Auto/ethnography is a method that has been used in anthropology since the mid-1970s (Reed-Donahay 1997), combining autobiography or biography with ethnography. In a traditional ethnography an anthropologist interviews people, conducts observations, collects documents, and often reviews newspapers. When autobiography or biography is interjected in an ethnographic study, the field research becomes more personal and the anthropologist also becomes a subject of study. In writing the conclusion of this book I chose to use auto/ethnography as a means of continuing to personalize my narrative. As I stated in the Introduction, the racial history of the Mexican Americans is about “a people,” but it is also about myself. While I have written an objective history, I recognize that I chose which historical scenes to stage in my drama. This is a subjective writing process that does not differ in the production of any type of historical text—all authors select the scenes they stage (Said 1979; White 1992). The use of auto/ethnography allows me to end my book with commentaries on the present and in this way to illuminate some dark shadows in history that can only be clarified by sharing personal stories.
I have chosen to focus on the history of my husband, Richard Valencia, because many stories of his relatives illustrate how California’s mid-nineteenth-century racial policies unfolded and eventually had an impact on the federal government’s classification of people of Chumash descent. Likewise, his family history shows how the government’s racial categories influenced his relatives’ racial identity. Some members of Richard’s family have been classified by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as Native Americans, while others with a similar blood quantum are not classified as such.
Currently two of Richard’s brothers and sisters consider themselves to be full-blooded Chumash, while the others believe they are racially mixed and share a similar blood quantum with most Mexicans—Indian and White. Of Richard’s ten brothers and sisters only Betty Valencia-Cruz and Manuel Valencia consider themselves to be full-blooded Chumash. Based on my conversations with his family, it is my belief that the difference in their racial identification is largely because their mother married more than once. One of her husbands was a Chumash Indian, while the others were Mexicans of Chumash descent. In the interviews I held with my husband Richard, his sisters, Betty Valencia-Cruz and Martha Gonzalez, and his niece, Elena Gonzalez, as well as past conversations I have had with his relatives, I was told that their family was raised in a bicultural Mexican-Chumash environment. Family members heatedly disagree about whether the Chumash or Mexican culture predominated, however. They only concur on the fact that their community was racially segregated and their neighborhood was multicultural and multiracial: Mexican American, Chumash, and Black. As adults, however, four chose to identify as Chumash, while the rest preferred to identify as Mexican American. Only Betty and Manuel are officially registered on the BIA Native American registry.
Richard’s family’s racial history is based on oral narratives supplemented by anthropological and historical studies written about his relatives. I conducted the oral narratives in several visits during the mid-1990s and spent ten days with his family in 1999. During my last trip, I conducted several life-history interviews with Betty and Martha and also interviewed Elena, Martha’s daughter. The setting is California, specifically the cities of Montecito, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inés. The main characters of my account are Evarista Romero, Richard’s great-grandmother, and Rafael Solares, the great-grandfather of Raymond Gonzalez, who is Martha’s husband, Elena’s father, and Richard’s brother-in-law. I have selected to focus on Evarista and Rafael because Evarista’s account informs us why many Chumash ranchería people chose to fade into the Mexican community after the Mexican American War, while Rafael’s account illustrates the experiences of many mission Indians who did not abandon their native customs and their tribal political identification.
Richard’s great-grandmother Evarista Romero lived to be 103 years old (Santa Barbara News Press, 29 November 1959, p. 2). She lived in Montecito, California, her entire life and died in 1959. Montecito is a small city adjacent to Santa Barbara and today is an exclusive community where mansions are the most common residences. Its commercial zone caters to elites and is full of four-star restaurants and shopping centers where only affluent people can afford to shop. Evarista passed on to her descendants many stories about her Chumash ancestry, but also related to her kinfolk how it came about that many Chumash people became incorporated into the Mexican American community and faded as a distinct ethnic group. I collected Evarista’s stories from Richard and his sisters Martha and Betty. They heard these historical narratives from Evarista and from Verónica Ruiz, who was their mother and Evarista’s granddaughter. Betty was the most knowledgeable of the three and had newspaper clippings and old photographs to corroborate her account.
