Within the final yr, the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation has labored to guard its cultural websites from greater than 850 land growth tasks across the Los Angeles Basin, because of a 2014 state regulation that permits tribes to present enter throughout tasks’ environmental evaluate processes.
Now, its chief fears {that a} newly proposed invoice might considerably restrict how the tribe — and dozens of others nonetheless with out federal recognition — might take part.
“This is an atrocity,” mentioned Andrew Salas, chairperson of the Kizh Nation. “Let’s not call it a bill. [It’s] an erasure of non-federally recognized tribes in California. They’re taking away our sovereignty. They’re taking away our civil rights. They’re taking away our voice.”
The brand new invoice, AB 52, was proposed by state Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) and co-sponsored by three federally acknowledged tribes: the Pechanga Band of Indians, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and the Habematolel Pomo of Higher Lake. Supporters say the amendments would strengthen and reaffirm tribes’ rights to guard their assets, granted by the 2014 regulation of the identical title.
“This bill is about protecting tribal cultural resources and affirming that tribes — both federally and non-federally recognized — are the experts on our own heritage,” Mark Macarro, tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band, mentioned in an announcement.
However shortly after the invoice was substantively launched in mid-March, tribes with out federal recognition seen that whereas federally acknowledged tribes would maintain a proper to full government-to-government consultations, their tribes — nonetheless sovereign nations — could be thought of “additional consulting parties,” a authorized time period that features affected organizations, companies and members of the general public.
The unique AB 52 is a keystone piece of laws on California Indigenous rights, representing one of many main means tribes have to guard their cultural assets — akin to cemeteries, sacred areas and historic villages — from land growth inside their territories.
The brand new invoice would require that tribes’ ancestral data carry extra weight than archaeologists and environmental consultants with regards to tribes’ cultural assets. It might additionally explicitly require the state to take care of its lists of tribes — together with each federally acknowledged and non-federally acknowledged — that many items of California Indigenous regulation depend on.
But, Indigenous students and leaders inside non-federally acknowledged tribes say the brand new variations between how tribes with and with out federal recognition can take part quantity to a violation of their fundamental rights, together with their sovereignty.
“This is an atrocity…. They’re taking away our sovereignty. They’re taking away our civil rights. They’re taking away our voice.”
— Andrew Salas, Chairperson of the Kizh Nation.
They are saying the language might enable tribes with federal recognition to overstep their territory and seek the advice of on neighboring non-federally acknowledged tribes’ cultural assets.
“I don’t want a tribe who’s 200 miles away from my tribal territory to get engaged in my ancestral lands,” mentioned Rudy Ortega, president of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians. “We know the ancestral territory, we know the landscape, we know our history.”
The invoice’s sponsors say the brand new amendments aren’t designed to declare who deserves recognition and who doesn’t — and the distinction in language is solely a mirrored image of the truth of which tribes have federal recognition and which don’t.
“Tribal cultural resources and the recognition of tribes as distinct political entities are fundamental pillars of our tribal sovereignty,” the Graton Rancheria and Pechanga Band tribes mentioned in a joint assertion. ”It’s crucial that this invoice shield and reaffirm the sovereignty and government-to-government relationship between the State of California and federally acknowledged tribes.”
In observe, supporters say, there could be little distinction between how tribes with and with out federal recognition consulted with California authorities businesses. However for tribes with out federal recognition — who argue there’s no purpose to use federal tribal distinctions to state regulation — that gives little consolation.
“To exclude us is a violation of our human rights.”
— Mona Tucker, chair of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe of San Luis Obispo County and Area.
The conflict started mid-March when a pal of Salas’ — additionally a scientist who consults on environmental critiques — seen the language altering the standing of non-federally acknowledged tribes amid the collections of different amendments to the method.
Salas’ pal alerted him over the telephone: “Be aware, I’m telling you — look it up.”
He instantly alerted everybody within the tribe’s workplace in Covina. When the tribe started reaching out to different governments, it turned clear the invoice was unanticipated. “Lead agencies didn’t know about it; the city, the county — nobody knew about it,” Salas mentioned.
