After nearly 200 years, the Tongva community has land in Los Angeles County, is trying to buy more of it, and is being sued by the state.
Tongva members were drawn to Los Angeles during the early 20th century, when Chinese settlement on the West Coast reached its apotheosis with the arrival of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. The law, which excluded Chinese laborers and banned future immigration, was an early form of White supremacy.
On Dec. 18, 1882, the government ordered the Tongva to pack up and leave for the Valley. The tribe was ordered to stop building the railroad bridge in the Tongva territory.
By the summer of 1883 their land had been transferred to the Santa Ana River basin. In the spring of 1884 the tribe was offered a choice: leave without paying anything or return to the valley with compensation but without land.
The tribe moved to the mountains, living off the land as they worked for the railroad and other construction projects through out the 20th century. In 1942 two brothers came by train on a steam loco and settled in the Tongva territory. They later sold their land and moved to San Pedro, where they were among the first Chinese to own homes after the war.
The Chinese in the Tongva community wanted to buy the land that the two brothers owned. But the state refused, saying that the Tongva were living off the land illegally.
In 1970, a Tongva couple and five other citizens filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state. The state argued that the state had jurisdiction over the lands and decided that the Tongva were living in the land, not off of it.
The state argued that the Tongva were still living off the land until 1977, when the state began sending people home. The federal government also began to support the state’s case, and the federal courts sided with the state.
In the late 1970s, the state of California and the federal government found ways to make the Tongva tribe pay money to allow them to settle their case. As a result of the state’s intervention the Tongva are still paying rent and taxes on their land.
The case is still going on. As of this week the state of California has
