On Friday, USC honored Native American Heritage Month with an on-campus performance from the Torres Martinez Bird Singers.
Beginning at noon, Dylan Goodwill, senior assistant director of undergraduate admissions, welcomed attendees and delivered a land acknowledgement, announcing that USC was built on the ancestral land of the Gabrielino Kizh people. Goodwill, who added she herself has an indigenous background, also recognized other tribes like the Serrano and Tataviam, amongst others with significant presence in the Southern California region.
The event, which focused on USC’s theme for the month, titled Resilience & Renewal: Indigenous Voices Rising, was originally planned to be held in Hahn Plaza, but due to the rainy weather, it was moved to the Trojan Family Room at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.
Following her speech, Goodwill introduced the Torres Martinez Bird Singers to the stage. Previously, the band has performed for an event hosted by Jill Biden in 2022 as well as a Los Angeles Clippers game and Coachella in 2024. Hailing from the Cahuilla indigenous tribe located near the Palm Springs area, the band often sings about themes including travel, weather and animals.
A unique characteristic of the performance were their instruments, a collection of gourd rattles which can be categorized as percussion. Their decorated gourd rattles were filled with seeds from the native palm tree of their home region — a display of the deep connection between nature and culture.
They sang in their native tongue, beating their gourd rattles in time to the music and singing, as two young cousins of one of the band members danced below the stage coordinating with the songs.
Women of various indigenous backgrounds also came in their traditional attires and danced in a swaying motion in front of the stage, creating the ambience of a festival.
Claradina Soto, an associate professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine, who has roots in the Navajo and Jemez Pueblo tribes, said the celebratory event held deep significance for the indigenous people in attendance.
“This was a form of healing today, for us, our families, and our communities,” she said.
Derek Duro, a member of the Torres Martinez Bird Singers, said history lessons can be blurry about what exactly happened to the Native-Americans before they were given reservations.
“History is taught by the winner, it’s always their interpretation of how the situation took place,” Duro said.
Duro said historically, indigenous peoples’ traditions and communities had been suppressed and marginalized, and added it remains important to reverse those events. .
“Our job is to let people know that we are still here, still flourishing. We still have our songs and we still have our language,” he added.
Duro also clarified that the name “Bird Singers” has nothing to do with singing like birds, but instead referenced the history of the Cahuilla tribe, in which they circled around the continent three times before stopping at the region they are now. Duro said there are nine different bands of Cahuilla people who stopped and stayed around the Southern California region.
“So it’s like a bird, how they circle around until they see somewhere they want to land and they come down,” Duro said.
Through music and oral traditions, the Cahuilla tribe passes down their history to the future generations, he said. This musical tradition is not to be seen as going out of the way to prove or assert anything, but something they have always been doing as a way of life, much before settlers appeared, he added.
Duro pointed out his cousins, two young children who also joined the performance.
“They have been singing for some years already, since they were little babies,” he said. “Their dad would put them on his knee and sing them our songs.”
Aiko Little, a writer and Northern Traditional dancer with roots in the Oglala Lakota tribe, shared how powerful it was for her to see the children dance.
“It’s good to see the next generation deeply ingrained in the culture, it gives me hope,” she said.
Jack Murillo, an actor with Nahua, Otomi and Cree-Métis backgrounds, agreed that it felt hopeful to watch cultural programs celebrated in educational spaces.
“It gives me hope for the future that one day, hopefully more schools will follow suit,” he said.