Long before the cities of Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Gaviota, and Santa Ynez took their modern shape, our ancestors walked these lands as stewards of a world abundant with life. The sea, the mountains, and the valleys knew our people well. From the four Channel Island villages to several mainland Chumash villages, we were bound together by kinship, ceremony, and an enduring connection to the land. Our family’s story is one of resilience—of survival through centuries of change. We carry the name Ortega, but our roots stretch far deeper, entwining with the Indigenous bloodlines of this land. Our Chumash people have existed here long before California bore its name, before missions and ranchos, before maps redrew our homelands into something unrecognizable. By the late 1700s, as Jose Francisco Ortega led the Portola expedition through what became Alta California and with indigenous population in California built the 1st Presidios followed by the mission era which reshaped the cultural landscape. Our Chumash matrilineal bloodlines wove into the story of the Ortega’s. Through these unions, our family became known as the Indigenous Nobles of California—one of the founding families of Santa Barbara. It was a time of transformation, and like the tides that shaped our coastline, our people adapted while holding fast to the essence of who we were. Our ancestor, José Francisco Ortega, was a man of mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage, born in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1734. He came north with the Portolá expedition, stepping onto land that had been home to our Chumash ancestors since time immemorial. His children and grandchildren were raised in Santa Barbara, calling Rancho Refugio, Arroyo Hondo, and Los Cruces home. As they grew, they married into the Indigenous families of Alta California, Baja, Sonora, and beyond—joining with the Ipi Tipai, Kumeyaay, Cahuilla, Tongva, Tataviam, and Chumash. In time, our family became known as the Zonja Cota Indians—descendants of the original Santa Ynez Mission Indians, long before the land was placed in federal trust and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians was formally recognized. We were here before the borders, before the treaties, before the erasure of our history began. Through three waves of colonization—Spanish, Mexican, and American—we faced profound loss. Our lands were taken, our stories rewritten, our ancestors’ contributions pushed into the shadows. Yet, we endured. Our family carried forward the knowledge of the land, the traditions of our people, and the strength to resist forgetting. Today, we stand as descendants of the original stewards of this place. We see the hills and waterways not just as landscapes but as living beings, holding the memories of those who came before us. We dream of restoring what was lost—the native plants and animals, the food-ways that sustained our ancestors, the ceremonies that kept our people connected to the earth and each other. Our story is not one of the past alone. It is alive in us, in our children, in the generations yet to come. The resilient spirit of our ancestors still whispers through the wind, still beats within our hearts, still calls us home. And through our efforts, we hope that this spirit will guide the future—one where our culture is not just remembered but lived.