Somewhere between the 1940s and 1950s, a young Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto could feel the air tightening between her small body and the crowd as she squeezed her way into view of the Fiesta parade. 

She was going to get her share of candy one way or another, even if she thought it’d kill her.

“I didn’t get killed, though,” the octogenarian smirked through her stern, pinched expression. “And I got my little bit.”

Born in 1938, the Santa Barbara local attended Fiesta throughout her life on the coastal lands where her Barbareño Chumash ancestors once lived.

In 2023, Ygnacio-De Soto will be front and center, leading Friday’s Old Spanish Days historical parade as the first-ever Chumash elder grand marshal, recognizing the history of indigenous culture within a celebration of the Spanish colonial period.

“I’m not going symbolic,” she noted, however, her eyebrows furrowing. “I’m going Ygnacio.”

This year’s grand marshal carries a family name that traces back through six generations of Chumash heritage.

With the weight of the Ygnacio name on her back, Ygnacio-De Soto humbly involved herself in advocating for the preservation of Chumash history, culture and language throughout much of her life. 

To name a few examples: Ygnacio-De Soto allowed her half-nude body to be completely molded in a body cast for a museum’s Chumash display; she starred in and co-produced a documentary titled “6 Generations” about her family’s ancestry; she presented in a Santa Barbara Symphony performance speaking in Barbareño Chumash; she published a children’s book, “The Sugar Bear Story: A Barbareño Chumash Tale;” and she’s served on various boards and advisory committees.

Most recently, she helped plan a dedicated sculpture and memorial to Chumash buried in the Santa Barbara Mission cemetery.

The position of grand marshal is largely a ceremonial or even honorary title, according to Erin Graffy, Old Spanish Days Fiesta historian.

Fiesta’s el presidentes tend to select a grand marshal with an important name in the community, or someone hardworking whom people are excited about recognizing.

“Sometimes — long ago — they might have been a celebrity who was very involved or otherwise supportive of Fiesta,” said Graffy. “Ernestine is not only a Chumash elder, but she has been very willing to provide information about the Chumash people in Santa Barbara.”

Graffy said she likes to think of Ygnacio-De Soto “as something of an ambassador for the Barbareño Chumash.”

Ygnacio-De Soto’s longtime friend and anthropological researcher of 40 years, John Johnson, commended her appointment as grand marshal.

“Her family has preserved the history, culture and language, and that’s why we know so much about it today,” said Johnson, curator of anthropology for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

“You know, it’s very appropriate that they recognize her this way.

“I mean, her mother was the last first-language speaker of one of the original languages spoken in this area, which would be called Barbareño Chumash, and the reason why we have so much knowledge about that language today is because of her family,” Johnson explained.

Mary Yee, the last first-language speaker of Barbareño Chumash, at age 41, was enjoying a pleasant ride in the mountains of Santa Cruz with her husband when she was rushed to a nearby restroom to give birth to the future grand marshal.

“And, you know, there I was, in the toilet on my head,” recounted Ygnacio-De Soto, her tone soft.

Her mother had only learned of her pregnancy a few months prior.

“That’s how I started out my life.”

The rest of her upbringing seemed about as glamorous.

Born with a hole in her heart, Ygnacio-De Soto said she spent half, if not more, of her childhood years in the hospital.

“I wasn’t supposed to live after two months,” she said.

She developed double pneumonia as an infant, landing her a three-month stay in the hospital.

“I didn’t know who my parents were when they came to get me.”

Ygnacio-De Soto continued to suffer from medical issues throughout her childhood, causing her to fall behind in school.

“I’d come out of the hospital, and everybody would be way ahead of me. I don’t know how many times I’ve been flunked,” she said. 

With a resting face like stone, Ygnacio-De Soto flashed a glint of humor as she narrated a second-grade classroom experience.

“I was traumatized in math. They made me go up to the board and put a, you know, do a two and two thing,” she giggled, meaning to say two plus two.

“I drew the two upside down,” she demonstrated by wiggling her finger in the air. “The class roared. So, that was the end of my math career.”

When she wasn’t in school, the hospital, or nearly suffocating in the Fiesta Parade crowds, Ygnacio-De Soto loved to play. However, the games she chose and the characters she acted out did not earn the approval of her mother.

As she says in the video: “Well, I’m being raised by my mother, who’s half Chumash and half English. I heard nothing but, uh, Chumash, you know, the language. And I don’t speak it because I was too busy playing and having a good time.

“I even wanted to be the cowboys, not the Indians, because the Indians always got killed. And the cowboys were the heroes.  My mother saw me out there playing one time doing that, and she said, ‘You estúpida’ in Spanish.

“My mother could speak Californio Spanish. My mother was a linguist, not me.  And I, you know, didn’t know what she was talking about. And she said, ‘You’re an Indian. What are you doing?’ You know, and that was the end of that discussion. But I still kept playing anyway.”

