KYWS Community Conversations 92.9FM West Sacramento

Michael Ramirez, local Native Historian & Cultural Practicioner discusses California History of Genocide (Part 2)

·27 min·2 clips

Michael Ramirez shares that his ancestral village lies hidden under Lake Oroville, a poignant symbol of displacement.

This episode features a conversation between host Jameer and Michael Ramirez, a Native historian and cultural practitioner from the Konkow Valley Maidu people. Ramirez continues sharing his personal and ancestral history as part of California's broader narrative. He explains that his ancestral village now lies submerged under Lake Oroville, visible only during severe droughts. His people were forcibly marched to Round Valley in the "Nome Colt Walk," with some later confined to the Strawberry Valley Reservation. That reservation allocated roughly a quarter-acre of land for about 300 people, holding a record for the smallest land per capita. Ramirez states his surname originates from the Ramirez Ranch in Marysville, where a Miwok ancestor was given it as a slave name after being purchased. He cites the Vagrant Indian Act as a law that allowed for the arrest and ownership of Native people for being in white settlements. Ramirez connects the U.S. reservation system and Native American roll numbers to the later development of fascist concentration camps and tattoo systems. He shares that his great-grandmother, Bertha Nye Norton, was recognized as a founding mother of Sacramento and one of the thirteen grandmothers of the world. Ramirez argues that California's current economic abundance was built on resources managed by Indigenous hands for millennia prior to contact. He lists specific species decimated after Spanish arrival, including the California camel, red fox, and gray coyote, with California brown trout exported en masse to New Zealand. The conversation links the neglect of Native history and land practices to contemporary environmental issues like extended fire seasons and absent winter rains and fog. Ramirez emphasizes that learning this history required him to attend college and read authors like Vine Deloria Jr. and Jack Norton. He concludes by urging all listeners to research their own family histories, including both struggles endured and harms caused. The episode closes with a quote from John Trudell about humanity destroying its own capacity for survival, not the Earth itself. The tone is deeply personal, educational, and impassioned, blending historical testimony with ecological commentary. Listeners interested in California history, Indigenous perspectives, and environmental justice will find this episode compelling. Those seeking light entertainment or disputing these historical accounts may choose to skip it.

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