In 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) celebrated its centennial year with little public recognition of the Gabrieliño-Tongva and Tovaangar, the original inhabitants of the region known as the Los Angeles Basin. Reflecting on this occasion, this paper considers UCLA’s relationship to the invasion and colonization of California, adding to the growing body of research examining the history of chattel slavery and Indigenous dispossession in the establishment of US higher education. Focusing on lands occupied by the UCLA campus, this article tracks the movement of communally stewarded lands of the Gabrieliño-Tongva over three waves of colonialism: Spanish missionaries’ illegal seizure of lands to construct Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1771, privatization of lands into ranchos under Mexican governance after 1821, and the subdivision and sale of lands under US rule after 1850. (Re)storying this narrative, this article documents the unsevered link between the original inhabitants of Tovaangar and UCLA to underscore the need for postsecondary institutions to confront their colonial inheritance and reorient responsibilities that fortify the futures of California Native nations.

In this commentary, we engage and summarize existing practices for recruiting and retaining American Indian and Alaska Native students in postsecondary institutions in California. This commentary is the output of a two-day symposium, “Lighting a Path Forward: UC Land Grants, Public Memory, and Tovaangar,” held at the University of California, Los Angeles in October of 2019. The symposium brought together campus and community leaders from across California to discuss the past, present and future of American Indian and Alaska Native student and community concerns, and provide intervening policy and practice recommendations. Participants included both American Indian and Alaska Native and non-Native individuals with a wealth of professional experience and employment in American Indian and Alaska Native education, from the California Community College, California State University and University of California systems. We jointly created a table of critical interventions in education, the justification for this, and potential strategies for implementation. Here, we summarize the discussion of participants from the American Indian and Alaska Native student retention and recruitment workshop to document recommends interventions for campus practitioners and leaders to serve as a guiding document for system and campus advocacy.