LOS ANGELES — On July 10, a church signed the deeds transferring a half-acre of land hosting a community center in the heart of San Gabriel — less than a mile down the road from the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel — to an Indigenous tribe’s nonprofit.
On paper, it was a relatively ordinary transaction (except maybe for the $0 price tag); however, for the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians based in Los Angeles and Orange counties, it was anything but: For the first time in centuries, a piece of their ancestral territory belongs to them.
“There were books when my daughters were in grammar school and high school that stated we were extinct,” said Art Morales, an elder and historian in the tribe. To Morales, persevering through that long, painful history is what makes the agreement so significant: The tribe is “basically on the map now.”…