Editing Tongva (section)

=== American occupation and continued subjugation (1848–) ===
{{Further|California genocide|Forced labor in California}}[[File:Gabrieleño huts.png|thumb|''Gabrieleño'' dwellings at Acurag-na rancheria near Mission San Gabriel, California (1877–1880)|224x224px|alt=]]Landless and unrecognized, the people faced systemic discrimination, exploitation through [[Penal labour|convict labor]], and loss of autonomy under American occupation. Some of the people were displaced to small Mexican and Native communities in the [[Eagle Rock, Los Angeles|Eagle Rock]] and [[Highland Park, Los Angeles|Highland Park]] districts of Los Angeles as well as [[Pauma Valley, California|Pauma]], [[Pala, California|Pala]], [[Temecula, California|Temecula]], [[Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians|Pechanga]], and [[San Jacinto, California|San Jacinto]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7E2AQAAMAAJ|title=Los Angeles Union Station Run-through Tracks Project: Environmental Impact Statement|publisher=United States. Federal Railroad Administration|year=2004|pages=34–35|access-date=October 19, 2020|archive-date=September 13, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220913170726/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Los_Angeles_Union_Station_Run_through_Tr/M7E2AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0|url-status=live}}</ref> The imprisonment of Natives in Los Angeles was a symbol of establishing the new "rule of law." The city's vigilante community would routinely "invade" the jail and hang the accused in the streets. Once Congress granted statehood to California in 1850, many of the first laws passed targeted Natives for arrest, imprisonment, and convict labor. The 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians "targeted Native peoples for easy arrest by stipulating that they could be arrested on vagrancy charges based 'on the complaint of any reasonable citizen'"<ref name=":6" /> and Gabrieleños faced the brunt of this policy. Section 14 of the act stated:<ref name=":17" /><blockquote>When an Indian is convicted of any offence before a Justice of the Peace punishable by fine, any white person may, by consent of the Justice, give bond for said Indian, conditioned for the payment of said fine and costs, and in such case the Indian shall be compelled to work for the person so bailing, until he has discharged or cancelled the fine assessed against him.</blockquote>Native men were disproportionately [[Criminalization|criminalized]] and swept into this legalized system of [[indentured servitude]].<ref name=":17" /> As was recorded by Anglo-American settlers, "'White men, whom the Marshal is too discreet to arrest' ... spilled out of the town's many saloons, streets, and brothels, but the aggressive and targeted enforcement of state and local vagrancy and drunk codes filled the Los Angeles County Jail with Natives, most of whom were men." Most spent their days working on the county [[chain gang]], which was largely involved with keeping the city streets clean in the 1850s and 1860s but increasingly included road construction projects as well.<ref name=":6" />

Although federal officials reported that there were an estimated 16,930 California Indians and 1,050 at Mission San Gabriel, "the federal agents ignored them and those living in Los Angeles" because they were viewed as "friendly to the whites," as revealed in the personal diaries of Commissioner [[George W. Barbour]]. In 1852, superintendent of Indian Affairs [[Edward Fitzgerald Beale]] echoed this sentiment, reporting that "because these Indians were Christians, with many holding ranch jobs and having interacted with whites," that "they are not much to be dreaded."<ref name=":17" /> Although a California Senate Bill of 2008 asserted that the US government signed treaties with the Gabrieleño, promising {{convert|8.5|e6acre|ha}} of land for [[Indian reservation|reservations]], and that these treaties were never ratified,<ref name="BillNo.1134" /> a paper published in 1972 by [[Robert Heizer]] of the [[University of California at Berkeley]], shows that the eighteen treaties made between April 29, 1851, and August 22, 1852, were negotiated with persons who did not represent the Tongva people and that none of these persons had authority to cede lands that belonged to the people.<ref name="Heizer1972" />

An 1852 editorial in the ''[[Los Angeles Star]]'' revealed the public's anger towards any possibility of the Gabrieleño receiving recognition and exercising sovereignty:<ref name=":17" /><blockquote>To place upon our most fertile soil the most degraded race of aborigines upon the North American Continent, to invest them with the rights of sovereignty, and to teach them that they are to be treated as powerful and independent nations, is planting the seeds of future disaster and ruin... We hope that the general government will let us alone{{snd}}that it will neither undertake to feed, settle or remove the Indians amongst whom we in the South reside, and that they leave everything just as it now exists, except affording us the protection which two or three cavalry companies would give.</blockquote>[[File:SanGabriel-1880.jpg|thumb|246x246px|Mission Road in [[San Gabriel, California|San Gabriel]] (1880). San Gabriel township remained the center of Gabrieleño life into the 20th century.]]In 1852, [[Hugo Reid]] wrote a series of letters for the ''[[Los Angeles Star]]'' from the center of the Gabrieleño community in San Gabriel township, describing Gabrieleño life and culture. Reid himself was married to a Gabrieleño woman by the name of Bartolomea Cumicrabit, who he renamed "Victoria." Reid wrote the following: "Their chiefs still exist. In San Gabriel remain only four, and those young... They have no jurisdiction more than to appoint times for holding of Feasts and regulating affairs connected with the church [traditional structure made of brush]." There is some speculation that Reid was campaigning for the position of Indian agent in Southern California, but died before he could be appointed. Instead, in 1852, [[Benjamin D. Wilson]] was appointed, who maintained the status quo.<ref name=":17" /> The letters of Hugo Reid revealed the names of 28 Gabrielino villages.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Indians of Los Angeles County |url=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services//service/gdc/calbk/007.pdf |access-date=June 4, 2022 |archive-date=May 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220516095555/https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services//service/gdc/calbk/007.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1855, the Gabrieleño were reported by the superintendent of Indian affairs [[Thomas J. Henley]] to be in "a miserable and degraded condition." However, Henley admitted that moving them to a reservation, potentially at Sebastian Reserve in [[Tejon Pass]], would be opposed by the citizens because "in the vineyards, especially during the grape season, their labor is made useful and is obtained at a cheap rate." A few Gabrieleño were in fact at Sebastian Reserve and maintained contact with the people living in San Gabriel during this time.<ref name=":17" />