These days, Ygnacio-De Soto is proud of her identity, but it wasn’t always that way. Her multicultural upbringing was “a mixed bag.” She said she was ashamed of her race growing up, and that she never truly felt she belonged to one group of people. 

“I was raised by an Asian stepdad for 10 years. How would I do that?”

The lines on her face fell back as she looked to the other side of this thought.

“But, I learned even more from him than I would have any other race. So, um, in fact, I had the best of both worlds, my mother and him.”

Ygnacio-De Soto also paid tribute to her birth-father. She said that she had no idea he was Mexican.

“He was more like an Indian because he was raised with all the Mutson (indigenous people), in Watsonville,” she said.

In the video below, John Johnson demonstrates Mary Yee’s exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

The parade grand marshal role is largely symbolic, but Ygnacio-De Soto has embraced the honor. It’s somewhat of a crowning achievement for a person who spent much of her years living in the shadows and worrying about not offending white people. 

During her interview, she’d say “excuse me,” “no offense,” or “not to insult you,” with her eyes half-rolled, when referencing a white person. She reasoned that she’s given up trying to explain her place as part Chumash, Mexican, English, and raised by an Asian step-father over the years.

“I’m just who I am, like it or not, just suck it up,” she said.

These days, life in Santa Barbara is fairly simple. She’s slowed down, but still drives, and gets around town using her walker. She said she lives in an apartment that is targeted for a new housing development, so she will be displaced eventually.

But Ygnacio-De Soto is a fighter. At various stages of her life, she has embraced change. 

“I was a completely different person 50 years ago. Well, actually, I was trying to get my life together at 33,” she said. 

Ygnacio-De Soto became pregnant with her first child in her teenage years, and left home with the father of her children. The two married, but Ygnacio-De Soto said it turned ugly, fast. She explained his abuse toward her, describing him as “a sadist.”

“He dumped me, and that was the best thing in the world he could have done,” said Ygnacio-De Soto. “You know, he dumped me and my kids, and that was fine.”

She raised five children, including her eldest daughter, Carmen, who passed away in 2011.

In her early 30s, Ygnacio-De Soto went to Santa Barbara City College to finish her education and study nursing. She was almost done with the curriculum when she learned she had to take an elective in order to get her degree.

“I had no idea what an elective was, you know, and I thought, ‘What the heck? I’m supposed to graduate now.’ And so I saw American Indian studies, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll do that.’”

Ygnacio-De Soto wrote about her mother’s story for her final project in the elective, impressing her instructor, Tina Foss, to the point of inspiration.

Foss, who’s been at city college for nearly 50 years, walked Ygnacio-De Soto down to the Mission Archive Library to help her further uncover her ancestry.

Unbeknownst to Ygnacio-De Soto, she was walking into the library to soon find more of her family’s history, as well as a life-long friend.

Johnson was working on his doctoral dissertation in the library when Ygnacio-De Soto and Foss walked in. He was nose-deep in research notes from the late anthropologist John Harrington, who just so happened to primarily work with and study Ygnacio-De Soto’s family. 

“So I worked on the genealogies of (Harrington’s) different consultants, and one of them was Luisa Ygnacio… so I knew the background of the Ygnacio family,” explained Johnson. “And so when Ernestine and Tina came into the room there at the Mission Archive Library and there I was, sitting there, they told me what they wanted, what they’re up to.

“I said, ‘Well I– I have some information about that.’ And then that’s how I met Ernestine.”

Johnson smiled as he reflected further on the moment.

“I remember when I first met her, she was wearing bib overalls, and I’d never seen her dress that way since that day,” he laughed. “She, she had kind of a very young, I guess, hippie style of the period.”

“And he calls me a hippie,” said Ygnacio-De Soto in a separate interview. “He’s the hippie. Not me, him. He’s the one with the beard down to here,” she gestured to her chest.” And he’s the one that was skin and bones and the yogi, whatever.”

““Well, one great thing about Ernestine, you always know where you stand,” beamed Johnson. “She’s not afraid to tell you.”

Throughout his career, Johnson said, helping Ygnacio-De Soto uncover and preserve her ancestry was “what makes it real.”

Ygnacio-De Soto said she is a late bloomer, but, with the help of Johnson, she found her way back to her family.

And now, as she approaches her mortality, she has no fears about what is to come. 

“I have no doubts that I’m going to heaven,” she said. “And I want to take everybody with me.

“Even my enemies. I’m choking on that one. But even my enemies, you know, because they don’t know what they’re doing to themselves.”

Ygnacio-De Soto will have nothing but friends admiring her this Friday at the parade. She will be on top of the world, celebrating her heritage, a remarkable feat for a woman who was born upside down, and with few options in life. 

“I’m still moving. You know, my mother always said I wasn’t of this world.”