Evarista’s parents were Chumash people from Santa Barbara. They moved to Montecito around the early 1800s. She told Richard and Betty the name of her parents’ village, but they did not recall it. I believe, however, that her village was called Chalajuaj; according to anthropologist Clinton Hart Merriam (1955:197), this was the American Indian name for Montecito. The village was registered as part of the Christian rancherías of the Santa Bárbara Mission (ibid.). Interestingly, Evarista and her parents lived on the junction of Sheffield Drive and Ortega Hill, which has been identified as one of the oldest sites in Montecito (Hoover, Rensch, and Rensch 1966:421). After the Mexican American War, Chalajuaj was dismantled and evolved into several neighborhoods. The area where Evarista’s family lived came to be known as Romero Canyon. After the war, for some reason, the members of the Romero clan were not forced to abandon their homes. They were not given title to their homes, however, and Pedro Masini became the legal owner of Romero Canyon (ibid.).
Evarista married her first cousin Amado Romero in 1877 and had thirteen children (Santa Barbara News Press, 29 November 1959, p. 2). Some of her children married Mexicans, others married Chumash people, and a few married Anglo Americans. Richard, Betty, and Martha do not know very much about Evarista’s children. They only know about her daughter Felipa, their grandmother and Verónica’s mother. Felipa died at an early age, and Verónica was raised by Evarista. They remember that Evarista’s children were never registered by the BIA as Native Americans. Likewise, in the following two generations Felipa and Verónica chose not to register their children. In those days, there was no incentive for Chumash people to be classified by BIA agents as Indian. On the contrary, there were dangerous risks, such as being removed and relocated to the reservations.
Photograph 41. Some of the Last Full-Blooded Chumash Indians, Ventura, California, 1880s. Courtesy of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.
Apparently, Evarista’s attitude toward the BIA was very common; anthropologists Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson propose that by 1880 most Chumash people escaped American prejudice by publicly passing as Mexican. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 1880 there were only 200 Chumash people in California (Walker and Hudson 1993:32; see Photograph 41). Although the Chumash population had certainly dwindled by the turn of the century, the census count was obviously inaccurate because there were several hundred Chumash in Santa Inés alone.
Richard’s mother, Verónica Ruiz, possibly was not a full-blooded Chumash, but she was a full-blooded Indian. Her father was a Mexican from Santa Barbara. His family had resided there for many generations. Verónica’s children do not know very much about their grandfather and only remember that he was a very dark Indian. They do not know anything about his lineage, other than his name. Verónica raised her family in the East Side of Santa Barbara. During the 1950s and 1960s, the East Side was racially segregated and only minorities lived there. Verónica raised her children biculturally, teaching them Mexican and Indian lifeways. They learned about their Chumash lineage, they were raised Catholic, they learned to appreciate Mexican music and Chumash dancing, their language was English, and their daily food was Mexican. Though their main staples were beans, tortillas, and rice, they also ate Indian fried bread and on special occasions “pelilis,” a special type of fried bread that is sprinkled with sugar. Verónica also sang to her children a Chumash lullaby which they all remember and today sing to their children. Richard has taught the lullaby to our children, and they too have memorized the words: “Mimi, mimi, tata, lulu, lulu, rata.”
Because only one of Verónica’s husbands was Native American, only Betty and Manuel are today registered as Native Americans. Betty and Manuel’s father was a BIA-registered Chumash Indian. Though only Betty and Manuel are officially Native Americans according to the BIA, two of Richard’s other sisters married Chumash men whose families are also registered in the BIA rolls. Martha and Frances married two brothers from the Santa Inés Reservation, Raymond Gonzalez and Arnold Gonzalez. After their marriages Frances and Arnold lived on the reservation, while Martha and Raymond, who were also given reservation land, preferred to live somewhere else and instead purchased a home half a mile away. The rest of Richard’s sisters and brothers married Mexican Americans and Anglo Americans.
