CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush (Rammaytush) Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Cata Gomes: Horsha Muur, 'Ek raakat Cata, Kaana-k Rammaytush, Horsha Ta-m Waate Mak Ruwwa, Tunnet Kai-umu, Xayatspanee Ta-Kam Waatekne . Greetings, good evening. My name is Cata. I am Rammaytush. Welcome to our home at the edge of the ocean. Thank you all for coming.

L.Frank: Hi, L. Frank, I'm a Hollywood Indian. 

Cata: I'm so honored to be here with you, L. You are a mentor to me. I have great respect and admiration, and it's truly an honor to be here with you. 

L.: I can't wait to see you until it's over. 

Cata: Oh, I'm sure it's going to be fun. 

L.: You get to go first, your lands. Okay, unless you want me to take them from you. 

Cata: Okay. Well, I first met, L actually over phone conversation. She started mentoring me even before I enrolled in Berkeley's Breath of Life Indigenous language program, where I started studying the Rammaytush language. And I felt it was really important we've started a nonprofit, a women led 501 c3 majority Rammaytush descendants on our board of directors, and I felt very strongly that the first step in our journey to our cultural revitalization was to start with the language. And I was so grateful that L. was started mentoring me before I even went to Berkeley to Breath of Life. And we haven't had any native speakers in 100 years. I was there, I was the only one there, studying the Rammaytush language, but I was greeted and met with a lot of encouragement and really well wishing for everyone that I came in contact with. And since we have hired with Muchia Te’ Land Trust as of last March, hired to linguists to work with us and we've started our own language school. And so we're really blessed to be on this journey and to have so much love and support, help nurturing us and guiding us along the way. And it all started with L. So thank you so much. 

L.: Your welcome. And it all started with your ancestors bugging you. All right. I'm just wondering how far I think I have to go all the way back to euripides or something to start my language journey. So before I was born I traveled the world with another native, and we were choosing where we were going to be born, and there was a language that we spoke and I call it the language of the stars because I don't know what else to call it. And then finally we're born and in huge well we're not born yet in utero. It was just me she went somewhere else, different utero. I was hearing this language, and because I was in the lands that you know I after I'm born I realized on my homelands. So I'm hearing this language. And I'm feeling so good and I'm feeling like yes this is where I want to be where I hear these kinds of sounds. And then when I'm born, I realized, nobody speaks this language. Nobody's speaking this language. And so I don't even know what tribe I am, because you know it's that thing of colonization Oh you're all Spanish. Well no, but nobody wants to say what anybody else really is because that means more trauma for you. So I was this weird little child who was always seen my ancestors, and always hearing my ancestors, and nobody ever believed me yet a place where I played. I was about three years old and I used to go down about two miles because, you know, that way when nobody misses you. And I went to where I was welcome, and there was this huge field below Loyola, it's now Loyola Marymount or something else. And I used to think that's where the Catholic Lord live, because it only had a big L at the time. So right below the Lord's house was this huge field, and I used to lay on this one section I played all over it but on this one section I would lay because that language there was again I could hear it. And there were people into the ground and they would talk about me, they would ignore me, they would talk to each other but I could hear the language. And it turns out that when the archaeologists well when people wanted to put up tennis courts and condominiums, they found there were 600 of my people buried there, and where I played there were 400 women. So it's, I've never had a choice about language reclamation because I'm just a pot smoking hippie lesbian. You know, I'd be fine watching Kukla Fran and Ollie. Instead of having to search the world over for remnants of us. You know, I feel complete but there's, I came out popped out thinking there'd be tribe but the government says we're extinct and we might as well be there's 1500 of us maybe over here and my other tribe maybe 2500 of us. And we're not in such good shape because our homeland is LA, I am a Hollywood Indian. So try being a native in that kind of a city. Try retaining your language, you know, try anything in that city. Yeah, it's, it's mean streets, but at least the weather's nice. So my language thing began all the way back before I was born. And one time in the desert after consuming these things that we grew all my ancestors came to me everybody else is off in the desert during the acid dance because I'm old this was the 60s. Everybody's off during the acid dance and my ancestors come right out of the sky through that Twilight Zone door because I am a Hollywood Indian. So everything is related to TV and movies, that door opens up and my ancestors come out and they start saying you are going to do this and you are going to do that. And most of it had to do with piecing back a culture, most of it had to do with language. You know, and I autistic dyslexic guy barely made it out of any grade I ever entered you know so it's like yeah right I'm going to do all this stuff, but it was the mandate so I had no choice ever, ever. And so then I created that breath of life program because all the scientists want you to say, Okay, first you're going to learn what a verb and a noun is and you're going to do this and you're going to do that, I failed English. I don't know how to diagram a sentence, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. And the rest of us Indians because we get says the best educations in the world. A lot of us didn't know either. And so I made a program that was, I was doing the first thing in my language program is to go to those museum basements and touch everything you can, because the language is still everywhere. It's just embedded in everything. Sometimes it has a little arsenic on it but what the heck you know, and, and put the language together and then I asked the linguist to come and I said, you can teach us what all these little marks are the diacritics. You know what all these little marks are. But don't tell me what I don't ask you. You know, because it's about us and what we need. And so that was quite an adventure because linguists are trained scientists and natives are not. And you put us together and in these intimate places and arises conflict, yeah. A lot of great things happen and conflicts happen because the world hasn't resolved yet. We've come a long ways now we have statements of accountability and land acknowledgments. But that's about as far as we've come. We are still different peoples. That was the beginning of the journey putting together a program that fit people like me, because people who can diagram sentences this program will be a piece of cake. People who can't diagram sentences and remember what a fricative is. They still have a chance. And that's what breath of life is about. And it's not. It's supposed to be about learning how your sounds are supposed to be learning not to be afraid of making those sounds, learning. Like I was interested in song. And I'm interested in stars. So why should I start with colors and numbers. So that's what that program was based around what it is that you need and want and fits you because the only way you're going to learn a language is if you do what fits you already. Yeah. Okay, I'll stop there and make up more stuff later. 

