The fight for Native food sovereignty is more than just a return to traditional diets — it's an act of resistance, resilience and reclamation. Centuries of colonization, which methodically dismantled Indigenous food systems, have left lasting scars, which is one of the reasons food sovereignty can mean multiple different things: from reclaiming local food systems, to creating food policies that enhance community health, to targeting food as a mechanism for entrepreneurship and economic development.

Films, cookbooks and even competitive cooking shows are spotlighting this revival, honoring the land and the traditions that have sustained Indigenous communities for generations.

In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, here are a few essential resources to deepen your understanding of the movement.

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When speaking about his 2020 film “Gather” on Duke University’s “Leading Voices in Food,” director Sanjay Rawal said that the film was really made for those people taking “pride in reestablishing the food systems that were, in effect, destroyed by colonization.”

“And when I say destroyed, I mean directly,” Rawal said. “By the mid-1800s, it became really clear to the US government that the expenditure of military force on Native people was too perilous, and it was euphemistically much more efficient to subjugate Native people by destroying their food system … Native Americans are one of the only populations in the modern world to have had their entire food system destroyed as a tactic of war.”

“Gather” turns its lens on multiple sets of characters, all of whom are citizens of different tribal nations across what is now the United States, who are dedicated to efforts that promote Native food sovereignty. There’s Twila Cassadore, a San Carlos Apache woman who educates her community about Apache diets before people were forced onto reservations. In Whiteriver Arizona, Chef Nephi Craig, a citizen of........

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