Alameda Native History Project

Tag: native american heritage

  • Giving to Indigenous Futures

    A Call to Action from the Alameda Native History Project

    OUR MISSION IS TO:

    • Advocate for tribal restoration,
    • Promote Native American representation, and,
    • Educate the public about Indigenous rights and perspectives,
    • Honoring the ancestral legacy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and,
    • Enriching our community through innovative tools, immersive experiences, and collaborative efforts.

    Through initiatives like ACORNS!, the GIS Lab, and Land Lab, we bring this mission to life.

    ACORNS!

    ACORNS! is a year-round program, aligning with natural cycles: acorn harvests (fall), seed germination and curriculum development (winter/spring), community seedling giveaways and culinary classes (spring/summer), and ongoing tree nursery management.

    GIS Lab

    The GIS Lab is a core component of the Alameda Native History Project, and its founder is an Opensource Geospatial Foundation Member. We are currently in the process of pursuing accreditation as a Geo For All Lab, further solidifying our commitment to open-source geospatial education and community empowerment.

    We are committed to fostering the free exchange of information, training our community members in open source software and, showing people how to use open data to both learn and advocate.

    Our goal has always been to enable tribes and indigenous people to collect, analyze, and store sovereign data using a myriad of tools and methods. But it’s our immersive educational tools that we need the most support to develop.

    Land Lab

    Launching the Indigenous Land Lab has taught us valuable lessons, informing our approach to infrastructure development and community engagement. The natural materials available, open workspace, and potential as a restoration nursery are too much to pass up.

    Once we are able to get the Land Lab going, we will be able to support the rest of our projects with the actual materials we need, by producing them ourselves, rather than having to buy them. And we would be able to model actual acorn granaries in situ.

    Join us in empowering the Alameda Native History Project – your support will directly fuel these initiatives, fostering a deeper sense of community and Indigenous cultural connection through immersive experiences and events.

  • What Does “Save Shellmounds, Not Parking Lots” Even Mean?

    It’s not just a salty catch-phrase. It’s a plea for reason, and a plan to move forward in realizing the protection and return of sacred Native American sites in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    The only way to protect sacred sites, like Shellmounds, and Petroglyphs, is by actively protecting them.

    This means:

    • Recognizing the difference between corporations who claim to be tribal governments, and actual Tribal Governments.
    • Empowering Tribal Law Enforcement with the Authority to Arrest and Prosecute Non-Indians Within Their Sovereign Borders
    • Adding Sacred Sites not protected by Tribal Law Enforcement to the “Beat” of the Law Enforcement branches of the Bureau of Land Management, USDA Dept. of Forestry, Cal. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, etc.
    • Utilizing modern surveillance technology to serve as witness to crimes like vandalism, theft, and dumping.

    By concealing these heritage sites, we begin to make them taboo. They become places we don’t go to anymore. Places that we could lose our connection to, ironically, because we wanted to protect them.

    (more…)