What’s Growing On? November 2021 News from Grow Southcoast

This month, Grow Education put a focus on celebrating and acknowledging the Indigenous Peoples from the Wampanoag Tribes. We shared a lesson plan with our partnered teachers named “Connecting Food and Culture of the Wampanoag Tribe.” The content traces a recent radio story from the Cape and Islands Public Radio station, which interviewed a Mashpee Wampanoag member, Danielle Hill, who’s growing and saving corn seed from the era of King Philip’s War. Take a listen to that report here: A Mashpee Wampanoag woman reconnects with a traditional corn! 

Our lesson connected the ideas shared in the report with the cultural vegetables and recipes of New Bedford’s students’ traditional family foods. We asked students what crops they grow or would grow in a garden to represent their culture. Students shared stories, learned about different plants, and drew pictures of their imagined gardens while connecting them to the traditional Wampanoag foods.

The Wampanoag Tribe is still visible, with a strong history, culture, and network of community throughout the Cape and Southcoast. See some of the links below to learn more about our region’s history through the Indigenous perspective.

Continued Links to learn and celebrate Wampanoag culture:

Presentation in New Bedford of Wampanoag Nation.

Our Beloved Kin by Lisa Brooks – A history of King Philip’s War presented from an Indigenous and more complete perspective.

We Still Live Here – documentary on the reclamation of the native language. Watch entire documentary here.

Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project