Climate Displacement from Indigenous Lands

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CHAPTERS 

[00:01:55]: Climate and environmental factors in migration from Oaxaca 

[00:03:09]: Integrating migration into climate and environmental research frameworks 

[00:05:40]: Indigenous stewardship of biodiversity and access to climate funding 

[00:06:22]: Identity, belonging, and implications of leaving ancestral lands 

[00:08:29]: How climate-related drivers are understood and described by affected communities 

[00:11:10]: Land tenure, historical dynamics, and exposure to climate risks 

[00:13:10]: Indigenous land management practices and adaptation approaches 

[00:21:16]: Climate justice perspectives and policy implications for Indigenous communities 

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:03.15] 

Home is a pretty tricky concept. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, often suggesting something safe and comforting. But it has an added meaning for many indigenous peoples who can trace not only their own roots and those of their families to a particular place, but also those of their entire community. That's one of the reasons why the reality of climate change related migration is particularly hard for indigenous peoples. In many cases, migrating away from a place that is no longer suitable means not only leaving one's own homeland, but also that of generations of ancestors. This is Changing Climate, Changing Migration. This is a podcast produced by the Migration Policy Institute that seeks to explore every angle involving climate change and migration. I am Julian Hattem. I am your host and I am also the editor of MPI's online magazine called the Migration Information Source. While you're listening to this episode, please take a moment to subscribe to this podcast to help support the work that we do today. We're looking at climate migration from the perspective of indigenous people, especially those in the Americas. My guest is Jessica Hernandez.

[00:01:19.09] 

She's an environmental scientist, a climate justice advocate, and the founder and director of indigenous science and research at the nonprofit group Earth Daughters. She's also the author of a recent book called Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement. Jessica, thank you so much for your time. It's great to have you today.

[00:01:37.08] 

Yeah, thank you for having me here today and for also uplifting indigenous voices in the climate displacement narrative.

[00:01:44.13] 

Of course. So you describe yourself as the daughter of a climate refugee. Can you describe your mother's journey and the role that environmental change played in it?

[00:01:54.19] 

Yes. So my mother is from the beautiful state in Mexico called, you know, known as Oaxaca. So basically, one of the things that's happening and happened during her young adulthood that kind of led her to come to the United States was that there was a lot of, like, extreme weather patterns that were preventing many of the milpas, or cosechas, which is their agricultural yields to produce, especially the small orchards that her family kind of stewarded in Oaxaca. And as a result, when she met my father, who was a war refugee, she decided to journey with him to get a better life so that she could offer those opportunities for her mom and father, who were left back in Oaxaca.

[00:02:39.20] 

And so in your writing, you framed climate change and environmental change as one of the many factors that have displaced indigenous people, especially in the Americas. I guess zooming out from kind of your own story and that of your mother to a broader one about indigenous people in the region more generally, relief. I mean, what role do you see climate and environmental change playing in pushing people away from their ancestral homes?

[00:03:02.15] 

Yeah, so it's very interesting, right, because as an environmental scientist, as a climate scientist, when we hear about migration, we kind of silo that into like a social political issue that doesn't necessarily intersect with climate science or environmental science. Like in 2025. Right. Last year, the COP30 in Belém, Brazil, that was when the United nations released its first report kind of focusing on climate refugees, which is very interesting given that climate refugees have existed and continue to exist for years and before 2025, when that report was released. And one of the things that I often advocate for is looking at science from a more holistic lens, integrating that indigenous science that allows us to look at everything that is interconnected to what we're studying as scientists so that we can see how migration in the disguise of climate displacement is integrated with environmental science and climate science. And I think that we're starting to see that acknowledgement. But as anything right. When we start with the acknowledging phase, there's still action to be taken so that we can interconnect that and take action when it comes to climate refugees and people who are displaced as a result of climate change that is impacting their direct livelihoods and their indigenous lands in this case.

