The raging wildfires in the Los
Angeles area have so far killed five people, spreading over almost 30 square
miles. The fires are the city’s most destructive
to date: More than 2,000
structures have burnt down, including homes, businesses and historic buildings.
According to a Wednesday statement by California State Parks, fires that spread through Will
Rogers State Historic Park engulfed
the eponymous 1930s actor’s ranch house. And blazes that swept through Topanga
State Park destroyed the iconic Topanga Ranch Motel—once
owned by 20th-century newspaper publisher William
Randolph Hearst. State park employee residences at
Topanga and Will Rogers parks were also razed by these blazes belonging to the
Palisades Fire, which ripped through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, west
of downtown Los Angeles.
“California State Parks mourns the
loss of these treasured natural and cultural resources, and our hearts go out
to everyone impacted by the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area,” says
State Parks director Armando Quintero
in the statement. “We are directing all available resources into the emergency
response effort and working to secure and protect as much as we can at affected
nearby state parks.”
Rogers
was a cherished renaissance entertainer: movie star, radio personality, writer,
philanthropist, aviation
enthusiast and “cowboy philosopher;” the parks
department referred to him as “America’s most beloved citizen.” Born in 1879 as
a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in territory that later became Oklahoma,
Rogers traveled the world before purchasing land in the Palisades in the 1920s.
By the time Roger died in 1935, he’d developed a sprawling ranch on his
359-acre property. The estate included a 31-room mansion, houses for guests,
stables and corrals, a golf course and horse-riding trails. In 1944, Rogers’
wife, Betty, donated the property to California, and it became a historic park.
The estate included a mansion,
stables and horse corrals. California State Parks
State park employees were able to
evacuate the ranch’s horses and some artifacts, including pieces of art, from
Rogers’ ranch. But the fires destroyed the entire building, save some stone
chimneys and walls. As Cherokee Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. says in a statement,
“Rogers is among our most beloved Cherokees and a legacy of our people.” He
lauded the protectors of the Will Rogers ranch, who have preserved history over
the years.
As of Thursday afternoon, first
responders have made gains battling the Sunset Fire, which forced residents of
the Hollywood Hills
to evacuate, per the Los Angeles Times. Extreme wind speeds have contributed to the fires’
spreading. As Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin
Crowley said at a Wednesday press
conference, “We are absolutely not out of
danger yet.”
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Sonja Anderson is a writer and
reporter based in New York City.
“What changes when an institution publishes a land acknowledgment?” he asked. “What material, tangible changes are enacted?”
The answers to these questions still appear to elude some
of the most well-attended art institutions across the United States. So
much so that someIndigenous scholars have come to regard the standard land acknowledgment as “hollow,” “empty,” “performative,” and, as Pierce put it, “not enough.”
Hyperallergic
looked into the land acknowledgments — or lack thereof — at 15 popular
art museums and institutions in the country, and while this is by no
means a comprehensive list, there’s certainly a lot to glean from the
varying approaches. Some institutions have opted to incorporate land
acknowledgements on their grounds. In 2021, for example, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan installed a plaque on its Fifth Avenue façade coupled with an article
from the curators behind the effort contextualizing the plaque in
addition to other initiatives within the museum. That same year, the
Legion of Honor and de Young Museum in San Francisco installed a
physical acknowledgment on an exterior wall, complemented by a detailed online text.
The
Forge Project website requires visitors to physically check off
acknowledgments and advocacy statements before being permitted to enter.
(screenshot Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic via forgeproject.com)
Many
museums have relegated their land acknowledgements to their websites,
sometimes adding links for additional resources and using digital space
for further contextualization. In New York City, the Brooklyn Museum and the Queens Museum
have dedicated land acknowledgements in their “About” pages online; the
Brooklyn Museum also has an acknowledgement on the footer of its
website. The Whitney Museum of American Art
features a devoted land acknowledgment webpage with additional context
on overlapping territories and diasporic relationships, as well as links
to the Lenape Center, the American Indian Community House, and the digital nonprofit Native Land.
The Art Institute of Chicago‘s digital land acknowledgment was implemented in 2019 through a live ceremony
with the city’s American Indian Center, a collaborator on the endeavor.
The page includes a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section that also
addresses criticisms of land acknowledgments among other points of
interest, including an answer to the question, “Isn’t a statement a bit
hollow?” The Cleveland Art Museum‘s
land acknowledgment page also includes FAQ section tackling criticisms
and providing more historical context about the Native populations of
the region as well as the museum’s stated commitments to Native tribes
today.
Alternatively, some high-profile institutions have not
included land acknowledgements on their websites. The National Gallery
of Art in Washington, DC, confirmed that it does not have a land
acknowledgment in an email to Hyperallergic. The High Museum of
Art in Atlanta; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum
of Modern Art in Manhattan do not appear to have land acknowledgments
online, nor did they immediately respond to Hyperallergic‘s inquiries. The Getty Museum and Foundation, meawhile, announced in 2021
that the development of a land acknowledgment in collaboration with
relevant Indigenous leaders was in the works, and has issued a FAQs document about the timeline, process, and permissions for individual acknowledgments in the meantime.
