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On Friday, May 9th 2025, California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) librarians, chairs, associate deans and deans received an email from Academic Affairs with the subject heading: “Response Required: Campus Survey of Items of Cultural Significance for Native California Tribal Communities.” The email, signed by Gregorio Pacheco, the CalNAGPRA/NAGPRA Repatriation Coordinator, states:
“Pursuant to the legislation described below, we would like to ask you as a member of our Cal State LA campus community, to complete the attached form indicating what, if any, objects of Native Californian origin your department or administrative unit have in your physical possession. PLEASE NOTE: these objects are not limited to items recovered by archaeological excavation, and can include objects purchased or gifted to you or the campus at any point in time.”
The legislation Pacheco is referring to is AB 978 (Steinberg), commonly referred to as CalNAGPRA (i.e., the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act); AB 2836 (Gloria), (which requires universities to form committees to implement repatriation laws); and AB 275 (Ramos), which I have previously described as “NAGPRA on steroids” for requiring deference to indigenous knowledge, regardless of its validity. All these legislative acts relate to archaeological and historic materials, in an attempt to bring items from burial sites back to (and, thus, repatriate) related lineal descendants and culturally-affiliated tribe.
These legislative acts copied the federal repatriation law, NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). They even use the same definitions as NAGPRA for cultural items (i.e., funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony) that could be subjected to repatriation. Funerary objects are objects intentionally placed in a human burial; sacred objects are those that are required in a religious Native American ritual; and objects of cultural patrimony are items that belong to the entire tribe and have historic significance to the tribe.
It was not the intent of NAGPRA or CalNAGPRA to “repatriate” all artifacts or to affect items made for commerce, such as replicas, modern indigenous art, and artisan works. Yet, now definitions are being abandoned, and repatriation is spreading out of archaeology and into all areas of the academy.
Thus, we get this email to administrators, with a required form, to disclose if there are items of Native Californian origin in any “University unit, college or department.” Questions of when the items were obtained, where they are “physically located,” and whether they are on display take precedence over whether the items were gifts, or even personal belongings decorating one’s office space. Ownership information is being demanded: “Is the University of the legal OWNER of the objects?” the form asks.
The letter goes on to say that:
“If you do have items, it would be appreciated that you fill out the form to the best of your ability and reply by September 15, 2025, and you will be contacted by our team to assist you in completing the process. Please send responses to Gregorio Pacheco, CalNAGPRA/NAGPRA Repatriation Coordinator.”
What does process completion look like? Is it a demand to give back any items of Native Californian origin, regardless of when, where, and how they were obtained? Is the burden of proof of personal ownership on the faculty and administrators?
This overreach, demanding everything of Native Californian origin, is a violation of the US Constitution’s 4th Amendment (which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, requiring warrants to be issued based on probable cause). But, these actions will harm Californian native artists and artisans most – under these circumstances, who would be willing to buy, or gift works from California Native artists, from jewelry to ceramics to paintings? Their magnificent creations will be shunned, and all of us will be the poorer for it.
What might all this absurdity mean in practice? One scenario is that a gift, freely-given by a Californian native, may have to be catalogued, prior to repatriation; the person who gave the gift will then take it back – and there’s a phrase for that!
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