[00:04:24.10] 

So I want to drill down on the indigenous land situation. I mean, do, do you think that indigenous peoples and indigenous lands are particularly affected or. Yeah, I mean, what is the value, I guess, of adding an indigenous lens or an indigenous perspective to this conversation?

[00:04:40.06] 

Yeah. So as indigenous peoples, we rely on our lands, right. Like we everything that we farmed and kind of protect is a part of, like how we sustain our livelihood. So for instance, in my mom's case, her family has small orchards that they kind of steward and take care so that they can feed themselves and also sell some of the products to near in the nearby marketas, which is the open air markets. And as a result, right. When you have extreme weather patterns that are either resulting in floods or droughts, these agricultural systems that sustain us as indigenous peoples are killed off. So as a result, we lose our sustenance and we lose our small economic revenue that our families rely on. So when I talk about, like indigenous peoples being impacted by climate change, there's also that social, political landscapes that tend to intersect with why the climate change impacts are exacerbated in many of our communities, like the fact that we steward 80% of the world's biodiversity, but we receive less than 1% of climate funding globally to combat climate change or to address climate change mitigation. Adaptation just shows how the disparities continue to exist for indigenous peoples.

[00:05:57.19] 

And that's the statistics that the United Nations has released where we are receiving less than 1% and we are storing 80% of the world's biodiversity as we speak today.

[00:06:09.02] 

I must, I. I wonder too, I guess, what it means for one sense of community or identity for them to move away from or be pushed away from their ancestral homelands. Can you talk about that at all?

[00:06:22.11] 

Yes, there's a loss of identity because for us, our creation stories tell us that we come from the lands where our people are at. And oftentimes we see how as the generations are growing in the diaspora, there is a loss of community sense or sense of belonging because we're no longer in a lands. However, we're also seeing how as indigenous communities, we're creating pockets in the diaspora so that we can maintain our cultures and also adapt our cultures. And I think that oftentimes we forget sometimes even as indigenous peoples, that there is this adaptation phase where our identities are adapting. And we often see that a lot, especially for rural indigenous peoples who are not necessarily displaced externally, but displaced internally from our communities, our pueblos, into cities, where we're also adapting our sense of belonging and also our identities. And even going back to my mother's family, a lot of my cousins have to go to the city so that they can study universities or find jobs. And, you know, there is still that sense of identity that's still prolonged in our families because, you know, we are still adapting and adapting the knowledge systems as well.

[00:07:30.13] 

Right. Like, we know that certain things work back in our lands because we are a very observant of our environments, and we are able to bring that into the cities or the new locations where we are displaced.

[00:07:42.19] 

So this podcast is all about climate change and migration. Obviously, we think that there isn't a very important connection here, but I also note that I think research has shown that relatively few individuals themselves cite climate change as the primary factor for moving. To take one example, some of my colleagues here at MPI were involved with a World Food Program study a couple of years ago in which only about 6% of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras said that climate change was the reason why they wanted to migrate. I guess. How does that square with this story that you're telling? Does that suggest that these factors are perhaps more subtle or working in combination with other issues or. Or what? Yeah.

[00:08:26.14] 

So working with climate refugees, one of the things that I have found out is that oftentimes our people, especially communities, don't necessarily point it out as climate change. Oftentimes they say, oh, we're here for a better life, we're here for a better future, or better or more economic opportunities. But that's because they don't understand what climate change is. Even the term climate change is sometimes not accessible to our community members. And I think that it's being able to ask them questions that they're able to in a way dissect. Like, oftentimes I ask people like, if they're here for better economic opportunities or to make more money. I will ask them, what were you doing back home? What was like your source of income? And sometimes they were like, oh, we were growing, meal pass, you know, the three sisters. Or we were growing, you know, living off our culture, selling our beans and so forth. But then it became harder to grow those beans. And I think that that's when I tie in the educational piece and I'm like, oh, that's climate change. And oftentimes it's very interesting because even as asylum seekers in countries that do give asylum, not necessarily the United States for climate change, but it's hard because oftentimes people will stay there, here for more economic opportunities, and then be classified as economic migrants, as opposed to climate refugees, which I think the United Nations report was trying to, in a way, educate folks about that, especially countries.

