'People Of The West' Pechanga Studios Changes The Way People Learn About Native California

TEMECULA, CA — A Temecula producer, filmmaker and writer is attempting to reshape the California Native People curriculum and has created a 10-part cinematic experience to do it.

Meet Brad Munoa.

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This USC Film School graduate, a Pechanga tribe member and family man, saw what was being taught in his son's 4th grade classroom and knew that a change needed to be made. In that performance, he saw depictions of Native people and the missions and their leaders being taught just miles from the Pechanga reservation.

Native history was being diminished, glossed over, and even portrayed falsely, he said.

"I knew we could do better," he told Patch. After that, the "People of the West" project was born. Munoa, the creator and executive producer of the series, did not create this project alone. He worked with a team of producers, writers, and directors who brought decades of experience in documentary filmmaking and deep respect for Native American storytelling traditions, he said.

This official trailer, below, offers a first look at the scope, tone, and storytelling approach of the series.

Munoa's work with local directors, actors, filmmakers, and interview subjects on the documentary was aimed at portraying the true history of California, from first contact to today, from the perspective of those who were here first.

"For 500 years, the history of California has been told by those who conquered it," the filmmakers say. "'People of the West ' reclaims that story through Indigenous voices, blending cinematic reenactments and lived experience to uncover the truth behind the myth of the American West."

The story blends cinematic reenactments, archival material, expert interviews, and animated sequences across the multi-part series. "It traces generations of resilience, resistance, and survival across Native communities," Munoa says, and reveals the stories that have shaped California and continue to shape it today.

Recently, the 10-part series won the Series Audience Award (Pilots category) at the 20th Annual Dances With Films LA Festival, an honor that Munoa does not take lightly. This award, he says, was proof that there is a strong demand for historical shows.

"I've wanted to champion a vision that Pechanga Studios could be so much more, and produce films like any top-tier production studio in Hollywood," he said. The audience's support of the series has shown that is possible.

The series is what Munoa calls "edutainment," educational, but putting entertainment first. "We wanted to make it for kids, for teens, so that they were so compelled that they couldn't look away," he said.

The story distills hundreds of years of information, funneling the story of the West into a compelling journey through history. In so doing, they have approached the series from multiple angles, creating a 155-page curriculum that will serve California's new Ethnic Studies mandate, a graduation requirement in the Golden State.

Pechanga Studios, Changing The Way People Think About Past, Present and Future

"I went to film school on the Pechanga tribe scholarship program," he said. "What they encourage and are hopeful for is that you learn something valuable to bring it back to benefit the tribe." He not only brought back his love and passion for storytelling, but brought his children back to live around the tribe and learn their culture and language.

He has helped to build Pechanga Studios, the tribe's content creation studio, and champion it to be much more. "People of the West" is not the first time Munoa's work at the studios has changed the way people think.

"We want to be in the space of other premium content, and have equal reach," he said. "There are countless stories in this series alone."

The stories the Pechanga Creative Studio has told have protected and shaped the Temecula Valley.

Pu'éska Mountain, Between A Rock and A Sacred Place, A Story Repeating

"The Mountain That Weeps" film details the first time tribes ever shared, on the record, their story of creation: a sacred mountain that was under threat of destruction near Temecula.

In 2005, Granite Construction Company proposed a seventy-five-year open-pit mining project on the southern border of the City of Temecula, California. The project, branded "Liberty Quarry," ignited community outrage, which led to seven years of heated debates and public hearings.

When Granite Construction aimed to use the sacred mountain as a gravel mine, the tribe stood strong; they opened their heritage and told stories that most would never hear, stories that changed the way the tribe and the city of Temecula worked together, forever. The film Munoa and the Pechanga Creative Studios produced shows the journey, what was at stake, and what changed along the way.

"This is the real-world example of how this knowledge could help others," he said. "If people knew the stories, it would have saved the city and the state millions of dollars."

Now, with the SDG&E-led Golden Pacific Powerlink Project, proposed to once again raze through a large swath of South Temecula, at the foot of Pu'éska Mountain, Munoa sees how quickly people can forget what really matters.

"We need to teach our history in a way that everyone knows it, and to run power lines where they should be, and not blow up mountains that are sacred, and part of our religion," he said. "It's the same as if you're putting power lines through or if a mining company is attempting to blow up the Garden of Eden!"

His "People of the West" documentary series goes further, adding California's native history to the stories that most students know: the Trail of Tears, the history of Native Americans elsewhere. California's story was lost in the focus on missions and the expansion of the church.

"In Episode 6, the Boarding School Era, we interviewed a survivor who gave her firsthand account of the experience," he said. For first contact, they used scripted scenes to depict what was passed down through stories.

Munoa has watched the curriculum "People of the West" can already be put into action at Great Oak High School and the International Baccalaureate program, under the guidance of teacher Stacey Moore.

"At Great Oak, Stacey led a focus group in her class, teaching the students to come with an open mind and not lock in, but think," he said.

The result was "life-changing, positive, and we even got some notes on how to better evolve and adapt the program," he said.

With the cinematic nature of the series and the current love of beautifully told documentaries, Munoa is hopeful for the future, as well as a broader distribution to the general public.

"I listened to the students' conversations at the Great Oak High School class, and saw there was much more that could be learned here, from ethnic studies to history and environmental science," he said. "If these conversations could happen across the state, if we are challenged in our thoughts, imagine how much more we could all become."

Learn more about People of the West, California's True History and explore epsiodes at: peopleofthewest.org.