Beyond Gold Stories Across Cultures Speaker Series

Published Feb 16, 2026 11:25 am : Updated Feb 13, 2026 4:31 pm

Columbia, CA — Mark your calendar for some interesting lectures hosted at various places in the Mother Lode. Beyond Gold Stories Across Cultures Speaker Series will be held every third Thursday through June. The next one will be February 19, 2026. Dr. Stephanie Beaver-Guzman teaches Indigenous Studies at Columbia, and she will be co-presenting with Kyle Cox of the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians this Thursday. The presentation will be at the Columbia College Library.

In March the speaker will be Shannon Van Zant, who is also a professor at Columbia. She has done research on Chinese in the Gold Rush and will present from Guangdong to Gold Mountain: A story of Chinese Immigration, Exclusion and Community. This presentation will also be at the Columbia College Library.

Organizers note that all of the speakers are well-respected researchers and rarely get an opportunity to give this type of presentation, so it is a unique opportunity.

April’s speaker will be Dr. David Hayes Bautista speaking on Latinos in the Gold Country. Hayes is the UC Santa Cruz researcher who wrote the book on the Cinco de Mayo story that revealed Columbia’s connection. This will be an online presentation.

May is the Cinco de Mayo Festival, so there will not be a speaker. June will feature Sylvia Roberts with a talk about California’s Black Gold Rush Pioneers at the Sonora Museum Courtyard. Roberts is the region’s specialist in the history of Black Gold Rush Pioneers and has a new book coming out soon on her research.

There will be a shuttle available to make parking easier for the Columbia College presentations.