Indigenous Peoples of California

Focus Question: Whose land do I live on?

Lesson by Jenna Rentz

What does it mean to be Indigenous?

• Indigenous people are the first people to live in a particular place.
• Indigenous people in the United States are sometimes called Native Americans, American Indians, or First Americans.
• Today, more than 2 million Indigenous people live in what is now called the United States.

Muwekma Ohlone tribal members celebrating the first official Indigenous People’s Day in San Francisco, 2018.

Whose ancestral land do we live on?

The Past (back then): Before Europeans came to what we call California, 100s of different Indigenous tribal communities called this land home.

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The Present (now): More than 700,000 Indigenous people call this land home today.

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• Ohlone people, including people who speak Chochenyo, have lived in the area we call Alameda for thousands of years.

The Past (back then): Europeans in California

• When people from Europe came to what is now California, thousands of Indigenous peoples lived here.

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• In California, Europeans took control of the land and forced many Indigenous people to work for no money.

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• It became harder for Indigenous people to speak their own language or celebrate their own holidays.

Ohlone people row a Tule boat in the San Francisco Bay (1822).

What harm was caused when the Europeans came?

The Present (now): Indigenous People in California

• Today, Indigenous people in California practice the culture passed down by their ancestors.
• Indigenous people are taking action to make sure everyone knows whose ancestral land they live on.
• One group, called the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, is buying back land for the Ohlone people in the Bay Area.

The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is creating spaces for Ohlone people to practice their cultural traditions together.

How is harm being repaired?

The Present (now) in Alameda: Changing the Name

The Past (back then): This park in Alameda was named “Jackson Park” after the President Andrew Jackson.

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The Present (now): In 2020, people in Alameda worked to change the name of the park because President Jackson enslaved people and moved Indigenous people off their land.

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The new name of the park is Chochenyo Park.

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It is named after the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people that have lived here for thousands of years.

How is this community action helping to repair harm?

The Past (back then) and The Present (now)

Read each statement and decide if it happened in the past or the present.

Bay Area communities are renaming public places to acknowledge the Ohlone people.

Indigenous people lived in California without Europeans.

Indigenous people are buying back land that was taken from them.

Europeans traveled to California in the 1700s and took land away from the Indigenous people.

The Future: How can we be good guests on Ohlone land?

What does it mean to be a guest?

A guest is ____________________________________.

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The future is everything that hasn’t happened yet. We can use our imaginations to think about the future!

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• As you imagine the future, can you imagine how people might treat each other and the land we live on? What are some ways people can be good guests on Ohlone land?

One way of being a good guest on Ohlone land is _____________________

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Teacher Resources

Sample Student Work

• Chochenyo Park Dialogue, Lisjan Ohlone History of Alameda, CA
• 53 min - Lisjan Ohlone individual response to renaming the park.
• Compiled Resources on Native American History, UCBHSSP

One way to be a good guest on Ohlone Land _________.