big times / little times
big times / little times
News from Native California gear at Lake Merritt in Oakland , at a Native marathon called “ Running Is My High !” And our Facebook page now has over five thousand followers , and Terria , our Twitter guru , is building a robust Twitter experience for our fans ( follow us @ nncmagazine ). It has been a joy to expand the things News does in our communities .
Tragedy struck Serrano territory when two shooters took the lives of fourteen people in San Bernardino this past November . Naturally , tribal people were there to help . Together the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians contributed $ 600,000 to a fund supporting the families of the victims . And when President Barack Obama visited San Bernardino to lend his support , County Supervisor James Ramos ( Serrano / Cahuilla ) was one of those who greeted him .
The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum opened the traveling exhibition IndiVisible : African-Native American Lives in the Americas in Palm Springs in January . The exhibit was brought to the museum through a collaboration with the Smithsonian ’ s National Museum of the American Indian , the National Museum of African American History and Culture , and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service ( SITES ).
The New York Times reported that the Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee , which represents twelve bands of the Kumeyaay Nation , have won their fight for the remains of their ancestors ! Two skeletons uncovered in La Jolla by scientists in 1976 — said to date back 9,500 years — have been the focus of contention between the University of California and tribes since 2006 . Now with a Supreme Court ruling in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act ( NAGPRA ), the remains will be returned to the Kumeyaay people .
Did anyone notice Nancy Pelosi rocking California Indian bling during January ’ s State of the Union address ? She was shown in several shots wearing a very California dentalium necklace , and our social media was rocked by the extra exposure Native California received just from her wearing that beauty .
In the Bay Area in January , Sarah Biscarra-Dilley ( Chumash ) was part of an epic arts collective exhibit led by the Black Salt Collective at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco . Sarah created mixed media art that focuses on language and her Chumash identity . When asked about her art , she said “ My experience mirrors something that I witness as common with many other displaced or unrecognized California Indian people — one tracing tradition and cultural knowledge apparent in minutiae and testimony and varied practices just as clearly as profound fracture , spatial rupture , and physical shift . I grew up between urban and rural environments . I did not grow up within the ranges of my ancestral homeland . My maternal ancestors were ranch laborers and tricksters , farmworkers and survivors of the mission system as well as people who fled . My family ’ s experiences and the experience of being raised in it are marked by deep knowing and extreme secrecy , intergenerational grief and patterns of survival , irreverent joy and unbelievable resilience . We are complex and changing peoples !” For images of Sarah ’ s brilliant art work , visit our blog at www . newsfromnativecalifornia / blog .
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▼ NEWS FROM NATIVE CALIFORNIA