Thank you for all of your support. For coming to our events, playing with the maps on our website, volunteering for the Acorn Harvest, and for checking out our printed maps and other merch.
I am writing to you now because I want you to know that your support is appreciated, and that it has had an impact on our mission, to educate the community about local Native history through maps, advocacy, and experiential learning opportunities. Your support is helping to reopen Indigenous foodways, a tangible benefit made possible by your participation and generosity.
The journey over the past year has been exciting, humbling, and rewarding. We have made so much progress! And one of the most exciting places we’ve made progress is in the way we leach acorns at scale.
Meeting the Challenge
We faced the existential challenges presented by pollution, climate change, loss of native wildlands and animals, and a lack of fresh, free flowing water. If the traditional way of leaching acorns is using a basket in a river or stream: how can we do that when all of our water has been polluted, and diverted into culverts? The answer was to build our own river.
Proof of Concept
The first Acorn Leaching Machine was cobbled together with plastic never-used trash cans fitted with PVC piping. It connected a DIY water filtration system with hand packed filter cartridges, an elaborate acorn tray setup, and a well pump. I hand-sewed the muslin acorn sacks. The first machine ran too hot, and wasn’t terribly food safe. But it was a proof of concept; a successful first generation.
From Prototype to Food-Safe Design
The second machine, the most current design, features some very significant upgrades.
Stainless steel, weld-less design
Food grade, with as little plastic as possible
Completely new cooling system
Upgraded to full-scale, food-safe, whole-house filtration system (multi-stage)
Housed on a mobile platform for presentations at schools and libraries
A Tangible Tribal Benefit
When complete, the flour produced by this system will go on offer to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area (and to the wider Indigenous community) as a tangible tribal benefit to the first people of this place. For free. It will feed ceremonies, meals, and gatherings, and it will travel to classrooms, libraries, and community spaces as a mobile teaching tool. Together, we are restoring a foodway that has not existed in over three centuries, and showing that food is medicine; traditional food is medicine.
Now, we are poised to leach acorns at scale. To produce consistent, safe, traditional food. Without compromise. Your impact will be more tangible than you could ever imagine.
The Final Push
Every contribution, every hour volunteered, and every conversation shared has led to this moment. Reopening Indigenous foodways isn’t symbolic–it’s real work with tangible results. The Acorn Leaching Machine is more than equipment; it is a living example of innovation and restoration working together. It shows what can happen when we adapt ancestral knowledge to meet the challenges created by colonization and environmental change.
We’ve already come this far with community effort, a partial grant from the Alameda Public Art Commission, and your continued support. Now, we’re preparing to complete the machine, to upgrade the last of its fittings and mount it securely to the moving platform that will carry it into classrooms, libraries, and public spaces across the region.
This is the final push. Every donation, no matter the size, brings us closer to completion.
Make Your Impact Visible
For gifts of $75 or more, your name will be etched directly onto the stainless steel Acorn Leaching Machine, a visible acknowledgment of the community who helped make this restoration possible. Each name will stand for someone who chose to take action and help reopen Indigenous foodways in a tangible way.
Your continued support is helping to decolonize our diet, rebuild the relationship between people and the land, and remind our communities that food is medicine, and traditional food is medicine. This is what it means to turn gratitude into action.
With gratitude,
Gabriel Duncan Founder, Alameda Native History Project
On Sundays, August 17 and August 31, the Alameda Native History Project will host Acorn Harvest Training, a hands-on, field-based workshop rooted in Indigenous tradition and ecological stewardship.
Participants will learn to identify local oaks, distinguish between red and white oak by leaf shape, bark, and acorn characteristics, and understand the significance of mast years in acorn production. We will explore how acorns nourish entire ecosystems, not just people, and why respectful harvesting ensures that “all flourishing is mutual.”
This training is grounded in the Honorable Harvest, a principle passed through generations:
Take only what is freely given.
Never take more than you need.
Give thanks, and give back.
Our harvesting protocol reflects these values. We use low-impact wooden acorn tenders, tapping branches lightly. No climbing, pruning, or mechanical shakers. Only acorns released by gentle taps or natural fall are gathered, and our collective harvest is capped at less than 15 percent of the seasonal crop, well below ecologically safe limits. Viable acorns we do not keep are buried nearby, replenishing the seed bank and echoing the work of squirrels that help oak forests regenerate.
