FEATURE
Grounded in Place:
Honoring Ancestral Homelands in Interpreting 250 Years
Tijuana Estuary (Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve), an intertidal coastal wetland at the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County, California. Photo shared courtesy of CC BY 2.0.
Precision as an Invitation
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, interpreters are revisiting national origin stories and considering how we frame identity, belonging, and history. In environmental interpretation across parks, museums, and aquariums, we are trained to cultivate a deep sense of place. We speak confidently about geologic time, tectonic shifts, and landscapes shaped over millions of years. Precision matters. We distinguish between a Steller’s Jay and a California Scrub-Jay. We name species carefully because specificity signals integrity.
Scholars such as Carolyn Finney (2014) have shown that dominant narratives about land and geography have often excluded or minimized the experiences of Black and other marginalized communities, shaping who is seen as belonging in outdoor and environmental spaces. Her work reminds us that relationships with land are shaped not only by ecological knowledge, but also by histories of race, power, and belonging. For interpreters, this means that interpreting a place extends beyond ecology to include the human histories and relationships connected to the landscapes we steward.
UCSD Powwow Princess Alexis Weeks-Guachino offering a welcome address during Indigenous Ocean Day at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Photo by Colin H. Richard.
When Human Relationships Disappear from the Timeline
As an interpreter trained in environmental science, I was taught to cultivate awe for land and ecology. Over time, I began to notice how easily human continuity could disappear within interpretive timelines, compressing Indigenous histories into a brief preface rather than acknowledging them as the foundation of the story. Even when the intention is to create connection, this framing can unintentionally obscure an important part of our shared history.
Early in my career, many of my programs invited visitors to imagine landscapes far older than human memory. Standing with a group on the beach along the San Diego–Scripps Coastal Marine Conservation Area and the Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve, I would point to the coastal bluffs and describe the ancient seas recorded in the sandstone cliffs above. Visitors could sometimes see marine fossils embedded in the rock while learning about the ongoing processes that continue to shape the coastline today.
Yet in many interpretive settings, the thousands of years of human relationships with this coastline receive far less attention than the geologic processes that shaped it. From this shoreline, conversations often extend to the scientific legacy of the area, including the work of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the philanthropic contributions of Ellen Browning Scripps that helped shape La Jolla’s development as a center for research and education. Like many places in the United States, coastal communities such as La Jolla carry layered histories of development, exclusion, and displacement that are not always visible in the stories we tell about place.
Dr. Stan Rodriguez and Kenny Meza opening the Iipay ~ Tipai Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok at Old Town State Historic Park. Photo by Colin H. Richard.
Dr. Stan Rodriguez leading ‘ewaa structure building demonstration at Iipay ~ Tipai Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok in Old Town State Historic Park. Photo by Colin H. Richard.
A recurring pattern became clear. When interpretive timelines finally reach human presence, thousands of years of Indigenous history are often compressed into a brief transition before the narrative moves quickly toward European exploration, missions, or settlement. The land is carefully contextualized through geology and ecology, but the long-standing human relationships to that land become far less visible.
Indigenous scholars and educators, including Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013), have long emphasized that relationships between people and land extend across deep time and remain central to contemporary Indigenous knowledge systems. Indigenous museum scholar Amy Lonetree (2012) has noted how colonial timelines often compress or obscure Indigenous histories within interpretive narratives. Over time, these patterns revealed a broader structural gap in how interpretive timelines are framed, one in which Indigenous presence is compressed or obscured.
Participants in the 2025 Marine Debris Leadership Academy gathering for reflection during field day at YMCA Camp Surf. The cohort included participants representing the Kumeyaay Nation, Mexico, and the United States, bringing diverse perspectives to the program. Photo by Marine Debris Leadership Coalition.
