American Indians Los Angeles County

Veteran archeologist Frank McDowell arrived at Arco's Carson refinery in mid-September, ready to begin a routine excavation of a recently discovered Indian burial site. Instead, he found a mystery. In one of Southern California's most unusual--and possibly most significant--archeological finds is evidence of a human cataclysm that wiped out at least 50 Gabrielinos, including two unborn children, probably about 200 years ago.

The only community outreach center dedicated to serving American Indians in the Antelope, Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys has opened in Van Nuys. The American Indian Community Outreach Center is only a small office now, but its two-person staff provides information, counseling and referral services to members of the American Indian community. A similar center in Van Nuys lost its funding and closed in 1996.

"We are an invisible minority in Los Angeles County," Lincoln Billedeaux was saying. "We have no geographical neighborhood, such as Koreatown, or Little Tokyo or East Los Angeles. People think we are from some other group, because we come in all colors. Sometimes people come up and speak to us in Spanish." The invisible minority Billedeaux was talking about is L.A.'

A few days after his election to the Santa Fe Springs City Council, George Minnehan paid a visit to Heritage Park. The park was established in 1988 to represent the history of Santa FeSprings, but one piece of the city's history was missing--a big piece. There was no mention of the original people, the Tongvas. Minnehan, a Native American, first suggested that the park host a powwow. It was a hit, so Minnehan pushed further.

Moments in San Fernando Valley History 1797: San Fernando Mission is founded, 28 years after the first Spanish expedition of the San Fernando Valley made its way into the Valley via Sepulveda Pass. California will become part of Mexico 25 years later. 1834: The San Fernando Mission is secularized, and Andres Pico Adobe, named for the Mexican general, is built nearby.

Melvin Ahhaitty sorted through piles of photographs, stopping occasionally and smiling when he came upon some of powwow season in Oklahoma, where he grew up. "I miss the powwow season," Ahhaitty said. "It was a chance for the different Plains Indians to get together at these gatherings." Ahhaitty, whose ancestry is Comanche and Kiowa, and wife Glenda, a Cherokee, gathered up their family photo albums and brought them to the Huntington Park Public Library for "Shades of L.A.

A state court of appeal has replaced a legal barrier preventing Cal State Long Beach from developing 22 acres of vacant land considered sacred by some American Indian groups. The decision reverses a lower court ruling that the parcel's off-limits designation by the state Native American Heritage Commission represented an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. The three-judge panel decided Thursday that Cal State cannot raise such a legal challenge against a fellow state agency.

Pasadena's Human Relations Commission voted Monday to recommend that the City Council ask Cristobal Colon, a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus, to withdraw as grand marshal of 103rd Rose Parade. The panel, which advises the Pasadena council on issues relating to discrimination, took the 10-vote at a packed meeting at which opponents of Colon's selection vowed to disrupt the New Year's Day event.

About 30 protesters urged Cal State Northridge to address the problems of American Indian students, claiming that 92% drop out because the university does not try hard enough to retain them. The protesters want counselors to organize activities for the 208 Indians on campus, provide academic advice and recruit more Indian students. Peter Aguirre, president of an Indian students organization at CSUN, said a survey showed that 45.

Los Angeles County could be called the secret capital of Indian America. There are an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 Native Americans, more than in any other U.S. metropolitan area, more than on any reservation--and yet they are invisible to most Angelenos. Today a delegation of American Indians from Los Angeles will travel to Washington to join a meeting with White House officials aimed at raising the profile of urban Indians.

Veteran archeologist Frank McDowell arrived at Arco's Carson refinery in mid-September, ready to begin a routine excavation of a recently discovered Indian burial site. Instead, he found a mystery. In one of Southern California's most unusual--and possibly most significant--archeological finds is evidence of a human cataclysm that wiped out at least 50 Gabrielinos, including two unborn children, probably about 200 years ago.

Native American culture and customs will be celebrated during the first annual People Facing the Sun Gathering and Pow-Wow, today and Sunday from 10 a.m. to sundown at O'Melveny Park, 17300 Sesnon Blvd. in Granada Hills. Traditional food, arts and crafts, dancing and singing of the Navajo, Comanche, Kickapoo, Blackfoot, Hopi and Fernandeno/Tataviam tribes will be featured at the free event.

State officials are facing the daunting task of trying to locate the living descendants of several prehistoric skeletal remains found at the Arco oil refinery in Carson, officials said Friday. Workers stumbled across the brown, brittle bones and a skull with the teeth intact Thursday while draining water from a 60-foot-by-60-foot trench, said Arco spokesman Walter Neil. The water caused the sides of the 4-foot-deep trench to slough off, exposing the remains, he said.

On a cool morning in the early 1800s, the Franciscan turned to face his congregation at Mission San Fernando. As he displayed the consecrated Host and the chalice of consecrated wine, the friar looked out at dozens of rapt faces, and joy filled his heart. Although he did it gladly, for the greater glory of God, the priest had suffered mightily in coming to this remote outpost of the Christian world.

The life of Antonio Maria Ortega, said to be the last Native American to speak the Fernandeno dialect, is interwoven with many of the famous people and places of San Fernando Valley past. Born at the San Fernando Mission in 1848, Ortega was raised at Rancho los Encinos (now the home of Los Encinos State Historic Park) on land his family had acquired.

Moments in San Fernando Valley History 1797: San Fernando Mission is founded, 28 years after the first Spanish expedition of the San Fernando Valley made its way into the Valley via Sepulveda Pass. California will become part of Mexico 25 years later. 1834: The San Fernando Mission is secularized, and Andres Pico Adobe, named for the Mexican general, is built nearby.

Native American culture and customs will be celebrated during the first annual People Facing the Sun Gathering and Pow-Wow, today and Sunday from 10 a.m. to sundown at O'Melveny Park, 17300 Sesnon Blvd. in Granada Hills. Traditional food, arts and crafts, dancing and singing of the Navajo, Comanche, Kickapoo, Blackfoot, Hopi and Fernandeno/Tataviam tribes will be featured at the free event.

Citing the "tremendous logistic problems" of sailing replicas of Christopher Columbus' ships to the West Coast, a Spanish group has scrapped plans to dock copies of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in Long Beach this fall. Last month, American Indian activists protested the ships' planned visit. They complained to Long Beach officials that Columbus' arrival in 1492 aboard the ships robbed Native Americans of their land and culture.

Sunday is Mother's Day, a holiday celebrated by many local families for most of this century on a single day in May. But for folks who lived in the Valley prior to that, namely the Native Americans who settled here in earlier millenniums, every day was Mother's Day.

It was already ancient when it was chopped down more than a century ago, the sycamore tree that forever fixes in time and place the village that existed for three millenniums--the earliest site of what became Los Angeles. While Christopher Columbus was setting foot on the shores of the West Indies in the fall of 1492, a seedling began to grow near the Pacific shores that Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo would discover half a century later.