California’s Central Coast: Who We Are and Who We Are Becoming continued
Multicultural Roots The region’s diversity is a reflection not just of recent demographic trends but of historically-rooted indigenous experience, multi-racial and ethnic migration patterns, and community-building and organizing practices that continue to find expression in contemporary civic and political culture. Here again, the broader regional story begins with the Native Chumash, who sustain a distinctive and increasingly influential cultural and civic presence despite census statistics showing some diminishment in the size of the two-county Native American population in recent decades. While modern Chumash continue to experience generational trauma from settler colonialism and associated practices of removal and relocation from their homelands, Chumash today prove their resiliency as a people as they relearn their neglected languages, songs, and dances, and revive traditional knowledge and connections to the land, its plants, and animal life.
begins with the Native
They have also gained recognition for the increasing relevance of indigenous knowledge and land practices to environmental sustainability and as an organized voice for land protection and cultural preservation. The community is, in turn, supported by an established network of Chumash and other Native organizations that provide a variety of education, health, and human services as well as opportunities for community building, networking, and advocacy on behalf of Native sovereignty and cultural selfdetermination. Prominent among these organizations are the various established Chumash bands, including the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, the Barbareño Band of Chumash Indians, the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, and the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians. Chumash civic engagement efforts in recent years have included active participation in campaigns for land protection and environmental justice as well as Chumash-led efforts around cultural preservation, the teaching of accurate Native history in the schools, and the removal of offensive anti-Native street names and statues.
influential cultural and civic
The Black community has long been an influential presence in the civic and cultural life of the region, although as a percentage of the population it remains comparatively small in size. According to 2018 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Santa Barbara County is now home to over 12,700 Black or African American residents (2.8 percent of the population). In Ventura County, there are over 23,500 Black or African Americans living in the county (2.8 percent).12
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The broader regional story
TOWARDS A JUST AND EQUITABLE CENTRAL COAST
Chumash, who sustain a distinctive and increasingly presence.
