Over 100 federally recognized Native American tribes call California home,

but too many others succumbed to massacres, enslavement, and disease.

And the cultures of those who remain are constantly in danger of disappearing.

But in the inland empire region of Southern California,

one tribe has recently announced its plans to fight back.

I'm Gustavo Ariano. You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times. It's Monday,

January 24th, 2022. Today, we'll speak with Los Angeles Times reporter Nathan Solis, who has been

covering the story of the Serrano people of Southern California.

And we'll also hear from Ernest Siva. He's one of the last living oral historians of the Serrano language.

The Serrano people who call themselves Marayam are slowly starting to see their story get more

prominence. There's now college courses to see their story get more prominence.

There's now college courses that teach their language and more people that speak parts of it.

And in San Bernardino County, officials not only recognize the Serrano language, but at a big

press event late last year, they acknowledge that three county museums all sit on Serrano

ancestral lands.

It's a historic development in a region where Native American culture and history

has long been ignored, romanticized as vestiges of a lost people, or both.

Nathan Solis is my colleague in the L.A. Times is Metro Section.

Nathan, welcome to the Times.

Hey, thanks for having me on.

So this moved by San Bernardino County in November, language recognition, Latin acknowledgments.

What was that about?

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