Reading against the grain: navigating historical bias

Working with primary documents from the 19th century requires special considerations, including the challenge of navigating historical bias inherent in the archives. These challenges are particularly visible when dealing with the history of Indigenous people. Drawing from years of research on Indigenous history in local archives, this talk will explore local examples where historical bias, built around both positive and negative stereotypes of the times, has created conflicting archival documents, while suggesting strategies for reading against the grain to better understand the complexities of these histories.

Martin Rizzo-Martinez is a historian and assistant professor in the Film & Digital Media department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of a study of Indigenous peoples of the Santa Cruz area, We are not Animals: Indigenous Politics of Survival, Rebellion, and Reconstitution in Nineteenth-Century California. The talk will be online. A Zoom link will be sent to registered participants.

A program of the San Lorenzo Museum.