Due to the development of a CSULB student housing project, a sacred Native American ritual and burial site was used as construction dumping grounds, resulting in legal proceedings between the university and the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation-Belardes (“JBMIAN-Belardes”) tribe.
Upon receiving the lawsuit in October, the dumping halted. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legal proceedings have been stalled and CSULB has yet to remove the soil and debris left on Puvungna.
Puvunga once covered an area of approximately 500 acres, sprawling across the entirety of what is currently the CSULB campus.
Now only 22 acres, the land is utilized by multiple tribes in the area, including the Gabrielinos (or Tongvans), Luisenos and Juaneños (also known as the Acagchemem or Acjachemen Nation).
The site is a spiritually significant and sacred place, used for numerous religious ceremonies both historically and to this day.
“It’s the birthplace for our religion,” said Chairman Matias Belardes of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation-Belardes tribe, during a May 20 interview.
“We have thousands of years of history on that site, and we do what we can to protect that area. It is the last undeveloped portion of that property,” Belardes said about Puvunga, the former Native American village which is now recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
According to information provided in the lawsuit, CSULB claimed that both financial and environmental reasons factored into the decision to utilize Puvunga, as well as the desire to keep excavated dirt on campus.
Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation-Belardes (“JBMIAN-Belardes”) claims that they were not consulted over the use of the land.
According to Belardes, CSULB consulted the university’s NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) committee regarding the decision to use Puvunga as a construction dumping ground, a misuse of this committee’s purpose, who in turn, did not confer with local tribes to determine their best interests.
Belardes clarified that the NAGPRA does not speak for local tribes in the CSULB area and is a completely separate committee working with the institution to help guide the campus with any projects that may potentially impact local indigenous communities.
“They do provide a really good purpose in the work that they do with Cal State Long Beach and the repatriation of the artifacts and the archeology collections that they do have,” Belardes said about the NAGPRA committee.
“The issue is they do not speak for our tribe, so they’re not a basic tribal government entity. That’s one aspect of it and with their ties to Long Beach, you can kind of say that their decisions or opinions might be swayed one way to their relationship with Long Beach,” he added.
Belardes also provided further details regarding the process of communication with local tribes.
“With the new laws, Assembly Bill AB52, all projects related to Native American tribes require an initiative to consult with the tribes, putting us at the beginning stages of the project so that we’re able to consult and discuss the areas that are sensitive within that project,” Belardes said.
The tribe’s relationship with the school thus far had been amicable, even more so with the land acknowledgment and continued ceremonies being held on CSULB’s campus.
“We’ve had a decent relationship since then,” Belardes said, referring to a 1992 incident when CSULB attempted to build a strip mall on the site, resulting in a lawsuit that ultimately prevented the construction.
“[We] find it disrespectful and disheartening. Ever since that lawsuit, it was thought that there would be a better understanding of what that site means to us. Somewhere along the way there’s been a disconnect. Now we’re back to square one after all these positive things that have come from the original lawsuit all those years ago,” Belardes said.
“We thought we were past it already. It shouldn’t have come to this. The university should know the significance of the site, what it means to the tribes and what you can and can’t do on the property.”
This incident occurred only months after Governor Gavin Newsom’s June 2019 executive order formally apologizing to California’s Native Americans for historical mistreatment, violence, and neglect, establishing a Truth and Healing Council to provide Native Americans a platform to work collaboratively with the state to begin the healing process.
Belardes said that he hopes for better communication between CSULB and Native American tribes as a result of the lawsuit and protocols will be placed regarding the use of the land.
“It’s hurtful to a lot of the members. Some members feel its a continuation of the genocide that happened hundreds of years before that and that they don’t care. They have that mindset that ‘We’re just gonna do what we want…’ That’s why we felt we had to bring the lawsuit up. The university needs to do better,” Belardes said.
CSULB spokesperson Jeff Cook declined to comment.
Belardes’ hope is for the dumping of construction debris to be removed from Puvungna, along with no further dumping to take place and communication to be prioritized with any further developments the campus may have planned, he said.
Although city shutdowns due to COVID-19 have halted further construction dumping on Puvunga, Belardes commented on the importance of a site clean-up due to the effects that the dumping can have on the environment.
“Construction spoils change the natural landscape of the site,” Belardes said regarding the trash, debris, concrete and metal rebar that was dumped on Puvungna.
Preserving the natural state of Puvungna is integral to its archaeological significance as well as to the religious ceremony practices that occur on the land.
With the lawsuit temporarily on pause during the COVID-19 shutdowns, Belardes believes an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) will help to implement tribal consideration into CSULB’ campus.
The lawsuit against CSULB sheds light on the history and significance of Puvungna along with its continuous spiritual connection to Native tribes.