Rebecca M. Webster is an enrolled citizen of the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin. She serves on the faculty at the University of Minnesota Duluth in their Department of American Indian Studies. She is a founding member of Ohe∙láku (among the cornstalks), a co-op of ten Oneida families that grow multiple acres of traditional heirloom corn together. She and her husband also own a farmstead on the Oneida Reservation where they primarily grow Haudenosaunee varieties of corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, sunchokes, and tobacco. Their philosophy is that every time an Indigenous person plants a seed, it is an act of resistance, an assertion of sovereignty, and a reclamation of identity. In light of this philosophy, an Oneida faithkeeper named the ten-acre homestead Ukwakhwa: Tsinu Niyukwayayʌthoslu (Our Foods: Where we plant things), a name which also lends itself to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Ukwakhwa Inc., that Webster formed with her family to help advance their goals of helping share knowledge with the community.
