Got Tradition?

By Daisy Hernández, ColorLines. Posted May 17, 2005.

As a child, Terrol Dew Johnson expected to lose a leg one day. It was what happened to the elders. They got "bad sugar." They became sleepy, their circulation slowed and inevitably they underwent amputations. It had happened to his grandmother, and Johnson assumed it was something that occurred later in life.

Not that the teachers on his reservation in Arizona didn't try to convince him otherwise. The reservation today has the highest rates of diabetes in the world, and in home economics classes, along with other American Indians, Johnson received lectures and brochures on the benefits of eating healthy. All that talk didn't do much good. His reaction was typical of youngsters: "Oh God. Not another pamphlet." Teachers recommended eating more vegetables like broccoli. But to Johnson such talk was "a white thing." "My grandparents didn't teach me to cook broccoli and cauliflower," he says. They cooked the rabbit they hunted.

So he kept on drinking a six-pack of Pepsi every day. By the time he turned 25, he noticed he was irritable and sleepy. After a trip to the doctor, he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

For a person with an empty stomach, a normal reading of how much sugar they have in their blood stream is under 110. Johnson had a reading of 500. The nurse who called him at home to tell him the results of his medical exam asked, "Are you still alive, Mr. Johnson? Are you conscious?"

Now 32, Johnson runs a grassroots cultural organization on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, 60 miles west of Tucson, Ariz. More than 50 percent of adults on the reservation have the disease, according to Indian Health Service. The epidemic is largely a result of diets high in starch and sugar and lifestyles that don't include much exercise, experts say. Scientists are also studying whether American Indians have a genetic predisposition for diabetes. But health experts contend that it is not a "diabetes gene" that makes Indians vulnerable. "It's how their bodies have changed with the environment," says Janice Thompson, director of the Office of Native American Diabetes Programs in New Mexico. Experts like her say healthier eating and exercise can make a great difference in preventing diabetes and in managing the disease.

In response, Johnson's organization is harvesting desert foods like tepary beans that were once common among his people. The foods, low in sugar, harken back to a time when diabetes did not prevail in Indian Country. His selling point for eating healthy? It's good for your cultural identity.

A similar story is unfolding on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, where a group founded by Winona LaDuke is providing foods like wild rice and buffalo meat to about 200 elders who suffer from diabetes and have severely limited incomes. Organizers there also hope that these foods--low in sugar and fat--will help diabetics. It is a hope that carries much urgency for American Indians across the country, among whom diabetes has increased by 50 percent in the last ten years, according to the Indian Health Service. And what happens for Indians and what they do to fight the disease is of particular interest to other communities of color. According to the Centers for Disease Control, African Americans and Latinos are two to three times more likely than whites to have diabetes.

Despite these dire statistics, Johnson is chipper and enthusiastic. A basket weaver and artist, he believes that more native people will soon discover the joy of eating tepary beans--and not just to lower their blood glucose readings. What's his selling point for eating this healthy food? It's good for your cultural identity.

Back to the Bean

Tepary beans were once in abundance in Arizona for the Tohono O'odham, also known as the Desert People. The beans, which are white or brown, are eaten plain or added to stews. In the 1930s, about 1.3 million pounds of tepary beans were produced on the reservation. By 2001, only 100 pounds were harvested. Much happened in the intervening 70 years. Indians went to fight in world wars, and others went to the cities for jobs. The land fell idle, production dropped and diabetes rates began to soar.

The Tohono O'odham reservation straddles the United States border with Mexico, which essentially separated the Desert People into two countries. The reservation, the second largest in the country, is about the size of Connecticut. Along with the high rates of diabetes, it has high rates of poverty and unemployment: 47 percent of families with children under the age of five are living in poverty, and close to 60 percent of people don't have work, according to the 2000 Census.

In 1996, Johnson connected with Tristan Reader, a community gardener on the reservation. The two men applied for grant money to start Tohono O'odham Community Action, an organization now better known by its acronym, TOCA. They offer classes in basket weaving and other traditional arts and run a youth and elder program. And they began harvesting desert foods in Reader's community garden. In 2001, they cleared the 30-acre farm that had once belonged to Johnson's grandfather, who died from diabetes complications. They began growing and cultivating tepary beans, and last year they harvested 10,000 pounds of the beans. Because Type 2 diabetes is the result of the body not being able to break down sugar, tepary beans, which are low in sugar, are a helpful addition to the diet of a diabetic.

Daisy Hernandez is a senior editor at ColorLines.

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