Introduction to
‘Coming Home’ Work
For People with Native/Indigenous Heritage Who Want to Figure Out How to (Re)Connect
Wait List
For now, I have the capacity to teach this class once a year, usually in the fall. Sign up below to be added to the wait list.
What is ‘Coming Home’ Work?
To take a stand against colonization and capitalism in today’s world, we must know who we are and where we come from. Many of us who have Indigenous or Native heritage are very confused about how to (re)connect to it in a respectful way. We are concerned about culturally appropriating a way of life that we did not grow up in, but we also long to be who we are.
This class is designed to provide some clarity about the difference between racial and Indigenous concepts of identity, to share a comprehensive set of principles that will help each of us navigate the long journey home to who we are, and to get some help along the way with practical tools and community building.
This is an introductory course, only meant to give an overview of what ‘coming home’ work can look like. In order to foster a sense of connection and safety, each class will be limited to 10 students. Students are encouraged to share their stories and experiences with each other. This is also a bi-lingual class where parts are interpreted into Spanish.
Who Is ‘Coming Home’ Work For?
This class is for anyone who is searching for a good way to (re)connect to their Indigenous or Native roots and be themselves. We come from all over the world. Being from Colombia, that is the history of colonization I’m most familiar with, and the starting point from which I teach my classes. Most of my students to date have tended to be Latin American, Hispanic, or Chicano/a/x. But we come from all over the world. These teachings can be applied to wherever your peoples come from because there is no part of our plant that has escape the effects of capitalism, colonization and white supremacy.
This course is for you to figure out how to do in a respectful way. To not just take an identity because you have it in your heritage, but to do the work to reclaim who you are while following the teachings of Native and Indigenous elders so you can come home to yourself and your peoples as a responsible community member. For some that will mean coming home to their Native nations eventually, but for others it will confirm their racial identities and given them the tools to be good guests on stolen Native lands.
How Long Do ‘Coming Home’ Journeys Take?
All of our peoples have a story of what happened when the outsiders came to our lands. Each of these stories are unique but what they have in common is that our peoples were deeply affected and torn apart. For those of us have been scattered far from our home of our origin, it is possible to come home. The journey for each of us will be different though because we are all starting in different places and we will all end up in different places too.
This course does not speak on behalf of any Indigenous or Native nation or guarantee acceptance. Instead it is designed to give you a sense of what it means to be raised in capitalism instead of our Native or Indigenous nations, and what work we need to do as individuals to be fully aware of the values and patterns of behavior that that has embedded in us. We did not ask to be raised as colonized peoples, but we do have to take responsibility for how it has changed us and made us different from our cousins who were raised Native or Indigenous. Being stolen or separated from our peoples and our lands doesn’t make us less of who we are, it just means that we need to be honest and get to work to peel back the layers of assimilation forced on our families in the name of survival, and Indigenize our lives instead.
I have been doing this work on a personal level since 2014, and decided to start teaching during the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown in 2020. I am still learning about what it means to implement these teachings into my life every day. There is no timeline for each of our journeys. It is a balancing act of our own hard work to face the unfaceable, not take any shortcuts, ask for help from our fellow searchers and the universe, and how we build relationships with our Native Raised Native relatives.
A note about online participation:
Our classes are highly interactive and require active participation to establish safety.
Whenever we talk about hard things, we need a safe container to share and be ourselves in. Our goal is to connect people to one another so that we can learn and process together. This is why we limit our class sizes and ask that you have your camera on and be ready to speak in several rounds of sharing.
Class is usually divided into one opening section where we all share our names, pronouns, and get to know each other. There is then a lecture with slides to share these teachings. This is then followed by another round of sharing with the whole group. You will leave the class with questions to keep reflecting on.
We know that this takes a lot of energy and can be hard when we are all online more than ever before due to pandemic and other types of burnout. We thank you in advance for gathering the resources that you need around you and using them towards this class.