These sessions are not about extraction. They are about building a respectful, living relationship with the land. The work is grounded in Traditional Ecological Knowledge and supported by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, which recognizes the importance of restoring Indigenous foodways as a living practice of cultural sovereignty and environmental stewardship.
People who signed up for the Indigenous Land Lab and the Acorn Harvest using our volunteer form received text messages with exclusive offers for free tickets. If you would like to join us on the harvest, and receive exclusive offers and special invitations such as private willow harvests and other events at the Indigenous Land Lab, sign up at https://nativehistoryproject.org/volunteer.
Space is limited for each session to ensure a meaningful and safe learning environment.
The Second Annual Acorn Harvest begins in August. This year, we will be gathering Acorns outside of the City of Alameda, into Alameda County, and beyond.
The reason for this is two-fold.
The first, almost all of the Oak trees in the City of Alameda are exclusively Coast Live Oak. These trees are in the Red Oak family.
The second, is that we have new partnerships and collaborations sprouting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Red Oak Family? Why does this even matter?
Red Oak Trees have a two year acorn cycle. Meaning, the acorns take two years to grow and mature. In the context of the Acorn Harvest, this means no mature acorns will be available in Alameda until 2026–two years from our first harvest in 2024.
Oh… So which Oak Trees are going to have acorns, then?
This is actually great as far as the harvest goes. Because we’ll be hunting some of the most tasty acorns available. White Oak Acorns have relatively low tannic content compared to the Coast Live Oak acorns we had in abundance last year.
If you attended any of our Acorn Processing Workshops, Acorn Flour Production Days, or any of our Acorns! Culinary Series events, then you had the opportunity to taste these acorns in their various states of processing.
As an aside: One of our long-term goal is to produce blends of acorn flour for both taste and function. So being able to introduce you to these different varieties of Acorns, to harvest, taste, and cook with, is big plus in and of itself.
How do you find these White Oak trees?
We’re using a mix of GIS Analysis and In-Person Verification. Using Open Source Data we found through the California Oaks website, we were able to access several raster layers of relevant data, and then convert them into vector form we could overlay onto our own custom made maps to accurately target areas were would could find the oak trees we need.
Our next step was to find, identify, and surveil these trees in our area of interest; and to keep a running log of acorn ripeness to help time acorn harvest dates that we (hopefully) can communicate to our dedicate harvest volunteers with advance notice.
That’s all great; but how can I help?
We’re so glad you asked!
We want to find property owners/land managers who have oak trees that currently have ripening acorns.
We can describe this to you more in depth, but tl;dr the acorns need to be big, and not tiny little buds.
We want to find people who are willing to surveil the acorns in their area.
We need to start building teams, and training people to harvest acorns.
We’re looking for donations of LARGE BACKPACKS, HUGE RUCKSACKS, BACKPACKING BAGS, etc.
We’re also looking to raise the funds to properly hydrate and ensure the safety of our Harvest Teams.
On June 14, 2024, Gabriel Duncan, founder of the Alameda Native History Project, delivered a speech at the Alameda No Kings Rally that challenged white progressives’ role in Gatekeeping, and Kingmaking.
But if we think “No Kings” only means no Trump, we’re missing something deeper. Kings don’t always wear crowns. Sometimes they wear progressive credentials. Sometimes they come wrapped in good intentions. Sometimes they’re lifted up—not because they earned it, but because people would rather believe a lie than sit with discomfort.
In a pointed speech, Gabriel Duncan made the difference between performative allies, and Accomplices clear:
You say you want to be allies. But performative allies want credit. Accomplices show up when it’s risky, when no one’s watching.
If you need to be thanked or centered or safe, you’re not in solidarity. You’re just performing.
He went on to draw the distinction between white allies who have the privilege to join the struggle, and BIPOC people who are forced to live it every day:
You weren’t born into this fight, but you can choose to join it. Not to be centered—but to be useful.
And then he went on to introduce the performance of a song called “Ain’t Nobody Gon’ Turn Us ‘Round”: a 1964 Civil Rights Era, Black Spiritual and Protest Song, written and sung by Black People in jails and churches, while Black People were facing police brutality, high pressure water hoses, police dogs, and police brutality, just for a crumb–for human rights.
