Reaching the Summit: Publishing

Land Acknowledgement

Key Takeaways

In this chapter we share

  • Land acknowledgments for participating institutions and OERFSJ
  • Resources for writing your own land acknowledgement

Including a Land Acknowledgment

OERFSJ would appreciate but does not require teams to include a land acknowledgment in the front matter of their OER. The inclusion of a land acknowledgment should be a genuine, thoughtful, and reflective acknowledgment of Indigenous peoples. The statement should not be performative, which is why we do not require it of teams.

Screenshot of OERFSJ land acknowledgement (image description available)
OERFSJ Land Acknowledgment [Image Description]

Below you will find land acknowledgments from the grant project as well as the three Bay-Area institutions. Given the multiple locations of OERFSJ, you may elect to include both the OERFSJ and local recognitions.

If your team feels compelled, we encourage you to write your own. Doing so may be a particularly beneficial way to express gratitude and provide context for partnering Indigenous peoples or individuals. We provide resources for crafting land acknowledgments in the chapter as well. If you have any questions, please reach out to your institution’s appropriate office.

OERFSJ

Select the arrow to access the land acknowledgement written for OERFSJ.

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.[1]

 

Santa Clara University (SCU)

Select the arrow to access the land acknowledgment for SCU

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[2] but also alternative languages and supportive resources.

Short Version

We pause to acknowledge that Santa Clara University sits on the land of the Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone people. We remember their continued connection to this region and give thanks to them for allowing us to live, work, learn, and pray on their traditional homeland. We offer our respect to their Elders and to all Ohlone people of the past and present.

Long Version

We pause to acknowledge that Santa Clara University sits on the land of the Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone people, who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara, and San Jose. We remember their connection to this region and give thanks for the opportunity to live, work, learn, and pray on their traditional homeland. Let us take a moment of silence to pay respect to their Elders and to all Ohlone people of the past and present.

Saint Mary’s College of California (SMC)

Select the arrow to access the land acknowledgment for SMC

SMC’s website provides an embeddable video of their land acknowledgement as well as text you can place in your OER[3].

Land Acknowledgement by Saint Mary’s College of California

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.[4]

University of San Francisco (USF)

Select the arrow to access the land acknowledgment for USF

The Senate of the Associated Students of the University of San Francisco (ASUSF) supplies a land acknowledgment for USF’s community and Nicola Andrews and Matthew Collins, a librarian at Gleeson Library, provides a fantastic guide to land acknowledgments 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.[5]

 

Resources for Writing a Land Acknowledgement

Select the arrow to explore annotated resources for writing a land acknowledgment

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.

Image Descriptions

Image 1. Screenshot of a section titled “Land Acknowledgement” in a Pressbooks-style layout. It contains one paragraph acknowledging the Tongva peoples as the traditional caretakers of Tovaangar and includes a hyperlink to native-land.ca. Transcript: Land Acknowledgement

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 acknowledgment. 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. [Return to Image 1]

 

  1. Loyola Marymount University Library. (n.d.). Land acknowledgment for OERFSJ. https://libguides.lmu.edu/oerfsj/landacknowledgment ↵
  2. Office for Diversity and Inclusion. (n.d.). Land acknowledgement. Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/diversity/land-acknowledgement/ ↵
  3. null ↵
  4. Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. (n.d.). Land acknowledgement. Saint Mary's College of California. https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/office-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/land-acknowledgement ↵
  5. Andrews, N. & Collins, M. (n.d.). Land acknowledgements. Gleeson Library, University of San Francisco. https://library.usfca.edu/IndigenousStudies ↵
  6. U.S. Department of Arts and Culture. (2017). Honor Native land: A guide and call to acknowledgment. https://usdac.us/nativeland ↵
  7. Sobo, E. J., Lambert, M., & Lambert, V. (2022, November 21). Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite—Erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/land-acknowledgments-meant-to-honor-indigenous-people-too-often-do-the-opposite-erasing-american-indians-and-sanitizing-history-instead ↵
  8. Native Governance Center. (2019, October 22). A guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment. https://nativegov.org/news/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/ ↵
  9. Native Land Digital. (n.d.). Native Land Digital. https://native-land.ca/ ↵

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Open Voices, Just Choices: OER for Social Justice Faculty Handbook Copyright © 2025 by Theresa Huff and Karna Younger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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