Cata: Well, we feel really blessed in our program that we just started our language program, because we have hired two linguists to work with us. It's Alex Elias and  Nunkins, and we feel really fortunate to have two linguists, because everyone has their own gifts, and it's very different what they bring to our program, but it's all really valuable, and we're finding it a wonderful experience to be working with them. And I've actually like to hear more about L. and her journey with her canoes. 

L.: Okay, we're gonna skip around. Alrighty. Yeah. All right, I'll get you to the most recent thing that is, I think 50 years from me in the making. And I was surprised it actually happened I guess you stick to your guns. Yeah, sometimes things work. So in about 1991, somebody else was dreaming about building a canoe you know down in LA we've got some islands right, we got Catalina Island, its name is actually Pimo. And Pimo is, is the word for your, what's this called your eye shade what's this thing called? 

Cata: Eyelid. 

L.:There you go. My English is gone. So your eyelid, that piece of the island is where Mother Earth gave birth and that's the eyelid of Mother Earth that island. And out further out there I don't know if you've ever heard of Island of the Blue Dolphins. 67 miles offshore off the mainland southern Cal. The Navy used it to bomb things you know and like, let's explode this place. Well that place is our center of the universe. And when we pass away, when we're born we come from the Milky Way and we come through this rock that's in a cave, and we're born, and when we pass away we pass back through that rock to the Milky Way. So of course it's you know where bombs happen, and we're not allowed on it, because we might claim it. So there's all this stuff with ocean and, and, and islands and canoes how you got around. The Chumash have like six or seven, there's are called Tomole, their canoe, and ours is called Tiat. What's special about this canoe is, it's nothing you're going to see in Minnesota. It's, it's, they can be any length. I helped build the first one in 91’ or so and and built the second, I'm about to build the third in about 300 years. It's a sewn glued together plank canoe. So, it's how we got back and forth to the islands, and nobody really knows how to build one. I think I do now because I've built several, and I've gone five times on tribal canoe journey, because, as I said, when, when I was born I expected things to be there and they weren't. And what I got instead was remnants of tribe and memories of tribe, you know and sleeping languages all these things. So, it's been my mission. Oh gosh I really hesitate using that word. It's been my vision to, I just want to try, I just want to be part of a tribe, but it seems that I'm going to have to like help be one of the people who be one of the people who helps put the puzzles back together. And so, as many other specific cultures will tell you, it holds the culture, it is the embodiment of culture. And so not only is this a really intricately mathematical canoe to make. Then what? I made this big canoe, you know I want to make a canoe, how much is the wood 10,000 bucks where's an Indian going to get $10,000 you know for this. Well, I met a guy who lives in a forest all right I got a tree. So, made this canoe. I just let it's been I've had it made it now 10 years I just left it down in Los Angeles for the kids to use, because by kids I mean they're like 20s and 30s, you know when you get old that's what happens everyone's a kid right. So, I left these kids with children of their own in college. I left it, and I'm trying to find a beach in Southern California where I can leave it on the beach for them so they can take it out whenever they want, rather than having to get a trailer and a truck and all this other stuff that we can't afford, nobody knows how to drive either. Whether  our culture, our revitalization of us. It has to include every single aspect of living, every single aspect of living and the canoe is a big one, and the canoe. It's really great because it captures people's imaginations. And in there you can fill it full of language and hope, and it's really a great thing. So the other day we took it down to Santa Monica, and even though she's been on five travel canoe journeys and orcas have chased us and triple black whirlpools you know and we've never been in this canoe and in 300 years so we don't know what we're doing. You kneel in it and you have double blades and it's really skinny and, you know, people go well that's for skinny Indians. We take a lot of mocking because up till recently we