From member and Chicana Yaqui Author Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez:
 (Cross-posting from change the word)
The Launching: Chumash book is history and medicine. When the stories awaken, stories that heal
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
Launching the book, Earth Wisdom: A California Chumash Woman, Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez spoke with the magic of a storyteller, as she shared the stories of Pilulaw Khus, elder of the Northern Chumash Bear Clan, and co-author of the book.
Weaving beauty and truth, Broyles-Gonzalez spoke sharp words for the anthropologists who have attempted to divide and conquer the Chumash. She said the book opens the chasm of the violence and slavery that is part of California’s unspoken history, and it offers the solace of the balm of healing.Broyles-Gonzalez, Chicana/Yaqui author and professor of Mexican American Studies and Raza Studies at the University of Arizona, launched the book tonight in partnership with the Native American magazine Red Ink.
“I want to thank Red Ink for their big hearts,” she said.Broyles-Gonzalez began by recognizing the original spirit of the land and the original people of this land, the Tohono O’odham. She also honored the Yaqui elders and people who live here. Then she spoke on the spirit of the land and the struggle to protect the sacred lands of the Chumash people in central California.  Although the region around Santa Barbara is known as a resort area to many, it is the sacred place of the Chumash.  Just north of Santa Barbara is where the Chumash spirit begins its journey home.
“This is an extremely happy day,” Broyles-Gonzalez said, adding that she had spoken with Khus on the phone three times today.  “She is here in spirit,” she said of Khus, who sent her greeting, “This is a very happy day for both of us.”There were also clear words for anthropologists. “We take issue with anthropologists,” Broyles-Gonzalez said. She said in Chumash territory, power hungry anthropologists have attempted to divide and conquer the people, the way anthropologists have done in so many places. “Who gives them the right to decide who is Chumash.”
At the popular Antigone Books on busy Fourth Avenue on Friday, Feb. 3, it was more than a book signing. Broyles-Gonzalez said it was a launching and the first time she has spoken on the book.  Broyles-Gonzalez, who went to high school here, spoke of what is happening to Arizona.
“Arizona seems to be going backward all the time,” Broyles-Gonzalez said, pointing out that Mexican American Studies was recently prohibited at Tucson public schools.  She said the book’s launch brings sanity at this time and is to elevate environmental consciousness. It also means that Chumash will now occupy print culture. Further, Broyles-Gonzalez said the book’s launch affirms the role of women in Native societies and affirms tribal sovereignty.  She said the book was written for the purpose  of recovery from genocide and recovery from historical trauma….
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Earth Wisdom: A California Chumash Woman can be ordered from the University of Arizona Press
