Above: NDN Collective video: Hesapa - A Landback Film
The Tucson Alliance for Housing Justice acknowledges that we are living and working on current and ancestral land of the O'odham, Yoeme, and Hohokam peoples. We recognize that the colonial roots of property ownership are inherently damaging. We explicitly support restorative efforts such as LandBack, campaigns to defend the sacred lands such as Protect Oak Flat and Quitobaquito, and other efforts led by the people on whose land we live and work.
We recognize that work such as LandBack and Honor Native Land Taxes requires deep and trusting relationships, not a one time transaction. We commit to this slow and intentional work.
LandBack is a movement to "get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands." As Landback.org explains, "LANDBACK is more than just a campaign. It is a political framework that allows us to deepen our relationships across the field of organizing movements working towards true collective liberation."
Source: https://landback.org/manifesto/
Tangible ways LandBack is being lived out include:
Government return of public land, such as the City of Eureka, CA returning 40 acres to the Wiyot Tribe
Private property owners returning land, such as this Nebraska farmer returning land to the Ponca Tribe
"Dismantling and defunding White Supremacy. As the NDN Collective writes in their LandBack Campaign Demands: Dismantle white supremacy structures that forcefully removed us from our Lands and continue to keep our Peoples in oppression. Defund white supremacy: the mechanisms and systems that continue to disconnect us from stewardship of the Land. Police, military industrial complex, prisons, the criminal justice system, ICE."
Photo by Mark Larson©
Cheryl Seidner led the closing song, surrounded by family members...Return of Tuluwat, Oct. 21, 2019 in Eureka.
Efforts are being made in some areas for people living in the region who are not indigenous to that area to pay tax or rent or offering to the people whose land they are occupying.
For example, Real Rent Duwamish (https://www.realrentduwamish.org/) calls upon people living in the Seattle area to donate to the Federally Unrecognized Tribe, as well as to join in the fight for federal recognition.
The Honor Native Land Tax (https://www.honornativelandtax.org/) invites settlers on Tiwa Land (Albuquerque, NM) to financially contribute to “Indigenous movements for land, water, and futures.”
The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust (https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/) on Ohlone land (San Francisco Bay area) works to return land to indigenous people.
We recognize that movements for LandBack and for Honor Native Land Taxes require slow and intentional relationship between people indigenous to a land and non-indigenous who are residing on that land. As we work towards building such relationships, we continue learning and taking action, including contributing financially to indigenous led efforts.
Landback.org: Website with information on landback efforts throughout Turtle Island, including a LandBack U course on topics including Black Indigeneity, Palestine and LandBack, and Cultural Fire Practices: www.landback.org
NDN Collective Website, including their LandBack Campaign demands and ways to take action: www.ndncollective.org
Interview with PennElys Droz, an Anishnaabe mother of five and founding member of Sustainable Nations. She lives and works on the current and ancestral lands of the O'odham and Yoeme peoples (Tucson, AZ) where she creates opportunities for people to connect with land through building with natural materials, growing food, and by attuning to the natural world around them.
Resource Generation Land Reparations and Indigenous Solidarity Toolkit. This is a brief guide for people with access to land to support in education and resource sharing around land reparations.
Support Sacred Oak Flat: Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat) is a sacred site in the Tonto National Forest for the San Carlos Apache and other Native American Tribes in the region—a place to pray, collect water and medicinal plants, gather acorns, honor the people who are buried there, and perform sacred religious ceremonies. In 2014, the US government promised the land to foreign copper mining interests to build a copper mine. The Resolution Copper Project would create one of the largest copper mines in the US destroying this sacred site. Click here to take action to protect sacred Oak Flat!
Indivisible Tohono, a grassroots group concerned with current federal and Arizona legislation primarily impacting the Tohono O’odham Nation, including advocacy to stop the murder and disappearance of indigenous women.
Website creation supported with funding from the City of Tucson Housing and Community Development Department and Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness.