The historical and sacred Native American site Puvungna has been at the forefront of a lawsuit between the Juañeno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation-Belardes tribe and Cal State Long Beach after the school used the site as a dumping grounds for a construction project.

The California Office of Historic Preservation recently issued a letter criticizing CSULB for their treatment of the tribal land.

The dumping halted in fall 2019, but the debris has yet to be removed nor has a settlement been made in the legal proceedings. 

Puvungna, a land that originally sprawled across the entirety of Cal State Long Beach is now only 22 acres, and the school used the site for the dumping of debris and construction materials for a student housing development project.

“We want them to remove this soil. We want them to put the 22 acres in a conservation easement. We want them to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the tribal governments that are going to have an association with the site,” said Patricia Martz, president of California Cultural Resource Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit that cosigned the tribe’s legal complaint against CSULB.

“We didn’t want to do a lawsuit … it’s expensive, it’s tiring, it’s not a fun thing to litigate, you know, to be involved enough in a lawsuit is just like the last thing we want to have to do, but we had no choice,” said Martz.

This is not the first conflict that has arisen regarding CSULB’s treatment of the land. In 1993, there was a lawsuit filed against the university after their attempts to build a mini-mall along with student and faculty housing. The Native American Heritage Commission got involved, and a religious freedom lawsuit was filed through the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Law.

“My mother actually slept on the land for two weeks,” said Rebecca Robles, a member of Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation. 

She now works to preserve sacred sites in her mother’s honor, and has been vocal about Cal State Long Beach’s treatment of Puvungna. 

While the 1993 construction project was prevented, Robles said she did not feel as if the situation were truly resolved, considering the current conflict with the university. 

“Our tribal group in our community, we never really got a memorandum of understanding or written agreement saying that it wouldn’t be built on,” she said. 

The 10,000 year-old site is considered the birthplace of her tribe’s religion, and is used by the community throughout the year for prayer and ceremony, said Robles.

The school has denied access to the site since the pandemic, but Robles said that no problems arose when local tribal members continued to visit the site for ceremonial and prayer purposes. She said that temperature checks were made and social distancing was ensured.

Robles said access to Puvungna is protected by the Native American Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (that was updated in 1993). She also said there are statutes guaranteeing that protection particularly in the state of California.

90% of archaeological sites in Orange County have been destroyed to make way for all development, Martz said, with similar damage done in the Los Angeles area, emphasizing her mission to protect Puvungna.

“It wouldn’t be done at a Civil War battleground …[or] at a Civil War cemetery. It wouldn’t be done at Bethlehem, it wouldn’t be done at Mecca,” said Robles.

She said she considers the incident to be a continuation of the genocide against Native people.

“They’re working to bury one of our most important sites, and then not listening when we say this is really important. They’re not listening to the law, and they’re not listening to the communities. And so it’s really, truly hurtful,” Robles said.

According to Martz, the school has claimed to clean the debris and construction materials, although she has only noticed obvious objects removed, such as manhole covers.

“The mounds are pretty compact now. And there’s even vegetation on them. So, it’s difficult to clean them at this point,” said Martz.

“That land is very appealing to them. I think it’s a big temptation,” Martz said.

According to CSULB Chief Communications Officer Jeffrey Cook, the area will be included in the university’s “broader, inclusive planning process taking place over the next two years.” 

This process will supposedly include input from all community stakeholders, including members of the Native American communities, said Cook in an email.

“We are hopeful this process will yield a vision for this area of our campus that is responsive both to the evolution of our university as well as the meaning that some stakeholders have ascribed to this land. We have always sought to listen to the diverse perspectives from our broader community and remain committed to ongoing dialogue,” read Cook’s email.

Robles noted the condition of Puvungna apart from the construction debris, saying that it appears uncared for in comparison to the rest of the campus, with no regular maintenance sprinkler system.

“It’s like it’s the stepchild that they’ve never cared for it, because they want it to build on it,”  she said.

“This is a time to really look at things in a forward way,” said Robles, referencing Governor Newsom’s 2019 apology to the Native people of California. 

Martz pointed out that while Newsom “does have a lot to apologize for,” the apology concerned her in its focus predominantly on federally recognized tribes, which excludes tribes whose land was entirely taken from them.

Robles said, “We’re survivors, you know, like we were landless. We have remnants of our culture, most of us live scattered from each other. We have just fragments of our history and our culture. We’ve experienced a genocide, we’ve been treated unfairly. We have experienced cultural eraser, and racism. And this is a continuation of it … we need reconciliation.”

She said that this is CSULB’s time to honor indigenous people, and recognize Puvungna’s importance both to indigenous people, but also to the history of California.

“This is our time to remedy the dark history of California,” said Robles. 

Robles said that the school’s actions demonstrate institutionalized racism. “They’re denying that we exist,” she said.

Robles said, “I see this as a chance for healing. A chance for us as Native people continuing to fight for our sacred sites, continuing to fight for our culture.”

“I always say, the indigenous people are like the canary in the coal mine. Our resilience is what’s going to help society in general survive through all these changes that we’re experiencing. 

“Our connection to the land is something that is going to help all people, you know persevere and continue into the future. And I think the worldview of the Western society is that we’re apart from nature, and the worldview of the indigenous people is that they are a part of nature,” said Robles.