Nov. 5, 2021 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Grand Rapids Community College’s Native American Student Organization has partnered with the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education on an event focused on sharing Anishinaabe history and culture.
The Decolonizing Diet Project Culinary Speaker Events, offered online 6-8:30 p.m. Nov. 8, will feature a panel of experts discussing the topics of food sovereignty, clean water, land access, foraging and cooking as a way of learning traditions. The speakers are:
- Dr. Martin Reinhardt, a Native American Studies professor at Northern Michigan University and president of the Michigan Indian Education Council.
- Frank Sprague, drummer from the Gun Lake Band Potawatomi Nation tribal elder Turtle Clan.
- Camren Stott, an Anishinaabe personal chef, a Grand Valley State University advisor and co-owner of Thirteen Moons Kitchen.
- Myriah Williams, a GRCC alumna and Gun Lake youth specialist now attending graduate school at NMU.
Williams and Stott will lead a live cooking demonstration, and Sprague will open and close the event. In-person registration for the event has closed but you can still sign up to participate online through the link here. You can also find a QR code on the NASO Facebook page here.
The culinary speaker series is funded, in part, through a grant NASO received from the Native American Heritage Fund in 2019. The student organization also sponsored a trip to the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinaabe Culture and Lifeways in Mount Pleasant.
"The GRCC NASO would like to thank the Native American Heritage Fund board members for awarding us this grant back in the fall of 2019," GRCC NASO President Rachel Beecher said. "As our grant proposal states, the GRCC Education and Reconciliation Project will create educational opportunities for students, faculty, staff and the greater community that will enable individuals to learn about Anishinaabe history and heritage as a way to foster awareness, dialog, understanding, and reconciliation. NASO accepted this opportunity with humble hearts and have diligently worked with much enthusiasm and excitement ever since. We understand the importance of further enriching GRCC and the greater Grand Rapids community with events that delve into the hidden histories and present day happenings of the Anishinaabe peoples and culture."
Beecher said the vision behind this grant work was a healing cycle, or medicine wheel, representing four quadrants as directions: truth, talk, teach, and tell.
"This imagery is important to me as it represents a teaching tool, a reminder that we should all learn the obscure truth of our past, talk towards reconciliation, teach the community about its various rich cultures, and tell the next generation to continue this vital work," she said. "In keeping with that imagery and after a long COVID-19 pause, we created the second half of this NAHF grant work, our Decolonizing Diet Project Event."
Beecher said she found myself going beyond just those four directions and began to further understand it as seven directions, like the seven grandfather teachings.
"Thanks to the NAHF grant, Secchia Institute, GRCC NASO faculty advisor, and our Anishinaabe panelists, I worked to talk with community members gaining more wisdom, I lovingly helped teach the hidden histories of our past, I bravely researched and asked about the lack of Anishinaabe (female) perspectives within our classrooms, I respectfully asked elders about traditions all while fostering that much needed dialogue, and I held a mirror up to the circle for more transparency encouraging honesty and humility here at GRCC and beyond. Miigwech, Thank you for this opportunity, it was my chance to help give back to my people, a promise made many years ago during an eagle feather graduation ceremony."
About 0.5% of GRCC students identify as Native Americans, according to GRCC Institutional Research and Planning. NASO, which is open to all students, has hosted film screenings and discussion panels, taken part in a Ghost Supper, and participated in cultural activities with preschoolers in the Phyllis Fratzke Early Childhood Learning Laboratory.