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(Saphia is jolted rudely out of a deep slumber. She orients herself and engages with the difficult question at hand.)

SAPHIA (V.O.): Sometimes joyous epiphanies are followed by rude awakenings. Mine certainly was. I went to bed energized from my transformative weekend, incredibly optimistic about communalism. The rain had stopped, the clouds had parted, etcetera, etcetera. And then I woke up to a nauseatingly unanswerable question, one that had been behind my resistance to communalism all along: what do you do with the people who aren’t your people? I was so excited about having found some of my people, I forgot about the other side to this discovery. I’ve never once been a part of a community filled only with people who I knew were my people; last weekend was no different. I think being a part of a community means being in community with people you just don’t vibe with, alongside those you do. And hopefully the latter outweighs the former. Unless you are somehow able to be the sole and total architect of your communities, this is unavoidable. This is also the part I’ve always sucked at—navigating those relationships. There is no blueprint. These relationships are the definition of tension. Writers introduce them to add plot points to a story—the “thrown together but hate each other” trope is as old as time. But I’ve never seen a single film or tv show dish out remotely helpful tactics about how to navigate these relationships. And in my own life, I’ve usually stuck to the old, “avoidance at all costs” tactic. But that usually begins to erode my overall relationship to the community we co inhabit; I begin to avoid that space altogether as a way to avoid that person or people. I really don’t have a solution here; it’s much too early for that. I guess all that is just to say: I’ve hit another roadblock.

(Saphia slumps back into bed and pulls the covers over her head. Fade to outro.)

This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.

Sky Woman

Long before the world was created, there was an island in the sky inhabited by sky people. One day a pregnant sky woman drops through a hole created by an uprooted tree and begins to fall for what seems like eternity. Coming out of the darkness, she eventually sees oceans. The animals from this world congregate, trying to understand what they see in the sky. A flock of birds is sent to help her. The birds catch her and gently guide her down onto the back of Great Turtle. The water animals like otter and beaver have prepared a place for her on Turtle’s back. They bring mud from the bottom of the ocean and place it on Turtle’s back until solid earth begins to form and increase in size. Turtle’s back becomes Sky Woman’s home, and the plants she’s brought down with her from Skyworld, including tobacco and strawberries, are her medicine. She makes a life for herself and becomes the mother of Haudenosaunee life, as we know it today. ¹

We all begin with a story. It is through story that we are connected, not only to each other, but also to our homes, to our lands, to our communities, to our people, to our past, and to our future grandchildren. It is the collection of stories that we are able to hear and witness that will make the whole of our lives and define the shape and character of our community, but also, through the stories, we share and tell and retell what will shape the whole of our future. We organize our worldviews on the patterns of storytelling. The way we tell our stories sets our expectations and influences how we view our lives in relation to our world. Whether our characters are data points or monetary values represented by numbers or by animals and stars, the story is one of management and redistribution of resources, or, as many Indigenous people say, “life sources.” Stories help conceptualize what is possible.

When we talk about economies, we are still telling a story. In mainstream storytelling paradigms, there is always a need for a hero, usually one, and the idea that we can live happily ever after. The villains are named as the ones who set limits or barriers that should and will be overcome by heroes. In capitalism, land, plants, animal beings, people, places are replaced with numerical symbols that create a system of relationships that can be deciphered by understanding the numerical values and often the predetermined rules of engagement. Even further complicated, these systems of numbers are then used to predict future stories using equations, interest rates, but all focused on continued growth, overcoming limitations and barriers. We see this facet of Western storytelling reinforced in iconic stories like the American Dream—and even more stark, in current news reports of new billionaires and the ever epic quest for oil. The message: “There is always more.” In mainstream capitalist storytelling and economy, there is an endlessness that captivates and encourages dreaming, even when this leads to extinction of species, destruction of environments, and separation of community and people into more valuable and less valuable. The less valuable become areas of sacrifice. Entire neighborhoods and communities have become environmental waste zones in the quest for more wealth, space, and money.

