On October 15, 1985, The Daily Californian’s front page headline read, “Dwinelle Hall wing may be ‘Ishi’ soon.”[1] After providing some brief detail about Ishi, the article explains visiting Professor Gerald Vizenor’s proposal that the north wing of Dwinelle Hall be named Ishi Hall. Further, it explains the long process of renaming, relayed by Tom Koster of the “Space Assignment and Capital Improvements Group” from the University.[2] Koster also proposes an option to perhaps name an addition to Kroeber Hall as Ishi Hall, which Vizenor rejects. “We’re not about to yield to anthropology and a new intellectual colonialism.”[3]
Gerald Vizenor’s “Manifest Manners: The Long Gaze of Christopher Columbus,” includes his recollections of his efforts to name the northern wing of Dwinelle Hall after Ishi. [4] Vizenor explains his first proposal, “landed in a common space committee, and there a faculty member, concerned with manifest manners, said the name could be misunderstood as a slang variation of the word icky.”[5] In 1992, he made another attempt, renewed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Columbus “discovering” America. “My proposal is both moral and practical at the same time because nothing would be taken from the honor of the existing name, and a new tribal name for the north section of the building would resolve a serious problem of identification between the two wings.”[6] Yet, this proposal also was denied. Vizenor continued to advocate for a space to be named for Ishi, directly appealing to Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. Vizenor explained, “Ishi served with distinction the cultural and academic interests of the University of California.”[7]
When Vizenor was finally offered a compromise – the naming of the Dwinelle Hall courtyard after Ishi – he attributed it reasons other than his own efforts. “The actual decision, however, had more to do with the politics of federal funds, criticism of repatriation policies on campus, and, because of that, an urgent interest to favor Native issues and academic programs.”[8] Vizenor’s assumption is reasonable in light of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, which required the University to inventory and repatriate remains.[9] Karen Biestman describes in “Ishi and the University” the delays and challenges to compliance from the beginning, though she notes, “the early NAGPRA debates were silent as to the role and presence of Ishi.”[10] The later discovery of the disposition of Ishi’s brain “propelled” the issue of repatriation as it tied the issue to the personal relationship between Ishi and the University, “Ishi again became an icon and catalyst for social and political change.”[11]
Ishi Court in Dwinelle Hall was dedicated on May 7, 1993.[12] The dedication inspired Caitlin Croghan to raise funds to commission a monument in Ishi’s honor.[13] During the process of fundraising and meeting with Indigenous artists, sculptor Harken Lucero mistakenly believed he had been commissioned for the piece.[14] The misunderstanding led to litigation in which Lucero sued Croughan, Vizenor, and the Regents of the University of California for breach of contract on August 2, 1995; ultimately Lucero lost the lawsuit.[15]
As Vizenor has stated, “Ishi is not his Native name, but we imagine his presence by that museum nickname. Ishi is in our visions, and he persists by that name in our memory.”[16] Though Ishi Court has been a part of Dwinelle for nearly thirty years, there is no plaque, statue, or sculpture to provide information to visitors on the man known as Ishi to this day.
Unfortunately, there is little information about Ishi Court and its dedication on Berkeley’s website. A search on Berkeley.edu for “Ishi Court” first leads to a listing of rooms and venues which can be reserved by the History Department, with other hits related to the place of Ishi Court, and little (if anything) said about Ishi himself or the reasons behind dedication. Elsewhere on the web, a search finds a Daily Californian article from 2014 which includes Ishi Court as one of the mysteries of Dwinelle Hall.[17] That article links to an archived site “Facts and Folk Lore” about Dwinelle Hall, which, in turn, links to another archived site, “What’s In a Name.”[18] This archived site includes information about Ishi Court which contains several inaccuracies, including the year dedicated (listed as 1986), and attributing to Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien a quote from Vizenor’s “Manifest Manners.”[19] Yet still, another link on that page provides “an alternate view of Ishi . . .”[20] That link is of an February 14, 1996 article from the Berkeleyan campus newspaper, and includes research by Steven Shackley, who later contributed to Ishi in Three Centuries regarding the tools used by Ishi and how they tell a different story than the master narrative of Ishi’s life.[21]
In the last few years, the topic of dedicating a building to be named Ishi Hall have renewed as concerns over building names tied to controversial individuals at the University of California have increased, as discussed in The Un-Naming of Kroeber Hall.[22]
[1] University of California, Berkeley, ed., The Daily Californian. Tue Oct. 15, 1985 (Berkeley, Calif: Independent Berkeley Student Pub, 15).
[2] University of California, Berkeley, The Daily Californian. Tue Oct. 15, 1985. 14.
[3] University of California, Berkeley, The Daily Californian. Tue Oct. 15, 1985. 14.
[4] Gerald Vizenor, “Manifest Manners: The Long Gaze of Christopher Columbus,” Boundary 2 19, no. 3 (1992): 223–35, https://doi.org/10.2307/303555.
[5] Vizenor, “Manifest Manners.” 227.
[6] Vizenor, “Manifest Manners.” 228.
[7] Vizenor, “Manifest Manners.” 229.
[8] Gerald Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California,” in Native Liberty (UNP - Nebraska Paperback, 2009). 251.
[9] Kroeber and Kroeber, Ishi in Three Centuries. 150.
[10]Kroeber and Kroeber, Ishi in Three Centuries. 150-151.
[11] Kroeber and Kroeber, Ishi in Three Centuries. 151.
[12] Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California.” 252.
[13] Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California.” 251.
[14][14] Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California.” 251.
[15] Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California.” 251.
[16] Vizenor, “Mister Ishi of California.” 255.
[17] Gena-Mour Barrett | Staff, “The Mysterious and Mildly Interesting Story of Dwinelle Hall,” The Daily Californian, February 10, 2014, https://www.dailycal.org/2014/02/10/story-dwinelle-hall/.
[18] “Facts & Folklore,” September 12, 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20080912013124/http://dwinelle.berkeley.edu/FACTS/FactsFolkloreMenu.html. “What’s in a Name?,” December 20, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20081220144135/http://dwinelle.berkeley.edu/FACTS/ishiCourt.html.
[19] “What’s in a Name?,” Vizenor, “Manifest Manners.” 229.
[20] Gretchen Kell, “02.14.96 - Who Was Ishi?,” December 22, 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20081222072521/http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1996/0214/ishi.html..
[21] “02.14.96 - Berkeleyan Table of Contents,” December 24, 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20081224193316/http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1996/0214/index.html. Kroeber and Kroeber, Ishi in Three Centuries. 159-200.
[22] Ataya Cesspooch et al., “Native Student Organizations Want to Un-Name Kroeber Hall, Are Frustrated with Faculty Pushback,” The Daily Californian, August 25, 2020, https://www.dailycal.org/2020/08/25/native-student-organizations-want-to-un-name-kroeber-hall-are-frustrated-with-faculty-pushback/. “Building Name Review: Kroeber - Feedback | Office of the Chancellor,” accessed May 12, 2022, https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/task-forces/building-name-review-committee/building-name-review-kroeber-hall/building-name-review.
