大象传媒

On a cool morning in December, Johnella LaRose stands in a 2-acre field in east Oakland, overseeing a group of volunteers preparing a section of this land that the Sogorea Te Land Trust stewards for the arrival of a shipping container. LaRose is dressed to work, wearing jeans and boots that look broken in.

The container will serve as storage for farming equipment, she says, and in case of a natural disaster, as a safe shelter for people to gather, sleep, and access resources.

LaRose is co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, an intertribal women-led organization that is in the final stages of securing nonprofit status. It鈥檚 working to acquire access鈥攁nd ownership鈥攖o land in the Bay Area, where Ohlone people have lived for centuries.

The goal, says LaRose, is to establish a land base for the Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone people, whose ancestral territory includes cities in the East Bay. 鈥淭he land gives us everything that we need in order to survive,鈥� says Corrina Gould, a Lisjan Ohlone leader and the other co-founder of the land trust. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how people lived for thousands of years on our land and other Indigenous people鈥檚 land. 鈥� You work with the land so that it can continue to provide, but that you honor that relationship by not taking too much.鈥�

Gould says Sogorea Te plans to steward the lands it has in a way that honors it.

Sogorea Te got access to the land in east Oakland in 2017 through a partnership with Planting Justice, a local grassroots organization that owns the property and uses it to house a nursery of edible tree crops for purchase by community members and others online. The land is also a place where Planting Justice鈥檚 reentry work takes place, because the nursery is staffed mostly by people who were formerly incarcerated.

Planting Justice plans to give the deed on the parcel to Sogorea Te鈥攁t no cost鈥攊n the future. And the two organizations plan to continue to work on the land together. In the future, Sogorea Te intends to purchase land by partnering with organizations who own land and are willing to transfer ownership.

LaRose hopes the lands Sogorea Te stewards will facilitate healing and build resiliency for Ohlone people. When she imagines the purpose the shipping container could serve, for example, LaRose thinks about Hurricane Katrina and its disproportionate impacts on poor and Black聽communities in New Orleans.

The Trust鈥檚 vision for this particular plot of land is to create an Indigenous cultural site.

As LaRose talks about her hopes, the volunteers build the foundation for the 5,000-pound shipping container. So far, volunteers have dug down 4 inches, removed the dirt, leveled it out, and started hauling gravel to fill in the hole. Once the container arrives, they鈥檒l build it out with a kitchen, deck, and solar panels.

The 2-acre parcel where LaRose and volunteers are working is in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of east Oakland, which has little access to public transportation and grocery stores. It is surrounded by dense rows of apartments and houses. Train whistles and freeway noise can be heard from where LaRose and the volunteers are working.

Near the back fence of the plot runs San Leandro Creek鈥攔enamed with its Ohlone name, Lisjan Creek, by the trust. Previous work parties have installed a hugel (short for 鈥淗眉gelkultur鈥�) raised bed where plants native to the region are growing. A no-till mound of soil and wood chips, Sogorea Te鈥檚 hugel has sage, wild onion, and milk weed, each labeled with their Ohlone name鈥攎iriyan, 鈥榰uner, and 拧iska. The plants are used for ceremony and medicine.

The trust鈥檚 vision for this particular plot of land is to create an Indigenous cultural site with a traditional arbor 9- to 15-feet tall, built out of redwoods. The arbor will be a place for ceremony that Ohlone people can pass on to future generations.

Gould says that the Ohlone never lost their connection to the land.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been here since the beginning of time, so there continues to be a deep connection to land and how we relate on a daily basis has changed because of colonization,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really been my generation that鈥檚 been able to come out and begin to speak about these horrific issues and to talk truth to history.鈥�

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Sogorea Te comes from a history of Ohlone people working to gain recognition and access to land in the Bay Area. The name Sogorea Te is the Ohlone name of a site in Vallejo, California, where a cultural easement fight took place in 2011. LaRose and Gould鈥檚 first organization, Indian People Organizing for Change, was involved in reoccupying the territorial site for 109 days. During that time, together with the Yocha Dehe and Cortina tribes, they recreated a village site with a sacred fire and stopped development of a sacred site along the Carquinez Strait.

The occupation led to the 聽among a city, a park district, and a federally recognized tribe. Gould says the easement allowed the tribe to have the same rights to that land as the other entities.

LaRose and Gould say they began Indian People Organizing for Change in 1999 to address issues relevant to their community, including homelessness and protection of sacred Indigenous sites. All of these issues, they say, are rooted in the same problem: dispossession from their people鈥檚 ancestral lands.

The issue of land return is particularly important for the Ohlone people who for centuries have had no land base and have been politically and economically marginalized. Today, the Ohlone are not on the list of 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

The idea behind establishing a land trust was for these Indigenous women to create a land base for their community.

Ohlone life changed dramatically when Spanish military and civilians began to encroach on the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1700s.

Colonizers raped and forced Ohlone people into labor, brought diseases such as small pox and measles, and dispossessed Ohlone people of their lands.

Ohlone people survived and continued to live in that region, which today is one of the 听补苍诲 聽metro areas in the U.S.

In 2015, LaRose and Gould established Sogorea Te Land Trust. It was another step in the work they鈥檇 already been doing to restore cultural access to ancestral lands.

Gould says they hope the land trust will allow Ohlone people for generations to come to reengage the land in the way that it was and has been done traditionally. That looks like bringing back traditional songs, dances, and ceremonies back to the land 鈥渁nd to try to create a balance.鈥�

The idea behind establishing a land trust, which was sparked after Gould attended a meeting with existing Native-led land trusts in 2012, was for these Indigenous women to create a land base for their community.

