Q and A with Bad Indians on “The Belles of San Luis Rey”

The only way California Indians can move beyond destructive narratives is to share retellings of the past that center our ancestors and who we are as a people. In Bad Indians, Esselen scholar and poet Deborah Miranda discusses C. C. Pierce’s famous 1893 photograph “Ancient Belles of San Luis Rey” and asks a series of questions about the three elderly Luiseño women pictured. Following Bad Indians’ call for California Indians to share our stories, this piece answers Miranda’s questions, acknowledging the challenges that exist in giving voice to silenced histories, and offers a Luiseño-centered reconstruction of the photographed women’s lives.