I was born in my ancestral Jalquin Ohlone homeland. Strongly aware and proud of my Ohlone identity, I work to educate others of a continuous Ohlone presence and to dispel negative stereotypes of my people. While living in two worlds, both contemporary and traditional, I strive to bring Ohlone culture into the modern era in multiple ways, including working diligently to reawaken my native Chochenyo Ohlone language, and I am seeing meaningful success. In the last year, I have been a language teacher in my community as part of a multigenerational effort to bring our language back home. I work at Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where I have developed a fair, honest portrayal of the effects of the Missions on Ohlone people and the cultural resistance that came with that, straying away from misconceptions and lies to focus on a truthful story of Indian experiences during the Mission period. I serve on the Board of Directors for the Advocates of Indigenous California Language Survival, a statewide organization that aims to foster the restoration and revitalization of California Indian languages, and I was recently brought on to Yocha Dehe’s Living Language Circle Board, which connects teachers of California Indian languages together. To outreach to the broader community, I work at Heyday Books, a publishing company that has produced several books by and about Ohlones and other California Indians, such asThe Ohlone Way, and the magazine News from Native California. In my spare time, I share my personal experiences through social media on my blog Being Ohlone in the 21st Century.
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