This song was performed by “Paul Andrews [an old white man] and the Democracy Out Loud Band [a group of white singers enlisted days before the event]”, who would be singing this song at an even where no black voices were heard.
That was incorrect, Nika Kura, who sang in the beginning of the program, identifies as Black. And–after I had called out the organizers and Paul Andrews–a black mother and educator, named Katherine Castro (who you can hear saying “I’m trying!” in the recording), took the stage and spoke, and counted how many black people were even present in the audience.
We’re proud to have made this space for black voices–because it was the right thing to do. And we hope that this moment becomes a teachable moment for the organizers of this event, and our allies.
A Note About Paul Andrews, The Old White Man Who Grossly Appropriated A Black Civil Rights Song About Segregation:
We’re deeply disappointed that Paul Andrews thought it was appropriate to sing a Black Spiritual even though he is not black, and the song is about segregation. We’re even more disappointed that Paul Andrews attempted to defend his choice–and even go so far as to try and claim “Ain’t Nobody Gon’ Turn Us ‘Round” was not a Black Song; even though he himself admitted the song was created by Black People. It’s 2025, and this type of misappropriation of BIPOC identity, culture, and struggle is not not welcome in these spaces anymore.
We plan to interview the main organizer of this rally, Tina Davis, a volunteer with Indivisible. So stay tuned for that. We’ll also be releasing our interview with Mary Claire, of All Rise Alameda, soon.
If “No Kings” means anything, it has to mean the end of white progressives deciding who gets heard and who gets erased.
For the record: between 3,000 and 4,700 people were in attendance at the Alameda No Kings Rally on June 14, 2025.
This is the complete speech:
Text of the speech:
NO KINGS – 3-Minute Rally Speech (Condensed Version) “How the Pressure Is Working” Gabriel Duncan
We came here today because we know what’s wrong. Because we see injustice. Because we feel the weight of it. No one should have the power to strip rights, silence truth, or rule unchecked.
That’s why we say: No Kings.
But if we think “No Kings” only means no Trump, we’re missing something deeper.
Kings don’t always wear crowns. Sometimes they wear progressive credentials. Sometimes they come wrapped in good intentions. Sometimes they’re lifted up not because they earned it, but because people would rather believe a lie than sit with discomfort.
That’s not justice. That’s curation. That’s not solidarity. That’s theater.
Real change comes from those who risk something. And lately, more people are risking more breaking ranks, refusing comfort. That’s how we know: the pressure is working.
For too long, white progressives have been kingmakers. Choosing voices that made them feel good. Even when those voices weren’t real. That wasn’t solidarity. That was projection. That was control.
Crowning someone because they’re convenient is how white supremacy adapts. It cloaks itself in “progress,” selects leaders who keep critique shallow and power safe.
The danger of performative allyship isn’t just that it’s fake it’s that it props up lies that do real harm. Harm to truth. Harm to movements. Harm to us.
If “No Kings” means anything, it has to mean the end of white progressives deciding who gets heard and who gets erased.
You say you want to be allies. But performative allies want credit. Accomplices show up when it’s risky, when no one’s watching.
If you need to be thanked or centered or safe, you’re not in solidarity. You’re just performing. You can’t say “No Kings” while defending the figureheads you crowned just because they made you feel progressive.
Being an accomplice means you put yourself in the way of ICE, of cops, of injustice and say: “You’ll have to go through me first.”
That’s what pressure looks like. Truth without applause. Risk without reward.
You weren’t born into this fight, but you can choose to join it. Not to be centered—but to be useful.
So when we scream NO KINGS don’t just cheer. Don’t just post. Live it.
Say it with your whole chest. Say it in every space where your voice still carries more weight than ours.
No Kings. No Gatekeepers. No Masters. TOTAL LIBERATION.
Effective June 5, 2025, the Alameda Native History Project has permanently ended its affiliation with Bay Area MakerFarm. This decision follows MakerFarm’s failure to perform in response to an unresolved food safety hazard posed by its walk-in refrigerator unit that remains structurally unsound, unsanitary, and incapable of maintaining safe refrigeration temperatures.
