WEBVTT FILE

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[upbeat music]

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My name is Adán Medrano.
I'm a native of San Antonio,
Texas and Nava Coahuila,

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and I live in Houston.
I'm a food writer.

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I love to cook.
I've been a cook for a long time in restaurants,

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and I trained
at The Culinary Institute
of America sometime back.

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That's how I started.

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At The Culinary Institute
of America,
as good as a school it is,

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and as well as they do
with Argentina, Peru,

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with their cuisine, Mexico,
they weren't doing my food.

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They were not doing the food
of poor people who live

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in Central and South Texas.

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It just wasn't there.
It was invisible, nothing.

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I had some run-ins
with some of the professors
who wanted me

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to cook a certain way,
and I said,
"That's not the way you do it."

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And I would cook it my way
and then they would say, "Oh."

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I got my diploma, got
certificate and realized that--

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that I needed to tell the story
that wasn't being told.

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Oh. Gee, that's good.

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The Texas-Mexican Cuisine gives
you an opportunity to see

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how differences are embraced.

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But before their embraced,
you have to understand them.

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Ah, let me show you, let me
show you, let me show you.

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This. This is what
the Texas-Mexican cuisine
is about.

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This is what the
Mexican-American people
are about, it's the molcajete.

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This molcajete is the metaphor
for our food and for our
community.

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If you take the molcajete...

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This is volcanic rock
by the way. You're going
to put ingredients in there.

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You're going to mash them.

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You like the sound.
Where out of many differences,

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they come together,
you crush them,

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you paste them,
you harmonize them

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and then you have beauty
out of differences.

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That's the best way
that I could tell you.

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[gentle music]

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This would be a celebration
of the American roots.

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I'm hoping that this will
be a story that is understood.

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I hope it's a story
that bothers some people,
that bothers most people

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because I hope it's a story
that is about becoming,
what we can become.

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[uplifting music]

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[warm music]

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So I'm often asked,
"Do you like Tex-Mex food?"

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There are two answers to that.

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The first meeting
I had for Tex-Mex is
it's by Anglos for Anglos,

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and it served in places
like the tourist centers
here in the San Antonio River...

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...was created in the 1900s
when Texas food

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made by Mexicans,
by Native American Mexicans

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were so delicious that everyone
was coming to San Antonio

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because it was a tourist
destination because of the food.

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But the problem was that it was
good and delicious, but...

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...they didn't want
to rub elbows with the Mexicans.

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So you wanted Mexican food
without the Mexicans.

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We never ate Tex-Mex food
at home, enough with the cheese.

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The other meaning of Tex-Mex
is owned by Mexican Americans
who don't have another word

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for the Mexican food of Texas.

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It was not called Tex-Mex
when the ladies,
the chef restaurateurs,

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now called Chili Queens,
were cooking here
at San Antonio,

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those ladies
who in the 1880s, 1900s,

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began the first restaurants
of San Antonio in Texas.

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The San Antonio original chefs.

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[upbeat Mexican themed music]

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[Graciela]
The Chili Queens of San Antonio
were in all the plazas

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in the center of the city.
So Alamo Plaza
was one of the main spaces

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that the women congregated
to sell their food.

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This is where you could find
the locals who needed to eat.

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This is where tourists who were
visiting wanted to eat as well.

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We didn't have the restaurants
that we know today
that were indoors.

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So the women just
created their puestos,

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their little stands,
and prepared food.

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I know my own great-grandmother,
Teresita Cantú,
she was a vendor, a chef,

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my mother did tell the story
of my great-grandmother
being a Chili Queen,

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and using the word Chili Queen.

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The little baby is my mother,
who's now 95 years old.

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So my great-grandmother,
she'd made tamales,

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carne guisada, pollo guisado,

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arroz con pollo, mole,
chile relleno.

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I was thinking about nopalitos
and capirotada.

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Um, so I think
those are the foods
that she must have made

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because those are the ones
that my mother made.

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So yeah,
everyone had a different style.

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Everyone had their forte
and what food they were going
to prepare

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and how they prepared it,
the food that
they had grown up with.

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And so that allowed
for the diversity

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and the meals that were unique
and distinct to each one
of those stands.

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These women have to be
recognized for their smartness

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and for their business--
for their business smarts.

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[fire simmering]

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[warm music]

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[Maria] A lot of people tell me,
"We come to downtown
to go shopping,

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and we have to stop, eat
Maria's, it's just a tradition."

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So, you know,
everybody knows us, thank God.

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I'm Maria Jilma Sanchez,
and we're at Maria's restaurant
in McAllen, Texas.

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This is my mother.

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She's the founder
of Maria's restaurant.

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-[Adán] You're the founder.
-Yeah.

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My grandpa said,
" Mi hija, when you grow up,

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you're going to be
an excellent cook."

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That's what my grandpa
told me one time.

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I'll never forget that. [laughs]

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I knew I wanted to be
in the restaurant business

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since I guess my teenage years.
My mom started and I said,

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"My mom can do it,
I can do it too." [laughs]

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This is Lalo.
He's my head waiter.

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-Hi, Lalo, Adán, how are you?
-Hi. Good.

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We're very famous for carnitas,
our enchiladas.

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Our plato real, plato real, it's
got a little bit of everything.

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And that's very, very popular.

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And then we have
our bistec ranchero,

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and, uh, we have,
uh, de caldo de res.

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Fideo, a lot of people don't
know how to make fideo. [laughs]

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Hey, we make it. [laughs]

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-[Adán] Pico de gallo?
-[Maria] Pico de gallo.

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Pico de gallo.
I've never tasted it.

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[Maria]
This is made with tomato,
onion, cilantro, jalapeno.

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-Jalapeno.
-Jalapeno, yes.

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[Adán speaking in Spanish]
or is it fresh?

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[Maria]
It's fresh, it's all fresh.

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And then we just put it
in the blender. That's it.

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Little bit of salt.

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That's all, simple as that.

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We get a lot of young customers,
a lot of young customers,
especially on Saturdays saying,

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"Ma'am. We didn't know
you all existed, my God.

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This is food, pizza."
Everybody, they get all excited

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because it beats Taco Bell,
and I go, "Well, hello."

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-[laughs]
-[Adán] I like your
first cardboard--

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-What do you call it?
-Cardboard. Cardboard food.

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We call it cardboard food.
[laughing]

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What do you think of
the new ones in the fast food--

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-Oh, mira, okay. My!
-[both laughing]

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-Look at that.
-[Maria]
And our homemade tortillas.

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-[Adán] Homemade tortillas.
-[Maria] Yes, sir.

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[Adán]
It's very--
it's very obvious these are--

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[Maria]
Yeah, they're homemade,
we make them here.

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[Adán]
And this is the way we ate it.

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We didn't use a spoon.
We went like this.

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[Maria]
Yes, of course,
that's much better. [laughs]

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[Maria's mother]
And it tastes better.

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[Adán] Are there many women
business restaurant owners
like yourself?

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[Maria] I would say
like five that I know,
they're close friends of mine.

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And they all--
they all started here.

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They all started
as a waitress, and now
they have their own business.

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It means I--
we taught them good. [laughs]

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My cooks are all women.
My dishwashers are men.

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We try and having that--
a male cook, but my ladies,
they're too, you know, picky.

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So we'd rather have ladies,
they understand
each other better.

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It's the care
they put into our food.

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They are my kids, with them
I'm-- I'm strong.

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I'm strong. The women
have to be on top now. [laughs]

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I just love being here.

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You know,
I love my-- I love the business.

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I always said, I always made
homemade cookies.

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And that's what people like.

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-Mama knows best,
Mama cooks better.
-[laughing]

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[Maria] When a customer tells
me, "Golly, I just finished
eating this plate."

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And it reminds me of Grandma,
like, you know, you make it good

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like Grandma used to make it.
I bring them memories.

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And he goes,
"That's why we like eating here
because it's comida casera."

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Just like home. [laughs]
That's what it is. Yeah.

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-[Adán] You bring
them memories.
-Mm-hmm. Exactly.

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[mellow music]

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[chimes ringing]

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[distant chatter]

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Mm! Mm!

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Oh, that's nice. [chuckles]

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That's very, very nice.

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The flavor is so different.
It's a lovely cinnamon taste.

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-That's lovely.
-[Leticia chuckles]

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Thank you very much.

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[chuckles]

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[mellow music]

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So, you want to take a look?
[chuckles]

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Okay.

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My name is Celeste de Luna
and we're here
in Harlingen, Texas.

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Recently I, um, bought
a new press, it was expensive.

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And I saved for three years
out of art sales to buy it.

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I never understood men and their
cars and like how they love
their cars

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so much and gave it a name
and all that, but I get it now.

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I feel that way
about my press. [laughs]

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You would ink it up and then
you'll pla-- you place your
matrix right here.

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So then you put your paper
like this this. Put this down.
And so then you put it

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through like this.
Then it would end up looking
like the impression.

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This is my Coatlicue print.

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That's one that I've done just

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'cause I've loved
the idea of Coatlicue,

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who is a Mexican goddess.

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Most people refer to her as like
the goddess of birth and death.

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This is my one
of my tamalada prints.

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We would have a tamalada
and we-- my par--
my family would kill a pig.

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And so I can remember my mom,
you know having a whole pig

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on, you know, the mesa,
on the countertop,

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I mean, how horrifying is that.
And then you know, "Why don't
you like horror movies?

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Right, like how--" [laughs]

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Like and you come in
and you're like, "Ah!"
Like, and there's a pig

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-and it's dead.
-[Adán laughs] There's blood.

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There's blood everywhere
and your mom,
"Good morning." You know.

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-"No!"
-[both laughing]

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I give my life for your tamales.

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And so this is my little
honoring of the pig in general.

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[Adán]
So, we are going to make
a Rio Grande Valley Specialty.

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That's an original recipe
by Celeste,
which I am going to taste

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-for the first time,
and it's called grapefruit pie.
-[chuckles]

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-[Celeste] People who love
grapefruit do love this pie.
-[Adán] Do love it? Okay.

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[Celeste]
You know,
I can remember my mom sort of

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eating grapefruit
at the kitchen table.

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And I think, man, you know,
if she were alive,
she would have loved this pie.

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And then you put a little bit
of the gelatin,

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you put it in the fridge
for an hour, it'll gel.

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Then we would take
our grapefruit slices,
arrange them, then pour the rest

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of the gel in there.
And then cover it and we can--

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we can put it
in the refrigerator,
and then it's done.

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[Adán]
And the light is just right,
it shimmers.

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[chuckles] Oh, it's great.

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-That's beautiful.
-Doesn't it look great?

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-Oh, yeah.
-Okay.

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We shall.

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[laughing]

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-Do you like it?
-Mm!

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-[laughing]
-I love it.

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-It's good? [laughing]
-It's good. It's good.

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And it's unique.

222
00:25:58.469 --> 00:26:00.602
People don't know
that you could make

223
00:26:00.646 --> 00:26:02.038
a grapefruit pie.

224
00:26:02.082 --> 00:26:04.867
It's, like,
I had never heard of it.

225
00:26:04.911 --> 00:26:06.782
[laughing]

226
00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:09.568
-Oh my goodness.
-It's really good.

227
00:26:11.265 --> 00:26:14.050
[Celeste]
I think I grew to love
cooking because of my mom.

228
00:26:14.094 --> 00:26:17.750
She cooked for--
she did the tortillas de mano.

229
00:26:17.793 --> 00:26:20.666
She had her molcajete,
which I have here.

230
00:26:21.971 --> 00:26:25.366
This is my mother's molcajete.
I have it here
in a little place of honor.

231
00:26:25.409 --> 00:26:29.326
These are her--
her kitchen towels, which she
did, embroidered by hand

232
00:26:29.370 --> 00:26:31.590
when she was younger.
There you go.

233
00:26:36.072 --> 00:26:38.901
You know, you have this idea
of women being--
are supposed to be

234
00:26:38.945 --> 00:26:44.080
in the kitchen, but the men, the
people who get fame for being
professional chefs are men.

235
00:26:45.778 --> 00:26:48.911
I mean, the only way that
you can really account
for that is again, sexism.

