Photo by Kike Arnal.
PROGRAM DETAILS:
Date Saturday, November 7, 2026
Time 12-4 PM
Location NUMU | 106 E. Main Street, Los Gatos, CA, 95030
Cost Free with registration
Join us at New Museum Los Gatos for an afternoon of free, family-friendly activities and programs celebrating the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. You'll be able to participate in educational talks, presentations, a youth-focused storytime, games, crafts, & activities, purchase artwork and goods made by Muwekma Ohlone tribal members, and explore our current Reawakening exhibitions.
Schedule
12 PM Doors open
12-4 PM Beading activity, kids’ corner, DIY petroglyph craft, and vendors ongoing
12:45 PM Trail of Truth Panel Discussion begins in Main Gallery
1:45-2 PM Program break
2 PM SJSU Grad Research Presentation begins in Spotlight Gallery
2:30 PM Kids’ storytime with Bernadette Quiroz begins on patio
3 PM Poetry reading with James Dominguez begins
4 PM Event ends
Trail of Truth Panel Discussion
Hear firsthand from Muwekma Ohlone tribal leaders about their insights and lived experiences of the Trail of Truth journey on horseback from California to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the reinstatement of their federal recognition.
Panelists
Corina Arellano, Community Education Co-Chair
Corina Arellano, Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Member and Board Member of the Muwekma Ohlone Foundation, serves as Community Education Co-Chair. She is the daughter of Albert Arellano and is the great-granddaughter of Albert Marine Arellano who was born on the historic Alisal Rancheria. Corina is a dedicated traditional Ohlone dancer that includes the shake-head style dance. She leads events such as land acknowledgments, Muwekma Ohlone Tribal flag raising, and events fostering public understanding of Ohlone history and heritage. Corina is a mother of two boys, and she is energetically engaged in cultural revitalization and language.
Julie Dominguez, Community Education Chair
Julie Dominguez of the Marine Sanchez lineage represents the ninth generation of an unbroken Ohlone Indian matrilineage going back to the 1760s of her Native ancestors’ villages. She is a Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Member and Community Education Co-Chair of the Preservation Foundation. Julie leads initiatives promoting Ohlone history, heritage, language, and culture through programs in schools, libraries, and communities. She is a traditional California native dancer and passionate protector of her ancestral homeland of the San Francisco Bay Area. Both her mother, Geraldine Lopez, and her grandmother, Julia Lopez, are enrolled with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Julie is a San Jose resident and mother of two; she advocates for Native youth and was very inspired by her mother's food justice legacy and activities with the greater San Francisco Bay Area Native American communities to fulfill her responsibilities and obligations of uplifting indigenous voices, especially for her Muwekma families.
Bernadette Quiroz, Language Revitalization Chair
Bernadette Quiroz, Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Member and Board Member of the Preservation Foundation, chairs Language Revitalization efforts to revive the endangered Chochenyo language through innovative online tools and cultural integration. Bernadette’s great-grandmother Dolores Sanchez was born on the Sunol Rancheria in 1911 and baptized at Mission San Jose in 1912. Dolores enrolled with her siblings in 1932 with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Dolores’ mother, Ramona Marine, was born on the Alisal Rancheria in 1893. Both were members of the historic federally recognized Verona Band. Bernadette is a passionate mother of three; she supports fundraising and cherishes hearing her people speak their native tongue.
Moderator
Lee Panich, Fay Boyle Professor of Anthropology, Santa Clara University
In his research and teaching, Lee Panich uses a combination of archaeological, ethnographic, and archival sources to examine the long-term interactions between California’s Indigenous societies and colonial institutions, particularly the Spanish mission system. He has conducted investigations of Native life at various colonial-era sites in the San Francisco Bay area, including Mission Santa Clara and Mission San José. On these projects, he has been fortunate to partner with members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and other Native Californian communities. His most recent book is We Will Receive Justice: Native Histories of the Collapse of the California Missions.
SJSU Graduate Student Research Presentation
The Reawakening exhibitions currently on view at NUMU were produced collaboratively between the museum, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and select Applied Anthropology graduate students from SJSU. In this presentation, the graduate students who worked on the exhibition will provide a deep dive into the research that informed Reawakening: Reciprocity of Land, Sea, and the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.
Storytime
Children’s book author and Muwekma tribal member, Bernadette Quiroz, reads her book Kàanak Hašepekne Muwekma: I Made The People, By Me, Coyote, featuring the Muwekma creation story and Chochenyo vocabulary.
Exhibitions, programs, and operations are made possible by NUMU’s Board of Directors & Circle Members, the Michael & Alyce Parsons Art Endowment, Bequest of Beverly Ann Curtis, the Borgenicht Foundation, Ranae DeSantis, Christie's International Real Estate, The Flick Family, Jan Schwartz & Bob Baden, Lynx Properties, LLC, Carol & Rick Tinsley, The Town of Los Gatos, California Arts Council, and SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara.
