Last Updated on April 9, 2021
Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. In her book, 1965,Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez (UCLA)marshals more than two centuries of evidence to explain how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world’s leading incarcerator. In so doing, she unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles.
Hernandez will be joined in conversation with Tongva Elder Julia Bognay and Pete White, Founder and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network.
This program is open to all and is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Rigo 23: Ripples Become Waves. The exhibition will be open during the program. All Main Museum exhibitions and programs are FREE.
Book Trailer | Kelly Lytle Hernandez: City of Inmates
Kelly Lytle Hernandez is a Professor of History and African American Studies at UCLA. She is also the Interim Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning book, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol(University of California Press, 2010), and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles(University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Currently, Professor Lytle Hernandez is the research lead for the Million Dollar Hoods project, which maps how much is spent on incarceration per neighborhood in Los Angeles County.
Julia Bogany is a member of the Tongva tribe, is on their Tribal Council, and is their Cultural Consultant. Julia constantly, incessantly, voluntarily teaches, attends meetings, and sits on Boards to help her tribe. She has worked for over thirty years for the American Indian community for her Tongva tribe. She has provided cultural, FASD, ICWA, training, and workshops in Los Angeles San Bernardino, and Riverside areas. She has also provided workshops in Sacramento for the California Rural Indian Health Board Woman’s conferences.
Mrs. Bogany teaches Tongva language and cultural classes. She attended many language workshops around the country to learn, strengthen, and enhance her tribe’s language. She has years of training in Child Development, Indian Child Welfare (ICWA), and Native American Studies. Mrs. Bogany consults with and trains teachers drawing boards on how to revise their curriculum to reflect the correct history of California and California tribes. President of Kuruvanga Springs, Representative for California tribes on Route 66. Pitzer College Elder in residents works in class teaching Culture History, also at Scrips, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and School of Theology Claremont.
Bogany is an advocate for the revitalization of the Tongva language. She helped assemble a Tongva dictionary and is an editor of Now You’re Speaking Our Language, a Tongva phrasebook of words and sentences.
Pete White is the Founder and Co-Director of Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), which builds indigenous leadership with the Central City East community to address the issues confronting the neighborhood’s low-income, predominately African-American residents. LA CAN focuses on housing and civil rights, healthy food access, women’s rights, and violence prevention.