Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
The film ‘Corazón Vaquero: The Heart of the Cowboy’, documents the rural “Californios,” raising livestock in the way of their Spanish ancestors in the Southern Baja California mountains. Facing tourism development, road building, and cultural changes, the isolated ranchos still persist with their self-sustaining subsistence-based way of life.
The Kumeyaay of southern and Baja California have a rich history of coexistence on the border of California and Mexico in the mountainous region of San Diego County. Here we republish Florence Shipek’s treatise on the preservation of their sacred mountain called Kuuchamaa, also known as Cuchuma, as well as several videos on their culture, history and stories.
Baja California, despite proximity to the US and recent rampant growth, remains a wild and untamed coastal desert. Behind the charming pueblitos and peaceful resorts lies a varied history where conquest and development have moved both slow and fast. Following a recent trip to the Gulf of California town of Loreto, this first in a series of articles attempts to define what makes the place special, as well as what the future holds for this (mostly) hidden resort region.
The California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, microtrash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film “The Condor’s Shadow” documents this struggle.
Groups of Kumeyaay People live in the isolated canyons of the Tijuana River watershed, high in the Baja California peninsula. They harvest acorns and pine nuts, hunt rattlesnake and small animals, collect grasses to weave baskets. They allow a glimpse of what life in Southern California before the Spanish arrived was like.