Foundational Relationships to Place
Nowhere has this pattern been more visible to me than in Southern California, particularly in San Diego where I live and work. My family’s connection to the region dates to the development of Balboa Park during the 1915 Panama–California Exposition. During that period, my great-aunt, photographer Lou Goodale Bigelow, assisted photographer Roland Reed, whose large portrait images of Plains peoples, including members of the Blackfeet Nation, were exhibited during an era when public displays often presented a romanticized image of Native Americans rather than reflecting the Indigenous communities whose homelands surrounded the exposition itself. More than a century later, working in interpretation in this same landscape invites reflection on how the stories we tell about place continue to evolve. California is home to 109 federally recognized Tribal Nations, reflecting extraordinary cultural and governmental diversity across the state (Judicial Council of California, n.d.). Many additional Tribal communities in California continue to seek federal recognition or work to restore recognition that was previously lost through federal policies.
At sites across the region, the narrative often begins with European arrival. Visitors may encounter interpretive signs or programs that highlight Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo’s 1542 landing or the later mission era as the starting point of the local story, a framing that still appears on signage and in guided interpretation across many historic sites in the region. These moments are historically significant, but they can frame European exploration and colonization as the beginning of human history in a place where Indigenous communities had already lived for thousands of years. When the timeline begins with explorers or missions, the presence of the people who were already here can appear as a brief introduction rather than as the foundation of the story.
In reality, these landscapes are the ancestral homelands of Indigenous peoples including the Kumeyaay, Payómkawichum (Luiseño), and Cahuilla, whose communities continue to live, govern, and steward land in this region today. In San Diego County, Kumeyaay refers broadly to the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral homelands extend across what is now San Diego County and northern Baja California. Within this broader cultural group are multiple sovereign Tribal Nations connected to specific homelands, including the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians and the Manzanita Band of the Kumeyaay Nation. Across California, many Indigenous communities continue to advocate for recognition and visibility, including Tribal Nations such as the Tongva (Gabrielino) peoples of the Los Angeles Basin, whose ancestral homelands remain central to the history of that region. Recognizing this does not require removing stories of exploration, missions, or later settlement. Instead, it invites interpreters to reconsider where the story begins and how Indigenous presence is situated within it.
Where We Begin Matters
Where we choose to begin the story determines who becomes visible within it.
In recent years, a growing cohort of parks and cultural institutions has moved toward acknowledging ancestral homelands, engaging in meaningful collaboration with Tribal Nations to reshape the structures of interpretation. Within this evolving landscape, California State Parks has begun reshaping narratives at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park by working alongside Kumeyaay leaders and cultural organizations to guide the interpretation of Kumeyaay history and their foundational relationship to this place.
Yet older narrative structures remain persistent. Along the San Diego River watershed, interpretive stories often move quickly from a brief acknowledgment of Kumeyaay presence into the mission era and later settlement history. The Kumeyaay may be named, but their presence is sometimes treated as a brief introduction rather than as an ongoing relationship with the land.
Language also plays a role in shaping perception. In many interpretive settings, Indigenous peoples are still described primarily in the past tense. Visitors may hear that Native people lived here or used these lands, even in places where Tribal Nations maintain active governments and cultural programs today. What visitors need to hear is that Tribal Nations were here before, are here now, and will continue shaping these places into the future.
Interpretive programs frequently explain that Indigenous communities used local plants for food, medicine, or tools. While these statements may be historically accurate, they can unintentionally suggest that these relationships exist only in the past. In reality, many Kumeyaay people continue cultural harvesting practices today. At the same time, access to traditional gathering areas and native foods and medicines is often limited by development, land management policies, and restricted access to ancestral landscapes.
These patterns extend beyond language and timelines. Across the United States, ancestral homelands contain cultural belongings, village sites, and other materials connected to Indigenous communities. Over generations, these cultural belongings have been collected, displaced, or transferred to museums, private collections, or public institutions where they are held without Tribal consultation. For many Tribal communities, these belongings are not simply historical objects but living relatives that carry stories, relationships, and responsibilities.
Ana Gloria Rodriguez (Kumiai, San Jose de las Zorras) guiding Marine Debris Leadership Academy participants at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve and sharing Kumeyaay ethnobotany and coastal practices. Rodriguez leads the Kosay Kumeyaay Market at Old Town State Historic Park and Tipey Joa Native Warriors, a binational Indigenous-led nonprofit dedicated to cultural revitalization. Photo by Marine Debris Leadership Coalition.
