[ Dog barking ] [ Birds chirping ] [ Thunder rumbling ] >> I often find myself asking, "What sustains a culture?"

Is it the languages we speak?

Is it the stories we share?

Or is it the knowledge we pass down?

To me, it's all of this.

But at the center of what makes us who we are is something we are running out of.

>> No, you cannot have culture without food, and you cannot have food without culture.

[ Woman speaking ] [ Man speaking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ >> [ Speaking Diné ] So, my name is Natalie Benally.

I am born into the Grey-Streak Ends People Clan, born for the Red Running into Water Clan.

My maternal grandparents' clan is the Zuni Pueblo People Clan, and my paternal grandparents' clan is the Water Edge People Clan.

And that is how I identify as a Diné woman.

I am a dance artist, an actor, a filmmaker, a writer, director, producer, a mother, a community advocate, a language advocate, and so many other things.

I work for the people, and my art serves the people.

Therefore, I will always work to serve the people.

So, I grew up on the land of my mom's family, here just outside of Gallup, New Mexico.

It is a place where majority of my family has lived for generations upon generations, and a lot of my time as a child I spent playing outside in canyons and in ditches.

And I also grew up in a farmer family.

And so, a lot of my childhood was spent helping my family in harvest and planting.

And I miss those days a lot because I think there was such a richness to being able to grow up learning how to grow your own food and use that as a way to sustain yourself that I don't have now as an adult.

♪♪ So, not too long ago, like, this whole entire area was filled with corn, just rows and rows of corn.

We'd spend, you know, time planting it, and then we would harvest it.

And then we also had squash on that side of the field and we'd have a squash field.

And we used to come in with our trucks and we'd load up all the squash into the back of the trucks and all the corn.

Yeah, amazing what a lot of things can happen in that short amount of time.

My heart aches for the fact that we no longer are able to grow corn where I live because of things like there's poisoning of the groundwater because of uranium mining.

There's been a really intense drought for the last I don't know how many years.

People like me, who are young, are moving to the cities because that's where all the jobs are.

So, there's nobody at home to learn these things and pass them on.

And, again, there's also things like alcoholism and drug addiction that prevents us from being able to carry on those skills and knowledge.

And so, I miss how the smells would be whenever it would rain.

When I look back and I see my land, I just want to help heal it.

When I go home, I do a lot with my mom.

My mom teaches me a lot still, and she'll take me out to go forage for juniper branches to make the juniper ash for the blue corn mush and will still, like, you know, tell me all the things I need to remember when I'm picking out the right branches, the branches I don't want to pick.

And when I do that now with her as an adult, I really value that time a lot.

[ Both laugh ] >> It makes you cough.

>> Makes me cough.

Oh, that's it?

Okay.

And so, when I go back home, and I see the cornfields empty, I see that we don't have a lot of water, makes me sad, but it also makes me understand, like, "How did I play a part in that?"

I played a part in it because I left.

I didn't bother to keep the traditions going.

I chose to leave because that's what I wanted to do, and that's where I was at in that time.

And I have to really own that and accept that I still participate in cycles and systems that do not benefit me or my community at all.

So, really allow when you do this part, the sound to travel through with you.

>> Okay.

>> [ Speaking Diné ] Right?

I try as often as I can to combine my artistic career with a commitment to community work and community healing.

The nature of that work connects me to indigenous peoples from not just here on Turtle Island but around the world.

I've been fortunate to connect and do cultural exchange with the Sami people of Norway, and even back in college I traveled to Ecuador with a theater group to be able to work with the Quechua people for the first time.

>> You always... >> I can't help but notice there is a clear link that exists between cultural sustainability and food sustainability, and it's that consideration that brought me in touch with a chef who is entirely focused on that connection.

[ Laughs ] Whoa!

Oh, that's so crazy!

Jose Duarte is a Peruvian-born culinary artist who left home with his family at a young age due to political strife.

He spent most of his adolescence in exile in Venezuela, and food was the only connector he had back to his homeland.

>> Every time we would go to Peru, which mostly was once a year or every two years, we'll go on a vacation to visit the family, getting to Peru and oh, my God, ají amarillo or ceviche or tiradito.

Look, I get goose bumps because it's something that I was like, "Oh, my God, that's so good.

I cannot have it in Venezuela."

And I was 11 years old or 10 years old, and at my grandmother's house they cooked for the day.

And I remember going to the market early with them and starting to realize, "Oh, my God, what's that smell?"

