Meet Tanya Young | Afro-Indigenous Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tanya Young and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tanya, how does your business help the community?
The goal of First Nations Storytellers is to reclaim and restore the lost identities and history of Indigenous tribes of North America. We are supporting the mental health and cultural integrity of Native American descendants. Our intention is to recall and represent each pre-colonial tribe in its home area to reconstruct the map of the Americas which we call Turtle Island.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I created First Nations Storytellers during 2020. The project evolved from our urban Indigenous identities into gardening to urgently defend our Hollywood community’s green spaces and improve LA Native American health through food education.

Our community work morphed into landscaping, irrigation and clean up to enhance safety for preschool students, seniors and neighbors in recovery.

We created Indigenous street art to cover the insidious grafitti that ear marked people and places for property crime and bodily harm.

Our storytelling work centers cultural recovery & preservation for tribal descendants Potawatomi, Chumash, Gabielliino, Seminole, Black Creek and Cherokee.

Our last year of writing and animation work incorporates STEM education about agriculture, nutrition and the biology of vibrant health. We are premiering our first animated Web3 episode in January 2024 as well as cookbooks, storybooks and coloring books to educate kids and families

I am now collaborating with Wombat Mental Health Services LCSW, P.C. On their “Re-Indigenized & Re-Imagined” work with hearing impaired, differently-abled, LGBTQIA2S and BIPOC folks. A collaboration between the LA County Department of Mental Health Stakeholder Engagement Unit, Underserved, Cultural Communities Mental Health Services Act and the Los Angeles LGBT Center, my narrative artwork is helping expand their vision to include “Two-Spirit” Native American identities through storytelling art.

Each chapter of our published project will feature a different storyteller, introducing our chosen animal, the bond we share, and how this connection has influenced our mental health journey. My spirit animal is the Horse as it connects to power, freedom and nobility.. The Horse reflects the importance of personal drive and motivation..

Our project structure respects the significance of spirit animals within Native American cultures, rather than trivializing or misunderstanding. Our storytelling will culminate in a showcase event in May. 2024. I will present my narrative in spoken word, art, dance and music, embodying the diversity of expressions within the Two- Spirit community. The event will serve, not only as an opportunity for the community to gather, heal and learn, but also as a platform for the broader population to appreciate and understand the Two-Spirit journey. Ours is a movement that aims to reimagine mental health through the lens of the Two-Spirit journey, fostering, understanding, visibility and change one story at a time. With healing, understanding and communal bonding.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
A unique inspiration for West Coast travel is exploring the coast of California in a week. Local lore tells the the tale of Queen Calafia depicted as a Mayan warrior-priestess, holding a spear in her left hand and examining a gyroscope in her right. This fictional queen of the island of California was introduced by 16th century poet Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo in his epic novel of chivalry, Las sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), written around 1510. Califia is the namesake of not only terrific almond milk but also the California region encompassing the U.S. state of California and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur.

It would be fun and informative to drive California Highway #1 from coastal San
Diego up to Jefferson Airplane’s hometown of Bolinas where you can watch the elk migrate. In between there are pleasures like taking surf lessons on Huntington Beach, hiking in Malibu, dining in Montecito, visiting wine country, hitting the Monterey Aquarium and opera in San Francisco.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The organization that mentored me is Edible Healing Garden of LAC + USC Pediatrics. Christina Gonzales is Vice President of the garden and has callaborated with the LA Garden Council. Christina helped show outlet team the ropes of planting and maintaining our urban garden in the challenging community of Hollywood.

The Edible Healing Garden is a hospital-based community garden to help promote food equity, provide nutrition and gardening education, and improve cultural diversity and inclusivity in the greater Los Angeles area to the medically underserved.

Our urban gardens intend to support a healing environment that addresses nutrition insecurity in the pediatric population of LAC+USC by empowering kids and families with nutrition knowledge, food sovereignty, and access to nature.

On August 27th, 2022, we came together to share our Master Gardener Workshop with folks from several Los Angeles communities.

On October 8th 2022, we celebrated the Healing Garden’s First Birthday with a Master Gardener Workshop on Milkweed, Hand Pollination, Ollas, and Sweet Potato Propagation.

USC’s Healing Garden has definitely helped First Nations Storytellers and our efforts to:

1. Promote kids & families’ access to healthy, culturally appropriate foods.

2. Encourage nutrition, gardening and cooking education to promote healthy lifestyles.

3. Increase Food Equity.

4. Provide a safe space and handy methods for folks to grow their own food and augment food sovereignty.

5. Empower every family and child that struggles with food insecurity.

FNS a owes a huge debt of gratitude to Christina and her colleagues who continue to model best practices and tread new pathways that restore indigenous and traditional methods for healthier living.

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Image Credits
Sally Tanner Darrell Keith Harris