Indigenous/Native American Tribes Mentioned in Novel
Native Americans in Los Angeles and CA
First Families by
When L. Frank and Marina Drummer went on the road in 2002, they set out to visit as many people from different California tribes as possible. Crisscrossing the state, they taped hundreds of hours of interviews and collected copies of nearly fifteen hundred family photos. The documentary project, funded by the California State Library and LEF Foundation, paints an unprecedented portrait of California's indigenous people using their own words and photographs from their own family albums. In turns moody, beautiful, warm, and humorous,First Families is a one-of-a-kind book that combines extremely personal images with text that gives readers a broader, deeper view of Indian history and many complex living cultures.
Call Number: Main Collection E 78.C15 L46 2007ISBN: 9781597140133Publication Date: 2014-11-01
A Cross of Thorns : the enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions by
The Spanish missions of California have long been misrepresented as places of benign and peaceful coexistence between Franciscan friars and California Indians. In fact, the mission friars enslaved the California Indians and treated them with deliberate cruelty. "A Cross of Thorns" describes the dark and violent reality of Mission life. Beginning in 1769, California Indians were enticed into the missions, where they and their descendents were imprisoned for 60 years of forced labor and daily beatings. The chilling depictions of colonial cruelty in "A Cross of Thorns" are based on little known church and Spanish government archives and letters written by the founder of California's mission, Friar Juniperro Serra (who advocated the whipping of Mission Indians as a standard policy), and published first-hand accounts of 18th and 19th century travelers. Tracing the history of Spanish colonization in California from its origins in Spain's 18th century economic crisis to the legacy of racism and brutality that continues today, "A Cross of Thorns" is one of the most thought-provoking books ever written on California history.
Call Number: Main Collection F864 .C357 2015ISBN: 9781610352420Publication Date: 2015-02-16
Murder State: California's native American genocide, 1846-1873 by
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy--in this case mob rule--through a discreetly organized and brutally effective series of petitions, referenda, town hall meetings, and votes at every level of California government. Murder State is a comprehensive examination of these events and their early legacy. Preconceptions about Native Americans as shaped by the popular press and by immigrants' experiences on the Overland Trail to California were used to further justify the elimination of Native people in the newcomers' quest for land. The allegedly "violent nature" of Native people was often merely their reaction to the atrocities committed against them as they were driven from their ancestral lands and alienated from their traditional resources. In this narrative history employing numerous primary sources and the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on genocide, Brendan C. Lindsay examines the darker side of California history, one rarely studied in detail, and the motives of both Native Americans and Euro-Americans at the time. Murder State calls attention to the misuse of democracy to justify and commit genocide. Purchase the audio edition.
Call Number: Main Collection E78.C15 L56 2015ISBN: 9780803224803Publication Date: 2012-06-01
We Are the Land: a history of Native California by
"A Native American rejoinder to Richard White and Jesse Amble White's California Exposures."--Kirkus Reviews Rewriting the history of California as Indigenous. Before there was such a thing as "California," there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. Rather, the lives and legacies of the people native to the land shaped the creation of California. We Are the Land is the first and most comprehensive text of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Beginning with the ethnogenesis of California Indians, We Are the Land recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood--paying particularly close attention to the persistence and activism of California Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The book deftly contextualizes the first encounters with Europeans, Spanish missions, Mexican secularization, the devastation of the Gold Rush and statehood, genocide, efforts to reclaim land, and the organization and activism for sovereignty that built today's casino economy. A text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history, We Are the Land will be a core resource in a variety of classroom settings, as well as for casual readers and policymakers interested in a history that centers the native experience.
Call Number: Main Collection E78.C15 A487 2021ISBN: 9780520280496Publication Date: 2021-04-20
Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America by
"A model of excellence in the art of reference volume publishing... Every public and school library... should acquire this treasure. It will remain the standard for many years to come." --Dr. James A. Clifton, Department of Anthropology, Western Michigan University "This substantial reference remains one of the most elaborately illustrated books on Native Americans now in print... Highly recommended." --Library Journal This superb, fully illustrated reference offers the most up-to-date and essential facts on the identity, kinships, locations, populations and cultural characteristics of some 400 separately identifiable peoples native to the North American continent, both living and extinct, from the Canadian Arctic to the Rio Grande. The abundance of illustrations and photographs form an especially rich store of material describing the vast range of Native American material culture. The maps are valuable pictorial representations of major historical events. Population and settlement trends based on the most recent US Census paint detailed portraits of all officially recognized tribes. The book includes: More than 600 color and archival photographs Extensive visual coverage of tribal dress and cultural artifacts 46 maps, including prehistoric cultural and historic sites and tribe distribution maps, as well as maps showing movement of tribes and non-indigenous troops during conflicts More than 100 specially commissioned color illustrations. Comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date, Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America is an important and accessible record of the Native American peoples and an essential addition to all school and library collections.