I can smell the celeriac root, and I can smell some of the fish and then be like, "Oh, my God," the mixture, you know, kind of in the air.

Like, you can create a recipe with all these flavors.

And then the other part was when I was, I think about 12 years old, an uncle took me to a restaurant, and you ring the bell.

He'll come on the balcony.

You know, if he knew you, okay, you can come up.

So, I go up with my uncle, two tables, and he'll bring this huge flounder and put it on the table.

Goes, "Do you want a ceviche or a tiradito?"

And then I'll be like, "Ceviche?

No?"

"Okay."

So, he will take the fish.

He will filet it.

And in less than 20 minutes, you had, right in front of you, you had a dish of super-fresh ceviche.

But that transformation, when I saw that, I had, you know, like an epiphany.

It was like, "I want to do that one day.

How can I take this piece of fish and transform it into something that tastes like that?"

>> The cuisines and the tradition of its preparation was his gateway back home.

He continued that practice, which eventually evolved into a sustainable living.

The work progressed and led to the founding of his own restaurant in Boston's historic North End.

Taranta began as a strictly southern Italian restaurant, but the call to home never stopped.

As a chef and restaurateur, his love of Peruvian cuisine was something enjoyed in private for himself, his family, and his staff.

>> I said, "You know what?

I have to start doing what I I know.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Work with ingredients that are my ingredients, as well.

But I started to introduce Peruvian ingredients into Italian cuisine.

One day when I was in the restaurant, I prepared an employee meal with cassava, with the yuca.

And I did this stew, which is northern Peruvian-style with chicha de jora, with cilantro, etcetera.

And that was the employee meal for the day.

And as I was eating the yuca, I was smashing it, and then I'm eating it.

I'm like, "This could be a great gnocchi.

This will be fantastic as a gnocchi."

And then we started to create this dish, which was the famous Taranta yuca gnocchi that got written up in "Gambero Rosso" as "the bastardization of the Italian gnocchi," you know.

So, I wanted to reply, and I said, "Wait a minute.

But your potatoes came from where?"

>> Oh, yeah.

>> You know?

So, but, anyway, you know, it was, it was all these things.

So, what that did is that opened up the opportunity for us to relate, to educate.

>> No, I think that's really interesting when you describe that experience, because I think a lot of times people don't look into a lot of where food intersects with other -- with peoples.

I think, yeah, and I think when I think of Italian food, I largely think about, like, what ingredients that are "staples" of Italian cuisine that actually were brought over when, you know, people were "discovering" -- right?

I say "discovering" because I use that word real loosely.

>> Yeah, we find.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Who discovered who?

>> I don't know, right?

But, like, in terms of, like, when food was being brought across seas to other places and how people used ingredients to create new things.

>> Right.

>> And I think it's really interesting that there are so many -- there's a lot of, like, groups of people who, like, want those to stay the way they are.

But it's, like, but really nothing really stays the same.

>> But you need to keep the essence, you know?

You can't really -- and this is a great point of conversation about food and culture, you know?

I mean, it's like -- it's part of it.

You know, you cannot have culture without food, you know?

And you cannot have food without culture.

>> Within our culture, native cultures here in America, in the United States, a lot of our "popular foods" were actually things that we didn't actually have traditionally, like fry bread, for example.

Everybody thinks, "Oh, fry bread."

It's like, "All Native people eat fry bread, right?"

And it's like, "Well, yeah, but that actually isn't a traditional dish of ours."

It was a thing that we had to learn how to make to survive because the government at the time, when they were expanding out West, when they were, like, moving tribes and, like, moving them from their homelands and throwing them on reservations, it was like, "You get flour, salt, and..." >> Oil.

>> ...and just oil.

"Yeah, here you go."

And our people were like, "Well, it's either we figure out how to make something, or we starve to death."

>> Adaptation.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> And so now that, you know, fry bread got created from that, and so it's become such a, you know, icon to it.

>> A staple.

>> Yeah.

>> But that's the evolution of food.

>> But now people know that history, though.

>> Yeah, but the thing is that that is, that is how food is evolving.

You always have your traditional rooted dishes.

That's never going to change.

That's going to be there forever.

It has to be there forever because there are particular flavors that you miss and you want to do.

And then you have the creative ones that -- one guy started making, and it was fine.

And you call it another name, and you'll have it.

But I think for the most part, there is always going to be a culture with their traditional dish.