would only go in one knot, I changed that I created the seat to lean your butt on and carbon fiber paddles. And now we're three knots which is just perfect. So we took this down to Southern California, and had a day. And it almost didn't happen, but we had a day where, when you're so decimated as a culture. The people left in that culture feel that there's something that they have to fight for and they have to fight each other for it. And that's what exactly this dominating society puts upon us that we chew each other up so they don't have to deal with us, keeps us unhealthy. So I take this canoe down and I invited everybody. The people who don't like each other, I made sure to invite them, and they came. And they come so that, well, I'm not going to be left out if they're going to be there you know I don't care what your reason is just come. Because when we got there, we had to all carry that canoe out, so we all carried that canoe out. And when we took it to the water somebody had to do this so we all did that. And then the 15 people who went out to help in the canoe, it got really windy, it got really crazy, and the waves are wild we never take it in waves I'm thinking, Oh no, they're all going to die. When at that point the lifeguard captain drives up jumps out of his car and starts yelling just into at all of us. You're all gonna die. We are trying to put our culture together and you know it's like, you're all gonna die it's gonna flip over and you're gonna die, all these people are dead you're all gonna die he just went on. And I just pretended I was a moron going oh, you know, and like because otherwise I was going to say things I might regret. And I don't know if they have handcuffs those lifeguards. So, I just kept my mouth quiet. And he, he made the mistake for me it was a  mistake he said, I've seen boats like this flip over and everyone's dead. And I said you've seen boats like this. I mean it's the second one in 300 years so you know he goes, Well, you know, so that pretty much ended that conversation. And so I went down to everybody who was carrying the boat and the whole community is listening to him scream, and they're here doing this glorious reclamation of, of us you know with this second 300 years, they get to be the ones to put it in the water and they just listen to this. So I walked over to them and I  looked at the skipper and there were three going to go in the canoe. I said to the skipper, he says you're going to die. How do you feel about it. And my skipper goes, I'm ready. And I looked at the other person how about you, he goes I’m ready. And I looked at the other one who'd never been a canoe, and so I tried to relate to him sports because I figure you know some body memory I can give you some technique in here if you've never been in this canoe. And he turns out he played in the drum line or something it's like well, that'll help with timing I  guess but, you know, I was looking for like basketball football you know anything but that was good because he was brilliant once you got in but they they were in and it was an effort to get them out the waves were against us the canoe was here and the waves were above and it got  swamped and, and my skipper called for help and all the people who came to spectate. You know, the women are in their little velvet high heels and they're, and their dresses and  they're all wet and everybody's wet up to the armpits and children and women and canoes and the wind is blowing and that man has stopped yelling but he's still eyeballing and it became this 15 minute effort to get this canoe out into the water after she had swamped the waves just came in, and for balance you have to have sandbags. So there's just all this organized chaos. Next thing you know they've got her back up, and they're shoving her out and people fortunately, well these are all rich people they tend to not like to flock. But, so they were discreetly looking from where they were in their little shade tents and watching us. And the minute that they were able to shove it past the last wave to get out the whole beach erupted and paddle, as if they weren't going to right but paddle was the cry and they paddled, and that they, the new young man that the drumline young man, it took him a couple of strokes and then they were gone, gone and there was that three knots. And what it did was it, it made people who are fighting each other their whole lives and generations of it hug each other and claim victory, victory over genocide. You know, you know they'd hug each other and realize who they're hugging and stop but at least, at least it happened. And then