Our 10th and final episode of Season 2 extends our critique on the history of colonial acquisitions and collections with a focus on the colonial legacies of the institutions of Museums. We focus on the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, recent movements to 'decolonize' museums as with the Museum of Us in San Diego, and discuss whether it is possible to ultimately decolonize these institutions.

Speakers:

Dr. Amy Lonetree (enrolled citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation), Dr. Alírio Karina, Dr. Samuel Redman, Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / Rumsien & Ramaytush Ohlone), Dr. Cutcha Risling-Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), Nicole Lim (Pomo), Dr. Micah Parzen, Dr. Chris Green

Audio editing: Daniel Stonebloom

Interviews: Martin Rizzo-Martinez

Music: G. Gonzales

Special advisor on this episode: Kathleen Aston.

Links & Further Reading:

California Indian Museum & Cultural Center

Acorn Bites

Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums, Amy Lonetree

The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations, Edited by Amy Lonetree and Amanda J. Cobb

“Decolonizing Museums, Memorials, and Monuments,” The Public Historian, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 21–27 (November 2021), Amy Lonetree

Museum of Us

“Race: Are we so different?” Exhibit

Museum of Us: Colonial Pathways Policy

Against and Beyond the Museum, Alírio Karina

Episode 9 explores the ways in which colonialism and colonial collections have impacted the development of archives, and the restrictions of these spaces. We follow the stories of Indigenous scholars who have worked to reclaim Indigenous knowledge, songs, and documents from archival collections. We also explore questions of data sovereignty, digital sovereignty, and intellectual property rights.

As discussed throughout Season 2, colonial extraction and collections have resulted in the theft of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous bodies, and so much more. Previous episodes have explored issues of 'salvage anthropology' and repatriation. This episode shifts the focus to efforts to reclaim Indigenous knowledge, whether that be in the form of songs, wax cylinders, documents, letters, or other forms stored in colonial archives.

The speakers in this episode include:

Dr. Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen/Cree)

Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva)

Carolyn Rodriguez (Amah Mutsun)

Sedonna Goeman-Shulsky (Tonawanda Band of Seneca)

Links for further reading:

"Cahuilla Basket Returns Home," by Emily Clarke, August 12, 2022, in News from Native California.

CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance

GIDA, Global Indigenous Data Alliance: Promoting Indigenous Control of Indigenous Data

Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance: Research, Policy, and Practice for Indigenous Data Sovereignty

"Indigenous Digital Sovereignty: From the Digital Divide to Digital Equity," by Davida Delmar, Jul 19, 2023

"Ts'msyen Revolution: The Poetics and Politics of Reclaiming," Robin R.R. Gray Dissertation.

Dr. Robin Gray: “Embodied Heritage: Enactments of Indigenous Sovereignty” (video)

"Toypurina: Our Lady of Sorrows," Weshoyot Alvitre, Kickstarter

Theft Is Property! Dispossession and Critical Theory, Robert Nichols

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales. The title of this episode comes from Dr. Robin Gray.

Episode 8 features an interview with Marion Martinez and her daughter, Veronica, both of whom are members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. They will be speaking about Marion’s great grandmother, Ascencion Solorsano de Cervantes, and mother, Martha Herrerra. Ascencion, who passed away in 1930, was the last fluent Mutsun speaker and one of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s beloved ancestors.

In 1929, Ascencion spent three months with Ethnographer and linguist John Peabody Harrington, who recorded thousands of pages of notes on Mutsun language, culture and history. Today, Marion, Veronica, and many other Amah Mutsun Tribal members draw on these important notes to learn about their ancestors. This season we have featured a series of stories about ’salvage anthropology’ and the damage done by scholars and activists towards Indigenous communities. This story helps show the complexity of this history, and ways in which contemporary Indigenous community members can sometimes draw on these records in important ways.

The speakers in this episode are: Veronica Martinez & Marion Martinez, both Amah Mutsun, interviewed by Martin Rizzo-Martinez.

Links for further reading:

Maria Ascención Solórsano (de Garcia y de Cervantes), Ed Ketchum, Amah Mutsun Tribal Historian (and descendant of Ascención)

The Long Journey to Revitalize a Native Language, University of Arizona News, Feb. 16, 2016

Reviving deep-rooted knowledge, Lisa Renner, UCSC NewsCenter, November 23, 2021

The Amah Mutsun's Battle to Preserve, Mark R. Day, ICT News, Sept 13, 2018

The Saint of Gilroy who helped save her culture and language, Robert Eliason, Benito Link, January 23, 2021

A Native American's Last Testament: Opera, Sasha Khokha, NPR Music, March 29, 2008

Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today, Randall Milliken, Laurence H. Shoup, and Beverly R. Ortiz, 2009

Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington (documentary), PBS

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales.