**FULL TRANSCRIPT** Experiencing Sherman Institute and Sherman Indian High School

FULL TRANSCRIPT Experiencing Sherman Institute and Sherman Indian High School on KPFK 90.7 Los Angeles

Experiencing Sherman Indian School

Tracker Ginamatie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

I am Tracker Gina Marie Rangel Quinones, Field Reporter, Journalist.

Robert Lundahl

I'm Robert Lundahl, Filmmaker and Storyteller. I stand up for human rights and the environment.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

Good to be here. Welcome to Creative Frontline.

Robert Lundahl

Welcome to Creative FRONTLINE.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

Stand up, stand strong. Stand in. We are creative frontline.

Robert Lundahl

Today we explore indigenous traditional knowledge where Matthew Leivas, Sr. was raised on a divided and fractured land, nearly bombed to oblivion, displaced from homelands along the Colorado River. Matt's mother, like so many other children, was sent off to Riverside to Sherman Institute, an Indian boarding school, for a remedial education. This episode features commentary from tracker Gina Marie Rangel Quinones.

Matthew Leivas, Sr., (Chemehuevi Hereditary Chief)

My mother was a full blooded community and there was already division amongst the family and my family. My father, my mother, my immediate family. We were somewhat ostracized from the other family. They didn't want to be recognized as Indians as my mother was, but my father was. And he recognized that he always, you know, did it any good to help the Indians. The Indian people in Parker Valley befriended a lot of people, but the other side of the family didn't. And that was a separation of our family.

But, you know, the Hanks name was the the indigenous name of my mother's father, Henry Hanks. And he was the chief of the Chemehuevi last recognized chief. And I proudly carry that title today As a Hereditary Chief?of the Chemehuevi. His father was Pan Coyer, who signed the last peace treaty amongst the five tribes here in the southwest, namely Mojave, Maricopa, and with the others. Pima, I believe. But at any rate, there was a five partnership treaty that that was signed and my family was involved in that signing. So, you know, what I bring to the table is culture of what I learned and my bringing up and trying to educate people. But I had to reach back and try to find out about my father's family being Opata from across the border.

I came from a little village called Trincheras?in Sonora, and they were fighters. They were indigenous fighters. And as a matter of fact Joaquin Marietta came from that area also. And he was Opata and he was Opata. But at any rate, you know he he my great grandfather traveled north and to the Yuma area, and he met a Yaqui woman. And that's how my my grandfather came about. Perfecto Leivas. And eventually my, my father, Perfecto Gonzalez Junior, came. So, you know, but that that name brought a division amongst our people. But where I grew up in Hanksville, I was strictly Chemehuevi. Okay. And none of the Leivas’ came to our village. Think about that.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

Yeah. The indigenous trade routes long before the European contact, and especially the Colorado River and the the integral lives and the tribal people there, including the Mojave, the Hopi and Diné and Apache, were affected by the 1945 atomic bomb, and that included the Rio Grande River, the Colorado River, and all the streams and the tributaries. And these tribes used the river not only for sustenance, but also for transportation and trade. Route goods such as pottery, food, tools, as we know, traded along the river, and songs.

Matthew Leivas, Sr., (Chemehuevi Hereditary Chief)

All the other New World and Mojave, Cahuilla. With Cocopah, any other tribe were welcome and came to the village and there was a ceremonial place. And that's what I'm trying to protect right now, because it's in bad shape and needs to be. It needs to be protected and cleaned up. And it's a sacred place of the waves. And where I grew up and the Hanks family village was. And that's why it's called Hanks Village. But my grandfather had a farm that he created there. It was successful, and it was named the Double H Ranch for Henry Hanks Henry Hanks Ranch. But it's no more. Just the homestead. Homestead.

Dilapidated, but reaching out further, you know, going to school over Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, where my mother graduated in 1939. You know, growing up, that's all I heard, all the good times, the wonderful things that she was doing at Sherman Institute with all of her friends. And she had a good time. She she did well. And she, she did so well that as he got a pretty good position, a job in Riverside after she graduated, but she did what she was taught. Being a housemaid. Which she did not want. So she left that prominent family in Riverside and helped raise a few of their children that she later later met. In 1971, when she came out to visit me for my graduation and got to meet 50 to 60 year old man that she helped raise, who was a dentist in Riverside and took us to their old homestead and to his new home in the foothills of Riverside, and took my mother in to the shoulder to shoulder the tour of the house.