Call Number: Reference Collection Ref E76.2 .J62 2014ISBN: 9781770854611Publication Date: 2014-10-17
Colonialism
LatinX Heritage in Los Angeles and CA
Barrio Rhythm by
The hit movie La Bamba (based on the life of Richie Valens), the versatile singer Linda Ronstadt, and the popular rock group Los Lobos all have roots in the dynamic music of the Mexican American community in East Los Angeles. The "Eastside Renaissance" in the region gave barrio music a symbolic power throughout the Southwest, yet its story has remained undocumented and virtually untold. In Barrio Rhythm, Steven Loza brings this hidden history to life, demonstrating the music's essential role in the cultural development of East Los Angeles and its influence on mainstream popular culture. Drawing from oral histories and other primary sources, as well as from appropriate representative songs, Loza provides a historical overview of the music from the nineteenth century to the present and offers in-depth profiles of nine Mexican American artists, groups, and entrepreneurs in Southern California from the post-World War II era to the present. His interviews with many of today's most influential barrio musicians, including members of Los Lobos, chronicle the cultural forces active in this complex urban community.
Call Number: Main Collection ML 3558 .L69 1993ISBN: 9780252062889Publication Date: 1993-04-01
Zoot Suit Riots by
The Zoot Suit Riots in 1943 and the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of the preceding year represent a turning point in the cultural identity and historical experience of Mexican Americans in the United States. This engaging study of these regrettable events provides context for understanding the continuing battles in the 21st century over immigration policy and race relations. Although the "zoot suit" had earlier been a black youth fashion trend identified with jazz culture, by the 1940s, the zoot suit was adopted by Mexican American teenagers in wartime Los Angeles, who wore it as their unofficial "uniform" as an act of rebellion and to establish their cultural identity. For a week in June of 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots, instigated by Anglo-American servicemen and condoned by the Los Angeles police, terrorized the Mexican American community. The events were an ugly testament to the climate of racial tension and resentment in Los Angeles--and after similar riots began across the nation, it became apparent how endemic the problem was. This book traces these important historic events and their subsequent cultural and political influences on the Mexican American experience, especially the activist and reform efforts designed to prevent similar future injustices. General readers will gain an understanding of the challenges facing the Mexican American community in wartime Los Angeles, grasp the racial and cultural resistance of the larger Anglo-American society of the time, and see how the blatant injustices of the Sleepy Lagoon trial and the Zoot Suit Riots served to galvanize Latinos and others to fight back. Those conducting in-depth research will appreciate having access to original materials sourced from Federal and state archives as well as newspapers and other repositories of information provided in the book. Connects the racially and socioeconomically motivated events of the World War II-era 1940s to the Chicano movement of the 1970s and the current battles over immigration legislation, allowing readers to see the recurring theme in American history Exposes the distortions of a yellow journalistic press in its coverage and treatment of the Sleepy Lagoon trial and Zoot Suit Riots, providing documentation of how white America's perception of Mexican Americans has been fashioned over many years by the mainstream media Documents how the zoot-suit and Pachuco cultures of Mexican American youths of the 1940s--an expression of their identity and an attempt to establish their place in the larger American culture--were a key reason behind the violent culture clashes Includes previously unpublished primary documents from the National Archives and Records Administration and the Franklin Roosevelt Library
Call Number: Main Collection F869.L89 M4223 2014ISBN: 9780313398780Publication Date: 2014-02-28
Land of a Thousand Dances by
"It's fascinating to read this alternative history of pop music, as Land of a Thousand Dances offers a wealth of anecdotes, interviews, and facts that have never been so meticulously documented. The book helps fill one of the biggest gaps in the rock timeline, ensuring that rock 'n' roll's Chicano roots will not be forgotten."--A. V. Club "Authors [David] Reyes and [Tom] Waldman give a flavorful overview of the ever-changing East L.A. scene. . . . They note that barrio culture, which so richly intertwines American and Mexican traditions, has given rise to groups who move through many different types of music with ease, as well as the type of fans who can appreciate them all."--Raza Report "[Land of a Thousand Dances] is written with insight and intelligence and I highly recommend it."--Mark Guerro, member of Mark & the Escorts, Tango, and Radio Aztlan "The first edition of this definitive history of California Chicano rock pioneers, published in 1998, highlighted such early groups as Ritchie Valens, Cannibal & the Headhunters, and Thee Midniters as well as punk leaders the Plugz, culminating with the musically eclectic Los Lobos. In this revised and expanded edition, authors Reyes, a Chicano music historian and archivist, and Waldman (Not Much Left: The Fate of Liberalism in America) include material about newer artists such as Quetzal and Lysa Flores. In the ten years since the book was first published, California's Spanish-speaking population has dramatically increased, and there is growing interest in Mexican rock and all the other Mexican musical genres. This book should appeal to any fan of Latino rock who wants to know about its roots and development."--Library Journal For this edition, the authors have written a new introduction.
