Just to get this straight, this is not a 23andMe story of “Oh, I’m Indian too!” Míyaxwe ne minikum, nétew Nina Madriles. ‘Áchama’ níchill, Rose Davis, for this opportunity to tell my family’s story. If you do not like the word “Indian,” then “Native” or “Indigenous” works too! Growing up, I would hear the stories about how we got here, while passing around photos of our grandmother in her regalia taken in Ramona; I was told we are “Mission Indian.” When I was old enough to comprehend the complexity of an Indian boarding school, my mother had me watch Where the Spirit Lives. Although the movie speaks of the removal of Indian children in Canada, I was taught that the same atrocities happened to our ancestors throughout California.
Sherman Indian Institute was a place where the government would take local children and “assimilate” them. We all know the saying, “Kill the Indian in him and save the man,” although not by the hands of Pratt, but by another, Sherman’s administrator/assimilator, Hardwood Hall; he ensured speaking one’s native language was prohibited, hair was cut to a military style, and the payment for an Indian child’s labor was cheap. I recently learned in the documentary Pá’čapa: A Mt. Rubidoux Story, directed by Rosy Aranda, Blossom Maciel, Daisy Ocampo, and Lorene Sisquoc, that Frank Miller, a local businessman, asked Hall to borrow Sherman students to impress President Theodore Roosevelt when he came to Riverside. Miller also influenced a trolley stop at Sherman, so our Indian children would be on display.
Three of our relatives were forced to attend; one was our grandmother, Amelia Macias, a member of the Torres/Tortes Family of Santa Rosa, Cahuilla. Amelia attended from 1908 to 1912 and never returned to her ancestral lands. She was a petite girl who stood 4’11”; she attempted to run away from Sherman several times based on her treatment at the school. Amelia suffered through the removal from her immediate family, culture, language, and tribal community due to the trauma of the boarding school. Amelia moved to Colton and then San Diego for work and opportunity, as the reservation had limited resources.
While in San Diego, Amelia opened a restaurant in Barrio Logan called El Sombrero near 25th and Imperial. She raised children with the help of her mother, Bonificia Torres. The elders in my family tell stories of Amelia and Bonificia speaking Cahuilla in the home when they did not want the kids to understand what they were saying and when one of the cousins had to drive the grandmothers up to Rincon to meet with the healer Calac. Although our family did not move back to the reservation, our hearts and prayers are with them as we continue on this red road from the barrio. We honor Amelia’s struggle. Artist Jose Olague displays her in a mural at Chicano Park.
‘Áchama’ Danza Mexi’cayotl for being my extended tribe.
More to come…
‘Áchama’
