An essential look at the ways California's Native nations are resisting colonialism today, from education reform to protests against environmental injustice and beyond. Collecting over twenty-five essays written by more than fifteen California Indian authors, Know We Are Here surveys many of the ways California's Indigenous communities are resisting the legacies of genocide. Focusing on the particular histories, challenges, and dynamics of life in Native California--which are often very different from elsewhere in the United States--the book collects essays from writers across the state. It encompasses the perspectives of both elders and the rising generation, and the contributors include activists, academics, students, memoirists, and tribal leaders. The collection examines histories of resistance to colonialism in California, the reclaiming of cultures and languages, the connection of place and nature to wellness in tribal communities, efforts to overhaul the racist presentation of California Indians in classrooms and popular culture, and the meanings of solidarity in Native California. Unifying the book is an introduction by Terria Smith, editor of the renowned and long-running magazine News from Native California. This book is an indispensable resource for California Indian readers, educators of all levels in California, and students in Native studies courses nationally.

Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide. Madley describes pre-contact California and precursors to the genocide before explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. congressmen, California governors, and others. The state and federal governments spent at least $1,700,000 on campaigns against California Indians. Besides evaluating government officials’ culpability, Madley considers why the slaughter constituted genocide and how other possible genocides within and beyond the Americas might be investigated using the methods presented in this groundbreaking book.

Fifty years of deep hanging out in California's Indian country Writer and publisher Malcolm Margolin has been "deep hanging out"--or immersing himself in a social, informal way--in California's Indian country since the 1970s. This volume collects thirty articles, introductions, and other pieces he wrote about California's diverse Indian country (well over one hundred tribes), drawn mainly from the quarterly magazine he cofounded in 1987, News from Native California. He shares with his readers the experiences, knowledge, and cultural renewal that California Indians have generously shared with him, often after years of friendship, from the erection of a ceremonial enclosure in Northern California--built to fall apart within a generation so that the knowledge of how to construct one is always current--to a visit by aboriginal Hawaiians in diplomatic recognition of native Southern Californian tribes. He draws on both archives and interviews with elders in longer reports about leadership traditions, pedagogical techniques, and conservation practices in various parts of the state--fascinating glimpses into worldviews very different from those of contemporary America. Filled with insight and affection, as well as some of the most gorgeous writing, Deep Hanging Out will appeal both to newcomers and to those whose roots and hearts reside in the state's Indian country.

A collection of reminiscences, stories, and songs that reflect the diversity of the people native to California.