People

Among the earliest non-indigenous residents of California were hundreds of people of African background who descended from enslaved peoples taken to Mexico during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These Afro-Latine shaped the character of California much as Puritans shaped the character of New England.

Eight women were pregnant during the nine-month Anza colonizing expedition of 1775-76. Many of them gave birth in route. Manuela Ygnacia López Peñuelas tragically died after giving birth to a healthy baby. Women's reproduction was crucial to the Spanish empire's successful conquest of Alta California. With little choice in the matter, these women faced extreme hardship in hopes of making a better home in a new land at the expense of Indigenous homes and lifeways.

For Chumash elder Julie Tumamait-Stenslie, stories matter deeply. They are teachings that preserve knowledge and connection to the natural world. The Chumash “Rainbow Bridge” creation story teaches about honoring all life, connecting past to present, land to sea. If we listen closely to the stories that come from Indigenous forebears, they will help us find our way back to living in a more reciprocal, sustainable relationship with our one home, Mother Earth.

María Feliciana Arballo, a 25-year-old widow of Afro-Latina descent with two small children, was one of about forty women in the Anza expedition when it began its colonizing journey from Sonora, Mexico to Alta California (upper California) in 1775.

A Mexican-American pioneer, businesswoman, healer, and landowner, Doña Juana Briones de Miranda (1802-1889) lived in the San Francisco Bay area under the flags of three different nations. She was one of the first three settlers in Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco

Betty Hardison worked at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California during World War II, helping workers find housing. Living in the all-white government housing development, Atchison Village, Betty forged lifelong connections and community with other young couples. These experiences helped her family achieve the postwar American Dream of suburban home ownership, a dream made possible by government subsidies and racial exclusion.

San Francisco’s Aquatic Park Bathhouse is filled with marvelous sea-themed murals, including memorable blue fish. As a grand California Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, the bathhouse art showcased the New Deal’s emphasis on public art for the community. Painted by Ann Sonia Medalie, Shirley Staschen Triestley and other women artists, they took part in a radical vision of “home” that embraced San Francisco’s bohemian culture.

"Homesteading" conjures up images of solo families making do in difficult times, but it was also about building community. Elizabeth Quigley Shell Bacon certainly faced hardship before settling in California’s Bear Valley. Over decades, her family grew along with a thriving rural farm community. Known for her hospitality, she welcomed outdoor enthusiasts who came to visit the fantastical rock spires in what would become Pinnacles National Park

In the late 1800s, as a young, unmarried Black woman, Alice Ballard homesteaded in the isolated Santa Monica Mountains on a plot that adjoined her father’s. For over twelve years she improved the rugged terrain and raised crops in the face of racial animus. Archeological fragments from the site provide tangible evidence of the diversity of people who made the Santa Monica Mountains home long before it became a national park.