Article: Chicago Reader Interview, 2019
First Nations Garden
Subject: Chi-Nations Youth Council & First Nations Garden
Article: ‘We’re still here’
Publication: Chicago Reader
Author: Natalya Carrico
Location: Chicago, IL (Albany Park)
Date: 3/18/2019
ARTICLE
“For a lot of nations’ origin stories, people were the last to be placed here on Turtle Island,” Fawn said, referring to North America with the name used by the Ojibwe and many other nations. “A lot of these plants are our relatives, so we grow up learning about them and how they help us as humans navigate through this world. They’re not something that can be dominated. There’s something that needs to be respected about them and the access that they give us to surviving here.” – We’re still here, Chicago Reader.
INFO
First Nations Garden (Wiinso, Wiikonge Otishinikaaso) was established in the Spring of 2019 due to community organizing led by the Chi-Nations Youth Council with support from Alderman Carlos Rosa of the 35th Ward. Currently, Chi-Nations is working closely with Neighborspace to ensure a more sustainable future for the garden.
First Nations Garden was chosen as the English name of the space. The term First Nations is a collective noun that emphasizes the importance of direct and ancestral relationships to the land, both human and non-human. As First Nations peoples, we’ve chosen names that carry the garden site’s history and ancestral ecological knowledge and assist in helping provide navigational information and teachings to the greater public.
