Diary of a Water Protector

Diary of a Water Protector Indigenous Water Protector

As the sole p/t employee of an NPO I founded based on my life’s work it’s my responsibility to pull the curtain back on ...
08/24/2026

As the sole p/t employee of an NPO I founded based on my life’s work it’s my responsibility to pull the curtain back on the non-profit industrial complex. Repost from Yasmina ياسمينة ⵢⴰⵙⵎⵉⵏⴰ
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every young person who has DMed me asking how to start an NGO or break into social impact, please read this before you do anything else...

no one tells you this part. the sector is not short on passionate people, it is short on honesty about how the money actually moves and who it was built to protect. i learned this the hard way, five years of unpaid labour before Politics4Her got its first real grant, and I am not letting the next generation learn it the same way.

this is not me telling you to give up on the work but me telling you to go in with your eyes open, because a system you have romanticised cannot be strategised against.

full piece is linked in my bio, go read it 🫶🏽

I often talk about the importance of grounding in Indigenous values of respect, relationships + reciprocity- but what do...
07/26/2026

I often talk about the importance of grounding in Indigenous values of respect, relationships + reciprocity- but what do these values look like in transparent practice? In the last decade of practicing decolonization I have yet to personally harvest any plant or animal relatives for consumption not on my home Territories. My rule for shell is based on a 10:1 trash pick-up to shell ratio. I’ve been asked to harvest for research 3x this past year by and with community. I was honored to spend time in community on my birthday listening and learning about limu from our Kanaka relatives 🙏🏽 The 1st photo of my harvest you can barely see. I scaled rocks on 🩼, got wrecked and stayed way past high tide to ensure to harvest the smallest amount. 2nd photo is comparative analysis from a community member. It *is* possible to work in a way, every day, that honors our ancestors - and the ancestors we strive to be one day ✨🙏🏽🌊🩵

Clammin’ people doing clammin’ ‘tings 🙌🏽
07/18/2026

Clammin’ people doing clammin’ ‘tings 🙌🏽

Not me being recruited for a Naval officer career 20+ years after I was a USMC MIDN, then having to break the news to he...
07/15/2026

Not me being recruited for a Naval officer career 20+ years after I was a USMC MIDN, then having to break the news to her I was a MIDN before she was even commissioned/we were the 1st post 9/11 OCS class, then her saying there’s still time, the age was bumped to 42 + me having to tell her I’m older than 42 🤣 👵🏼

What an honor and a blessing to be the only Indigenous presenter and only Nanticoke on my home Territories. Wanishi Nati...
07/14/2026

What an honor and a blessing to be the only Indigenous presenter and only Nanticoke on my home Territories. Wanishi National Marine Educators Assn 🌊🩵

Graduated! 🙌🏽🎉After a lifetime as an Indigenous coastal foods harvester growing up clamming, crabbing, oystering + fishi...
06/24/2026

Graduated! 🙌🏽🎉

After a lifetime as an Indigenous coastal foods harvester growing up clamming, crabbing, oystering + fishing I’ve earned the academic title of Aquaculturist! My Capstone Project the Coastal Defenders Community Aquaculture Farm© consisted of a business plan presentation and supplemental research paper that creates opportunities for all people to learn skill sets to sustainably harvest coastal foods on Kumeyaay Territories at Scripps Instn. of Oceanography on The Scripps Memorial Pier 🦪

My parents met on my coastal Territories where my mother worked in the summer after college waitressing at a seafood restaurant at the beach. Summers always meant seafood harvests on newspapers and endless crab picking I would with much gratitude (and still do to this day) defer to my Aunties. Winters meant oyster fritters my Dad would make from scratch on his property overlooking the water as I would watch the baby ducks we raised and geese fly in that he harvested along with venison. Walks on the beach meant over miles of our Indigenous shell middens that mitigated storm surge and sea level rise and allowed spat to attach to dead shell, supplementing oyster reefs.

When I think about how my father spent his entire life from birth through his 20s in legally imposed segregation from Kindergarten through college and from our beaches and swimming pools, I’m amazed at how he stayed true to our food sovereignty and commitment to my swim and dive training. In interviewing, being accepted into, taking and completing this course, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for the last several months, I always kept my people and future generations of us close to my heart and remain resolute in creating accessible opportunities to share this lifetime of knowledge, sacred medicine and ancestral wisdom in a good way 🙏🏽🌊🩵

Get to the range
04/26/2026

Get to the range

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Oxnard, CA
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