The Gonzalez family history illustrates a different scenario, where people of Chumash descent refused to relinquish their tribal identity. This account is based on the oral narratives of Elena Gonzalez and Martha Gonzalez. I conducted this interview on 14 June 1999. Betty was present during the interview and often contributed to the analysis. The historical narratives are corroborated by anthropological studies on the Gonzalez ancestors.
Raymond Gonzalez is the great-grandson of Rafael Solares. Rafael was the founder of the Santa Inés Reservation, one of the last Indian sacristans (caretakers) of the Santa Inés Mission and the last Antap Indian of Santa Inés. During Rafael’s lifetime, he was studied, photographed, and interviewed by several anthropologists. Today his portrait stands in the entrance of the Santa Bárbara Mission Museum. The caption below his picture reads: “Rafael Solares the last surviving Antap. While serving as sacristan of Mission Santa Inés he continued to utilize native religious traditions along with Catholic ritual and practice, thereby helping to produce the distinctive lifestyle of the mission Indians” (Santa Bárbara Mission Museum, visited 15 June 1999).
Anthropologists describe the Antap as people belonging to a Native American religious cult dispersed throughout California (Walker and Hudson 1993). Elena, however, refers to the Antap as a political organization to which Rafael and her ancestors belonged. According to several anthropologists and Elena’s family history, only high-ranking Chumash families belonged to the Antap organizations, including the chiefs’ and shamans’ families. Though the Antap members had great social prestige, they were obliged to perform many duties for their tribe: they had to learn their tribe’s history, be able to perform magic and medicinal rituals, maintain knowledge of ritual language, and preserve the tribe’s sacred songs, dances, and poetry (Walker and Hudson 1993:43). All tribal members were obliged to follow the proclamations of the head of the local Antap chapter.
Rafael Solares’s memory has also been preserved by photographs commissioned by the Musée des Hommes of Paris. In 1878 Léon de Cessac photographed Rafael performing an Antap ritual (Grant 1978b: 514; see Photograph 42). Cessac also took other pictures that are less Orientalist in style and depict Rafael merely as a man (see Walker and Hudson 1993:10, 42). In 1900 Rafael and his family were once again visited by a researcher when anthropologist John Peabody Harrington was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute to study the medicinal practices of the Chumash of Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inés (Walker and Hudson 1993). Elena informed me that several years later her grandmother was also visited by other anthropologists.
Rafael Solares was born in the Santa Inés Mission before the Mexican American War (see Photograph 43). He came from a line of Antap leaders and mission sacristans. After Santa Inés Mission was secularized in 1836, Rafael’s family and other mission Indians continued to reside at the mission and in the adjacent mission pueblo (Engelhardt 1986:42). Though the Indians of Santa Inés were left undisturbed after secularization, the governor of California failed to give them legal patent to the mission lands. In 1855 the U.S. government dismantled their village and forced 450 people to vacate their homes (Engelhardt 1986:120). Many moved to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles (Walker and Hudson 1993), while others like Rafael’s family refused to leave Santa Inés. Those who remained behind obtained work on the local farms and ranches, now owned by Anglo Americans. By 1875 Santa Inés had evolved into a predominantly Anglo-American town (Engelhardt 1986:120). Few Mexicans lived there, and the Chumash had become the minority population. By then Rafael was an adult, and he took over the position of mission’s sacristan. During the 1880s and 1890s, he was elected by the mission Indians to serve as alcalde (mayor) and regiador (town council member) of their community (ibid., 125–127; Walker and Hudson 1993:32). In 1913 Father Zephyrin Engelhardt met Rafael on a visit to Santa Inés and reported that he was the leader of the Spanish-speaking community and had organized the church choir (Engelhardt 1986:27). Engelhardt commented that he had a beautiful voice and was well versed in poetry and music. Rafael also organized other Christian festivities and was known for fusing Chumash and Catholic religious rituals.