Community members contributed to building a giant boat made of tule reeds using Kumeyaay techniques, led by Dr. Stan Rodriguez (‘Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, center). Priscilla Ortiz Sawah (‘Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel and descendent of Rincon, foreground) served as Indigenous Ocean Day co-designer and community liaison. Photo by Nan Renner.
Hands-on intergenerational activities provided direct experience of Indigenous history and culture. Here, family members grind acorns into meal and drill a hole into a mussel shell for ornamentation. Photo by Jordann Tomasek.
In California, this shift has also been supported by policy frameworks that encourage Tribal consultation and collaborative stewardship, including federal legislation such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which established requirements for consultation and the repatriation of cultural items held by museums and public institutions. Increasingly, museums and cultural institutions are working in partnership with Tribal Nations to rethink how these materials are cared for and interpreted. Institutions such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County have begun elevating Indigenous perspectives in conversations about collections, interpretation, and the care of cultural belongings. In San Diego, the Museum of Us has also begun transitioning toward more ethical and collaborative stewardship practices, working with Tribal communities to address collections, interpretation, and repatriation.
Encouragingly, interpreters across the region are already demonstrating what more collaborative approaches can look like. Programs such as Indigenous Ocean Day at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps center Indigenous relationships to ocean ecosystems and bring Tribal voices into conversations about marine stewardship. At the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Trinational Kumeyaay initiative has helped highlight the cross-border cultural landscape shared by Kumeyaay communities in what are now the United States and Mexico.
In a similar commitment to narrative equity, California State Parks collaborated with Kumeyaay partners to develop the Iipay ~ Tipay Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok (Land of the First People) gathering space in Old Town San Diego. The site includes interpretive panels that share Kumeyaay history and cultural knowledge with the ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay people. Nearby, the Kosay Kumeyaay Market led by Ana Gloria Rodriguez (Kumiai, San Jose de las Zorras) provides space for Indigenous vendors and artisans, creating an ongoing platform for Native entrepreneurship and cultural revitalization. Experiences in spaces like these reflect an approach emphasized by Ipai-Kumeyaay cultural practitioner Dr. Stan Rodriguez, who teaches that learning happens through doing. Participants engage directly in practices such as building, weaving, or working with natural materials, where knowledge develops through patience, repetition, and hands-on experience.
Recognizing Indigenous presence as living rather than historical can change how interpreters approach the stories they tell. When Indigenous relationships to land are treated as foundational rather than introductory, the history of a place becomes fuller, more accurate, and more reflective of the communities who continue to shape it.
Synaaw Kwetum (Kumeyaay acorn stick game) brought challenge, fun, and intercultural sharing to Indigenous Ocean Day. Leaders from ‘ataaxum Pomkwaan facilitated multiple activities. Photo by Wonderstruck Photography.
Questions for Interpreters
As institutions prepare programming connected to the 250th anniversary of the United States, interpreters have an opportunity not to discard national history but to situate it within a fuller and richer story. This reflection highlights the interpretive gap that can emerge between geologic deep time and colonization and invites interpreters to consider how timeline structure, tense, and naming practices influence belonging.
Interpreters might begin by asking:
- On whose ancestral homelands does this site stand?
- Which Tribal Nations have longstanding relationships with this place, and are they named in our interpretation?
- Do the collections, artifacts, or cultural belongings interpreted here connect to Indigenous communities from other places, and are those Nations also acknowledged?
- Where does our story begin, and what disappears when it begins there?
- Do we use past tense when describing Tribal Nations who continue to govern and steward these lands today?
Dr. Stan Rodriguez leading a tule boat building demonstration during Indigenous Ocean Day at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Photo by Colin H. Richard.
Practical Steps for Interpreters
Drawing from Indigenous leaders, scholars, and interpretive practitioners, the following practices can help strengthen place-based authenticity in interpretation. Interpretation is most meaningful when it is developed in relationship with Tribal Nations connected to a place, and this article reflects one interpreter’s ongoing learning within that work.