In 1859, amidst increasing [[criminalization]] and absorption into the city's burgeoning [[convict labor]] system, the county grand jury declared "stringent vagrant laws should be enacted and enforced compelling such persons ['Indians'] to obtain an honest livelihood or seek their old homes in the mountains." This declaration ignored Reid's research, which stated that most Tongva villages, including [[Yaanga]], "were located in the basin, along its rivers and on its shoreline, stretching from the deserts and to the sea." Only a few villages led by ''tomyaars'' (chiefs) were "in the mountains, where [[Chinigchinix|Chengiichngech]]'s avengers, serpents, and bears lived," as described by historian Kelly Lytle Hernández. However, "the grand jury dismissed the depths of Indigenous claims to life, land, and sovereignty in the region and, instead, chose to frame Indigenous peoples as drunks and vagrants [[loitering]] in Los Angeles... disavowing a long history of Indigenous belonging in the basin."<ref name=":6" />

While in 1848, Los Angeles had been a small town largely of Mexicans and Natives, by 1880 it was home to an Anglo-American majority following waves of white migration in the 1870s from the completion of the [[transcontinental railroad]]. As stated by research Heather Valdez Singleton, newcomers "took advantage of the fact that many Gabrieleño families, who had cultivated and lived on the same land for generations, did not hold legal title to the land, and used the law to [[Eviction|evict]] Indian families." The Gabrieleño became vocal about this and notified former Indian agent J. Q. Stanley, who referred to them as "half-civilized" yet lobbied to protect the Gabrieleño "against the lawless whites living amongst them," arguing that they would become "[[Vagrancy|vagabonds]]" otherwise. However, active Indian agent Augustus P. Greene's recommendation took precedent, arguing that "Mission Indians in southern California were slowing the settlement of this portion of the country for non-Indians and suggested that the Indians be completely assimilated," as summarized by Singleton.<ref name=":17" />

In 1882, [[Helen Hunt Jackson]] was sent by the federal government to document the condition of the Mission Indians in southern California. She reported that there were a considerable number of people "in the colonies in the San Gabriel Valley, where they live like gypsies in brush huts, here today, gone tomorrow, eking out a miserable existence by days' work." However, even though Jackson's report would become the impetus for the Mission Indian Relief Act of 1891,<ref name=":17" /> the Gabrieleño were "overlooked by the commission charged with setting aside lands for Mission Indians."<ref name=":16">{{Cite book|last=Rosenthal|first=Nicolas G.|title=A Companion to California History|publisher=Wiley|year=2014|isbn=9781118798041|editor-last=Igler|editor-first=David|pages=408|chapter=At the Center of Indian Country|editor-last2=Deverell|editor-first2=William}}</ref> It is speculated that this may have been attributed to what was perceived as their compliance with the government, which caused them to be neglected, as noted earlier by Indian agent J. Q. Stanley.<ref name=":17" />

==== Extinction controversy ====
{{Further|American Indian boarding schools}}[[File:Sherman Indian School in Riverside, ca.1910 (CHS-5251).jpg|thumb|262x262px|[[Sherman Indian School]] in [[Riverside, California|Riverside]] (1910). Between 1890 and 1920, at least 50 Gabrieleño children were enrolled at this school on the recommendation of federal agents.]]
By the early twentieth century, Gabrieleño identity had suffered greatly under American occupation. Most Gabrieleño publicly identified as Mexican, learned Spanish, and adopted Catholicism while keeping their identity a secret.<ref name=":7" /> In schools, students were punished for mentioning that they were "Indian" and many of the people assimilated into [[Mexican Americans|Mexican-American]] or [[Chicano]] culture.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Arellanes|first=Gloria|title=The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement|publisher=University of California Press|year=2015|isbn=9780520961364|pages=116–117}}</ref> Further attempts to establish a reservation for the Gabrieleño in 1907 failed.<ref name=":17" /> Soon it began to be perpetuated in the local press that the Gabrieleño were extinct. In February 1921, the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' declared that the death of Jose de los Santos Juncos, an Indigenous man who lived at Mission San Gabriel and was 106 years old at his time of passing, "marked the passing of a vanished race."<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Brook|first=Vincent|title=Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural History of Los Angeles|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2013|isbn=9780813554587|pages=55–60}}</ref> In 1925, [[A. L. Kroeber|Alfred Kroeber]] declared that the Gabrieleño culture was extinct, stating "they have melted away so completely that we know more of the finer facts of the culture of ruder tribes."<ref name=":17" /> Scholars have noted that this extinction myth has proven to be "remarkably resilient," yet is untrue.<ref name=":8" />

