A Story of Family, Memory, and Stolen Land
Photo courtesy of Theresa Harlan
Across the United States, Indigenous communities are calling for sweeping revisions to stories commonly told as “history”—stories that, even today, neglect and erase Indigenous peoples and serve as justification for continued ownership of stolen Indigenous lands. This three-part series is the multigenerational story of a Coast Miwok family’s eviction from their ancestral home in Northern California and one woman’s mission to bring the living history of her family back to the land. Throughout this series, Theresa Harlan chronicles the story of her family’s displacement from their homestead on a cove in Tomales Bay and shares her grassroots efforts to involve the wider community in protecting both the history and the future of this place.
As she tells her family’s story, Theresa makes a powerful claim: remembering and retelling inclusive histories has the power to create a more just future. In this series we ask: Who gets to define history? In what ways is it our responsibility to ensure that a shared history is an accurate and just representation of the places we call home?
Adam Loften is an Emmy- and Peabody Award–nominated filmmaker and producer of virtual reality experiences and podcasts. His films include: Sanctuaries of Silence, The Atomic Tree, Counter Mapping, and Welcome to Canada. His work has been featured on PBS, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and The New York Times.
Directed, narrated, & edited by Adam Loften
Produced by Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Narration written by Adam Loften, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Original music by Mathew Atticus Berger, H. Scott Salinas, & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Sound mix by Matthew Mikkelson
Featuring:
Episode 1:
Theresa Harlan
Tiger (Theresa’s Husband)
Elizabeth Campigli Harlan (Theresa’s Mom)
Dewey Livingston
Episode 2:
Theresa Harlan
Elizabeth Campigli Harlan
Dewey Livingston
Tiger
David Carrio (Theresa’s Cousin)
Episode 3:
Theresa Harlan
Arlene Delahoussaye (Theresa’s Cousin)
Tiger
Whitt Strain
Beverly Saxon Leonard (Theresa’s Sister)
David Arvilla (Theresa’s Cousin)
Dewey Livingston
Theresa Harlan shares the story of her Coast Miwok family’s eviction from their homestead on a cove in Tomales Bay—an uprooting which ended her family’s time there but did not sever their connection to the ancestral lands and waters of Tamal-liwa.
Photo courtesy of Theresa Harlan
The Coast Miwok culture predates the geological formation of the San Francisco Bay. Episode Two traces thousands of years of Indigenous presence and history, all the way through the oppressive colonial systems that have become today’s mainstream culture, and asks: Who gets to define history?
Photo courtesy of Theresa Harlan
Spanish missions, boarding schools, and ranching empires drove many Coast Miwok people from their ancestral land in Northern California, targeting the erasure of their history and identity. In this final episode, Theresa Harlan continues her grassroots efforts to protect the last standing structures on Tomales Bay built by Coast Miwoks.
Photo by Jocelyn Knight
After her Coast Miwok family’s eviction from their ancestral home in Northern California, Theresa Harlan joined her voice with the national movement seeking to restore Indigenous history and presence to the American landscape.
