July 11, 2022
Bad Indians: Tribal Memoir Challenges Romanticization of California Missions
By Indigenous Nations Poets
Deborah Miranda is an award-winning poet, writer and professor and an enrolled member of the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation of the Greater Monterey Bay Area, with Santa Ynez Chumash ancestry. Bad Indians, which has just been released as an expanded 10th anniversary edition, explores the history of Central Coast tribes through the records of Miranda’s own ancestors, including wax-cylinder recordings dating back more than a century. She also draws on the treasures she discovered in listening to a garbage bag full of cassette tapes from her grandfather, Tom Miranda, who hid his regalia and love of traditional dance in an era when many California Indians tried to assimilate or mask their Indigenous heritage.
Miranda spoke with host Sasha Khokha about the book and its impact for an episode of The California Report Magazine.
Read the full article and listen to the episode here.
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In-Na-Po
Founded in 2020, In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets—is a national Indigenous poetry community committed to mentoring emerging writers, nurturing the growth of Indigenous poetic practices, and raising the visibility of all Native Writers past, present, and future. In-Na-Po recognizes the role of poetry in sustaining tribal sovereign nations and Native languages.