Despite being declared extinct, Gabrieleño children were still being assimilated by federal agents who encouraged enrollment at [[Sherman Indian School]] in [[Riverside, California]]. Between 1890 and 1920, at least 50 Gabrieleño children were recorded at the school. Between 1910 and 1920, the establishment of the Mission Indian Federation, of which the Gabrieleño joined, led to the 1928 California Indians Jurisdictional Act, which created official enrollment records for those who could prove ancestry from a California Indian living in the state in 1852. Over 150 people self-identified as Gabrieleño on this roll. A Gabrieleño woman at Tejon Reservation provided the names and addresses of several Gabrieleño living in San Gabriel, showing that contact between the group at Tejon Reservation and the group at San Gabriel township, which are more than 70 miles apart, was being maintained into the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name=":17" />

In 1971, Bernice Johnston, former curator of the [[Southwest Museum of the American Indian|Southwest Museum]] and author of ''California’s Gabrieleno Indians'' (1962), spoke to the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'': “After spending much of her life trying to trace the Indians, she believes she almost came in contact with some Gabrielenos a few years ago…She relates that on a Sunday, while giving a tour of the museum, ‘I saw these shy, dark people looking around. They were asking questions about the Gabrieleno Indians. I asked why they wanted to know, and nearly fell over when they told me they were Gabrielenos and wanted to know something about themselves. I was busy with the tour, we were crowded. I rushed back to them as soon as I could but they were gone. I didn’t even get their names.”<ref name="latimes1971">Vasquez, Richard. "Gabrieleno Indians--This Land Was Their Land: Land Conflicts." ''Los Angeles Times'', June 14, 1971, pp. 2-b1''.''</ref>

==== Desecrated sites and Land Back ====
{{Further|Land Back}}[[File:Newport Beach Fairview Park 2017.jpg|thumb|Tongva sites continue to be destroyed due to a lack of federal recognition. Fairview Park (pictured in 2017) in [[Costa Mesa, California|Costa Mesa]] is near a Tongva site dated 9,000 years old that has been threatened.<ref name=":05" /><ref name=":42" />]]
Historians and contemporary Tongva advocates have argued that [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] institutions, including schools and museums, have historically challenged the preservation of tribal identity throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Contemporary members have cited being denied the legitimacy of their identity. Tribal identity is also hindered by a lack of [[Native American recognition in the United States|federal recognition]] and having no land base, which has meant that the tribe has access to almost none of their traditional homelands.<ref name=":8" />

The Tongva have also struggled to protect their sacred sites, ancestral remains, and artefacts from destruction in the 21st century. In 2001, a 9,000-year-old [[Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve|Bolsa Chica]] village site was heavily damaged. The company that performed the initial archaeological survey was fined $600,000 for its poor assessment that clearly favored the developer.<ref name=":42" /> Burials near the site of [[Genga, California|Genga]] were unearthed and moved, despite opposition from the tribes, in favor of commercial development.<ref name=":05" />

In 2019, [[California State University, Long Beach|CSU, Long Beach]] dumped trash and dirt on top of [[Puvunga]] in its construction of new student housing, which reawakened a decades-long dispute between the university and the tribe over the treatment of the sacred site.<ref name=":07">{{Cite news |last1=Kazenoff |first1=Tess |last2=Gomez |first2=Savannah |date=25 May 2020 |title=CSULB dumping on Native American burial site |newspaper=LBCC Viking News |url=https://lbccviking.com/2020/05/csulb-dumping-on-native-american-burial-site}}</ref> In 2022, it was announced that part of the village site of [[Genga, California|Genga]] may be transformed into a green space. Leaders of the project have claimed that "tribal descendants of the area’s earliest residents will also have a voice" in how the park is developed.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-05-26 |title=Purchase of Banning Ranch for preserved natural space is fully funded |url=https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/26/purchase-of-banning-ranch-for-preserved-natural-space-is-fully-funded |access-date=2022-12-11 |website=Orange County Register |language=en-US}}</ref>

The [[Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy]] has been established as part of the [[Land Back]] movement and for the rematriation of Tongva homelands.<ref name=":1" /> The ''kuuyam nahwá’a'' ("guest exchange") has been developed by the conservancy as a way for people living in the homelands of the Tongva to pay a form of contribution for living on the land.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Support the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy |url=https://tongva.networkforgood.com/projects/159058-ttpc |access-date=2023-01-03 |website=Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy |language=en}}</ref> In October 2022, a 1-acre site was returned to the conservancy by a private resident in [[Altadena, California|Altadena]], which marked the first time the Tongva had land in [[Los Angeles County, California|Los Angeles County]] in 200 years.<ref name=":1" />