I wanted to love this book so much but just couldn't get into it. Much of it felt repetitive when different examples could have been used to make it less so.

Fresh Banana Leaves offers a holistic view of Indigenous science, unpacking settler colonialism and its destruction. The author is a member of Maya Ch'orti' and Zapotec communities as well as holding a PhD in environmental science. She shares historical information, personal interviews and family history, and details of social, political, and environmental issues. The book demonstrates how Indigenous peoples are not the perpetrators of environmental destruction but face the most harm from those actions taken by others. She also examines how ecocolonialism leads to ecological grief that goes beyond economic loss: suffering from relationships lost with plants and animals, spiritual loss of cultural keystone species with connections to deities, and the sorrow of forced diaspora and separation from ancestral lands in the face of ecological and economic collapse.

Dr. Hernandez makes clear how the layers of privilege are different based on location, showing the fallacy of the monolithic "Latinx" identity as seen by white people in the United States; this group encompasses many different racial categories affecting status in Latin America, and nationalism creates arbitrary lines of separation, as well. The author emphasizes how Indigenous and Black people are the hardest hit by any of these distinctions, targeted in genocidal civil wars, decimated by increasing natural disasters caused by climate change, and violently oppressed for agitating against governmental violation of their rights. The author also urges readers to take a holistic view and consider how language and gender affect the multifaceted experiences of Indigenous peoples. She specifically touches on the way patriarchy has harmed the traditional role of muxes in Zapotec communities, a third gender that is targeted by homophobia introduced by colonizers.

Several Western systems are analyzed as sources of Indigenous and environmental suffering. For one, the author addresses the hypocritical circularity of the US arming and training the military of El Salvador against its revolting citizens (largely Indigenous peoples) and then refusing and abusing refugees from that same crisis. She describes how corporations continue to engage in land grabs to grow crops for export and invest in tourism projects that romanticize Indigenous groups and their ancient histories while actively harming those same groups in the present.

Science, and academia in general, also receive insightful and hard-hitting criticism. Dr. Hernandez discusses how conservation as a scientific field needs to acknowledge how colonialism makes these practices necessary and how it still informs methodology. Instead, scientists often hide behind a false idea of science as objective and infallible. She calls out "helicopter research," whereby a white scientist travels to an impoverished country and removes data for publication without involving the local population or benefiting them in any way, speaking over their voices. Sometimes these researchers acquire Indigenous knowledge and then receive credit for the "discovery." It furthers colonialism to view Indigenous communities as passive subjects of research rather than actively seeking their leadership and taking on a background role to provide support.

I took so many notes reading this book. The roughest draft of this review was over twice as long. I've cut it down because A) no one needs to know that many of my thoughts and B) I don't mean to make this review a shortcut instead of reading the book in its entirety and learning from the author herself. I have a lot of personal reflection to do as someone who benefits from a lot of privilege in a settler colonialist society. I also have more focused concerns to consider as a science teacher and a teacher for immigrants from Central America. I need to ponder how I present science lessons to students and if I am providing space to listen to their knowledge and experience rather than glorifying a Western science model. I also need to act on the author's points about how teachers assume students from Central America speak Spanish, erasing Indigenous languages and throwing up an additional colonialist language barrier between the student and communication at school.

(3.25/5 stars) I went into this book expecting one thing, and what I got was different, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Based on the preview (indented below):

An Indigenous environmental scientist breaks down why western conservationism isn't working--and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors.

I was expecting examples of how indigenous science and practices have been used in sustainable agriculture, forestry, etc. and how those practices might be applied again/on a broader scale. I did see this some in the book (the discussion of milpas, examples of partnerships founded by Indigenous women that uplift the communities), but the focus was more on the need to decolonize/center Indigenous voices in the discussion instead of providing scientific (even if not scientific in the Western lens) examples. What I realized as I read the book was that from an Indigenous lens, things aren't easily put in boxes; the environment, gender, health, etc. are all intertwined as part of the Indigenous identity. I definitely learned a lot!

I found this book repetitive (with the same examples and explanations used in multiple chapters) and in need of more citations. I know the author discusses (twice) that she doesn't believe that her personal experience as an Indigenous woman needs citations, and I agree! However, there were statistics and references to reports or historical events throughout the book that weren't cited at all. To me, the writing needed an editor to help tighten things up and make sure things flowed together. Some of the chapters felt very separate from each other (as though they were written as individual chapters out of context of the whole book and then stitched together in manuscript format), which could explain the repetitiveness of parts of it.

Additionally, the author attributes a quote to her grandmother at the beginning of the third chapter that's a paraphrase of a quote which should be attributed to the late Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta (and is commonly misattributed to the late Desmond Tutu) - the observation that when the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. "They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible."

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All of the opinions given are my own and have been given nothing for my review.