By Melanie Arias, December 9, 2025
Cal Poly Pomona is currently in the works of creating a native plant nursery at the Lyle Center, which will be of use to the Gabrielino-Tongva, according to Director of Tribal Relations and NAGPRA/CalNAGPRA Desiree Renee Martinez.
These plants will be accessible for harvest to the Gabrielino-Tongva, a California Indian Tribe made up of seven different bands originally located in the Los Angeles Basin. Currently, there are five Tongva Bands recognized by the Native American heritage Commission, Martinez said.
“Because the Gabrielino-Tongva aren’t federally recognized, we don’t have easy access to materials for cultural activities or medicine, so this will be big for us,” Martinez said.
The Los Angeles Basin, which encompasses the Los Angeles County, South Channel Islands and the San Gabirel Valley, was the traditional land of the Tongva, formerly called Tovaangar.
CPP and LA County sent out a land recognition statement in 2022, recognizing they are on Tongva land.
“I could care less about land acknowledgment,” Martinez said. “What is land acknowledgement going to do for the tribe? This is important, but what can we do in the present to guarantee the growth of the community?”
Martinez has been using Tongva cultural values of recognition, respect and responsibility over the past year to find ways to work with tribal partners and ways CPP can be of service to local tribes.
“Recognizing the original people of this land, but also the plants, the animals, the air and the water,” Martinez said. “In Gabrielino-Tongva traditions we are part of nature and nature are our relatives.”
CPP rededicated its Rain Bird BioTrek April 2025 to the San Gabriel Band of Missons, The Gabrielino-Tongva. CPP worked with a member of the San Gabirel Tongva Band in identifying Tongva Indigenous plants in their traditional language.
CPP’s Native American Center has also worked with various tribes in the past. The Gabrielino-Tongva singing group Toveema sang for the Native American student graduation May 2025.
Cultural Center’s Executive Director Joel Gutierrez said within the Native American Student Center, they look at the Tongva individuals as caretakers of the land.
“There are various programs that they do,” Gutierrez said. “They do cultural enrichment programs, understand what beading circles are, bringing in natives elder who do basket weaving.”
Outside of CPP, Martinez said there are many ways the Tongva people keep their culture alive, including hosting council meetings, cultural events, harvesting and music.
Martinez is currently a part of the Tongva Basket Weavers collective that has been reviving traditional coil basket weaving over the past three years. They teach members of their community basket weaving and go to museums to see representative weaved baskets of the past.
They also work with other tribal basket weavers, sharing traditions and learning from each other. For example, the Tongva Basket Weavers were at the celebration of the sea, the saltwater people at the Aquarium of the Pacific in September and told people about their baskets and materials they used to make them.
“For the first time in over a hundred years, we have about 35-40 Tongva basket weavers,” Martinez said. “Some of our members have baskets on display. Mine was displayed at the Autry Museum not too long ago.”
Many practices like basket weaving were stripped from their people due to colonization and replaced with Spanish, Mexican and then American culture, according to Martinez.
“Some of our ancestors lost their cultural ways, while others practiced underground and still sang their songs and danced,” Martinez said. “That’s what our basket weaving group is about.”
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 legally gave people the green light to remove natives from their land after the War of 1812. This resulted in many tribal communities losing their cultural identity.
In the mid-19th century, 16,000 natives were killed in California alone, according to the University of California, Los Angeles, newsroom. Many natives at the time either went into hiding or were captured and enslaved. Between 10,000 and 27,000 California Natives were enslaved during the California Gold Rush.
Before European settlers came to California, there were 300,000 natives. By 1870, only an estimated 30,000 were left, according to PBS.
“We create new cultural ways of expressing ourselves, just like everyone else,” Martinez said. “We’re not stuck in the past.”
Martinez said The Ti’At Society, a Tongva maritime organization, brought back the use of their red wood sown plank canoe, the Moomat Ahiko. To honor the creation of the canoe, a song and interpretive dance was created in the late 1990s called Moomat Ahiko that is now part of the Tongva community.
Ricky Duro, who is a part of the Pala Band of Misson Indian in the San Diego county, sings cultural songs with his wife of Tongva descent and their children, like Moomat Ahiko, at community events to honor their traditions.
“In California, we (natives) were persecuted,” Duro said. “The worst and most of us are mixed. That’s why we have gatherings to keep out culture and songs alive.”
