“When I first started surfing, I’d watch a lot of videos about where surfing came from, and it was super interesting learning about how it all came from Indigenous people.” says sixteen-year-old Reg Macarro. “There’s this whole other side to surfing beyond just being out in the water and having fun—and knowing that history makes me feel more connected to who I am when I’m in the water.” Mark Chavez, Reg's father is not a surfer himself, but he remembers taking Reg to these beaches in Mexico when he was younger and teaching him words like paala (water), móomat (ocean) and anoomal (porpoise, or little coyote). “We don’t just have this vocabulary for academic purposes,” he says. “It’s part of our cultural fabric.” And Mark beams with pride every time his son leans into a smooth forehand carve. Reg and Mark belong to the Pechanga Band of Indians, whose reservation is about 45 minutes from the coast. The ocean, land and environment of Michoaca is a connection to their ancestry. “In this area, we see sea turtles by the thousands—coming ashore, laying eggs, and new turtles hatching and heading out to sea” says Mark. “These turtles are born with this sense of where their home is, and even after traveling thousands of miles across the ocean, they’re drawn to return, and they can sense the way back. Before I even knew that my grandmother had lived here along this coast, intuition had led me back to the exact same place." Read "Point Break Medicine" by Todd Prodanovich (@todprod) at the link in bio. Photos: Scott Soens / @scottsoens