It has to be, you know, because that's part of the identity.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Otherwise they'll lose it.

>> I'm very curious.

I see some very purply drinks in front of me.

So, I'm curious on what this is.

>> Well, this is called "chicha morada."

It's a purple corn drink from Peru.

So, we have about 500 or 600 varieties of corn, if I'm not wrong, in Peru.

And one of them is this purple corn that is full of antioxidants.

Then you add a little bit of sugar, a bit of fruit, and lime juice, and it's a very traditional, typical drink in Peru.

With the same ingredient, you can also make a pisco sour, you know, a chicha morada sour.

>> Mm.

Okay.

>> It's like a corn flavor, but it's sweet at the same time.

>> Yeah, I like that it's not so sweet.

I think it has the right amount of sweetness.

>> Yeah, normally the Peruvians drink it with a lot of sugar.

We adjusted.

You know, that's another thing, too, that we have the Peruvians that make this at home or that they're with their parents, and they make it for them.

And it's extremely sweet.

And they say, "Oh, you don't know how to do this," you know?

"This is not how it's supposed to be.

It's supposed to be very sweet."

And we're like... >> It's how our elders are with Navajo tea.

>> Fortunately, this is my house, you know?

Here we don't do that.

Even the pisco sours here, we don't do it that sweet.

We do a little drier, you know, because I don't like it, you know, and many people don't like it like that.

So, and that's a big problem, you know, I mean.

If we're talking about sustainability and social impact and obesity and diabetes... >> Oh, yeah.

>> ...you know, I mean, we have numbers that are a big problem.

You know, and one of the things that I did at Taranta in our process of becoming more sustainable, which, by the way, started as basically getting persuaded by media of global warming in the year 2003 or 2004.

You know, we were just looking at magazines and a little before that, but then I said to myself, you know, "I have this restaurant.

I need to cut some costs, you know?"

It was wintertime.

And I look at my windows, you know?

They missed, like, a seal.

I said, "There's cold air coming in.

So, let me see.

If I seal this, I'm going to start becoming more energy efficient."

So, I'm going to obviously save some money on energy.

And then I said, "Well, this actually really works, you know?"

So, you just have to make little changes in your business practice to help the environment and it will help you at the bottom line, you know?

So, we became a green-certified restaurant.

So, we started making changes, you know, composting, recycling, energy conservation, water conservation.

We started to work with, you know, a lot of technology to help reduce our kilowatt-hour consumption.

And we start measuring all that.

So, what we did, every change that we did, we measured the economic impact and also the footprint impact that that will cause by making that change.

>> And so, to me, that's interesting because it's like when you list all the ways that you talked about how you made these changes, right?

When you look at the context of, like, the way that we would use everything that we had was just the way of being for a very, very, very long time.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And then when, you know, society shifted into that more capitalistic mind-set, all those things became things that you could only do if you could afford to do that.

Right?

>> Right, right.

>> And I think that's really interesting when you talk about that, because it's like, you know, growing up, you know, with my family and where I came from, like, all of those things you mentioned is just part of what we do.

Like, we never thought about, like, you know, doing things that was "eco-friendly."

That was just a way of living.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Which I think is really interesting that you talked about, like, how you did so much to, like, "be the change" when it was like, "Well, we've been doing that for centuries, yo."

>> I know.

So, and, of course, city life and then accessibility, footprints, you know, I mean, what it takes to bring a tomato to a table, what it takes to bring a banana, you know, I mean, how much energy, you know, how many joules of energy, you know, how much fuel is that apple that you eat?

You know, it's 80% fuel from the production, you know.

So, it's so all of these things, you know, that is also something that it's continuously changing.

What for us was recycling before with cardboard now it's so expensive to do because there is, you know, economic development in Asia and other countries.

>> There's a profit in it now.

>> Yeah.

So, it's different.

So, it continuously change, you know, so we had to always adapt, you know?

It was an adaptation, you know, it was adaptation to new things and new challenges that we were doing because on the bottom line for us as a restaurant, when that happened, yeah, we wanted to adopt a lot of these things, but it was something that we wanted to use to keep us going, you know, because -- and we didn't want to rub this in people's faces that said, "Oh, we are at that point eco-friendly," you know, because it was from being green to eco-friendly to... >> Sustainable.

>> ...sustainable.

And then we understood sustainability.

Sustainability, you can have economic sustainability.

You know, it's all a daisy flower.

