Native Californian shows how the Sacramento region once was, and sometimes still is

Meet Diana Almendariz, who takes you under her wing

Through the end of September, we’re celebrating the people who, every day, make life in the Sacramento region meaningful and interesting. Through 12 stories, a collection of short profiles, you’ll “Meet your neighbors.” Read more here.

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Diana Almendariz sees her grandmother everywhere.

In the exposed root systems along the banks of the Sacramento River, where the sedge roots can grow more than a dozen feet long and be used for weaving. In acorns leeching tannic acid as they’re made edible. In the upriver sighting of the occasional sea lion, introduced to her long ago as a passing friend.

These are memories, visits from someone who left this earthly plane years ago. But there’s also something alive about them — real and relevant lessons entrusted to Almendariz by the woman who took her under her wing when she was a child.

Decades later, the space below Almendariz’s own wing is crowded. Her daughters, Christina and Ooti, are there, along with many others.

Almendariz teaches traditional ecological knowledge to youth, pulling on lessons collected over years of paying attention. She’s a cultural fire keeper and leads workshops on the value of slow, low-heat burns, which were practiced by indigenous Californians for centuries before European arrival.

The work has her crisscrossing the region, collecting tule at Cache Creek Nature Preserve’s tending garden, leading tours at the Sutter Buttes, attending conferences on cultural burning in Sacramento.

And on a recent sunny afternoon, she took the time to meet on the beach at Discovery Park.

Standing at the confluence of two western rivers, she patiently described the world her grandmother knew, and that she knows and that her daughters know.

She pointed to the willow, the sand and the water.

Her outstretched arm took the shape of a wing.

Beneath it, a crowd of people finding shelter.