Photograph 42. Rafael Solares, Dressed in Antap Ritual Clothing. Photograph by Léon de Cessac, 1878. Courtesy of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.
Photograph 43. Mission Santa Inés. Courtesy of the Capuchin Franciscans. Photograph taken by author.
By 1919 most mission Indians in Santa Inés had been reduced to severe poverty, and Bishop Francisco García appealed to the United States government to reserve land for the faithful families who had refused to abandon the mission (Engelhardt 1986:121). The government complied and that year established a reservation of 120 acres, the smallest reservation in the United States. Rafael became the first political leader of the Santa Inés Reservation tribal council. Anthropologists call these people chiefs, but Elena and Martha prefer to refer to them as chairpersons of the tribal councils. It is uncertain how many people initially moved onto the reservation because anthropologists disagree on this point. Campbell Grant (1978a:507) claims that 109 people founded the reservation, while Walker and Hudson (1993:33) claim that it began with 20 residents. In any case, Elena states that the Solares, Ortegas, and Mirandas were the principal families, and to this day the reservation is inhabited by their descendants. Over time, Rafael’s male descendants served as chairpersons of their tribal council. The position, however, was passed among the male members of the reservation and was not passed down through a family lineage. Raymond served as tribal chairperson several times, and so did Elena’s uncle Arnold.
When I asked Elena how she identified racially, in light of the fact that her mother Martha is perhaps not a full-blooded Chumash (i.e., she may also have been descended from another Indian group) and her grandmother on her father’s side married a Mexican, Elena responded that culturally she identifies as Chumash, but racially without a doubt she is mestiza and a person of color. In Santa Inés she doubts whether there are more than a handful of people who are full-blooded Chumash. She added that most likely there are many full-blooded Indians, but they are mixed with other tribal peoples and with Mexican Indians. This may not be the case on other reservations, but because most people in Santa Inés married Mexican Americans most tribal members are mixed.
Though Elena considers most Chumash in Santa Inés to be racially mixed, she made it quite clear that people identify as Chumash. When I asked what made a person a Chumash Indian, Elena responded: “Well there are different types of Chumash people. There are people like Aunt Betty, who is a Chumash, but they are urban Indians and they do not belong to any tribal government, like we do.” To Elena, participating in a tribal government is important because individuals are part of a formal community, which contributes to the survival of the tribe. She acknowledges, however, that there are many Chumash people who are urban Indians and have lost their tribal membership. In their cases, what makes them Chumash is the value they place on reproducing their culture and remaining knowledgeable of their history. Elena added that urban Indians do not have to fit the stereotypical image of Indians who attend powwows in order to prove that they are “real Indians—rather than wannabes.” She believes that urban Indians must manifest their culture in some outward way, such as being familiar with their indigenous genealogy or being knowledgeable about their people’s oral tradition.
According to Elena, when families lose their people’s poems or stories, this indicates that they no longer value their American Indian culture, because they don’t respect it enough to pass it down to the next generation. For example, she pointed to her father’s spiritual pole and stated that for many generations the men in her family have been making these poles (see Photographs 42 and 44). In Chumash culture, the pole is constructed because it is supposed to bring people good fortune and good health. It also serves as an ethnic marker of the value Chumash people place on their traditions. When I looked at the pole, I noticed that it is a replica of the spiritual pole that Léon de Cessac photographed in 1878, when Rafael Solares displayed his Antap regalia. It is also the same pole that Father Engelhardt described in his historical study of Santa Inés and derogatorily referred to as a cult superstition that had not protected Indians from disaster, disease, and bad fortune (Engelhardt 1986:15).
Photograph 44. Gonzalez Family Chumash Heirlooms. Photograph taken by author.
