Fighting Hunger in the Klamath River Basin
California Today
Wednesday: Native Americans have some of the nation’s highest rates of food insecurity. Also: Another round of California v. Trump; and a special Berkeley cafe.
It worked out well that Lisa Hillman was at the tiny airport in McKinleyville, Humboldt County, when I called her to talk recently. She usually doesn’t have cell service.
That’s because Ms. Hillman, a member of the Karuk Tribe who works as program manager for its PĂkyav Field Institute, lives two hours away in the town of Orleans, along the Klamath River.
Also a long drive away from her home: The nearest grocery store.
“They just opened up a supermarket in Hoopa, which is 40 minutes away,” she told me. “But they’re all small and they’re all super expensive.”
The tribes, like the Karuk, who live in the vast, towering forests of the Klamath River Basin — who have for centuries hunted deer and gathered acorns, who knew how to weave baskets to catch once-plentiful salmon — now face food shortages at higher rates than almost anywhere else in the country.
While 11.8 percent of households nationally experience some level of food insecurity, a recent federally funded five-year study found that 92 percent of the households in the Klamath Basin suffer from some kind of food insecurity. Almost 65 percent rely on food assistance, compared with 12 percent nationally.
But the research, which Ms. Hillman worked on along with academics from U.C. Berkeley, also found that those community members lacked access to indigenous foods — and those could better feed those communities today.
Native foods, according to the federal definition, are plants or animals that are hunted, harvested, gathered, grown or prepared using traditional Native American methods. Such foods can be wild or cultivated and they’re specific to locations and distinct cultures.
Ms. Hillman said her grandparents were taught to be ashamed to be Native American. They were sent to a faraway boarding school.
“They did the best they could,” she said. “And they taught their kids how to survive in white culture.”
Subsequent generations, as a result, haven’t gotten the lifelong education in the kind of traditional practices they’d need to cultivate a diet on native foods.
Then there’s the fact that while the tribes once had unfettered access to millions of acres, over decades, that land has been effectively closed off to the people who were its first stewards by the federal government.
Climate change and poor forest management have made the lands that are left less fertile for food sources. As my colleague Jose Del Real reported last year, salmon runs have declined.
On top of all that, there aren’t as many employment opportunities in remote areas, so all people can afford, Ms. Hillman said, are unhealthy commodity foods: white flour, processed sugar and milk in communities where most people are lactose intolerant.
“It’s absolutely a dead ringer for diabetes and heart disease and obesity,” Ms. Hillman said.
But Ms. Hillman said she sees promise for Native American agriculture in the most recent Farm Bill.
She said that when she sits down to eat with her six kids, they have vegetables from a garden that Ms. Hillman said is bursting right now, along with venison and jarred acorns.
Here’s what else we’re following
— in an attempt to block the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would deny permanent residency to immigrants if they were deemed likely to use government benefits. [The New York Times]
— In another battle, California and more than two dozen other states and cities . The case could have far-reaching ramifications for how the federal government can fight climate change in the future. [The New York Times]
— Andre Moye Jr., the California Highway Patrol officer who was [The Press-Enterprise]
— But details about the curriculum are sparking debates. [The Los Angeles Times]
— , which he helped found and has led, following a report by The Associated Press that he sexually harassed women over years. The San Francisco Opera canceled a concert with him in October. [The New York Times]
— At Beautycon in L.A., Priyanka Chopra probably expected to field questions about her self-care routine and female empowerment. Instead, another beauty influencer asked her about a tweet in which . [The New York Times]
— After , the city is imposing new safety and insurance requirements on tour companies. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]
— class of 1989. Attendees said it was as fun as it sounds. [The Press-Telegram]
And Finally …
It’s not a complete fix for food insecurity among Native Americans, but it could be a start: My colleague Tejal Rao recently feasted at Berkeley’s Cafe Ohlone and came away recommending that we do, too.
It’s a “small, enchanting restaurant that pops up a few times a week behind a bookshop,” she wrote. It’s where a member of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the Bay Area lovingly recovers native cuisine and uses its ingredients as inspiration for new dishes.
Cafe Ohlone is worth a visit, Tejal wrote, “not only to eat, but to listen.”
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