On a balmy October evening the music of Native drummers, singers and dancers filled the Fowler Museum’s courtyard—echoing sounds from centuries ago when tribes of indigenous people lived on the land that is now California. The event was in honor of Los Angeles’ first Indigenous Peoples Day and the community coalition—including alumni, students, staff, faculty and friends of UCLA’s Native American community—that came together to advocate for it.

Before the missions and the settlers, before the Spanish arrived and long before the establishment of the state of California, Los Angeles was home to indigenous people known as the Tongva, Chumash and Tataviam. The remains of a Tongva village known as Kuruvungna is only a few miles from UCLA on the campus of University High School. Kuruvungna means "a place where we are in the sun."  A project at UCLA's American Indian Studies Center called Mapping Indigenous Los Angeles is using digital media to re-map Los Angeles through the stories of indigenous peoples to reclaim the city's original names.

Shannon Speed

After the arrival of the Spanish in the late 1700s, Los Angeles’ Native people suffered greatly, with the population falling from 150,000 to 30,000. Many people are unaware of the history of California’s Native populations. Shannon Speed, director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center says, “People tend to think of Native Americans as people that vanished. Los Angeles has the largest urban Indian population of any city in the country, yet we’re largely invisible. People don’t know that we’re here. Having our contributions recognized allows us to be present and visual.”

American Indian Alumni of UCLA Co-Presidents Heather Torres (left) and Elizabeth Fasthorse (right)

For members of the Native American community, the holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus serves to further erase the history of indigenous people while celebrating the violence against them. Heather Torres ’11, J.D. ’17, the co-president of the American Indian Alumni of UCLA and UC President's public service law fellow at the Tribal Law & Policy Institute, describes it, “Columbus Day celebrates the ‘discovery’ of lands already known and cared for deeply by indigenous people. Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day is vital to righting the country's fiction and moving the country's collective consciousness forward to a place of truth. Our children and our families deserve that, the truth.”

A proposal to create an Indigenous Peoples Day was sponsored in the Los Angeles City Council by Mitch O’Farrell, a Los Angeles City councilmember for District 13 and a member of the Wyandotte tribe. As the city council considered the change, a UCLA coalition that stretched across campus and into the community came together to advocate for replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

UCLA is home to one of the nation’s oldest American Indian Studies programs with an established network of on-campus support. On-campus groups, including many student-initiated organizations, regularly work with off-campus American Indian community members, local Tribal Nations and students' own Tribal Nations. Torres says, “This strong connection and understanding of community responsibility has led to UCLA alumni becoming well-respected leaders and advocates for American Indian people.”

Chrissie Castro

Many members of the UCLA community participated through several different channels, including as expert voices and grassroots support. The Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission (CityHRC) was charged with community outreach to consider differing viewpoints around the proposal. They reached out to former member Gaspar Rivera Salgado, project director at UCLA Labor Center, to participate in the process. The Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition, collaboration between UCLA and the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission (LANAIC), created a report to show the positive impact of a day dedicated to celebrating indigenous peoples. Chrissie Castro, the vice chairwoman of (LANAIC) and a Bruin, organized community support and outreach. She says, “The UCLA community - students, faculty, staff and leadership - was very present, that was very important. It was wonderful to see the UCLA American Indian Center, and to know that the larger community has their support in a meaningful way.”

In November 2016, following a period of research, education and community input, including a vocal community dialog co-moderated by UCLA’s Saldago and Speed, the CityHRC presented the City Council Arts, Parks and River Committee with a report in favor of establishing Indigenous Peoples Day. Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, chair of the committee, then presented the report to the City Council.

On Aug. 30, 2017 the Los Angeles City Council voted 14-1 to honor the legacy of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles by naming the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day, replacing Columbus Day as an official paid holiday in the city. Los Angeles joins Berkeley, Seattle, Phoenix and Denver, among others, and states including South Dakota and Vermont. Italian American Heritage Day will be celebrated on October 12th, as a day to recognize Italian Americans and their contributions to the history and culture of Los Angeles. It was a victory for the many community members who’d worked towards this goal, many for decades. UCLA’s Speed says, “UCLA was able to participate in a community coalition that emerged around the day, but that I hope will continue to work together more victories for Native people in the city of Los Angeles.”

Although the change will not officially take place until 2019, this year there were already signs of the change across the city and county. Castro was inspired by the work of the community, and excited by the results. She says, “One of my favorite moments was seeing the official notices at the library; that is the kind of visibility we have been working for. It is important for us to lift up the local community so that people are aware that they’re on indigenous land. I hope there will be less erasure of indigenous Los Angeles.”

The American Indian Alumni of UCLA (AIA) is an alliance of alumni, allies and students from the American Indian Community hoping to foster and encourage the large numbers of American Indian alumni and friends to become more visible in their support of American Indians at UCLA. Current co-president Torres says, “The success of our alumni is very much dependent on staying connected to UCLA's American Indian community including undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff. On-campus resources can be sources of inspiration for AIA's work and professional development for our alumni who consider returning to school, teaching courses and publishing academic articles. AIA makes efforts to support current students as much as possible.”