As Elena was sharing the history of the spiritual pole, Martha walked in with a basketful of family heirlooms. She proudly displayed them and indicated which ones were passed down through the generations and which ones were Santa Inés artifacts that she had collected over the years. I immediately recognized the function of all their heirlooms, because they are the types of objects that have been studied by anthropologists and described in The Handbook of North American Indians (Grant 1978b). Among the family heirlooms were small balls used for sports, rocks shaped like cigars that were used to perform healing rituals, metates and pestles used for grinding, and huge stone pots used for cooking. Indeed these were wonderful objects for an anthropologist to see outside of a museum context. I was mesmerized.
Photograph 45. Elena Gonzalez and My Son, Carlos Valencia. Photograph taken by author.
Photograph 46. Martha Gonzalez and Betty Valencia-Cruz. Photograph taken by author.
As we concluded our interview, Elena shared one last comment on racial politics (see Photographs 45 and 46). She stated that today the stigma of being an Indian has been largely erased and people can celebrate their culture publicly. She noted that this has not always been the case, however. Based on family oral histories told by her father, Raymond, in his youth it was still difficult to be an Indian. Ranchers took advantage of their Indian workers and paid them low wages because they knew that families did not want to move to other cities. Consequently, most Chumash families had to hunt deer and quail to have enough food to feed their families. Worst of all, parents were afraid that their children would be taken away to Indian boarding schools if the local teachers complained about their parenting skills. According to Elena, in Santa Inés life is currently easier for Indian people; but what is sad and will never be forgotten is that the Chumash were reduced from being one of California’s numerically largest Indian peoples to being one of the smallest tribes in the nation today.
Photograph 47. Chumash Rock Art Heritage Field Trip, San Marcos Pass. Photograph taken by author.
Photograph 48. Pete Crowheart Zavalla, Los Padres National Forest Guide, San Marcos Pass. Photograph taken by author.
Photograph 49. John Carrillo Viewing His Ancestors’ Art, San Marcos Pass. Photograph taken by author.
Elena’s closing comment on the near extinction of the Chumash tribe is not a myth (see Grant 1978a). If we view the Chumash as an ethnic group and not solely as a tribe, however, Chumash people constitute a sizable population. In Santa Barbara urban people of Chumash descent have established a cultural organization called the Chumash Native American Cultural Center and organized the corporation of the Coastal Band of Chumash Indians. The Coastal Band addresses health, welfare, and political issues faced by urban Indians. For example, in 1986 the Coastal Band of Chumash Indians brought a suit against the federal government to regain land lost after the Mexican American War (U.S. v. Ringrose, 1986). To this date, however, they have been unsuccessful because under Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) and similar rulings the U.S. Congress and the courts continue to be the only institutions able to determine when Native Americans have the legal basis to gain back part of the property they lost.
Photograph 50. Chumash Rock Art at San Marcos Pass, A.D. 500. Courtesy of the National Forest Parks. Photograph taken by author.
The Chumash Native American Cultural Center also organizes many cultural programs and festivities. The goal is to teach people of Chumash descent and the general public about Chumash culture. During my last research trip to Santa Barbara, when I brought my son Carlos, I was fortunate to be invited on a tour through the mountains of San Marcos Pass. My sister-in-law Betty, who is a board member of the center, organized a visit to the San Marcos Pass Chumash rock art caves. She did this specifically to take Carlos and her grandchildren to see a place associated with their Chumash roots. Pete Crowheart Zavalla, a Comanche Indian whose children are Chumash and Comanche, served as our guide (see Photographs 47–50). We were accompanied by Betty’s son, John Carrillo, a fireman. Carlos was mesmerized, and now he understood who were the people his father had told him about, the people who sang the lullaby “Mimi, mimi, tata, lulu, lulu, rata.” Indeed, this reminded me of my childhood, when my mother took my brothers and sisters and I to Chicomoztoc and sparked my indigenist identity and love for anthropology and history.
