If you’re a local newshound, you’ve probably seen Rosa María Zamarrón’s photography at some point.
As a working photojournalist, she lends humanistic and captivating imagery to many local publications — from stories on the local food scene to hard-hitting news. Or perhaps you’ve seen “As It Should’ve Been,” her image that went viral in July 2020 and appeared in Vogue.
The 36-year-old Cass Technical High School grad’s documentary-style photography has “always been geared towards people and telling their stories,” she says. Several of her series focus on Indigenous people in metro Detroit and beyond — a subject that’s personal to her as a Mexican American with Indigenous heritage.
“There are people that I encounter that don’t even realize that Native people are still around,” says Zamarrón, who was raised in Southwest Detroit. “People think of them in this weird, like, past situation. That’s very odd to me. Almost like, ‘Oh, they existed at one point.’ It’s still important to know who they are.”
Through the end of October, Zamarrón’s works will appear in the Detroit Public Library’s main branch galleria as part of the exhibition The Original Americans — A Native American Story in Art.
Though she’s exhibited in Detroit, Grand Rapids, New York City, Rome, and Austin, Texas, she has a full-time job in ophthalmic photography on top of her freelance work. “The only way I can keep my sanity, even if I’m exhausted, is to push myself to do this personal work that I find to be important,” she says.
Here are just a handful of Zamarrón’s favorite photos so far — and the stories behind them.
Nimkiidogkwe Maang Dodem, a member of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, stands on the Black Rocks at Presque Isle Park in Marquette. Presque Isle was inhabited by Indigenous people for as long as 7,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. (2021)
In this photo, Pedro Mendoza Ortega, a Zapotec artist from Oaxaca, Mexico, holds an armadillo alebrije (folk art sculpture) that he created. He’s standing by a statue of Father Gabriel Richard, a prominent Catholic priest from France credited with coining Detroit’s “We shall rise from the ashes” motto and founding the University of Michigan. He also established a school in Detroit in 1808 that taught both Native American and white children.
“[Richard] is really ingrained into the essence of this area,” Zamarrón says. “And it’s one of those things where [historians] always paint them as, ‘they had wonderful relations with Native Americans.’ And it’s like, did they?” Of Ortega, Zamarrón says, “He grows his hair long for spiritual reasons, but also to protest what a lot of the priests did to a lot of the Native people.”
Cutting off students’ hair was one of many ways children were made to assimilate at the Native American boarding schools, eight of which are known to have existed in Michigan. Many children were beaten, starved, and forced to perform hard labor. Hundreds are known to have died. Similar schools existed in Mexico, Canada, and countries in South America. (2021)
In this photo, Ashinique Soney-Wesaw, who is Ojibwe and Potawatomi, poses at a field in River Rouge. In 1892, two men, below, were photographed in the area (then called “Rougeville”) standing on a mountain-like pile of bison skulls delivered from the Great Plains.
They are pictured near Michigan Carbon Works, which was a company that used the bones to make animal charcoal. At one point, it was Detroit’s biggest industry and the largest works of its kind in America. Bison played a vital role in the livelihoods of many American Indigenous nations. (2023)
Julia Martell, a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, stands on the southwest corner of Belle Isle with the Detroit skyline behind her. The 982-acre island on the Detroit River was known to Anishinaabe peoples as Wahnabezee (Swan Island) and was used for hunting and fishing, among other activities.
It was purchased by the British in 1769 and later acquired by the U.S. Before 1808, the Anishinaabe (which means “original people”) inhabited the vast majority of Michigan — the three largest nations being the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.
By 1864, their lands were reduced to only 32 square miles. Although this transfer largely occurred under U.S. government treaties in exchange for money (often meager amounts) and services, the alternative to signing was usually forced removal. (2021)
Reg Pettibone from the Ho-Chunk nation of Wisconsin is pictured before performing the Grass Dance in the Men’s Golden Age competition. It took place at the North American Indian Association of Detroit’s 14th annual Native American Heritage Day Pow-Wow in Westland. (2018)
Decolonizing Spaces
The idea for Zamarrón’s Decolonizing Spaces series came after a group of four Indigenous women from metro Detroit — Teia McGahey, Hadassah GreenSky, Joelle Joyner, and Courtney Miller — asked Zamarrón to photograph them posing triumphantly on the platform in place of the then-recently removed statue of Christopher Columbus in downtown Detroit. That image became the mega-viral “As It Should’ve Been” photo.
What does decolonizing mean to Zamarrón? “One of my friends put it in a really great way, where it’s more about re-Indigenizing. It’s about honoring and not being ashamed of your Indigenous ancestry or the ways that you were taught that were different than what most Western ideologies are.” The series explores these themes, and many of the photos were shot in and around Detroit.
Sacred Eyes
In November 2016, Zamarrón traveled to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation with friends from Southwest Detroit to join ongoing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an underground crude-oil transport that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said threatened their water supply and natural resources. It was the first large-scale protest Zamarrón had attended, she says. While there, she captured stills that would become part of her Sacred Eyes series.
Despite the danger (she saw law enforcement use heavy-handed riot control methods on the demonstrators), Zamarrón has lots of fond memories of the experience. She recalls frequently waking up to the sound of drumming and ceremonies taking place. In what was believed to be the largest gathering of Indigenous people in more than 100 years, Zamarrón met some who came in solidarity from all over the world “which was beautiful to see,”she says.She snapped portraits of a few, including a Maori man from New Zealand and another man from Mexico. Zamarrón says the experience made her begin to look inward.
“The whole reason I even did Sacred Eyes was because going there was a huge personal journey for me,” she says. “I didn’t understand the effects that colonization had on my life. To realize and confront your own identity was a huge thing for me during that time.”
This story originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Oct. 7.
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