To
better understand how a land acknowledgment should be folded into more
comprehensive institutional initiatives to engage with and support
Native people living today, Hyperallergic checked in with
Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), executive director and
chief curator of Forge Project. The Native-led nonprofit on
Moh-He-Con-Nuck/Mohican (Stockbridge-Munsee) land in Taghkanic, New
York, is devoted to cultivating and advancing Indigenous leadership in
the arts and culture sector.
“The way that I understand and frame a land acknowledgment
is that it should be a declaration of an institution’s relationships,”
Hopkins explained in a phone call. “It’s not just a declaration of
people who were there on a certain land area — people who are still
there. I feel like that relationship part is really key and it’s often
left out of land acknowledgments.”
During
a Meadow Work day in September 2023, neighbors from the region
participate in and learn more about the land remediation work through
the Forge Project and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. (photo by
Thatcher Keats, courtesy of Forge Project)
Hopkins elaborated that it’s the institutions thatmust develop relations with existing Indigenous communities in a non-extractive manner.
“You
don’t go to a community who is overwhelmed and under-resourced and say,
‘Hey, we want to plan a land acknowledgment,’ — you approach them with
what you can offer them in order to begin the relationship,” she said.
“So that perhaps some of your institutional resources may directly
benefit them. Museums often think that they can develop a relationship
through programming, but I actually think that what needs to happen
first is building trust and asking the question, ‘What do you need from
us?’ instead of ‘What do we need from you?'”
Hopkins used the
Forge Project as an example, highlighting that the organization shares
50% of the proceeds from any paid visitor tours on its grounds with the
Stockbridge-Munsee Community, in addition to collaborating in ongoing
research on land history and labor exploitation in the area. The Forge
Project has also engaged in land remediation with the Community through
the removal of invasive plant species and growth of endemic plant
specimens to support original biodiversity and rekindle Indigenous
knowledge and stewardship of the land.
Another point Hopkins
brought up is the basis of land acknowledgments pacifying history, or
failing to address the violence and brutality against the Native
populations whose land institutions were built on. Many acknowledgments
will state that the institution or organization is located on the“unceded,
ancestral homelands” of a particular Native tribe or community without
elaborating on the processes of dispossession, dehumanization, and
violent expulsion.
“Oftentimes, land acknowledgments intentionally or unintentionally underscore this really violent myth of the ‘vanishing Native,’
and hardly anyone ever answers the question of ‘Why are people not
here?'” Hopkins continued, highlighting that colonial histories have
always centered violence in the transformation of traditional territory
into property.
“Museums have been inherently extractive
and there still needs to be a lot of work done in order to shift those
practices at their base level,” Hopkins noted. “They shouldn’t presume
that there is an interest in collaboration or a desire for a
relationship simply because they’re museums. Certain Native communities
may have other priorities, perhaps rooted in healthcare and education,
and it’s up to institutions to understand and reflect on who benefits
from forging a relationship, and what can be done outside of just
programming.”
A
protester at the Whitney Museum during the "Nine Weeks of Art and
Action." Taken with permission on May 17, 2019. (photo Hakim
Bishara/Hyperallergic)
You’ve probably heard one. You may have helped craft one. A
land acknowledgment is quickly becoming de rigueur among mainstream
cultural and arts institutions. An official will stand at a podium and
announce: This building is situated on the unceded land of the XYZ people. As if those people are not still here. As if this all happened in the past. He will breathe deeply and continue: We pay homage to the original stewards of these lands. The audience will nod in agreement. As if homage were the same as returning stolen land.
A land acknowledgment is not enough.
Museums that once stole Indigenous bones now celebrate
Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Organizations that have never hired an
Indigenous person now admit the impact of Indigenous genocide through
social media. Land-grant universities scramble to draft statements about
their historical ties to fraudulent treaties and pilfered graves.
Indeed, these are challenging times for institutions trying to do right
by Indigenous peoples.
Some institutions will seek the input of an
Indigenous scholar or perhaps a community. They will feel contented and
“diverse” because of this input. They want a decolonial to-do list. But
what we have are questions: What changes when an institution publishes a
land acknowledgment? What material, tangible changes are enacted?
Without action, without structural change, acknowledging stolen land is what Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang call a “settler move to innocence.” Institutions are not innocent. Settlers are not innocent.
The
problem with land acknowledgments is that they are almost never
followed by meaningful action. Acknowledgment without action is an empty
gesture, exculpatory and self-serving. What is more, such gestures
shift the onus of action back onto Indigenous people, who neither asked
for an apology nor have the ability to forgive on behalf of the land
that has been stolen and desecrated. It is not my place to forgive on
behalf of the land.
A land acknowledgment is not enough.
