AKWAY NYEWA’A: Coming Back Home, Images from San Diego’s Native American Communities circa 1900, a photographic exhibition, will open with a reception and lecture at 6 p.m. today (Nov. 29) at the Center for Library and Instructional Computing Services (CLICS) at the University of California, San Diego. The Revelle campus exhibit will continue on view every day, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., throughout the academic year.

Julie Holder, a board member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, will lecture on
One Hundred Years of Silence; Early San Diego Native Communities, 1897-1910. The exhibition and lecture are part of UCSD’s 2007 California Native American Day Celebration. They are free and open to the public.

AKWAY NEYWA’A: Coming Back Home, curated by Tere Ceseña, a Ph.D. candidate in the UCSD Department of Ethnic Studies, originated in 1990 as part of Thurgood Marshall College’s annual cultural celebration under the direction of Cecil Lytle, then provost. The college commissioned a photographic exhibition at Grove Gallery entitled Close to Home. It featured black and white photographs from the collection of the San Diego Museum of Man that were taken in San Diego’s Native American communities around 1900.

Marshall College is loaning these photos which are being remounted for this year’s exhibition. The goal is to honor San Diego’s tribal communities.

Ms. Holder, who is Diegueño from the Kumeyaay Nation of Southern California, historically tied to Santa Ysabel and a direct descendant of Old Town San Diego, will give a multimedia presentation on these century old photographs and the stories they tell.

While a graduate student at San Francisco State University, Holder’s research project involved uncovering hundreds of photos taken by Constance Goddard DuBois, a Connecticut novelist who became interested in the Indians of Southern California on a visit here around the turn of the century. She spent many summers photographing them and recording their stories. Upon her death the photos were sent to the San Diego Museum of Man and the notes to the Smithsonian Institution.

Holder’s research revealed that the notes and photos belonged together and over a span of five years, she assembled books of the photos with captions from DuBois’s notes as well as a Power Point presentation displaying the photos and explanatory stories.

Holder’s work, One Hundred Years of Silence, became a reference text for the photos.

“As California Native people, the context and truth of how we define our cultures has long been disregarded,” says Holder. “I believe work like mine will offer a review for what my community considers inaccurate history. The ability to clarify and distinguish the Native voice will help broaden the historic perspective. I would like to help the truth of our ancestors past become the voice that resonates into our future.”

Holder also is a cultural specialist and community outreach liaison with the California State Parks. She received a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting and a master’s degree in Museum Studies, Instructional Technologies, and Public Administration from San Francisco State University.

For further information on the exhibition and Holder lecture, contact CLICS at (858) 822-5427.