Bad Indians

Kimberly Denise Hunt Elks

3/17/2016

AIS/HIST 4230

Reflective Essay # 3

Bad Indians

Twisting and turning caught in a whirlwind, the reader tosses in different directions as Deborah Miranda retells her family’s historical recollections. Miranda chose her weapon to fight back against erasure by writing a book to be able “to create a space where voices can speak long and often violently imposed silence,”(xx) .Even though her and her sister Louise looked through different lenses to recall the memoir of their family the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen of the California Indians. Both are ripping off tape that has entrapped their family and tribe’s history of oppression, violence, abandonment, and victimization for centuries and still exist today. In hopes of bridging gaps, re-telling the truths, unveiling blurred lines that’s holding the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Indians captive.

Miranda’s arrangement of poetry, oral histories from family and other Indians, photographs, newspaper articles, short essays, her own personal observation, and more paints her family and tribe’s history that has been erased through the power of victimization. As one reads Bad Indians it is clear to see that Miranda is not focused on pointing fingers or arguing how they faced victimization but rather drawing connections between those recollections and retelling history that has been locked in tombs and/or erased from California’s history.

The beginning of Bad Indians tells about 4th graders in California who are learning about the Mission Project in hopes that students will draw a closer understanding/connection by constructing a California Mission model. This is where Miranda starts her family history of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen also known as “Mission Indians” and how the 4th graders were to learn when and where the Missions were established and why. Miranda destroys the literature found in text books by overcasting mislead information with overviews of Native Americans who were enslaved through...