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Los Angeles Times
29-06-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
The California story we keep erasing
A few months ago, while visiting the rooftop bar at a Residence Inn in Berkeley, I picked up the city's glossy 'official visitors' guide' and searched it for the historical nuggets that these kinds of publications invariably include. 'For thousands of years before the local arrival of Europeans,' I read, 'Berkeley, and the entire East Bay, was the home of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone. The specific area of present-day Berkeley was known as Huchiun.' Not too bad for a public-relations freebie, except it then skipped a few millennia in a speed rush to the appearance of the Spanish in the late 1700s, the discovery of gold (1848), the founding of the University of California in Berkeley (1873) and the free speech movement and Summer of Love in the 1960s, which, according to the guide, endowed the city with 'a bias for original thinking' and an 'off-beat college town vibe.' I've spent most of the last five years digging into California's past to expose UC's role on the wrong side of history, in particular Native American history. Beginning in the early 20th century, scholars at Berkeley (and at USC and the Huntington Library) played a central role in shaping the state's public, cultural identity. They wrote textbooks and popular histories, consulted with journalists and amateur historians, and generated a semiofficial narrative that depicted Indigenous peoples as frozen in time and irresponsible stewards of the land. Their version of California's story reimagined land grabs and massacres as progress and popularized the fiction that Native people quietly vanished into the premodern past. Today, prodded by new research and persistent Indigenous organizing, tribal groups and a later generation of historians have worked to set the record straight. For thousands of years, California tribes and the land they lived on thrived, the result of creative adaptation to changing circumstances. When Spanish and American colonizers conquered the West, tribal groups resisted. In fact, the state was one of the country's bloodiest regions in the 19th century, deserving of a vocabulary that we usually associate with other countries and other times: pogroms, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, genocide. Despite this devastation, California's population today includes more than 100 tribes and rancherias. Very few details from authentic pre-California history filter into our public spaces, our cultural common knowledge. I've become a collector of the retrospective fantasies we consume instead — those few sentences in the Berkeley visitors' guide, Google, whitewashed facts on menus, snippets on maps and in park brochures, what's engraved on a million wall plaques and enshrined on roadside markers. These are the places where most people encounter historical narratives, and where history acquires the patina of veracity. One Sunday, while waiting for an order of the ethereal lemon-ricotta pancakes at the Oceanside Diner on Fourth Street in Berkeley, I read a bit of history on the menu. The neighborhood, it said, was created in the early 1850s when workers and farmers developed a commercial hub — a grist mill, soap factory, blacksmith and an inn. There was no mention that the restaurant occupied an Ohlone site that flourished for 2,000 to 3,000 years, part of a network of interrelated communities that stretched from the San Francisco Bay, crossing what is now the Berkeley campus, and following a canyon and a fresh-flowing stream into the hills. A friend who knows I like rye whiskey recently gave me a bottle of Redwood Empire. The wordy label explains that the whiskey is named after 'a sparsely populated area' in Northern California characterized by an 'often inaccessible coastline drenched in fog, rocky cliffs, and steep mountains' and 'home to majestic coastal redwoods.' It's a place 'where you can connect with Nature' but apparently not with the tribes who make it their home now and have done since time immemorial. Traditional travel guides skip the most troubling information and emphasize California as an exemplar of diversity and prosperity. The bad old days are blamed on Franciscan missionaries who, according to the 1997 Eyewitness Travel Guide for the state, 'used natives as cheap labor' and on 'European colonists who committed a more serious crime by spreading diseases that would reduce the native population to about 16,000 by 1900.' This shaky history leapfrogs the crimes of Americans and lands in the mid-20th century when Native Americans, they may be surprised to learn, 'opted for integration throughout the state.' Guides have become more hip, though they're still mostly ahistorical. The Wildsam 'Field Guide to California,' for example, includes 'There There,' by Tommy Orange (Oakland-born, Arapaho and Cheyenne) on its list of must-read fiction, provides a detailed LGBTQ+ chronology, covers Chez Panisse and the Black Panther Party but also reduces Indigenous history to the '1400s [when] diverse native tribes flourish.' UC Berkeley's botanical garden, with 'one of the largest collections of California native plants in the world,' is located in Strawberry Canyon, the route followed by generations of Ohlone to hunting grounds in the hills. No plaques in the 34-acre park acknowledge the site's pre-California past and no books in the gift store educate visitors about what contemporary environmentalists are learning from Indigenous land management practices, such as prescribed burns and selective harvesting. The gaps created by the tendency to present California's origins sunny-side-up dampen curiosity and contaminate a basic understanding of American history. For example, the Lawrence Hall of Science, a teaching lab for Berkeley students and a public science center, has initiated a project to 'promote a clear understanding of the lived experiences of the Ohlone people.' Unfortunately, it dodges the university's role in systematically plundering Indigenous graves in California and appropriating ancestral burial grounds in Los Alamos, N.M., where UC Berkeley had a role in the creation of the atomic bomb. Similarly, just about everybody on campus knows the story of the free speech demonstrations, but almost nobody knows about the longest, continuous protest movement in the state, and one still being vigorously