Michele M. Serros was a Chicana writer who grew up in Oxnard, California. She is best known for Chicana Falsa: And Other Stories of Death, Identity, and Oxnard, Chicana, and How to be a Chicana Role Model. The papers cover her childhood, high school work, undergraduate courses, published works, and speaking and workshop engagements. The collection also includes photographs, drawings, and her high school yearbook.
Scope and Contents:
The Michelle M. Serros Papers include materials from her childhood, undergraduate education, and musical interests. The majority of the collection documents her work as a poet, speaker, and author. Some of the materials in Series 5 (Nope! Magazine) feature racially insensitive content.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1: Published Works, 1991-2012, undated
Series 2: Writing Projects, 1987-2005, undated
Series 3: Writing Programs, 1987-2009, undated
Series 4: Undergraduate Materials, 1985-1995, undated
Series 5: Ephemera, 1938-2015, undated
Provenance:
Collection donated to the Archives Center in 2019 by Antonio Magaña.
Restrictions:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Negatives and photographic prints taken by John Peabody Harrington in Santa Barbara and Ventura County, California in 1923. John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was an ethnologist and linguist who specialized in the Native peoples of California and served with the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology from 1915 to 1955. Beyond his efforts to document innumerable Native languages, Harrington also collected objects for the Bureau of Ethnology and on his own. Photographs in this collection accompanied the objects he sold to or collected for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
Scope and Contents:
The John Peabody Harrington photographs from California include negatives and photographic prints taken in 1923 by Harrington while in the field. All of the negatives were taken at the Ventura County fair in the fall of 1923. These photographs depict a group of Chumash men building a grass lodge, organized by J.P. Harrington, as well as Bob Bautista, a Tachi Yokuts man, demonstrating traditional boat and house building. George Gustav Heye is pictured in several shots while the Chumash grass lodge is being built. Prints [P11568-P11572] were made from the aforementioned negatives. There is also one copy negative made from one of the subsequent prints.
The remainder of the photographic prints in this collection were taken during the Burton Mound expedition, funded by Thea Heye and led by John Peabody Harrington in 1923. Photographs taken by Harrington show workers excavating the mound as well images of the mound itself. There are four additional photographs from Burton Mound that were not taken by Harrington. These include an image Of J.P Harrington, D.B. Rogers and George W. Bayley standing with excavated materials. Some of these photographs have been restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was an ethnologist and linguist employed by the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) for forty years, from 1915 to 1955. He came to the Smithsonian after training at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. He became interested in Native American languages upon meeting historically renowned anthropologist A. L. Kroeber. J. P. Harrington was reportedly fluent in nine international languages and eighteen Native American languages.
In 1923, the Museum of the American Indian, Heye foundation provided funding for J.P. Harrington to lead an expedition in Santa Barbara, California to excavate the Burton Mound.
Additional information on John Peabody Harrington can be found on the National Anthropological Archives' website, home to his collection.
Related Materials:
Archaeological materials excavated from Burton Mound can be found in NMAI's archaeological collection. For more information on these object please contact NMAICollections@si.edu.
Provenance:
The negatives were acquired from John Peabody Harrington by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation shortly after they were taken in 1923. It is likely that prints [P11568-P11572] were made from the negatives some time in the 1930s. Prints from Burton Mound [P09497-P09502] were cataloged by the MAI in 1929 though the additional Burton Mound prints arrived with the collection in 1923. The provenance of P06039 and P28107 is unknown.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Some images restriced: Cultural Sensitivity.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); John Peabody Harrington photographs from California, Photo Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Native Americans on the Central Coast : a photo essay depicting aspects of the life of the Native American community in the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura / exhibit compiled and booklet edited by the members of the Black Gold System Advisory Board in collaboration with John R. Johnson
