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Please take a moment as we honor, acknowledge, reflect, and express our sincere gratitude for, and appreciation of, the peoples, ancestors, and sacred land that we gather upon today.

We honor the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of Indigenous peoples who have been here since time immemorial, and to recognize that we must continue to build solidarity, and kinship, with Native Indigenous communities.

At Irvine Valley College we honor the Kizh Nation, the Acjachemen Nation, and the Gabrieleño/Tongva Tribe. We would also like to pay our respects to the land and life of Indigenous people, the ancestors, elders, and our relatives/relations past, present and emerging.

A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes and respects Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of ancestral lands and which recognizes the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories.

To recognize the land is an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory one resides on and a way to honor the Indigenous People who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial. It is important to understand the long-standing history that has brought us to reside on the land and to seek to understand our place within that history. Land acknowledgements encourage faculty, staff, administrators, and students to acknowledge the original Nations and Tribes on whose land we work, learn and live.

Since its introduction to the IVC community, our land acknowledgement has solemnly been read at college functions such as President’s Opening Day sessions, at the 2022 Commencement Ceremony and other campus events. The creation of the IVC Land Acknowledgement aligns with our college’s DEIA values and efforts; however, it is important to recognize that a land acknowledgement alone is not enough. Additional measures might include:

  • Commit to allyship and reciprocal relationships with local-regional tribal communities.
  • Support American Indian students, staff and faculty through improving culturally sustaining pedagogies, cultural awareness, and support services.
  • Commit to future action including consultation, collaboration and engagement with Tribal community representatives on developing courses, research, programming, collections, events and other actions that are related to or impact Tribal communities, ancestral territories, students or scholarships.