when the canoe came in my skipper was so happy ran up to me like a puppy and says I want to go again I said well why did you get out of the water and we couldn't make it the second time because the waves are pretty ferocious. So we went inside where we celebrated with tamales. Boy, I'm in LA so they bought all these vegan tamales, it's like no no no. Where's the pork. You know, this is not a tamale if you know, vegan, they go but they're so good it's like, oh, that's Hollywood Indians. You know, do we have sparkling water to so. No, I made three gallons of Mexican hot chocolate so we all shared food together Mexican hot chocolate tamales and and talked about language in the future and our children getting in the canoe and our children learning the language and, you know, just this incredible day built around that canoe, the talk because I always give talks. Before we put it out in the water was that there is nothing political about this that this is purely cultural, but this is about a canoe, and our relationship to it in the ocean. You know, so I'm hoping, and it sure feels like it. That that is going to make a difference to everybody, I know it is because part of revitalizing a culture. Everyone talks about decolonizing, you know, we don't really know what that is. Every time we turn around with, I think I'm decolonized, I realized, oh my god I'm not, you know, oh that's awful. I did a voice thing for Netflix. I hope they're not listening. I did a voice thing for Netflix, and they don't know this but I was in that recording room with city of ghost episode four. I'm not going to go in with all the bling, but I was there were three Asian women and they were seated there and I kept waiting for a Caucasian to walk in the room and start things, and I thought, oh you are not decolonized at all. Not at all I had to change my business card. You know, it's a decolonization is just like no, you don't even know what that means. In order to revitalize culture, it's so intricate, you would not believe how intricate it is, I made a painting once that I hope would describe it. It's coyote dressed as a magician, little kids think he's a vampire coyote dressed as a magician and all his, you know his cards and the little balls that come out of your nose or whatever they do all the magic stuff yeah, and it's called culture it says on the paintings cultural revival act 730 and the painting is called waiting for the grant. So, what I'm trying to say is, you have to be magicians in order to bring back your culture. You know, me who, you know, I was a morelock in junior high, they put me in with everybody who was you know deficient. So, and here I am talking to astrophysicists, or, you know, Arco, whatever botanists, or, you know, I'm really bitchy thing was going to happen, I was going to get to have a week on one of those script ships, and they were going to study the bitumen seeps under the Channel Islands in Santa Barbara, which the nerd in me was like totally excited. I was just going to see where tar comes from but you know I was like yes that's me. So, the things you have to do to put back a culture, you have to find the people who are willing to help you and help you for very little or no money. You know, they gave me that wood for that canoe for free. The language people who work with me do it for free, I try to like feed them when they come over and do this or that and always raise them. Because we need a lot of help in order to revitalize anything we're doing because I hate to call it the red tape that came from England you know the red ribbon they tied their law papers and we call it the white tape. There's just so much tape of any color around everything. And there's so many stops. The University of San Francisco just gave me an honorary doctorate for trying to undo the damage the Catholic Church had done. And I'm discovering that it opens quite a few doors. I didn't think it would because I go through any door that's open without permission anyway. But it's actually made a difference. And now I try to use it to get other people through the doors. So when you're revitalizing language your culture your basketry. You always risk arrest. You want to go collect stuff to make baskets. You got to climb over a fence and someone's private property. You know, or you got to go through the park service and get a permit, you can only collect four plants. Oh, but I need 17. You know, so it's just a really treacherous arduous sometimes rewarding task. Because every time you do something. There's some Indian crab, you know, and I know every culture has crabs. You might have crabs right now. 

