California Native American Day is a reality check about the past and future progress | Opinion

Today is California Native American Day, a moment to recall California’s dark and painful history of genocide against Indian peoples. But it is also a moment of hope, as the state is taking notable steps towards equality.

This year is the fifth anniversary of Governor Gavin Newsom’s formal apology to Native Americans for a war of calculated genocide beginning with the call by our first governor, Peter Burnett, for a war of extermination “until the Indian race becomes extinct.” My own tribe, the Cahuilla-Serrano, only avoided annihilation at the hands of the militias by escaping into the San Bernardino Mountains during the 19th Century.

What state and federal government militias didn’t accomplish — with their goals of westward expansion and visions of Manifest Destiny — miners and settlers achieved by bringing disease and starvation. They took their toll. Historian and author Benjamin Madley observes that between 1845 and 1870, California’s Native American population “plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. By 1880 census takers recorded just 16,277 California Indians.”

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But we survived. Over time, clashes to prevail between the “First People” and those who sought to replace us shifted to different battlefields employing different means of extermination: denial of civil rights, the erasure of culture and forced separations of children from their families.

Still, we prevailed, which brings us to another 100-year anniversary. It was not until June 2, 1924 that the U.S. granted Native Americans citizenship, making the nation’s First People become the last people to gain citizenship and suffrage. In California and in most states, the right to vote followed the granting of citizenship. A few states continued to deny suffrage, with Utah contesting Native American suffrage until as late as 1962.

Coincidentally, another turning point also occurred on June 2, 1924, this time in the fight for equal education. Alice Piper, a 15-year-old Paiute student, successfully sued the Big Pine School District in Inyo County, California so she could attend a new public school with white students. Her court victory set a precedent that was cited 30 years later in the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional across America.

Both centennial milestones falling on the same day affirm rights that so many others in this state and country took for granted. Yet they had been denied to us —and those jarring experiences with bigotry and discrimination were not far removed from our parents and grandparents.

This year saw some other milestones. In July, Native Americans were rocked by traumatic and somber recollections of another attempt to eradicate our identity. The U.S. Department of the Interior released the second and final volume of its report exposing practices at the federal government’s Indian boarding schools. Carefully documented reports of the 417 schools across 37 states or territories confirm that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died at what can only be described as horror factories. Researchers believe the number is likely low because of missing information from the schools.

My grandmother was among those sent to one of the 11 boarding schools operating in California. She survived the harsh conditions and maltreatment. For me, she was a living example of strength and resiliency.

On August 5, the California Native American Legislative Caucus initiated formal recognition of tribal community heroes. The inaugural class of five honorees performed exemplary work in seeking equity and justice on issues such as missing and murdered Indigenous people, preserving Native American culture, or other forms of leadership and sacrifice. Alice Piper was named as a posthumous honoree. They are among the unsung heroes for our people and for all Californians.

So this year Native Americans commemorate the 100th anniversary of our right to vote and the right to attend public schools. We also recognize community heroes who fought for justice. We cannot let the inequities of the past haunt us or stop us. For example, California is fifth in the nation in the number of cases of missing and murdered Native Americans awaiting investigation or resolution.

That past reminds and challenges us to keep moving forward. The progress must continue long after this day of recognition is over.

Assemblymember James C. Ramos is the first and only California Native American elected to the state Legislature.