When I first moved to the East Side, my friend laughed. “Why did you move to Milpas? It’s the worst neighborhood in Santa Barbara.” I was taken aback, I loved my new community. There were families everywhere, children walking to school, small mom and pop shops owned by Latino families where I could spend locally. It certainly wasn’t downtown: there were no ritzy gluten free bakeries, huge department stores, or tourists. But it was safe and friendly and I loved it there. So why did the Milpas neighborhood have such a bad reputation? Why did people assume it was the slums of Santa Barbara? The only explanation that I could think of was that it is also one of the only parts of Santa Barbara in which low income people of color outnumber upper class white people.
To put it simply, since its modern inception Santa Barbara has had an issue with systematic racism. It pervades from its foundation on the genocide of Native Americans in the Mission system, and continues today with the active work being done by organizations like the Milpas Community Association to gentrify the areas of Santa Barbara still largely populated by low income people of color. The physical dislocation of peoples is one way to maintain systematic oppression. Every day I see police cars patrol Milpas more closely, and drive by “Indio Muerto Road.” While we consider ourselves a progressive state, this injustice persists.
Santa Barbara was created when Spanish commanders gifted plots of Chumash land to retired Spanish soldiers. By 1870 Santa Barbara was prosperous and white, while natives were forced to work menial labor jobs in order to survive. At the time, the reasons white men stripped the Chumash of their land and rights was straightforward and concise: the indigenous peoples of the Americas were considered inferior to white men and their needs and rights were unimportant to the law. These days, the racialized systemic poverty present in Santa Barbara is coded to perpetuate conservative messages about the well being of the town itself: low income people of color are displaced through gentrification disguised as “clean up efforts.” This continuation of the displacement of people of color further divides communities and creates a larger class gap.
This can be seen both in the ways Native American reservations have been formed and regulated and how majority Latino populations have been pushed out of the East Side of Santa Barbara. The 1769 arrival of Europeans with plans to build missions brought violence and disease to the Chumash. Their numbers dwindled from estimates of 22,000 to 2,788 as five missions were built in their territory. As previously mentioned, this land was doled out to Spanish soldiers, and then to Spanish families loyal to the Mexican government, and the Santa Ynez reservation was not established until 1901. Since the establishment of the reservation, the Chumash, along with other Native American tribes, have had to fight in US courts for sovereignty on their own land and for the the rights to establish casinos which proved to be one of few ways for them to make revenue to improve their community.
For native peoples and other people of color who still choose to live in Santa Barbara, the struggle to make money and provide for themselves still proves increasingly challenging. Organizations such as the Milpas Community Association work to “beautify” the community through the implementation of business districts that would strip locals of power over their neighborhoods and would increase housing prices so that low income people can no longer afford to live. The issue of gentrification in Santa Barbara is reframed by local media to perpetuate the idea that gentrification is an unclassed, unracialized issue that happens without context or reason. In reality, majority upper class white residents are the ones spearheading these and similar efforts. The Milpas Community Association also heavily endorsed the Santa Barbara Gang Injunction- a failed measure that if passed would have banned certain individuals associated with gang activity from certain areas of the city-- a unquestionably racially motivated proposal.
However, there are local efforts being made to bridge these cultural and socioeconomic gaps through non profit organizations using nontraditional methods to close the privilege gaps in our communities. Girls Rock Santa Barbara (GRSB) is a program for young girls designed to empower and uplift their voices and sense of self worth through music education. Girls Rock camps exist all over the globe, and the Santa Barbara program is the largest in the world, providing both summer camp programming and year round after school programming. Their mission is to create summer camps that are political and progressive-- a bold decision that many children’s organizations have shied away from. Girls Rock workshops cover huge issues in a way that is easy for kids to understand. They discuss the history of female musicians and why women and people of color are excluded from music, how different identities have different sets of privileges, and how to respect experiences different than our own.
Girls Rock SB cares a lot about providing opportunities to kids who are underprivileged or unable to afford their programming, especially to kids of color and foster kids, and works year round applying for grants and fundraising in order to provide children without the means to pay for camp with partial or full scholarships. Unlike most other Santa Barbara organizations, Girls Rock supports their community through their enrollment-- 50% of which is people of color.
Now, Girls Rock SB is working together with the Chumash tribe in order to provide the world’s first Girls Rock camp on a Native American reservation. The elders of the Chumash Tribe are working with GRSB to create a summer program in addition to GRSB’s regular programming that would address through music the issues young Native American girls face. The tribe is providing this program to their members for free and providing room and board to the staff at GRSB on the reservation for the duration of the camp.