There is a place for absence. For nothing. To not consume. For frugalness. This part of the story is just as important, because it establishes limits, ends, and the concept of exhaustion as part of natural and recurring cycles.

Overconsumption, hyperconsumption, and, more recently, continued extraction despite constant calls for slowed development dominate conversations about global, national, regional, and even local economies. The constant need to drill or frack for more oil and find or colonize lands that remain “underdeveloped” are a result of this fundamental focus on continued growth. No growth and absence are the barriers or limits that mark failure and failed economies.

As society continues operating under the cultural understanding of limitless growth, we are destroying the very sources that maintain life. Even more alarming, rather than hinder growth, we find ways to separate and continue consumption: people, life, communities have to become less valuable in order to extract from them. In our mainstream economic equations, we are in constant search to increase the low values and find ever more creative ways to extract value to continue building. Mainstream economies avoid pauses or halts, because those are iconic markers of failure. The mainstream panics at the sign of failure. In more recent discourse around mainstream economies, there is a call for change reflected in conversations around “circular economies” or “responsive economies” or any number of callouts for a changed version of how mainstream society understands economy.

But before we change the equations at the base of mainstream economies, change the idea of limitless growth, we will need to change how we tell, and even listen to, stories. We will need to recognize the importance of, and embrace, absence that is followed by the practice of absence.

In mainstream Western traditions, we are subject to the economy like we are subject to the weather. Yet in Indigenous stories, collectively, we are the story—we are the economy. We influence the world, including life sources, all around us.

Many, if not all, Tribal creation stories recognize the importance of “absence.” This is often referred to as a “darkness” or “nothingness.” It is because of absence that emergence occurs. While Western economies focus on the light, the continued growth, “the absence” is critical in Indigenous understandings on how we manage economies. There is a place for absence. For nothing. To not consume. For frugalness. This part of the story is just as important, because it establishes limits, ends, and the concept of exhaustion as part of natural and recurring cycles. Life sources or resources, if we not are not mindful, can be exhausted.

A Hopi Story

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said:

“I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”

The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.”

The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”

The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”

“No. They will go there too.”

The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”

The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”

Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.”

And the Creator said, “It is done.” ²

In the Hopi story, as with the Indigenous economies, there is recognition that we, presently, are part of the story—we are the economy. In mainstream economies, the economy is an external system that is controlled by markets, policy, and institutions outside of community, family, and individuals.

In mainstream Western traditions, we are subject to the economy like we are subject to the weather. Yet in Indigenous stories, collectively, we are the story—we are the economy. We influence the world, including life sources, all around us, because we are part of the equation as active participants in economic systems. Essentially, our collective actions, presence, and practice are a form of communication that influences the world around us—including economy, including weather.

In her article “The Pendulum of Climate: A Hopi Story,” Monica Nuvamsa explains:

Farming families work hard to prepare corn for storage for later use, and we are taught to keep at least four years of corn harvests in storage in case of drought or to prepare for major life events such as marriages, births, and ceremony. My household has not had a harvest in nearly three years. I follow the teachings I’ve learned and set aside seed for the next planting cycle, but in the past two years I’ve reduced my portion of seed each year, because the risk of loss in my community heirloom seed stock is too great for me….It is in these times that the teachings come forth and I begin to fully understand why we do this: why we save, why we work hard to have good storage for future years, and why we anticipate the years that may not produce a good harvest. ³

Nuvamsa is describing the practice of absence that influences how their life sources—seeds—are managed. Nuvamsa is a reflection of Hopi, Hopi people, and their stories. The Hopi stories center conversations, relationships, unique gifts that contribute to the whole, and more important, recognize places as important understandings—lessons with stories in and of themselves, places as opportunities to learn about our collective experience in that particular spot. Places are characters in our stories in their own right. Humans are not manipulators of economic or spiritual equation, but are only a small part of the dynamic interactions that occur around humans and the natural world. We humans are only part of the story. As told in both “Sky Woman” and “A Hopi Story,” humans are actually the least aware and gifted of life beings.

