Over the course of this season, our guests have helped us understand the history of disruption and provided essential context for why the Indigenous food movement is necessary. In this last episode for season 1, we talk with Anishinaabe farmer and food producer Rosebud Bear Schneider about the joys and challenges of revitalizing cultural foodways in the present day. Rosebud gives us a glimpse into what food sovereignty work looks like in a contemporary, urban context-- how people are practicing place-based foodways in the City of Detroit, the challenges related to this, and what gives her strength to continue this intergenerational work.

In this episode of Spirit Plate, Shiloh chats with:

• Rosebud Bear Schneider about Self-Determination

Highlights of the Episode:

Rosebud Bear Schneider Journey 

• Rosebud was introduced to Ziibimijwang Farm in 2017 while she was taking an organic farming class at Michigan State University. By 2019 Rosebud was a farm manager at Ziibimijwang Farm, which raises food not just for tribal members, but also for the community at large.

• ​​Rosebud cares deeply about food sovereignty. She grew up in a family that was active in the Native American community in Detriot. Her dad is from Shawnee and Ojibwe tribes in Wisconsin and was active in the American Indian Movement. 

• Rosebud began her career at the health center and made food sovereignty a major part of her work. She helped start a community garden at a park, a seed bank, and a tool bank. Rosebud also organized large community meals that served only Native American traditional foods.

Place-based Foodways in the City of Detroit

• In 2019, Detroit Mayor Mike Guggan created the Detroit Sustainability Action Agenda, with goals to improve the health of the people, build  affordable and quality homes, create clean and connected neighborhoods along with making the city more green. 

Sault Tribe Language and Culture

• Rosebud also works in the anguage & Culture Division works to provide meaningful programming that promotes Anishinaabe Bimaadiziwin and our Anishinaabemowin language to tribal members and interested community members in order to protect and preserve the lifeways that were handed down to us by our Ancestors.

• Repatriation & Historic Preservation is responsible for representing our tribe on issues concerning the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which includes the return of Ancestral remains as well as sacred items and items of cultural patrimony removed from our homelands, past and present. The department also deals with present day inadvertent discovery of Ancestral remains and sacred or traditional cultural properties taken from the tribe during construction projects.

• The Mary Murray Culture Camp provides meaningful camps, activities, and events that focus on Anishinaabe life ways and traditions through the teaching of traditional life skills & land based education. This department also assists in the planning and implementing of various community events, projects, and activities, including powwows, ceremonies, and cultural programming. The Mary Murray Culture Camp includes the Cultural Activities Coordinator, the Cultural Activities Assistant, and the MMCC Maintenance Technician.

• The goal of this program is to teach Anishinaabemowin to our communities, provide learning opportunities for those who would like to learn the language, and to speak the language and preserve sovereignty. The Language Department staff provides in-person community language classes across our seven county service area, livestream lessons, Facebook lessons, and assists with many translations, projects, and events. Additionally, the Anishinaabemowin language program provides a language lesson to the Win Awenen Nisitotung Newspaper to be printed monthly and hosts a yearly language conference.

Family meals 

• Rosebud discusses hosting a community meal in her hometown, Waawiiyatanong, and offering traditional foods to Indigenous guests, one of her greatest ever experiences. Food sovereignty movements are premised on communities caring for their own, and the work often involves helping others overcome barriers to food access. The community meals was a way to achieve this. 

• One way to ​​help people heal is by revitalizing traditional practices when it comes to food and community.

Ziibimijwang Farms

• The Anishinaabe tribe founded Ziibimijwang (which means “farm where the river flows”) with the goal of providing a reliable food source independent of large food system chains. Rosebud’s work focuses on meeting people where they’re at in their journey to Indigenize their diet.Produce grown at Ziibimijwang is sold at the tribe’s farm stand, purchased by local schools to feed students at lunch, and given to community members (and even other Indigenous communities) that are in need

• Rosebud discusses her goals for Ziibimijwang Farms. 

The Importance of Decolonizing Indigenous foodways

• Rosebud discusses the hardships of decolonizing food, from seed saving, to planting, harvesting, cooking, consuming, and presevering. 

• Rosebud speaks about the importance of connecting to the land and reviving populated areas.