Why We Need Ancestor-Led Research Justice | Amrah Salomon | TEDxOjai
The speaker advocates for "ancestral led research justice" as a means to decolonize personal history by treating official records, including DNA tests, as works of fiction that must be critically analyzed against oral traditions. Using the case of Aam and Yuma people, the speaker demonstrates how government census errors and records are often designed to obscure historical realities and systemic violence. The presentation concludes by embracing a complex identity, embodying the refusal to be defined by external powers, exemplified by the declaration, *"I am proud to be an Indian menace."* ## Speakers & Context - Speaker has a learning disability, necessitating the use of index cards for notes. - The speaker relates personal history through bilingualism (English/Spanish) and mixed racial heritage, leading to discomfort with being forced into a single racial category. - The speaker initially sought to organize for immigrant rights through a CHO student club. - Grandfather's behavior in teaching the speaker Spanish drills and cultural stories was used by the speaker to frame the importance of cultural transmission. ## Theses & Positions - Being Mexican in a way that suggested indigenity was a past tense or adopted another culture's identity was unacceptable for the speaker's community. - The discomfort of navigating multiple cultures leads to questioning the narratives presented by dominant historical sources. - Evidence provided by genealogy websites, government records, and DNA tests are inherently suspect because they are produced under biased conditions. - Research today, including institutional investigation, often serves to legitimize power accumulation for corporations and those in power, requiring a critical re-evaluation. - The methodology of "ancestral led research justice" is required to ground future imagining in ancestral lessons, enabling healing and liberation. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Ancestral led research justice:** A practice that modifies traditional research by grounding it in the lessons of ancestors to imagine futures of healing and liberation. - **Indigenity:** A complex identity not easily categorized, rejected by the speaker’s community due to external pressures. - **Census data:** Government records that attempt to categorize and quantify populations, which the speaker argues are flawed and biased. - **Oral history:** The community's transmitted knowledge about history that exists outside of formal documentation. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Critiquing historical evidence:** Examining the methods and biases inherent in the production of knowledge through historical sources. - **Decolonizing:** A process of healing and understanding that requires challenging inherited historical and intergenerational trauma. - **Research Justice:** Critiques and reveals how power operates through the subjects studied to further movements for social change. - **Historical Inquiry Process:** Combining multiple sources—including government records, DNA tests, archaeological finds, and elder testimonies—to reveal narratives suppressed by official channels. ## Timeline & Sequence - **1924:** Grandfather was 10 years old when the US Border Patrol was created. - **1912:** Arizona became a state, making river banks desirable to settlers. - **1915:** Date of a federal Indian census of Aam and Yuma. - **Time immemorial:** When Katsang, Kokapa, Pipash, Kamiya, Aam, and Y have been at the confluence of the Colorado and Hila rivers. - **Current Day:** The process of realizing historical injustices through research. ## Named Entities - **Aam and Yuma:** Indigenous peoples central to the speaker's research. - **Katsang, Kokapa, Pipash, Kamiya:** Groups associated with the confluence of the Colorado and Hila rivers. - **US Mexico border:** The geographical area central to the speaker’s familial narrative and cultural fluidity. - **CHO student club:** Organization where the speaker began community organizing. ## Numbers & Data - Grandfather's age during US Border Patrol creation: **10 years old** in **1924**. - Census date referenced: **1915** (federal Indian census of Aam and Yuma). - Government census's inability to account for all families/memberships. ## Examples & Cases - **Genealogy websites:** Tools that provide constantly changing racial mathematics by dividing people into percentages of a pedigree. - **The Aam and Yuma relocation attempt:** The government decided to move the Aam community 100 miles north to the Colorado River Tribes Reservation because the river banks became desirable to settlers after Arizona became a state in 1912. - **Census Errors:** The 1915 census failed to include all families or all members of each family. - **Government Records:** Documents that portrayed the people as an "Indian menace" and detailed accusations of using the US/Mexico border to evade agents. - **Witness Account:** A letter from the census taker describing an armed posse arresting children and shooting resistant parents, leading the witness to report to the government that "I cannot take an accurate census under these conditions." ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Genealogy websites:** Digital platforms presenting flawed racial math. - **DNA tests:** Biometric tools that provide evolving, changing racial data. - **Federal Indian census:** Government documentation used for population control and categorization. - **Historical archives:** Physical repositories of government documents. ## References Cited - **Deborah Miranda:** Poet who wrote the poem "The lies my ancestors told for me." - **Queer Chumash and SLN poet:** The poet who titled the work concerning lies. ## Trade-offs & Alternatives - **Traditional Research:** Practice that has been used to justify domination and violence by producing knowledge that legitimizes power accumulation. - **Ancestral Led Research Justice:** An alternative method designed to reveal power dynamics for the purpose of social change, by grounding the work in oral tradition. - **Categorization vs. Fluidity:** Choosing to accept the "Mexican-American" label versus acknowledging the natural fluidity of existence across the US-Mexico border. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - The speaker notes that historical records are always produced under biased conditions. - The speaker challenges the assumption that *all* official documents are lies, but stresses that they must be questioned critically. ## Methodology - **Intersectional Research:** Combining documentary evidence (census reports, government letters) with lived experience (oral history, personal family memory). - **Triangulation:** Verifying information by cross-referencing government documentation with firsthand narratives from elders and community members. ## Conclusions & Recommendations - The necessity of maintaining cultural and historical stories outside of dominant record-keeping systems. - The continued commitment to sharing stories that counter dominant narratives, even if it means facing institutional dismissal. - To learn to "be one" (as in, carrying the story forward) and embodying the defiance represented by being an "Indian menace." ## Implications & Consequences - Failure to recognize the colonized experience results in the suppression of narratives detailing systemic violence, such as boarding school attendance or failed relocations. - The speaker's story provides a model for how marginalized communities can reclaim historical narrative control from state mechanisms. ## Verbatim Moments - *"I have a learning disability. Some memorization is not something this brain can do. Hence the index cards."* - *"I thought he was doing it to make me a better Mexican."* - *"Don't listen to those chos. You are not an Aztec."* - *"I have a lot of discomfort with being forced to put myself in one box and choose."* - *"I wanted to know why my AAM ancestors on the border were not put on the reservation."* - *"both sets of information are fiction."* - *"Deborah Miranda calls this problem the lies my ancestors told for me."* - *"I call ancestralled research justice."* - *"Research justice critiques and reveals how power works through the things we study in order to further movements for social change."* - *"And that story was that it was just too confusing."* - *"The government records refer to us officially as an Indian menace."* - *"I cannot take an accurate census under these conditions."* - *"I am proud to be an Indian menace."*