236
00:26:48.955 --> 00:26:51.261
Like we-- you have to call it
for what it is.

237
00:26:51.305 --> 00:26:53.742
-Salud.
-Laughing.

238
00:26:53.786 --> 00:26:57.833
People don't want to give women
credit because women have
traditionally not

239
00:26:57.877 --> 00:27:00.575
been acknowledged as experts.

240
00:27:00.619 --> 00:27:03.273
It's hard for people
to accept women as experts.

241
00:27:03.317 --> 00:27:07.538
I think there always have been
women there, but just kind of
relegated to those

242
00:27:07.582 --> 00:27:09.062
shadow areas.

243
00:27:09.105 --> 00:27:11.804
-Cheers.
-[Adán]
Cheers to your work too.

244
00:27:19.289 --> 00:27:21.988
[Celeste]
Cooking is in my own way

245
00:27:22.031 --> 00:27:24.555
part of art activism, because
it's part of our culture.

246
00:27:24.599 --> 00:27:28.124
And I want to keep it up
so that we can have the recipes

247
00:27:28.168 --> 00:27:33.695
that my mom taught me. And also
just to be healthy, be happy,

248
00:27:33.739 --> 00:27:36.872
but it's connected to the land.
We have to think-- I think

249
00:27:36.916 --> 00:27:39.527
thinking about that,
and also having a garden...

250
00:27:40.484 --> 00:27:43.836
...maybe seeing some-- being a
little closer to the traditions.

251
00:27:43.879 --> 00:27:45.446
Food is so important.

252
00:27:45.489 --> 00:27:48.101
[gentle music]

253
00:27:53.280 --> 00:27:55.935
[Alston]
We are in
South Central North America.

254
00:27:55.978 --> 00:28:00.417
It happens to be Bear County,
Texas in San Antonio.

255
00:28:03.377 --> 00:28:07.337
And if you look over here just
on the other side of the trees

256
00:28:07.381 --> 00:28:10.732
where the low trees are growing
still down here in the bottom,

257
00:28:10.776 --> 00:28:13.909
that's 10,000 years old.
All through here,

258
00:28:13.953 --> 00:28:20.568
we excavated 700 square meters
from 20 different encampments,

259
00:28:20.611 --> 00:28:27.531
and we found earth ovens,
projectile points,
knives, scrapers, mussel shells.

260
00:28:28.402 --> 00:28:30.143
[cicadas chirping]

261
00:28:31.231 --> 00:28:34.277
The south central part of
the North American continent.

262
00:28:34.321 --> 00:28:36.715
It's a very important place
for inner--

263
00:28:36.758 --> 00:28:42.155
literally
international travel
from Central America to Mexico,

264
00:28:42.198 --> 00:28:47.029
along the highway that the
Spanish call the Camino Real,
which comes right through here.

265
00:28:49.336 --> 00:28:55.385
We know that road literally
in one level
comes from Mexico City,

266
00:28:55.429 --> 00:28:58.824
all the way through northern
Mexico and the mountains,

267
00:28:58.867 --> 00:29:02.741
all the way across the Rio Bravo
and goes to St. Louis.

268
00:29:02.784 --> 00:29:06.919
And that's where there were
huge pyramids 2,000 years ago.

269
00:29:06.962 --> 00:29:11.314
And the people who manage
those pyramids in St. Louis,
Cahokia Mounds,

270
00:29:11.358 --> 00:29:15.623
new people who manage
pyramids in Mexico City.

271
00:29:15.666 --> 00:29:19.975
The Indian people
who lived here,
different from many other places

272
00:29:20.019 --> 00:29:23.936
were always hunters and
gatherers, 15,000 years ago,

273
00:29:23.979 --> 00:29:26.808
they were hunting mammoths.
1,000 years ago,

274
00:29:26.852 --> 00:29:30.551
they were hunting whitetail deer
and through most of that time,

275
00:29:30.594 --> 00:29:33.510
they were eating plant foods
that are all around us today.

276
00:29:35.251 --> 00:29:41.736
We're standing on a terrace
surface, an this terrace
is 50,000 years old.

277
00:29:41.780 --> 00:29:46.741
So every person who ever walked
through southern bear county,

278
00:29:46.785 --> 00:29:49.439
walked on the same surface
we're standing on.

279
00:29:49.483 --> 00:29:53.095
And whatever they dropped,
whatever they did,
that evidence was left here.

280
00:29:53.139 --> 00:29:55.010
There's a lot of stone here.

281
00:29:55.054 --> 00:29:56.795
-How about this one?
-Sure.

282
00:29:58.361 --> 00:30:01.582
See how it has kind of
a pointed end here,

283
00:30:01.625 --> 00:30:04.672
that pointed end,
that was mounted on a stick.

284
00:30:04.715 --> 00:30:08.154
And that was used
to groove bone or wood

285
00:30:08.197 --> 00:30:12.027
and make a groove in it
so then it could be snapped.

286
00:30:12.071 --> 00:30:14.769
It's called
a graver or an engraver.

287
00:30:17.293 --> 00:30:21.036
Everybody thinks they're
the first people here,
even if they're Hispanic.

288
00:30:21.080 --> 00:30:26.563
They think the Spanish were
the first here. They don't look
back into understanding

289
00:30:26.607 --> 00:30:31.655
the depth of history.
History is more than what we see
in our lifetimes

290
00:30:31.699 --> 00:30:34.180
or what our grandparents
can tell us.

291
00:30:34.223 --> 00:30:35.311
[Adán]
Ah!

292
00:30:37.748 --> 00:30:38.662
[Adán]
Here.

293
00:30:38.706 --> 00:30:39.663
Now, I'll--

294
00:30:39.707 --> 00:30:40.926
I'll do it sideways

295
00:30:40.969 --> 00:30:43.624
like I was cross country skiing.

296
00:30:54.156 --> 00:30:57.377
[Alston]
Here's what
the Indians came for down here.

297
00:31:04.688 --> 00:31:06.168
See, that's the flint.

298
00:31:06.212 --> 00:31:09.432
That's-- that's what
these guys are after.

299
00:31:09.476 --> 00:31:10.869
That's what's-- see.

300
00:31:13.175 --> 00:31:15.743
Cut yourself with it every time.

301
00:31:15.786 --> 00:31:19.529
But-- but this is what-- what
the river-- this river supplied,

302
00:31:19.573 --> 00:31:21.749
this was probably
the most important resource.

303
00:31:24.186 --> 00:31:25.579
It's so refreshing.

304
00:31:25.622 --> 00:31:27.581
[Adán]
It makes me more grounded

305
00:31:27.624 --> 00:31:30.323
of who I am and knowing
that I belong here.

306
00:31:30.366 --> 00:31:33.239
[Alston]
And not only knowing
that you belong here,

307
00:31:33.282 --> 00:31:38.374
but part of the evidence
is that the food's here,
your body is sustained

308
00:31:38.418 --> 00:31:42.726
on the same foods
that the ancestors were
thousands of years ago.

309
00:31:42.770 --> 00:31:46.426
And right here where we are,
we drove past
all of the nopalito,

310
00:31:46.469 --> 00:31:48.689
all of the new tunas
that are coming in,

311
00:31:48.732 --> 00:31:52.954
the onions are there,
the fruits are all here, pecans,

312
00:31:52.998 --> 00:31:55.522
you know,
where did pecans come from?

313
00:31:55.565 --> 00:31:57.654
You know, they're Northeastern
Mexico and South Texas

314
00:31:57.698 --> 00:31:59.787
are the--
where pecans come from.

315
00:31:59.830 --> 00:32:03.443
Tomatoes are strictly
Native American, squash, beans.

316
00:32:03.486 --> 00:32:08.970
All of these foods are all
Native American foods that
sustain the whole world today.

317
00:32:09.014 --> 00:32:11.190
And they were
domesticated right here.

318
00:32:11.233 --> 00:32:13.627
But if you think about
where you're standing,

319
00:32:13.670 --> 00:32:17.109
your ancestors have been
standing here breathing this air

320
00:32:17.152 --> 00:32:20.199
for 10,000 years,
and that's got to be empowering.

321
00:32:20.242 --> 00:32:22.592
[mellow music]

322
00:32:23.506 --> 00:32:29.730
[Alston] It's an empowering
story because it opens up the
whole question of North America.

323
00:32:29.773 --> 00:32:32.211
How did North America
come to be what it is today?

324
00:32:32.254 --> 00:32:36.432
And who are the immigrants,
and who are the original
inhabitants?

325
00:32:48.836 --> 00:32:52.666
My name's Homero Vera,
I'm from Premont, Texas,

326
00:32:52.709 --> 00:32:54.842
and we're here
at my ranch in Duval County.

327
00:32:59.673 --> 00:33:01.501
-[Adán] So is this another one?
-[Homero] Yes.

328
00:33:03.894 --> 00:33:06.027
[Adán]
So you just walk and...

329
00:33:06.071 --> 00:33:09.248
[Homero]
These are the berries
from the Brazil bush.

330
00:33:09.291 --> 00:33:12.425
They're very sour,
not real sour,

331
00:33:12.468 --> 00:33:14.035
more sweet than sour.

332
00:33:16.037 --> 00:33:19.127
-Is it native to here?
-Yeah. Yeah.

333
00:33:19.171 --> 00:33:21.173
-[Adán]
Did you grow up on these?
-[Homero] Oh, yes.

334
00:33:21.216 --> 00:33:23.001
-[Adán] Yeah? As a child?
-[Homero] Yes.

335
00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:25.220
[Homero]
Another one here.

336
00:33:27.353 --> 00:33:29.833
I mean, you could probably
make some jelly out of it,

337
00:33:29.877 --> 00:33:32.097
-you get-- you got
to pick a lot of them.
-Mm-hmm.

338
00:33:34.316 --> 00:33:35.491
Very nice.

339
00:33:36.579 --> 00:33:40.322
Okay, this is a Texas persimmon.

340
00:33:40.366 --> 00:33:43.673
[speaking in Spanish]

341
00:33:43.717 --> 00:33:46.850
And it's a little,
round, miniature plum,

342
00:33:46.894 --> 00:33:49.288
and it's just real sweet.
And, uh--

343
00:33:49.331 --> 00:33:51.507
and you can probably make
some really good jam out of it.

344
00:33:51.551 --> 00:33:54.467
It also will stain you,
it'll leave a stain
on your clothes,

345
00:33:54.510 --> 00:33:56.947
you put it on your clothes.
It could possibly be used
as a dye also.

346
00:33:56.991 --> 00:34:00.864
You can see up here, we have
all these green ones here.

347
00:34:00.908 --> 00:34:05.260
That's one of the few brush
species that doesn't have
any thorns.

348
00:34:11.701 --> 00:34:12.963
[speaking in Spanish]

349
00:34:17.533 --> 00:34:19.927
Yeah, these are perfect,
perfect specimen, small.

350
00:34:24.888 --> 00:34:26.716
Mm, it's delicious.

351
00:34:27.674 --> 00:34:29.371
-It's so sweet.
-Yeah.

352
00:34:29.415 --> 00:34:31.852
There's seed--
Look at how it's stained me.

353
00:34:31.895 --> 00:34:33.680
-Yeah.
-Oh, yeah.

354
00:34:33.723 --> 00:34:36.335
-[Adán] It's--
I want another one.
-[both chuckling]

355
00:34:37.379 --> 00:34:40.034
Thank you. This is an adventure.
Real adventure.

356
00:34:42.558 --> 00:34:44.865
This is great, and the big sky.

357
00:34:44.908 --> 00:34:51.524
[Homero] This is your typical
prickly pear cactus,
here in South Texas.

358
00:34:51.567 --> 00:34:56.616
This is what indigenous
people from Central Texas
along the coast,

359
00:34:56.659 --> 00:35:00.533
they would make the trek down
here just to come pick these
prickly pears.

360
00:35:00.576 --> 00:35:03.666
They would eat them then
or they take them back
and dry them out,

361
00:35:03.710 --> 00:35:06.147
and then they would eat them
later on.

362
00:35:06.191 --> 00:35:11.109
Now, these tunas now,
they're very popular to making
margaritas out of them.