Additionally, there is a recognition that “the absence,” “the frugalness,” contains lessons, learnings, and behaviors that cultivate and protect life. There is a clear understanding that life has limits, not limits that should be overcome but rather recognized, acknowledged, and accounted for. This fundamental understanding is the key difference between an Indigenous economy and Western capitalist economies. Moreover, when you have many dynamic Indigenous economies interacting and engaging under the same understanding of limitations as strengths and not limitations as deficits, this is emergence and the creation of symbiotic ideas and environments. Connections among Indigenous communities are valuable not just because they are economically beneficial but also because there is an accountability of shared protection of limits and recognition that each community is responsible for spatial and regional limitations. These connections and understandings are so strong that even through decades after what Anishinaabe scholar Kyle Whyte calls “industrial settler campaigns” ⁴ that intentionally weakened Indigenous economy, self-governance, and self-determination, there are visible intense material, cultural, and social connections that continue to connect communities. Indigenous trade routes are invisible connections forged over generations, leaving rivulets in the earth between Tribal communities that still very much exist today. We were economic pollinators that have left their evidence in cultural practice in the present. These connections and practices are subtle reminders of our responsibilities to each other, our Tribal communities, and the trade items that found their way from village to village, region to region, and continent to continent.

This is the essence of an Indigenous economy: relationship and community—not just human community—to function in balance. It is community, relationship, and emergence that have value. Ironically, it is community, relationships, and emergence that are rare and much harder to numerically quantify in Western capitalism. Indigenous economy is humbleness, frugalness, and it protects limits. The lessons in Indigenous storytelling, as in Indigenous economies, are clear, important, and practiced: the pauses, the silence, and the stillness are also part of the story; it is the dark stillness that precedes emergence.

Notes

1. “Sky Woman,” by Shelley Niro, Kanien’kehaka, 1999; Keller George, Oneida Haudenosaunee, 2001; Alan Brant, Tyendinaga, 2001. There are many variations of this story, and sources differ.
2. “A Hopi Story.” There are many variations of this story, and sources differ.
3. Monica Nuvamsa, “The Pendulum of Climate: A Hopi Story,” Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine 29, no. 3 (Fall 2022): 14–18.
4. I use the term campaigns because these waves of settlement are sustained, strategic, and militaristic. These campaigns include both warlike violence and the tactics for suppressing populations that are used alongside belligerence, from assimilative institutions (for example, boarding schools) to containment practices (for example, reservations) to the creation of dependency (for example, commodity foods). See Kyle Powys Whyte, “Our Ancestors’ Dystopia Now: Indigenous Conservation and the Anthropocene,” in The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, ed. Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann (New York: Routledge, 2017), 206.

This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.

This is the fourth article in NPQ’s series titled Owning the Economy: Stories from Latinx Communities. Coproduced with the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, a national network of Latinx community development groups, this series highlights community preservation, land ownership, and business development efforts in Latinx and immigrant communities across the country.

How does a small Latinx community organize itself to support homegrown businesses? Adelante Mujeres (which means Forward, Women), the nonprofit where we work and which has operated for over two decades, seeks to answer this question. Central to this work is developing a holistic support system for Latina¹ immigrants and their families in Washington County, Oregon, that can help them build community wealth. 

Washington County is the county with the largest Latinx population in Oregon, estimated at 107,000 people (out of a total population of roughly 600,000). Statewide, Oregon’s Latinx population has grown steadily, increasing by 63 percent between 2000 and 2010, and by another 31 percent between 2010 and 2020.

Estimating the size of the Latinx business community is complicated since many Latinx-owned businesses have not been certified as such. But a 2016 report published by the Oregon Community Foundation noted that between 2002 and 2012 alone, the number of Latinx-owned businesses statewide increased from 6,000 to almost 15,500. These businesses, the same report points out, tend to be small. Only one in six has employees other than the owner. Of those that do have employees, the average business employs only seven people. As of 2016, their average wage was only $26,500, far short of the national median income of roughly $59,000 that year.

