Writing in black marker on a white wall, seen in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 2024. A common critique of settler colonialism.

Santurce, 2024

privilege is power

Pastel colonial architecture of the pueblo is sandwiched under the colonial architecture of where I was born. The contextual layers of my settler identity, colonizando de nuevo aquí. The window frames one of our red bananas, a visual metaphor for what we hope to build, food sovereignty. A portal to building anti-colonial ways of being.

We moved to Puerto Rico in 2021, but my spouse spent childhood summers here at Abuela’s, wanting to be part of the generation to return.

I was born in Omaha, Nebraska where the legacy of redlining is not only still visible, but fully functional. To the extent that “well-meaning” white people can live inside it, benefit from it, and still not see how their privilege is built on the inequity of everyone else.

When I taught in university I would start new courses by introducing myself via privilege, because privilege is power. The contextual layers of my settler identity are not the center of this work, engaging meaningfully with very warranted critiques of colonial-ass behavior is.

Pastel colonial architecture of the pueblo is sandwiched under the colonial architecture of where I was born. The contextual layers of my settler identity, colonization de nuevo aqui. The window frames one of our red bananas, a visual metaphor.

After Louis Dodd’s The Painted Room, digital drawing, 2022

We follow our elders into the forest to fix a broken water pipe. Our water is rainwater, collected throughout the mountain and dispersed via plastic pipes.
Behind the glass of our neighbor’s windshield, we look out on to the neighborhood. In the foreground a house has been abandoned after a hurricane destroyed the roof.

Our community’s ongoing struggle to access water, 2023. For more see our farm newsletter: TL;DR a story about how we collect water

click here to access the zines for Palestine website where you can download all of our zines for free and print them at home!
Image of the banana zine to redirect people to the zines for Palestine website where this PDF can be downloaded and printed at home.

BANANA

A DECOLONIAL FEMINIST ZINE

“The method is simple: starting from one element to uncover a political, economic, cultural, and social ecosystem in order to avoid the segmentation that the Western social-science method has imposed. The most enlightening and productive analyses in recent decades have been those that have drawn the greatest number of threads together to highlight the concrete and subjective networks of oppression that weave the web of exploitation and discrimination.”

—Francoise Verges

more via A Decolonial Feminism by Francoise Verges:

“The banana’s dispersion from New Guinea to the rest of the world, the banana and slavery, the banana and US imperialism (banana republics), the banana and agribusiness (pesticides, insecticides—the chlordecone scandal in the Antilles), the banana and working conditions (the plantation regimes, sexual violence, repression), the banana and the environment (monocultures, polluted water and land), the banana and sexuality, the banana and music, the banana and performance (Josephine Baker), the banana and branding (Banana Republic), the banana and racism (when did the association of bananas and Negrophobia begin?), the banana and science (researching the ‘perfect’ banana), the banana and consumption (bringing bananas into the home, suggesting recipes), the banana and rituals for ancestors, and the banana and contemporary art.”

In this black and white 35mm image the rack of bananas is still developing and thus still retains its flower. When the fruit has developed slightly more the flower will most likely be removed.
In this black and white 35mm image, the flower on the end of this rack of bananas has been removed. This encourages the plant to focus on the development of the fruit.
Bananas are plants, not trees although they grow as large as trees. This plant has been photographed with a flash to accentuate the color and texture of the leaves.
Banana plant with fruit before development. The flower will produce fruit once the smaller flowers within the larger purple flower are pollinated. Blue sky and clouds peak through the green leaves of the plant illuminated by the flash.

Our contribution to the critical decolonial pedagogy of Francoise Verges:

the banana and class (La Mancha—the “stain” that cannot be removed),

the banana and repair (Unripe banana is an outstanding source of healthy fiber and starch that can repair a damaged gut—improving the microbiome and helping the body heal itself, water-intensive banana plants also act as water towers, storing water in wet seasons and then redistributing it back into the environment during periods of drought),

the banana and food sovereignty (“When the boats stop”—meaning when the disastrous contradictions of colonial control are exposed and food becomes scarce, bananas have been a crucial starch to keep Puerto Ricans and other colonized people alive).