Cata: We had an experience with the Hokule’a this week. Just on Sunday, the Hawaiian voyaging canoe, the Hokule'a Star of Gladness blessed us with their visiting Half Moon Bay. And they came down Sunday. As they were coming down the coast, passing our village site of Timiktak, which I was my first project and breath of life was to translate the name of our village, because talk at the end of a village name is a place reference. So we had to look to some neighboring languages to get to Mig, which means whale. So our village along Clara Creek and what is now known as Pacifica is the place of the whales. And Sunday, about noon. As the Hokule’a was passing our village site. They were welcomed by two whales between their canoe and the shore, where two whales to greet them on their way to Half Moon Bay where we had a welcoming ceremony. And we truly were so thrilled. And we felt like our ancestors were there to greet them to bring us encouragement to let us know that we're on the right path, and what we're doing in our work. And then when the crew came ashore. It was so wonderful. It was the breath of life and the linguists were working with, I had the opportunity for the first time, use our Rammaytush language to greet them to welcome them. And it was the first time in public, speaking our language. And it was a wonderful experience the Hokule’a was for the Hawaiian culture. At the beginning of their Renaissance in the 1970s. It brought pride to the Hawaiian people who had been dominated by Christianity, the missionaries, the people who came to exploit their islands to overthrow their queen. And this was the first time in the 1970s that they found pride in their culture as a voyaging community. And it brought a whole Renaissance of their language. They now have language schools set up for preschool children immersion schools in Hawaii, and the Hokule’a was the start of it all. For the Hawaiian culture. It was a vessel in so many ways. And we are also starting this coming week to harvest tule. Because, L. Frank, so said to me, you should be bringing, you should be building a tule canoe. And I host canoe events and I want you to bring your canoe. And so, we're like, Okay, L. says this is what we should be doing so we're going to do it. And fortuitously, just this summer, we cross paths with a man named Joe Weber, who has already built a 30 foot ocean going sailing canoe. And he's looking for people to help him with his next project, which is going to be a 60 foot voyaging tule canoe that he wants to voyage from Hawaii, from California to Hawaii. And so we're really thrilled to be helping him and to start gathering tule, and we're going to apprentice with him and he's going to teach us how to build an ocean tule canoe, see 

