IntroductionWhen most people picture Native Americans, the image they conjure is a relic of the past—stoic warriors and noble Indians in cowboy films. The stereotypical portrayals of Native peoples are grounded in a history of poverty on reservations. Rarely does the broader public acknowledge the modern reality of Native Americans, particularly of those growing up in places like Oakland, California, an inner city far from an idyllic past. The experience of being Native is not defined by the imagery of a vanishing people but by the vibrant, complex lives lived within contemporary society, navigating not only Native American identity but also the challenges of urban life. It is the same with our food.
My restaurant, Wahpepah’s Kitchen, sits near the intersection of Avenida de la Fuente and Twelfth Street in Oakland’s Fruitvale Transit Village. I was born near here and lived in apartments with my mom and younger sisters off International Boulevard. I attended Lazear Elementary (now Lazear Charter Academy) on Twenty-Ninth Street, and for a time, we lived communally in the American Indian Movement (AIM) Freedom and Survival House at Eighth and Twenty-Seventh Streets. I met my best friend, Yvette, there when she would visit her father, who was close friends with my uncle Bill Wahpepah. Our families knew one another before Yvette and I were even born. We attended what was called survival school, led by my uncle. We learned the multiplication tables and played educational games, like chess. We attended sunrise ceremonies, and the Oakland Fire Department kept extinguishing the fires we lit as part of those ceremonies because they did not understand that the fires were sacred to us. If we were sick, we went to the Native American Health Center. If we were hungry, we received food at the Intertribal Friendship House. Fruitvale—this community—means a lot to me.
From the big arched windows and the outdoor patio at the entrance of Wahpepah’s Kitchen, I can see thousands of commuters coming and going daily from the BART station, the one where Oscar Grant III was shot and killed by transit police in 2009. The brilliant blue mural honoring his short life was painted on the west side of the station. Although out of my view, the mural is a reminder to even those passing through that he mattered.
The train tracks are held up by concrete pillars covered in murals of corn, cattails, hibiscus, cactus, and a hummingbird eye—all sacred symbols within the indigenous cultures of the Americas. They represent longevity, sustenance, health, resilience, and strength. Many days local farmers sell freshly picked produce beneath the shade of the tracks to residents and workers in the area and to students who attend Arise High School just above the restaurant.
The walls of Wahpepah’s Kitchen too are covered with murals. The columns, painted by New Mexican Diné artist Tony Abeyta, illustrate the centuries-old foundations of my people’s food. A wall was designed and painted by a collective of New Mexico–based Native American artists known as NSRGNTS. The artwork pays homage to the precolonial indigenous foods that we serve in the restaurant. On the left, an Incan man carries the potatoes of Peru alongside a Mayan woman offering maize from Mexico. On the right, a Lakota Sioux presents bison as an Ohlone woman bears a basket of acorns. They are all dressed in traditional tribal attire and are walking toward the center, where a Kickapoo woman, who represents my heritage, wears a purple ribbon dress and holds a native squash. The vivid colors evoke the dark red of a South Dakota chokecherry, the deep blue of Ute Mountain corn, the burnished gold of Zea mays, and a shade of orange that matches the flesh of a Buffalo Creek squash. Among my staff and me, there are sixteen different tribes represented. On a banner across the top of the mural are the words “Indigenous Food Warriors.” That sums up who we are.
The canary yellow shelves of my indigenous food pantry are in full view of our guests and are lined with jars filled with heirloom seeds that have been gifted to me from other tribes—Seneca white corn, blue corn, Lakota popcorn, Pueblo hominy, Pawnee roasted hominy, Kickapoo corn from my Oklahoma family, cracked corn, flint corn, Hubbard squash, and chokecherries from the Lower Butte, the Paiute, and Montana. I want our guests to make the connection between what is on their plates and the bounty of our nation’s original foods represented on these shelves. These seeds are very much alive to me, as they each have their own personalities. I talk to them. I pray over them before I plant or cook with them. They are so beautiful, and I have a sacred responsibility to care for them just as I do the people who come to eat.
Many of the neighbors who live in the surrounding community speak Spanish as their first language, but you will hear conversations in Arabic, Farsi, Wolof, and Japanese, among others. We all are striving to make a living, to be seen and heard. And I know how hard it is—to not disappear, to be represented, to wonder where my next meal is coming from, to feel the weight of intergenerational trauma, to lose someone to addiction or preventable disease. No matter what goes on outside my walls, Wahpepah’s Kitchen is a place for healing. Food, after all, is medicine. Food is community.
Copyright © 2026 by Crystal Wahpepah with Amy Paige Condon. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
