Hey Generation Ratify California!

Here are your latest Generation Ratify CA updates/opportunities for March and
educational ERA research presented by the Communications Team.

Updates Regarding the ERA:

Providing Healing, Promoting Hope; Two Exceptional Women’s
Contribution to Their Community
Written by PR Manager: Louise Marie Maganto
This year’s Women’s History Month theme is “Providing Healing, Promoting
Hope.” As we celebrated this Women’s History Month, the focus and tribute was
towards the unceasing work of caregivers and frontline workers during the COVID-19
pandemic and the plethora of wars that women and provided healing and hope
throughout history.
Bonnie Castillo, a Registered Nurse and Executive Director of National Nurses
United and the California Nurses Association, and Jeanette Ives Erickson, Senior Vice
President, and Chief Nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital have greatly contributed
to their communities.

This year’s Women’s History Month theme is “Providing

Healing, Promoting Hope.” As we celebrated this Women’s History
Month, the focus and tribute was towards the unceasing work of
caregivers and frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and
the plethora of wars that women and provided healing and hope
throughout history.
Bonnie Castillo, a Registered Nurse and Executive Director of
National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association, and
Jeanette Ives Erickson, Senior Vice President, and Chief Nurse at Massachusetts
General Hospital have greatly contributed to their communities.

Bonnie Castillo has fought against layoffs, pay cuts for nurses, and was among the first
to emphasize the lack of personal protective equipment available for nurses. Nurses
have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. However, the shortage of N95 masks
the U.S. experienced left them unable to protect themselves, the public, and their
patients. Under Castillo’s leadership, the National Nurses United spoke out to hundreds
of news reports and conducted several surveys of registered nurses across the nation to
track their experience during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, Castillo was the
director of the Registered Nurse Response Network, a disaster relief program that places
registered nurse volunteers where they are needed after man-made and natural
catastrophes. Castillo has coordinated RN volunteers to help in the aftermath of the
Haiti earthquake, Super Typhoon Haiyan, Hurricanes Katrina (New Orleans,
Louisiana), Harvey (Texas) and Maria (Puerto Rico), and elsewhere. Bonnie Castillo’s
work has earned her a spot in TIME magazine’s 2020 “TIME 100: Most Influential
People in the World.”

Jeanette Ives Erickson came out of retirement after 20 years at the height of the
pandemic to help her community. The Governor of
Massachusetts and Mayor of Boston chose Dr. Ives Erickson
as the co-leader of Boston Hope, Boston’s first COVID-19 field
hospital, where she oversaw the development of a 1,000-bed
hospital including a special section for the homeless and hired
1,000 staff in just four days. Pre-dating the pandemic, Dr. Ives
Erickson, along with her colleagues, developed The
Professional Practice Environment scale, used to evaluate
nurses’ and other clinicians’ perceptions and satisfaction
within the professional practice environment in which they
work. This scale is currently used by more than 100 healthcare
institutions in fifteen countries, and has been translated into
multiple languages including Chinese, Finnish, Turkish and
Spanish. Ives Erikson has also published three books to
advance nursing practice, research, and the importance of a
narrative culture.

A Brief History of Forgotten California Women; the Women of the Yurok

Tribe and Toypurina of the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe
Written by Press Coordinator: Sreya Chilukuri
Disclaimer: much of this knowledge is based upon the writings and information
preserved by that of white colonizers.

This is the history of the pre-colonized lives of the people of the Yurok Tribe and
the story of a courageous Gabrielino-Tongva woman, Toypurina. Their stories of
perseverance and creation have been forgotten, especially in the state of California.
Learning their stories is the first step in acknowledging and honoring them and the lives
that they lived.

The Yurok Tribe — or the “Oohl” people as they refer to themselves as — lived in
fifty different villages throughout Northern California from Trinidad in the South to
Crescent City in the North, encompassing the Redwood Forest. Culturally, the Yurok
people have been great fishermen, eelers, basket weavers, canoe makers, storytellers,
singers, and medicinal healers. Cultural foods — including mussels, seaweed, acorns,
deer, elk, berries, and tea — are grown and harvested sustainably from ocean and inland
areas. These are both essential to the Yurok people’s health, wellness, and religious
practices.

Yurok villages were made up of groups of families and individuals who lived and
worked together. Traditionally, homes have been built with kheel, fallen redwood trees,
that populate indigenous Yurok land. Yurok culture teaches that redwood trees are
sacred and respected as guardians. The Yurok used terk-term — or dentalia shells,
harvested from the ocean — as their form of currency and it had played a role in many
ceremonies.

To learn more about the Yurok people you can visit their website yuroktribe.org.

The Gabrielino-Tongva people have lived in the Los Angeles River Basin for
thousands of years; their ancestral lands were located around the Los Angeles River, San
Gabriel River, Santa Ana River, and coastal areas. When the Spanish colonizers arrived
to forcibly enslave the Gabrielino-Tongva people, they resisted. In 1785, Toypurina — a
storied medicinal woman — and fellow tribesmen, Nicolás José, hatched a plan to
immobilize (using poison), and then kill the mission’s padres. Their plan was foiled, but
Toypurina maintained her anti-missionary position. During her trial, she is quoted as
saying “I hate the padres and all of you, for living here on my native soil, for trespassing
upon the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains," according to the LA
Times. Today she is immortalized in art across East and South LA including in a mural
in the LA Central Library shown below.

The Gabrielino-Tongva people have suffered

unimaginable hardship and trauma
throughout their existence, and have continued to persist. Their footsteps and lives have
led to the creation of the Los Angeles we know today.

To learn more about the Gabrielino-Tongva people you can visit their website
https://gabrielinotribe.org and for more information regarding the information in this
article www.tongvapeople.org and this article.

Get involved:
https://generationratifycalifornia.weebly.com/get-in-touch--get-more-involved.html

In solidarity,
Catherine Mah (she/her)
Communications Director | Generation Ratify California
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