This guide is a resource for those interested in gardening here in Los Angeles (USDA Hardiness Zones 9 & 10), using the Cal State LA Seed Library, and learning more about food and climate justice. You'll find many community resources highlighted throughout the guide, in addition to Library books and videos. If you're successful in growing plants from the Cal State LA Seed Library, we encourage you to donate seeds back to us to help make the seed library renewable.
We acknowledge that this seed library is situated on Tongva land and intend to uplift and share information whenever possible and appropriate regarding Indigenous gardening practices, history, and knowledge. We'd like to highlight the work of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, which is dedicated to restoring food systems to Indigenous communities and supports the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN). The Cultural Conservancy is another incredible organization that is located here in California that works to "protect and restore Indigenous cultures, empowering them in the direct application of traditional knowledge and practices on their ancestral land."
With great respect, Cal State LA acknowledges the Tongva people as the traditional caretakers of
Tovaangar (TOE-von-gar) – the Tongva world, including the Los Angeles Basin, South Channel
Islands, San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys, and portions of Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside
Counties. Cal State LA is located within these lands. As an institution located on unceded Tongva
land, we pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and our relatives/relations, past, present, and
emerging.
Consistent with our values of community and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and
make visible the university’s relationship to Native peoples. By offering this Land Acknowledgement,
we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold Cal State LA more accountable to the needs of
American Indian peoples.
Prepared by Dr. Kimberly Robertson (Mvskoke) and Tongva Elder Julia Bogany, 2020