You know, it's something that is a composition of different elements.

You cannot have one thing without the other because they're all part of the whole system.

You know, when you look at the human part, it's the most important part, the social part.

And that all comes into six years ago being introduced to this agricultural community in Peru, in Santa Cruz de Huaripampa.

That's when Taranta said, "Okay, why don't we help this community?

What can we do to help this agricultural community?"

And that's when the chapter of the Santa Cruz Lodge started.

>> The Santa Cruz Eco Lodge is a hospitality space which doubles as a cultural resource center.

It's an indigenous-led alternative to mass tourism by prioritizing ancient growing techniques, traditional food preparation, and other cultural practices.

It opens its doors to visitors who wish to learn and offer reciprocity to the local community.

You had mentioned about sustainability and how much is packed into that word.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> What motivates you to maintain cultural sustainability?

>> I can witness and I can see how this is being lost because a lot of things that were being done before, they haven't been done now.

So, it kind of makes me a little sad, you know, and that's the motivational, one of the motivational agents here.

But at the same time, you know, you are making sure, you're trying to rescue this.

So, it's a win-win thing, you know?

So, it's really -- it's really more of how I can nurture my soul and keep going by doing something good.

So that's basically what I feel.

>> I actually like that you use that word "rescue."

You know, at least for me, like, I always try to move about my life and move about the way of doing things with that.

You talked about balance and harmony because in Diné culture, we try to strive for something called "hózhó," which is the philosophy of the way we live our lives, whereas everything can't just be on one side.

You can't do everything -- you know, you can't be like this tough person all the time.

You also have to have that side that's gentle and nurturing, I think.

>> I feel like this is like a little spoon... >> Yeah, yeah!

>> ...that comes in and starts picking it up, you know?

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> And put it in here rather than trying to, like... >> Yeah, yeah, exactly.

>> You know, it's just like... Because that's the way it should be.

>> Yeah.

>> Just to be a soft process.

>> Yeah.

And I think when I think about what you're describing with the work that you're doing in Huaripampa, you know, I think that that type of rescue work is exactly what motivates me to do that here.

I think sometimes we think, "Oh, well, we all live in different places.

You know, we have governments that put up these walls and borders to say, 'Oh, well, you guys are different because you live here and we live different here.'"

It's like, well, actually, we're all -- way before colonization happened and these borders got put up, we were all working to strive harmoniously with each other.

We weren't perfect, but, like, we worked together to try to live and work off of each other to survive, to live.

And I think sometimes we forget here specifically, I think in the United States and Canada, that Native people only fear -- like, only have this struggle here, when really it's like, "No, it's actually everywhere."

>> Everywhere.

>> You know, we're all in this rescue together.

We're all trying to rescue each other at this point.

[ Birds chirping ] [ Music playing in distance ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] [ Birds chirping ] >> One of the things that, what drove me here, the first impression that I had was that, you know, the people here, it's just amazing, the sense of community, number one.

Number two, the beauty of this area.

So, we are between a white Andean chain and a black Andean chain, a lot of water, pure air, and surrounded by an ancient agricultural community.

So, you have so much culture, so much gastronomy.

>> Hmm.

And so how do you think that differs from, like, let's say, someone who, like, goes on a vacation to, like, a resort somewhere, right?

And they stay in this one place.

Like, how do you think the lodge differs from someone doing that versus coming here?

>> So, one of our missions was to really emphasize on rescuing those traditions and those cultures.

So, for example, if you come here, you're going to be treated as another member of the family.

That's the first thing.

Like, you're coming home.

And the other thing is that we're trying to rescue those gastronomics.

And the main goal is to improve the quality of life of the members of this community.

>> I think you mentioned something really important that I think a lot of -- I think a lot of my experience was, like, finding pride in who I was and finding pride in the things that I grew up learning.

Like, "Oh, wow, I, like, learned how to harvest corn," or "I learned how to make this dish" -- right?

-- "with my mom."

And so, I think it's really interesting that, like, in terms of what something like this, that the Lodge represents, could do that and help that with people in wherever they are I think is a really cool, like, way to kind of, kind of amplify that, if you get what I'm saying.

>> Yeah.

So, you have to understand that I'm basically a consultant and a person that is helping this project, but this project is empowered to them.

>> Mm.

>> They are the ones that run this project.

I am just a person that gives them the guidelines and the ideas, and it's up to them to make this a successful entity.

