Fresno State will host the 34th annual California Indian Conference on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 18 and 19, in the Ellipse Gallery and the Table Mountain Rancheria Reading Room located in the Fresno State Library.
The conference provides a forum for the sharing of knowledge, scholarship, and issues of importance related to Native California and will feature paper presentations, panels, roundtable discussions, art and vendors.
“The California Indian Conference welcomes Native American and non-Native academics, tribal scholars, educators, and students with representatives of tribal communities and organizations, NGOs, public agencies and institutions whose work focuses on California Native peoples, tribes, individuals, and tribal sovereignty,” said Dr. Leece M. Lee-Oliver, director of American Indian Studies at Fresno State. “The conference is open to the general public of all ages.”
The California Indian Conference was founded at UC Berkeley in 1985 and is one of the largest gatherings of academics and Native people in the state focused on the preservation and revitalization of the many diverse cultures indigenous to California.
This year’s conference theme is “Sovereignty Movements” and will feature speakers on traditional ecological knowledge, environmental stewardship, climate change, sacred site preservation, Indigenous perspectives on education, language revitalization (including local Choinumni, Chukchansi, Mono and Wuksachi languages), basket weaving, seed banking, food sovereignty, workforce development, public history and CalNAGPRA (human remains and cultural belongs) repatriation and compliance.
The 2024 conference was made possible by funding from the President’s Office, the Provost’s Office, the College of Social Sciences and American Indian Studies program. Tribal co-sponsors include the North Fork Mono Tribe, Chalon Indian Nation, Cold Springs Rancheria, the Fresno American Indian Health Project, and CAL TERRA, a Native-serving emergency response organization.
“After a long pandemic-related hiatus, we are proud to host the California Indian Conference at Fresno State. This is the first meeting of the CIC ever held in Central California, as the tradition of the conference for many years was to alternate between northern and southern California campuses in the UC and CSU systems,” said Dr. Kenneth Hansen, Fresno State professor. “We are happy to feature many of our friends and neighbors from local tribes who are Native artists, linguists, culture bearers, community and government leaders, working to reassert and take back their inherent sovereignty.”