In short, the community’s Latinx business community is growing, but it is not yet fully thriving. Below, we offer a story of how our local Latinx business community, largely women-led, is learning to organize itself. 

Addressing Community Challenges through Business

Immigrant business owners across the United States face many challenges. These include:

• Difficulty navigating the complex system of registering a business and acquiring proper licensing, insurance, and bonding
• Difficulty building relationships with potential clients, vendors, and other professionals because of limited English skills
• Lack of marketing skills and social capital needed to create a strong client base
• Trouble accessing resources such as start-up capital
• Lack of computer literacy and information technology skills

This situation is only worsened by the realities of being a Latina trying to succeed in the US business world. Nationwide, Latinas are typically paid just 55 cents for every dollar paid to White men. According to a 2020 report from the National Women’s Law Center, in terms of lifetime income over a 40-year career, that gap costs the average Latina over $1.163 million. The Latinx immigrants of Washington County are no exception to these trends. 

So, how does a small Latinx community organize itself to support its businesses? To be effective, it is critical to employ an equity lens in all our business development work. Promoting equity—by which we mean breaking down the barriers for people of color to live a dignified life—requires active efforts to dismantle racial and structural inequities. It requires specialized support to low-income Latinx microbusiness owners who require business counseling in Spanish, as well as specific resources to build sustainable businesses and create jobs, thereby improving livelihoods for their families and the community overall. This includes:

• Having access to resources that are culturally specific and bilingual in Spanish
• Building strong relationships with local government entities
• Being empowered to participate in leadership opportunities that will support their growth as entrepreneurs and provide an opportunity to have voice and influence on policy, especially in our local communities

Building a Local Entrepreneur Support Network

Since the challenges that [Latinx] entrepreneurs face are multifaceted, meeting those challenges requires combining many different components.

The many needs that Latinx entrepreneurs face, as outlined above, led to the creation of the Empresas Program (empresas meaning businesses). The program was launched by the nonprofit Adelante Mujeres during the Great Recession in 2008. Of the many business owners that we have supported, over 65 percent identify as Latina entrepreneurs. 

At Adelante Mujeres, the staff reflects the community served. Over 80 percent of staff identify as Latinx. Our children and their families suffer the impact of generational trauma just as much as their beneficiaries do. The work, in short, is centered not on bringing in experts from afar, but rather on peers supporting peers. Guiding our work is our vision, which is based on six central premises: 

1) A healthy, vibrant Latinx community strengthens our society. 

2) The empowerment of women is essential for a thriving community. 

3) All people have an innate capacity for growth and transformation. 

4) Learning leads to a flourishing life. 

5) A strong community requires the inclusion of everyone. 

6) Everyone has a responsibility to cultivate a peaceful community and a healthy planet.

The work…is centered not on bringing in experts from afar, but rather on peers supporting peers.

To operationalize this vision, Adelante provides technical assistance and limited financing both to startups as well as existing businesses, with a principal focus on supporting Latina entrepreneurs. This is done in coalition with many organizations—local, state, and national—including the Washington County Small Business Support Network and local chambers of commerce, the Oregon Small Business Development Center, and the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, among other groups. Through this network of organizations, entrepreneurs are provided with a suite of resources and guidance to help their businesses thrive, from educational courses and workshops that transform an idea into a business plan, direct coaching to put the business plan into action, networking, and access to capital. 

Since the challenges that entrepreneurs face are multifaceted, meeting those challenges requires combining many different components. Among these are the following: 

• Lending capital: Tools here include the use of matched-savings or individual development accounts, which help microbusiness owners finance more of their business development on their own, as well an affiliated Kiva Zip lending program that offers business owners the chance to obtain up to $5,000 in zero-interest loans.
• Industry-specific capacity: Three industries get specialized support (determined by current entrepreneurial demand). These are the three commercial kitchens that help support food businesses, a retail incubator that offers a storefront called Casa Qui ² (or “House of Quality”) for Latinx entrepreneurs to sell locally made products, and two farmers market locations to support local producers.
• Wraparound support: This includes adult education, leadership development, education programs, nutritional education, and mental health assistance.

