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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶
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Renew
October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶

Oral Histories

The SFA oral history program documents life stories from the American South. Collecting these stories, we honor the people whose labor defines the region. If you would like to contribute to SFA’s oral history collections, please send your ideas for oral history along with your CV or Resume and a portfolio of prior oral history work to info@southernfoodways.org.

< Back to Oral History project: Mutual Aid Through Food: Community Care Networks in New Orleans

ORAL HISTORY

Ida Aronson

Ida Aronson (they/them), a member of the United Houma Nation, was born in 1988 and grew up in Maryland and Massachusetts before settling in Thibodaux, Louisiana — where they have ancestral roots — in 2019. An artist and activist, they are deeply involved with native language revitalization and environmental justice organizing.

When Aronson lost their main line of work in entertainment lighting design early in the pandemic, they helped establish the Yákani’ Ékelanna’ community garden, which provided produce to tribal members and others in the community. The garden became a central coordination point in their mutual aid work following Hurricane Ida. A co-founder of the Bvlbancha Collective — an indigenous mutual aid organization based in the greater New Orleans area — Aronson worked closely with other organizers and volunteers to bring supplies to people in some of the hardest hit areas in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes after the hurricane.

Date of interview:
2022-06-06

Interviewer:
Carly Berlin

Photographer:
Katie Sikora

Download Transcript

“

“So if we don’t have these things already in place, how are we going to have fresh foods and produce and things that we need to overcome sickness? Because that takes time. And I feel like people have really gotten far from the reality that, at the end of the world, we’re not going to be able to go to the supermarket.” - Ida Aronson

Other Project Interviews

Interview

Spirit Paris McIntyre

A musician and multi-disciplinary artist in New Orleans, Spirit Paris McIntyre was a founding member of Southern Solidarity, a mutual aid group that aims to secure basic needs for unhoused people in New Orleans.

Interview

Dan Bingler

Dan Bingler joined together with a couple of friends in March 2020 to start the Greater New Orleans Caring Collective, a mutual aid effort to help people stay safely self-quarantined.

Interview

Cristiane R. Fajardo

Cristiane Rosales-Fajardo leads El Pueblo NOLA-NOLA Village, a grassroots community organization in the Village de l’Est neighborhood of New Orleans East.

Interview

Klie Kliebert

Chenier “Klie” Kliebert is the executive director of Imagine Water Works, a group focused on climate justice, water management, and disaster readiness and response.

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