Senior Profile | Chimaway Lopez
Bridging Home Wherever He Goes Chimaway Lopez’s deep thoughtfulness led him to excel in his American studies thesis and in the meaningful ties he built within his communities. —Matthew Sparrow ’21 If there’s one word that comes to mind when talking to Chimaway Lopez ’20, it’s welcoming. Sure, thoughtful, passionate and kind will all be at the tip of the tongue, but they don’t paint a full picture “welcoming” does. Whether he’s with his Chumash family in Santa Barbara, his friends on campus at Amherst or the Urban Thunder drum group in Western Massachusetts, Lopez is able to find his place alongside people who care for him. Using his experience as a Mellon Mays fellow and the help of a number of excellent professors, Lopez crafted an award-winning senior thesis for the American studies department that will guide his future endeavors and change the way people view his hometown.
East, West, Home is Best Nature has been a keen interest of Lopez’s from a young age. He was raised on the same plot of Chumash land in Santa Barbara as his father and grandfather. Lopez’s familial ties to his surroundings helped connect him to the local environment, especially the nearby creek and plants. In high school, he was a part of a program for Native students at University of California, Irvine that taught him about earth science and bolstered his curiosity about the climate. When it was time to look at colleges, Lopez was ready for a change of pace: “As much as I love Santa Barbara, I just wanted to go someplace new. Whether it was California, whether it was farther out.”
A major factor in his decision to attend Amherst was being able to see the college thanks to the Early Overnight for Native Students, one of the Diversity Outreach programs hosted during the college’s Diversity Open House each October. Lopez was appreciative of the encouraging words from local Natives from around the Pioneer Valley. “I was really impressed, specifically, by some of the choices they made in contacting members of the community, leaders from the Native community around Amherst and asking them to talk to the incoming students,” Lopez said. The presence of Native professors and the strong community were determining components in Lopez’s final college decision: “The fact that there were Native professors like Professor[s of American Studies Lisa] Brooks and [Kiara] Vigil. I said, ‘You know, I think that I can find a home and community here on campus that can help me get used to life in college.’” Still, Lopez knew he would have to face one sizable adjustment: the weather. Lopez recalled, “When I told people that I was going to be in Massachusetts, they said ‘You’re crazy! Why would you ever move from California? Why would you ever move to some place where it’s the winter and it’s going to be snowing?’” He worriedly bought all the equipment he thought he would need to defeat the Western Massachusetts wintertime. He soon found out it was more bark than bite. He rem-
18 | The Amherst Student | May 31, 2020
inisced, “After the first winter, I realized it’s not as scary as people in California seem to think. It’s not so bad, and it’s honestly really beautiful. That’s one thing that I appreciate during my time at Amherst College. I got to experience that.”
Finding His Path Although Lopez ended up completing a thesis in American studies, that was not his original plan. His prior encounters with natural science made environmental studies an easy choice for his major, but Amherst’s open curriculum allowed him the opportunity to explore different classes. En route to a departmental presentation for environmental studies, Lopez bumped into Rowland Abiodun, the John C. Newton professor of the history of art and Black studies, who convinced him to take a Black studies course. “My first year at Amherst College, I was very much involved in the Black studies department. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot. It got me up to speed with how to be a student at Amherst College. I actually thought I was going to be a Black studies major,” Lopez said. Despite his initial hesitations, Vigil knew that Lopez would be a great fit in American studies from his time in her Rethinking Pocahontas class. “I think he was a reluctant American studies major. Early on, I was trying to steer him towards American studies because I could see that he wanted to do Native studies work. I think
Photo courtesy of Chimaway Lopez ‘20
Hailing from California, Lopez found a home through intellectual and extracurricular communities at Amherst. he wasn’t sure American studies could provide him with what he needed,” she said. Vigil, with the help of Brooks, was able to finally convince Lopez that American studies was the perfect department for him. “He could do more in American studies around Native studies than in environmental studies, and the two majors together have given him a really good foundation to do graduate level work,” Vigil said. Lopez got on board with American studies when he discovered how interdisciplinary and flexible the department is. “I liked the community American studies had. I decided that if I was going to double major, I would be a better choice to go into American studies,” he said. “I could take courses from a Black studies curriculum and put them in conversation with the Indigenous studies courses as well as environmental humanities scholarship.”
Passion Project The inspiration for Lopez’s thesis came from his interactions with the physical environment he grew up around. He describes it as an “Indigenous studies project
that ties the environmental history of cattle ranching and cattle raiding to the narratives of colonization and Indigenous resistance performed in Santa Barbara.” In particular, he wanted to demonstrate how different historical memories challenge the political and ecological aesthetics of Santa Barbara as a place. “I know a lot of people, longtime residents, who are very concerned about the ecology of Santa Barbara. They have a deep understanding of it, and they’ll still talk about the rain in bad weather even though they know that rain is really important for us in a dry climate. When we get rain, we should be happy. Assumptions of what is good about a natural place and what is bad can seep in deeper than you realize,” he said. His argument also relates to the significance of settler colonialism in his town: “There is this tentative way of understanding and being in Santa Barbara that is, ‘I survived colonialism,’ and [it] is existing in spite of colonialism that I try to argue is a way forward.” Though it was written for the American studies department,
