Humanities Forum — Jessica Hernandez: Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement

Humanities Forum Lecture with Jessica Hernandez
Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement
This event is part of the Spring 2026 Humanities Forum

Indigenous scholar, scientist, and community advocate, Jessica Hernandez (Binnizá/Zapotec and Maya Ch’orti’), discusses Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement. She offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. Hernandez shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root if we reorient toward Indigenous science and follow the lead of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Admission is free.

The Humanities Forum is presented by the Dresher Center for the Humanities. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Center for Social Science Scholarship; the Department of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems; and the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems.