About

AfricanCalifornios.org is an interdisciplinary research project of the Cal Poly Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy (IATPP) . The project aims to use computing and data science methods to explore the lives of people of African origin who had major presence and contributions in Spanish, Mexican and early statehood California. 

Team

The primary investigator is Historian and Latin America scholar Dr. Cameron Jones who works in collaboration with Dr. Foaad Khosmood.  We are grateful to a number of current and former students who have contributed to the project.

• Anthony Colin Herrera (Computer Science graduate student)

• Jack Martin (History graduate student)

• Marco Araiza (Computer Science undergrad)

• Evan Witulski (Computer Science undergrad)

Publications and Presentations

• (Forthcoming) Jones, C., Khosmood, F., Ariza, M., Colin, A., Martin, J., "AfricanCalifornios.org: Reconstructing the African past of Spanish and Mexican California", in Proceedings of Digital Humanities 2024 Conference, Washington, DC, August 2024.

• Greg Domber, Kelly Bodwin, Cameron Jones and Foaad Khosmood, "Digital History for Luddites: Learning How to Collaborate on Digital History Projects with STEM Colleagues", panel presentation at the American Historical Association" annual meeting, January 2024.

• Jones, C., Witulski, E. and Khosmood, F. "African Californios: Uncovering the African past of Spanish and Mexican California using Data Science Methods", in Proceedings of Digital Humanities 2023 Conference, Graz, Austria, July 2023. pp 480-481 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7961822 

• Cameron D. Jones, “Africancalifornios.org: Data Visualizations that Explain the Role of Afro-descendants in Early Spanish and Mexican California (1768-1850)”, Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 2023.

• Cameron D. Jones, At the Heart of the Borderlands: Africans and Afro-descendants on the edges of Colonial Spanish America. Edited with Jay T. Harrison. University of New Mexico Press, Diálogos Series, 2023.

• Cameron D. Jones, “‘Se Llaman Gente de Razón’: Afro-Descendants in Early Spanish California, 1769-1821.” In At the Heart of the Borderlands: Africans and Afro-descendants on the edges of Colonial Spanish America. Edited by Cameron D. Jones and Jay T. Harrison. University of New Mexico Press, Diálogos Series, 2023.

Press

• Who Were the African Californios? Researchers Uncover California's Untold Black History, Lary Pena, Cal Poly News. February 5, 2024.