Creating a Forum of Understanding
“The podcast was part of a larger conceptual idea I had about wanting to educate and inform other people about indigenous thought, tribal existence and an understanding of what was occurring in Nevada from both the micro and macro level,” Melendez said. “I wanted to create a forum that allowed people the opportunity to see a greater description of the human element that tribal people are experiencing and the ways in which we're existing every day in relation to other people.”
Season Two of the Coffee with an Indian podcast, which had an initial run of 21 episodes up until December 2019, is set to be released in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, listeners may find from season one that the Coffee with an Indian podcast follows a different format than the typical podcast.
“[Podcasts are] very culturally different from the way that people would present themselves in tribal communities or from indigenous spaces,” Melendez said. “I felt that what I had to do was create a podcast that started off by me giving this narrative of where I came from, my ancestors and my relate-ability and more so just showing them my humanness. That's a real cultural dynamic that is important when communicating with other tribal people, because when we see the relate-ability or the human side of it, then the information is able to be transmitted.”
Therefore, the narrative format delivered in season one is intended so that listeners can better understand the human and worldview perspective Melendez is sharing as an indigenous person. If Melendez started the podcast in any other manner, without first establishing his authenticity as a human being, he says, it would have gone against tribal conventions and would not have been as nearly well-received by his tribal community.
“When I started the podcast, it was really just to tell the story and to let indigenous people and other people from around the world understand that I wasn't just trying to come out and be that character that just said, ‘Hey, look, I'm a great person. I know lots of things. I have X amount of resources. I know some things and this is why you should listen to me,’” Melendez said. “If I would've started the podcast in that format, it would have gone against a lot of tribal conventions so I didn't want to do that. In order for me to be able to get to a point where I can start talking about real specific content, I had to get through the long story and basically start the podcast in reverse.”
In terms of local reach, the podcast is one of the most successful on Apple Podcasts and other platforms.
A Podcast and Family Affected by COVID-19
Although self-deprecating at times, the narrative format Melendez used in season one was essential to establishing a level of trust and authenticity with a broad audience that could relate to him and his message.
“By telling the story that way, it allowed people to understand that I'm very much human and I'm very much connected to my tribe and my community,” Melendez said. “My perspective is not one that is not entirely binary, either. I live in the city, so it's not stuck to just the tribal space. I wanted to make that connection to my community that I'm advocating for, for tribal thought in issues, but at the same time I'm also advocating for diversity and inclusion and education of all people.”
As Melendez prepared for season two of the Coffee with an Indian podcast, he originally intended to start bringing in guests to facilitate discussions. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to redirect the format of his podcast back to a more narrative-driven one.
“My original plan was to have a lot of guests and have that type of engagement but that was thwarted [by COVID] because of all the self-isolation and staying within our own homes,” Melendez said. “But I'm glad [the podcast got redirected] because now my season two approach is somewhat similar to the first season. I'll still be talking and telling stories and going down that experimental phase of the podcast.”
Melendez still hopes to incorporate guests into his podcast as soon as it’s possible to do so safely. But due to the health risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining the health and safety of his family and community have taken priority. The pandemic has disproportionately affected indigenous communities across the country, with Melendez’s being no exception.
“My aunt Jenny was the first one in our community that died from COVID-19,” Melendez said. “Since then, in just my own life, I have had about eight friends and five relatives die from COVID since March.”
A screengrab from a promotion for an episode from Season 1.
Homelessness and the Pandemic in Indigenous Communities
For Melendez, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the everyday challenges indigenous communities in America face, including mass homelessness.
“One of the things that is very rarely talked about is the discernment of mass homelessness on Indian reservations,” Melendez said. “There aren’t any homes where people can live in [on the reservation], so they're living with each other. If you go to the reservation right now, there may be a small, two-bedroom home that could have three or four families in it.”
Although Melendez acknowledges there is a cultural element of families living together, it also comes as a means of families surviving in a constant state of poverty.
“Culturally, our people have existed with each other because we live in small bands of communities and with our families,” Melendez said. “But there is really a lot of declining health on reservations because of poverty, lack of adequate healthcare and food deserts. There's a lot of people on reservations that don’t have access to fresh produce or clean water or facilities. So when we start talking about homes on reservations, we're talking about homes that sometimes lack clean water.”
Consequently, he says, due to poverty and the close-quarter homes families often live in, COVID has spread quickly through indigenous communities. The problem is further exacerbated by an infected individual’s inability to self-isolate or quarantine from others.
“The reason COVID spread quickly in tribal communities is because there are so many people living in one domicile so when somebody gets sick there, it's almost impossible to self-isolate,” Melendez said. “You're all breathing the same air and you have to use the same facilities. It's not like other American situations where you could imagine there's somebody living in some suburb somewhere and they have a big house and everyone's got their own room so if somebody got sick, you just stay in your room; it's just not like that on the reservations.”
Generating an awareness of how issues such as the COVID pandemic affects indigenous populations is something that Melendez hopes his podcast platform can support.
Melendez notes that there are 27 federally-recognized tribes and sovereign nations within the state of Nevada’s borders, alone. Therefore, he wants his platform to be a voice for diversity and inclusion for other marginalized communities and social movements, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Photo provided by Brian Melendez with permission to use.
Building Social Movements from a Place of Understanding
“When it comes to situations like the Black Lives Matter movement, tribal and indigenous people absolutely can resonate and understand the frustration because they're saying, “This is my problem. This is how I hurt. This is why this is occurring,’” Melendez said. “Yet it gets redirected back to them that they should just be strong or just toughen up or do something else, or it’s ‘Why are you complaining?’ It really is tantamount to a really abusive relationship.”
Consequently, indigenous support of other marginalized communities comes from a place of common understanding and shared experiences in America.
“When people are out there in the streets and protesting that there's all this inequality and this disenfranchisement, we absolutely resonate because we've been in the same place,” Melendez said. “So for tribal people to support those movements would be similar to us supporting any of our brothers and sisters who've gone and who've been through that struggle. Looking at those situations similarly, although some of the elements are a little different, the overall impact of injustice and racial discrimination is very much the same.”
As Melendez moves forward with the launch of season two of Coffee with an Indian, he is seeking to create more “well-rounded perspective of tribal people.”
Not Going Anywhere
“We're still very much alive on this land and we're still very much not going anywhere,” he explained. “Any chance we get, we're going to sing, we're going to dance, we're going to pray. We're going to speak our languages and any chance we get we're going to remind the world that we're still very much here.”
For Melendez, it’s also his way of leaving the world in a better place than he found it.
“The response you see in the world for a lot of people that have been historically marginalized is that they are going to get louder and louder, and that's not going to stop anytime soon until learning is occurring and opportunities are presented,” Melendez said. “I don't claim to be an expert in anything or this master of my culture. I'm just a tribal person doing the best I can at leaving a little bit of information for somebody else, to feel like they're being supported somewhere else in the world.”