At the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, Food Sovereignty Leader Khassia Hattie helps hundreds of children explore the connections between land, culture and health. Her path to this work began long before she joined ZYEP—rooted in family ranch life and nurtured through years of education and experience.
Khassia was born in Austin, Texas, to a mother of Hispanic-Mexican origin and a father from Zuni Pueblo; through her father, she is a child of the crane. Both her parents served in the U.S. Army, and she attended 13 schools from kindergarten through high school.
Yet with all the transition, there remained one constant—the family ranch in Zuni. She spent significant time on the ranch throughout her childhood, and those formative experiences would inform the path she chose in her adult life.
“All my memories are of being outside, being adventurous,” Khassia says. “My cousins and I spent so much time playing and exploring on the mesa. We built a clubhouse. We ate the fruit from our grandma’s apple tree.
“They are such fond memories,” she continues. “This was the most influential time of my life. I could just be in nature. Be free.”
After her high school graduation, Khassia attended college for a short time and then switched to cosmetology school. The connection she had with the earth was strong, however, and ultimately its call was too strong to ignore.
“I’m enrolled at the University of Arizona now, working toward a degree in environmental science online,” she explains. “I want to better understand how I can be more impactful through sustainable agriculture.”
Khassia says she has two main research interests. One is water rights, especially as they pertain to the 90-mile Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado, and the Zuni Salt Lake, a rare high desert lake located roughly 60 miles south of Zuni Pueblo.
She is closely following the proposed Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025, which would protect the river and salt lake while affirming water rights for the pueblo.
“I am very hopeful,” she says. “We would be able to use our Indigenous stewardship practices to care for this land.”
Her second interest is cloud seeding. The New Mexico Department of Agriculture has created a three-year cloud-seeding weather modification pilot project, designed to demonstrate the efficacy of cloud seeding to mitigate the effects of climate change and drought in the state.
“It’s fascinating,” she says. “It’s a relatively new thing, so we don’t have data for long-term impact. The program’s completion coincides with my graduation date in 2028.”
As she pursued her education, Khassia completed an internship at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. It was an important opportunity to learn more about her history and the different eras for the Zuni people.
“I also got to work with the head of research,” she says. “She really opened my eyes to environmental science, biology—and seed saving.”
This would prove fortuitous. Khassia moved to Zuni in 2022 when her internship ended, and she learned a local nonprofit was looking for someone to join its food sovereignty team. She joined ZYEP as a food sovereignty leader in February 2023.
“I wanted to return home to a place where I could grow,” she says of her return to the pueblo. “A family member shared the opportunity at ZYEP, so that’s how I got my foot in the door here. I was very lucky.”
Khassia plays a critical role with the youth project’s in-school programming, particularly with the University of New Mexico’s Eat Smart to Play Hard curriculum and ZYEP’s Rooted in Healthy Traditions curriculum. This semester, she is connecting with approximately 510 children in grades K-6 at Shiwi Ts’ana Elementary School through the in-school program.
“It felt challenging at first,” she says. “There was a learning curve, but now it’s second nature.”
She says she loves talking about agriculture with the youth and teaching them to care for plants in their community and home gardens.
“It helps them understand where their food comes from, and what it takes to care for these plants and prepare the food,” she says. “I always emphasize the nutritional and health component—food is medicine. It nourishes you. It hydrates you.”
Khassia says she tries to spend time in the garden twice a day. She also is dedicated to ZYEP’s seed-saving initiative, working toward building a seed bank so the youth project can help provide high-quality, non-GMO, heirloom seeds to the community.
“I want our tribe to be more self-sufficient, returning to traditional lifeways,” she explains. “I always try to reiterate who we are and where we are, because those things matter.”
Khass says she is interested in implementing a new program that would allow Zuni youth to collect plants and flowers and learn how to make traditional dyes.
“I’m excited to work in fields where I can put my knowledge into practice,” she says. “I also dream of having a farm so we can share that experience and locally grown produce with our community members.”
As she completes her third year with ZYEP, Khassia says she is grateful to be able to recreate her own childhood memories every day—and for her roots, which already are running deeper in the community.
“It has been eye-opening,” she says. “Kids will say, ‘Hi, Miss Khass,’ when they see me at the gas station or the grocery store. I am so excited to become an elder, to be a pillar in my community—and to be able to watch them grow up.”