TOCG Land Acknowledgement

Our team is distributed across the United States—in New York, Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Oregon. We honor the fact that all of our respective workplaces are located on occupied and unceded land belonging to several indigenous groups.

We have begun to share with you below about each of these histories and peoples, but it is our shared belief that land acknowledgments alone are insufficient. We hope you will join us in providing financial support to the suggested causes and funds below or to your own local causes, as well as continue to educate yourself and your loved ones about the violent history on which our modern culture is built so that we can collectively continue the work of reparation and justice.

We offer a land acknowledgement as an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those who have stewarded this land from time immemorial. Land acknowledgments do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: Colonialism is a current, ongoing process, and we seek to build an understanding of our present participation.

New York, New York

Our New York City headquarters are located on the island of Mannahatta. Our New York employees work from offices that occupy the unceded, ancestral land of the Munsee Lenape and Wappinger people and many other indigenous groups.

We encourage you to donate to the Manna-hatta fund, which directly supports the American Indian Community House in New York City, and also to look into the Reclaiming Native Truth project, which aims to dispel the myths and misconceptions about Indigenous Americans in the dominant narratives of our culture.

Brooklyn, New York

Our Brooklyn offices are located on the dispossessed lands of the Canarsie people, part of the greater Munsee Lenape (Delaware) peoples, who inhabited part of southeastern New York, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, and a small section of southwestern Connecticut. We acknowledge the historical consequences of the displacement of indigenous people through settler colonialism and are committed to executing anti-colonialist and anti-racist practices.

The Lenape diaspora now includes five federally-recognized nations in Oklahoma (Delaware Nation), Wisconsin (Stockbridge-Munsee Community), and Ontario, and four state-recognized communities in Delaware and New Jersey. 

To learn more about these tribes, their culture, and their efforts toward greater recognition, we encourage you to visit these websites: Delaware Nation; Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians; Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania; Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware ; The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation. We also encourage you to follow the work of the Lenape Center in New York.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

We acknowledge that our satellite office Minneapolis, MN is located on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota people, including the Wahpekute and Mdewakanton. Minneapolis, known as Bdeóta Othúŋwe, is sacred to the Dakota and continues to hold significance for Indigenous nations.

We honor their connection to this land, past and present, and recognize the injustices faced through displacement and broken treaties. To learn more and support Indigenous organizations in the Twin Cities visit the Minneapolis American Indian Center and The Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center.

Los Angeles, California

Our LA office is located on land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants — past, present, and emerging — as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. To learn more about the First Peoples of Los Angeles County, please visit the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission website here and read We're Still Here: a Report on Past, Present, and On-going Harms Against Local Tribes.

Los Angeles is the largest urban, Native community in the US due primarily to primarily to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. The population now stands at over 175,000 tribal members. Find out more and contribute to the work of these organizations: United American Indian Involvement and Pukúu, Cultural Community Services - a Native American non-profit organization.

Portland, Oregon

The Portland metropolitan area is vast and includes modern day cities such as Portland, Vancouver, WA, and many others. In this broad area, there were numerous tribes, people, and villages that honored the abundance that the lands offered. In the metropolitan area, the tribes are the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia and Willamette Rivers.

We wish to acknowledge the robust present-day federally recognized tribes of this area; the Grande Ronde, Siletz, and Cowlitz. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the Chinook Nation, which has been seeking federal recognition for many years.

The Native American community in the Portland metropolitan area is made up of tribal diversity that originates from around the country, representing at least 380 tribes. This community has a vivid history, made up of people whose journeys have brought them to Portland by ways of stolen land, forced displacement, or seeking more opportunities. 

Learn more about Portland’s native communities at the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.