The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to craft an apology for the historic mistreatment of Native Americans in the region.
Supervisor Hilda Solis said healing demanded telling the truth.
“The First Peoples of this land faced violence, exploitation and dispossession at the hands of many government entities, including actions sanctioned or directly carried out by Los Angeles County,” Solis said in a statement. “Prior to the construction of the San Gabriel Mission, local tribes held 100% of this land. Today, they hold 0% of it. This did not happen by accident.”
Solis said the county would work together with local tribal leaders to develop a public statement that “acknowledges, corrects and disseminates the true historical record of the county’s relationship with Native people.”
The motion highlights disproportionate health and economic burdens faced by the Gabrieleno Tongva, Fernandeno Tataviam, Ventureno Chumash, San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, Kizh and other local tribes as a result of discrimination.
Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the motion, said an apology would be just a first step.
“The crimes and atrocities committed against the Native American people here in L.A. County, in California and across the country are a dark stain on our nation’s history,” Hahn said. “An apology is quite literally the least we can do — but it is an important step to begin to heal the wounds of the past.”
The board also called for an update on ongoing work to identify county policies, procedures and practices that may have harmed California Native Americans.
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Mary Andrade says
You are absolutely correct. In fact today currently the Catholic Church is still lying to the world. If the native Americans were able to manage thel lands, we would not see the fires we’ve had, nor the food source disappear.
Tom says
Well if your talking about the Native Americans of California, La County Has nothing to apologies for. It was the Catholic church that did the harm to California’s Native American tribes. But do you really think anyone on the board of supervisors has really read California history? Ah NO. But if any culture, color, or group deserves anything it is the Native Americans. They had their whole world stolen, and still today a large percentage live like third world citizens. Write each Native American person a million dollar check I say.
Beecee says
NEVER apologize for creating the modern world.
Planned Parenthood says
Well, Beecee. Tell your mother and father to apologize to the modern world for their creation.
Beecee says
Best decision they have ever made.
This comment above comes from a sorry leftist hack who most likely never had loving parents.
Let me guess, no dad around?
And Tim Shot calls me a ball of hate?
Also, use your normal screen name you coward.
Tim Scott says
Indeed I do call you that…and you continue to demonstrate the accuracy of the call.
Apology says
They are not native.
Javi says
How about apologizing and putting up a monument to Neanderthals. While you’re at it, descendents of Neanderthals should get land and reparations.
Just says
An apology from people generations removed from events to other people generations remove from the same events is meaningless. Apologies only matter if they come from the heart and can provide some kind of redress. Nothing will come of this beside political virtue signaling. How about bring back Serrano or Cahuilla cultural events and awareness to the areas.
Tim Scott says
I nominally agree. I also point out that the situation I mentioned, with the red line districts, is not generations removed.
The city of Palmdale just recently made a big deal about their well deserved recognition of the contributions made by a Sun Village citizen upon his death. In their acknowledgement they commended him for his “not being embittered by the actions of the few” as if it was some hateful fringe that forced him and his family to live in an area where services like public education and even electricity and water were hard to come by, and property values were certain to lag far far behind. It was in fact the “city fathers” of Palmdale, not some ‘fringe element.’
The red line districts, and the way my parents generation treated people is atrocious. To pretend that I, and other valley residents, do not enjoy advantages over our contemporaries who grew up a scant five miles away…but effectively in another world…continues that atrocity.
I agree that an apology is not really ‘redress,’ but it is certainly a step in the right direction from the insincere and misleading rewrite of history that we currently subscribe to.
Tim Scott says
“An apology is quite literally the least we can do — but it is an important step to begin to heal the wounds of the past.”
Huh. This was not the response from the city of Palmdale when I started suggesting that perhaps apologizing for the formation of red line districts to defy the fair housing act might be called for…