[00:09:49.07] 

But oftentimes there's much more to be done than just publish a report that many countries are not necessarily going to implement in their immigration policies that exist today.

[00:10:00.22] 

Sure. And so I guess just to be clear for listeners, you're based in the US and your work is in the US So when you deal with displaced people, it's in the US Just to be clear.

[00:10:09.24] 

Yes, yes, in the US And a lot of people are coming from Central America, especially from Guatemala or Salvador, which are the countries that have the highest what is the malnourishment for children because there's not enough food to go around in their communities.

[00:10:24.10] 

So I want to talk about land too, which I think is kind of an undercurrent of this. And I think that's part of the story in much of the Americas, including the northern Central Americas that you talk about. There's a long history of tension and conflict over land, often between indigenous groups and the government. The result often in many situations has been that indigenous communities have been pushed into areas that are less agriculturally productive or kind of otherwise considered less valuable. Perhaps more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. What role, if any, does that history play in the current reality? And to what extent does it contribute to people being forced to migrate?

[00:11:07.17] 

Yeah, so I think oftentimes, right, we, like you mentioned, we are given those lands that are not necessarily nourishing or as productive as the lands that were actually taken through land grab. So it was very interesting because in Salvador, we were given our pieces of land, but then they decided that they wanted to do monocultural plantations, so they led the land graft movements where they stole some of the land that indigenous peoples were able to maintain when colonialism happened. And I think that oftentimes when we talk about land, land is a part of our identity. And then when you are adding these social, political implications that are preventing us from managing our lands, then it makes it hard because, you know, there's so much of these, like, just focus on your piece of land and ignore the entire landscape. But through the indigenous science lens, we have to look at the picture holistically. And then what we try to do to integrate that Indigenous knowledges that we have for management is often ignored because it's not necessarily considered val science. Like, we're not the agriculturalists with the PhDs, or our communities are not. So it's very interesting to see how even through the management and stewardship lenses that the country takes, indigenous knowledges are ignored despite them having generations of a wealth of knowledge that they're able to provide.

[00:12:26.14] 

So that these lands are stewarded in a way that it actually adapts to climate change as opposed to being more destroyed because you're coupling climate change and then the agricultural harm that's being caused to the lands or the oil drilling, then that creates a mirage of impacts that are hard to integrate or address. As indigenous peoples with limited power in colonial governments.

[00:12:54.06] 

Are there examples of indigenous approaches that have proven successful in adapting to environmental change or the impacts of climate change? I mean, why, if you're talking to a skeptic, why should indigenous voices be more prominent in this space?

[00:13:08.10] 

Yeah, so even if we look at the United States, prescribed burning has been an indigenous tradition that has allowed indigenous communities to maintain their landscapes to prevent wildfires. And we're seeing that in the state of Washington, where currently reside, where indigenous peoples are now working with the national parks firefighters so that they can actually do and practice prescribed burning so that they don't necessarily have to get wildfires. Because in, in Washington, we're always getting smoke from the whole Pacific Northwest because D.C. is burning, Washington is burning, or Oregon is burning. So it's very interesting to see how it took so many years of, you know, wildfires for people, especially scientists, to be like, oh, maybe we should practice prescribed burning. We also have Terra Preta, which is one of the indigenous management practices that's used in the Amazon rainforest that allows indigenous peoples to mix ashes with the soil and increase soil fertility. And as a result of that. Right. They're able to maintain the Amazon rainforest, which is one of the world's hottest biodiversity spots globally.

[00:14:17.03] 

Do you think that there has been. I mean, what's the trend line? I guess. Do you think that there has been progress made on that front, or is there still a long way to go in recognizing the value of Indigenous perspectives and voices in public policy spaces, especially as it relates to climate change and climate migration?

