ESCONDIDO–California Center for the Arts, Escondido will present “Journeys to the Past,” a exploration of the lifestyle of the California Indian.
The performance will focus on the Acjachemen Nation, which flourished in Southern California hundreds of years ago before the Spanish influx.
Performances will feature powwows, songs and stories shared by award-winning storyteller Jacque Tahuka-Nunez, as she demonstrates her ancestors’ history, dwellings, basket weaving and dances.
During the traditional dances, children will get the opportunity to participate and will leave with a wonderful understanding of environmentalism and what it means to be “keepers of the earth”.
]]>Students at El Morro Elementary welcomed Jacque Nuñez on Monday, Dec 17, as she shared her Acjachemen ancestor’s story in “Journeys to the Past.” Nuñez took students on a journey through the lifestyle of the Californian Native American, specifically the Acjachemen Nation, which flourished in Southern California for hundreds of years, including just south of Aliso Creek.
Courtesy of LBUSD
Nuñez and her team share with students through stories, songs, and dance
Through stories, songs, and dance, Jacque shared with students her people’s indigenous tools, instruments, games, and clothing. She included how Native Americans preserve their culture today by participating in Intertribal Pow wows.
Courtesy of LBUSD
Students leave with a wonderful understanding of what it means to be “keepers of the earth”
Jacque prides herself on preserving and passing her culture along through oral Native American traditional storytelling. While attending college at USC, she traveled across the country competing on the National Collegiate Speech Circuit and American Forensic League.
Courtesy of LBUSD
El Morro students enjoyed participating in Jacque’s “Journeys to the Past”
Nuñez received the Most Outstanding Speaker Award from USC for three years and numerous medals for superior accomplishments. After graduating from USC and Pacific Christian College, she began to teach in elementary schools where she enjoyed teaching for over 17 years.
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By Brian Park
Native American educator Jacque Nuñez will serve as cultural ambassador for the city of San Juan Capistrano during the 2014 North American Indigenous Games in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
The City Council voted unanimously to make Nuñez its ambassador on Tuesday, June 17.
Nuñez is a member of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation, the native inhabitants of the Capistrano Valley. Through her educational program, Journeys to the Past, Nuñez has taught students about California Indian culture in classrooms and camps.
Founded in 1992, the Indigenous Games aim to promote unity among native people of North America through athletic and cultural events. Nuñez was selected to conduct a workshop at the games, becoming the first representative from a California tribe to do so.
“I believe that maybe why I was selected was just because I teach more than just the culture,” Nuñez said. “As this position is given to me, I will take it with such great honor. It’s far more reaching than just teaching about the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians but actually teaching about what it means to be a citizen that appreciates diversity throughout the world.”
]]>On Saturday, the Aquarium of the Pacific will celebrate its 16th annual Moompetam: Native American Festival, online. Free and open for anyone to tune in to between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., the weekend event celebrates local maritime Native American cultures, including Tongva, Chumash, Acjachemen, Costanoan, Luiseno and Kumeyaay, through storytelling, educational programs, traditional cultural crafts, music and dance.
Jacque Tahuka Nunez, whose people are the Acjachemen, is the festival’s emcee. An award-winning storyteller and teacher, celebrating Moompetam—the term means “People of the Ocean,” and is derived from the word for saltwater in the Tongva language—at the aquarium ranks as one of her favorite events.
“I think the reason why it’s my favorite is because an entity like the Aquarium of the Pacific took a people that were, that are still invisible, and have made us visible and have given us honor, and helped us to see ourselves with great honor, too,” Nunez said. “To me, it really has been a relationship of love, respect and dignity. I’m so grateful for organizations like that, that give us a chance to be who we are in the world.”
When festival attendees, or viewers in this case, or anyone new to Native American customs gets a chance to hear, for example, a story or a song from the Chumash people, Nunez said it’s like music to her ears, being able to give the gift of understanding.
“We are an invisible cultural group,” said Nunez. “I have been a teacher for 41 years […] and I’m still amazed when a child will say, ‘Are you really an Indian? Are you really, really, I mean, you really are?’ And I go, ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes.’ And so in the eyes of the world, we’re just in the storybooks, they cannot even imagine that we’re still here practicing our ceremonies, singing and dancing and having this culture.
