Land Back in California: A Brief Annotated Bibliography for the 2020s

November is First Person, SFPL's celebration of Native American heritage and culture. From our reading list at the Magazines and Newspapers Center, here are five articles we recommend on the status of the Land Back movement and indigenous land ownership attitudes in California. Along with some annotations to guide your engagement with these articles, we provide access notes so you can get the most out of your library card and follow these publications year round. Thanks to Gregory Hom, program manager of the Environmental Center at the Main Library, for help putting together this bibliography.   

Flores, Jessica. "Local Indigenous Groups Get Land Grants." San Francisco Chronicle, May 4, 2024, A9. 

➡️ SFPL Full Text Access Link

 

☑️ Our local newspaper reports on indigenous leaders Corrina Gould (Lisjan Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, based in Oakland) and Quirina Geary (Tamien Nation, based in San Jose) receiving monetary awards from the state of California to further their tribes' Land Back endeavors. The ultimate goal of the land grant program is to fight climate change by returning California land to the stewardship of native peoples. In the article, Gould and Geary share their plans for the use of the funds. Read more about the Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program from the California Natural Resources Agency website.

❇️ Read the San Francisco Chronicle with your SFPL card. The complete backfile from 1865 to the current day is available.

 

Hood, Charles. “Making Better Maps: The Case for Coyote Cartography.” News from Native California, vol. 37, no. 4, June 2024, pp. 10–15. 

 

➡️SFPL Full Text Access Link

 

☑️We can basically recommend everything News from Native California publishes, but this piece about The Friends of the Antelope Valley Indian Museum commissioning a two-feet-by-two-feet map of the Antelope Valley's tribes without borders is particularly fascinating. It gets to the heart of what Indigenous mapping and map making can mean in the 21st century in that it depicts the Paiute, Kawaiisu, Kitanemuk, Tataviam, Serrano, Vanyume, and Chemehuevi cohabitating a topographical depiction of the valley, true to the way the features of the land indicate tribal areas more than any hard boundary.  

 

❇️ Read News from Native California on Flipster, an eMagazine platform SFPL offers, in addition to several other library databases. You can also find it in print at the Main Library or at the Eureka Valley Library

 

Reed, Kaitlin. “We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, no. 42, 2020, pp. 27–49.

 

➡️SFPL Full Text Access Link  

 

☑️Writing from 2020, shortly after California Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged and apologized for the genocide of Native Peoples in the state but before the establishment of the Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program, Dr. Kaitlin Reed academically deals with the denial and historical facts of the genocide of California Indians that went hand-in-hand with establishing California as a state. She also supposes the way forward to healing, which connects back to land reparations because "theft of land was an important component of genocide and therefore the restitution of lands must be an important component of healing from genocide" (30). It would be interesting to hear Dr. Reed's attitude about the grant program. 

❇️Humboldt Journal of Social Relations is available full text in SFPL's JSTOR package, or you can create a free account on JSTOR to view the article

 

Simons, Eric. “Land Back: Why Is It Hard to Return Land?” Bay Nature, vol. 21, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 20–26. 

 

➡️ SFPL Full Text Link

☑️ This thorough piece not only catalogs the majority, if not all, examples of Indigenous tribes receiving repatriated land in the San Francisco Bay Area/Santa Cruz Mountains through late 2020, it explains the unique challenges tribes face when trying to acquire lands from sellers, even when a seller wants the land protected the way a tribe can protect their ancestral homeland. The narrative drive of the article starts in Big Sur with the story of the Adler Ranch acquisition, originally planned to be sold to the U.S. Park Service through the land trust Western Rivers Conservancy, but that instead was deeded to the Esselen people. Simons writes, "Settlers and displaced natives, a generation of resource extraction, a land trust, and then an end in government ownership: that's how land conservation stories in California usually go" (20), but the Adler Ranch is one example that bucks that trend, largely because of the acknowledgement that tribes do a better job preventing and controlling forest fires than the Park Service. 

❇️ Bay Nature is available through the SFPL database Academic Search Complete from 2002 to present, or you can see if your local branch carries it in print. 

Vulliamy, Ed. "Reclaiming Native Identity in California." New York Review of Books, 22 June 2023, p. 45-48. 

