Alex Diaz works in a tent at the Cosumnes River College Native American Heritage Week Vendor & Community Resource Fair Nov. 6, from which he and his wife were selling Native American goods.

SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - Native Americans and people from other cultures celebrated Native American Heritage Week at Cosumnes River College Nov. 6 with a vendor and community resource fair.

Groups participated to educate students and the public about Native American culture, help Native American students succeed in college and afterward and honor them, too.

“We really wanted it to be a celebration so that Native students saw that we honor them, and we honor the continued tribal nations,” said Shaina Philpot, director of the Native American Student Support and Success Program at the college.

A Native American dancer performs at the Cosumnes River College Native American Heritage Week Vendor & Community Resource Fair Nov. 6.

Philpot is also a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians and wore a ribbon skirt and earrings reflecting Native American culture.

“We’re really excited to be in collaboration with all of those folks and have the celebration,” Philpot added.

Native Sisters Circle was one of the groups represented at the fair and a nonprofit the serves tribal youth.

“We’re building leadership,” said founder and CEO Leticia Aguilar, who is member of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation, a federally recognized tribe.

Native Sisters Circle is helping Native American youth build confidence in their identity, too, which is important, she said.

Native Sisters Circle meets Native American youth where they are, since they might be from different tribes, Aguilar said, and helps break generational trauma. The youth educate the group’s leaders, too, she said.

Unfortunately, sometimes educators fail at teaching about Native American culture, Aguilar added.

We are very much a thriving community,” she said. “Our traditions are not a thing of the past.”

Indeed, Alex Diaz was helping his wife Luna Juarez – who is Apache and Mexican – sell items at the fair. Ribbonskirt dolls, obsidian knives and tomahawks were on sale as well as dreamcatchers and rawhide rattles.

A Native American dancer performs at the Cosumnes River College Native American Heritage Week Vendor & Community Resource Fair Nov. 6.

Juarez was at the fair “to share the native spirit and to enjoy our culture,” she said, and to make a little money.

But to Aguilar, it goes beyond that. Native American peoples still eat traditional foods, she said, and they are still fighting for their rights.

“We’re not going nowhere,” she said. “You hear us but you’re not taking action.”

Aguilar was disappointed Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 1881, which, she said, would have given Native Americans access to land to gather resources.

“It comes down to our survival,” Aguilar said.  

“Sacred sites gathering places, waters, plants, and ceremonial materials are not merely resources; they are relatives and responsibilities that sustain Indigenous cultural identity and community wellbeing,” according to Indigenous Justice, the sponsor of the bill.

The bill aimed to reduce bureaucratic barriers preventing tribes from practicing their spiritual traditions and would ensure Native voices are heard when decisions are made affecting their sacred sites, according to CalMatters.

“I am sympathetic to the goals of this measure,” Newsom said in his letter vetoing the bill. “However, this legislation’s proposed framework could have far-reaching impacts on the basic operations of state government and the management of state property, and this uncertainly calls for further discussion and review.”

He encouraged Assemblymember James Ramos, D-San Bernadino, to refine the bill’s concepts and have state agencies be part of the work.