How does this all work in practice? Here are a couple of examples:

Olga López is one of the many Latina business owners that Empresas has supported. She had comanaged a business with her husband for 19 years, but when she and her husband divorced, López was left without a business or income—and her home was at risk of foreclosure. Business training enabled López to get back on her feet, and she set up her own cleaning business. Called Royalty Maid Services, this business has now taken off. The small business maintained all but one client account during the pandemic, a major achievement given that domestic cleaning work largely dried up in 2020 when the economy shut down. 

Now López uses her leadership and empathy to drive the business. Many of her employees are mothers. López, in managing the business, has ensured that her employees have the flexibility in their scheduling that they need. This has enabled her to retain a largely Latina workforce in a growing business that both provides decent jobs while enabling employees to have healthy, quality time with their families. 

Another team of Latinx business owners in our community are Alma Hernández and her husband Christian Morales. Both immigrated to Oregon from Mexico. In 2020, they started to sell their products and foodstuffs in local farmers markets in the Washington County communities of Forest Grove and Cornelius. 

Looking to expand and develop a permanent storefront, they participated in the food business course. Now they have a storefront which they call La Loteria Taco Shop in North Plains; they also operate a food truck.

These are just two of many examples. In 2021, 105 people sought technical assistance support; businesses receiving support saw a 22 percent increase in revenues and technical assistance support led to 20 new businesses being formed. 

Developing Community Leadership

Entrepreneurs play a critical role as community builders. But aligning economic development with community development requires more. For this reason, Adelante works with Latinas in the community to increase civic engagement, supporting community-led efforts to address unjust and deficient policies at their roots. For example, in coordination with Bienestar Oregon, Centro Cultural, Community Action, DREAMers Resource Center, SOAR Immigration Legal Services, and the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, Adelante participates in a coalition that we call our immigrant solidarity program. All immigrant community support volunteers (also known as promotores) receive a seven-week training course and then support immigrants in the field. 

More broadly, in 2022, Adelante launched a new policy program, focused on both advocacy and, critically, leadership development. This new effort was spurred by the growing recognition in our community of how critical it is to have Latina voices at the table in decision-making roles to counter the structural racism and sexism that our community faces. There is so much knowledge in the Latinx community that needs to be elevated. 

Technical assistance work often takes place business by business, but our dreams extend much further—far beyond supporting businesses.

This work, however, cannot be done alone. There is direct support provided by government agencies and foundations who are working with Adelante to promote culturally responsive information and equitable bilingual access to Latinx entrepreneurs. Most important in all of this, however, are the members of the Latinx community in Washington County themselves, who build power and community by exchanging experiences, recommending services to one another, and supporting each other through the confusing and even scary steps of embarking on a business and negotiating their way as immigrants in a society that can often be hostile to them.  

Building Community Wealth

The work of community building and of building community wealth is complex. Some of this work involves group advocacy and community building activities. Other parts of the work are much more individualized.

By necessity, technical assistance work often takes place business by business, but our dreams extend much further—far beyond supporting businesses. In our work, we are motivated to build toward a future where people of color, immigrants, refugees, and rural residents are leaders who advance systemic change to build a truly just society. 

This vision is reflected in how we conduct our entrepreneurship trainings. In our trainings, we speak not only of a triple bottom line of planet, profit, and people—but of a quadruple bottom line of planet, profit, people, and purpose.  

The purpose of business development, simply put, is not just to sell more goods and services, but to sustain our cultures and develop a thriving community that generates health, income, and wealth for all. Together, our vision for the Latinx business community in our small corner of Washington County, OR, is to continue to engage with business owners, organizational allies, and community leaders to build the just and caring society that we all desire. 

Notes 

1.  We use Latina to refer to women of Latinx descent. Otherwise, we use the gender-neutral term Latinx. 
2.   The name combines the Spanish word for house (casa) and the Nahuatl word for quality (qui).

This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.