By Acsah Lemma
Following an article the Long Beach Current wrote in September 2024, there have been no updates regarding Friends of Puvungna’s bid to be the official stewards of the sacred site located behind the G2 parking lot.
Puvungna, known as “the gathering place” is the site where “we changed from being spiritual beings to physical beings,” Friends of Puvungna President Rebecca Robles said. “It wasn’t just us. It was all of everything. It was the trees, the grass, the plants, the animals, the birds, the fish in the streams, everything. And so it’s a very, very important place.”
Rebecca Robles, president of Friends of Puvungna and member of the Acjachemen Nation, spoke with The Long Beach Current about the sacred site and its history with the school. Photo credit: Justin Enriquez
Lawsuit against CSULB
In fall of 2019, Long Beach State “dumped 6,400 cubic yards of construction dirt and debris on Puvungna,” resulting in a lawsuit against the university by the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation – Belardes and the California Cultural Resources Preservation Alliance, Inc., according to a settlement brief written by the plaintiffs’ law firm, Schute, Mihaly and Weinberger.
The 2021 settlement requires CSULB to establish a conservation easement that prevents any development, ensuring the site will be preserved for cultural and religious practices.
Throughout 2023, Cultural Resource Director for the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation – Belardes, Joyce Stanfield Perry and the tribes’ attorney, Sarah M. Lucey, met with university administration every two weeks to create a Request for Proposal that would serve as an application for official stewardship of the sacred site.
“It was probably nine months, close to a year, that we were working on the draft of that document,” Lucey said.
The sole organization that applied was Friends of Puvungna, a nonprofit formed in 2019 in response to the initial debris dump on the sacred site.
The bid, submitted in July, was denied according to Perry for the following reasons: conflict of interest, lack of experience and lack of endowment.
“They were rejecting all proposals because they said that the RFP itself was inadequate,” Lucey said, adding, “We spent almost a year drafting the RFP to say exactly what it needed to say to capture the qualifications for the land trust.”
How has university administration responded?
Since summer 2024, the biweekly meetings with university administration ceased, with no reason for the cancellation, according to Lucey and Perry.
Then, on March 14, in response to a January email from Perry, Tribal Relations Director Thalia Gomez, another participant in those meetings, said she was open to meeting again.
However, according to Perry, Gomez specified the meetings take place without the tribes’ legal representation present.
Gomez also suggested the meetings become monthly, instead of the previous biweekly meetings.
Currently, the tribes and Friends of Puvungna have been given no information on the updates to the RFP and why it was inadequate.
The Long Beach Current emailed another participant in those meetings, Associate Vice President of University Relations/University Relations & Development, Christopher Reese, who denied an interview request and wrote his responses via email.
“…We have been acting in good faith to also secure a conservation easement manager and related funding to ensure independent care of the site in perpetuity,” Reese wrote in the email.
According to Reese, the original RFP failed to “generate sufficient competitive response” so they elected to restructure it to better convey the project and the “university’s requirements to potential bidders.”
The Long Beach Current reached out to Gomez via email twice and received no response.
Plans for Puvungna
According to Robles, the university hasn’t taken care of the land, “but we know we can, because we’ve been doing it all this time…,” she said.
President of Friends of Puvungna Rebecca Robles surveys Puvungna as she details to the Current the cultural, spiritual and historical importance of the sacred site. Photo credit: Justin Enriquez
If Friends of Puvungna is granted stewardship, Robles said she hopes to create public walking paths, have a designated area for teaching, a private area for ceremonies, an area to sit and meditate and a “total restoration of Native American plants.”
Robles, who had an interview with the Current at the sacred site, recalled something her mother would always say as she surveyed Puvungna.
“We have these ties with the land. Our gods came to us at this place. We come here to nourish ourselves, but it’s still history,” she said. “It’s California history. It’s U.S. history. And that also needs to be acknowledged, shared and preserved.”
President of Friends of Puvungna Rebecca Robles points out what she hopes to change if granted stewardship as she gives the members of the Current a walking tour of the sacred site. Photo credit: Justin Enriquez