363
00:35:11.152 --> 00:35:13.198
[Adán]
And how do you pick them, you
just grab them and twist them?

364
00:35:13.241 --> 00:35:14.112
[Homero]
Yeah.

365
00:35:17.854 --> 00:35:21.293
-This is real--
you see how purple it is.
-Very purple.

366
00:35:21.336 --> 00:35:26.254
Yeah, you put them in Tequila,
and it has that purple look.

367
00:35:26.298 --> 00:35:29.127
And they're just really,
really nice looking.

368
00:35:29.170 --> 00:35:33.043
-[Adán]
Do you eat these petals?
-Nopalias, nopalitos, yes.

369
00:35:33.087 --> 00:35:39.224
[Homero] After a good rain,
you might get some new, young,
tender pads that come out.

370
00:35:39.267 --> 00:35:42.183
And those are really the only
ones that you can eat.

371
00:35:42.227 --> 00:35:44.620
-This and nopalitos,
they have to be tender.
-Right, yeah.

372
00:35:44.664 --> 00:35:46.796
They have to be tender
for nopalitos.

373
00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:48.929
-[Adán] Maybe we can cook some.
-[Homero] Yes.

374
00:35:48.972 --> 00:35:52.672
Now... we can move from this
to the-- to the mesquite.

375
00:35:52.715 --> 00:35:53.934
[speaking in Spanish]

376
00:35:53.977 --> 00:35:57.067
Mesquite is also a food, right?

377
00:35:57.111 --> 00:36:00.158
Yes, and you can see
on the ground here...

378
00:36:00.201 --> 00:36:03.422
...the mesquite tree
was maturing here
like a week or so ago.

379
00:36:03.465 --> 00:36:05.511
It was just
covered with mesquite pods.

380
00:36:06.773 --> 00:36:10.690
And his book, the Relación
that Cabeza de Vaca wrote
when he was

381
00:36:10.733 --> 00:36:15.956
coming through here
in the 1520's, he noticed that
the Indians would pick

382
00:36:15.999 --> 00:36:19.916
the mesquite beans
and they would make a hole--
hole in the ground,

383
00:36:19.960 --> 00:36:24.878
beat them up with a stick,
put a bit of water
and then they would--

384
00:36:24.921 --> 00:36:26.271
they would eat the mush.

385
00:36:28.316 --> 00:36:31.406
Um, but that's--
that's the account of Cabeza de
Vaca on the mesquite beans.

386
00:36:34.888 --> 00:36:37.630
-Mm. It's sweet.
-Mm-hmm.

387
00:36:39.980 --> 00:36:42.200
-We can make cookies with them.
-Mm-hmm.

388
00:36:44.724 --> 00:36:47.901
[Homero] History has always been
my passion since I was
a little kid.

389
00:36:47.944 --> 00:36:52.906
I had just a god-given talent
for remembering dates
and times and places.

390
00:36:52.949 --> 00:36:56.736
I already had this idea,
this magazine about our culture,

391
00:36:56.779 --> 00:36:59.521
the Next American culture
of South Texas, Northern Mexico.

392
00:36:59.565 --> 00:37:06.267
And I called it
EL Mesteño,
because mesteño means the wild--

393
00:37:06.311 --> 00:37:09.879
natural wildlife that live
in this habitated area.

394
00:37:09.923 --> 00:37:12.752
And then I always had
a section on food.

395
00:37:12.795 --> 00:37:16.234
Because, you know,
that's what we eat.

396
00:37:16.277 --> 00:37:19.628
You know,
just all these recipes
that would be lost.

397
00:37:19.672 --> 00:37:26.156
So I got quite a few recipes
from my aunt's and my mom
and I would publish them.

398
00:37:26.200 --> 00:37:30.335
[Adán] This part of the country
is not understood,
people just don't know about it.

399
00:37:30.378 --> 00:37:35.557
It's an unknown treasure,
if you grew up with this,
but when you leave this region,

400
00:37:35.601 --> 00:37:38.734
I mean, you won't know
anybody else who has grown up
with this type of food.

401
00:37:38.778 --> 00:37:41.824
No, it's called a desert here,

402
00:37:41.868 --> 00:37:46.699
but there's so much
that it produces
that people don't realize.

403
00:37:50.877 --> 00:37:57.623
This is one of the staple
products that the indigenous
people here would eat,

404
00:37:57.666 --> 00:37:58.798
deer meat.

405
00:38:00.495 --> 00:38:04.412
-I'll make a guisado out of it.
-Your seasoning it very simply?

406
00:38:04.456 --> 00:38:05.718
-Is that--
-[Homero] Yeah.

407
00:38:07.285 --> 00:38:10.462
All right.
I'm going to the frying pan.

408
00:38:10.505 --> 00:38:13.291
And you can tell that the meat
is very, very lean.

409
00:38:14.379 --> 00:38:17.382
[Adán]
And where did you learn how
to do this carne guisada?

410
00:38:17.425 --> 00:38:20.385
[Homero]
From my mom. As a little kid
I watched her,

411
00:38:20.428 --> 00:38:22.300
and I always like to cook.

412
00:38:23.823 --> 00:38:26.956
Why don't you introduce your
wife who's going to be cooking
with us?

413
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:31.004
-This is my wife, Leti.
-Leticia Vera.

414
00:38:32.092 --> 00:38:35.356
[Adán]
So we'll be tasting
Leti's guacamole tonight.

415
00:38:36.575 --> 00:38:38.664
[unintelligible]

416
00:38:41.971 --> 00:38:44.452
[Leticia]
We're going to add
some onion to it.

417
00:38:44.496 --> 00:38:47.281
[Adán]
But that's a sweet onion.
So that will be very nice.

418
00:39:13.307 --> 00:39:17.224
[Homero]
My great-grandmother, her name
was Victoriana Martinez de Vera,

419
00:39:17.267 --> 00:39:20.270
and this is her molcajete, so...

420
00:39:21.315 --> 00:39:24.927
...I know it's at least
over 100 years old,
or probably more than that.

421
00:39:28.409 --> 00:39:31.586
[Adán] So do you remember
your mother or your grandmother
actually using this?

422
00:39:31.630 --> 00:39:33.414
-[Leticia] Oh, yeah.
-Oh, yeah. Yes.

423
00:39:33.458 --> 00:39:34.807
My mother used it every day.

424
00:39:36.591 --> 00:39:38.985
Got a nice little paste here.

425
00:39:39.028 --> 00:39:42.423
And that's going to go
into our meat.

426
00:39:44.599 --> 00:39:46.514
[unintelligible chatter]

427
00:39:46.558 --> 00:39:50.823
So this is now the powder
from the mesquite bean.

428
00:39:50.866 --> 00:39:53.695
And then this is agave,
agave nectar,

429
00:39:53.739 --> 00:39:57.743
and I just put a little bit
until I can form it into balls.

430
00:39:58.700 --> 00:39:59.701
You drop it into...

431
00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:07.100
So this is a sweet candy,
a delicious treat for the kids,

432
00:40:07.143 --> 00:40:10.712
and it's totally natural.
And it's an ancient, ancient

433
00:40:10.756 --> 00:40:12.932
ingredient from this
part of the world.

434
00:40:14.368 --> 00:40:15.413
Candy balls.

435
00:40:19.547 --> 00:40:20.679
Mm!

436
00:40:22.463 --> 00:40:25.988
-The nice thing is that
it belongs to all this land.
-Mm-hmm.

437
00:40:26.032 --> 00:40:29.688
-This is good.
-This is good.
I'm glad you like it.

438
00:40:51.492 --> 00:40:53.712
[mellow music]

439
00:41:35.580 --> 00:41:39.018
-[Christine] Actually,
there are drinks.
-[laughing]

440
00:41:39.061 --> 00:41:42.543
-Okay, I'm drinking two now.
-Yes, you're...

441
00:41:42.587 --> 00:41:47.592
I'm Christine Ortega and you're
in my home. [chuckles]

442
00:41:48.549 --> 00:41:55.164
So, my brothers and I started
the idea of cooking
a cabeza de pozo.

443
00:41:55.208 --> 00:41:59.952
Because nobody in our family
really had done it since
my grandparents had done it.

444
00:41:59.995 --> 00:42:03.346
It was actually my idea to try
to figure out how to do
this again.

445
00:42:03.390 --> 00:42:06.045
-I just cheated,
I put it in my washer.
-[women laughing]

446
00:42:06.088 --> 00:42:08.134
I put it on the rinse cycle.

447
00:42:08.177 --> 00:42:11.180
[Adán]
It's a very special night
for me because my niece

448
00:42:11.224 --> 00:42:13.269
was starting
the tradition up again,

449
00:42:13.313 --> 00:42:16.446
as she had remembered doing it
when she was very young.

450
00:42:17.578 --> 00:42:21.626
I didn't know that this memory
I had about making
a cabeza de pozo

451
00:42:21.669 --> 00:42:24.454
would actually continue
in my family.

452
00:42:32.245 --> 00:42:34.247
-How are you doing, sir?
-[speaking in Spanish]

453
00:42:34.290 --> 00:42:37.729
-[speaking in Spanish]
-We're gonna have
a barbacoa de pozo.

454
00:42:37.772 --> 00:42:41.036
-Oh, sí?
-At this family's,
and they told me...

455
00:42:41.080 --> 00:42:43.952
[speaking in Spanish]
...we need a cows head.

456
00:42:43.996 --> 00:42:45.301
-Sí, we've got it.
-You have it.

457
00:42:45.345 --> 00:42:46.520
Let's see what we got.

458
00:42:50.698 --> 00:42:54.354
-[man] So here's a--
here's a nice beef head.
-[Adán] Oh my goodness.

459
00:42:55.921 --> 00:42:59.707
It's got the tongue,
it's got the eyes,
got the cachete.

460
00:42:59.751 --> 00:43:02.710
It's got everything.
This is ready to go.

461
00:43:02.754 --> 00:43:04.756
And it's a USDA
inspected beef head.

462
00:43:08.586 --> 00:43:11.066
-Listo!
-[Adán] Okay, is it heavy?

463
00:43:11.110 --> 00:43:12.894
Oh, a little bit,
weighs about 28 pounds.

464
00:43:20.598 --> 00:43:23.426
[Christine]
You know, there's something
very graphic about dealing

465
00:43:23.470 --> 00:43:25.907
with a raw piece of meat

466
00:43:25.951 --> 00:43:27.996
and a head, right?

467
00:43:28.040 --> 00:43:31.565
Even my friends freak out.
I think one of them
threw up once.

468
00:43:31.609 --> 00:43:36.657
So I season it with salt
and pepper, we do-- I do use
the garlic cloves.

469
00:43:36.701 --> 00:43:40.748
My grandmother would always use
a white linen, just a plain
white linen.

470
00:43:40.792 --> 00:43:45.971
The process is you really have
to immerse the fabric in water.

471
00:43:46.014 --> 00:43:48.843
The burlap is secondary wrap.

472
00:43:48.887 --> 00:43:54.632
And that too should be soaked
in water, actually longer
than 24 hours.

473
00:43:57.504 --> 00:43:58.940
Oh my God, trial and error.

474
00:44:02.857 --> 00:44:05.120
Everybody says, "Get on Google
and figure out how to do it."

475
00:44:05.164 --> 00:44:07.470
And I'm like,
"No, I refuse to do that.

476
00:44:07.514 --> 00:44:12.171
I'll just keep asking
all the elders that I know
until I get it."

477
00:44:12.214 --> 00:44:14.434
And so, that's--
that was my process.

478
00:44:14.477 --> 00:44:18.438
I sort of just wanted
to make things more genuine

479
00:44:18.481 --> 00:44:22.485
in a way that we can experience
how to regain knowledge.

480
00:44:23.269 --> 00:44:24.226
[Christine]
Exactly.

481
00:44:25.837 --> 00:44:27.708
Learning in the traditional,
ancient way. It's kind of fun.

482
00:44:30.232 --> 00:44:32.321
[unintelligible chatter]

483
00:44:32.365 --> 00:44:37.805
Today we started to prep
the pozo, the hole,

484
00:44:37.849 --> 00:44:40.721
which is about maybe
three to four feet deep.

