Named after | Muwekmea is a Chochenyo language term for "the people", Ohlone people |
---|---|
Formation | nonprofit: 2018 [1] |
Founded at | Castro Valley, California [1] [2] |
Type | nonprofit organization [2] |
EIN 82-2448663 [2] | |
Purpose | Arts, Cultural Organizations - Multipurpose (A20) [2] |
Headquarters | Castro Valley, California [2] |
Location |
|
Official language | English |
Principal officer | Charlene Nijmeh [2] |
Revenue (2022) | $714,765 [1] |
Expenses (2022) | $384,655 [1] |
Staff (2022) | 1 [1] |
Website | muwekma |
Formerly called | Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe [3] |
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is an unrecognized American Indian organization, primarily composed of documented descendants of the Ohlone, an historic Indigenous people of California. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is the largest of several groups in the San Francisco Bay Area that identify as Ohlone tribes. [4]
Almost all members of the organization are documented descendants of the Verona Band of Alameda County, an historic band of Ohlone people. [3]
The organization is not recognized as a Native American tribe by the federal government or by the California state government, which does not recognize any state tribes. [5]
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, formerly known as the Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe, applied for federal recognition as a Native American tribe; however, in their petition was denied in 2002. The US Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs found a lack of "evidence since 1927 of substantially continuous external identification of the petitioning group as a continuation of the historical 'Verona Band' or Pleasanton rancheria." [3] The final determination also stated: "Because the petitioning group was not identified as an Indian entity for a period of almost four decades after 1927 … it has not been identified as an Indian entity on a 'substantially continuous' basis since 1927." [3] The final determination also "concluded that 99 percent of its current members have satisfactorily documented their descent from individuals on the Verona Band proxy list, or sibling thereof." [3]
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Inc. was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2018. [1] Charlene Nijmeh, based in Castro Valley, California, is the principal officer. [2] Their mission states: "The specific purpose of this corporation is for religious purposes of addressing ancestral [N]ative [A]merican sacred sites." [2]
In 2020 and 2022, their administration was:
The Peninsula Open Space Trust, Children and Nature Network, and PayPal Giving Fund all provided grants to the nonprofit in 2021 or 2022. [1]
Other unrecognized Ohlone organizations such as the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, the Tamien Nation, and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan have accused the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of undermining their historical claims of legitimacy with the goal of controlling potential future Ohlone Indian gaming rights.
The resulting confusion has caused difficulties for local cities seeking to perform appropriate land acknowledgements as part of government meetings. [6]
In her 2024 run for California's 16th congressional district, Muwekma chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh retained the services of political consultant Matthew Ricchiazzi who created fake news sites and distributed 60,000 anonymous fake newspapers attacking incumbent House Representative Zoe Lofgren. Per Federal elections law attack campaign materials must include campaign ID numbers or disclosures which these did not. Ricciazzi said he was not working on behalf of the Nijmeh campaign, the papers were merely "an independent hobby project of mine". [7] In a May 2024 interview with Vice Presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan Nijmeh describes Ricchiazzi as her "assistant" and that he was entitled to "free speech". [8] Local businesses complained the newspaper included fake ads that used their business names without permission. [9]
Ricchiazzi also created a purported news site "The San Francisco Inquirer" which sought to undermine legitimacy claims of several other Ohlone groups. The site included accusations that Association of Ramaytush Ohlone Executive Director Jonathan Cordero is “widely seen in Indian Country as a ‘Pretendian'", while not identifying any source for the statement. [10]
Millbrae is a city located in northern San Mateo County, California, United States. To the northeast is San Francisco International Airport; San Bruno is to the northwest, and Burlingame is to the southeast. It is bordered by San Andreas Lake to the southwest. The population was 23,216 at the 2020 census.
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans, are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley. At that time they spoke a variety of related languages. The Ohlone languages make up a sub-family of the Utian language family. Older proposals place Utian within the Penutian language phylum, while newer proposals group it as Yok-Utian.
The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating population decline, and lost their language as they intermarried with other native California ethnic groups and learned the Spanish language.
State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.
