8.5 Land Acknowledgement

Below and on the grant website is the land acknowledgment crafted specifically for OERFSJ. It focuses on the land of Los Angeles, which may not be authentic to Bay-Area teams. 

The OER for Social Justice team is hosted at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California and so we use this location for our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge the Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and southern Channel Islands) and the presence of LMU on this traditional, ancestral, and unceded land. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live, study, create, and be in this place. We encourage you to visit native-land.ca to learn more about the Indigenous lands, waters, and communities of our partner institutions, St. Mary’s College of California, Santa Clara University, and the University of San Francisco.

We encourage you to visit SCU’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion’s dedicated website to their land acknowledgment for not only the short and long versions of their land acknowledgement but also alternative languages and supportive resources.

Short Version

SMC provides an embeddable video of their land acknowledgement as well as text you can place in your OER.

As the community of Saint Mary’s College of California, we acknowledge we are gathered on the ethnohistoric tribal territory of the intermarried Saclan/Jalquin (hal-keen)/Huchiun (hoo-choon)/ ancestral Muwekma Bay Miwok and Ohlone Territory.

The present-day Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, with an enrolled Bureau of Indian Affairs documented membership of over 600, is comprised of all of the known surviving Indian lineages aboriginal to the San Francisco Bay region. They trace their Tribe’s ancestry through the missionization policies deployed by the Catholic Church in connection to Missions Dolores, San Jose, and Santa Clara, during the expansion of the Hispano-European Empire into Alta California beginning in 1769. Their Muwekma families are the successors and living members of the sovereign, previously Federally Recognized Verona Band of Alameda County, now formally recognized as the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area who would like you to know that they are alive and thriving members of the broader Bay Area communities today.

The Muwekma Ohlone Indian families have never left their aboriginal ancestral homelands of the Bay Area and maintain their identity, traditions, culture and language through the tenacity, strength and legacy of their ancestors and elders. Today, they attempt to repair the sustained ecological, environmental, and cultural devastation to their Tribe wrought by over 254 years of colonial processes of disenfranchisement through the politics of erasure. Their priorities are moved forward through three established entities: the Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council, Muwekma Oholone Tribe, Inc. and the Muwekma Ohlone Preservation Foundation.

They respectfully request that the good citizens of St. Mary’s College and the Town of Moraga, and surrounding towns strive to be faithful stewards on behalf of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe by maintaining the bay, freshwater creeks, native plants, animal habitats, and the air we all breathe. We recognize that the De La Salle Brothers of Saint Mary’s College and the Lasallian Family have worked to serve honorably as good stewards of this land since its purchase in 1926.

The Senate of the Associated Students of the University of San Francisco (ASUSF) supplies a land acknowledgment for USF’s community and Matthew Collins, a librarian at Gleeson Library, provides a fantastic guide full of resources for utilizing ASUSF’s statement and self-education.

As we share space to strengthen our journey towards consciousness & liberation, we must take time to acknowledge the difficult truths of our history that have shaped our current realities.

Our collective relationship with Indigenous peoples by this institution, this city, this country, and this continent is in immediate and sincere need of reconciliation and reclamation.

Today, we cannot deny the story of this land and it’s truth that is too often untold. Today, we gather on unceded, stolen Ohlone (pronounced “óh-LONE-e”) territory.

The Village of Yelamu (pronounced “ye-LA-moo”) is the territory of the Ramaytush (pronounced “RA-ma-toosh”) speaking people, one of eight nations now referred to as Ohlone. Even through devastating events, the Yelamu are still here and working tirelessly for their right to remain and evolve in the place we consider San Francisco. Many of us who have come to benefit from this land still participate in the ongoing displacement of its original stewards but we can choose to be better advocates and accomplices in favor of their restoration.

We have the responsibility to Indigenize every space we occupy, we have the obligation, as guests, to inform ourselves about each region we visit; starting most intimately with the ones in which we reside – no matter how long-term or temporary our stay is, we must offer ourselves in the same way that we have gained from the injustices faced by Ohlone peoples and those beyond the Bay Area at the hands of colonial invasion.

Moving forward- we encourage the amplification of Indigenous land recognition at the beginning of dinner with our families; at every event, ceremony, and gathering that we organize and in our everyday walk as lifelong students.

As one Mutsun (pronounced “MOOT-sun”) Ohlone sister Kanyon (pronounced “CAN-yun”) Sayers-Roods says: “There have always been indigenous peoples in the spaces we call home, and there always will be,”

Today, as you reach another milestone in your journey, we hope that you embrace our call to use your influence as a resource for Indigenous liberation.

The USF land acknowledgement statement was written by a fellow guest in Ohlone territory: Calina Lawrence, Suquamish Nation, USF Performing Arts and Social Justice Alumna, Class of 2016.

There are numerous resources to guide you in writing your own land acknowledgement. Many of you are familiar with Honor Native Land. We have included Honor Native Land resources below, but note that the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture sunset their toolkit June 27, 2023.

• “Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgment” for the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.

  • A multimedia guide for land acknowledgments. Fill out the form to immediately download their virtual resource pack with additional and extensive guidance. Note: USDAC is not a government entity.

• “Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead” by Elisa J. Sobo, Michael Lambert, and Valerie Lambert for The Conversation is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.

• A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment by the Native Governance Center
  • Based on a panel discussion of Indigenous scholars, the Native Governance Center offers essentials and tips for drafting a land acknowledgment.
• Land Acknowledgements by Matthew Collins for Gleeson Library
  • Librarian Collins has compiled a fantastic collection of resources for better understanding the purposes, positives, and drawbacks of land acknowledgments and Indigenous research methods and community engagement.
• Native Land Digital
  • This Canadian organization provides well-used resources, including a digital map to identify Native Land where you reside and research Indigenous communities.