Dorothy Ramon Learning Center

What does this prehistoric pictograph in Idyllwild, California, have to do with being Native American in 2021? Everything! Watch the video by Noli Indian High School in our latest Newsletter: https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/calling-i

Congratulations to teen Sophia Madrigal (Cahuilla-Chippewa) (left, pictured acting in 2019 with her sister, Isabella, in Isabella’s play Menil and her Heart) for achieving the GIRL SCOUT GOLD LEVEL with her project to promote healing in the Native American community through traditional cultural storytelling. Only a few Girl Scouts achieve this level and Dorothy Ramon Learning Center now knows two! Her sister, Isabella, is the other! During the pandemic The Learning Center has hosted two online workshops led by Sophia and a play performed online, all well received gifts to the community from Sophia’s not-for-profit organization named in memory of her father, the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit.

Creativity, bird songs, and art https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/creativit

The Battle of Iwo Jima began today in 1945. You may not recognize Ira H. Hayes from his Marine Corps Paratroop School photograph here, but you would certainly r...ecognize another photograph he appears in, the one known as "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima." Hayes was one of the men in a now-famous photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal. Hayes was a Pima Indian. He was born on a cotton farm in the Gila River reservation in Arizona. After the flag-raising photograph catapulted him to fame, President Roosevelt asked that the three surviving men in the photo return to the United States for a war bond drive. He died in 1955 and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. Image, original caption: Pfc. Ira H. Hayes, a #Pima, at age 19, ready to jump, Marine Corps Paratroop School, 1943. National Archives Identifier 519164.

Thanks to Mojave Desert Land Trust for sharing our news on plant regrowth after the Apple Fire and fire at Snow Creek

Books! Read the story here: https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/legacy

A happy memory from our 2017 Native Voices Poetry Festival: Kim Marcus meeting up with his second-grade teacher! We look forward to the day when we can all gather safely again.

Native Women: Leaders and Healers. Excerpt from new upcoming book on indigenous nurses by Cliff Trafzer; memories from Ernest Siva about women ceremonial, political, and cultural leaders; and more.

Upcoming ONLINE Event: 4 p.m. SATURDAY JANUARY 30, 2021 A Conversation With Native American Women Leaders Banning Library District, Friends of Banning Library, and Dorothy Ramon Learning Center will co-host a free online one-hour Zoom session at 4 pm Saturday, January 30, 2021, featuring area Native American women leaders and their nurturing of cultural community and strength: Mary Ann Andreas, a longtime Morongo Reservation tribal leader and a Dorothy Ramon Learning Center ...Dragonfly Award winner for her leadership, and teen leaders, the sisters Sophia and Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla-Chippewa), tribal members of Cahuilla Reservation near Anza. To join the conversation, please sign up here to receive your personalized link: https://zoom.us//regi/tJModO6prj4vHNG-wijkvxwOKd6Ys08Y4L5M About the Women Leaders: Mary Ann Andreas has served on the Morongo Reservation Tribal Council for more than 30 years, including three times as chairwoman. She has been a tribal leader during a rapid and dramatic growth of tribal governments and their abilities to serve their communities, both inside and outside the reservation. She also is a respected leader in state and community politics, including her service as chair of the Native American Caucus for the California Democratic Party. And she’s worked to save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures and traditions. She was awarded Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Award in 2014 for her soaring leadership achievements. Teen sisters Isabella Madrigal, currently in her first year at Harvard University, and Sophia Madrigal, a junior at Orange County School of the Arts, have partnered together in projects that champion Native storytelling, seeking to reclaim the national narrative surrounding the Indigenous experience, and to empower Native voices telling Native stories. With her play, Menil and her Heart, which premiered in 2019 at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Isabella spotlighted the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women, and her ensuing work included winning the National Girl Scout Award, and speaking at United Nations. Isabella and Sophia Madrigal were awarded more than $10,000 in fellowships for their work surrounding the play. In 2020, Sophia Madrigal formed the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit, which encourages cultural storytelling for healing. She wrote a play presented online by Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Wildflower: Indigenous Spirit, and has led online workshops focusing on the use of cultural storytelling for healing and hope, especially during the pandemic.

Kakata! Tracks of California Quail.

A great story about a personal journey to learn Chumash.

A story about an Elder, quail, and "catching a song." https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/catching-

We hope you have been enjoying all the beautiful sunsets out there as we approach Winter Solstice. This artwork displayed in our February 2020 Native Voices Poetry Festival, depicting sky in Serrano, is by a student at Morongo Reservation School.

This yucca survived the Apple Fire and although it was burned, it’s growing into the promises of spring. Sage and other important plants are sprouting up nearby.

Thank you to our beloved Elder, Barbara Drake.

Honoring Native American military veterans on Veterans Day 2020 in our online News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center: https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/answering (artwork donated to the Learning Center in 2010 by Gerald Clarke Jr. of Cahuilla Reservation)

We have a large number of people who have signed up to see tonight's premiere of Sophia Madrigal's play via video on zoom, so here is a part of the program, featuring the cast. There's still time to sign up to see it. 7 p.m. November 6, 2020. Here's your invitation. Once you sign up, a personalized link will be sent to you, to use to see the play. https://us02web.zoom.us//tZcuf-ihqT4jHtVs4LZlfFM6xTrZN2Xhh... Read more here about how the play is a tribute to Sophia's father, Luke Madrigal: https://dorothyramonlearningcenter.substack.com/p/looking-u

Morongo Bird Singers!