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Bio.
Amrah Salomón J. PhD is a writer, artist, activist, educator, and badass chingona of Mexican, Native American (O'odham descendant, not enrolled), and European ancestry. Amrah grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives between Southern California and Arizona with her family. She is a co-founder of Rez Beats Indigenous youth performance project, a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice, a member of the O'odham Anti Border Collective, and her work has been published in both academic and literary publications in the United States and in Mexico.
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Mixed identities are complex. I am an Indigenous descendant recognized by my ancestral community, but not currently an enrolled tribal member of a colonially recognized tribal reservation. My family has O'odham ancestry documented through colonial records such as those produced by Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and practiced through family oral histories, ceremony, cultural revitalization, and community relationships. We are descendants of the historical community of O'odham and Yo'emem peoples who have lived near the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers near Yuma, Arizona. Our ancestral community pre-dates the occupation of the United States on O'odham homelands. We went through a federal recognition process in the early 1900s that resulted in the displacement and detribalization of much of our community due to settler interests in extracting the waters and lands of our home region. Much of my current research focuses on historical research (archives, oral histories, etc.) of this time period and the aftermath of the gold rush, the occupation of the U.S.-Mexico border, and our loss of colonial recognition.
I also have ancestry from other tribal nations that our family recognizes internally, but I was raised to be proud specifically of our O'odham heritage. My Mexican heritage comes from the border region of Arizona, California, Sonora, and Baja California (including the Spanish misson system). I am very proud to be Indigenous and Xicana. My European heritage is also mixed (Spanish, Jewish, English, Scottish, and German with some of those ancestors being recent migrants to the Americas and some with very long and problematic settler histories). I practice accountability for my relationship to whiteness and settler privileges. Much of my work, both artistically and politically, centers my mixed ancestral and cultural experience, its beauty and unique challenges, and all of the responsibilities and complex communities that mixed life entails.
I also have ancestry from other tribal nations that our family recognizes internally, but I was raised to be proud specifically of our O'odham heritage. My Mexican heritage comes from the border region of Arizona, California, Sonora, and Baja California (including the Spanish misson system). I am very proud to be Indigenous and Xicana. My European heritage is also mixed (Spanish, Jewish, English, Scottish, and German with some of those ancestors being recent migrants to the Americas and some with very long and problematic settler histories). I practice accountability for my relationship to whiteness and settler privileges. Much of my work, both artistically and politically, centers my mixed ancestral and cultural experience, its beauty and unique challenges, and all of the responsibilities and complex communities that mixed life entails.
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