The Ramaytush or Rammay-tuš people are a linguistic subdivision of the Ohlone people of Northern California. The term Ramaytush was first applied to them in the 1970s, but the modern Ohlone people of the peninsula have claimed it as their ethnonym. The ancestors of the Ramaytush Ohlone people have lived on the peninsula—specifically in the area known as San Francisco and San Mateo county—for thousands of years. Prior to the California Genocide, the Ohlone people were not consciously united as a singular socio-political entity. In the early twentieth century anthropologists and linguists began to refer to the Ramaytush Ohlone as San FranciscoCostanoans—the people who spoke a common dialect or language within the Costanoan branch of the Utian family. Anthropologists and linguists similarly called the Tamyen people Santa Clara Costanoans, and the Awaswas people Santa Cruz Costanoans.
Mission Indians was a term used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of California who lived or grew up in the Spanish mission system in California. Today the term is used to refer to their descendants and to specific, contemporary tribal nations in California.
The Sánchez Adobe Park, home to the Sánchez Adobe, is located in Pacifica, California, at 1000 Linda Mar Boulevard, on the north bank of San Pedro Creek, approximately 0.91 miles (1,470 m) from the Pacific Ocean in Linda Mar Valley. The 5.46-acre (2.21 ha) county park, established in 1947 contains the Sanchez Adobe Historical site, designated a National Register Historical District in 1976 and is California registered landmark 391.
The Awaswas, also known as the Santa Cruz people, were a group of the Indigenous peoples of California in North America, with subgroups historically numbering about 600 to 1,400. Academic research suggests that their ancestors had lived within the Santa Cruz Mountains region for approximately 12,000 years. The Awaswas maintained regular trade networks with regional cultures before the Spanish colonists began settling in the area from the 18th century.
The Tamien people are one of eight linguistic divisions of the Ohlone (Costanoan) people groups of Native Americans who live in Northern California. The Tamien traditionally lived throughout the Santa Clara Valley. The use of the name Tamien is on record as early as 1777; it comes from the Ohlone name for the location of the first Mission Santa Clara on the Guadalupe River. Father Pena mentioned in a letter to Junipero Serra that the area around the mission was called Thamien by the native people. The missionary fathers erected the mission on January 17, 1777, at the native village of So-co-is-u-ka.
The Chochenyo are one of the divisions of the Indigenous Ohlone (Costanoan) people of Northern California. The Chochenyo reside on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, primarily in what is now Alameda County, and also Contra Costa County, from the Berkeley Hills inland to the western Diablo Range.
The Advisory Council on California Indian Policy (ACCIP) was created by an act of the United States Congress and signed by President George H. W. Bush on October 14, 1992. It provided for the creation of a special advisory council made up of eighteen members with the purpose of studying the unique problems that California Native Americans face in receiving federal acknowledgment. Additionally, they were given the task of studying the social and economic conditions of California natives, “characterized by, among other things, alcohol and substance abuse, critical health problems, family violence and child abuse, lack of educational and employment opportunities, and significant barriers to tribal economic development.” Under the provisions for the act, the Advisory Council was to make recommendations regarding California Indian policy to the Congress and the Departments of the Interior and of Health and Human Services.
The Ohlone languages, also known as Costanoan, form a small Indigenous language family historically spoken in Northern California, both in the southern San Francisco Bay Area and northern Monterey Bay area, by the Ohlone people. Along with the Miwok languages, they are members of the Utian language family. The most recent work suggests that Ohlone, Miwok, and Yokuts are branches of a Yok-Utian language family.
The Verona Band of Alameda County, also known as the Pleasanton Rancheria, is a historic band of Ohlone people in California. Their descendants are the Muwekma Ohlone, whose ancestors belonged to the Verona Band when it had federal recognition in the early 20th century.
The Tamyen language is one of eight Ohlone languages, once spoken by Tamien people in Northern California.
The Ramaytush language is one of the eight Ohlone languages, historically spoken by the Ramaytush people who were indigenous to California. Historically, the Ramaytush inhabited the San Francisco Peninsula between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean in the area which is now San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. Ramaytush is a dialect or language within the Ohlone branch of the Utian family. The term Ramaytush was first applied to it during the 1970s, and is derived from the term rammay-tuš "people from the west". It is extinct, but efforts are being taken to revive it.
Chochenyo is the spoken language of the Chochenyo people. Chochenyo is one of the Ohlone languages in the Utian family.
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Cal NAGPRA was an act created by the state of California which was signed into law in 2001. The act was created to implement the same repatriation expectations for state-funded institutions, museums, repositories, or collections as those federally supported through NAGPRA. Cal NAGPRA also supports non-federally recognized tribes within California that were exempt from legal rights to repatriation under the federal NAGPRA act.