Land Acknowledgment

Southern California Public Radio (SCPR) and LAist make up a nonprofit public media company operating within the homelands of the Gabrieleno Tongva people. SCPR facilities are located specifically within their ancestral village of Hahamog’na. We recognize the painful history of displacement, settler colonialism, and erasure of the People, their language, including place names, and their sovereignty. This land acknowledgment is a step to enact our commitment to developing a process of engagement and relationship with the stewards of this land, the Gabrieleno Tongva.

We further acknowledge that our broadcast coverage area — as well as the geographies reached via our digital properties — includes territories of other Indigenous communities not specifically recognized in this statement and which are still inhabited and cared for by their Original Stewards.

Therefore, as part of our practice to recognize and make visible the historical trauma the Gabrieleno Tongva people and other Indigenous communities experienced and continue to experience, we will work to recognize and amplify contemporary Indigenous voices as a vital part of restoring silenced knowledge and traditions.

Resources

• Learn about Native traditions and what is being done today from free courses at Landback U.
• Follow Dr. Claudia Serrato to learn about Indigenous foodways and decolonizing your diet.
• The Land Under the Plinth will recover the spaces on which monuments to colonial figures once stood and dedicate an emergent place for engagement with the Tongva community and City of Los Angeles, including a learning center, research opportunities, and new markers to uplift visions for how L.A.’s First Peoples want to project themselves into the future of this metropolis.
• The primary purpose of the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission is to increase the acquisition and application of funding resources to the socio-economic problems of American Indians in Los Angeles City and County without duplication of any service or activity provided by any other County officer or department. Learn about their efforts here.
• The vision of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaava Conservancy is to rematriate the land to California native plants and Tongva people. They state on their website, “We are and will continue to be run by Tongva people.”
• The California Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) identifies, catalogs, and protects Native American cultural resources — ancient places of special religious or social significance to Native Americans and known ancient graves and cemeteries of Native Americans on private and public lands in California. The NAHC is also charged with ensuring California Native American tribes’ accessibility to ancient Native American cultural resources on public lands, overseeing the treatment and disposition of inadvertently discovered Native American human remains and burial items, and administering the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (CalNAGPRA), among many other powers and duties.
• Check out the resources at the Native Women’s Collective — a grassroots nonprofit organization that supports the continued growth of Native American arts, culture, leadership and community development through public education, workshops, exhibits, research, cultural preservation projects, programs and technical assistance. The collective works to advance emerging and established artists and creative professionals by providing a network and forum for capacity building that centers social & environmental justice.
• Sand and Sage Studio features science illustration and animation by Samantha Morales-Johnson, an active member of the Gabrieleno Tongva Band of Mission Indians; she strives to honor Creator in all of her artwork.
• Developed over many months of collaboration with leaders from local Tribes, on Nov. 1, 2022, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to adopt a Land Acknowledgment for the County of Los Angeles.
• Read We Are Still Here, A Report on Past, Present, and Ongoing Harms Against Local Tribes, which was developed in collaboration with representatives from the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Gabrieleno/Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California Tribal Council, San Fernando Band of Mission Indians, and San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.
  

This land acknowledgment is not a representation of any property boundaries.