485
00:44:40.765 --> 00:44:45.160
And we fill it with brasas
and we fill it with hot rocks.

486
00:44:47.467 --> 00:44:51.601
We typically need a minimum
of like, I would say four
to five hours

487
00:44:51.645 --> 00:44:56.911
to actually heat the hole
and then also to make sure
that the Earth is cured

488
00:44:56.955 --> 00:44:58.565
with the heat.

489
00:44:58.608 --> 00:45:04.092
I will recruit my co-starter,
fire starters.

490
00:45:04.136 --> 00:45:05.920
My brothers are
the best at that.

491
00:45:05.964 --> 00:45:07.792
My brother Adrian is here today,

492
00:45:07.835 --> 00:45:10.446
and he's the one that, you know,
I lassoed him into it,

493
00:45:10.490 --> 00:45:12.535
so he's-- he's great.

494
00:45:16.801 --> 00:45:22.415
Been here all day
and just drinking water,
sweating, drinking water.

495
00:45:22.458 --> 00:45:24.634
[chuckles] My time is done.

496
00:45:24.678 --> 00:45:27.725
I'll probably lose
about five pounds. [chuckling]

497
00:45:27.768 --> 00:45:32.599
As a little boy, uh,
my grandfather would do that.

498
00:45:32.642 --> 00:45:36.211
He would do the hole
and tend the fire.

499
00:45:36.255 --> 00:45:39.040
My uncle's cuisine
that he talks about,

500
00:45:39.084 --> 00:45:42.957
it originated
from-- from ancestors,

501
00:45:43.001 --> 00:45:48.223
past-- past tribes that used to
be here that are no longer here,
things like that.

502
00:45:48.267 --> 00:45:50.356
You know, it's just,
you can't forget that.

503
00:45:53.272 --> 00:45:58.233
These are pieces of fire crack
rock, pieces of sandstone.

504
00:45:58.277 --> 00:46:02.542
This sandstone is the bedrock
that outcrops all around us.

505
00:46:02.585 --> 00:46:05.675
And that's what became
the heating element
of an earth oven.

506
00:46:05.719 --> 00:46:09.549
We know in general that
all of that was used to cook.

507
00:46:09.592 --> 00:46:13.901
They cooked all kinds of foods
in earth ovens,
it's like barbacoa pits.

508
00:46:13.945 --> 00:46:19.515
In fact, the first history book
written of South Texas
in Northeastern Mexico

509
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:23.824
is full of information,
and it's written in 1650.

510
00:46:23.868 --> 00:46:28.437
And that history book
tells you how important
barbacoa pits were

511
00:46:28.481 --> 00:46:35.183
and how all of the Indian people
from Austin to Monterrey
all cooked in earth ovens.

512
00:46:35.227 --> 00:46:37.446
Tell me how you want it quickly.

513
00:46:37.490 --> 00:46:39.535
-[Christine]
It goes in the middle.
-[Adrian] Yes. How?

514
00:46:39.579 --> 00:46:41.494
-Just straight down?
-[Christine]
Straight down, brother.

515
00:46:43.757 --> 00:46:46.629
-[Adán speaking in Spanish]
-[Christine] The big part on
the very bottom. That's it.

516
00:46:48.370 --> 00:46:49.197
Yep.

517
00:46:51.547 --> 00:46:56.509
[Christine] You drop the cabeza
in the coals, you put
more coals around it, right.

518
00:46:57.597 --> 00:47:00.121
-[Adán] On top of the burnout?
-[Christine] On-- on the sides.

519
00:47:01.383 --> 00:47:03.951
I also use, um, lava rocks.

520
00:47:03.995 --> 00:47:06.127
-I use Mexican lava rocks.
-Like that?

521
00:47:06.171 --> 00:47:09.043
-Yep. Do you have any more?
Put it in if you have it.
-I have lots.

522
00:47:09.087 --> 00:47:11.002
Yeah, put it in. Yeah.

523
00:47:14.048 --> 00:47:16.746
See these rocks?
Put some-- yeah, on the rocks.

524
00:47:16.790 --> 00:47:20.272
-Exactly. Okay, we're good.
-[Adán] Oh, you want it
on top of the rocks.

525
00:47:20.315 --> 00:47:21.751
-[Christine] Yep.
-[Adán] Got it.

526
00:47:21.795 --> 00:47:23.362
[Christine]
Then we'll put tin on top.

527
00:47:25.233 --> 00:47:27.366
-Sorry.
-[Christine laughing]

528
00:47:29.194 --> 00:47:31.022
-This is fun.
-[Adrian] Just like that.

529
00:47:31.065 --> 00:47:33.546
-My father used to do this.
-Yes, you don't ask him much.

530
00:47:34.982 --> 00:47:38.246
-That smoke is hot.
-[Christine]
Isn't that crazy, Ella?

531
00:47:38.290 --> 00:47:40.422
-Okay.
-[Christine]
It's like flipping crazy.

532
00:47:40.466 --> 00:47:43.382
Yeah, did you
ever see it done before?

533
00:47:44.470 --> 00:47:49.344
Yeah, just, you want
to cover the edges to seal it.

534
00:47:52.217 --> 00:47:55.785
[Alston]
What we do know
is that everywhere on Earth

535
00:47:55.829 --> 00:47:58.614
where earth oven technology
was important,

536
00:47:58.658 --> 00:48:00.529
women are the dominant role.

537
00:48:00.573 --> 00:48:04.142
Yes, put it. Yes. Yes,
put it, tío. Absolutely.

538
00:48:04.185 --> 00:48:08.929
Men were not even allowed
on site when these big earth
ovens were being cooked

539
00:48:08.973 --> 00:48:11.671
over root foods.
That was women's job.

540
00:48:11.714 --> 00:48:15.631
Men could come and haul
the wood, maybe men
could dig the hole.

541
00:48:15.675 --> 00:48:19.809
But when the real
processing start, women did it,
and with some tribes

542
00:48:19.853 --> 00:48:21.942
men couldn't be there
when you open the oven.

543
00:48:21.986 --> 00:48:23.552
On this side of the rock.

544
00:48:23.596 --> 00:48:26.294
So it's predominantly
women's work

545
00:48:26.338 --> 00:48:28.470
and it gets left out
of all of history.

546
00:48:28.514 --> 00:48:30.298
So women have a key role.

547
00:48:31.256 --> 00:48:32.300
Adrian.

548
00:48:34.433 --> 00:48:36.870
That's not the center, tío.
The center is over there.

549
00:48:36.914 --> 00:48:38.567
[Adán]
You need to just tell me
where to put it.

550
00:48:38.611 --> 00:48:39.873
-[Christine] Okay.
-[Adán] Here?

551
00:48:39.917 --> 00:48:41.919
[Christine]
No. Reach further.

552
00:48:41.962 --> 00:48:43.442
There, right there. Yep.

553
00:48:43.485 --> 00:48:44.704
-[Adán] Okay.
-[Christine] All of that.

554
00:48:44.747 --> 00:48:46.314
Guys, you know, they just don't

555
00:48:46.358 --> 00:48:48.012
pay attention to details, right?

556
00:48:48.055 --> 00:48:51.232
-Tsk, tsk.
-I know! Exactly.

557
00:48:51.276 --> 00:48:53.931
[Adán]
And then we drink a beer,
or at least I drink a beer.

558
00:48:53.974 --> 00:48:56.542
[unintelligible chatter]

559
00:48:57.412 --> 00:49:01.808
[Christine] So keep an eye on
the center because that's where
we need to put the fire.

560
00:49:01.851 --> 00:49:05.768
So we can't lose sight of
that because that's where
the heat will go down.

561
00:49:05.812 --> 00:49:08.728
[Adrian] We're going to make
coals and we're going to put
these coals on top

562
00:49:08.771 --> 00:49:11.383
and just, you know,
nurse that all night long,

563
00:49:11.426 --> 00:49:14.603
I think about 12 hours.
So probably 6:00 a.m....

564
00:49:17.171 --> 00:49:18.651
...yeah, about that time,
I guess.

565
00:49:18.694 --> 00:49:20.131
Well, I've had
some briskets over there.

566
00:49:20.174 --> 00:49:21.784
You want to look
at the briskets?

567
00:49:21.828 --> 00:49:23.438
It's just something for me to do

568
00:49:23.482 --> 00:49:25.484
the rest of the day
this is going on.

569
00:49:25.527 --> 00:49:27.573
-Woo!
-Hooray!

570
00:49:27.616 --> 00:49:30.706
-[all applauding]
-[man] Bravo! Bravo!

571
00:49:30.750 --> 00:49:32.578
It's wonderful.

572
00:49:32.621 --> 00:49:34.319
-Hi, Mom.
-Hi, mi hija.

573
00:49:34.362 --> 00:49:37.278
This is my mother,
Nieves Ortega.

574
00:49:37.322 --> 00:49:40.847
This-- I already know what
I will look like when I am 88.

575
00:49:40.890 --> 00:49:45.330
She is the person who obviously
taught me a lot about cooking,

576
00:49:45.373 --> 00:49:48.463
and along with Grandma
Dominga Medrano.

577
00:49:48.507 --> 00:49:51.684
Okay. So this is what's
on the menu for today.

578
00:49:51.727 --> 00:49:53.251
We don't have
to be serving people.

579
00:49:53.294 --> 00:49:55.818
Everybody just jumps in
and gets what they want.

580
00:49:55.862 --> 00:49:57.733
All right, here, Ma, hold this.

581
00:49:58.908 --> 00:50:00.867
-Oh, yeah.
-[chuckles]

582
00:50:00.910 --> 00:50:05.393
[Nieves]
My dad who's been gone
for years and years and years,

583
00:50:05.437 --> 00:50:07.743
and mom, used to do this.

584
00:50:07.787 --> 00:50:09.919
They would do the hole,
they would do the fire,

585
00:50:09.963 --> 00:50:13.140
they would do the seasoning,
and then they would
take care of it

586
00:50:13.184 --> 00:50:15.708
during the night
until in the morning.

587
00:50:15.751 --> 00:50:20.147
I like this because it keeps
me going, first of all,
and then to see

588
00:50:20.191 --> 00:50:24.717
other people enjoy the day
and the love for each other
and the care,

589
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:29.026
which is the main thing,
and look at all the food
that we have had, you know.

590
00:50:29.069 --> 00:50:30.940
-I ate too much already.
-You did, Mama?

591
00:50:30.984 --> 00:50:34.553
-Yes. [chuckles]
-Oh, good.
Oh, they're delicious, Mom.

592
00:50:34.596 --> 00:50:36.816
-They're like--
wait, you're going to be on TV?
-Yes!

593
00:50:36.859 --> 00:50:39.775
-[woman] Yeah?
-[Christine] God willing,
fingers crossed. Yes.

594
00:50:41.255 --> 00:50:45.781
[Nieves]
I'm very happy that my children
have kept that tradition

595
00:50:45.825 --> 00:50:49.307
'cause it is an old tradition
to do that.

596
00:50:49.350 --> 00:50:52.005
Not very many people
do it anymore.

597
00:50:52.049 --> 00:50:54.964
[gentle music]

598
00:51:42.099 --> 00:51:47.321
[Alston]
15,000 years of Native Americans living here.

599
00:51:47.365 --> 00:51:49.715
Term we often use is
"Co will take it,"

600
00:51:49.758 --> 00:51:53.110
where the native people of South Texas in northeastern Mexico

601
00:51:53.153 --> 00:51:55.068
comes from
the state of Coahuila.

602
00:51:55.112 --> 00:51:58.463
And that word, by the way,
was originally used

603
00:51:58.506 --> 00:52:02.554
to simply describe people from a big piece of real estate,

604
00:52:02.597 --> 00:52:06.949
in the same way if we describe people and we call them Texans.

605
00:52:06.993 --> 00:52:11.171
Today, we don't really say what whether they're people of color

606
00:52:11.215 --> 00:52:13.869
or their Anglo or how long
they've been in Texas.

607
00:52:13.913 --> 00:52:15.958
It's just the idea
that they lived here.

