything like that, or even the ones that, like my grandparents where they didn't grow up in that, it still doesn't make them any less Indigenous than they are already. And they have stories. They may have different stories , a nd their stories also deserve to get told because not only did they come before us, and not only did they know those ways before, but it's important to have those stories told as well for the sake of us knowing what they suffered and that it wasn't in vain.

01:17:15.000 - 01:20:17.000

Itzel: My grandparents, my grandfather died believing that that was the fate of his life, was to be corrected for speaking a different language and wanting to be assimilated and American so much that he was willing to conform and to do these things. And that didn't make him a traitor or anything like that. It made him trying to survive and trying to provide a good life for his family by having them survive as well, by making that money. So he was good and nice to his boss so that he would make money to support his family. But his story is no much more, less than or no less than anybody else. His story matters as well. And I think about him dying, not knowing how fucking awesome and special he was as an Indigenous person, and I try to honor that part of him every day. I'm here, I'm here still in this realm, and until I pass on to the next realm, if I have to make it my entire life to make sure that his voice is heard, because his whole life, he didn't have that, then that's what my purpose is. Itzel: But we're constantly learning. We're constantly evolving. In the beginning when we're learning, it's so easy to be like, oh, I know this and I know that, and it's okay, and I'm going to tell people and I'm going to do projects with it, and I'm going to say that I'm an expert in this. I would say, don't do that because there's so, so much you've got to learn yourself. Also to be humble. Be humble. We're all humble learners. We're all humbly learning. And be respectful by the people who have come before you who have learned those lessons, sadly, the hard way. Calen: Thank you again so much for sharing your testimony. All your last few words definitely touched my heart, and I so relate to the idea of speaking for the voiceless. My grandmother kind of went her whole life not being able to voice her own opinions, living through segregation laws and whatnot. So I try to dedicate my life to making sure her voice and the voices of my ancestors are heard. Again, so many people will be moved by your words, and I hope to stay humble as you mentioned in the end. We want to wish you a great rest of your Saturday, and again, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with us. Itzel: Absolutely.