鈥淲hen you follow the rules, man, you鈥檙e not going to get anywhere,鈥� LaRose said. 鈥淵ou really just have to really be brave and just put yourself out there and say, 鈥楾his is what鈥檚 going to happen. This is what we’re going to do.鈥欌��

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So far, the largest lot of land that Sogorea Te has access to is the quarter-acre in east Oakland.

The organization Planting Justice purchased that plot in the fall of 2015 as an additional location for its food justice work, with a low-interest loan from the Northern California Community Loan Fund and individual donations from community members. The nonprofit already owned land elsewhere in the East Bay.

In November 2016, its founders Gavin Raders and Haleh Zandi drove North Dakota to join the #NODAPL protests in Standing Rock. On their way back to the Bay Area, they started thinking about their relationship to the land and their role in the Indigenous people in their own community.

Raders said both he and Zandi were aware of the history of colonization and genocide that happened to Indigenous people in California. But during their conversations with Indigenous elders, they began to ask themselves what it meant for Ohlone people to not be federally recognized and have no land base.

鈥淚鈥檓 not really sure how this is going to look, but we want to be able to figure out how to give the land back to Indigenous people,鈥� Raders remembers thinking.

Diane Williams, a friend of Sogorea Te鈥檚 founders who worked at Planting Justice, connected the two organizations in hopes that they鈥檇 work together in some capacity.

After numerous months, members of the groups, including LaRose, Gould, and Raders, finally met in August 2017 and officially started their partnership in fall 2017.

At that meeting, Sogorea Te learned that Planting Justice still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on the mortgage but that when it was paid off, the organization wanted to sign the title over to the land trust, 鈥渨hich was a real surprise to us,鈥� LaRose says.

鈥淲e want to be able to figure out how to give the land back to Indigenous people.鈥�

That鈥檚 the first piece of land that the land trust was given to steward, with a verbal agreement between the organizations that they鈥檇 share it and work in cooperation with one another.

鈥淚t鈥檚 clearly understood by the Planting Justice board and the Sogorea Te Land Trust that this is a partnership that鈥檚 going to continue,鈥� says Raders, a Planting Justice co-founder, who notes that his organization is committed to transfer the land to Sogorea Te ownership no matter how long it takes to pay off the mortgage. From there, the trust will establish a lease agreement with the organization so it can still have operations on the 2-acre parcel.

Planting Justice considered putting a cultural (or conservation) easement on the site, one that the Land Trust would manage, but it couldn鈥檛 because it is still paying off the mortgage of the land. Raders said the mortgage holders did not allow Planting Justice to move forward with an easement in case the mortgage did not get paid in full.

鈥淐onservation easements last forever, no matter who owns the property in the future so those restrictions still run with the land,鈥� said Sylvia Bates, director of Standards & Educational Services at the Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization.

In a scenario where an entity owns or is stewarding land with a conservation easement, the organization is obligated to make sure those restrictions stay in place. The mortgage holders did not want to deal with that possibility.

LaRose and Gould say that they鈥檙e figuring it out as they go along and are open to all the possibilities of acquiring land. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that there鈥檚 one way that we鈥檙e looking at it,鈥� Gould says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just trying to figure out, 鈥榟ow do we do that?鈥� and we鈥檙e bringing people along with us.鈥�

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In addition to the land in east Oakland, the trust stewards five plots of land throughout the Bay Area where they grow native plants and gather for ceremony.

Sogorea Te is also now in talks with an organization about land in Sonoma County. And in March, LaRose and Gould caught wind of a couple of vacant lots in Oakland that they might want to take into their care.

The organization doesn鈥檛 yet own any of these parcels, but they hope to soon.

In partnership, Planting Justice and Sogorea Te continue to work on the land together, as Planting Justice pays off the mortgage on the 2 acres in east Oakland and Sogorea Te raises funds to buy other parcels in the east Bay. Planting Justice plans to give the land to Sogorea Te once the mortgage is paid off. From there, Planting Justice will continue to operate on the land with a lease from the land trust.

LaRose said she鈥檇 really like someone with the resources to come in and give them the money to pay off the mortgage in full.

鈥淲eirder things have happened,鈥� she said.

One way Sogorea Te is raising funds is through the Shuumi Land Tax, a tax that the land trust has been implementing since 2016. It鈥檚 a voluntary tax for people who live on Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone land, encompassing two dozen cities that make up most of the East Bay.

It was modeled after the Honor Tax that the Wiyot people started in Humboldt County, California. And there are other groups running similar taxes, like Real Rent, which encourages Seattleites to make rent payment to the Duwamish Tribe.

The Shuumi Tax is based on how many rooms people have in their home and whether they rent or own. As the value of a person鈥檚 home鈥攐r of rental costs鈥攊ncrease, so does the tax.

鈥淏ut a lot of people give a lot more money. A lot more money but it鈥檚 this idea that you鈥檙e really paying for the privilege of living on Ohlone land, occupied land,鈥� LaRose said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like reparations of some sort.鈥�

In 2018, 聽reported that the land trust received $80,000 from 800 contributions in the previous year.

The tax funds have been used for staff, office costs, and supplies. And in the future, they will be used to buy and maintain lands that are under the land trust鈥檚 stewardship.

Back at the Planting Justice site, two hours have gone by and the volunteers鈥� work is almost done for the day. Their last big task begins when the contractor brings another truckful of gravel. Volunteers spread out this new load until it鈥檚 level.

LaRose says volunteers and other community members are always thanking her and the Sogorea Te team for doing this work.

鈥淏ut I鈥檓 like, 鈥榳e have to do it.鈥� It鈥檚 not like we want to do it,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e have to do it.鈥