Land Acknowledgement
Indigenous tribes and bands have been with the lands that we inhabit today throughout Oregon and the Northwest since time immemorial, and continue to be a vibrant part of Oregon today.
There are nine federally recognized tribes and bands of indigenous peoples in Oregon and express my respect to the Burns Paiute Tribe, Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua & Siuslaw Indians, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, Coquille Indian Tribe, Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians, and The Klamath Tribes.
I also want to take time to recognize the Chinook Indian Nation and their five constituent tribes in Oregon and Washington as they fight to be federally recognized: https://chinookjustice.org/
As I reflect on where I grew up on the lands and waters of the Tualatin Valley, I acknowledge that I live, work, and learn on the ancestral homelands of the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla, Kalapuya, and Atfalati peoples, whose relationship with this place is ancient and ongoing. I recognize the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians as the contemporary sovereign nations who carry forward the stewardship, cultures, and rights of these peoples.
I must honor that I am a settler, and I have benefited from working and living on their traditional land. My family’s five generations here are a short chapter in a much longer story. My commitment is to move beyond just knowing these names, and to actively honor the stories of this land—the ones that came long before my own—and to connect them back to the living Indigenous communities of today. I will do this by continuously educating myself and sharing this understanding with others, as a small step in caring for and stewarding this place with greater respect and relationship.
It is important to recognize and honor the ongoing physical, emotional, legal and spiritual relationship between the land, plants, animals, and people indigenous to this place we now call Oregon.
Acknowledgment is a simple, powerful way of showing respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase Indigenous people’s history and culture and toward inviting and honoring the truth. Imagine this practice widely adopted: imagine cultural venues, classrooms, conference settings, places of worship, sports stadiums, and town halls, acknowledging traditional lands. Millions would be exposed—many for the first time—to the names of the traditional Indigenous inhabitants of the lands they are on, inspiring them to ongoing awareness and action."