So, literally, they have so much pride on this because I'm giving them the tools to manage, to administer, to do all this, you know, and they have -- if they decide to close this and don't do anything else, and that's what's going to be -- a sense of ownership in a way that they're part of this.

So, for them, you know, it's something that is different, as well, so... >> So, you set up here.

So, how does that work in terms of, like, "owning" land and taking care of land?

>> So, all this area here in the surrounding, you have an agricultural community.

So, I believe it was during the agrarian reform in the Peruvian government, where the land got split into communities, and the community basically has members, and those members are assigned plots of land.

Within themselves, they can negotiate.

They can trade the land.

They can trade it for bulls or for some money.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> But the land, it's not...

I will say that you cannot really sell it to someone that is out of the community.

>> Oh, interesting.

Okay.

So, like, for example, like, if I were, like, to come in and be like, "I want to buy this piece of land," then it's like a no-no.

>> You can't.

>> Okay.

>> I mean, you will never get it legalized because it's part of this law that says that the land is for whoever works for.

>> Thanks to indigenous-led efforts, Huaripampa is counted among many regions that moved toward a combination of cooperative, privately owned, and community-owned land.

The agrarian reforms weren't perfect, but they were a fundamental shift away from Peru's Spanish colonial past to further instill a culture of land and food sovereignty.

It also means that projects like the Santa Cruz Lodge can welcome visitors on its own terms without the pressure to expand or overdevelop the land to serve high tourism demand.

Hey.

All right.

Thank you.

>> Let's go this way.

Follow me.

>> All righty.

So, do you normally forage while you're here to just have in the kitchen or... >> No, I don't need to, because, look, it's all... >> It's all here.

>> Yeah, it's all here.

But I like to explore what the things that the locals eat.

>> Uh-huh.

>> And that's one way for me to understand a little bit of the diet and how they, you know, things that they were eating... >> Okay.

>> ...and the flavors.

And I'm sure that a lot of those things have some vitamin properties and minerals and things like that.

>> Okay.

>> Little water -- they call it "secchias."

So, the water comes from the Andes.

>> We have those in New Mexico, too -- the secchias, yeah.

>> And then all the water goes, and then they can irrigate.

Yeah.

>> This is... Yeah, can we just, like, stop real quick because... >> Yes.

>> ...oh, my gosh, I feel a little bit of rain, too.

So, Jose, what word comes to your mind when you think of just seeing this?

>> This?

>> This land, just the amazingness of nature?

>> We are dust in the universe.

We are just little thing in this huge thing, you know, that we should be taking care of.

>> Yep.

>> Because this is part of us.

But we are just diminished, you know?

Very, very little.

>> Oh, yeah.

So, when I first met Jose, I was very cautious and skeptical of him because he doesn't claim indigenous heritage.

He's spoken very candidly with me about how he has a sense of his ancestry.

He is like very many people that I know who are struggling to find that reconnection to themselves.

He still strives very hard to elevate indigenous peoples with one key thing being important is that he does it without centering himself.

And so when I first met him, that was my main assumption was how was he going to center himself in this work?

And his main goal is to just always understand his place in that, which is not easy.

I think sometimes when we're so about ourselves and our egos, it's hard to separate the two.

But it was refreshing and a huge sigh of relief when I was talking with him to know and feel from him that he really genuinely wanted to do this work to help elevate indigenous communities and peoples.

So, how do you feel, like, being here on this land has changed you?

>> This is an area that makes you realize that we live in a world that still has beautiful things to visit, to share, to explore.

And, you know, that's -- going back, it's the energy.

You know, you feel re-energized and then, you know, you go back to the city, and you have a better perspective, but you still try to sort of detox yourself, you know, from that ding, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, na, na, na.

You know?

So... >> Oh, yes, I know that all too well.

>> You know, it's like, come on, go, go, go.

Traffic.

Beep, beep, beep.

I'm like, "Oh," you know?

But it is what it is.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> They always tell us that, like, the land says things to you or like it speaks to you.

So, I've been trying to figure out, like, what that means for myself since I've been here of, like, what this land has to say to me.

>> So, this is something that you have to do on your own.

I cannot be your guide here because I am not from here.

I am just a facilitator for this project and for the people.

But I think you need to get together with the people that are here, you know.

>> Whoo!

[ Chuckles ] Hi.

Hola!

Hey, so good to see you.

Oli Alvarez is a keeper of local knowledge, history, and tradition.