L.: That Japanese man. 

Cata: Jen is also involved with this project as well. Yeah, yeah, he already has tule, voyaging on a tule raft. Yeah, 

L.: Yeah, don't take my tule. I used to come here they need like 10 million yards of it, and that's the year that I want people to build. So I'm now like, you foreigners. You know, she mentions the Hokulea, and I was fortunate enough I have a Hawaiian sister. She's Hawaiian and Apache. So she's really kind and fierce. She, um, I shouldn't say she whom she dated. All right. So, I had to do this here. Anyway, introduced me to, we'd always been, I'd always been connected to Hawaiians but when I met Carolyn Kualii, my much older sister she's five days older than me but I always say that to her. She was hanging with the Hokulea people bringing it back with all of those people so I became a part of that. And actually it was Sam Ka'ai, everything he made was just burnt up over there in Hawaii and that big fire. It was a whole bunch of things worth of things like the tools of menus things on the canoe the fishing implements everything you know. So, Sam Ka'ai, I was, I was introduced to him at that time I met Carolyn. And our first action was to create a, we were at a language conference that, which out of it came AICLS Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, and it was my introduction to working with a whole bunch of elders at once which I don't know that I want to do with me. I had to I got there early never get early to a conference they make you make beds. I told them I don't even make my bed at home. So I had to make all these people's beds you know rooms with six beds eight beds. And so when the people started arriving that the elder Indians. They said I want this bed, but I can't have my head to the north because that's the land of the dead. So I had to make their bed and put it in another direction, and each of them I had to make it rather than them just choosing the beds facing the right direction, I had to undo every single one of them. So I've held a grudge ever since I quit language with having to do housework. But from that conference, at that conference, Carolyn Kuali'i brought the Hawaiian immersion schools. And they came up to us here and said it was based on the Maori and each culture that takes this immersion program, then refines it to their own culture, because not every culture responds the same. So, when I was once over in Wales, this guy kept following me around I thought he, I thought oh where are we back in LA and I'm being followed in a shop but no, he wanted to talk to me he was well she wanted to talk to me about language. And he finally caught up with me. I told him about our language program, ours is based on the Maori and, and, and, and we've got it and he says well the Maori is based on the, the, the Welsh and the Welsh is based on the Israeli so all of these Indigenous languages we're all doing the same thing and sharing the methodologies, the things that actually work. So it was kind of funny where that man ran it, I was at an outdoor ethnography park in Wales. We realized there were three of us natives, we were there for California basket weavers talking to the weavers in Scotland and England, everywhere. And we took time out to visit, you know, their culture, and there was a person, a docent type person who stood in each of those old English type houses or Welsh type houses, and they would give talks, and we finally realized that they wanted everyone to go away so they could talk to us. And when they wanted to talk to us natives, they would all look around. And I finally figured out they were looking for the English, making sure the English didn't hear them speaking Welsh. So it was very interesting to, to be in other places and, and have them feel as strongly as we do about our own languages and they're hiding like we hide you know, and, and just very interesting but it's the Hawaiians who brought us the immersion program. We started a master apprentice immersion program based on what the Hawaiians brought us, and the Hokule’a, Sam Ka'ai, he used to call me canoe girl. And because he knew my aspirations and he also knew that I was having a hard time because when you don't have your own culture to put together, you don't have enough pieces. He told me he says, L. Frank, he says, you go to that island you make ceremony, everybody hates you. Next year they steal it from you. And they're doing it. And so I said, All right, that's good advice, you know, all right, so, so the Hawaiians have for years been lifting me. The Pacific rimmers I consider myself a Pacific rimmer almost more than anything else. And I fit better, you know, and our canoes and, and what people in the Pacific Rim are doing as far as language and just cultural revitalization. So we get help from other people in other parts of the world. I had a fellowship that seventh generation up in Northern California gave me. And so I went and I spent a month I went up to the Sami in Finland to see how their language programs work. They work really well if you have oil money. It's surprising what money can do you know, but hey they're benefiting right now but they have to fight the oil at the same time so it's this big thing going up on up there, but I got to be with the Sami people, and then I went over to Welsh to the whales, whales Come on, get it right. I went with the Welsh people in Wales I tried to find the frisian, they're the original people in Amsterdam or the Netherlands. And there is frisian but doesn't speak the language. Then I went over to find some Irish, I finally found some oh yes the troublemakers live over there. So next time I go back I'm looking for the Irish troublemakers, because they're the ones doing all the same thing we're doing here, piecing back together a culture. Yeah, which we often have to fight governments for and other India... Okay. You're piecing back together your culture you're trying to give your people a reason to be themselves and be happy and be whole. And then reservation dogs you know res dogs comes on TV everybody loves it it's a great program. And then those kids in that program go to LA and who do they find the wrong Indians, they say they're meeting the Chumash, Chumash or like two Indians up. So every time we turn around something is against us. Other Indians from around us, because they consider us to have weak leadership. No, it's Indian leadership it just looks weak to you if you're looking at it from another viewpoint to another worldview. They've moved into the city and now they got city of LA, thinking that they're the ones who should be talked with. And you're just trying to, you know, so there's all kinds of impediments extinction is a pretty tough thing to get over. Yeah, but it's okay. You know, we have help will make it. It's a longer than everybody else so 

Cata: Progress is a process. And we are making progress. 

L.: Right. 

Cata: It doesn't often happen as quickly as we would like to have it happen. But they're not stopping us, we are making progress and we are still here. And we're here to prove it. 

