“Mission Brand” crate label, Schmidt Lithograph Company, 1930s, Donated in memory of Ted Warmbold from his wife, Autry Museum of the American West, 91.170.575

Reimagining the Road, Dividing the Road, and Settling a New “California”

“It is time for the Mission Fantasy Fairy Tale to end. This story has done more damage to California Indians than any conquistador, any priest, any soldado de cuera, any smallpox, measles, or influenza virus . . .” — Deborah Miranda, Esselen/Chumash

California was promoted in ads and newspapers as a Mediterranean paradise. Generated by men of industry, railroads, and land developers, this idea was an effort to entice white Americans to settle the West, which still had a reputation as a rugged frontier land. Their campaign to recast this narrative took shape as a revival of early California settlement, framing it as closely tied to its romantic Spanish heritage. Imagining a pre-modern lifestyle and Old World mecca inspired groups of “new Californians” to restore the dilapidated ruins of the missions. These efforts then gave birth to booster organizations like the Native Daughters of the Golden West, who worked to revitalize the missions and instill notions of “El Camino Real” as a romantic tourist destination and a vision of a tamed landscape awaiting settlement. In California, as elsewhere, the notion of open landscapes ripe for settlement required the further erasure of Native people and their visual presence.

Various strategies have been used over the years to convince Americans that Native people are all “gone.” One strategy has been to depict Native people only in the past, and another is to dehumanize images of them, depicting them only as stereotypes. And yet another pervasive method has been to categorize them as immigrants and exploit them for labor. These strategies were perfected simultaneous to the flood of newcomers to California in the early 1900s, but most elements of Native and “Mexican” stereotyping can still be witnessed today. Native people on both sides of the U.S. border have continued to be used as laborers (usually today from south of the border) with few rights or access to the privileges of their white American neighbors. Almost completely forgotten is the reality that these are all Native lands and that the first peoples span the entirety of the Americas: a land that predates a border, and identities of Indian, Native American, Mexican, Latino, Chicano.

Disruptions

Vintage Shell Touring Service brochure cover for U.S. 101 California, featuring cartoon illustrations of activities like skiing, sailing, surfing, oil drilling, missions, and beach scenes along a red route on a yellow background. — El Camino Real Map Brochures, unknown date, EPH.917.94.45

El Camino Real was designated as California Historical Landmark #784 with the Bell Marker system in 1906. The bells along highway 101 were erected to signal to drivers that they were on a historic route from Lower New Spain. The original marker system placed bells one mile apart along the entire length of the El Camino Real (from San Diego to Sonoma). By 1913, over 450 markers were in place, but over the years the bells were removed due to damage, vandalism, and theft. In 1959, the Division of Highways was legislatively mandated to maintain the marker system. The current El Camino Real route includes portions of fourteen highways, and connects city streets and county roads in a continuous route from Sonoma southerly to the international border. An average spacing of one to two miles was sought when identifying the locations. The Caltrans Landscape Architecture Program continues to place and maintain the bells despite activism among Native groups to remove them.

A round silver medallion with an engraved image of a house and trees, inscribed with "Marriage Place of Ramona" and "San Diego, Cal," with decorative patterns around the border and a loop at the top for attachment. — Ramona’s Marriage Place souvenir silver holy wafer case (pyx), 1929, loan courtesy of Dydia DeLyser.

Not all Ramona souvenirs were superficial items of commerce. Some drew from the fact that the character Ramona (along with the other Native and Californio people portrayed in the novel) observed the Catholic faith, thus combining souvenirs with meaningful objects of daily Catholic worship. Here, a sterling silver pyx—an important vessel used by the Catholic faithful to transport blessed communion wafers to those unable to attend in-person services—features the well-known front of the building and tiny text identifying it as “Marriage Place of Ramona. San Diego, Cal.” (Ca. 1915, Collection of Dydia DeLyser). Souvenirs like these could link the minority American Catholic population with characters and scenes from the novel, as well as to the real lives of Californio Catholic families like the Estudillos, who had built the adobe home that came to be known as Ramona’s Marriage Place.

Ramona and the Landscapes of Southern California

Malibu crate label, Mupu Citrus Association, 1920s, Lithograph, 91.170.250

Illustrations found on fruit crate labels and in newspaper ads and other forms of media depict the idyllic landscapes of California and dashing Spanish Dons (De Origen Noble, “of noble origin” —those in power or with a type of political status). Far from a rough-hewn frontier land, these images helped define California as a peaceful destination for the elite American.

Resistance

A woman with dark hair parted in the middle and tied back sits against a brick wall, wearing a long-sleeved white dress and looking at the camera with her hands folded in her lap. — Portrait of Ramona Lubo, Cahuilla Indian Reservation, Southern California, 1899, lantern slide, LS.5594

“I think the romanticized version of Ramona’s life as depicted in Helen Hunt Jackson's novel was necessary. I don't think American readers would have had much empathy or interest in the events surrounding Ramona’s life if it had been presented factually. Jackson's fictionalized novel was far more popular than her earlier work, A Century of Dishonor 1881, that surveys American mistreatment of Native Americans in a more documentary style. By making the character of Ramona a mixed-race Scottish-Indian orphan girl, I believe Jackson did this in an attempt to create empathy for the character to non-Native readers.

Books such as Ramona or even Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were typical of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. White authors often took the history and life experiences of people of color and mixed in half-truths and exaggerations in order to appeal to white readers. This watering down of the experiences of marginalized communities ultimately dehumanizes and minimizes historical injustice, intergenerational trauma, and the experiences of communities of color.

Today, I think the average American has more appreciation for authentic stories and historical narratives that give insight into real American history and how that has shaped America today.” -Gerald Clarke, Jr. (Cahuilla)

A golden, ornate frame with four sections displays sepia-toned collages of historical figures, flowers, text, and old-fashioned illustrations. The words “mula,” “mulata,” and “guzmela” appear among images and floral accents. — Deana Dartt (Coastal Band, Chumash), *The Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her*, 2023, mixed media (paper, plastic, clay, tears)

“Drawing from casta imagery and the many documents used to cobble together my family genealogy, my great-grandmother Felipa Romero y Rodriguez Pollorena was born of a long line of Indias from upper and lower New Spain as well as other categories for laborers under these three regimes. She peeks out from the pile of papers that aim to define her. She is first and foremost, however, a woman born of this land. She is at once all of these identities and none of them. She is of Hutash/Red-Maid, Cupe/Poppy, the Momoy/Datura, and Ta’/Valley Oak. She is her land, her culture, and her community.” -Deana Dartt

artist bio

A fabric sculpture resembling a cactus with arms, made from green padded material, decorated with patches and embroidery, stands in a patterned terracotta pot against a plain gray background. — Margarita Cabrera, *Space in Between Series–Saguaro*, 2010, Border patrol uniform fabric, copper wire, thread, terra cotta pot, On loan from Jane Lombard Gallery.

Margarita Cabrera (born 1973) is a Mexican American artist and activist. As an artist, the objects and activities she produces address issues related to border relations, labor practices, and immigration. Her practice spans smaller textile-based soft sculptures to large community-centric public artworks. In this work, the artist, in workshops with communities impacted by border policies, created a set of cacti with the uniforms of the enforcers of those policies as an act of transforming the often violent role of those uniforms into soft, malleable symbols of the maternal landscapes of their homelands. Space in Between is a collaborative, social-practice project that generates dialogue using "fabric forms that incorporate stories—stitched into the material itself—of the often-harrowing experiences of Latin Americans crossing the U.S. border. The participants are not artists but rather individuals who share their tales of passage and its impact on their lives and the lives of their families."

artist bio