And like a lot of indigenous youth, he, too, felt the pressure to leave home for the kind of success we're conditioned to strive for.

But Oli took what he learned and came back home.

Now, one of his primary roles is as a cultural ambassador at the Santa Cruz Lodge.

Also serving as a language advocate, he is fluent in the Ancash dialect of Quechua.

When I hear you speak... it makes me want to try harder.

You said this yourself... That means, like, it's really hard.

Yeah.

[ Exhales ] But... ...my heart felt it.

That means, like, I really, really thank you and I will take your words when you said to try.

My grandmother... Like, when she would say those things to me in my language, in Diné Bizaad, I never appreciated it.

And now that she's gone...

...I miss her.

I miss her speaking to me so that way I could talk back to her.

So I just want to say thank you.

And I'm going to try harder.

When I met Oliver, and I really saw how he truly does the work he does for the sole purpose of his people, I felt like that was a huge reminder to me that I was doing a lot of things to serve myself for a really long time and the fact that I did the whole move to the big city and I refused to go home and I refused to move back home because to me that was, like, not success.

That was something that I saw a reflection in Oliver of how he basically did the same thing I did.

He left his community to go to college, and he went to see the world, and he got to go to many places.

But he decided, you know, "Actually, I'm going to go home and I'm going to be home and I'm going to work with my people and I'm going to work with the kids in my community."

And he's so happy doing that.

I don't think I had ever really seen that.

I think that I feel like is the importance of why we need to also listen to young people because even though this guy was ten years younger than me, he had such a wisdom and a sense of purpose that I, even at 34, still struggle to find and still struggle to have.

And I think it's important to understand the teachings that young people have.

For us as older folks and as elders, you know, we talk about like, "Listen to your elders.

Listen to, you know, the older people in your community.

They have a lot to say."

We also have a lot to learn from young people.

And I think that's what I learned a lot from him.

[ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ One of Oli's responsibilities at the Lodge is to lead the Pachamanca.

It's a communal feast which combines dance and prayers of thanks to Mother Earth.

I've been honored with an invitation to participate, and, honestly, it was like coming home.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I was really anxious and ready to come home.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to learn while I was in Peru.

But their sense of happiness and their sense of peace really did make me want to come home in Dinétah, back in Church Rock, back where I grew up.

And I had a sense of urgency to come home and be ready to do more, be ready to work more, but not in the way that I saw it before.

Whereas to me, working before was I had to do the grind to make a difference, to make it seem like I was valuable and that I was doing something worthwhile, whereas now I'm trying to view work as figure out, "Okay, well, how can I get back into the community this time as a way to not just serve myself but really, really see it from a sense of serving others?

And how do I do that and not fall again into the traps and cycles of capitalism and colonialism and white supremacy and all the things that we have to, like, really separate ourselves and will continue to work to separate for the rest of -- at least for me for the rest of my life.

Like, I am so conditioned.

I have to really work at it to understand that, like, my material success is not success.

And I need to really own that.

Being able to grow a garden, that's going to be a success for me at some point.

[ Laughs ] Being able to go back to gardening and hopefully one day have cornfields around my home again.

All right, you are all lined up.

All right, so, I'm going to count how many of you are here.

So, everybody stand really straight like you're a really tall pole.

All right, here we go.

I'm going to count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.

Twenty-two of you.

Awesome.

Twenty-three with me.

All right, so, what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to have you...

I'm teaching a workshop with fourth graders from the Window Rock School District.

And a lot of the stuff that I do with the kids when I work with them is really trying to break down their ideas of dance and really just have them connect with their bodies.

So, when I'm working with a group of students, it's not really about the dance.

It's really about letting them be in tune with themselves and really be able to have fun.

I find that when I'm doing this work and I'm seeing the kids smile, when the kid who is really shy at the beginning is, like, having a blast, that for me is, like, the best feeling in the world.

And it reminds me that this is why I do what I do.

This is why I come back to these communities, because they are the ones that need it, and they're the ones who are first and foremost why I do what I do.

You know, I never understood the importance of everything that my family has taught me.

And I think a lot of us take that for granted as young kids and as young folks striving to follow our dreams and our aspirations, when, in reality, when we discover that our dreams and realities are here, where we're rooted from.

That for me is my new dream is to be here, to be amongst my people, to be amongst my family, to feel free, to be happy and at peace in the land that made me.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Dog barking ] [ Birds chirping ]