The Indigenous Mesoamerican Impact on STEM as presented by Dr. Helen Burgos-Ellis

Dr. Helen Burgos-Ellis is a professor and academic at UCLA who has been pioneering studies that reveal the profound contributions of Mesoamerican Indigenous peoples in scientific advancements: the very basis of our modern food systems. Dr. Burgos-Ellis was raised in El Salvador by her grandparents, and because of this, she has an intimate connection with the land. It was her childhood that provided her with unique experiences and Indigenous knowledge, allowing her to take on this immense research project. Watching her grandparents cultivate maize in an intimate relationship with the land gave her insights her colleagues lacked. On her familial land, she remembers being an “assistant” to her grandparents. Burgos-Ellis retorts that she knows “how it exists in nature, how it behaves, how it reproduces, and how it’s cared for” (1:45.36), she therefore has an in-depth knowledge of how corn exists in both the technical and academic senses. 

While in a master’s program in the United States, Burgos-Ellis was studying the Florentine Codex, a historical document that highlights the daily lives of Indigenous Mesoamericans at the time of contact. This, with her childhood experience helping out on her grandparent’s farm, allowed her to notice certain details that other academics ignored. It was on page 28 of the Florentine Codex that Dr. Burgos-Ellis made the connection that Aztecs and other Mesoamerican Indigenous communities had a very deep and informed understanding of plant sexuality. By analyzing the specific roles that certain deities played in their stories and society, she was able to explore the Indigenous Mesoamericans’ scientific understandings. 

To fully understand the complex knowledge that these Indigenous societies held, it’s important to first comprehend their history of mythological knowledge. Very common and highly praised deities in Mesoamerican cultures are the God of Wind and the Goddess of Grass. In an Aztec religious ceremony, the God of Wind would “impregnate” the Goddess of Grass, and she would then give birth to the God of Corn. The sharing of this narrative is fundamentally crucial since it is now widely recognized in the scientific world that maize and the corn we consume today are direct descendants of “teosinte,” a breed of grass that is native to Mesoamerica. The story of teosinte has evolved into one of the most foundational pieces of agricultural history that has been widely ignored, downplaying the role that Indigenous Mesoamericans have played in the development of this crucial plant. 

Over centuries, Indigenous communities throughout the region had domesticated the plant and bred it meticulously for generations until the once barren grass plant evolved into a fertile and substantial food staple. By saving the best seeds for the next harvest and allowing the land to lay fallow, these communities have been able to create and protect maize as well as turn it into the important source of sustenance that it is. It was by connecting the myth about the deities of wind and grass with the evolution of corn that Dr. Burgos-Ellis was able to fully understand the complexity of plant sexuality that Indigenous communities had. 

At the time of contact, Europeans had a preconceived notion that Indigenous communities across the Americas did not hold an academic or scientific understanding of the world. In turn, colonizers villainized Indigenous religious practices, greatly ignoring the full scope of knowledge that these communities had. According to Dr. Burgos-Ellis, at the time of contact, the Indigenous Mesoamerican communities had a greater understanding of plant sexuality and biology than the Europeans who claimed to have intellectual and civil superiority. The internalized biases held by the European invaders highlight their unwillingness to understand Indigenous perspectives and support their constructed systems of racial and “intellectual” superiority. 

European colonizers greatly underestimated the true wealth of knowledge that Indigenous communities held regarding science, math, astronomy, etc. Indigenous knowledge, concerning plant sexuality, had far surpassed European biological understanding. Mesoamerican societies had expressed their findings on plant sexuality in non-empirical terms, i.e. via storytelling and local mythology. One could argue that the European arrivals ignored their immense natural knowledge since it was stored in ways that contradicted the European method of scientific discovery. However, Dr. Burgos-Ellis argues that the reason why Europeans did not attempt to question Indigenous immense knowledge and experience was because the science in Europe at the time of contact was behind the knowledge that Mesoamerican Indigenous communities had discovered by dedicated observation and years of experience. 

Dr. Burgos-Ellis’ journey of discovery has not been an easy one. When trying to find funding for her pioneering work, she found it extremely difficult to acquire the necessary finances. She recounted to me that throughout her research, she was self-funded and had to pay for much of her research through time and other monetary means. She worked overtime constantly and paid out of pocket for many research processes. She found it increasingly difficult to secure support (both monetary and professionally) for her research project. Her overall process of finding funding for her project has been riddled with racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Although some supported her and were wowed by the plethora of information she was bringing to light, there was still a lot of anti-Indigenous sentiment in her experience. 

Dr. Burgos-Ellis finally has a book contract secured and is working tirelessly to ensure the voices of Mesoamerican communities are heard. She expressed, “I cannot tell you how edifying it is to finally show what Indigenous peoples knew and put them in the same place as the most distinguished scientists in the world” (11:23.59). Her work aims to not only dive into the history of biological processes behind the taming of maize but also to highlight the voices that have been silenced for centuries. The historical and systemic processes in both academia and primarily science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have silenced the academic contributions that countless Indigenous communities and individuals have had in their respective fields. 

With the ongoing climate change crisis, Dr. Burgos-Ellis believes that it is increasingly important to highlight Indigenous voices. Without generalizing Indigenous populations, it is quite clear that Indigenous systems have long-standing cultural processes that understand the earth in more sustainable ways. For example, many Native American agricultural techniques involve allowing the land to remain fallow, or unused, which European colonizers believed was a useless process for farming. However, this technique allows the land to replenish itself for better harvests in the long run. These self-sustaining processes have long allowed Indigenous communities to have a better understanding of the earth. In ways that the colonizing hand had long ignored, and in doing so they are ruining not only farming plots but also entire ecosystems. 

To adapt to the ongoing climate change crisis, Dr. Burgos-Ellis emphasizes that some of the most important things we can do are focus on Indigenous land rights and understand how our current food systems do not adequately serve the needs of the planet or people. The unsustainable systems that are currently established remain out of balance in front of the carrying capacity of the earth. Therefore a greater emphasis on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (T.E.K.) is increasingly imperative.

Her experience in both the artistic world and the world of STEM has brought to light the many departments that disregard research due to BIPOC and feminine identities. She does not know how many academics in the fields are beginning to call out the lack of representation Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities have. Her overall experience in research, she shares, has been defined by feeling rejected. Yet she highlights what good can be done when we focus on the voices that have historically been silenced.