The Alameda Native History Project initially suspended operations at MakerFarm on May 24, 2025, after repeated warnings were ignored. The organization issued a formal Notice of Suspension of Activities & Intent to Disclose, citing extensive documentation, including:
Over 400 pounds of rotting produce removed by ANHP from the walk-in on April 16
Temperature readings of 43°F–46°F, well above the USDA safe threshold of 40°F
Spoilage of fresh rabbit meat intended for a public event due to inadequate refrigeration
Manufacturer correspondence confirming the existing A/C unit was under-powered for the space
Despite these warnings and a clearly stated remediation deadline, Bay Area MakerFarm took no effective action. Instead of correcting the hazard, Bay Area MakerFarm minimized the danger,
re-framed documented concerns as interpersonal issues, and failed to uphold even basic standards of care or responsibility.
On June 5, 2025, ANHP issued a final Notice of Permanent Suspension of Activities and Withdrawal of Free Association. This notice cited failure to perform, breach of duty, disregard for public health, and misalignment with the standards of care required for Indigenous cultural work. MakerFarm was instructed to remove all references to ANHP from its website, signage, publications, and promotional materials.
This withdrawal is not about conflict. It is about care.
Food sovereignty requires food safety. Cultural work requires clean, safe environments. Community spaces must be accountable to the people they serve. We cannot, and will not, associate our work with conditions that put our community at risk.
To be clear: the negligence and unsanitary conditions at Bay Area MakerFarm have had no impact on the success of our programming. The Alameda Native History Project remains fully self-sustaining and independently organized. The ACORNS! Project Arc continues without interruption, and upcoming events will proceed as planned.
Our work is sacred and community-oriented. It cannot be shaken by a white-led organization that shrouds itself in the language of inclusion but, in practice, cultivates a hostile environment for BIPOC, non-binary individuals, and anyone whose dissent demands accountability.
Bay Area MakerFarm is structured around process idealism, not functional governance.
For BIPOC individuals entering these spaces, the dissonance is immediate. You’re told you’re welcome, but the minute you name harm or point out gaps in care, the tone shifts. Suddenly, you’re “too intense,” or you’re “not being collaborative.” Your lived experience is pathologized. Your insistence on accountability is framed as aggression. If you’ve ever felt isolated, second-guessed yourself, or wondered if you were overreacting, you weren’t. You were being gaslit by a structure that protects comfort over truth and feelings over safety.
What happened at Bay Area MakerFarm is not an anomaly. It is the default operating mode of too many white-led, self-proclaimed progressive collectives.
These are spaces built on white fragility, trustafarian politics, and a curated aesthetic of care that masks deep resistance to real accountability. They specialize in optics over outcomes, claiming to be inclusive while maintaining structures that ensure power remains concentrated and critique is punished.
These environments weaponize process to maintain the status quo, and perform emotional labor not to address harm, but to center themselves in it.
The ‘confusion’ and ‘hurt’ expressed by leadership are not genuine steps toward repair. They are tactics of delay and deflection. The endless talking circles, the forced emotional exposure, the vague invitations to ‘build understanding’—these are not accountability mechanisms. They are containment strategies designed to absorb dissent and protect those in power.
If you’ve been in these spaces and felt like you were being handled instead of heard, you were.
If you’ve been encouraged to participate in healing rituals while the root causes of harm were never addressed, you weren’t imagining things. This is the blueprint. And Bay Area MakerFarm followed it exactly, until we walked away.
When valid safety concerns, grounded in health codes, USDA guidelines, and food safety best practices, were dismissed as a “fancy A/C purchase,” it was an intentional act of gaslighting.
This re-framing didn’t just diminish the issue. It recast an urgent health risk as a personal whim, discrediting the messenger to avoid responsibility.
It sent a clear message: evidence doesn’t matter, what matters is preserving comfort and control.
This is not about collaboration; it’s about conformity to a structure that protects those in power while discrediting those who speak up. Your expertise, your warnings, your truth all become irrelevant the moment they challenge the dominant narrative.
When someone ripped the locking bracket off the door of a shared space with zero consequence, in spite of the fact we were all given the code to the dial lock, it signaled that even basic safety and boundary-setting could be violated without accountability, if you were the right person.
