This is a Then and Now story.
Then:
From the April 6, 1916, New York Times newspaper:
Thus started the New York Times newspaper review for the 1916 silent-movie debut of Helen Hunt Jackson’s famed fictional romance with local roots, Ramona. This movie — they were still so new they were called “photoplays” — waltzed right into the 1884 book’s romanticized and lace-mantilla-coated vision of early Spanish-speaking California history.
“The California of the early days offers an attractive and richly varied background for a movie romance, and of this full advantage is taken,” the unnamed NY Times movie critic said.
Lobby card for “Ramona,” courtesy of Wikipedia. The NY Times critic noted in 1916, “The protracted second act where nothing in particular keeps happening and happening in an abstracted manner might be sliced unmercifully and still leave an evening’s entertainment.” All 14 reels, however, are in the Library of Congress.
The story revolves around a half-Native American, Ramona, who falls in love with a Native American sheep-shearer, Alessandro, is forbidden to marry him, then elopes with him anyway into further sadness, while the author tries to spotlight the plight of Native Americans in 1800s Southern California.
“… Fine effects are achieved in the sheep-shearing scenes, and the baby and child who represent Ramona herself at different stages of her early career are quite adorable,” the critic continued. “Then Ramona, as a grown woman, and the Indian she married, are well done by Adda Gleason and Monroe Salisbury.”
As you may have immediately guessed, Monroe Salisbury, who played a lead role as Native American Alessandro, was not Native American.
Then (continuing).
Monroe Salisbury (his real name was Orange Salisbury Cash) lived on a ranch in Hemet near Soboba Reservation in the 1910s, and directed local productions such as a kids’ school pageant.
But the role of Alessandro propelled him into a bigger fame — a contract with Universal Studios. He then starred in a rapid-fire succession of more than 40 Saturday-matinee-type silent Westerns.
Bald eagle at Big Bear Lake (Photo courtesy of San Bernardino National Forest).
Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains, sacred lands related to the Creation Story of the Serrano people, was already a popular site for Hollywood movie-makers. The mountains often were assigned roles portraying Colorado mountains, Canadian mountains, and other mountains around the world.
Area Native Americans (all unnamed) played as extras on location in Big Bear with the new star Monroe Salisbury.
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center still hasn’t found which of his movies features “a large band of Morongo Indians” — a local history writer quoting that phrase from a newspaper article incorrectly cited the date. (Want to help us find that quote and that specific San Bernardino Sun 1918 (summer?) newspaper article? Start here. Thanks! )
The silent movies nearly a century ago were just the beginning of Native American stereotyping in movies, and a quick search in Google Scholar yielded more than 100,000 discussions, books, and articles exploring these.
Which brings us to Now.
Sovereignty in Movies and Theater:
Healing through Art and Storytelling
Native voices are now telling Native stories with Native perspectives, and within a cultural dynamic that honors the Ancestors and the past, today.
As part of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Native Knowledge 360° program, playwright Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla/Turtle Mountain Chippewa) of Cahuilla Reservation will be a panelist in a free museum Webinar for middle and high school students, and everyone else:
Youth in Action: Conversations about Our Future
“Reclaiming the Stage, November 1, 2022
Can changing theater change the world? Join us in a conversation with young Indigenous actors and playwrights who are reimagining Native representation on the stage.” PANELISTS: Emily Preis (Osage Nation); Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla-Turtle Mountain Chippewa); Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma); with MODERATOR DeLanna Studi (Cherokee).
DETAILS: 1 pm (Recording available on demand afterward.)
[News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center assumes this is Eastern time USA]
Free. Registration required. To register and for more information on the museum’s distance-learning programs, visit: Reclaiming the Stage Panel Discussion.
NK360° provides educational materials, virtual student programs, and teacher training that incorporate Native narratives, more comprehensive histories, and accurate information about Native Americans, according to the museum.
Isabella Madrigal’s play, Menil and Her Heart, has touched many hearts since making its debut at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in February 2019. The play focuses on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and finding healing through traditional Native stories. Isabella’s sister, Sophia, and Isabella, now both Harvard University students, have continued to promote healing through the arts via the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit, named in honor of their late father, Luke Madrigal (Cahuilla).
“I have been taught that stories are medicine, culture is strength, women are leaders, and that we have a responsibility to our ancestors,” Sophia Madrigal said in News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center when she talked about her online play, Wildflower: Indigenous Spirit, and how traditional cultural stories offer resiliency and resolution, and healing.
“Our world needs Native voices telling Native stories,” the sisters wrote in News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s “Storytelling as Medicine.” “We need youth and adults experiencing together, and bringing forth, the Indigenous voice of the ancestors as guidance for our lives today.”
Indeed! Join us for these events:
“Through Their Eyes,” an exhibit of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center artwork, continues at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at Cal State San Bernardino. Information. Pictured are Center President Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano) and his wife, June, with artwork by the late David Flanagan showing our Elder playing his flute and calling in dragonflies with the “Dragonfly Song.” At right is the artist’s mother, Yolanda Flanagan.
November 14, 2022: An Evening with Kim Marcus
Co-Sponsored by Idyllwild Arts!
Join Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla), winner of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 2021 Dragonfly Award, in an evening of cultural presentation and sharing, singing, and storytelling.
DETAILS:
6 p.m. Monday, November 14, 2022. 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning.
Your $10 helps the nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center save and share Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
November 27, 2022, Fourth Sunday concert
Flutes, flutes, and more flutes with the Silver Sounds Flute Chorus.
DETAILS: 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning.
Proceeds from your $10 help the nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center save and share Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
December 5, 2022: “A Light to Do Shellwork By”:
Dragonfly Lecture by Elder Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez (Chumash/O’odham (Tohono and Akimal)).
Co-Sponsored by Idyllwild Arts!
Join Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez as she reads from her new poetry book, A Light to Do Shellwork By, and shares cultural memories, stories and songs.
DETAILS: 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning.
Your $10 helps the nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center save and share Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
Thank you for your support! News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center welcomes your EMAIL. Thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva, and Editor Pat Murkland, Oct. 27, 2022. Subscribe to News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. It’s free.