Everyone’s still like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ And it isn’t amazing to us, but it’s so special to us. And we’re grateful that we have a chance to share what’s so beautiful to us.”
Festival coordinator Peter Martineau, who has been working at the aquarium for 16 years, said the first Moompetam festival was the first festival he organized for the nonprofit. A major aspect of the aquarium’s mission to care for the ocean is building connections with people, including the coastal communities represented during Moompetam. From the dances, to the songs, to the craft work, “so much of it is about, just the respect for nature, in the sense that nature is not something that’s separate from people … These are the original conservationists.”
The challenge this year was obvious and widespread: with the festival’s transition to being exclusively online, how could it represent as many of the coastal indigenous people as possible.
“We have songs to talk about the waves and how they come in and how they go out and how they bring peace,” Nunez said. “We have songs about the wind and how the wind touches your face and brings you into a calm place. So, it’s so significant for us to share the beauty of our connection to the ocean, to the animals.”
The festival will conclude with a ceremony honoring Dr. Stan Rodriguez, a Tribal Councilman for the Santa Ysabel Nation, with the aquarium’s Heritage Award; the recipient of which is nominated and voted for by their peers. Rodriguez is also director of Kumeyaay Community College, dedicated to preserving the language and culture.
“He’s just done an amazing amount of service over the years, and his peers felt like he was the one to be recognized this year and we’re really excited to do that,” said Martineau. “He does amazing cultural stories, he always has some interesting craftwork going on. Like so many of the people that we honor, I find out this person, who I’ve known for years, has done so much more than I really have had any idea of.”
Martineau recalled watching in awe as Rodriguez built a tule boat made out of reeds during festivals past.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it a couple of years ago, he showed up with a giant truck full of these huge long reeds, and then he and his son and a few others proceeded to build a boat out of it in the front plaza,” said Martineau. “And they actually put it in the water and paddled it around in the harbor.”
Nunez sees having to participate in Moompetam virtually as an opportunity, rather than a detriment, to what has certainly been an exciting in-person experience over the past 15 years. Set to be livestreamed from the aquarium, participants must follow social distancing rules. But for Nunez, it’s all about how you look at the situation. It’s as much about pivoting as it is about finding that silver lining.
“If I say those words, ‘It’s not the same,’ I could certainly bring my spirit down,” Nunez said. “But instead, I say, ‘We are still here and we’re going to make it work.’ And when I say those words, then I’m excited, because this is a new medium. I’m not afraid of the camera, I’m not afraid to just be who I am in the world. This is another opportunity, we’re still here and they didn’t cancel.”
“Even though it’s coming through modern media, it’s really gonna still have the spirit of Moompetam, I’m sure of that, I feel it,” Martineau said.
]]>There are three stereotypes about American Indians that storyteller Jacque Nunez hears most often from children after she performs a play on the Acjachemen tribe.
]]>There are three stereotypes about American Indians that storyteller Jacque Nunez hears most often from children after she performs a play on the Acjachemen tribe.
One stereotype is that all American Indians live in a tepee. Two other stereotypes are that they only eat corn and that they bang on drums.
To dispel these notions, Nunez, a former teacher and a descendant of the Acjachemen tribe will perform “Journeys to the Past,” a play aimed at teaching third- and fourth-graders about the Native Americans who once lived in Orange County.
The play will kick off the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s School’s Out Summer Series on July 6.
Through storytelling, song and hands-on activities, Nunez will recount tales of her ancestors who thrived hundreds of years before Spanish conquistadors arrived in California.
“I think the seed that I plant in the children is that every culture deserves respect and understanding,” said Nunez, who has been performing the play for seven years in schools in Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties.
The play depicts a day in the life of a child in a village.
The Acjachemen once lived in an area from Long Beach to Oceanside, and as far to the east as Lake Elsinore, Nunez said.
Nunez is a natural public speaker. She majored in speech communications at USC.
This series of plays is the center’s first youth summer series, said Jason Holland, manager of the education program at the center.
