The UC Irvine Yearbook from 1966 records the words of Chief Clarence Lobo of the Acjachemen tribe, as he walked the land that became the UC Irvine campus.

"Our children shall not know the experience of roaming over these rolling hills and listening to the wild birds as they talk to nature. Our footprints upon the sands of time shall be history to them."

As we mark Indigenous Peoples' Day, it is important to remember this, and other, histories of indigeneity that have shaped the Irvine campus. It is also important not to consign these histories to the past, but to recognize the vital presence of Indigenous communities, students, staff, and faculty on our campus today, as we chart a course for a more brilliant future by joining in celebration of the land and its stewards.

The UCI Libraries and the School of Social Sciences acknowledges our presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples. And we respectfully honor and recognize the original and current caretakers of this land, water, and air: the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, including UCI faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands.

Bill Maurer,
Dean, School of Social Sciences

Lorelei Tanji
University Librarian

---

Please visit the UCI Libraries Indigenous resource guide at: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/celebrating/Indigenous

For more on Chief Lobo please visit: https://newuniversity.org/2016/03/29/local-native-tribes-address-invisibility-at-uci/

To learn more about the canoe hanging in Social Sciences Tower, crafted by Taloolema'agao Uliulileava Olano, a Native Samoan who was in residence as an instructor at UC Irvine Social Sciences in 1968, see https://sites.uci.edu/anteaterantics/?s=canoe

To learn about the community of Ixil Maya who took up residence at UC Irvine in the late 1960s, see https://sites.uci.edu/anteaterantics/?s=learning+by+doing+at+the+farm