Dr. James Sandos will discuss the consequences of European conquest on coastal and Central Valley Native communities at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in the first of two History Lecture Series at California State University, Fresno.
Sandos, a Fresno State alumnus who is a professor of history and Farquhar professor of the Southwest at the University of Redlands, will discuss “No Way Out: Indian-White Relations from the Missions through the Gold Rush.”
At 6 p.m. May 4, Dr. Vicki Ruiz-of the University of California, Irvine will discuss “Dreams, Rural Schools: Mexican Americans and Public Education, 1870-1950.”
Both lectures are free and open to the public. They will be in the Alice Peters Auditorium at the University Business Center.
The Fresno State History Department sponsors both presentations, joined by the Fresno City and County Historical Society and Fresno County Library for Sandos’ lecture.
Sandos will focus on the California mission period when the native population dropped from 300,000 to 100,000. The lecture is part of Fresno County’s sesquicentennial activities.
Sandos is the award-winning author of “Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions and Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904-1923.”
After earning a bachelor of arts in history at Fresno State in 1966, Sandos received his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1978.
Ruiz is a professor in history and Chicano Latino Studies at UC Irvine is president of the Organization of American Historians, president-elect of the American Studies Association, director of UCI’s educational outreach group. She is the author and editor of many books and was recognized as Latina magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 2000.
Among her books are “Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950” and “Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States.” She also wrote “Racial Desegregation in Public Education” for the Organization of American Historians Magazine
For more information: 559.278-2153 or 278-6817.