waged against the university: the struggle to repatriate ancestral remains and cultural objects that began in the 1900s when the Yokayo Rancheria, according to local media accounts, successfully hired lawyers to stop 'grave-robbing operations by [Cal] scientists in the vicinity of Ukiah.' Even activists in the Bay Area are not immune to this amnesia. In April, I participated in a rally on the Berkeley campus to protest the Trump administration's devastating attacks on academia. The main speakers, who represented a variety of departments — ethnic studies, African American studies, Latinx studies, Asian American studies and the humanities — defended the importance of anti-racism education and testified to the long history of student protests on the Berkeley campus. What was missing was not only the inclusion of a Native American speaker but also any reference to the ransacking of Indigenous sites that was inseparable from the university's material and cultural foundations. I'm reminded of Yurok Tribal Court Chief Judge Abby Abinanti's admonition: 'The hardest mistakes to correct are those that are ingrained.' Out of history, out of mind. Tony Platt is a scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society. He is the author of 'Grave Matters: The Controversy over Excavating California's Buried Indigenous Past' and most recently, 'The Scandal of Cal.'
San Francisco Chronicle
20-06-2025
- General
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Prepare to be blown away': New national monument near Santa Cruz to open with trails for hiking, biking
Almost a decade ago, former President Barack Obama recognized a 'spectacular' stretch of coastal mountains and prairie near the Santa Cruz County community of Davenport with the prestigious designation of national monument. The public, however, was never allowed in. That will change this summer. After years of unexpected delays preparing the site for visitors, the Bureau of Land Management has scheduled the opening of the 5,800-acre Cotoni-Coast Dairies monument for the afternoon of Aug. 15, a Friday. About a 15-minute drive north of the city of Santa Cruz on Highway 1, the onetime ranch and adjacent lands will debut with its northern reaches opened for hiking, biking and sightseeing. This includes nine of 27 miles of planned multi-use trails. The public will be able to access the full range of landscapes that the site is celebrated for, from broad marine terraces overlooking the Pacific Ocean to steep slopes spanning oak-dotted ridges, stream-lined canyons and redwood forest. Salmon and steelhead swim in the creeks, and jackrabbits, foxes and mountain lions roam the hills. 'When I get out there, I just feel like the place gives me a big hug,' said Zachary Ormsby, Central Coast field manager for the Bureau of Land Management. 'Visitors are going to feel that, too.' The site's name pays homage to both the native Ohlone people, specifically a subgroup called the Cotoni, and its early 1900s history as a Swiss dairy farm. The opening of the national monument to the public marks the end of a decades-long fight to keep the lands free of development. Sitting in the shadow of Davenport's shuttered cement plant, the site was spared from being absorbed by the factory. It also escaped unrelated proposals for oil drilling and a nuclear power plant. Protection came in the late 1990s after plans emerged for the area's bluffs to be lined with luxury estates. The San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land and Save the Redwoods League, among others, raised money to coordinate a roughly $45 million acquisition before any homes were built. About 500 of the original 7,000 acres that were purchased for conservation were conveyed to California State Parks while another portion was retained for agriculture. But the bulk of the property remained idle until a long-term caretaker could be secured. In 2014, 5,843 acres were transferred to the Bureau of Land Management. Shortly after that, the environmental community launched a campaign to upgrade the federal site to a national monument, a status that brings greater safeguards for natural and historical features as well as a higher public profile for the area. 'We see the property as having these superlative conservation and recreation values,' said Sara Barth, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund, the Los Altos-based land trust that helped lead the effort to make the lands a monument. 'It's larger than some of the other protected areas in the region. It's also more ecologically distinct. It has a rich history to it, too.' In January 2017, as one of Obama's final acts in office, the former president designated the federal site part of the California Coastal National Monument. Cotoni-Coast Dairies became the biggest onshore property within the existing monument, which includes a handful of distinguished spots along the Pacific. The Bureau of Land Management had hoped to open Cotoni-Coast Dairies years ago, but concerns about potential crowds caused delay. Neighboring communities worried there was too little parking and too few toilets, while scientists and conservation groups wanted to make sure that sensitive habitat, areas for wildlife and historical points would be preserved. Federal officials worked to address the issues. They've partnered with outside organizations to begin restoring watersheds for endangered coho salmon. Indigenous groups have surveyed culturally important plants on the property. Plans to rebuild an old 'cheese barn' are in the works. Perhaps most visible, the Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship and its many volunteers have taken the lead on constructing the monument's growing trail network, having recently completed three interconnecting 3-mile loops. The trails will be accessible from a new parking lot just north of Davenport near the junction of Warrenella and Cement Plant roads. Beyond serving hikers and bicyclists, parts of the multi-use trail system are designed for people using adaptive bikes accommodating mobility issues. The Bureau of Land Management hopes to open a second lot south of Davenport, with more trails, in the next few years. More details on the Aug. 15 opening will be provided closer to the date on the Bureau of Land Management's website for the monument. 'We've all been driving by this place for years and years and years,' said Matt De Young, executive director of the Trail Stewardship. 'Prepare to be blown away.'
