Oh, Humbug!

Resistance, Conformity, Identity and Migration in North Bloomfield from 1850-1930.

Presenter: Samantha Steindel-Cymer

Presenter Status: Graduate student

Academic Year: 20-21

Semester: Spring

Faculty Mentor: Margaret Purser

Department: Graduate and Executive Programs

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1_cMl2txjq0Z9O1TmD7FYKTh6jfnbL7vU

Abstract:
This thesis examines how the historical indigenous and seasonal labor communities of the Sierra Nevada mining region lived, created, and left their mark on the landscape after the Gold Rush as viewed through the lenses of resistance, conformity, identity and migration, and to explore how these tensions were interwoven into their lives. Using archaeological, archival, ethnographic and oral historical sources together, this thesis supplements the gaps inherent to the nature of archaeological or written records, which typically render indigenous and transient populations invisible. This research sheds light on communities that would be otherwise omitted from the narrative of the historic past and present by illuminating both the methodologies with which to draw them out, and by preferencing their active voices in telling their own stories. Archaeological methods help to provide a footprint of the historic past, but often fail to identify or distinguish migratory populations from permanent settlement and sites of intangible significance. Bolstering archaeological findings with archival sources helps contextualize the data and inform the "missing" pieces that are not always absent, but must merely be read intertextually. Oral historical and ethnographic sources in the form of ethnographies and interviews serve to add a layer of intangible knowledge, memory, and identity. Together, these sources weave a more cohesive foundation of evidence.  While the Gold Rush may be long over, the trauma, loss, and displacement of that time and of continuing injustices still resonate among indigenous nations. Both California Native peoples and the seasonal laborers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are often criminalized, marginalized, and spoken of as the cultural "other." Both populations are often difficult to detect in historical data, as their strategies for survival and adaptation often lead to mischaracterizations in later interpretation. This thesis focuses on bringing recognition to these communities by identifying the significance and impact of their presence on the landscape and incorporates the involvement of ethnographic and oral historical interviews to help lift up the voices of descendant communities of the Sierra Nevada mining region.