Jen Baron, the executive director of GRSB, describes Girls Rock’s mission on the Chumash Reservation as starting from a community meeting between herself and the Educational Director of the tribe, Niki Sandoval, who described the Chumash as “the feminist tribe.” Baron explains a variety of ways in which together she and representatives from the Chumash tribe are working to bring their communities together. Baron expressed in an interview that her mission was originally to include more native voices in GRSB’s programming and now the ability to actually dedicate time to being on the reservation is a rare and special opportunity. Within the camp itself, Baron explains that GRSB “wants (tribe members) to take the lead on what effects their community,” and not continue a system in which white people feel the need to take a leadership position over people of color.
While still currently working on camp curriculum, several workshops are planned already for the Chumash Girls Rock program. “Image and Identity,” is one of the most central, and arguably most political of the week’s daily workshops. The round table discussion normally teaches kids about the gender binary, misogyny, racism and other kinds of oppressions and will be taught by a tribe member in order to most effectively communicate with the campers and to discuss the issues that affects them as Native American women, who have historically been subject to systematic racism, classism, and sexism due to state sanctioned denial of rights. The Image and Identity workshop is intended to both educate and empower young girls to learn about what they are up against in the world and how to be allies to each other.
Another workshop planned for the Chumash camp will consist of a tribe representative teaching the campers how to make a traditional Native American instrument themselves. Variations of this type of workshop have been done before, in which kids learned to make microphones and other instruments, but Baron excitedly asserts that this particular workshop is even more influential, giving the girls cultural connections to their heritage that they can then use in their rock band and the songs that they write at camp.
Finally, the Chumash tribe will have a journalist teaching the camp’s Women in Media and Media Literacy workshop, providing young girls with representation of people like themselves in professional fields they admire. This year’s song writing classes will also include members from the community. Baron explains that there will be a special focus on the importance of storytelling through music this year, both as a means for personal expression and as a way to create and support communities. Making music will be another way to start discussions about identity and and experiences.
While children’s summer camps will not end racism or the increasingly serious issue of gentrification in Santa Barbara, it is an effective tool for encouraging a generation who can identify and address these issues. It is a rarity for two communities to come together in this way for the sake of teaching children how to begin a journey with activism. Girls Rock’s dedication to providing programs to kids regardless of financial need and the Chumash’s dedication to bringing the same opportunities to their kids that are provided to those living in Santa Barbara both create an environment that shows kids that any person can make a difference. Systematic oppression is a part of our culture and cannot be undone immediately, but there are people and organizations working to make our community a place that does not engage in the displacement and disregard of low income and people of color. Girls Rock is one of several small, volunteer-powered organizations dedicated to these types of missions. Ultimately, they are looking to fulfill their own definition of an ally: someone who uses their resources to help others: “we want to support them in this program and give them ownership and agency.”
To put it simply, since its modern inception Santa Barbara has had an issue with systematic racism. It pervades from its foundation on the genocide of Native Americans in the Mission system, and continues today with the active work being done by organizations like the Milpas Community Association to gentrify the areas of Santa Barbara still largely populated by low income people of color. The physical dislocation of peoples is one way to maintain systematic oppression. Every day I see police cars patrol Milpas more closely, and drive by “Indio Muerto Road.” While we consider ourselves a progressive state, this injustice persists.
Santa Barbara was created when Spanish commanders gifted plots of Chumash land to retired Spanish soldiers. By 1870 Santa Barbara was prosperous and white, while natives were forced to work menial labor jobs in order to survive. At the time, the reasons white men stripped the Chumash of their land and rights was straightforward and concise: the indigenous peoples of the Americas were considered inferior to white men and their needs and rights were unimportant to the law. These days, the racialized systemic poverty present in Santa Barbara is coded to perpetuate conservative messages about the well being of the town itself: low income people of color are displaced through gentrification disguised as “clean up efforts.” This continuation of the displacement of people of color further divides communities and creates a larger class gap.
This can be seen both in the ways Native American reservations have been formed and regulated and how majority Latino populations have been pushed out of the East Side of Santa Barbara. The 1769 arrival of Europeans with plans to build missions brought violence and disease to the Chumash. Their numbers dwindled from estimates of 22,000 to 2,788 as five missions were built in their territory. As previously mentioned, this land was doled out to Spanish soldiers, and then to Spanish families loyal to the Mexican government, and the Santa Ynez reservation was not established until 1901. Since the establishment of the reservation, the Chumash, along with other Native American tribes, have had to fight in US courts for sovereignty on their own land and for the the rights to establish casinos which proved to be one of few ways for them to make revenue to improve their community.