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What to Know About Trump's Plan to Reopen Alcatraz
An aerial view of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay on May 16, 2024. Credit - Josh Edelson—AFP/Getty Images Since its closure in 1963, Alcatraz Prison has become the stuff of legend. The seemingly inescapable federal penitentiary on a California island surrounded by frigid and powerful currents gained notoriety for housing some of history's most famous prisoners, from Al 'Scarface' Capone to George 'Machine Gun' Kelly. But now, decades since the island was purchased by the National Park Service and turned into a popular tourist destination, Donald Trump wants to convert it back into a prison. 'REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!' the President posted on Truth Social on Sunday evening, announcing that he has directed the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security to 'reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt' prison on Alcatraz Island to 'house America's most ruthless and violent Offenders.' The move comes as Trump has pursued more aggressively punitive policies in his second term, including signing orders that encourage the use of extreme sentences and the death penalty, that target incarcerated trans women, and that expand police powers. Trump has also been criticized for eschewing the rule of law in carrying out a mass deportation campaign, detaining and deporting both undocumented immigrants as well as people legally in the U.S. without due process. At an April meeting between Trump and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, Trump said he'd be 'all for' deporting Americans to El Salvador next. In January, Trump ordered the opening of a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. has long leased a site from Cuba, to which his Administration would send the 'worst criminal aliens.' Read More: Trump Set to Ratchet Up His Immigration Crackdown During Next 100 Days 'When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That's the way it's supposed to be,' Trump added in his Truth Social post. 'We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally.' Trump told reporters on Sunday night while returning to the White House from Florida that his Alcatraz plan was 'just an idea I've had' to counter the 'radicalized judges [that] want to have trials for every single—think of it—every single person that's in our country illegally.' Alcatraz is 'a symbol of law and order,' he said. 'It's got quite a history, frankly.' Long before Alcatraz became the site of a prison, it was a military fortress. Originally the land of the Ohlone people indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Area, the island was named La Isla de las Alcatraces after its large pelicans that a Spanish Navy officer who arrived in 1775 thought were gannets, called alactraces in Spanish. Later, the island became a U.S. naval defense fort after the Mexican-American War of 1848. The U.S. military also used the island to hold prisoners, including confederate sympathizers during the Civil War and Hopi Native Americans who resisted the government's land decrees and mandatory education programs in 1895. By 1912, it was rebuilt as an official military prison. In 1933, the Justice Department took over the island and made it a maximum-security federal penitentiary, partly in response to a rise in organized crime during prohibition. If the surrounding conditions didn't make escape a hard enough prospect, the prison was retrofitted so that each prisoner was kept to one cell, and one guard was on duty for every three prisoners. Thirty-six men attempted 14 different escapes over the 29 years that the prison was open, and nearly all were caught or died in the attempt. But the prison closed in March 1963. Its facilities were crumbling and would have cost $3 to $5 million to restore, and its isolated location made operating costs too expensive to maintain—nearly three times higher than any other federal prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons—because everything, including potable water, had to be shipped in. The prison has long been a site of public fascination. It was featured in the 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz about Robert Stroud, a convicted felon who studied the birds he saw while incarcerated and became an ornithologist, even finding a cure to a common avian hemorrhagic disease. It was also featured in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood, and based on the real-life 1962 attempted escape of three prisoners who were never found, as well as in the 1996 fictional action thriller The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. After its purchase by the NPS in 1972, the island has become a major tourist attraction and brings in more than a million visitors each year, according to the agency. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons told the Associated Press that the BOP will 'comply with all Presidential Orders,' but did not explain how it would restore or reopen the prison while it is under the jurisdiction of the NPS, whose staff and funding have been threatened by Trump cuts, particularly while the BOP is struggling to keep its own facilities open amid deteriorating infrastructure and staffing shortages.'The President's proposal is not a serious one,' former House Speaker and California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi posted on X. 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Miami Herald
04-04-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