608
00:52:16.002 --> 00:52:17.960
So that's what
"Co will take it" meant,

609
00:52:18.004 --> 00:52:19.614
there are all of these
diverse people

610
00:52:19.658 --> 00:52:21.964
who lived in a big region.

611
00:52:22.008 --> 00:52:26.578
And so the Rio Bravo, the Rio
Grande was no more important

612
00:52:26.621 --> 00:52:31.452
for dividing countries
than the Colorado River is
or the Medina River.

613
00:52:37.850 --> 00:52:41.245
[Adán]
I'm at Rio Grande,
called Rio Bravo.

614
00:52:41.288 --> 00:52:44.639
When I was a child,
we lived in San Antonio

615
00:52:44.683 --> 00:52:46.728
and we also lived
in Nava Coahuila.

616
00:52:46.772 --> 00:52:50.036
We had land in both sides,
because our people,

617
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.518
the Coahuiltecan people and
other Native American people's

618
00:52:53.561 --> 00:52:57.826
Comanches, Apaches, Carancahuas lived on the north side

619
00:52:57.870 --> 00:53:02.222
of the Rio Grande and also
on the south side of the Rio
Grande, and it was a river.

620
00:53:02.266 --> 00:53:06.661
We have the Mexican side
and we have the US side,
but that's new.

621
00:53:06.705 --> 00:53:11.666
When the river changed,
the border crossed
part of my family,

622
00:53:11.710 --> 00:53:14.147
we did never cross the border.
The border crossed us.

623
00:53:14.191 --> 00:53:16.802
[light dramatic music]

624
00:53:16.845 --> 00:53:20.109
I always say that our food
is not south of the border.

625
00:53:20.153 --> 00:53:23.591
Our food is from
the Texas-Mexican region,

626
00:53:23.635 --> 00:53:26.551
Central Texas, South Texas
and Northeastern Mexico.

627
00:53:28.074 --> 00:53:33.340
What our food does is it reminds us that the Mexican side

628
00:53:33.384 --> 00:53:37.518
and the Texas side in this
region of the country are one.

629
00:53:37.562 --> 00:53:41.696
They're one culturally,
they're one culinary, and
they're one with the families

630
00:53:41.740 --> 00:53:45.396
because families
are on both sides as mine are.

631
00:53:45.439 --> 00:53:47.267
So I continue to see it as one.

632
00:53:50.923 --> 00:53:55.188
[light dramatic music]

633
00:54:25.871 --> 00:54:28.830
[Celeste]
I suppose it's--
it makes me sad.

634
00:54:28.874 --> 00:54:33.705
I think I can remember
when it wasn't here
and when it went up,

635
00:54:33.748 --> 00:54:38.231
and, uh, it's sad to kind of see

636
00:54:38.275 --> 00:54:41.452
the-- the valley change
in a way that

637
00:54:41.495 --> 00:54:44.498
maybe not-- might not
necessarily be positive.

638
00:54:44.542 --> 00:54:49.242
Uh, to see the landscape
change that way
and how it affects people.

639
00:54:49.286 --> 00:54:52.332
I think as
a child growing up here,

640
00:54:52.376 --> 00:54:58.382
I had this sense of
the Rio Grande Valley as being
a very inferior place,

641
00:54:58.425 --> 00:55:01.298
and not know--
understanding really why.

642
00:55:01.341 --> 00:55:03.952
We're sort of
geographically isolated.

643
00:55:03.996 --> 00:55:09.523
We're at the bottom of Texas,
we're butted up against Mexico.

644
00:55:09.567 --> 00:55:14.354
And also we have the gulf,
can't go north without going
through a checkpoint.

645
00:55:14.398 --> 00:55:16.704
And if you go south, if you want
to go to Mexico, you still have

646
00:55:16.748 --> 00:55:18.010
to go through checkpoints.

647
00:55:21.056 --> 00:55:23.363
[Adán]
Checkpoint. Oh my goodness.

648
00:55:23.407 --> 00:55:26.366
[Celeste]
Yeah, that's our lady
of the checkpoint. [laughs]

649
00:55:26.410 --> 00:55:29.413
This is the check,
the Sarita Checkpoint.

650
00:55:29.456 --> 00:55:32.241
-So have you all gone through.
-We will go through it
this time.

651
00:55:32.285 --> 00:55:35.070
Right, so when you go back,
you'll see how kind of
how it is.

652
00:55:35.114 --> 00:55:39.727
And it was kind of like an image
about the idea of sort of
feeling anxiety

653
00:55:39.771 --> 00:55:43.818
when you go through
a checkpoint. For some of us,
maybe who grew up around here,

654
00:55:43.862 --> 00:55:46.299
you kind of like,
when you're going through,

655
00:55:46.343 --> 00:55:48.562
-like, the bridge
with your parents...
-Yes.

656
00:55:48.606 --> 00:55:51.260
...you know, how they would--
I don't know how
your experience was

657
00:55:51.304 --> 00:55:53.698
but my parents
were kind of like, you know...

658
00:55:55.787 --> 00:55:57.354
You know, like,
what am I gonna do?

659
00:55:57.397 --> 00:55:59.356
Like, I'm not gonna like tell
off the border patrol,

660
00:55:59.399 --> 00:56:01.749
you know, like, kind of like
the idea that we had to perform

661
00:56:01.793 --> 00:56:05.274
our citizenship a little bit,
like, "Act like an American."

662
00:56:05.318 --> 00:56:07.712
[laughing]

663
00:56:07.755 --> 00:56:11.063
And when I was growing up,
we never-- we never said,
"Oh, I'm going to Mexico."

664
00:56:11.106 --> 00:56:13.587
Or you know,
you might say Matamoros,
but most people said...

665
00:56:15.850 --> 00:56:17.374
Right? And then when
you were on that side...

666
00:56:20.246 --> 00:56:22.944
So it's always like,
we're going to one side,
we're going to another side.

667
00:56:22.988 --> 00:56:28.515
It seemed like more connected,
and now it's not like that.

668
00:56:28.559 --> 00:56:32.954
One of the first times
I ever saw mole de pozo

669
00:56:32.998 --> 00:56:36.567
was at a wedding I went to
in Mexico, in the Rancho.

670
00:56:36.610 --> 00:56:38.917
It was like a Rancho wedding,
you know, it was great.

671
00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:45.489
We were little kids, you know,
my-- they were family,
you know, related to us,

672
00:56:45.532 --> 00:56:52.191
um, but because people have such
a hard time with crossing now,

673
00:56:52.234 --> 00:56:55.368
you lose that cultural
connection to people
on the other side.

674
00:56:55.412 --> 00:56:57.152
We're losing
connections to food.

675
00:56:57.196 --> 00:56:59.720
We're losing
connections to language.

676
00:56:59.764 --> 00:57:02.549
All of those things
are things that are valuable.

677
00:57:02.593 --> 00:57:06.814
So to me the fence,
it's a symbol of division.

678
00:57:06.858 --> 00:57:09.426
A lot of people think,
oh, it just keeps people out.

679
00:57:09.469 --> 00:57:11.819
But the fence
doesn't just do that.

680
00:57:11.863 --> 00:57:15.649
It funnels people,
kind of like a trap,

681
00:57:15.693 --> 00:57:18.739
the fence
as innocuous as it looks,

682
00:57:18.783 --> 00:57:22.526
um, is really
kind of a death symbol.

683
00:57:22.569 --> 00:57:25.920
And so that's how it
sort of functions in my work.

684
00:57:27.356 --> 00:57:29.533
The land which is
supposed to give life.

685
00:57:29.576 --> 00:57:31.665
It's supposed to be
a place where we live,

686
00:57:31.709 --> 00:57:34.146
and instead they're turning
the land against us,

687
00:57:34.189 --> 00:57:37.018
right, by funneling people
through the most dangerous,

688
00:57:37.062 --> 00:57:39.847
inhospitable parts.
And I think of the body

689
00:57:39.891 --> 00:57:42.023
and relationship
to the landscape a lot.

690
00:57:42.067 --> 00:57:44.939
Like, how do our bodies
negotiate landscape?

691
00:57:44.983 --> 00:57:47.464
Who are we in relation
to the land?

692
00:57:47.507 --> 00:57:50.510
And I think it has a lot to do
with our conflicted nature

693
00:57:50.554 --> 00:57:53.121
to the land,
like you don't belong here,

694
00:57:53.165 --> 00:57:56.647
you know, and then you know,
but is that really true?
You know.

695
00:57:56.690 --> 00:57:59.998
[light dramatic music]

696
00:58:00.041 --> 00:58:04.785
[Alston] Hundreds, probably
thousands of people, if they
traced their records back,

697
00:58:04.829 --> 00:58:07.919
could trace their records back
to the native inhabitants

698
00:58:07.962 --> 00:58:10.835
of South Texas
in Northeastern Mexico.

699
00:58:10.878 --> 00:58:16.536
So when we tell stories
of the past,
you don't have to be very old

700
00:58:16.580 --> 00:58:20.758
to know if you took a class
in Texas about Texas history,

701
00:58:20.801 --> 00:58:23.195
how much did you learn
about Indians?

702
00:58:23.238 --> 00:58:26.328
How many paragraphs did you read
about the Indian people

703
00:58:26.372 --> 00:58:29.549
who lived here for 15,000 years

704
00:58:29.593 --> 00:58:33.597
before your immediate ancestors,
and you don't read very much.

705
00:58:33.640 --> 00:58:35.816
It's an inconvenient truth.

706
00:58:43.302 --> 00:58:48.350
[Homero]
We're here on our path
to the grand Sal Del Rey,

707
00:58:48.394 --> 00:58:53.530
located in South Texas here
in the upper Grande Valley.

708
00:58:53.573 --> 00:58:57.229
And the Sal Del Rey,
it's a natural phenomenon

709
00:58:57.272 --> 00:59:01.320
consisting of this huge
Salt Lake that's like a--

710
00:59:01.363 --> 00:59:05.367
it's like a five mile
circumference and a mile long.

711
00:59:05.411 --> 00:59:09.284
The salt has been here, well,
since the beginning of time.

712
00:59:09.328 --> 00:59:12.070
And the Indians
from Central Mexico

713
00:59:12.113 --> 00:59:14.420
trek all the way
over here for salt.

714
00:59:14.463 --> 00:59:19.556
They would come here from diff--
all over the area,
it was known for its salt.

715
00:59:19.599 --> 00:59:25.387
If you were to cut out a chunk.
Say like a one foot
by one foot square

716
00:59:25.431 --> 00:59:28.782
of solid, uh, salt

717
00:59:28.826 --> 00:59:30.784
and maybe a foot deep,

718
00:59:30.828 --> 00:59:33.221
you come back
in about three days,

719
00:59:33.265 --> 00:59:35.920
and it will replenish itself,
it will come back.

720
00:59:35.963 --> 00:59:39.358
So it's always,
uh, producing the salt.

721
00:59:40.228 --> 00:59:43.231
[Adán] And of course salt
is a part of our food story
that we've been talking about.

722
00:59:43.275 --> 00:59:46.408
[Homero]
Right. Yeah, you need salt

723
00:59:46.452 --> 00:59:49.629
to preserve your food,
back then they didn't
have refrigerators,

724
00:59:49.673 --> 00:59:53.285
so everything-- all the meats
were salted to preserve them.

725
00:59:54.199 --> 00:59:57.898
As well as fish,
I guess meat and fish also.

726
00:59:57.942 --> 01:00:00.640
[Adán]
Look at that,
just the purest salt.

727
01:00:00.684 --> 01:00:06.037
You know, they would cut
the strips of meat and then
just cover it up completely,

728
01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:09.823
and then let
it dry out in the sun, and
that would preserve the meat.

729
01:00:09.867 --> 01:00:12.783
-[Adán] And it all starts
here with the salt.
-All starts with the salt, yeah.

730
01:00:12.826 --> 01:00:16.917
And back then of course,
the land was free
and it didn't belong to anybody.

731
01:00:16.961 --> 01:00:21.705
Just come over here and take
your share of salt and take it.