L.: Yeah, and people like over in Oakland there's the show me tax, because people are living and getting benefit, even if it's just the cosmic energy benefit from this place. And down in LA we now call it, I'm not sure if we're calling it Kuuyam which is plural or Kuuyi is singular but Kuuyi means guest. We're calling our land tax or whatever tax, a guest exchange, because I'm a little uncomfortable with let's tax you, you know, I'd rather have it be an exchange that you understand. You understand what's happening. You know, and there's a big movement that gets in the way of our revitalization in America's feeling so guilty about black people that they want to give them our lands, they gave away Manhattan Beach. Did they ask us. No, I should have I have one regret in life, this is my regret on my deathbed. Some kids were gifting me a six to eight ton rock it's like what am I going to do with a six to eight ton rock, you know, and, and I should have accepted it and they said if we give it to you, where would you like to put it and I said Bruce's beach. That's that piece of land that they sold because these people had been cheated 100 years ago, but I'd like to see that bill of sale and off our back it goes. I think we should be included and it's become. I am going to see this woman in court, I know I am. She's working hard for her people and she made a statement and she's making California be the example for all the other states about giving our land away without us being involved. And she made a statement, and I'm going to print real big next when I see her in court. It's, she said, there should be no statute of limitations on stolen lands. Yeah, you're right lady just remember those words, because, um, yeah, so that's a big thing I asked. I was on the Indian radio, whenever somebody drops out they go let's call L. Frank she'll make up stuff. As long as she doesn't say penis on the radio she's fine. So, anyway, um, I asked the guy interviewing me, I said which of my nieces or nephews, which tribe, which of my nieces or nephews is going to call me and say next that their land is being given to somebody else without them even being involved. Sure enough, the Lenape, they used to their village there. You know, and there was a black community and so they're going to get land, but, you know, how far back in line do we have to be. And the reason all this matters we're not money hungry grubbing whatever we are required by our creator to care for these places. And how can we really care for them. If we are the poverty level. You know, if we have the worst education. How can we do our job and we're just trying to keep our people alive and safe. How can we do our job when we're not even can't even afford to live in our own homelands, like the Hawaiians. This is why I don't have siblings any longer they kept saying oh we're going to buy land in Hawaii and I kept going. Oh, the poor Hawaiians where they going to live. You know, and I'm a buzzkill. I want to go live in Hawaii don't talk to me about starving Hawaiians living 15 to a room you know an apartment, while you're laying on a beach. You know, so revitalizing anything is really. We do have to be magicians. We have to be ready for anything, and we have to be magicians. And for me, I, I want to and I need to be open to everybody, because I always tell people that it took us several hundred years to get to this state. And we had a lot of help doing that. Then, to get back we're going to need everybody's help to get back. And people ask well why should I support you just hunting and fishing like that's what I do I'm in LA Indian I'm afraid of fish get out, you know, so what do we do we want to. I'd like to be supported to hunt and fish, that's not how it works but okay. The way it really works is you support the Indigenous where you're from in their efforts whatever they may be. And it only benefits you and your progeny. Because we're not making better air for ourselves, no you can’t have our good air. No, you can’t have our good water. No, we want your children to suffer. You know, when, when we say you are guests in our land. So, all of this stuff rolls into there's so much more that is involved in revitalization of any parts of our culture. And I appreciate all the help we have there were people who raised money so I could buy a bus so I could tow that canoe so we could go to canoe journey so we can see what it's like to live in a village. So we can understand the things that are deeply hidden inside of us. So I've had, I've been fortunate a lot of people have helped me. Everyone says L Frank does these great things no, I just go, I want to do this thing, and people help. And I appreciate that. 