 

➡️ SFPL Full Text Access link

☑️ In an update for 2023 on the topics explored by Reed and Simon, Vulliamy frames this piece around the people and activities of the California Truth and Healing Council. With a brush both broad and precise, Vulliamy covers the history of genocide, slavery, and land dispossession of indigenous Californians through a concise literature review on monographs on the topic. The blockquote from Abby Abinanti at the end sums it up well: "We can't go back to the villages, because the world is too different, but we can go back to the values of the village... We can evoke the practices of the village, to create new practices, based on those value systems" (48).

❇️ Read The New York Review of Books on Flipster, an eMagazine platform SFPL offers, in addition to several other library databases. You can also catch it in print at several library locations.

Maya Angelou Selected Bibliography of Articles from Periodicals

In celebration of the Maya Angelou monument dedicated on Sept. 19, 2024 on the SFPL Main Library's Larkin Plaza, the Magazines and Newspapers Center presents a selected bibliography of articles by and about Maya Angelou, all available full-text from the library's electronic periodicals. These articles have been hand-curated by our team of Magazines and Newspapers Center Librarians.

Reading these articles will give you an in-depth view of milestones in Angelou's life directly from the primary sources reporting on them at the time. The publications include the San Francisco Chronicle/Sunday Examiner, Ebony magazine, JET, Vogue, Ladies Home Journal, and the Smithsonian magazine amongst others, and span the 1950s-2010s.

Image courtesy of the SF Arts Commission

Maya Angelou Selected Bibliography

Angelou, Maya. "Maya Angelou: 'On the Pulse of Morning'." New York Times, Jan 21, 1993, p. A14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Full Text Access Link.

Angelou, Maya. “Why I Moved Back To The South: Prominent, Southernbred Author Talks about the South, Southerners and the Long Road Home.” Ebony, vol. 37, no. 4, Feb. 1982, pp. 130–34. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

“‘Down In The Delta’: In Her Feature-Length Movie Debut as a Director, Maya Angelou Brings the Story of Human Truths to Life.” Ebony, vol. 54, no. 4, Feb. 1999, pp. 96–100. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Glover, Terry. “Dr. Maya Angelou.” Ebony, vol. 65, no. 2/3, Dec. 2009, pp. 66–67. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

Grossman, Lev. “Maya Angelou.” TIME Magazine, vol. 183, no. 22, June 2014, p. 16. EBSCOhost, Full Text Access Link.

Haynes, Karima A. “Maya Angelou: Prime-Time Poet: Charismatic Author Takes Center Stage as the Nation’s Poet Laureate.” Ebony, vol. 48, no. 6, Apr. 1993, pp. 68–72. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Millner, Denene. “Mother Maya.” Ebony, vol. 69, no. 10, 1 Aug. 2014, pp. 108–11. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Moore, Lucinda. “A Conversation with Maya Angelou at 75.” Smithsonian, vol. 34, no. 1, Apr. 2003, p. 96. EBSCOhost, Full Text Access Link. 

Newton, Dwight. “Will Blacks Still Like Her Next Week?” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 21 July 1968, p. 35. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

“Oprah Throws A Party: Biggest Birthday Bash Honors Poet Maya Angelou.” Ebony, vol. 48, no. 8, June 1993, pp. 118–22. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

Paterson, Judith. "Features: Interview: Maya Angelou—a Passionate Writer Living Fiercely with Brains, Guts, and Joy." Vogue, vol. 172, no. 9, Sep 01, 1982, pp. 416-416, 417, 420, 422. ProQuest Women's Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

"Phenomenal Woman." Ladies' Home Journal, vol. 110, no. 10,  Oct. 1993, pp. 128, 132, 134, 196. ProQuest Women's Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Robertson, Bob. “Last Song in S.F. – A Life in Africa.” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1962, p. 3. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

Stanley, John. “Blacks, Blues And 24 Robbers.” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 4 Aug. 1968, p. 217. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

Stuttaford, Genevieve. “Yes, the Caged Bird Can Go to the Moon.” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 12 Apr. 1970, p. 177. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link.

The Owl. “After Night Falls: Dorothy Shay, Park Avenue Hillbilly, Unrolls Racy Act at Venetian Room.” San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Feb. 1954, p. 8. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link.

Waldron, Clarence. “Maya Angelou: On Christmas, Dave Chappelle And What Inspires Her.” JET, vol. 110, no. 25, Dec. 2006, pp. 29–30. EBSCOhost Jet Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.