xvi, 307 p. : ill., maps. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / In California, third and fourth grade social science curriculum standards mandate an introduction to Native American life and the impacts of Spanish, Mexican, and "American" colonization on the state's indigenous people. Teachers in the state use museums to supplement this education. Natural history and anthropology museums offer programs for teaching third graders about native pre-contact life, while Missions and regional history museums are charged with telling the story of settlement for the state's fourth graders. Clearly, this fact suggests the centrality of museums and Missions to education in the state. Since only one small tribe on the central coast has federal recognition, non-tribal museums are the only public voice about Indian life. These sites however, rarely address hardships experienced by native people, contributions over the past 150 years, the struggles for sovereignty in their homelands, and a variety of other issues faced by living Indian people. Instead, these sites often portray essentialized homogenous notions of Indiamless which inadvertently contribute to the invisibility of coastal Native peoples. This dissertation analyzes visual museum representations in central coast museums and Missions and the perspectives oflocal Native American community members about how their lives and cultures are portrayed in those museums. Using methods of critical discourse analysis, the dissertation seeks to locate discontinuities between the stories museums tell versus the stories Indian people tell. It addresses these ruptures through a detailed analysis of alternative narratives and then offers suggestions to museum professionals, both in California and elsewhere, for incorporating a stronger native voice in interpretive efforts. / Committee in charge: Dr. Lynn Stephen, Co-chair; Dr. Brian Klopotek, Co-chair; Dr. Jon M. Erlandson; Dr. Shari Huhndorf; Roberta Reyes Cordero