Call Number: Main Collection ML 3534 .R388 2009ISBN: 9780826347220Publication Date: 2009-03-30
La Nueva California: Latinos from pioneers to post-millennials by
Since late 2001 more than fifty percent of the babies born in California have been Latino. When these babies reach adulthood, they will, by sheer force of numbers, influence the course of the Golden State. This essential study, based on decades of data, paints a vivid and energetic portrait of Latino society in California by providing a wealth of details about work ethic, family strengths, business establishments, and the surprisingly robust health profile that yields an average life expectancy for Latinos five years longer than that of the general population. Spanning one hundred years, this complex, fascinating analysis suggests that the future of Latinos in California will be neither complete assimilation nor unyielding separatism. Instead, the development of a distinctive regional identity will be based on Latino definitions of what it means to be American. This updated edition now provides trend lines through the 2010 Census as well as information on the 1849 California Constitutional Convention and the ethnogenesis of how Latinos created the society of "Latinos de Estados Unidos" (Latinos in the US). In addition, two new chapters focus on Latino Post-Millennials--the first focusing on what it's like to grow up in a digital world; and the second describing the contestation of Latinos at a national level and the dynamics that transnational relationships have on Latino Post-Millennials in Mexico and Central America.
Call Number: Main Collection F870.S75 H385 2017ISBN: 9780520292529Publication Date: 2017-02-07
Mendez V. Westminster : school desegregation and Mexican-American rights by
While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famous, Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947) was actually the first case in which segregation in education was successfully challenged in federal court. Finally giving Mendez its due, Philippa Strum provides a concise and compelling account of its legal issues and legacy, while retaining its essential human face: that of Mexican Americans unwilling to accept second-class citizenship. 1945 Gonzalo and Felcitas Mendez, California farmers, sent their children off to the local school, only to be told that the youngsters would have to attend a separate facility reserved for Mexican Americans. In response the Mndezes and other aggrieved parents from nearby school districts went to federal court to challenge the segregation. Uniquely, they did not claim racial discrimination, since Mexicans were legally considered white, but rather discrimination based on ancestry and supposed "language deficiency" that denied their children their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. In 1945 Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, California farmers, sent their children off to the local school, only to be told that the youngsters would have to attend a separate facility reserved for Mexican Americans. In response the Mendezes and other aggrieved parents from nearby school districts went to federal court to challenge the segregation. Uniquely, they did not claim racial discrimination, since Mexicans were legally considered white, but rather discrimination based on ancestry and supposed "language deficiency" that denied their children their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. Strum tells how, thanks to attorney David Marcus's carefully crafted arguments, federal district court judge Paul McCormick came to support the plaintiffs on the grounds that the social, psychological, and pedagogical costs of segregated education were damaging to Mexican-American children. The school districts claimed that federal courts had no jurisdiction over education, but the Ninth Circuit upheld McCormick's decision, ruling that the schools' actions violated California law. The appeal to the Ninth Circuit was supported by amicus briefs from leading civil liberties organizations, including the NAACP, which a few years later would adapt the arguments of Mendez in representing the plaintiffs in Brown. Strum effectively weaves together narrative and analysis with personality portraits to create a highly readable and accessible story, allowing us to hear the voices of all the protagonists. She also presents the issues evenhandedly, effectively balancing her presentation of arguments by both the plaintiffs and the schools that sought to continue the segregation of Mexican-American students. Ultimately, Mendez highlights how Mexican Americans took the lead to secure their civil rights and demonstrates how organization, courage, and persistence in the Mexican-American communities could overcome the racism of the school boards. Their inspiring example is particularly timely given the current controversies over immigration and the growing national interest in Latino life.
Call Number: Main Collection KF4155 .S77 2010ISBN: 9780700617197Publication Date: 2010-04-15
Always Running: La Vida Loca, gang days in L.A. by
A former L.A. gang member describes his experiences in that world, recounting the sense of security and power found in a gang and the grim reality of violence and poverty.
Call Number: Main Collection HV 6439.U72 L77 1994ISBN: 9780671882310Publication Date: 1994-02-09
Married to a Daughter of the Land by
The surprising truth about intermarriage in 19th-Century California. Until recently, most studies of the colonial period of the American West have focused on the activities and agency of men. Now, historian María Raquél Casas examines the role of Spanish-Mexican women in the development of California. She finds that, far from being pawns in a male-dominated society, Californianas of all classes were often active and determined creators of their own destinies, finding ways to choose their mates, to leave unsatisfactory marriages, and to maintain themselves economically. Using a wide range of sources in English and Spanish, Casas unveils a picture of women's lives in these critical decades of California's history. She shows how many Spanish-Mexican women negotiated the precarious boundaries of gender and race to choose Euro-American husbands, and what this intermarriage meant to the individuals involved and to the larger multiracial society evolving from California's rich Hispanic and Indian past. Casas's discussion ranges from California's burgeoning economy to the intimacies of private households and ethnically mixed families. Here we discover the actions of real women of all classes as they shaped their own identities. Married to a Daughter of the Land is a significant and fascinating contribution to the history of women in the American West and to our understanding of the complex role of gender, race, and class in the Borderlands of the Southwest.
