Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
Tracing 500 years of oppression, genocide, survival, resilience, and cultural rebirth in California is no small task. A new series, “People of the West,” tackles this ambitious story.
Framing California’s complicated history through Native voices across 10 episodes, the series by creator/executive producer Brad Munoa, Payómkawichum, uses oral storytelling, cinematic dramatization, archival material, and expert testimony to trace five centuries of how California tribes were affected by colonizers who came by sea and by land. Its wealth of natural resources — gold, fish, crops, minerals, and water — made it a last frontier on the push for western expansion.
It is not an easy series to watch as the first contact with Spanish explorers and the brutal mission system lead to genocide, broken treaties, boarding schools, and the fight for sovereignty at Alcatraz.
As the 250th anniversary of the United States of America takes place, “People of the West” paints a truer story to the myths and asks audiences to see California through Indigenous eyes and experiences.
A co-production of Pechanga Studios and Boardwalk Pictures, the series features many familiar Indigenous actors including David Midthunder who is Hunkpapa Lakota, Gene Brave Rock who is Blackfoot from Canada, and Montana Cypress of Miccosukee.
Cypress is featured in the first episode called “First Contact,” playing Chief Wikami’s uncle. Many of the characters are identified by their relation to the main actor Wikami played by Isaiah Crowfoot.
“The director on the set had a couple of cultural advisors, they explained certain backstories, and what we were portraying,” Cypress told ICT. “We filmed on the beach in Malibu last November. It’s a brutal story but I think that’s important to know, not to hold back. David Midthunder played my brother, he’s great. The fighting with the Spanish who landed on the shores was intense.
Cinematic reenactment from People of the West depicting the first recorded encounter between Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Native peoples along the California coast on September 28, 1542. A Native leader steps forward from a gathering on the shoreline as Cabrillo approaches with four soldiers behind him. Two Spanish ships remain anchored offshore while a chest of trade goods is presented between the groups, symbolizing the beginning of sustained European contact with California’s Indigenous nations. (Courtesy of Picture Motion)
“It was hard work, we shot outside for a week. I was familiar with the book ‘American Genocide,’ which is an intense book about the genocide in California. I don’t think people know the extent of it. Or they don’t want to know,” Cypress said.
Cypress will also be seen in “Young Washington” about the early days of George Washington’s military career, opening in theaters July 3.
The series ends with the “Future Generations” episode with modern day survival stories including the Augustine Tribe of Coachella Valley, California, who were down to one original language speaker in the 1970s. That was Chairwoman Mary Ann Martin.
Her daughter Amanda Vance managed to reclaim the reservation after her mother’s death in 2017 and turned the lands into a thriving business with a large organic farm called Temalpakh with specialty dates as a main crop and a casino.
“That is my family,” Augustine says. “I knew I had to step up. I feel grateful that people notice what we do. It’s an honor.”
A series born of misrepresentation
Show creator Brad Munoa told ICT “I’m a member of the Pechanga Band of Indians in Temecula, California. I’m the creator and executive producer of ‘People of the West’ and the director of Peichanga Studios.”
Munoa, a member of the Pechanga Band of Indians and director of Pechanga Studios, said the idea for the series came from watching his own children inherit the same incomplete and romanticized version of California history he grew up with.
His daughter took a fourth-grade field trip to Mission San Luis Rey and asked to make adobe bricks “like the Indians did,” reenacting the forced labor of Native ancestors as a classroom activity.
Another son attended a Gold Rush camp where students learned about adventurous pioneers with no mention of the devastation the Gold Rush caused Indigenous Californians.
The series features voices and stories from tribes Kumeyaay/Ipai, Ohlone, Wintu, Payómkawichum (federally known as Luiseño), Miwok, Nisenan, Wailaki, Ahwahneechee, Paiute, Chumash, and Yurok Nations, among others across the state.
“What happened to Native Americans wasn’t a genocide,” Munoa said. “That’s absolutely not true. You are the survivors of the Holocaust. They call that expansion for civilization or manifest destiny, but it was extermination. ‘People of the West’ is a 10-part docuseries that tells the history of California, but from the Native perspective. So this is going to be all the things that they have whitewashed out of the school system, and they don’t teach you. We try to shed a light on that.”
Sherman Institute Native Girl Boarding School classroom in Riverside, California, in 1904. (Courtesy of Picture Motion)
Munoa explained that the series starts with creation stories from several tribes and then it takes you through the different areas of time. It ends with what Indigenous peoples of California are doing now.
“What we did was we created something that educators could use out of the box. Not only is it a series, not only is it epic and beautiful, but we also wrote a 155-page curriculum with lesson plans and lectures and all these materials that teachers need,” Munoa said.
He said people asked why he was making a story about carnage and bloodshed and genocide. His answer: it’s really a story of resistance and survival and cultural renewal.
“Tribes were strategic and they weren’t just passive observers of history. They didn’t just let this all happen. They strategized. They met. They had democracies and they had to decide one of three things. Do we fight? Do we run away and hide? Or do we join and try to work together?” he said. “We exist today and I just have to thank the ancestors for trudging through that terrible time and grinding out an existence to survive so that we could all still be here today.”
Stories that resonate
Richard Trudell, Santee Sioux, is executive director for the American Indian Resources Institute, a Navy veteran, and a cousin of the late American Indian Movement activist John Trudell.
After watching all 10 episodes he told ICT, “I think it will really serve a good purpose throughout the state in particular, but even tribes outside of California, just to have an idea of our reconstructed history.
”From their first episode on creation stories and first contact, all the way up to the 10th episode on future generations, they touched on a lot of important topics in California – the discovery of gold, genocide, survival. They’ve picked out topics that will resonate certainly with the Native community and really educate the non-Native community,” Richard said. “I think the schools throughout the state, when they show the series as the curriculum they developed, the younger people will learn a lot in a very short span of time. This was written by Natives and funded by Pechanga Studios so they had creative control to tell the stories the way they wanted to.”
Rook Thompson Klamath River Land Back Water Activism. (Courtesy of Picture Motion)
Richard continued: “I’ve seen the growth of California tribes during my career, the program I created to deal with the legal community back in ’73, we had fellowship programs and interim programs that did a lot of publishing in terms of monitoring all the courts in the country. When I got my law degree there were no attorneys working on the reservations, because the money wasn’t there. Now they are doing better legally with the help of tribal businesses.”
For more information
The series is aligned with California’s Ethnic Studies and History, Social Science standards and is designed as a teaching resource for middle school through college classrooms. Each lesson plan encourages critical thinking, cultural understanding, and engagement with California’s Native history through storytelling, discussion, and reflection. The series is expected to carry a PG-13 rating.
Through the impact agency, Picture Motion’s impact campaign and screening tour, educators can access free screening kits, discussion guides, and curriculum-aligned activities & materials.
Community and educational screenings are coordinated through Picture Motion. Inquiries can be sent to the agency.
The series will be released to schools first. They are looking for a streaming service at the moment.
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