This
is what settler institutions do not understand: Land does not require
that you confirm it exists, but that you reciprocate the care it has
given you. Land is not asking for acknowledgment. It is asking to be
returned to itself. It is asking to be heard and cared for and attended
to. It is asking to be free.
Land is not an object, not a thing. Land does not require recognition. It requires care. It requires presence.
Land is a gift, a relative, a body that sustains other
bodies. And if the land is our relative, then we cannot simply
acknowledge it as land. We must understand what our responsibilities are
to the land as our kin. We must engage in a reciprocal relationship
with the land. Land is — in its animate multiplicities — an ongoing
enactment of reciprocity.
A land acknowledgment is not enough.
To
engage with the land on the land’s terms is an act of reciprocity.
Reciprocity, rather than recognition, is what the land requires because
that is what it has already given. Are you not alive, breathing, because
of this land?
The land exists regardless of settler
acknowledgment, which can only ever be the first step toward meaningful
action. Next steps involve building relationships with that land as if
it were your kin. Because it is.
In the new book ALMOST Dead Indians, the expectation of dead Indians is pretty evident: after first contact: 1,000+ massacres, slavery, plagues they spread via blankets, rotten food commodities, poisons that killed entire tribal communities, numerous scalp bounties, then the Lake Mohonk rich men like General Pratt suggesting all kids attend residential boarding schools (Carlisle Indian Industrial School) - these ideas were the best way to assimilate and KILL THE INDIAN and SAVE THE MAN... it's all there... we have proof.
But looting graves and theft was yet another way to kill the Indian, to hide what they did: plus they'd make money, get a college degree from somewhere, while they leveled and robbed thousands of mounds (and tribal massacre sites) that held our dead and our sacred items. See a pattern here?
It was expected we would all die... sooner than later... one way or the other.
Looting is proof. Our bones in museum collections is more proof. These museums and the looters got caught red-handed. Now they will pay for this atrocity. We are exposing them.
For centuries, Native people had everything stolen from them –
their lands, their water, their languages, and even their children. It
wasn’t that long ago that it was the official policy of the United
States government to terminate the existence of tribes and forcibly
assimilate their citizens. And a big part of that unrelenting, inhumane
policy was that the remains of Native ancestors and culturally
significant items were also taken from them. Not with permission, but by
force. Not discovered, but stolen. On battlefields and in cemeteries,
under the cover of darkness or the guise of academic research.
Think about that. The U.S. government literally stole people’s
bones. Soldiers and agents overturned graves and took whatever they
could find. And these weren’t isolated incidents – they happened all
across the country. In my home state of Hawai‘i, the remains of Native
Hawaiians – or iwi kūpuna as they’re called – were routinely pillaged
without any regard for the sanctity of the burials or Native Hawaiian
culture.
And all of it was brought to some of the most venerable
institutions – at home and abroad -- to be studied like biological
specimens…displayed in museum exhibits as if they’re paintings on
loan…or squirreled away in a professor’s office closet, never to be seen
again.
The theft of hundreds of thousands of remains and items over
generations was unconscionable in and of itself. But the legacy of that
cruelty continues to this day because these museums and universities
continue to hold onto these sacred items in violation of everything that
is right and moral – and importantly, in violation of federal law.
New language in the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is
prompting museums to pull some Native items from public display. The
rule went into effect in January that requires museums to consult with
tribes more comprehensively when it comes to Native artifacts. That’s
because, even though they may not be the human remains or sacred items
that NAGPRA historically referenced, many items held by museums,
universities, and other institutions could have been looted from Native
sites or otherwise taken under suspicious circumstances.
During District Attorney Bragg’s tenure, the ATU has recovered more
than 800 antiquities stolen from 24 countries and valued at more than
$155 million. Since its creation, the ATU has recovered nearly 4,500
antiquities stolen from 29 countries and valued at more than $375
million.
Under District Attorney Bragg, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU)
has repatriated more than 950 antiquities stolen from 19 countries and
valued at more than $165 million. Since its creation, the ATU has
returned more than 2,450 antiquities to 24 countries and valued at more
than $230 million.
In the 2016 book ‘Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums’, Samuel J Redman notes: “The campaign to preserve and collect was viewed as a race against time; bone empires benefited from this powerful sentiment by conceptualising indigenous and ancient bodies as a limited and scientifically valuable resource.”
“Whether
he wanted to or not, the real and actual Indian vanished into the image
contrived by non-Indian interests, since he became, in some sense,
acceptable then ‘as an Indian’, albeit an Indian fashioned, styled and –
even literally – costumed (for example, photographic studio props were
used by photographers such as Rinehart and Edward Curtis) so that he could be identified as nothing but an Indian.”
As Americans tussle with the idea of financial and institutional reparations, insight can be gained from other movements that have sought to redress historic injustices. One such injustice was the removal of more than 200,000 skeletons, millions of grave goods, and thousands of sacred objects—stolen from Native Americans.
