The challenge

Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), co-founded by Tristan Reader and Terrol Johnson in 1996, serves an area west of Tucson, Ariz., where approximately 16,000 members of the Tohono O’odham tribe live on a 4,600-square-mile reservation. Terrol Johnson and Tristan Reader define four root problems in the Tohono O’odham community: destruction of local food systems; lack of sustainable, appropriate economic development; loss of cultural traditions and lack of support for youth to develop leadership skills. Residents face rising levels of violence and alcoholism; low levels of educational attainment and employment, one of the world’s highest rates of adult-onset diabetes, and a destabilizing loss of cultural traditions. The Tohono O’odham report one of the lowest per-capita income rankings of any tribe in the United States. Providing services to the Tohono O’odham is particularly difficult because of geographic distances and social barriers. Villages are spread across wide geographic distance, many in remote areas accessible only by dirt roads; electricity and telephone service are often absent; and the Tohono O’odham people share a long-standing distrust of outsiders.


Seeds of commitment

The Tohono O’odham tribe is one of the few North American tribes never removed or relocated from its ancestral land. Johnson says his people have lived on their land since the beginning of time, and that every rock, ridge and gully carries a story of deep religious significance. “Our elders expect us to take responsibility for creating a healthier and stronger world,” says Johnson, a Tohono O’odham who, as a boy, was urged by his grandfather, a traditional healer, to help his family and community. In tribal tradition, a person who nurtures the community spirit is a practitioner of O’odham Himdag — the desert people’s way. Johnson accompanies tribal members on work parties to pick cactus fruit and shares in other physical work that benefits the community. He has spent countless hours learning about tribal teachings. Reader, who is not a member of the tribe, grew up in a family immersed in the environmental, feminist and social justice movements, and has worked for a number of non-profit organizations.


Accomplishments

TOCA has established a Community Food System, the Tohono O’odham Basketweavers Organization; the Arts and Culture Program, and a Youth/Elder Outreach Initiative. The organization educates the community about the nutritional value and cultural importance of wild desert foods and shares information with tribal members about medical problems associated with modern diets. Tepary beans, which are highly nutritious, and salutary for people with adult-onset diabetes and a traditional food source for the Tohono O’odham, had almost disappeared from the tribe’s diet. In the 1930’s, some 1.8 million pounds of the beans were produced; today, the O’odham Nation grows fewer than 100 pounds of tepary beans annually, but TOCA, through its Community Food System farm project, is increasing production and demand. TOCA also leads a multidisciplinary task force that brings together tribal programs, federal programs, and community members to develop local approaches to the prevention and treatment of diabetes. Although TOCA recognizes the importance of modern medicine, Johnson and Reader believe Tohono O’odham food traditions are vital. In April 2000, TOCA joined with the Comcaac (Seri) Indian community in Mexico and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to organize an 11-day, 250-mile walk across the Mexico/U.S. border to raise awareness of traditional foods, bringing often isolated tribal members together. The event revived an important tradition: a heritage walk that had once played a key role in young Tohono O’odham men’s spiritual development.

Craft traditions, too, bring people together. TOCA’s Celebration of Basketweaving has grown from a small gathering of 40 Tohono O’odham basket weavers into an annual event that attracts more than 300 native-American weavers from 17 tribes in 10 states (as well as Native people from Mexico, Australia and Canada). They explore ways in which basketry weaves together the many strands of life in native communities: culture, economics, artistry, identity and health. Basketry sales at these events generate more than $125,000 in direct income for individual weavers. Indeed, basketry has become the cornerstone of community revitalization in many native communities, boosting everything from culturally appropriate economic development, to language-revitalization efforts, to helping young people develop strong personal identities. TOCA also created a marketing cooperative to ensure fair compensation for weavers and to gain access to public and private lands traditionally used to collect weaving materials. A weavers’ mentoring program ensures that weaving traditions and techniques are passed on to a new generation.

TOCA’s Youth/Elder Outreach Initiative includes a youth program that teaches children the tribe’s cultural traditions. For example, elder Christine Johnson teaches youngsters traditional story telling, how to prepare for the traditional saguaro fruit harvest, and about the culturally important rain ceremony. TOCA also encourages youth to take significant leadership roles within the organization and the community through its Outreach Initiative.


Their leadership style

Johnson and Reader share a relaxed and collaborative approach, drawing on the tribe’s leadership traditions. Reader brings skills in fund raising, administration, project development, and explaining community issues to non native groups. As Johnson says, teasingly, “He is the white guy who wouldn’t go away.” Johnson maintains a broad network of tribal kin who have known him since birth. He is an award-winning artist, with strong connections to the artisan community.

Johnson’s creative background, Reader’s technical training, and both men’s adherence to the desert people’s way helps them bridge the gaps between the Tohono O’odham community and non-native worlds. As a result, they have initiated collaborations with leaders in a wide variety of programs and organizations, ranging from museums (including the Heard Museum and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum), to conservation organizations (among them, Native Seeds/SEARCH), to national coalitions (including the Ford Foundation’s Youth Leadership for Development Initiative and the Community

Food Security Coalition). They also work closely with the Hopi and Salish Kootanai communities.
“We seek to walk with the community as it seeks out its own gifts and strengths,” Johnson and Reader wrote in a recent essay. “Our goal — both as individuals and as a leadership team — is to create more than a vital and sustainable organization; our goal is the creation of a vital and sustainable Tohono O’odham community.”


The future

Johnson and Reader dream of putting traditional foods on the menus of hospital, schools and community centers, in the entire region, as a preventive measure in the fight against adult-onset diabetes. The new Tohono O’odham community college is working with TOCA and Native Seeds/SEARCH to create a Southwest Native Food Systems Training Initiative, designed to bring native food awareness to students. TOCA also plans to help develop a North American network for sharing of strategies, skills and visions of indigenous community based organizations.


More about Terrol Dew Johnson and Tristan Reader

“It is so important for TOCA to do what they’re doing and to continue. TOCA has really made an impact out here. With a few people, they have built a platoon.”
— Danny Lopez, an esteemed elder and teacher on the Tohono O’odham reservation