Footnotes available via our farm newsletter.

illuminated by a flash, green banana leaves standout from a dark blue background.

a zine was just the first step

I made this zine to formulate my research and reading into something tangible, something I could share. But our neighbors, who are mostly in their 70s, don’t know what to do with zines. The final form of this work must be something our neighbors want to engage with meaningfully, as well as being of use as a resource.

HOW TO APOLOGIZE

someone holds a Roman candle style firework in their hand in this black and white 35mm image. The firework has just gone off, and there are still sparks and smoke visible in the image.
Jannette and her daughter dance to the music playing on a DJ set-up to the left of the frame. They are slightly blurry in the low light. The glitter of Jannette’s earrings and purse, and the Christmas lights decorating create trails of movement.
Sammie stands behind the bar, surrounded by decorations and trinkets, and a full liquor cabinet. He is festively dressed for new years, and sports and hat and themed shirt.
someone’s dog takes cover from the fireworks in the corner of the bar. As far away from the door as it can be. It is illuminated by flash in this black and white 35mm image, lit up as he sits behind two folding chairs.
a pineapple plant with fruit that is about ready to harvest. The plant is growing on a slight hill, and is starting to become to heavy to stand upright.
Two of our neighbors at the corner bar, one slows his car to ask what we’re doing, the other greets him while holding a rack of bananas we’ve given him.
At the end of last year we started giving away extra produce and seed at the corner bar on weekends. This black and white 35mm image shows the bed of our track, with a plastic harvesting tray holding coconut and pineapple seeds.
Painted by a community member on the cement light poles are messages like this one. Nearly the entire drive into town. Warranted critiques of colonialism and class are regular conversation in our neighborhood.

There is a significant amount of exploitation in agriculture, just because it is normalized doesn’t mean we should uphold the status quo. There is a significant amount of waste in our modern food chain, because it is more profitable to throw food away. 

We’ve been working to disrupt this. Sourcing produce that is too ugly to sell, but still good to eat, bringing it to our community and offering it for free.

At the end of last year, we started giving away produce and seeds every weekend at the corner bar.

Maraca plant photographed in black and white 35mm film. Shallow depth of field creates white circles of light behind the pods and seeds in the foreground.

Blue Zones are places where people consistently live to be over one hundred years old. Across all of these regions there is one constant: Community. 

We don’t live in a Blue Zone, but we have control over whether or not we have community. 

But, we have only made it this many years into the work because we knew how to apologize in decolonial and feminist ways.

Franz Fanon teaches us that to be ethical practitioners, we have to be committed to revolutionary practice. That means pushing back against systems of oppression. That means not functioning as if colonialism is natural and has always existed. We have the choice to do things differently. To honor the trust we’ve been given. 

How to Apologize

  • Accountability has four parts, self-reflection, apology, repair, and changed behavior.

    A lot of accountability is specific to the situation, but how to apologize is universal. 

  • He wrote in JAMA about how apology can shift power imbalance and validate shared values. 

  • Lazare: acknowledgment, explanation, remorse, and reparations.

    Mingus: say “I’m sorry”, name the harm/hurt, name the impact (not the intention), name the actions, commit to not doing the harm again. 

  • "In feminist and anticolonial work there are going to be mistakes. There aren't a lot of roadmaps in [art] for this kind of work, and [community] members are at different stages of understanding and enacting our values. We need to know how to apologize in ways that are feminist and anticolonial, rather than the ways many of us have learned that tend to foreground logic, self-preservation, judgment, or demands for other people's apologies rather than focusing on our own accountability." via CLEAR Lab Book

A black plastic harvesting tray holds pale yellow cacao pods from one of our 80+ year old cacao trees.

Video: Steven Casanova Edit: Alex Matzke

how to support this work

black plastic harvesting tray holding red banana fruit sits on a blue plastic chair, in front of green root vegetables.

There is significant waste in our modern food chain, because it is more profitable to throw food away. We’ve been working to disrupt this. At the end of 2025 we started giving away produce and seeds every weekend at the corner bar. We decided the best way to share this with everyone is as still life drawing exercises.

PATREON

The farm focuses on giving free food and plant medicine to the community. That work is made possible through support for our substack newsletter and art projects.

SUBSTACK
Black plastic harvesting tray with pineapples and ripe bananas are photographed in the back of the truck.