"Come here girl. I want to show you something." So she went back and he opened the door, and she looked in, and the door and her eyes are big like saucers. The door. He saw his mother's bedroom complete the way she used to take care of it back in 1939 1940. All restored but his mother's bedroom. And she recognized everything there. Tears and memories to her. As well as to the son, Herbert Neblett. I believe his name was. But but remembering how she used to take care of them and how she left Riverside. But but she usually left Riverside because she didn't want to be a housemaid. She wanted to further herself more.

And that's why she went on her way to Denver to get educated bit more, and eventually came back to the reservation and whatnot. But she was always raising our family and whatnot. But when she had time to be involved with the tribal politics of the Chemehuevi Tribe, becoming a recognized federally recognized tribe, she fought and dedicated her life to that, as well as with her sisters and brothers. And to establish that you way tribal government and try to revive Civwtz, the old village homestead of our people here in Chemehuevi Valley, and not be under the auspices of the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

We wanted to be separate and stand independent. So they gave up everything, and they did. And that's how the basically the tribe was born in 1970, June, it finally happened. And then it was a matter of coming back and rebuilding. And it wasn't until 1980 80. That my mother was able to come back home after the first HUD homes were built.

But, you know the 29 Palms Band?was moving forward on their own level over there. But there was no connection. It wasn't until the 80s that they reached out to invite me out to come and talk about our connections, our family connections, and to learn more about the Chemehuevi culture, because what had happened to them is they they had become so colonized and Westernized that their culture had left them, but their culture had left them. So we came to their aid and, you know it. It started a good relationship, good bonding and bringing our families back together. But one thing that was really beautiful about it is reconnected with the Cahuilla also. And and they helped inspire one another about our singing not only Bird Songs?but Salt Songs. But that meeting and that union is what inspired the Twentynine Palms Band?to form the Native American Land Conservancy, an Indian nonprofit which I'm very proud to be one of the founding fathers of.

And we've been in existence since 1998 and made some monumental steps here to protect sacred sites in the Mojave Desert from being vandalized and desecrated. And and we're protecting the land as much as we can. As of the past couple of years, we've been on a mission to protect the springs in the Mojave Desert. And we've been acquiring springs, purchasing properties, raising money to protect the springs because the water is the most precious element to mankind. Mother Earth can't survive without it So we're doing our bit and we're fighting the fight of our life for all of Southern California.

And that's to protect Cadiz' water. And through our efforts with the Native American Land Conservancy, we we filed a lawsuit against the federal government, the Bureau of Land Management, along with the National Parks Conservation Association. We we filed a lawsuit against the BLM, and it's the decision is still pending right now. But, you know, we we feel we have a good chance to win this case, and we're still putting more and more evidence together to prove that the water is precious and needs to be protected. And I made these open statements that, you know, that water is so precious. It's it's ancient water. And that's the last resort water. You know, everybody is wasting Colorado River water as it is.

And and they're not really taking the water, the drought, seriously thinking that, you know, they're going to turn their tap on. There's going to be water 24 over seven, and there's going to be a time when it's not going to be there. There's going to be a catastrophe within an hour. That can all stop tomorrow.

Today, anything can happen along the river. Anything can happen between the Colorado River and Los Angeles. With that MWD or Central Arizona Project. You know, anything can happen any time. And everybody's just waiting for that to happen because it's inevitable. But we don't know when. And, you know, we feel that the need to protect Mother Earth, we feel there's a need to share our, our, our indigenous knowledge with the public to help educate the public about the importance Of saving the world, saving the land, saving the resources.

You know, the earth is a living thing. You know it has water running like it through it. Like veins in our arms, I always say. I always refer to the rivers as veins and in the arms of the world. And when they get locked up, you know, it creates problems and havoc upstream and other things that happen. You know, all the little things that are supposed to be swimming upstream to spawn and propagate don't have that ability to do so anymore. Water isn't being cleansed, not being purified.

Mother Earth isn't being fed. You know, the acquifers are being depleted from water just in order to for somebody to put a foreign tree in their yard to plant more grass that shouldn't be there, you know? But that's mankind. Use and abuse, you know, and don't think about consequences, you know. Take what you can, run. Make a profit. Run. And everybody wants to run to the Moon?or run to Mars. They got a surprise in store for them. You know, everybody has a big surprise in store for them. But Mother Earth is going to continue living on. Mankind might be wiped out, but Mother Earth's going to live on. It's going to revive. It's resilient. It's going to tweak itself and heal itself. Because that's what it is.

