Maria Lepowsky, Professor of Anthropology and Gender and Women’s Studies was awarded a Feminist Scholars Fellowship from the Center for Research on Gender and Women and a Resident Faculty Fellowship at the UW Institute for Research in the Humanities.
In 2010-11, Lepowsky will complete a book entitled Toypurina and the Hidden Histories of California. The manuscript focuses on a young female shaman, Toypurina, who in 1785 led her Tongva people and their allies in a revolt against the Spanish at Mission San Gabriel, east of the new pueblo of Los Angeles.
Drawing on century-old anthropological fieldnotes, wax cylinder recordings of sacred songs, family stories, oral histories and participant observation in present-day ceremonies, Lepowsky narrates the history of Toypurina and the legacies of her revolt.
She re-envisions California history by placing indigenous Californians at its center. In addition, Lepowsky shows how today Toypurina is becoming a regional symbol of indigenous, Chicana/Chicano and feminist resistance to injustice.