Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

Miranda introduces stories recorded on audio cassette tapes by her paternal grandfather, Tom Miranda. She never met him, but “his voice and his stories are gifts that bring him back to [her]” (77). In addition, she believes that hearing stories from her grandfather has helped her to better understand her father. Each subsection in Part 3, Section 1 is a transcript of Tom Miranda’s own recorded words. Miranda adds her editorial comments in italics at the end of each subsection.

Tom recalls his grandfather, Faustino Garcia, who knew something about traditional medicine and “used to treat me nice” (79).

Tom remembers David Jacks, a recognizable name in California history and a notorious land thief in the Monterey region who “knocked all the Indians and poor people out of there and said ‘This is mine’” (80).