Working with us
(not on us)
If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
– Lilla Watson, Aboriginal activist
PLEASE READ
The state of our community
The Tongva people continue to recover from the genocides we have experienced as a community, and for that reason our resources for time and teaching are stretched incredibly thin. Before connecting with us, please read this page carefully, you’ll probably find a lot of answers here on our website!
California Native Americans are in a unique point in history, especially non-federally recognized tribes like the Tongva who have had to fight against systems in place that have kept us unrecognized, exploited, and erased.
Together we are all just barely recovering from a system created on top of disregarded native land, broken treaties, and exploitation of native people. As a society, we are just starting to learn what it means to live on stolen land in a healing and respectful way. When you connect with Native people start first by studying up, reflect on the heavy history that is a part of the land, and think of how your connection may or may not show respect and reciprocity to the original caretakers of the land.
Before you connect, please do some independent research, learn proper protocol and guidelines, and reflect on why you would want to connect.
Photo by Kenneth Lopez
Work with us, not on us
As you continue preparing to connect with us through learning and understanding, continue to consider how you can practice working with us and our history instead of working on us. Some examples of what that might look like:
✔ Working with us ✔
✔ Compensating us for our time, expertise, traditional knowledge, and representation.
✔ Collaborating with us on projects in an honest way
✔ Contacting us before using our words, art, images, etc.
✔ Making meaningful donations when appropriate
❌ Working on us ❌
❌ Expecting us to speak at events, give input, help with an event, or give a land acknowledgment without compensation
❌ Severely limiting or censoring our work.
❌ Asking for our input without the intention to implement any of it.
❌ Collaborating with us last minute to “check off a box”
❌ Using our images, patterns, or words without our permission
❌ Contacting us as an afterthought
Photos by Kenneth Lopez
We are focusing our efforts on land rematriation at this time. If you would like to collaborate with us or go beyond consultation, please fill out our inquiry form here.
To support the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, please consider making kuuyam nahwá’a, a guest exchange which is a voluntary recurring contribution that individuals and institutions living and operating in the Los Angeles basin make to support beyond land acknowledgment.
Looking forward to continuing this journey and inviting others into this healing!