Cata: Yeah, having a huge problem here in the Bay Area as well. You know cultural erasers been going on for 300 years. We've been colonized for that long and, you know, there's some local tribes here in the Bay Area that are trying to go for federal recognition. But these people have been colonized so long. They're trying to fit into these parameters laid out by the government, who's tried to exterminate us. And yet, they want recognition for financial gain. And they've been colonized so long. They have a total disregard for ancestral homelands. They're claiming other tribes ancestral homelands to fit into the at least 600 enrollment in their tribe. This is put out by the federal government. And they're going along with the what the government is mandating and total disregard for who's ancestral homeland. Is this here on the peninsula. Is this someone from far far away, who wants to take all of our ancestral homelands to fit their 600 person enrollment for the government and have disregard for us who live here, our village site right here at Timiktak. That doesn't matter. What matters is that financial gain by the government. So many of our brothers and sisters have been colonized so long that they have taken on the characteristics of the colonizers. They're claiming other people's ancestral homelands for financial gain. We're not even recognized by our own brothers and sisters. There's so much strife that's happening here. We're being pitted against each other. And it's just, you know, many of us doing the work that we are with macheyate. I say, it's not my work to be fighting amongst ourselves. We just need to continue to do our work to stay focused on what is important to us, bringing back our language, bringing back our ways of living, bringing back our basketry, building our canoes. We just need to educate the people, do our good work and don't pay attention to the strife that is happening around us, that our good work is going to speak for itself. I don't need to go fight the tribes over here or over there, who have manifested this modern day destiny. And so there's a struggle amongst ourselves as well. 

L.: Yeah, you know, it's just weird you're trying to do good. And then all of a sudden you have to go do something else that you didn't plan on that Long Beach State there's a piece of land there. And it's where our God appeared as a specter. We know the exact spot, our God appeared right here. But it doesn't stop them from wanting, they've been stopped from putting a little mini mall you know a laundromat and a liquor store because that's what our God wants. So we have to go fight stuff like that, you know, stuff that's pretty obvious to us. What if we told you look, Jesus stood right here, boy that ground be so sacred there'd be a cathedral built around it. People would drive for miles to come there and get holy, but not us, you know, so there are all these side things that that happened to you while you're just trying to, like, I've spent all of my time in a museum basement if I could. That's where I'm happy as people leave me alone. You know I can photograph things that I'm going to remake, I made the first stone bowl by someone in my tribe in 200 years. So I visit all the stone bowls and I touch them like oh I have missed you, you know, I touched them like that like we know each other. Because that's how sexy I am, oh I have missed you. Anyway, and I'm just trying to say that you think that revitalizing researching would be enough work for natives, but it's not. There's everything else that we have to get past in order to get to that so by the end of the day we're a little exhausted and grumpy. You know, at this moment the way things are I wouldn't change a thing. At this age I've learned how to just keep on moving one step in front of the other just keep swimming I saw in a movie once it said, just keep swimming. And things have changed, but they only changed because we have. We've sacrificed what the outer world would call successful lives. Yeah. 

Cata: Yeah, I have sacrificed that my lifetime, I've lived off the grid for over 40 years out in the redwood forest. My father was actually born and raised in Hawaii, and I was actually brought up with a lot more Hawaiian culture than my own California native culture. And so, for 20 years I paddled with an outrigger canoe club in Santa Cruz. And I've spent lots and lots of time out in the ocean in a canoe. So, I've been in the forest and on the ocean. And so, I have a much different perspective than many of the urbanized brothers and sisters of ours who have been here in the city. And I don't have the wealth that most people do. I don't drive a new car. You know my, my old Toyota pickup is a 93. You know, cell phones is a new thing for me. And, but I feel that I've made a connection with the earth. That is so valuable to me in the work that I am now doing that it has brought me to the place that I am. And in hindsight, my whole life has been preparing me for the work that we are now doing. And I have such a deep connection to the earth, and to the animals, and to the living things around me that I wouldn't trade it for one minute for the luxuries of the modern world. It's fine with me that I use a candle to light my cabin with. I'm good with that. I'll trade that any day for the modern conveniences of flipping a switch and having indoor heating. 

L.: Oh, well, I'm an LA Indian. I love technology. Yeah. You know you use the tools that you're comfortable with. 

Cata: Thank you so much. 

L.: Thank you all.

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush (Rammaytush) Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, Nikki Roda, and Pele Shalev. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities. 

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