Lifelong Journey Leads to Answering a Call to Serve California’s Original People

Growing up in Santa Cruz, Jake Malsbury remembers visiting the nearby mission of San Juan Bautista, and after seeing the tourist sites, his dad took him behind the mission and pointed out a mass grave of Native Americans forced to live there.

The lesson of the dark side of the mission, of California's unflattering history, stayed with him.

It led Malsbury to work as a researcher for a Central Valley tribe while pursuing a bachelor's degree in history at UC Merced. It led him back to working for that tribe after he earned a master's degree in international development in Melbourne, Australia, where he also gained experience in collections management working alongside Indigenous staff at an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural center.

Now, it has led him to serve as Stanislaus State's coordinator of repatriation. Specifically, he's tasked with returning human remains and funerary items held on campus in a climate-controlled room to the Native American tribes to which they belong.

The position, which is part of the Office of the President, is new to Stan State and the other 22 California State University campuses.

"It is a CSU imperative that resulted from a state audit," said Interim Senior Associate Vice President for Human Resources Deb Doel-Hammond.

A year-long legislature-ordered audit, released in June 2023, showed a lack of effort on the part of CSU campuses to return Native American artifacts and remains.

"There were many things the California State University agreed to do in response to the audit," Doel-Hammond said. "One of them was that every single campus would have a full-time repatriation coordinator."

Malsbury, familiar with the area, was a perfect fit.

"It's very meaningful work that I'm passionate about," Malsbury said. "It's very challenging work, as practitioners across the system are finding out, but it's very meaningful."

The CSU audit came four years after state legislators ordered a similar review of the University of California collections, and both came more than two decades after Congress's 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires institutions to return human remains, funerary, sacred and cultural items to federally recognized Native American tribes.

They also came long after California passed the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (CalNAGPRA) of 2001. Recognizing that not all tribes have the legal documents required to be federally recognized, CalNAGPRA required all state agencies and museums that receive state funding and have possession or control over collections of human remains or cultural items to provide a process for the identification and repatriation of those items to appropriate tribes.

Stan State has a relatively small collection, and Malsbury said the University and President Britt Rios-Ellis are progressive in attitudes toward returning materials to Native Americans, which align with his views.

"These tribes are not old, outdated stereotypes that no longer exist. They very much exist, withstanding the violent history of our country. They're active members of the community, practicing their traditional beliefs and cultures."

-Jake Malsbury, NAGPRA/CalNAGPRA Repatriation Coordinator

"Being able to openly work with tribes is something that moves us away from the negative perspectives and assumptions that came with the audit," he said. "We are working diligently to understand what we have, what needs to be repatriated and what tribes we need to reach out to."

The University has long accepted and agreed to store remains and other items discovered, predominately at construction sites, in Stanislaus, Merced and San Joaquin counties, first inhabited by bands of Yokuts, Ohlone and Miwok. Because the items were never displayed and unlikely to have been used in classes, they remain largely unknown by the campus community.

Malsbury is reaching out to about 30 local tribes who may be descendants of the remains Stan State is housing.

"We have a collection from Merced that was discovered in 1939 on land owned by the Miller Livestock Company," Doel-Hammond said. "We have a second inventory recorded in 1976 from land grading that was happening on land owned by the City of Newman. We have a third from San Joaquin County that originated in 1958."

The University stored each collection in a separate box and labeled it.

Malsbury is in the process of working with anthropology faculty to create an inventory list of items that will be repatriated. Some tribes may have a cultural center or land for reburial of remains. If not, they may join another band of their tribe that can provide a resting place.

"Based on what I know, proper reburial usually involves a ceremony," Malsbury said. "As the former chairwoman of the tribe I worked for said, 'These aren't just skeletal remains. They're our ancestors.' She said, 'These ancestors have been interrupted on their spiritual journey, so being able to have them returned, they can be at rest to continue their spiritual journey.'"

Beyond returning materials, Malsbury said repatriation coordinators have another goal.

"I see this as an opportunity to establish lasting relationships with tribes," he said. "That's something I'm excited about. I'm hoping down the road we'll have really good relationships with tribes, especially tribes whose land we're on - Yokuts land."

Malsbury also sees this new role as a way to educate students.

"These tribes are not old, outdated stereotypes that no longer exist," Malsbury said. "They very much exist, withstanding the violent history of our country. They're active members of the community, practicing their traditional beliefs and cultures.

"This may be an opportunity for us to have tribal government representatives come to campus and share their culture and experiences with students, staff and faculty."

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