The Manifesto

Crossing the River is a podcast in which we hear from Indigenous leaders who defend life on Earth every day, in their own words, because they are the protagonists of their own stories. To make the collective decisions which will define our present and our future, and to re-examine the stories we tell about our past, we must listen to their voices.

Despite crossing the river from shore to shore countless times, and crafting different strategies to enter into dialogue with Western society, the West has not listened carefully to Indigenous leaders.

Crossing the River is an effort to transform that relationship and provide a space to meet. It’s a space to listen and a space to learn about the mobilization strategies that Indigenous peoples have used to redefine justice, politics, law, and science—so that these institutions no longer exist without them.

This podcast amplifies Indigenous peoples’ voices; it does not explain or interrupt them. Here, you will hear directly from Indigenous leaders, because deep listening requires paying close attention to the way they pause and breathe and to the weight they carry in their voices.

“Speaking is not only transmitting words,” says Juma Xipaia, the first leader we hear from in this podcast. “It is also transmitting energy, knowledge, memory, and anger. And it hurts. It hurts because nothing changes, because few listen.”

Their voices transport us, embody their territories, and transmit stories that deserve to be heard. Their words are profound and carry the power and feelings of the person who utters them. Crossing the River is an invitation to engage with these voices, with the understanding that they are the emissaries of messages which arrive in the form of language, sounds, and silence.

Indigenous peoples weave their knowledge and ways of understanding the world into words, sounds, and gestures specific to their languages, which bear witness to their histories and collective struggles for a more just future. Their words are intimately intertwined with their territories and peoples.

Indigenous leaders know that their lives, and the lives of their communities and territories, are protected through the preservation of their languages. That is why, in some episodes, they speak in their mother tongues. These languages have almost always been safeguarded by women—grandmothers, mothers, and daughters—who have assumed the responsibility of passing them through the generations through words, sayings, and songs. Their stories, messages, and voices are the beings alive in the currents of the river, and we invite you to immerse yourself in these currents.

We cross the river to witness the power of Indigenous peoples and learn how the seeds they plant give rise to new life. By crossing the river, we understand that hope does not arise spontaneously but is built daily, and that a tree will not grow if its seed is not planted.

That is why we cross the river. Because there is no possible future if Indigenous peoples are not brought into focus and if their lessons are not heard on both shores. We invite you to cross the river, to connect and meet with Indigenous leaders and their peoples. With this exercise in attentive listening and practice, we plant this collective seed for the future with them.

The team behind the podcast is:

Carlos Andrés Baquero Díaz from MOTH, Natalia Arenas, Goldy Levy, and Andrés Villegas. The original art is by Nefazta and the music is by Cosmo Sheldrake.

Land Acknowledgment 

Crossing the River is a podcast that recognizes the long and ongoing history of exclusion and erasure of Indigenous peoples all around the world. We wish to acknowledge that New York University—the institution at which the MOTH Program primarily sits—is located on the unceded territory and ancestral homelands of the Lenape nations, of which the Lenape people were forcibly dispossessed. We wish to honor the significance of this land for Lenape people throughout time and to express our respect and support for Lenape nations and leaders, past, present and future. And we also honor the struggle of all other Indigenous peoples, including those who participated in this podcast, that fight for their rights and for the protection of their lands.