After nearly 200 years, the Tongva community has land in Los Angeles County despite the fact that the Tongva’s homeland is now part of the State of Arizona. After almost 200 years, the Tongva community has some land in Los Angeles County despite the fact that the Tongva’s homeland is now part of the STATE of Arizona.
I grew up in Tongva country. I have grown up in Tongva country. We are all Tongva. We don’t have the land anymore. Most of it is in Arizona because that’s where the ancestors were from. There are a few Tongva people living in the City of Los Angeles.
But not in Tongva County. Not in Los Angeles County. Tongva County is part of Arizona, period. What part of Tongva County?
There’s nothing left. There’s no Tongva there.
It’s gone.
Los Angeles County is so full of Tongva people that a new Tongva is not welcome here. In Tongva County, one does not mix with other Tongva.
The Tongva are not happy to live in Los Angeles. They are afraid that they will someday be “forced into the Arizona State line,” as one Tongva woman put it recently on a public radio program.
For the last two years, Tongva have been working to stop the building of the Gold Line because there are Tongva that don’t want to live in Los Angeles.
And the Tongva are going to use every legal avenue in the book to stop it. And they’re going to win this time.
The public meeting this morning [Feb. 28, 2015], they came out of the meeting and their leaders from the community were there and then they said, “You have to go back to your houses and shut the hell up.” And then they went back to their houses.
The next month they held another public meeting. And the next month