Documentation

First Families: A Photographic History of California Indians

Type: Book
Date: 2007
Collaborators: Heyday Books, Authors Kim Hogeland and L. Frank.
Description: In early 2004, I had an internship at the renown independent non-profit publisher, Heyday Books in Berkeley, CA. I got the internship, I think, because I had just graduated university in British Columbia, Canada with a few courses in oral history and ethnography and expressed my interest in traditional ecological knowledge. What I didn't realize then, was the people I came into contact with, namely publisher Malcom Margolin and cultural activitist and artist,  L. Frank Manriquez (Ajachmem/Tongva) would continue to touch my career and personal relationship with California ever since. For three months, I listened to recordings from L's travels as she and fellow author Kim Hogeland looked through family photos and interviewed countless California Indians across the state. As a newcomer to California and to the United States at that time, I felt like the stories that I painstakingly transcribed became my very own, special introduction to a place and to cultures most people have never known. You can order a book directly from Heyday here.