Dr. Able Gomez, a professor in the Native American Studies Department at the University of Oklahoma, gave a guest lecture in a University of Denver course called “Caste, race, colonialism” last week. Gomez works for the University of Oklahoma. The department he works in or his specialty is native american studies.
His department also examines relations between sacred sites in California and also spends a lot of time discussing decolonization, a fitting topic for the class.
He opened his lecture by telling the class to breathe, and as he said, “Every time we breathe we are connected to a web of relations that sustain our lives including the land.”
He was talking about the connections that the native people had with the land simply by breathing wherever they are located. He said that being able to breath connects us to what surrounds us.
“There’s a lot more to decolonization than what you think,” according to Gomez. As he said that the term “land back” does not encompass what it truly means for the native people to be decolonized.
Gomez discusses how the colonizers have taken, “more than just material dimensions of land,” but we had also caused them to “lose land, culture, religion, and much more.”
Gomez also talks about these groups or organizations that work to help the native peoples recover from the horrific things that have happened to them.
The two main groups he mentioned were the Sogorea te land trust and the Amah mutsun land trust. While both of these organizations do a lot to help the native people, a few things they do that is worth noting is the fact that they allow the native people to engage in their traditional ceremonies on their land, and they also provide the native people with clean drinking water which is something not always provided on the reservations.
It is also worth noting that these organizations are based out of California. This is worth noting because according to Gomez “There are more tribes in California than any other state in the US.”
Another reason that it is important for them to be based out of California is because as Gomez stated “California is indeed a golden state, however the state and the nation was built on the graves of natives.”
Also that we must allow the native people to regain “connections to their ancestral traditions.”
Gomez additionally stated that, “settler colonialism should be seen as a structure instead of looking at it as an event.”
Gomez said this is important as, “the structure is not complete because natives are still alive and can be decolonized.”
This is also important because it means that we still have the opportunity to try to make up for the awful things we did to the native people.
As Gomez says regarding returning the land to the natives and us as Americans having to coexist with each other and giving land back to the natives. Gomez stated that the concept of giving the land back to the natives would make the majority of the land native property. As he said, “I can be a good host, but you must also be a good guest.”
MFJS Reporter Spring 2022 
Describing the communal breath that everyone took allows readers to be connected to this lecture even if they weren’t in attendance. Many of the quotes you chose addressed misconceptions or misinterpretations of topics that are often discussed, such as the term “land back”, and viewing settler colonialism as an ongoing structure. You started with a broader overview of what was discussed, but then went into detail with specific land trusts in California. The final quote perfectly encapsulates and summarizes Gomez’s sentiments. This article was informative and well composed, and the links were very relevant!
LikeLiked by 1 person