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We Are Not Animals: Indigenous Survival and Rebellion in 19th Century Santa Cruz

The 2022 book "We Are Not Animals" (University of Nebraska Press) considers the stories of Indigenous individuals and families to illuminate how Indigenous politics informed their choices within a context of immense loss and violent disruption in the nineteenth century. Between 1770 and 1900 the linguistically and culturally diverse Ohlone and Yokuts tribes adapted to and expressed themselves politically and culturally through three distinct colonial encounters with Spain, Mexico, and the United States. In this talk, author Martin Rizzo-Martinez traces tribal, familial, and kinship networks through mission registry records to show how ethnic and tribal differences shaped strategies of survival within the diverse population that came to live at Mission Santa Cruz.

More about the speaker:

Martin Rizzo-Martinez received his PhD in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz. For the past few years, he has worked for California State Parks as historian and tribal liaison for the Santa Cruz District, and is now transitioning to a faculty position in the Film & Digital Media department at UC Santa Cruz. In addition to working on a second book, Martin is co-producer of a podcast entitled Challenging Colonialism, and is producing a documentary film entitled Walk for the Ancestors, about a Native family that walked from Mission to Mission in 2015 to honor their ancestors and protest the canonization of Junipero Serra.

Book Link: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496219626/

Author Website: https://rizzomartinez.com/

Apr 25, 2023 05:30 PM in Pacific Time (US and Canada)