And when that same someone ripped carefully cultivated plants out of the soil, offering a hollow apology deflected by ‘I thought you said…,’ it underscored not only a disregard for labor, presence, and contributions, but a deeper refusal to recognize the agency and personhood of BIPOC participants.
This was not carelessness. It was a pattern: a way of diminishing harm by rewriting intent, shifting blame, and robbing people of the right to define what has happened to them.
The lack of regard, care, concern, or consequences, reinforced a message many BIPOC folks know too well: you’re only welcome for as long as we allow it. It’s not your consent, it’s ours. The moment you assert boundaries, ask for accountability, or disrupt the illusion of harmony, you become the problem.
Bay Area MakerFarm’s consent-based model is ideologically rigid and operationally brittle, built to neutralize dissent rather than incorporate accountability.
Its core principle, that a ‘No’ is an invitation to leave, is framed as a way to prevent obstruction and support momentum. But in practice, it punishes those who raise necessary concerns, especially BIPOC individuals who name harm.
The message becomes clear: if you cannot quietly consent to a flawed process, you must remove yourself. This doesn’t build consensus, it enforces silence. And it enables those in power to preserve their comfort while pushing out anyone who challenges it.
The organization’s reliance on free association, siloed committees, and performative inclusivity enables a culture where responsibility is diffused and no one is held accountable.
Committees operate without real oversight. Urgent concerns are reframed as procedural obstacles. Individuals with lived experience are pushed out when they raise inconvenient truths, especially when those truths reveal deep cultural or structural harm.
For BIPOC participants, this pattern is not a glitch, it’s a feature. Your concerns become disruptions. Your calls for care are labeled conflict. And your presence becomes untenable the moment it asks too much of a system designed to protect white comfort.
To white participants and leaders in these spaces: you may believe you are building collective power, but what you’re often building is a structure of exclusion.
When your systems require emotional neutrality to be heard, and protect the process more than the people, you’re not creating platforms of care, you are reinforcing structures which cause very real and tangible harm.
When you equate disagreement with obstruction, and disagreement from BIPOC people as hostility, what you’re really doing is preserving a hierarchy where safety and belonging are only available to those who never question the rules.
The result is a space that not only fails to uphold health and safety, but also betrays the very values it claims to uphold.
We believe in collaboration without compromise.
As stated in our Working With Us guidelines: “We do not believe in compromising our values to maintain partnerships. We believe that true collaboration is only possible with honesty, transparency, and accountability.“
Our partnerships are grounded in mutual respect, transparency, and accountability. We expect spaces that align with our values to center care, uphold safety, and take responsibility, not just in language, but in practice.
Our approach is rooted in Indigenous principles. We bring our full selves to the work, as Two-Spirit, BIPOC, and community-led organizers committed to food sovereignty, safety, and collective care.
We do not stay silent when harm is ignored, minimized, or redirected through performative process.
When we walk away, it is not to create drama. It is because staying would require us to betray the very responsibilities we carry.
We did not leave Bay Area MakerFarm because of a disagreement. We left because they refused to take accountability. And we will not allow their dysfunction to jeopardize the sacredness of our work.
The Alameda Native History Project has moved on.
To every BIPOC person who’s been silenced, gaslit, or pushed out of a space that claimed to value you… this is your reminder: you’re not imagining things.
You deserve spaces that meet you with integrity, not containment. And you don’t owe your labor to collectives that can’t hold themselves accountable.
For centuries, Native American communities have faced brutal suppression of our cultural heritage and spiritual practices. Our ancestors’ lands were stolen, our traditions criminalized, and our people forcibly relocated to urban areas.
Today, 87% of Native Americans live in cities, disconnected from our ancestral territories and the natural resources essential for our cultural survival.
Over 18,000 Native and Indigenous People reside In the San Francisco Bay Area – the majority of whom are from tribes in other areas; many of whom are the descendants of families relocated by the Indian Relocation Act of 1956.
The historical traumas persist as the ongoing persecution of “Indianness”:
Urban displacement separates us from nature, making it hard to maintain cultural heritage and traditional practices rooted in the land.
Privatization of land forces us to trespass or face fines for practicing our cultural ceremonies. (Even on Tribal Land, we are still harassed.)
