Missed opportunity to learn about first inhabitants

Dear Editor:

The recent editorial headlined "Sometimes What We Call Things Says A Lot About Us" (Review, May 3) described some of the thinking behind a recent Granada Community Services District board of directors decision to call a parcel of undeveloped coastal land "Granada Community Park."

During the public hearing before the April 20 vote, supporters of a different proposed name, "Chiguan Park," provided information about the under-representation of the Ramaytush on the Coastside and the historical and cultural significance of the site. Highlights included:

-Chiguan is the name used by the Ramaytush tribe to describe the region encompassing the future park;

-Ramaytush inhabited and stewarded Chiguan for 10,000 years before the arrival of the colonialists in California;

-Ramaytush artifacts have been discovered within the Granada Community Services District and near the future park.

We've missed a chance to help rewrite the story of who matters in this world. Worse, a public hearing spread historical disinformation. Anyone who watches the YouTube video of the April 20 meeting will hear untruths about what happened to Indigenous peoples in our area. The facts (worth sharing as a gesture of relationship building and respect in a future GCSD public meeting) show that Indigenous people have lived here for thousands of years, not hundreds. They died of disease, yes, and they were also massacred in many areas, killed by bounty hunters, tortured, worked to death, pushed off their land, and forcibly separated from their families. To learn more, search online for the articles "A New History of the First Peoples in the Americas"; "Who Are the Ohlone?"; "The Seven Essential Understandings of California Native History and Culture"; and "Revealing the History of Genocide Against California's Native Americans."

Thank you to everyone who supported the "Chiguan Park" proposal. We will continue to work to ensure all people learn more about the first people and their descendants, who still live here, and share their incredible contributions through the Muchia Te Indigenous Land Trust and other efforts to elevate Native perspectives. 

Chiguan Park Support Team

 Cata Gomes

Steve Hawk

Pamm Higgins

Melinda McNaughton

Ryan Molyneaux

Jane Praysilver