theresagregor

Personal: I am a descendant of the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, one of the twelve Kumeyaay Nations in San Diego County. I grew up on the Santa Ysabel Indian Reservation/ 'Ellykwanan (the knolls), where my great-great grandparents, Antonio and Andrea Cuevas, were forced to reside in 1903 after being removed from their village at Mataguay near Cupa. My great-great grandmother is a Wacheno and is descended from our shmull (clan) the Nejos who lived originally at Tekemuk (an Iipay village in Mesa Grande). Both were part of the original enrolled membership of the Tribe. My great-great grandparents had eight children, one of which was my great-grandmother Altagracia Cuevas or “Gracie” as she was fondly referred to. My great-grandmother and her siblings were sent to St. Boniface Indian/Industrial Boarding School in Banning, California, over eighty miles from the reservation. I have found records showing that Gracie was only 8 years old at the time, maybe younger when she was first brought there. When she returned to the Santa Ysabel Reservation as a young woman her entire world was changed. She married and moved to Ramona, about thirty miles south of the Reservation, where she and my great-grandfather Lucas Carrisoza raised their family. Lucas Carrisoza grew up in the Jamul/Alpine-area near Guatay and Campo; his parents are buried at the Ellis Ranch Cemetery in Descanso. Lucas Carrisoza was ¾ Yaqui from Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. My great-grandparents had twelve children, including my grandmother, Norene Theresa Carrisoza, my namesake. My grandma married three times and had seven children. When she married her third husband, they moved back to the Reservation to raise their family sometime in the early 1960s. My mother, Barbara Osuna (Prebicin) is the eldest daughter and she is the second oldest overall. She grew up on the Reservation, married my stepfather, Rudy Osuna, and raised my brother and me. My mom’s older brother lives on their family’s tribal land holdings on what was once the site of the old Indian Day School on appropriately named Schoolhouse Canyon Road. When my mom married our stepfather, Rudy Osuna, we moved to his family’s land on Epei Hill Road of Track 3 of the Reservation. My brother and I grew up without electricity or a telephone. This is a hard reality to imagine in the 21st Century, but it is true. The Reservation has seen many changes since my family first moved there, some good, some not so, but the land was always part of our homeland and so many of my family members remain living on 'Ellykwanan including my stepfather, my Aunt Sheri Paipa, my Uncle Larry Prebicin, and numerous cousins along with many close family relations. Education: PhD, Department of English University of Southern California, 2010 MA, Department of English, University of Southern California, 1999 BA, LTWR with Minor in Spanish, CSU San Marcos, 1997 Professional: Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies, CSU Long Beach, Present Lecturer, American Indian Studies Department, CSUSM, 2016-2015 Researcher, California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, where I conduct research about the educational achievement of American Indian and Alaska Natives in California. I led the research for the publication of the State of American Indian and Alaska Native Education in California Reports for 2014 and 2015. Lecturer, Department of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego, 2013-2008 Executive Director, Inter-Tribal Long Term Recovery Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a mission to strengthen and enhance the coordination of disaster preparedness and recovery efforts on tribal lands in Southern California, Present-2008. Tribal Administrator, Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, 2008-2006