[00:14:34.12] 

Yeah, I think our generation is in a gray area, right, because we have finally seen where there's the acknowledgement of Indigenous practices or Indigenous knowledge systems or Indigenous science as solutions to climate change, as solutions to things that are impacting our world. And then that acknowledgment phase is still kind of leading into action. So there's more to do. But I think the beauty is that our generation gets to promote that action and how the action looks like and have those discussions and bring more Indigenous communities so that other perspectives are also integrated. And I think that we can go back to the United States, right, where there is a lot of land acknowledgments, but then there's not much action because we're still in that acknowledgment phase as we speak today. And I often tell the youth, or, you know, because I also teach, tell my students, like, it takes three generations for us to see change, which is a very common saying in Indigenous communities. Sometimes it's said by the Mohawk people, and oftentimes we have to realize that maybe it will take three generations for us to go from that acknowledgment phase and see more action as, you know, as it comes to Indigenous knowledges, land acknowledgements and so forth like that.

[00:15:48.06] 

I want to turn kind of more back to migration a little bit more explicitly. So whatever the reason they migrate, whatever the reason they leave home, Indigenous peoples, especially in the Americas, kind of face an array of challenges. And sometimes even that's if that's within their own country. Right. I mean, you know, to take one example, language is an issue, right? Many Indigenous people speak Mayan language or Quechua or Nahuatl or, you know, another Indigenous language, rather than English, Spanish, Portuguese, whatever other destination country, they may be marginalized in other ways. But you also talked about kind of pockets of, pockets of community in the diaspora, I guess. What is the. I mean. Yeah. Can you, can you talk a little bit more about that experience and process of moving and migration for members of indigenous groups and perhaps the challenges of margin and marginalization that people sometimes encounter, but also the opportunities for connection abroad and for replicating community abroad.

[00:16:44.13] 

Yeah, that's a very interesting question. And also topic. Right. Because oftentimes, like when we migrate to the United States, there's racial categories that we are kind of placed under. Right. So when we are in the United States, oftentimes we are labeled as Latino, Latinx, Hispanic, when reality, whiteness also exists in Latin America and exists in our countries. Right. And I think oftentimes that kind of discussion is kind of removed from what Latino is and those ethnicities are placed on us. And as a result, as you were mentioning. Right. When we do get immigration services, everybody assumes that we speak Spanish. And oftentimes our people do not necessarily speak Spanish. So there is that interpretation that it's lacking. They may offer interpretation services, but that's not necessarily necessarily lead to justice or equity for us because many of our people, people do not necessarily speak Spanish. That's why we have had many indigenous children die at the Border Patrol because they died off of preventable health issues that were not addressed because our children didn't necessarily speak Spanish when they were trying to get medical attention or care. And I think that oftentimes it's very interesting to have those discussions because when we talk about migration, we see it as a Latino issue, where in reality we have to dissect what does it mean to be Latino or Hispanic, and see that it also includes Afro indigenous peoples, Afro Latinos, indigenous peoples who are also racially marginalized back in our countries.

[00:18:13.15] 

And I think that oftentimes is very interesting to see how we are ignoring whiteness from these discussions and also ignoring settler colonialism. Right. Because if it wasn't necessarily a result of settler colonialism, a lot of indigenous peoples wouldn't necessarily have to be displaced or migrate to the United States. And I think that that opens a different discussion that is oftentimes ignored, especially when it makes it easier for folks to talk about migration and see it as a Latino issue, when in reality, the Latino identity has to be dissected so that we can actually be more equitable, especially for those marginalized identities that are often grouped together. And then, as you mentioned, we face other inequities that are not addressed, because where monolith. Right. In that disguise.

[00:19:03.10] 

I mean, can you talk about some other inequities, perhaps? Just very briefly, we mentioned language. I mean, but also, you know, sense of community or something like that. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Is there more that you could say about that?

