Frank Shutiva was born in the Richmond Indian Village in 1927. He is from the Acoma Pueblo Nation, a neighboring tribe of the Laguna Pueblo, who also negotiated a deal with the Santa Fe Railroad to provide jobs for tribal members in exchange for access rights through Acoma land. He remembers that there were Indian "colonies" all along the rail line in California, including Bakersfield and Barstow but his father worked as a painter in Richmond. When the war began, Shutiva got a job as a painter as a teenager because all young men were headed into the service. After working for the railroad during school breaks, when he graduated from high school, he was drafted into the army in 1946 and was stationed in Japan. He discusses how many parents were nervous about living in the village after the bombing of Pearl Harbor because of their proximity to enemy targets like the Standard Oil Company. Shutiva moved to the Acoma Pueblo reservation to retire.