Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto
{{Short description|American author, cultural advisor, and nurse from California}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto
| image = Ernestine-De-Soto 1.jpg
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| birth_place = Santa Cruz, California
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| occupation = cultural advisor, author, nurse
| children = 5
| mother = Mary Yee
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Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto (born 1938/1939){{Cite web|last=Chawkins|first=Steve|date=2010-01-31|title=Researcher Gave the Chumash a Gift: Their Heritage |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ernestine31-2010jan31-story.html|access-date=2021-11-13|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}} is an author, cultural advisor, and former nurse of Barbareño Chumash descent. She is active in documenting the Barbareño Chumash language. Additionally, she has worked as an illustrator and Chumash historian.
Early life
Ygnacio-De Soto was born circa 1938 in Santa Cruz, California.{{cite news |last1=Dallow |first1=Lily |title=Meet Fiesta’s 2023 Grand Marshal: Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto, Barbareño Chumash Elder |url=https://www.noozhawk.com/meet-fiestas-2023-grand-marshal-ernestine-ygnacio-de-soto-barbareno-chumash-elder/ |access-date=5 August 2024 |work=Noozhawk |date=July 31, 2023}} She is the daughter of Mary Yee (1897–1965), who was the last first language speaker of the Chumashan language, Barbareño.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/islandofthebluedolphins/ygnacio-de-soto.htm|title=Ygnacio-De Soto |series=Island of the Blue Dolphins |publisher=U.S. National Park Service |access-date=2020-04-23}} She grew up listening to native speakers of the language and therefore serves as a direct living link to that extinct language family.{{Cite book|last=Kennedy|first=Frances H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_khgtBPZZyYC|title=American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook|date=2008|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company|isbn=978-0-395-63336-6|pages=298|language=en}}
Her ancestors lived near the area of Painted Cave, California. Some of her family stories, including stories by her maternal great grandmother Luisa Ygnacio, were documented by ethnologist John Peabody Harrington.
Career
Ygnacio-De Soto has worked closely with archivist John Johnson for over a decade, in documenting family memories and Barbareño Chumash cultural traditions in to writing. They became friends when Johnson was writing his PhD thesis on Chumash marriage and family patterns.
Ygnacio-De Soto was the illustrator of a children's book which tells one of her mother's cultural stories, The Sugar Bear Story (2005), published by Sunbelt Publications in conjunction with the Anthropology Department of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.{{Cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=06oPAQAAMAAJ|magazine=Newsletter |volume=24|date=2005|publisher=The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas |pages=14|language=en |title=Newsletter }}
In 2009, she helped to co-write a documentary film script with John R. Johnson. The film, 6 Generations: A Chumash Family's History (2010) is about her family's history and was produced by filmmaker Paul Goldsmith.{{Note|Script by Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto and John R. Johnson; produced, directed, and photographed by Paul Goldsmith, ASC; John R. Johnson, executive producer. Copyright Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 2009. Running time: 56 minutes 45 seconds}}{{Cite web|last=Kettmann|first=Matt|date=2009-11-12|title=Two Centuries of Chumash|url=https://www.independent.com/2009/11/12/two-centuries-chumash/|access-date=2021-11-13|website=The Santa Barbara Independent|language=en-US}}{{Cite journal|last=Hurst Thomas|first=David|date=2011-02-01|title=Listening to Six Generations of Chumash Women (Goldsmith, Soto, Johnson, Edwards, Walden, and Johnson's )|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/657926|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=52|issue=1|pages=127–128|doi=10.1086/657926|s2cid=224791797 |issn=0011-3204}} It has been reviewed in the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology.Farris, Glenn. "6 Generations: A Chumash Family's History" (film review), Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 30(2), 2010 The 6 Generations film won several awards at the Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival (2012); including Best Film; Best Script; Special Mention, Increasing the Awareness of the Ethnographic Record; and Audience Favorite.
She spoke out in 2019 against a project by the Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara, which aimed to build bathrooms in an area that holds sacred Chumash graves.{{cite news|last=Yamamura|first=Jean|date=October 12, 2019|title=Bacara Beach Bathroom Battle Lines Form: Move Farther Up the Beach Could Endanger Grave Sites, Chumash Contend|newspaper=Santa Barbara Independent|url=https://www.independent.com/2019/10/12/battle-lines-develop-in-bacara-bathroom-fight/|accessdate=March 23, 2021}}
The United States National Park Service has devoted a web page to her commentary on Scott O'Dell's book, Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960), in Chapter 7.
Additionally, she has worked as a nurse at a Santa Barbara rest home.
Publications
- {{Cite book|last=Yee|first=Mary J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B669PQAACAAJ|title=The Sugar Bear Story|publisher=Sunbelt Publications|others=Ernestine Ygnacio De Soto (illustrator)|year=2005|isbn=9780932653703|location=San Diego, CA}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official|http://portraitsofthecentralcoast.blogspot.com/2013/08/ernestine-desoto.html}}
- Film preview: [https://store.der.org/6-generations-p985.aspx 6 Generations: A Chumash Family's History]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ygnacio-De Soto, Ernestine}}
Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:21st-century Native American women
Category:21st-century American women
Category:21st-century Native American people
Category:Linguists of Chumashan languages
Category:20th-century Native American women