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In 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) celebrated its centennial year with little public recognition of the Gabrieliño-Tongva and Tovaangar, the original inhabitants of the region known as the Los Angeles Basin. Reflecting on this occasion, this paper considers UCLA's relationship to the invasion and colonization of California, adding to the growing body of research examining the history of chattel slavery and Indigenous dispossession in the establishment of US higher education. Focusing on lands occupied by the UCLA campus, this article tracks the movement of communally stewarded lands of the Gabrieliño-Tongva over three waves of colonialism: Spanish missionaries' illegal seizure of lands to construct Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1771, privatization of lands into ranchos under Mexican governance after 1821, and the subdivision and sale of lands under US rule after 1850. (Re)storying this narrative, this article documents the unsevered link between the original inhabitants of Tovaangar and UCLA to underscore the need for postsecondary institutions to confront their colonial inheritance and reorient responsibilities that fortify the futures of California Native nations.

AbstractWhat does land acknowledgment do? Where does it come from? Where is it pointing? Existing literature, especially critiques by Indigenous scholars, unequivocally assert that settler land acknowledgments are problematic in their favoring of rhetoric over action. However, formal written statements may challenge institutions to recognize their complicity in settler colonialism and their institutional responsibilities to tribal sovereignty. Building on these critiques, particularly the writings of Métis cultural producer Chelsea Vowel, this article offers beyond as a framework for how institutional land acknowledgments can or cannot support Indigenous relationality, land pedagogy, and accountability to place and peoples. The authors describe the critical differences between Indigenous protocols of mutual recognition and settler practices of land acknowledgment. These Indigenous/settler differences illuminate an Indigenous perspective on what acknowledgments ought to accomplish. For example, Acjachemen/Tongva scholar Charles Sepulveda forwards the Tongva concept of Kuuyam, or guest, as "a reimagining of human relationships to place outside of the structures of settler colonialism." What would it mean for a settler speaker of a land acknowledgment to say, "I am a visitor, and I hope to become a proper guest"? Two empirical examples are presented: the University of California, Los Angeles, where an acknowledgment was crafted in 2018; and the University of California, San Diego, where an acknowledgment is under way in 2020. The article concludes with beyond as a potential decolonial framework for land acknowledgment that recognizes Indigenous futures.

In this commentary, we engage and summarize existing practices for recruiting and retaining American Indian and Alaska Native students in postsecondary institutions in California. This commentary is the output of a two-day symposium, "Lighting a Path Forward: UC Land Grants, Public Memory, and Tovaangar," held at the University of California, Los Angeles in October of 2019. The symposium brought together campus and community leaders from across California to discuss the past, present and future of American Indian and Alaska Native student and community concerns, and provide intervening policy and practice recommendations. Participants included both American Indian and Alaska Native and non-Native individuals with a wealth of professional experience and employment in American Indian and Alaska Native education, from the California Community College, California State University and University of California systems. We jointly created a table of critical interventions in education, the justification for this, and potential strategies for implementation. Here, we summarize the discussion of participants from the American Indian and Alaska Native student retention and recruitment workshop to document recommends interventions for campus practitioners and leaders to serve as a guiding document for system and campus advocacy.