Call Number: eBook (Login to MyVCCCD to access this eBook from off-campus)ISBN: 9780874177145Publication Date: 2009-03-01
The War with Mexico by
Originally published: New York: MacMillan Co., 1919.
Call Number: Main Collection E404 .S66 2011ISBN: 9781610010184Publication Date: 2011-05-01
The U. S. War with Mexico by
Containing both official and popular documents, U.S. War with Mexico explores the events leading up to the war, the politics surrounding it, popular sentiment in both countries about it, and the war's long-term impact on the future development and direction of these two nations.
Call Number: Main Collection E404 .C44 2008ISBN: 9780312249212Publication Date: 2007-12-12
African Americans in Los Angeles and CA
Bound for Freedom by
Paul Bontemps decided to move his family to Los Angeles from Louisiana in 1906 on the day he finally submitted to a strictly enforced Southern custom--he stepped off the sidewalk to allow white men who had just insulted him to pass by. Friends of the Bontemps family, like many others beckoning their loved ones West, had written that Los Angeles was "a city called heaven" for people of color. But just how free was Southern California for African Americans? This splendid history, at once sweeping in its historical reach and intimate in its evocation of everyday life, is the first full account of Los Angeles's black community in the half century before World War II. Filled with moving human drama, it brings alive a time and place largely ignored by historians until now, detailing African American community life and political activism during the city's transformation from small town to sprawling metropolis. Writing with a novelist's sensitivity to language and drawing from fresh historical research, Douglas Flamming takes us from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era, through the Great Migration, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the build-up to World War II. Along the way, he offers rich descriptions of the community and its middle-class leadership, the women who were front and center with men in the battle against racism in the American West. In addition to drawing a vivid portrait of a little-known era, Flamming shows that the history of race in Los Angeles is crucial for our understanding of race in America. The civil rights activism in Los Angeles laid the foundation for critical developments in the second half of the century that continue to influence us to this day.
Call Number: Display F 869.L89 N4 2005ISBN: 9780520239197Publication Date: 2005-01-24
South of Pico by
Named a Best Art Book of 2017 by the New York Times and Artforum In South of Pico Kellie Jones explores how the artists in Los Angeles's black communities during the 1960s and 1970s created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism. Emphasizing the importance of African American migration, as well as L.A.'s housing and employment politics, Jones shows how the work of black Angeleno artists such as Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, and Senga Nengudi spoke to the dislocation of migration, L.A.'s urban renewal, and restrictions on black mobility. Jones characterizes their works as modern migration narratives that look to the past to consider real and imagined futures. She also attends to these artists' relationships with gallery and museum culture and the establishment of black-owned arts spaces. With South of Pico, Jones expands the understanding of the histories of black arts and creativity in Los Angeles and beyond.
Call Number: Main Collection N6538.N5 J668 2017ISBN: 9780822361459Publication Date: 2017-04-07
Black, brown, yellow, and left : radical activism in Los Angeles by Call Number: eBook (Login to MyVCCCD to access this eBook from off-campus)ISBN: 9786612771873Publication Date: 2006
Seeking el Dorado by
From the 18th century, African Americans, like many others, have migrated to California to seek fortunes or, often, the more modest goals of being able to find work, own a home, and raise a family relatively free of discrimination. Not only their search but also its outcome is covered in Seeking El Dorado. Whether they settled in major cities or smaller towns, African Americans created institutions and organizations—churches, social clubs, literary societies, fraternal orders, civil rights organizations—that embodied the legacy of their past and the values they shared. Blacks came in search of the same jobs as other Americans, but the search often proved frustrating. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, African American leadership in the state consistently focused on achieving racial justice. The essays in this book speak of triumph and hardship, success, discrimination, and disappointment. Seeking El Dorado is a major contribution to black history and the history of the American West and will be of interest to both scholars and general readers.
Call Number: Main Collection F870.N4 S44 2001ISBN: 9780295980829Publication Date: 2001-05-01
General CA History
California by
California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised land of countless pilgrims in search of the American Dream. Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique. Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph. For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day. The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. From the Hardcover edition.
Call Number: Main Collection F861 .S83 2005ISBN: 9780679642404Publication Date: 2005-10-11