Phrase rapidly unfold by means of tribal leaders throughout the state. Not one of the tribes with out federal recognition interviewed by The Occasions mentioned Aguiar-Curry’s workplace had reached out to seek the advice of them on the brand new invoice earlier than it was printed.
“Input from federally and non-federally recognized tribes informed the bill in print,” Aguiar-Curry’s workplace mentioned in an announcement to The Occasions. “We’ve received feedback, we recognized the bill language started in a place that did not wholly reflect our intent — which is that all tribes … be invited to participate in the consultation process.”
The non-federally acknowledged tribes rapidly started forming coalitions and voicing their opposition. Not less than 70 tribes, organizations and cities had opposed the amendments by April 25.
The next Monday, Aguiar-Curry introduced she would desk the invoice till the beginning of 2026, however remained dedicated to pursuing it.
“The decision to make this a two-year bill is in direct response to the need for more time and space to respectfully engage all well-intended stakeholders,” her workplace mentioned in an announcement. “Come January, we’ll move a bill forward that represents those thoughtful efforts.”
Many tribes with out federal recognition nonetheless see a protracted street forward.
“I don’t have a huge sense of victory,” mentioned Mona Tucker, chair of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe of San Luis Obispo County and Area. “Hopefully the Assembly person, Aguiar-Curry, will engage with us, with a group of tribes that do not have federal acknowledgment, so that there can be some compromise here. Because to exclude us is a violation of our human rights.”
Salas would fairly see the amendments killed totally.
“We thank Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry for at least putting it on hold for now; however, this is not the end,” he mentioned. “We are asking that she — completely and urgently and respectfully — withdraw the amendment.”
Authorities-to-government consultations are sometimes detailed and long-term relationships during which tribes work behind the scenes to share data and work immediately with land builders to guard the tribe’s assets.
Final yr, the environmental evaluate course of helped the Kizh Nation win one of many largest land returns in Southern California historical past for a tribe with out federal recognition.
When a developer in Jurupa Valley proposed an almost 1,700-house growth that threatened close by important cultural areas, the Kizh Nation entered a years-long session with the builders behind the scenes. Finally, the builders agreed to take care of a 510-acre conservation space on the property, to be cared for by the Tribe.
Equally, it was one in every of these tribal consultations that reignited the cultural burn practices of the ytt Northern Chumash Tribe. In 2024 — for the primary time within the greater than 150 years because the state outlawed cultural burning — the Tribe performed burns alongside the Central Coast with the help of Cal Hearth.
California has 109 federally acknowledged tribes. Nevertheless it additionally has greater than 55 tribes with out recognition. That’s as a result of federal recognition is commonly a decades-long and arduous course of that requires verifying the Indigenous lineage of every tribal member and documenting the continual authorities operations of the tribe since 1900.
And tribes in what’s now California — which was colonized not as soon as however thrice — have a uniquely complicated and shattered historical past. Since 1978, 81 California tribal teams have sought federal recognition. Thus far, just one has been profitable, and 5 had been denied — greater than some other state.
For that reason, AB 52 and different keystone items of California Indigenous regulation — akin to people who enable tribes to present enter on metropolis planning and handle ancestral stays — use a listing of tribes created by the state that features tribes each with and with out federal recognition.
Leaders of tribes with out federal recognition noticed the previous few weeks’ AB 52 flash level as a chance to construct momentum for larger protections and rights for all tribes in California.
“What does the world look like Oct. 10, 1492?” mentioned Joey Williams, president of the Coalition of California State Tribes and vice chairman of the Kern Valley Indian Group. “Here in California, there were about 190 autonomous governments of villages and languages and self-determined people — sovereign people that are liberated, that are free.”
Williams helped type the Coalition of California State Tribes in 2022 to struggle for that imaginative and prescient.
“We just want that for our tribal people,” he mentioned. “We want them to have access to all that sovereignty, self-determination … and full acknowledgment by the federal government and state government.”