For native peoples and other people of color who still choose to live in Santa Barbara, the struggle to make money and provide for themselves still proves increasingly challenging. Organizations such as the Milpas Community Association work to “beautify” the community through the implementation of business districts that would strip locals of power over their neighborhoods and would increase housing prices so that low income people can no longer afford to live. The issue of gentrification in Santa Barbara is reframed by local media to perpetuate the idea that gentrification is an unclassed, unracialized issue that happens without context or reason. In reality, majority upper class white residents are the ones spearheading these and similar efforts. The Milpas Community Association also heavily endorsed the Santa Barbara Gang Injunction- a failed measure that if passed would have banned certain individuals associated with gang activity from certain areas of the city-- a unquestionably racially motivated proposal.
However, there are local efforts being made to bridge these cultural and socioeconomic gaps through non profit organizations using nontraditional methods to close the privilege gaps in our communities. Girls Rock Santa Barbara (GRSB) is a program for young girls designed to empower and uplift their voices and sense of self worth through music education. Girls Rock camps exist all over the globe, and the Santa Barbara program is the largest in the world, providing both summer camp programming and year round after school programming. Their mission is to create summer camps that are political and progressive-- a bold decision that many children’s organizations have shied away from. Girls Rock workshops cover huge issues in a way that is easy for kids to understand. They discuss the history of female musicians and why women and people of color are excluded from music, how different identities have different sets of privileges, and how to respect experiences different than our own.
Girls Rock SB cares a lot about providing opportunities to kids who are underprivileged or unable to afford their programming, especially to kids of color and foster kids, and works year round applying for grants and fundraising in order to provide children without the means to pay for camp with partial or full scholarships. Unlike most other Santa Barbara organizations, Girls Rock supports their community through their enrollment-- 50% of which is people of color.
Now, Girls Rock SB is working together with the Chumash tribe in order to provide the world’s first Girls Rock camp on a Native American reservation. The elders of the Chumash Tribe are working with GRSB to create a summer program in addition to GRSB’s regular programming that would address through music the issues young Native American girls face. The tribe is providing this program to their members for free and providing room and board to the staff at GRSB on the reservation for the duration of the camp.
Jen Baron, the executive director of GRSB, describes Girls Rock’s mission on the Chumash Reservation as starting from a community meeting between herself and the Educational Director of the tribe, Niki Sandoval, who described the Chumash as “the feminist tribe.” Baron explains a variety of ways in which together she and representatives from the Chumash tribe are working to bring their communities together. Baron expressed in an interview that her mission was originally to include more native voices in GRSB’s programming and now the ability to actually dedicate time to being on the reservation is a rare and special opportunity. Within the camp itself, Baron explains that GRSB “wants (tribe members) to take the lead on what effects their community,” and not continue a system in which white people feel the need to take a leadership position over people of color.
While still currently working on camp curriculum, several workshops are planned already for the Chumash Girls Rock program. “Image and Identity,” is one of the most central, and arguably most political of the week’s daily workshops. The round table discussion normally teaches kids about the gender binary, misogyny, racism and other kinds of oppressions and will be taught by a tribe member in order to most effectively communicate with the campers and to discuss the issues that affects them as Native American women, who have historically been subject to systematic racism, classism, and sexism due to state sanctioned denial of rights. The Image and Identity workshop is intended to both educate and empower young girls to learn about what they are up against in the world and how to be allies to each other.
Another workshop planned for the Chumash camp will consist of a tribe representative teaching the campers how to make a traditional Native American instrument themselves. Variations of this type of workshop have been done before, in which kids learned to make microphones and other instruments, but Baron excitedly asserts that this particular workshop is even more influential, giving the girls cultural connections to their heritage that they can then use in their rock band and the songs that they write at camp.
Finally, the Chumash tribe will have a journalist teaching the camp’s Women in Media and Media Literacy workshop, providing young girls with representation of people like themselves in professional fields they admire. This year’s song writing classes will also include members from the community. Baron explains that there will be a special focus on the importance of storytelling through music this year, both as a means for personal expression and as a way to create and support communities. Making music will be another way to start discussions about identity and and experiences.
While children’s summer camps will not end racism or the increasingly serious issue of gentrification in Santa Barbara, it is an effective tool for encouraging a generation who can identify and address these issues. It is a rarity for two communities to come together in this way for the sake of teaching children how to begin a journey with activism. Girls Rock’s dedication to providing programs to kids regardless of financial need and the Chumash’s dedication to bringing the same opportunities to their kids that are provided to those living in Santa Barbara both create an environment that shows kids that any person can make a difference. Systematic oppression is a part of our culture and cannot be undone immediately, but there are people and organizations working to make our community a place that does not engage in the displacement and disregard of low income and people of color. Girls Rock is one of several small, volunteer-powered organizations dedicated to these types of missions. Ultimately, they are looking to fulfill their own definition of an ally: someone who uses their resources to help others: “we want to support them in this program and give them ownership and agency.”