732
01:00:21.748 --> 01:00:26.623
And when the Spanish came,
the mineral rights
belonged to the king,

733
01:00:26.666 --> 01:00:31.149
so they had to pay a tariff
to taking the salt out,

734
01:00:31.192 --> 01:00:35.022
pay the taxes on it
to the Royal Treasury.

735
01:00:36.720 --> 01:00:39.636
-Younger Native Americans
-Native, they lost out.

736
01:00:39.679 --> 01:00:43.727
-Yeah.
-I'm sure they still had--
still can get salt

737
01:00:43.770 --> 01:00:45.206
for their own personal uses.

738
01:00:46.425 --> 01:00:47.861
As long as they were friendly.

739
01:00:49.689 --> 01:00:53.737
You know,
if they were hostile, uh,
then there was going to be war.

740
01:00:53.780 --> 01:00:55.347
More like you were
going to be killed.

741
01:00:55.390 --> 01:00:57.697
Did they ever
try to take it back?

742
01:00:57.741 --> 01:01:00.526
Since they knew it was theirs,
and these people come in

743
01:01:00.569 --> 01:01:03.007
and all of a sudden
they say that it's theirs,

744
01:01:03.050 --> 01:01:05.444
did they ever try
to take it back,
is there any record of that?

745
01:01:05.487 --> 01:01:07.838
Not that I know of, no.

746
01:01:07.881 --> 01:01:11.450
So in a way the indigenous
peoples lost a big...

747
01:01:12.451 --> 01:01:15.889
...engine of
economic stability in a way.

748
01:01:17.064 --> 01:01:18.283
Yeah, with the...

749
01:01:20.154 --> 01:01:23.636
...arrival of the Spaniards
and the civilization
in this area, yes.

750
01:01:24.768 --> 01:01:28.685
[Adán] Imagine, imagine all
the people who have stood here
where you and I are standing.

751
01:01:30.121 --> 01:01:32.645
-Okay,
that's thousands of years.
-Yes. Oh, yes.

752
01:01:32.689 --> 01:01:34.429
-[Adán] They stood
where you and I are.
-Yeah.

753
01:01:34.473 --> 01:01:39.043
[solemn flute music]

754
01:02:01.500 --> 01:02:03.937
My name
is Isaac Alvarez Cardenas.

755
01:02:03.981 --> 01:02:09.290
I'm the son of Tap Pilam
Coahiltecan father named Dan,

756
01:02:09.334 --> 01:02:12.772
who's a World War Two
veteran, liberator of Italy.

757
01:02:12.816 --> 01:02:15.993
We were stationed
in Rapid City, South Dakota.

758
01:02:16.950 --> 01:02:18.822
And we left the monks
[unintelligible].

759
01:02:18.865 --> 01:02:22.608
When we finally came back to
[unintelligible]

760
01:02:22.651 --> 01:02:25.393
Yanaguana, commonly known
as San Antonio,

761
01:02:25.437 --> 01:02:26.786
we lived in this neighborhood.

762
01:02:27.874 --> 01:02:30.181
And my father, historically,

763
01:02:30.224 --> 01:02:33.750
their people have lived here,
you know, for centuries.

764
01:02:33.793 --> 01:02:37.623
Of course,
we have that Spanish influence,
but it was native women

765
01:02:37.666 --> 01:02:40.931
and a lot of Native American
Indian women are not given
that credit.

766
01:02:40.974 --> 01:02:45.718
They were the ones
that really birthed us
as this indigenous people,

767
01:02:45.762 --> 01:02:47.764
but also an influence
from Europe.

768
01:02:50.157 --> 01:02:53.639
Our food,
or what you call Tex-Mex

769
01:02:53.682 --> 01:02:57.077
or Tejano food is different
than anybody else's.

770
01:02:57.121 --> 01:02:59.819
Our food is very unique,
very unique.

771
01:02:59.863 --> 01:03:04.476
While the barbacoa
is one of our delicacies,
because you cook it underground.

772
01:03:04.519 --> 01:03:07.784
And the reason
I love them is because
my wife has those recipes,

773
01:03:07.827 --> 01:03:10.134
that's one
of our favorite foods.

774
01:03:10.177 --> 01:03:13.311
Her family makes
to me the best tamales.

775
01:03:13.354 --> 01:03:17.402
Then it's like
a two-day thing that they make,
I love the tamales.

776
01:03:18.882 --> 01:03:19.926
A little powdered sugar.

777
01:03:21.667 --> 01:03:23.364
Wait a minute.
We got to pray first. Right?

778
01:03:23.408 --> 01:03:25.627
So Kylie you say the prayer.

779
01:03:26.846 --> 01:03:32.547
The Father, the Son,
the Holy Spirit. Amen.

780
01:03:32.591 --> 01:03:34.811
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Thank you, Kylie.

781
01:03:36.595 --> 01:03:42.035
What everybody has learned about
the American Indian, the Alaskan
Native, the Native American,

782
01:03:42.079 --> 01:03:47.171
the Pacific Islander, was taught
to them by non-Indians,
non Pacific Islanders.

783
01:03:47.214 --> 01:03:54.004
Because as soon as you learn
who you are, it brings up a lot
of anger of your history,

784
01:03:54.047 --> 01:03:57.181
what was done to the people.
First time I read

785
01:03:57.224 --> 01:04:01.272
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
By Dee Brown, I got angry.

786
01:04:01.315 --> 01:04:04.666
I was a young teenager,
I was upset.

787
01:04:04.710 --> 01:04:07.191
I didn't know that this
is what happened to our people.

788
01:04:08.409 --> 01:04:09.889
And it was a formula.

789
01:04:10.890 --> 01:04:16.983
The missions system,
Carlisle Indian School System.

790
01:04:17.027 --> 01:04:20.117
First the policy was
a good Indian is a dead Indian.

791
01:04:20.160 --> 01:04:25.252
The second policy was
kill the Indian inside,
save the man, save the child.

792
01:04:25.296 --> 01:04:29.082
And now what you're seeing
with the immigrants
is the same situation,

793
01:04:29.126 --> 01:04:33.434
taking the children, separating
the parent, all over again.

794
01:04:34.392 --> 01:04:38.135
But we have to-- we have
to stand up and say what's right

795
01:04:38.178 --> 01:04:42.269
and what's wrong,
and that's why I believe
that words are powerful.

796
01:04:43.749 --> 01:04:47.622
Now we've arrived,
we're telling our story.

797
01:04:47.666 --> 01:04:50.495
[Native Indian themed music]

798
01:04:58.895 --> 01:05:04.030
[Larry]
It happens to be the second
largest burial ground

799
01:05:04.074 --> 01:05:06.815
in-- in the--
in the state of Texas.

800
01:05:06.859 --> 01:05:12.430
It is known as 41NU2
by archaeology terms.

801
01:05:12.473 --> 01:05:18.740
-Was it--
-It was known after
a hurricane in 1933.

802
01:05:18.784 --> 01:05:21.178
It unearthed 150 bodies.

803
01:05:21.221 --> 01:05:28.272
And so we decided to build
a monument to commemorate
this beautiful site here

804
01:05:28.315 --> 01:05:32.754
that everybody has so wrongly
desecrated by building
their buildings,

805
01:05:32.798 --> 01:05:36.367
and not a care in the world
about these sacred lands.

806
01:05:37.803 --> 01:05:40.719
The Karankawa people
occupied these lands

807
01:05:40.762 --> 01:05:44.505
the most and the longest
of anybody ever recorded,

808
01:05:44.549 --> 01:05:46.725
because these were their lands.

809
01:05:50.163 --> 01:05:54.341
[Alston]
We really know a lot about
Karankawa archaeology,

810
01:05:54.385 --> 01:05:57.301
about the archaeology
being done along the coast

811
01:05:57.344 --> 01:05:59.651
of Corpus in vicinity
in particular.

812
01:05:59.694 --> 01:06:03.524
They were big-time
fisher folks, fish were
their predominant food.

813
01:06:03.568 --> 01:06:08.312
We know from the studies
and from the artifacts,
that they spent,

814
01:06:08.355 --> 01:06:12.055
and Cabeza de Vaca
tells us this, they spend part
of the year on the coast,

815
01:06:12.098 --> 01:06:16.015
and then they move inland far
enough to become deer hunters,

816
01:06:16.059 --> 01:06:18.713
but all along the coast
there were Karankawa.

817
01:06:18.757 --> 01:06:22.848
In fact, Karankawa was either
the second or largest Indian

818
01:06:22.891 --> 01:06:26.634
population brought to Mission
Valero to be missionised.

819
01:06:27.635 --> 01:06:31.074
They write about them that
they were cannibals, you know,

820
01:06:31.117 --> 01:06:35.600
and what's-- what's
confusing to me is that

821
01:06:35.643 --> 01:06:39.473
in today's time,
there's an abundance of fish

822
01:06:39.517 --> 01:06:42.433
and resources down here
to sustain people.

823
01:06:42.476 --> 01:06:46.698
Can you imagine 2,000 years ago?
Why would they want
to eat one another?

824
01:06:46.741 --> 01:06:50.832
You understand,
it just doesn't make any--
doesn't make any sense.

825
01:06:50.876 --> 01:06:55.446
They see us and categorize us
as savage people,
people that had no knowledge,

826
01:06:55.489 --> 01:06:57.187
people that had no wisdom.

827
01:06:57.230 --> 01:06:59.624
When the Europeans
first see the Indians,

828
01:06:59.667 --> 01:07:01.408
they don't think
they're quite human.

829
01:07:01.452 --> 01:07:05.282
And if you read the history,
Stephen F. Austin

830
01:07:05.325 --> 01:07:09.068
and the first Texans had
a campaign, purposeful campaign

831
01:07:09.112 --> 01:07:11.462
to exterminate
the Karankawa Indians.

832
01:07:11.505 --> 01:07:15.814
And they purposely set out
and did it, they massacred
many different places.

833
01:07:15.857 --> 01:07:21.341
We know the last Karankawa
massacres were co-- were
occurring in the 1840s,

834
01:07:21.385 --> 01:07:23.604
now, that's after the Alamo.

835
01:07:23.648 --> 01:07:26.955
But what happens to a lot
of the Karankawa on the coast,

836
01:07:26.999 --> 01:07:33.875
those Karankawa,
particularly the women, end up
coming into the houses of Anglos

837
01:07:33.919 --> 01:07:37.836
and Hispanics as well,
and they're sometimes adopted,

838
01:07:37.879 --> 01:07:41.318
sometimes they're called
servants, but that's how that--

839
01:07:41.361 --> 01:07:44.886
those Karankawa genes
and the Karankawa traditions,

840
01:07:44.930 --> 01:07:47.759
I think stay through
the women's side of the family.

841
01:07:47.802 --> 01:07:50.109
And they took on a Hispanic
survival name,

842
01:07:50.153 --> 01:07:54.113
in my case it's Salazar,
we learned the religion,
the culture and the language,

843
01:07:54.157 --> 01:07:56.420
and we became Mexicanos
in our own land,

844
01:07:56.463 --> 01:07:59.118
in order to stay among
the bones of our people,

845
01:07:59.162 --> 01:08:03.383
to guard them and help them
and get their teachings
from them.

846
01:08:03.427 --> 01:08:07.213
We're all the forgotten people,
Native people in the state
of Texas

847
01:08:07.257 --> 01:08:09.737
are the forgotten people,
period.

848
01:08:09.781 --> 01:08:12.740
[light dramatic music]

849
01:08:12.784 --> 01:08:15.091
[Larry]
All we have in Corpus
is the name of streets.

850
01:08:16.179 --> 01:08:20.313
The streets that Indian people
lived here one time,

851
01:08:20.357 --> 01:08:23.969
Comanche Road,
Lipan Apache Road,

852
01:08:24.012 --> 01:08:25.884
Carancahua Road.

853
01:08:25.927 --> 01:08:29.714
And now with DNA, there's
a lot of people finding out,

854
01:08:29.757 --> 01:08:33.152
"Hey, we areIndian.
I didn't even know that!"

855
01:08:33.196 --> 01:08:35.285
But what now? What do I do now?

856
01:08:36.373 --> 01:08:39.463
So every morning I wake up
and I pray to my people

857
01:08:39.506 --> 01:08:40.812
that were still here.

