[Sdpg] SAT, OCT 27/Food, Culture, & Future Generations with Ed Mendoza, Director of Indigenous Permaculture de Aztlan/ La Casa de la Raza, Santa Barbara, CA

[Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK
Presents:

Food, Culture, & Future Generations
With Ed Mendoza
Native American Farmer, Poet & Permaculturist
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 6:30-9pm
                        
Food & Music, Raffle
La Casa de la Raza, Santa Barbara, CA 


        Eduardo (Ed) Mendoza (Xikano-Nahuatl), farmer, author, activist, and
Director of Indigenous Permaculture de Aztlan, comes to Santa Barbara to speak
about his experiences in California and Mexico, growing food and growing
culture. 

        A Santa Barbara native, Ed has been growing gardens since he was a
boy,
learning from his father. Working in the fields picking crops while in high
school and college, he later graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with a
degree in Agricultural Science. He learned about growing blue corn from Mexico
from his adopted grandfather, the late Rafael Guerrero, one of the founders of
D-Q University in Davis, California.

        In 1993 Mendoza became an agricultural advisor for the Traditional
Native American Farmers Association and started to train in Permaculture
(PERMAnent agriCULTURE), a design system based on ecological principles for
creating sustainable human environments.  He worked for the Gila River Indian
Community, establishing an aquaculture and farming program to teach young
juveniles about traditional crops. Ed helped establish the Casa Blanca Growers
Cooperative which grows mostly traditional organic crops. He has also been
part
of the Permaculture teaching team for Indigenous Permaculture
(www.indigenous-permaculture.org) teaching at the annual Indigenous
Permaculture
Design Course in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

        The purpose of Indigenous Permaculture de Aztlan is to assist
indigenous
nations in North, Central and South America learn the means to be economically
self sufficient and to respect culture and ceremony, and restore lands for
future generations. Part of the vision is to encourage youth to go to these
countries to help, learning through cultural exchange. 

        Recently Ed Mendoza has traveled to Belize and Guatemala to teach
about
permaculture and the importance of growing and saving traditional seeds. He
has
worked with a coalition of traditional growers that traveled to Italy for an
International Slow Foods Conference, learning farming methods from around the
world. He has been invited to Columbia, Thailand and Argentina to demonstrate
sustainable farming techniques, and will be going to Baja, California to teach
a workshop on rainwater harvesting, while participating in a mesquite bean
harvest with the Seri Indian community.   

        Mendoza recently won a place in the Writers Place contest for his
poem,
As the Peaches Come, and has a newly finished manuscript titled Mud &
Blood. He
reads regularly at Art in the Alley in Casa Grande, Arizona and has read in
New
York and in New Mexico. Poems are about family, love, the streets, the desert,
growing food, life and prayer. He is currently writing a novel and is doing
research on his families history in Mexico and California. Ed is a respected
member of his community and considered a ceremonial leader and regularly
participates in Sun Dance, Native American Church and other ceremonies.

        The evening event takes place at La Casa de la Raza, in Santa Barbara,
CA, 601 E. Montecito St, on Sat, Oct 27, 6:30-9pm.  Food, Music & Fundraising
raffle for Permaculture de Aztlan projects with Indigenous Communities in
North,
Central & South America. Sponsors are Santa Barbara Permaculture Network & La
Casa de la Raza. Donations welcome. For more information, please call
(805)-962-2571 margie at sbpermaculture.org , www.sbpermaculture.org


-end-
        



Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie at sbpermaculture.com
www.sbpermaculture.org

"We are like trees, we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to
grow." - Anonymous

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