Why this matters
A land acknowledgement is a common practice among public agencies. San Diego County has the highest number of tribal governments in the U.S.
The Palomar Community College board will no longer recite a land acknowledgement during their meetings that recognizes the roots of the region and its support for Indigenous students.
What’s a land acknowledgement?
A land acknowledgement is a formal statement and an act of reconciliation that recognizes the first individuals to care for the region, their relationship with the land and continued presence. The California Community Colleges has a toolkit for campuses and says the practice serves as an opportunity to show gratitude for the homelands originally inhabited by Indigenous people, recognize legacies of genocide, and amplify their voices and perspectives.
Board members Roberto Rodriguez and Judy Patacsil voted in favor of continuing the practice, while Jacqueline Kaiser, Holly Hamilton Bleakley and Yvette Acosta opposed the decision, which the board made at an April meeting.
Kaiser, the board president, told inewsource in an email that the decision is so that the board can have “full autonomy” over its meeting agendas to ensure that they “remain focused, intentional, and reflective of the Governing Board’s core mission.”
Rodriguez declined to comment further. The remaining board members did not respond to inewsource inquiries.
Some trustees have publicly said that board meetings are not the right place for such rituals and should instead focus on decisions that impact student success and the direction of the college. Others on the board said the decision sends a message that Indigenous people don’t matter.
“For the students that come here from those tribes, it basically says we don’t care about you, we don’t want to spend 41 seconds reading a land acknowledgement,” Rodriguez said during a board meeting in April.
It’s a gesture originally adopted as “a promise to honor the truth of our shared history” and to show respect to Indigenous communities, he added in May.
Palomar College has its main campus in San Marcos, along with three centers and other education sites throughout northern San Diego County. They sit on land historically and currently inhabited by Indigenous people of the Payómkawichum/Luiseño, the Kuméyaay/Ipai/Diegueño, the Kuupangaxwichem/Cupeño and the Ívillyuatem/Cahuilla nations.
In 2021, Palomar’s then-board members unanimously voted to recite a land acknowledgement crafted by its Native American Advisory Council — a group of staff and local tribal leaders — with the intent to use it in the college’s communications, at events and on its website, according to the college. The 100-word statement takes about a minute to recite and is showcased as a “model” by the California Community Colleges organization.
Palomar’s land acknowledgement
The resilient and continued presence of the Payómkawichum/Luiseño, the Kuméyaay/Ipai/Diegueño, the Kuupangaxwichem/Cupeño, and the Ívillyuatem/Cahuilla Nations compels Palomar College to take sustainable, respectful action to engage the land and its First People with justice and compassion as fellow human beings. Palomar College acknowledges it benefits from the unceded ancestral lands of these sovereign Nations and commits to promoting indigenous knowledge systems and practices in its educational mission. Palomar College pledges to foster a successful learning environment that supports Indigenous students and engages the needs and concerns of the Nations who continue to occupy this land.
Acosta, who proposed ending the land acknowledgment, said although the statement can be used as a tool to generate discussion about past injustices, it’s something that should be saved for the classroom and simply reading it during a board meeting doesn’t bring honor to Indigenous people.
“Let us honor values, not through ritual, but through action and reserve our agendas for the work that moves Palomar College forward,” she said.
But not all members of the district community agree with the board’s move. One person who attended the board meeting last week read the acknowledgment during public comment following the decision.
“With all the issues we have to deal with, you have chosen to prioritize something that says to certain students of Palomar College: you are not welcome here and we do not care how you feel,” Cheryl Kearse, curriculum specialist at the college, told board members during public comment in April.
The college’s American Indian Studies Department also opposed the decision, saying it sends a message that such a gesture is a threat to “authority and control,” and serves as a reminder of the “erasure and dispossession” California Indians have faced for centuries.
“The reluctance (in the name of ‘efficiency’) of a few elected officials to acknowledge that Indians were here first, perpetuates this embattlement.”
Other community colleges, including San Diego City and Chula Vista’s Southwestern, continue to recite land acknowledgments at their board meetings.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