858
01:08:42.205 --> 01:08:43.771
All we can do
is just pray on it.

859
01:08:43.815 --> 01:08:45.251
[Larry praying]

860
01:08:45.295 --> 01:08:46.600
It's a hard walk to walk.

861
01:08:46.644 --> 01:08:50.038
[continues praying]

862
01:08:50.082 --> 01:08:51.910
These are my prayers
to my ancestors.

863
01:09:01.006 --> 01:09:03.661
[Adán]
I'm in Corpus Christi, Texas,
and I've just found

864
01:09:03.704 --> 01:09:07.969
a Texas historical
commission plaque.

865
01:09:08.013 --> 01:09:12.235
And these have to be approved
by the state of Texas and have
to be researched and verified.

866
01:09:12.278 --> 01:09:16.674
And it tells the story of Texas.
This is about
the Karankawa Indians.

867
01:09:16.717 --> 01:09:20.721
The first thing it says is,
they were primitive,
nomadic tribe.

868
01:09:20.765 --> 01:09:23.376
They weren't nomadic,
they lived in this area.

869
01:09:23.420 --> 01:09:26.031
You move from place to place,
they just had a big ranch,

870
01:09:26.074 --> 01:09:27.598
they just moved
around their property.

871
01:09:27.641 --> 01:09:30.296
They were very advanced,
they knew how to fish,

872
01:09:30.340 --> 01:09:33.604
they had a society
that was well organized.

873
01:09:33.647 --> 01:09:36.737
It also says at first
friendly to the Europeans,

874
01:09:36.781 --> 01:09:40.611
they became savages and tried
to kill the Europeans.

875
01:09:40.654 --> 01:09:44.832
So the Europeans arrived
on their homeland, took it away,
were violent at first,

876
01:09:44.876 --> 01:09:49.359
when they arrived
they were friendly.
Well wouldn't you be upset

877
01:09:49.402 --> 01:09:52.144
and fight back
if someone tried to take your
land and try to kill you?

878
01:09:52.188 --> 01:09:57.018
So that's another mistake.
And "1858 marked
the disappearance

879
01:09:57.062 --> 01:10:01.501
of Karankawa Indians."
Hello, they didn't disappear,
they're here.

880
01:10:01.545 --> 01:10:07.464
The entire Texas
historical commission plaque
is repulsive and repugnant

881
01:10:07.507 --> 01:10:10.858
to me and to every
Native American who lives
in Corpus Christi.

882
01:10:10.902 --> 01:10:14.949
I've talked to them,
and I call upon the historians
who live in Texas

883
01:10:14.993 --> 01:10:18.301
to come up and stand up
and say take this down.
This is a lie.

884
01:10:19.519 --> 01:10:22.566
[light dramatic music]

885
01:10:25.830 --> 01:10:30.095
[Graciela]
As a community,
we have lost our history,

886
01:10:30.138 --> 01:10:33.054
our culture, our traditions,

887
01:10:33.098 --> 01:10:36.797
because we live
in a racist society sadly.

888
01:10:36.841 --> 01:10:42.847
And it hasn't changed,
and if we look to the books,
we're not there.

889
01:10:42.890 --> 01:10:49.723
We have been erased,
if we look to the media to see
a documentary about our lives,

890
01:10:49.767 --> 01:10:51.725
they don't exist.

891
01:10:51.769 --> 01:10:54.859
The world that we live in
teaches us to hate ourselves,

892
01:10:54.902 --> 01:10:57.862
teaches us to hate
our long names,

893
01:10:57.905 --> 01:11:01.822
teaches us to despise
our language and culture

894
01:11:01.866 --> 01:11:06.610
and music and foods.
Food is about healing your body,

895
01:11:06.653 --> 01:11:10.483
but it's also for healing
and feeding your soul.

896
01:11:10.527 --> 01:11:13.443
[Adán] You and your home,
you ate Mexican food,
what we call Mexican food.

897
01:11:13.486 --> 01:11:16.054
Sure. That's what
you call Mexican food.

898
01:11:16.097 --> 01:11:18.404
Yeah. [laughs]

899
01:11:18.448 --> 01:11:21.364
-Yeah.
-People call it
Mexican food, but it's--

900
01:11:21.407 --> 01:11:22.800
-Indigenous food.
-Do you call it Mexican food?

901
01:11:22.843 --> 01:11:24.410
It's indigenous food.

902
01:11:24.454 --> 01:11:27.631
Yeah, you're putting
a label on it. [laughs]

903
01:11:27.674 --> 01:11:31.243
It's indigenous. It's-- you're
indigenous, I'm indigenous.

904
01:11:31.287 --> 01:11:35.160
You know, Mexican is the word
that was given to you all,

905
01:11:35.203 --> 01:11:39.033
you know,
the Mezclan people, right, uh,

906
01:11:39.077 --> 01:11:43.081
indigenous was a word
that was given to us as well,
to categorize us.

907
01:11:43.124 --> 01:11:49.174
If you look at the history,
the label started first as,
uh, pet Americans.

908
01:11:50.088 --> 01:11:53.396
That was one of
the first labels,
later on it was Latin Americans.

909
01:11:54.571 --> 01:11:58.575
And later on they took,
well, okay, Mexican-Americans.

910
01:11:58.618 --> 01:12:02.840
And watched and decides,
"Okay, we'll make a name...

911
01:12:02.883 --> 01:12:06.713
...uh, that's related
to Hispaniola, Hispanic."

912
01:12:07.671 --> 01:12:10.326
You know, and to me it's like
well who's panic are you,

913
01:12:10.369 --> 01:12:12.850
Herpanic or Hispanic?
And these are just labels.

914
01:12:12.893 --> 01:12:14.721
I describe myself as Tejana.

915
01:12:15.766 --> 01:12:19.291
Even in the census,
always write in Tejana,

916
01:12:19.335 --> 01:12:23.251
and because it's more--
to me it's more nuanced

917
01:12:23.295 --> 01:12:25.384
than just saying
Mexican-American,

918
01:12:25.428 --> 01:12:28.344
and it's more nuanced than
just saying indigenous, right?

919
01:12:28.387 --> 01:12:30.346
It's about movement.

920
01:12:30.389 --> 01:12:32.696
-Some people say,
"Are you Mexican-American?"
-Yes.

921
01:12:32.739 --> 01:12:34.175
-"Are you indigenous?"
-Yes.

922
01:12:34.219 --> 01:12:36.308
-"Are you American?"
-Yeah, absolutely.

923
01:12:36.352 --> 01:12:39.137
So for me it's just--
Because it's tied to the ground.

924
01:12:39.180 --> 01:12:42.836
It's tied to the Earth,
it's tied to this region
of the country.

925
01:12:42.880 --> 01:12:46.231
Um... it's more permanent to me.

926
01:12:46.274 --> 01:12:49.234
-[Adán] It's more...
-Permanent. It's more permanent.

927
01:12:49.277 --> 01:12:52.498
I like Tejana, I feel myself
like I'm a Tejana.

928
01:12:52.542 --> 01:12:56.284
And I'm kind of like
connected to-- to Texas,

929
01:12:56.328 --> 01:13:02.290
the world of women and feminism
and intersectional feminism,

930
01:13:02.334 --> 01:13:08.427
Brown women, being, you know,
there's-- there's a lot,
there's a lot of layers to it.

931
01:13:08.471 --> 01:13:10.908
And so, it's a lot more complex.

932
01:13:10.951 --> 01:13:15.129
And because my artwork is very
connected to Texas landscape,

933
01:13:15.173 --> 01:13:17.915
that's why, also another reason
I like Tejana.

934
01:13:17.958 --> 01:13:22.615
So the labels really don't give
identity to the person,

935
01:13:22.659 --> 01:13:25.139
my children know themselves
as Tap Pilam,

936
01:13:25.183 --> 01:13:27.794
and we're constantly
reminding them.

937
01:13:27.838 --> 01:13:31.015
Tap Pilam meaning
people of the earth.

938
01:14:55.882 --> 01:15:00.278
I think it's interesting
how you carry within yourself
both the indigenous...

939
01:15:02.628 --> 01:15:04.935
...and the Spaniard, which is...

940
01:15:06.371 --> 01:15:07.677
...the people who took over.

941
01:15:07.720 --> 01:15:10.288
[Homero]
These were our ancestors

942
01:15:10.331 --> 01:15:14.597
and the Spanish came,
you know, they intermingle
and had families

943
01:15:14.640 --> 01:15:17.513
with the Native Americans
and now we became Mestizos.

944
01:15:17.556 --> 01:15:20.428
I think some people define
more with the Spaniards

945
01:15:20.472 --> 01:15:22.953
because I guess
because of the education,

946
01:15:22.996 --> 01:15:26.565
uh, the books and religion.

947
01:15:27.479 --> 01:15:31.309
And the Indians, of course,
mostly they live off the land

948
01:15:31.352 --> 01:15:36.575
and their education was the
land, the animals, the plants.

949
01:15:36.619 --> 01:15:42.102
And they did also teach
the Spaniards, the Spanish
didn't know what plants

950
01:15:42.146 --> 01:15:46.019
were good to eat,
which ones were good
for remedies, and all that.

951
01:15:46.063 --> 01:15:47.717
They learned all that
from the natives.

952
01:15:49.675 --> 01:15:52.852
[Larry] We wake up
in the morning and we
do our blessings in the morning

953
01:15:52.896 --> 01:15:56.464
and we give blessings
to everything that is alive,

954
01:15:56.508 --> 01:15:58.466
the two-legged, the four-legged,

955
01:15:58.510 --> 01:16:00.425
the ones that creepy crawlers,

956
01:16:00.468 --> 01:16:02.558
the plant people,
the rock people.

957
01:16:03.733 --> 01:16:07.345
[speaking foreign language]
This is our-- our relations.

958
01:16:07.388 --> 01:16:10.043
I am with my--
my relatives right now.

959
01:16:10.087 --> 01:16:12.045
These are all my relatives,
you cut down my relatives,

960
01:16:12.089 --> 01:16:14.787
you're cutting down a part
of my soul, a part of my heart.

961
01:16:14.831 --> 01:16:19.966
I went to go see--
my kids wanted me to go
see Avatarwhen it came out.

962
01:16:20.010 --> 01:16:26.625
When I saw that film
and I saw them put their hair
into the animal and fly it,

963
01:16:26.669 --> 01:16:29.280
and I saw them put their hair
and their body into the ground

964
01:16:29.323 --> 01:16:31.891
and connect it to the tree,
I understood that.

965
01:16:33.371 --> 01:16:35.329
Because that's--
we are connected,

966
01:16:35.373 --> 01:16:39.420
we are connected to the stones,
the roots and all of that.

967
01:17:11.061 --> 01:17:14.151
[Native Indian flute music]

968
01:17:17.633 --> 01:17:19.112
[Larry]
You know, when we talk...

969
01:17:20.113 --> 01:17:24.465
...as soon as I'm quiet,
you think that the-- that's it.

970
01:17:24.509 --> 01:17:27.164
There's-- I'm telling you,
"I love you."

971
01:17:27.207 --> 01:17:29.340
Stops. But it doesn't.

972
01:17:29.383 --> 01:17:32.952
My voice carries,
when the wind comes in,

973
01:17:32.996 --> 01:17:35.172
it takes out that word,
"I love you."

974
01:17:35.215 --> 01:17:37.130
How many times
have you been in a canyon,

975
01:17:37.174 --> 01:17:39.132
how many times
have you been in a place,

976
01:17:39.176 --> 01:17:41.918
and you say,
"I think I hear drumming"?

977
01:17:41.961 --> 01:17:46.096
"I thought I heard voices."
And yet there was nobody around.

978
01:17:46.139 --> 01:17:47.793
They're voices in the wind.

979
01:17:48.838 --> 01:17:52.189
So our voices that we speak,
the songs that I sing,

980
01:17:52.232 --> 01:17:54.321
the-- the music that I play,

981
01:17:54.365 --> 01:17:58.151
it just doesn't stop
when I stop, it carries
through the winds.

982
01:18:00.676 --> 01:18:02.286
I hear the voices of my people.

