518 Valencia: Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives

Shaping San Francisco’s year-long case study of the Padre Junípero Serra statue included a folklife-based, community-led research process centered on memory-keeping practices. Indigenous community researchers explored everyday practices from their own cultures that carry collective knowledge. The researchers included members of Urban Native communities, Indigenous migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and urban youth. Their research invites reflection on how genocide, relocation, and migration continue to erode Indigenous ways of knowing, and how communities continue to protect and hold on to them. The process was facilitated by storyteller Adriana Camarena. Several community researchers will share their findings. The discussion will be presented in Spanish and English.