“We want to give parents and children the chance to enjoy a live performance at the center and learn about different cultures,” Holland said.
Other shows in the summer series include “Japanese Festival Sounds” from July 13 to 15 and Arte Flamenco Dance Theater on Aug. 3 and 4. After each of the shows there will be an interactive workshop for the public.
The workshop following Nunez’s play will allow children to make Native American rope and learn Native American games and songs.
Nunez said the tribe is in the process of getting federal recognition, and thus funds for economic development and other projects.
]]>Vol. 7, Issue 11, March 27-April 9, 2009
The Capistrano Dispatch
Juaneño Band of Mission Indians/ Acjachemen Nation announces that San Juan Capistrano resident Jacque Nunez is the first Acjachemen member to receive this esteemed award as “Educator of the Year,” given at the 32nd California Conference on American Indian Education on March 31 at Wyndham Hotel in Palm Springs.
Nunez, a ninth-generation of the Rios family, was nominated by her tribe for her 30 years in education as a teacher, preschool director and Cultural Bearer/Storyteller/workshop leader.
Nunez has served 12 years as the Community Education Chair. Nunez has traveled to hundreds of schools, visiting thousands of children while sharing the beauty and culture of her Acjachemen people, the builders of Mission San Juan Capistrano. Nunez was selected by PBS Children’s programs, Jaker’s Adventures as the Native American story teller on a special that demonstrated storytelling around the world. She show cased her original story, Shoo-la-yem, (Many Stars).
She travels throughout the state to Performing Art Centers as the Master storyteller with other tribal members in an amazing play that is engaging, interactive and a living village of the ancient village of Acjachemai while sharing their Acjachemen story. “She was most deserving of this award, states Nathan Banda who spearheaded her nomination on behalf of the tribe, “We are so proud of her!”
Nunez will be donating her Native American Education Program Journeys to the Past to San Juan Elementary at 6 p.m. on April 3.
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It was presented by a wise and talented woman named Jacque Nunez, and it was about the local indigenous peoples.
Jacque Nunez talking about the yucca plant to the assembled students of William Collier Elementary. |
Though the presentations did give some insights to the Acjachemen Nation, AKA the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, it was much more.
Jacque encouraged all the kids to learn more about their own families and heritages and to be tolerant of others from other cultures.
Instead of saying "ewww" when presented with something new to them, she suggested that they say "ahhh" then "awesome" instead.
You see her use that technique in the video below as she has the kids learn about some Native American musical instruments.
During the presentation the kids had a chance to learn how the Acjachemen people would gather acorns, hunt, make baskets, make rope and their music.
She was able to keep both groups' attention for 45 mins. You can tell that she had been a teacher before by the way she interacted with the kids and got them to stay focused.
In addition to the many factoids about the Acjachemen people that I learned. I also learned a technique she used to quiet students when they'd get fidgety: Quiet Coyote.
In the video below, the students are reminded that every person deserves respect and that no one should be treated differently because of the color of their skin.
They were also motivated to learn five things about their own families.
I noticed that as much as the presentation was about the Acjachemen people, it was also about having respect for others.
I found it to be a very wholesome message presented in an irresistible and engaging manner. If only such things existed back when I was an elementary schooler.
After the assembly was over I had a chance to ask Jacque a couple of questions.
WR: How did this presentation come about?
JN: I created this program while I was in college and decided that the story of my ancestors needed to be told.
WR: Can you tell me a bit about your background/schooling?
JN: I went to school, got my first degree at USC in speech communications. I went back after I was married and I got a degree in business. So then I took everything about my history and created a business.
WR: What would you like the kids to take away from your presentation?
JN: There are lots of little seeds of learning, but I think number one that the Acjachemen people were the indigenous people, for your school particularly.
I think the greatest seed is that they realize that they come from a family that is worthy of being celebrated just like I am. In essence, I'm teaching the seed of respect, understanding and a celebration of who they are.
How lucky for the students at William Collier Elementary to have had such a presentation. If any of the other school administrators in Wildomar would like to have her at their schools, Jacque is easy to get a hold of at her website. Where you'll also find a ton of other info, including a more detailed biography and mission statement.