From Carnage to Credentials: An Amerindian Archaeologist’s Journey from Child Laborer to Professor Emeritus

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Hood Archaeologies: Impacts of the School-to-Prison Pipeline on Archaeological Practice and Pedagogy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

After nine months my mother “broke her water” on 18 June of 1956. Because my father was away, my mother walked the two hours from Stockton through agricultural fields to the hospital in Frenchcamp where I was born. Despite my father’s herculean efforts, we were caught in a seemingly interminable poverty. Upon entering graduate school at the University of Arizona, I’d already lived in several dozen small towns throughout the Central San Joaquin Valley and had from age 7 through 21 worked as a farm laborer, and for many more years as a “Mexican” gardener in the blistering heat of Bakersfield. At age 12, I was introduced to the works of my Amerindian ancestors in and about Mexico City. From that moment onward, I was smitten by the allure of my Yaqui elders, Indigenous archaeology, and Teotihuacan. As such, this presentation confronts the intersection of my Indigenous and Mexican heritage, familial poverty, and the sense of alienation that largely shaped my career pathway and areas of research and service. This fact has long limited my peer relationships and prompted me to gravitate to the margins of the discipline through a life experience largely left invisible to those about me.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hood Archaeologies: Impacts of the School-to-Prison Pipeline on Archaeological Practice and Pedagogy   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38173.0