983
01:18:03.679 --> 01:18:05.115
Because I'm trained to.

984
01:18:07.944 --> 01:18:10.816
You hear? She's talking to us.

985
01:18:10.860 --> 01:18:12.557
She's sending us a message.

986
01:18:13.950 --> 01:18:18.432
There are sounds in this Earth
that we no longer hear,

987
01:18:19.346 --> 01:18:22.306
there are whispers and teaches
in the silence of the wind,

988
01:18:22.349 --> 01:18:25.309
only we forgotten
how to listen to them.

989
01:18:25.352 --> 01:18:28.878
[light dramatic music]

990
01:18:51.291 --> 01:18:53.685
-[woman]
Did you put him to work?
-I did.

991
01:18:53.729 --> 01:18:56.253
-[all laughing]
-I did. Well, he's so sweet.

992
01:18:56.296 --> 01:18:59.212
-He's like, "What can I do?"
-[woman laughing]

993
01:19:10.049 --> 01:19:11.224
-Yeah?
-Yeah.

994
01:19:12.617 --> 01:19:14.750
[Adrian]
Okay. Excellent. Okay, ready?

995
01:19:16.055 --> 01:19:18.318
-Okay, very good.
-[Adán] It's steaming.

996
01:19:18.362 --> 01:19:19.493
Uh-huh. Exactly.

997
01:19:19.537 --> 01:19:20.886
Look at the grass. See...

998
01:19:28.198 --> 01:19:29.112
Ready?

999
01:19:30.069 --> 01:19:31.375
[grunts] There we go.

1000
01:19:34.944 --> 01:19:36.423
All right, and here we go.

1001
01:19:36.467 --> 01:19:37.337
All right.

1002
01:19:38.512 --> 01:19:39.600
Mm-hmm.

1003
01:19:41.515 --> 01:19:44.127
-[Christine] And then
throw it out from underneath.
-[Adrian] Okay.

1004
01:19:44.170 --> 01:19:46.782
[Adrian]
There you go. Very good. Okay.

1005
01:19:46.825 --> 01:19:47.695
Ta-da!

1006
01:19:48.871 --> 01:19:51.830
-Okay. Well, maybe it is.
-Oh my goodness!

1007
01:19:51.874 --> 01:19:53.789
-Okay, so--
-Okay, that's cooked.

1008
01:19:53.832 --> 01:19:57.140
-Let me grab this.
-[Adán] Do you know
how steamy it is?

1009
01:19:57.183 --> 01:19:58.750
This is perfect.

1010
01:19:58.794 --> 01:20:01.100
This is delicious.
Oh, it smells wonderful.

1011
01:20:01.971 --> 01:20:04.843
-[Adán] Oh, this is great.
-[Christine] Turn it around,
let me see it.

1012
01:20:04.887 --> 01:20:06.845
When I'm working with it,

1013
01:20:06.889 --> 01:20:12.633
it's an unusual experience,
because this was a living thing.

1014
01:20:13.809 --> 01:20:17.638
And so to me, it's about a
transformation that's happening.

1015
01:20:17.682 --> 01:20:22.426
Like, I do think about
this is changing, the process
that I go through,

1016
01:20:22.469 --> 01:20:24.907
I'm aware that
I'm going through change.

1017
01:20:24.950 --> 01:20:26.386
[Adán]
This is wonderful.

1018
01:20:27.300 --> 01:20:30.042
[Christine]
For me, the reason
that it's important

1019
01:20:30.086 --> 01:20:32.001
is that it was a way
for me to reach back...

1020
01:20:33.089 --> 01:20:37.833
...and bring something,
like, tangible from things
that are gone.

1021
01:20:37.876 --> 01:20:39.791
And so this is a way
for me to do that.

1022
01:20:39.835 --> 01:20:43.055
[speaking in Spanish]

1023
01:20:43.099 --> 01:20:46.580
-[Christine] Yes.
-[Adán laughing]

1024
01:20:46.624 --> 01:20:48.539
My mother always put garlic,

1025
01:20:48.582 --> 01:20:51.020
she used to come out
of the kitchen, open the door,

1026
01:20:51.063 --> 01:20:53.718
just as the head
was going into the pozo.

1027
01:20:53.761 --> 01:20:58.549
She would come out
and throw a bowl of spices that
she had made in the molcajete.

1028
01:20:58.592 --> 01:21:02.031
The door would open
and she would appear then
she would throw it into the pit.

1029
01:21:02.074 --> 01:21:03.902
-[laughing]
-The men were
all standing around,

1030
01:21:03.946 --> 01:21:06.252
and she was putting in
the final magic touch.

1031
01:21:07.166 --> 01:21:10.430
This is the only texture
that can be called barbacoa,
nothing else.

1032
01:21:10.474 --> 01:21:14.870
Everything else, well, yes,
they call it barbacoa,
it's rump roast and everything.

1033
01:21:14.913 --> 01:21:17.829
-But this...
-[Christine] This is it.
So we can leave this here,

1034
01:21:17.873 --> 01:21:20.223
it'll just continue to cool
and we take this inside.

1035
01:21:20.266 --> 01:21:22.834
-[Adrian] I am going
to stay here peeling this.
-Okay.

1036
01:21:22.878 --> 01:21:25.532
-Let's go.
-[Adrian] Yep. We got it.

1037
01:21:25.576 --> 01:21:26.969
Come on, we got some barbacoa.

1038
01:21:27.926 --> 01:21:30.668
[humming]

1039
01:21:30.711 --> 01:21:33.801
[butcher]
Some of the delicacies
that are today,

1040
01:21:33.845 --> 01:21:37.718
were survival food
for our families growing up.

1041
01:21:37.762 --> 01:21:42.723
So my dad would cook a cabeza
because we couldn't afford
anything more than

1042
01:21:42.767 --> 01:21:45.030
what was left over,
which is the old faux meats.

1043
01:21:45.074 --> 01:21:48.251
And so we would get a cabeza,
you put it in the ground

1044
01:21:48.294 --> 01:21:50.862
or put it in the oven,
and it'd feed the whole family

1045
01:21:50.906 --> 01:21:53.256
for all-- all day
Sunday church day.

1046
01:21:53.299 --> 01:21:55.606
We couldn't afford a T-Bones
and the rib eyes

1047
01:21:55.649 --> 01:21:57.825
and the porterhouse steaks
and some of your better stuff.

1048
01:21:57.869 --> 01:22:00.263
Here we grew up on what
we had on the ranches...

1049
01:22:04.006 --> 01:22:06.443
We could stretch that further
and just put a lot of salt,

1050
01:22:06.486 --> 01:22:08.619
pepper, garlic
and it tasted good.

1051
01:22:08.662 --> 01:22:11.752
And now these Mexican chefs,
these Mexican restaurants
are coming in,

1052
01:22:11.796 --> 01:22:15.843
"Oh, this-- this is--
this is a delicacy. This is--"

1053
01:22:15.887 --> 01:22:17.323
This is survival food for us.

1054
01:22:22.981 --> 01:22:24.896
-Ready to eat almost?
-Yes, we are.

1055
01:22:24.940 --> 01:22:27.203
[Adán]
Grab some and let's eat.

1056
01:22:33.470 --> 01:22:36.081
I mean it was
a big feast barbacoa. Oh!

1057
01:22:37.430 --> 01:22:40.781
And then I like aguacate,
a little bit.

1058
01:22:40.825 --> 01:22:43.088
And then the main thing
is I like salsa.

1059
01:22:45.177 --> 01:22:46.352
-That's the taco.
-That's the taco.

1060
01:22:46.396 --> 01:22:47.440
Good picture for your book.

1061
01:22:47.484 --> 01:22:49.094
Yeah, it is.

1062
01:22:49.138 --> 01:22:50.530
[Adán]
Now you can eat it.

1063
01:22:50.574 --> 01:22:51.879
[Christine]
Yes, now we can eat it.

1064
01:22:52.837 --> 01:22:56.841
[Adán]
The magic of food
is community and family.

1065
01:22:56.884 --> 01:23:01.280
And so when you have barbacoa
in a Mexican-American community,

1066
01:23:01.324 --> 01:23:04.805
they will immediately conjure up
images of the extended family,

1067
01:23:04.849 --> 01:23:07.547
of working. Barbacoa is more
than just a dish,

1068
01:23:07.591 --> 01:23:09.375
it's the entire tradition
of the culture.

1069
01:23:09.419 --> 01:23:13.118
And I've always said,
"Cuisine divorced from culture

1070
01:23:13.162 --> 01:23:14.598
has no legs."

1071
01:23:14.641 --> 01:23:17.688
So, but let me just eat my taco.
[chuckles]

1072
01:23:17.731 --> 01:23:20.604
[warm music]

1073
01:23:20.647 --> 01:23:21.605
This is so good.

1074
01:23:23.999 --> 01:23:25.913
[Christine]
You cannot buy the love
that goes into cooking.

1075
01:23:25.957 --> 01:23:27.219
You just can't

1076
01:23:27.263 --> 01:23:29.352
You can't buy the-- the--

1077
01:23:29.395 --> 01:23:32.529
the interchange that happens
with your brothers,

1078
01:23:32.572 --> 01:23:36.663
with your sisters,
with your mom, you know,
those are not for sale.

1079
01:23:36.707 --> 01:23:38.491
So it's not easy to get that.

1080
01:23:40.711 --> 01:23:44.628
Nacho! Yeah,
we're taking a group picture
of everybody who's here.

1081
01:23:44.671 --> 01:23:46.238
-Oh, good.
-Just a quick picture.

1082
01:23:46.282 --> 01:23:48.893
[Christine]
It's about the exchange

1083
01:23:48.936 --> 01:23:52.723
of family and the bonding
that takes place.

1084
01:23:55.160 --> 01:23:57.597
[Adán]
What we're trying to say
with our food

1085
01:23:57.641 --> 01:24:00.731
and celebrating the food
is there is a way

1086
01:24:00.774 --> 01:24:05.257
that we can all share
and we can really cook

1087
01:24:05.301 --> 01:24:08.217
and serve a table
where all are welcome.

1088
01:24:08.260 --> 01:24:11.394
That's the new encounter
that food gives us.

1089
01:24:13.352 --> 01:24:17.313
[Alston]
To be Americans, we have
to understand our past.

1090
01:24:17.356 --> 01:24:22.057
And if we understand our past,
it helps us to better
understand our present.

1091
01:24:23.362 --> 01:24:26.931
[Graciela]
We have to know who we are.
We have to love ourselves.

1092
01:24:26.974 --> 01:24:28.759
We have to respect ourselves.

1093
01:24:28.802 --> 01:24:31.196
If we want to work
for peace and justice,

1094
01:24:31.240 --> 01:24:33.111
we have to start with ourselves.

1095
01:24:33.155 --> 01:24:36.810
We are that bridge between
the past and the present,

1096
01:24:36.854 --> 01:24:39.726
we're the ones that have
to tell the stories.

1097
01:24:53.175 --> 01:24:58.005
[Adán]
The act of cooking is the act
of facing differences

1098
01:24:58.049 --> 01:25:01.008
in a way that will make you grow
in understanding.

1099
01:25:01.922 --> 01:25:04.403
And when you do that,
you create a dish

1100
01:25:04.447 --> 01:25:10.583
that is new, uh, and that will
be delicious because of how you
accepted the other.

1101
01:25:11.671 --> 01:25:16.502
I think that's a formula for
a society that lives in peace.

1102
01:25:17.547 --> 01:25:20.419
[uplifting music]

1103
01:25:20.463 --> 01:25:22.639
[unintelligible chatter]

1104
01:25:33.693 --> 01:25:34.868
Anyway, bye.

1105
01:25:36.218 --> 01:25:37.871
[woman]
Thank you so much
for everything.

1106
01:25:37.915 --> 01:25:40.222
Of course.
Yeah, the food was delicious.

1107
01:25:40.265 --> 01:25:41.832
Thank you for having me.

1108
01:25:41.875 --> 01:25:43.312
Have safe travels.

1109
01:25:45.792 --> 01:25:49.144
[Native American singing]

1110
01:26:01.243 --> 01:26:04.246
[upbeat Mexican themed music]