The Reading Warehouse

The history of Southern California's Indigenous communities is mapped through the story of family and their descendants, or lineages. The authors explain how politically and culturally independent lineages merged and strengthened via marriage, creating complex and enduring coalitions among Indigenous communities. The Indigenous people of Southern California faced waves of colonizers--the Spanish, then the Mexicans, followed by Americans--and their coalitions allowed them to endure to today.

Champagne and Goldberg are leading experts in Native sovereignty policies and histories. They worked in collaboration with members of the Fernande o Tataviam Band of Mission Indians to illustrate how the community formed and persisted. A Coalition of Lineages is not only the story of a Native Southern California community, it is also a model for multicultural tribal development for recognized and nonrecognized Indian nations in the United States and elsewhere.