Land dedicated to Native Americans at UCLA starts to bear fruit

It’s been nearly two years since UCLA signed a formal agreement for Southern California tribal members to use a portion of the university’s botanical garden to practice their traditional planting, harvesting, and gathering of crops.

It’s now bearing fruit in the form of deer grass (called huutah by the Tongva) and blue elderberry (or huukat, its Tongva name).

Victoria Sork (left), director of the UCLA Botanical Garden and Chantal Ochoa-Clark, the garden's manager of outreach and education

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“Members of our community, from the very beginning, selected the plants that were most important and… our community needed to have access to… also we were there to help plant the plants,” said Desiree Martinez, a Gabrielino Tongva archeologist.

Martinez helped create the small plot at the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden and Herbarium.

And the portion of the garden planted by Native Americans is small. It’s roughly the size of two pickleball courts if they were asymmetrical and on a steep slope.

It’s easy to miss the native plants unless you look for the knee-high sign that says “Tongva Basket Weaving Garden.”

Native American tradition holds that the Creator established a relationship between people and plants, animals, and the natural elements with the responsibility of people to take care of those things.

“Because of colonization, that connection and that promise or instruction that was made by the Creator, has been severed,” Martinez said.

Native Americans plan to harvest the deer grass in the botanical garden when it's mature, to make baskets.

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“This partnership — groundbreaking in many ways — acknowledges the First People of this area, while also creating a path for the practice, sharing and teaching of culture, customs and stewardship,” said Assemblymember James Ramos in an email. He’s the former chair of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.

The garden's original caretakers

The Mathias Botanical Garden and Herbarium is a 7.5-acre parcel that’s an undeveloped part of the natural canyon between busy Hilgard Avenue on the east and a dense cluster of UCLA medical buildings on its west edge. It’s hard to appreciate the garden’s magnitude from the outside because the topography descends with the canyon.

It was created when UCLA moved to Westwood in 1929, but there was no visible effort to recognize the original caretakers of the land.

The garden was closed until last spring for a renovation of the stream that flows continuously through the garden. Its re-opening now provides the general public, groups of school children, and in particular Native American students and staff, the opportunity to see an example of a public institution going beyond land acknowledgements and actually giving back a portion of land for Native Americans to use.

“I don't think until recently we really had an appreciation that we were on unceded territory of Native people, and we were not in a place where we are showing our respect,” said Victoria Sork, director of the botanical garden and a professor in UCLA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Her interaction with area tribal members led her to understand Indigenous thinking about the symbiotic and caretaker relationship between humans and nature. She was one of the signers of the memorandum of understanding.

Native Americans have special access to these plants. And Sork said it’s very important that no one from the public touch, pick, or take them.

The deer grass will be used to create baskets

In a few years the deer grass will be mature enough to be harvested and used for basket weaving. A Tongva group will organize the basket weaving. And the plan is to make sure Native Americans on campus take part.

“Our goal of the garden is to make everyone feel welcome, but we particularly want to make sure the Native people understand that … this is part of their history and future,” Sork said.

Here’s how you can visit

Take the Sunset Boulevard exit from the 405 Freeway and turn south on Hilgard Avenue. Then turn west on Westholme Avenue into the UCLA campus and look for Parking Structure 2.

After you pay, walk south along Charles Young Drive to the entrance to the botanical garden. There’s no entrance fee. There are picnic benches and lots of shade and many of the paths are paved.

The garden closes at 5 p.m. until next month, when it will close at 4 p.m. Here are the garden’s hours.