Bad Indians

Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir combines personal narrative, historical documents, and diverse media to document the experiences of California Mission Indians from the 1700s to present day. The book centers on Miranda's own family history as members of the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation. The narrative structure moves through time while incorporating oral histories, newspaper articles, anthropological records, poems, and family artifacts. Miranda examines the California Mission system and its lasting impact on Indigenous communities through both historical evidence and personal accounts. Drawing from her grandfather's audio recordings and her mother's genealogical research, Miranda reconstructs fragmented family stories and contextualizes them within broader California Indian history. The work challenges traditional presentations of Mission history in educational settings. This memoir explores themes of cultural survival, intergenerational trauma, and the complex relationship between personal identity and historical record. It stands as both a family chronicle and a critical examination of how Native American stories are preserved and told.

Readers appreciate Miranda's blend of personal narrative, historical documents, and poetry to tell California Indian history. Many note the book helps fill gaps in their understanding of California's missions and Indigenous experiences. Readers highlighted: - Raw emotional impact of family stories - Use of primary sources and photographs - Clear explanation of mission system impacts - Balance of academic research with memoir Common critiques: - Non-linear structure can be hard to follow - Some found the poetry sections less engaging - Wanted more detail on specific tribal histories Ratings: Goodreads: 4.34/5 (464 ratings) Amazon: 4.7/5 (116 ratings) Sample reader comments: "The mixing of genres made the history feel immediate and personal" - Goodreads reviewer "Difficult to read emotionally but necessary" - Amazon reviewer "Changed how I view California history" - LibraryThing reviewer "The jumps between time periods were sometimes disorienting" - Goodreads reviewer

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🔹 The book's title "Bad Indians" reclaims and subverts a term historically used to describe Native Americans who resisted mission system control and colonization. 🔹 Miranda's tribe, the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation of California, was declared "extinct" by the federal government in 1927, despite the continued existence of tribal members like herself. 🔹 The author discovered that her great-grandfather was forced to attend Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California - one of many federal boarding schools designed to "civilize" Native American children. 🔹 The California Mission system, central to the book's narrative, operated 21 missions between 1769 and 1833, leading to the deaths of approximately 62,600 Indigenous Californians. 🔹 Miranda developed this book while teaching California Literature at Washington and Lee University, where she found a critical lack of authentic Native American perspectives in academic materials.