Marie Mason Potts

Terri A. Castaneda is Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Sacramento. She is the author of journal and book articles and curator of exhibits, including The Lettered Life of a Mountain Maidu Woman: An Archival Portrait of Marie Mason Potts at the Maidu Museum and Historic Site, in Roseville, California.

"Castaneda's work highlights her strong commitment and record of community-based scholarship, making lasting connections with Potts's descendants and Mountain Maidu peoples. Using the rich record left behind by Potts's own writings in newspapers, letters, and oral interviews, Castaneda foregrounds Potts's own voice...Castaneda is an expert storyteller and her work is an important addition to the growing scholarship on twentieth-century California Indian history."--Western Historical Quarterly "Driven by the careful pen of Castaneda, Marie Mason Potts adds depth and texture to what we know within many critical areas of California Indian history and Native American history more broadly...[This] is an exceptional book, and it offers renewed promise for the possibilities of biographical study as a lens into Indigenous experiences of the early twentieth century."--NAISA Journal "Marie Mason Potts is a long-awaited, textured recognition of the life of an energetic and fearless Mountain Maidu woman that contributes to an emerging canon foregrounding the labor and leadership of Indigenous California women."-- Resources for American Literary Study "It is impossible to share all of her meaning and importance here, but Terri Castaneda has provided us with a detailed view of Marie Potts's life, her challenges, and her greatest successes as an advocate for California Indian people...Castaneda has given us all something to treasure."--News from Native California "Terri Castaneda's Marie Mason Potts: The Lettered Life of a California Indian Activist helps shed light on Potts's important story, while effectively tracing her formation into an activist and national figure in Native American politics and cultural preservation...For those wanting to learn more about the roots of the Red Power movement or to gain greater insight into the national politics of Native American activism in the earlier part of the twentieth century, this book is an essential resource."---California History