Our cultural practices don’t end at reservation borders – we still need sage, berries, acorns, pine nuts, and traditional foods & materials for ceremonies, healing, and cultural survival.
Native American People are still criminalized for gathering the materials we need to practice our cultural and religious traditions.
But there is hope.
We have been blessed with an opportunity to reclaim our cultural heritage and decolonize a sacred space in the Bay Area.
The Indigenous Land Lab will be a thriving hub for:
Traditional medicine and herb garden
Restoration nursery for environmental healing
Safe sanctuary for Indigenous people and allies to decompress, honor the earth, and collaborate in decolonization efforts
We need your support to make this vision a reality.
Our immediate goals require funding for:
Seeds for our traditional medicine and herb garden
Fencing to secure our land, and protect this sacred space from damage by invasive wild boars
Greenhouse construction for year-round growth and education
Decolonization efforts to reclaim our cultural heritage and restore balance to the land
Every donation brings us closer to decolonizing our homeland and revitalizing our cultural practices.
Your contribution helps cultivate reciprocity – a mutual exchange of respect, resources, and restoration.
Reclaiming cultural heritage and sacred spaces is crucial for our survival. Collaborating to restore this land and realize our connection to it is how we move forward.
Decolonization starts with a single step – yours.
Donate today to support the Indigenous Land Lab and join a movement reclaiming heritage, land, and justice.
Be our Top Fundraiser and Win a Free *Premium* Indigenous Bay Hoodie!
Join our fundraising team and get rewarded for your hard work!
The top fundraiser will receive a Premium Indigenous Bay Hoodie as a thank you gift for helping us reach our fundraising goals through peer-to-peer fundraising!
Wear your land acknowledgment with pride knowing you’ve personally contributed to the decolonization of Indigenous Land.
Find out more by signing up using the “Fundraise” button on our Decolonize This Place! campaign page:
Shalom Bruhn opening remarks at the rally, on a cold windy, Monday afternoon in Alameda.
People gathered outside of Alameda City Hall on Monday, February 3, 2025, to show their unified resolve for Alameda’s Sanctuary City status.
I was honored to be among such speakers as Shalom Bruhn, Amos White, Rev. Michael Yoshi, Dr. Cindy Ackert, Kimi Sugioka, Rev. Vathanak Heang, Hiro Guida, and more people spoke during the open mic session.
Kimi Sugioka (left) holds a sign reading “Alameda Stands United Against Hate”; Amos White (right) speaking at the rally.
These are the remarks I delivered.
Remarks at the Alameda Display of Unity Rally
On February 3, 2025, in Alameda, California
“Hello, my name is Gabriel Duncan. I’m the founder of the Alameda Native History Project. I’m a mix of Paiute, and Mexican (Chichimeca). I’m Gay, Two-Spirit, and Queer. I’m also disabled; I have AIDS. I’m a mix of many things that are being targeted for deportation, defunding, and disenfranchisement.
“That’s why I want to talk about the fear of belonging to a group of people being targeted. Of the fear I felt when I first came out (just like now.) And how I did it, even though I was afraid.
“I came out not just for myself. But for my LGBTQ and Two-Spirit cousins who could not do it themselves–to stand up and advocate for the other members of my community who were isolated, targeted, and attacked because of who they are–to defend our humanity, and demand to be treated with dignity and respect. I stand up because my conviction and belief in justice and equality give me strength.
“Even now, even though I am afraid, I cannot let people I called my friends, my neighbors, even my family–I cannot let them go on terrorizing the innocent people who came here to escape violence and persecution, who came here looking for a better life, for a brighter future. We cannot allow them to continue demonizing our differences, chasing down our most vulnerable, and subjecting them to more violence, and more persecution.
“Because, the reality is, our diversity gives us strength.
“This is why sanctuaries exist. Sanctuaries exist to give refuge, to provide safety. To allow people to live, and thrive with liberty, justice and dignity. The pursuit of happiness, living in freedom. This is the promise of the American Dream. America is supposed to be a sanctuary.
“As we stand here today, to let out our cry for dignity, inclusivity, and respect, we do this as a diverse community of people who still believe that the American Dream is just as much ours as everyone else’s.
“I stand before you here to re-affirm my commitment to support, advocate, and fight for the inclusion of the people who built this city, this state, and this nation–and who this place was built upon!
