Daniel Leivas

Along the Colorado River, Daniel Leivas and his family are restoring traditional Chemehuevi agriculture on land profoundly altered by twentieth-century water development. Leivas, Southern Paiute-Chemehuevi from Lake Havasu, talks with Chris Clarke about rebuilding a farm, reviving ancestral growing practices, working with wildlife, and reconnecting land, water, culture, and spirit. Their conversation also examines the larger history of water projects that inundated or transformed Native lands—and the resilience involved in bringing traditional relationships with those landscapes back to life.