Courtesy of Sangam Arts.
Join us for Ohlone Voices, an episode of Making the Mosaic featuring a discussion between Ohlone community members Ann Marie Sayers, Gregg Castro, and Terry Alderete, with photographer Ruth Morgan and writer-historian Janet Clinger—offering a glimpse of Ohlone history and legacy through cultural documentation. The discussion is moderated by Charlene Eigen-Vasquez and Priya Das.
Morgan and Clinger documented the efforts of three generations of Native Americans in California who are committed to keeping their culture alive and thriving in the book Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak: Restoring a California Legacy. For fourteen thousand years the ancestors of contemporary Ohlone people served as caretakers of this beautiful region—from San Francisco to Point Sur. However, there are a few culture-bearers today who carefully maintain and propagate these traditions and practices.
The conversations will be between Ohlone elders, current culture-bearers, and moderators discussing their journeys, participation in the Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak project, passing on their traditions to Ohlone youth, and its relevancy with current life and times.
You will receive a link to watch the program in your Eventbrite confirmation email under "Additional Information."
The program is presented by Mosaic Silicon Valley, an initiative Sangam Arts, in partnership with the Confederation of Ohlone People, Montalvo Arts Center, and San José Museum of Art.
About the Speakers
Ruth Morgan, founder and Executive Director of Community Works, created an organization that combines both her interest in working directly with people impacted by incarceration and her commitment to social justice. She has led the organization for two decades to create model programs and public art of the highest quality. Sometimes as an artist but most often she has commissioned artist work that illuminate issues that impact the work of the organization. She has used her own art for social change to give voice to marginalized communities. Early in her career she created a seminal body of photos, San Quentin: Maximum Security. These life size photos traveled the country and eventually were useful in winning a case against the prison conditions in San Quentin, a case that went to the Supreme Court. She has exhibited work in museums and galleries across the country and is in multiple private and museum collections that include the SFMOMA, Huston and San Diego Museums and the University Art Museum Berkeley. She has won numerous awards including the Creative Work Fund, San Francisco Art Commission, California Arts Council and California Council of Humanities Awards. Her recent projects with writer Janet Clinger, Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak and Piqua Shawnee, Cultural Survival in the Homeland look at the struggle for Native Americans to keep their cultures alive as they navigate living in two worlds. These exhibits have traveled in the Bay Area and the Ohio Valley.
Janet Clinger holds an MA degree in history. In 2005 Ms. Clinger and photographer, Ruth Morgan, created an oral history with accompanying photographs, Our Elders: Six Bay Area Life Stories. Ms. Clinger’s work was featured with Ms. Morgan’s photographs in the exhibit, Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak at the San Francisco Main Public Library in 2014. They created an e-book containing the photographs and complete interviews from this project. She and Ms. Morgan, in collaboration with the Piqua Shawnee Tribe, created an exhibit and book highlighting their cultural revitalization efforts. The exhibit opened at Berea College in Berea, KY in 2018. Her book of poetry, The Woman Who Lives in Trees, was published in 2007. Currently, she and Ms. Morgan are working on All My Relations, a book and exhibit featuring the relationship between humans and other animals.
Charlene Eigen-Vasquez is an Ohlone descendant whose family has lived within this 50-mile radius of San Jose for hundreds of years. Charlene brings with her over 30 years of management experience and mediation. Some of the Native organizations that have benefited from her skills are: the TANF program managed by the Washoe Tribe of California and Nevada; the Maidu Family Story Project; Indian Dispute Resolution Service of Sacramento; Little Earth of Minneapolis; the Ohlone Wellness Project; and Con Carino, an international children’s support services organization. Finally, during her stay in Central Minnesota, she expanded her understanding of culture and tradition, while teaching as an adjunct Professor at St. Cloud State University and serving as a research and evaluation consultant on issues of program effectiveness and outcomes for Native programs serving Lakota and Ojibwa families. All of this experience makes Charlene an asset on the council of the Confederation of Ohlone People. She has an extensive academic background including a B.S.in Business Administration from the College of Notre Dame (Belmont, CA); and a M.A. in Mexican-American Studies, from San Jose State University, with a capstone project looking at teaching practices that work for Native American