“People who provide us with the food we eat, the care for our children, for our sick, and elderly, who do the jobs no one else will do–I will advocate for them because they belong here more than many of us.
“If you believe in liberty, equality, and justice; then it is your duty, too. It is your duty to create and protect a sanctuary as a group, as a collective, that we can share with our friends and neighbors–and even strangers–when they need it most.
“Let us make sure that Alameda is a Sanctuary City – NOW AND FOREVER!”
Special thanks to EB-FLOW (East Bay Fierce Loving Organized Women) for organizing this rally.
This is EB-FLOW organizer Shalom Bruhn reading her poem at the rally.
Update: After receiving the signed petition from Monday’s rally, during the Alameda City Council Meeting on Tuesday, the City of Alameda released the following statement on Wednesday.
“The City remains committed to the values of dignity, inclusivity, and respect for all individuals, regardless of ethnic or national origin, gender, race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or immigration status. We are committed to upholding the Constitution and ensuring a safe community for everyone, consistent with the City’s Sanctuary City policy.”
February 5, 2025 “Statement from the City of Alameda”
Native History Project Condemns White Supremacy and Threats to Native American Sovereignty
Alameda, California – Today, the Alameda Native History Project issued a strong statement affirming its values and condemning racist ideologies.
“Alameda Native History Project vehemently condemns white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, and fascist ideologies. We abhor Trump-era policies destroying civil rights gains, threatening Native American sovereignty, and deporting indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. Our project stands unwaveringly against bigotry, discrimination, and hate – affirming equality, justice, and dignity for all.”
Contact:
Gabriel Duncan info@nativehistoryproject.org (510) 747-8423
So, I know the whole “plant thing” might not make sense to people who want to build bigger levees, and sea walls.
I’m trying to say we can’t manage with walls alone. Walls cost tons of money. We don’t know how tall to build them, or how fast. The earth is continuing to warm at a runaway pace. And we need to plan accordingly.
Currently, much of our shores are covered with riprap and sand that has been trucked into, and poured upon the surface of the shore. Sometimes the riprap is covered with a steel mesh, and cabled and bolted into place. But it doesn’t matter. Every time we get big waves, increasingly bigger pieces are being taken away from the shore.
Consider the fact that the pre-1900 [“alameda”] peninsula was encapsulated by lush, verdant, thriving wetlands; and that the south shores and bay farm coast were rich in oyster and clam beds.
Just like the rest of the earth, the Bay Area is a living, breathing, place. Our environmental systems sustain life in and around the bay. And floodwaters are supposed to be a regenerative force in the lifecycle of our ancient coastal blue carbon ecosystem.
The roots of fast growing estuarine and aquatic plants (like eelgrass, tule, etc.) stabilize shorelines by trapping sediment in their root systems and creating a buffer zone that absorbs floodwaters. The rising tide and sediment bury plants and form nutrient-rich (low-oxygen) soil which builds up the land mass, and gives rise to new fast-growing growing plants. The interring of carbon captured by the plants, which are buried in a low-oxygen environment, is the main mechanism behind what is now being referred to as coastal blue carbon habitats.
Restoring our ecosystems is the best chance we have to survive as a species. We need to learn how to terraform our own planet before we attempt to colonize another.
When it comes to foraging for acorns, we have a firm policy: we don’t accept those collected from the ground.
Here’s why:
Acorns can mold incredibly quickly once picked up; especially when stored improperly in bags, boxes, or environments with little to no air circulation. It is vitally important to prevent the spread of mold and mildew to other acorns in storage.
Moldy acorns are not just unappealing; they can pose serious health risks, like hantavirus.Hantavirus is a serious disease transmitted through contact with rodent droppings or urine. Ground-collected acorns are often more likely to be contaminated by mold and pathogens, which we want to avoid.
It’s important to note that 20% or less of the acorns gathered from the ground are fit enough for storage and consumption. Since we emphasize sourcing acorns for food, we have to apply a strict standard: if it’s not something you would personally eat, we don’t want it either.
By upholding these guidelines, we prioritize health and ensure that the acorns we collect and use are safe and of the best quality.
Let’s keep our foraging practices safe and sustainable!
