Rematriating Ohlone Land in the East Bay

Sogorea Te' Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Lisjan Ohlone land in the East Bay to Indigenous stewardship, a practice it calls rematriation. It created the Shuumi Land Tax, a voluntary annual contribution that non-Indigenous residents and institutions living on Ohlone territory pay to fund land return and cultural revitalization, marking ten years of the program in 2024. In 2023, a partnership with Movement Generation returned a 43-acre property in unceded Bay Miwok/Ohlone territory, the largest single parcel returned to the Trust to date, and in 2024 the Trust and Eden Housing returned three acres along San Lorenzo Creek in Castro Valley. The Trust uses returned land for a cemetery to rebury Ohlone ancestral remains, gardens, and ceremonial space for current and future generations of Indigenous people.