“It’s a time to honor the first peoples of this region, and recognize their living cultures, and celebrate their ongoing leadership at shaping our shared future today,” councilmember Imelda Padilla announced to the crowd last Friday after opening up her November 7th presentation at the L.A. City Council meeting.
The purpose of this meeting was to rectify an official Land Acknowledgement, shaping closer city and tribal relations, and reinforce representation. Voted in unanimously three years ago, L.A. Civil Rights has subsequently worked with tribes across the county to agree to this citywide ordinance.
After a prayer led by Chief Anthony Red Blood Morales of the San Gabriel Band of Indians, the document was read aloud for the first time:
“The County of Los Angeles recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants—past, present, and emerging—as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma.