Since Pacific coastal migration following a “kelp road” along the sea to the seafaring and harvesting of marine resources, the ocean has been deeply entwined in the lives of tribal groups originally living along the Southern California Coast and forced inland by white settler colonization. For Kelp Road: Kumeyaay Oceanways, Stan Rodriguez, Martha Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Newsome engage in dialog about Kumeyaay ties to the Pacific through the design and production of vessels: willow and coiled juncus baskets such as those made by Martha Rodriguez and her family in coastal San José de la Zorra, and ha kwaiyo (boats) made of tule reeds, such as those made by Stan Rodriguez and his sons. The project considers Kumeyaay historical and present coastal traditions and practices from Baja California Norte to Motkoolahooee (La Jolla) and east to the Colorado River, the use of marine and freshwater plants and resources, and the disruption to Native oceanways of the Kumeyaay by takeover of coastal land, including the unceded territory on which the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is built.
Photo: Outside the Kosay Kumeyaay Market at the site of Kosa'aay, the Kumeyaay village that occupied the land on which Old Town's State Historic Park is built, Stan Rodriguez and Nan Renner assemble boats with tule collected at Kumeyaay Lake, July 2021. This is one of 22 ha kwaiyo launched by Stan Rodriguez with youth from the La Posta Boys and Girls Club of the Kumeyaay Nation at the Kendall Frost Marsh Reserve, San Diego, September 26, 2021