Sisquoc, Lorene

<p>The children who attended Native American boarding schools encountered daily struggles and fought to survive in harsh conditions. This book examines a wide range of experiences, from positive to negative, that students underwent while attending school. The boarding school experience became part of Native American history, with some students using this experience to expand their own knowledge and help their people.</p>

<p>Source: Trafzer, Clifford E., Keller, Jean A., and Sisquoc, Lorene. Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences (Indigenous Education). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.</p>

<p>Lorene Sisquoc (Mountain Cahuilla/Apache) was born in Riverside and serves as curator / culture traditions leader at Sherman Indian High School Museum, also in Riverside. She is an expert basket weaver and has extensive knowledge of native plants and their uses.</p>
<p>As an elder/scholar-in-residence, Sisquoc will serve as a resource on Native American customs and traditions for students and the campus community.</p>
<p>Sisquoc is a member of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and a descendant of the Mountain Cahuilla of Southern California. She also is a direct descendant of Mangas Coloradas, the last chief of the Mimbreno Apaches, Chief Loco of the Warm Springs Apaches and Manuel Largo, a leader of the Mountain Cahuilla. .</p>
<p>In 1982, Sisquoc began work at Sherman Indian High School, an off-reservation boarding school operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, as a dormitory staff member. Three years later, she began volunteer training under the guidance of Ramona K. Bradley, co-founder and curator of Sherman Indian Museum.</p>
<p>Sisquoc co-founded the Mother Earth Clan Cultural Programs in 1986. She became volunteer curator/manager of the Sherman Indian Museum in 1991 and has taught Native American traditions and basketry classes at Sherman Indian High School since 1995.</p>
<p>She is co-founder and treasurer of the Nex’wetem, a Southern California Indian basketweavers organization that helps to secure the continuance of the artform. Sisquoc was one of five recipients of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visionary Award for community cultural awareness in the City of Riverside in 1997.</p>

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Bio: Lorene Sisquoc, Curator of the Sherman Indian Museum, has taught basket-making and Native Plant Uses and Material Culture/Traditions at the Sherman Indian High School and throughout Southern California for many years. Sisquoc is a descendant of the Mountain Cahuilla and a member of the Fort Sill Apache tribe. She is co-founder of Mother Earth Clan, sits on the board of directors of the Malki Museum, and is a co-founder of Southern California Indian Basket Weavers Organization. She gives cultural presentations throughout the region. In 1997, the city of Riverside honored her with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visionary Award for community cultural awareness. Sisquoc also received the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center Heritage Keepers Award. In 2015, she was appointed as the first elder/scholar-in-residence at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona to encourage Native American students to go forward with their university education at the same time as they embrace their culture, traditions, and language.

<p>Native American women from the American Southwest have always used basket weaving to maintain relationships with nature, their spirituality, tribal histories, sovereignty, and their ancestors. However, since the late nineteenth century, with the emergence of a tremendous tourist industry in the Southwest, non-Indians have perceived Native American basketry as a commoditized practice with no connection to tribal traditions or spirituality. Yet, during the last decade of the twentieth century, Native Americans scholars pushed back against these dominant narratives by acknowledging the harsh realities of settler colonialism. Even more extraordinary, researchers placed Native American women at the center of their arguments to affirm their adherence to cultural traditions and their continual commitment to tribal continuity. Despite these accomplishments, however, scholars have not applied this research to American Indian women basket weavers. Because of this absence in the historiography, numerous non-Natives continue to believe indigenous basketry of the American West is an art form that lacks traditional methods, continuity, techniques, and cultural connections to communities.</p>
<p>To combat these preconceptions, the proposed paper will examine the life and works of Apache/Cahuilla weaver, Lorene Sisquoc of Riverside, California. Sisquoc has dedicated her life to learning and teaching about the beauty of ancestral Cahuilla basketry. However, her path to becoming familiar with this craft was not always accessible. Overall, this examination of Sisquoc’s life will provide details as to how one Native woman was able to recapture what had been lost to her ancestors and how she has used basketry to teach dozens of Native students to take pride in themselves and their traditions.</p>