[00:19:15.10] 

Yeah. So when it comes to sense of community, we often face a lot of racism, Right. Because oftentimes, you know, a lot of our indigenous foods are seen as disgusting, especially by other Latinos. We are also facing discrimination because, you know, depending on the shade of your skin and your features, there's more discrimination that even happens within the Latino community. So in California. Right. That's why we call it Oaxaca California, because there's a lot of Oaxacans, indigenous peoples from Oaxaca, who have migrated to California and kind of creative pockets. Also in Arkansas, where my parents currently reside, there's a big Marshallese community that has kind of migrated and created a pocket so that their future generations and their children can also adapt their indigeneity to a state that's not necessarily the island or, you know, similar to the island of the Marshall Islands. And I think that oftentimes we migrate in pockets so that we have the sense of community and belonging and also be able to address the discrimination that oftentimes exists in these pockets of ethnicities that we're placed under. Right. Because for the Marshallese, sometimes there, if there's no Pacific Islander as an ethnicity, they're placed as like, you know, in the Asian categories.

[00:20:24.24] 

And the same with, like, indigenous peoples from Latin America were placed under the Latino identity as well. So it's like, how do we address that is by migrating where we know there's other people like us or even that communication channel that exists. Right. Like all this family is here. So when the other family is kind of discussing migration, they were like, oh, maybe we should go to that state. And that's when we see pockets of. Of indigenous communities kind of find a new home in the diaspora.

[00:20:55.22] 

We're running up on time. But I want to kind of ask you one, one final question, and perhaps it's a big question. You describe yourself as a climate justice leader, a climate justice advocate. What does climate justice mean to you? And is the world becoming more climate just in your opinion?

[00:21:15.14] 

Yeah, I think what climate justice means to me, it is kind of putting indigenous peoples at the forefront so that are able to stay in our lands. Right. Because oftentimes when I talk to our elders, when I talk to my parents, all of them say they never wanted to leave their lands and there's always this longing to return back to their lands, but because of the conditions, whether they're political conditions coupled with environmental conditions, it makes it hard for them to be able to return to their lands at an older age. And I think that oftentimes when we talk about climate justice, is having the opportunity to stay in our land so that we don't necessarily have to be uprooted. And also looking at migration through the lens of climate change, because oftentimes migration, as we were discussing. Right. Is not necessarily addressed much in environmental sciences or climate sciences, like organizations like yours, just kind of like addressing that policy perspective. Right. But when you go to these big climate conventions at the United Nations or even global ones there, it's kind of like a first thing, like a new topic that they're finally integrating in those discussions.

[00:22:22.06] 

So it's very interesting. But I would say climate justice is looking at migration and also looking at indigenous people so that we are given the opportunity to manage, adapt and mitigate climate change back in our lands that do not necessarily result in us being forcefully displaced as a result of that.

[00:22:39.15] 

I really appreciate this conversation. We have to wrap it up there, but thank you so much for coming on today, Jessica. This was. This was really helpful. I appreciate your time.

[00:22:45.24] 

Yeah, thank you so much. Gracias.

[00:22:48.20] 

Dr. Jessica Hernandez is the founder of Earth Daughters and its director of Indigenous Science and Research. Her book is called Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. Whether this is your first time listening to this podcast or you've been following us through dozens of episodes, I hope that you will consider subscribing wherever it is you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review which helps other people find us easier. Look back through our archives by going to MPI's website. All of the episodes are collected in one place at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. We featured conversations about climate migration of all different kinds and on every continent except for Antarctica. But we're still working on it. If you'd like to get in touch, please send us an email. You can reach out to me at [email protected]. You can also follow MPI on all of the major social networks to stay on top of of what my colleagues are working on. This episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration was produced by Daniella Espacio. Michelle Mittelstadt provided editorial oversight and Lisa Dixon offered additional assistance. The theme music that you are now hearing is a song called Touch by Patrick Patrikios.

[00:24:10.22] 

I am Julian Hattem. Thank you again for listening. I'll see you soon.