Nancy J. Taniguchi
Nancy Taniguchi, of Washington, D.C., earned a B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, then lived in Mexico City and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She moved to Utah with her husband (a Utah native), where she earned her graduate degrees. She is now Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus.
Updated February 28, 2008
Stories from This Author
Japanese Americans in Utah
Feb. 27, 2008 • Nancy J. Taniguchi
From earliest human habitation, the area now called Utah exhibited diversity. The prehistoric Fremont and Anasazi built villages and cultivated crops. Goshuite, Paiute, Navajo (Dine’), Shoshone, and Ute cultures replaced them, the last of whom gave its name to the state. Subsequent groups squeezed Native Americans to marginal lands where they remain today. First, in the 1700s, the Spanish (then the Mexicans) forged the Old Spanish Trail, which bisects Utah. They brought the gift of horses, but also enslaved native …