It's a living organism turning and molding, changing, morphing from one thing to another. You know, the rivers aren't going to continue to flow. Things are going to try to stop them, but they're going to continue to flow either on the surface or underground. And that's what's happening over here at Amargosa Basin, all the way from Ash Meadows with that precious water flowing, you know with all these latest things happening on, on, around the world and especially here in California, in the United States, with the Ring of Fire being active, you know, it can be any time, any second that, you know it can happen.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

So the indigenous prophecies of the Pacific Islanders that's one of the prophecies that they speak of about the Ring of Fire as well. And then as far north and south, they have the prophecy of the Ring of Fire. And so all the way up to Alaska to there's indigenous groups along the western coast of the Americas, including Chile. And they have also recognized the destructive power of the Ring of Fire. And my whole lifetime I've heard about the Ring of Fire and how that translates It translates into different ways of thinking. It could be cultural and religious interpretations.

And of course, they have their scientific predictions. For the cultural and religious interpretations for that. I have heard the various religious and spiritual interpretations.

The ring of fire is sometimes seen as a symbol of purification or a catalyst for a new era. Like you speak of New Age beliefs, or the seismic activity is interpreted as a global shift, which of course has been happening that we have been able to see, feel and experience. And so it's like the consciousness of the earth and the natural process of renewal.

Like you're speaking of like Earth, Grandmother, you know, her fluids, the oil and the water. She's alive and a live organism. And we all as indigenous people. And now all people know this to be true because of the symbiotic nature and relationship that we have.

Matthew Leivas, Sr., (Chemehuevi Hereditary Chief)

Any second now. And just think if it did. And I think about that all the time because of prophecies told to me from a spiritual woman in from Sherman Institute. And she told me her prophecy about the ring of fire and, and San Andreas fault is that there's going to be a mass exodus of all the children, survivors, and they're going to have to take them somewhere. They're all going to be sent east. And where are they going to go? To East for survival. All along the Colorado River.

All along the river is the safest place that they're going to be. But, you know, there's going to be this mass exodus of all these people coming our way, and all these children are going to be coming. And because the federal government is going to take care of the children and the sick and the elderly first, but all these children who are going to be orphaned are going to be coming our way. All these youngsters, hundreds and thousands of them, with no place to go, no families to turn to. This is what I'm looking at. You know, the consequences of a catastrophe like this. A horrific catastrophe that can bring havoc all over Southern California, around the world. But to us here along the river, we got to look at ourselves and try to take care of ourselves and try to restore the land as much as we can provide to our healthy food, to our people and the public.

But we have to start thinking about ahead, about the future in the seventh generations?of our people. We have to think about the consequences that are happening continuously. What's going to happen when all these things take place? They have no place to go. They have no water to drink. They have no food. They have no shelter. It all can be coming here along the river. Reservations are federal government lands. Federal government lands that they can provide to them as a refuge. And they will, and they will.

But, you know, getting back to Ash Meadows, Mojave Desert?and the general public and letting them know, you know, we've been trying to do this for a long time is educate the non-Indians. You know, I have bookcases here of Indian authors telling stories. And I can go to a cultural center. You can see a few thousand books by author Indian authors trying to help and educate the public about these things and consequences and prophecies because they're all happening. It's all real. Medicine is real. You know, I think about the Ghostbusters movie being a big joke. And look at today about all these Ghostbusters around the world who are finding out about all these spirits who are creating havoc in the households and to people. And why? Because they're angry.

They're angry. They're upset. Just think about all those ancestors of ours, tens and thousands of remains in museums and in the universities, all the universities in California. And I really appreciate the the University of Nevada and their efforts to repatriate remains with the tribes We took part in an event a couple of months ago where university did a consultation with the tribes in Nevada, including repatriating remains that have been sitting on the shelves for the past 100 years. Now we got to get the state of California and the rest of the universities throughout the country to do the same, because when they went out and started desecrating these, these burial sites and taking remains and funerary objects, you know, they desecrated and they brought out spirits that should not have been brought out. They were put away for a reason and given the respect, prayed over, cried over for days and months, and people died over broken hearts. You know, all these things take place and and the white man doesn't think about it. They think about what type of scientific knowledge they want to gain from this.

You know why they died? They passed. They had ceremony. Let them rest. That's what they wanted. Non-indians don't understand is the culture and spirituality of our people, and our connectedness to our loved ones and to the land, and how we lay these people to rest. They go back to the elements, you know, and then spirit goes on.