Tiny creatures with translucent bodies found in CA waters. See the new species
Two tiny sea creatures with translucent bodies found on the California coast are both new species. They're sea slugs, part of the Dotidae family. And while they're small — measuring less than a quarter of an inch — they can have an outsize impact, according to a researcher who studies them. 'Nudibranchs,' or sea slugs, 'are indicators of healthy ecosystems and sentinels of telling us about the impacts of climate change,' Terrence Gosliner, senior curator of invertebrate zoology and geology at the California Academy of Sciences, told McClatchy News in an April 3 email. They're also important for biomedical research, he said, noting that some of their natural chemicals 'have been the source of new pharmaceutical products that have been important in combating cancers and HIV.' Gosliner published a study throughout describing the new species on March 24 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The research team also included Sneha Adayapalam, Lynn J. Bonomo and Carissa Shipman. Translucent bodies The two new species are called Doto urak and Doto kwakwak, according to the study. They're both translucent white and have visible cream colored ovotestis, or reproductive organs, the study said. A distinctive Doto urak feature is its 'salmon pink to orange color' cerata, or external back structures, with egg-shaped tubercles, the study said. Its species name was inspired by that feature, coming 'from the southern Ohlone word for salmon,' the study said, noting that the Ohlone 'were the original inhabitants of much of the range of this species.' That range is known to be from San Diego to Humboldt counties, according to the study. Doto kwakwak's distinguishing feature is its 'saffron yellowish orange spots, some of which have irregular borders and are slightly raised,' the study said. It gets its species name 'from the Kumeyaay indigenous name kwakwak, meaning yellow, signifying the yellow-orange spots,' according to the study, which noted that 'the Kumeyaay are the original inhabitants of the region around the type locality in San Diego County.' 'Team effort' Naturalists Chloe and Trevor Van Loon found the only documented specimen of the Doto kwakwak in La Jolla in 2022, according to the study. In an entry on iNaturalist, cited in the study, they pointed out the creature's 'orange flecks' and noted it was between 0.20 and 0.24 inches and discovered on red algae. Researchers used multiple Doto urak specimens from the California coast, the study said. Gosliner said 'many enthusiastic citizen scientists' helped bring the new species to light through their observations. He also noted that 'the first author of the paper, Sneha Adayapalam, worked with me when she was a high school student to conduct the laboratory work that established the genetic distinction of these two species.' The work, he said, 'was a team effort.' And it's valuable, he said, as 'documenting new biodiversity tells us how little we know about life on our planet.'
Axios
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Bay Area tribe seeks to reclaim The Presidio
In the latest escalation over the Presidio's future, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is petitioning the Trump administration to hand over supervision of the 1,500-acre national park back to Indigenous people. The latest: The tribe in mid-March called on President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum "to return land back to Indigenous hands while simultaneously accomplishing your goals of making the federal government smaller," according to the petition, which the tribe is partnering with the Lakota People's Law Project to secure public support for. Catch up quick: The Muwekma Ohlone's move is in response to Trump's executive order from February seeking to eliminate the Presidio Trust. The federal agency was created in 1996 to oversee the historic site, which once served as a military base. What they're saying:"This president wants to dismantle the Presidio Trust and what better hands to manage that land than the people of the area — the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe," tribal chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh told Axios. Between the lines: The petition is the most recent effort in their long-sought struggle for " rematriation," the women-led process behind reclaiming sovereignty on ancestral lands. The goal is to create a new reservation for the tribe to call home, Nijmeh said. "This is not new — it's just another opportunity to have access to a piece of land in our Aboriginal territory," she added. "We want to live on our land, like our ancestors did. We don't want to be visitors." The big picture: The national park has been caught in the political crossfire of Trump's retaliation campaign against his enemies — including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who championed the effort to create the trust. The other side: A representative from the Presidio Trust declined to comment on the petition but made note that the tribe's claim that their effort would " reduce federal taxpayer spending" is incorrect since no ongoing taxpayer funds are used to operate the site. The trust gets its funding from revenue obtained through its businesses, leasing activities and private donations, which earned $182 million in 2024. Flashback: Ohlone ancestors long inhabited the Presidio and surrounding region before the site became a military outpost during the Mexican-American war. The Muwekma Ohlone tribe, which remains unrecognized, has been fighting to affirm its federal status for more than 45 years.