That's what I'm saying. Just think what things would have been like if the White Man?had just taken time to fully understand and comprehend us as human beings. You know, I look at all these programs about aliens, and what I see in the non-Indian is alien, because what was being brought to us is completely foreign. From language to appearance to lifestyles. It's foreign. It's alien to us. We come from a different group of people, different understanding, and our lives are on Mother Earth and dealing with Mother Earth and respecting Mother Earth and Father Sky, and giving prayers, thanking even the plants for for their giving to us, for our healing, even the animals that give themselves to us, even the water that that we need to nourish ourselves. You know, it's a matter of prayer, respect, love and that's what you need.

Also, non-Natives need to understand is that commonality of respect, you know, getting along. We don't want to hurt anybody. We want nobody to hurt us. We want to coexist. We want to live. We only got a short time here Only got a short time. You look at it, you know. But, you know, we can do a lot for everybody in that short time, and that's what we're doing. So you're doing. It's our passion. What can I say? We love our people.

Robert Lundahl

You know. Do you think Ash Meadows is a good symbol? You know, with the the species and the richness of nature and, you know, you can see it.

Matthew Leivas, Sr., (Chemehuevi Hereditary Chief)

You mentioned earlier about the the pupfish and the minnows and whatnot, endangered species up there at Ash Meadows. And I shared with you an experience I had here at the reservation in 1978 79 on the southern section of our reservation where the deep canyons about a couple of days after a monsoon rain and there was little water basins here and there, catch basins. And I went to wash and I drove my jeep up, and I walked up into this box canyon area, and I'd seen something in the water, a little pool of water in the alluvium. And it was a fish a mile away from the Colorado River, from from Lake Havasu, upstream in the sandy wash at a box canyon called Ironwood Wash. And there was this little shiny fish, a minnow about two inches long, maybe an inch and a half silver and blue. I picked it up in my hand and a little puddle pool of water, and I was examining this fish in the sunlight, watching it flip, and then on its back from the top of his head, it had the dorsal fin, it had a fin, a little fin all the way around the top of the back, all the way to the tail, all the way around the stomach And I'm just amazed by this. And I put it back down in the water.

I went, took my jeep, went down the wash and tried to find a container can or something. And I did, and I came back. By the time I came back, it was gone. I don't know when. Into the soil a bird got it, but it was there, I seen it.

So this tells me that there's subterranean tunnels. Catch basins in Chemehuevi Valley. There's aquifers that are connected. There's ancient species, endangered species, unknown species of fish in Chemehuevi Valley. But what other types of other fish are out here that we don't know about and in other areas because they're there,

But amazing thing like that to see like a tropical fish here in the desert and in the alluvium flipping around. You just can't. You just. You can't even imagine that. But I seen it and I witnessed it, and I picked it up, and it's just like that marble. I was telling you, I found that crystal marble.

Why did that happen? And why did it go the way it did? But it came to me because I wanted something. I wanted something to be proven to me that I can do this. But, you know, I really don't need that marble to help me communicate with Creator. With anybody else. Your eyes, my eyes, my voice. You have to talk things out. Show you. But I didn't need that marble to help me communicate with Creator with anybody. But yet it was there for me to show me. And that came from on the desert pavement. There was nothing around a crystal clear marble. And I wish I had it to show you. And I don't anymore. It's gone. But my son Daniel took photos of it before. When I first found it. And. But I did have it. The Creator told me.

Robert Lundahl

We were talking about this. Do you think that was a trade item from the South? From. Okay. No.

Matthew Leivas, Sr., (Chemehuevi Hereditary Chief)

No, this this came from above. It was in the desert. Under the desert, paved asphalt. And it was just there. Crystal clear marble. The green color. Like a cat's eye. I mentioned it, asked Daniel to send you the photos that he took of it because I didn't take any photos, but it was just a beautiful thing to to find or to be given to me, but no longer. It was taken back by the spirits to. So in that sense, and I was told by Madison people that it can be used for good things. He's been bad things. And how are you going to use it? But you really don't need to. And it disappeared. Within a week it was gone. Poof.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

Stand up, stand in. We are Creative FRONTLINE.

Robert Lundahl

I'm Robert Lundahl. I stand up for human rights and the environment.

Tracker Ginamarie Rangel Quinones (Apache)

I am Tracker Gina Marie Rangel Quinones. Let us know whose voice you want to hear. on the FRONTLINE. We connect all people where they stand on the FRONTLINE.