1. Name the peoples and Tribal Nations connected to a place.
Move beyond generic references such as “Native people” by identifying the Indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations whose ancestral homelands are being interpreted. Across the United States, communities may use terms such as Indigenous, Native American, or American Indian, while regional language often reflects place-based identities such as California Indian or the names of specific peoples and Tribal Nations. In San Diego County, interpreters may reference Kumeyaay, Payómkawichum (Luiseño), or Cahuilla peoples, as well as sovereign Tribal Nations such as the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians. Interpreters should follow the terminology used by the communities connected to the place being interpreted. Initiatives such as the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center and California Indian Education for All emphasize the importance of naming Tribal Nations and centering Indigenous perspectives in education and interpretation.
2. Extend human timelines.
Interpretive narratives often begin with European exploration or settlement. Kimmerer (2013) reminds us that extending these timelines to include thousands of years of Indigenous presence helps visitors recognize long-standing relationships between people and land. It also reflects Indigenous understandings of place as a living, ongoing relationship.
3. Use present tense to reflect living Tribal Nations.
Tribal Nations are living communities with active governments, cultural traditions, and ongoing relationships with land and water. Interpreting Indigenous presence only in the past can unintentionally reinforce the misconception that these communities no longer exist. Interpreters should use present tense when appropriate and remain in relationship with Tribal contacts to ensure language reflects current governance, programs, and community priorities.
4. Build and sustain relationships with Tribal communities.
Meaningful collaboration with Indigenous communities is increasingly recognized as essential to ethical museum and interpretive practice. As Lonetree (2012) notes, interpretation is strengthened when institutions work in genuine relationship with Indigenous communities. As leaders, interpreters can support this work by creating systems and policies that sustain consultation and collaboration with Tribal cultural departments, educators, and knowledge holders beyond any single exhibit, planning process, or administration. Trust and accountability develop over time and require long-term commitment, and when Tribal communities contribute knowledge or cultural perspectives, their expertise should be welcomed, respected, and appropriately compensated. As individuals, interpreters can also deepen these relationships by attending public cultural gatherings such as powwows, health fairs, and community events hosted by Tribal Nations and Indigenous organizations, approaching these spaces as respectful learners who listen, observe, and show support for the communities connected to the places they interpret.
Beginning the Story with Place
At 250 years, interpreting the United States calls us to tell fuller stories grounded in place, precise in language, and honest about the layered histories that shape the landscapes we steward. Beginning with Indigenous homelands creates a stronger foundation for interpretation overall.
While these experiences are rooted in Southern California, the call to name original stewards and build accountable relationships applies to every landscape we interpret.
When interpreters learn to name the original stewards of a place and build relationships with Tribal Nations, they practice a form of precision that ensures all communities’ stories and their connection to that landscape are represented accurately. In doing so, interpretation can more fully reflect the enduring brilliance, diversity, and leadership of Indigenous communities whose knowledge, governance, and cultural traditions continue to shape the places we interpret today.
‘ataaxum Pomkwaan leaders shared Indigenous cultural practices, games, ethnobotany, and friendship at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. ‘ataaxum Pomkwaan (pronounced: Ah-tAH-hoom pome-qwan) means “For the People.” Their mission is to provide community resources centered around healing and improved mental health for the continued survival of California’s Native and Indigenous peoples, their languages, customs, and histories. Photo by Nan Renner.
References
California Department of Parks and Recreation. (n.d.). Iipay ~ Tipay Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok (Land of the First People) exhibit area. https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30476
California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center. (n.d.). About the Tribal Nations of San Diego County. California State University San Marcos.
https://www.csusm.edu/cicsc/index.html
California Indian Education for All Initiative. (n.d.). California Indian Education for All. https://www.caindianeducationforall.com/
California Indian Museum and Cultural Center. (n.d.). About the museum and cultural center. https://cimcc.org/
Finney, C. (2014). Black faces, white spaces: Reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the great outdoors. University of North Carolina Press.
Judicial Council of California. (n.d.). California tribal communities. California Courts. https://courts.ca.gov/programs-initiatives/tribalstate-programs/california-tribal communities
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kosay Kumeyaay Market. (n.d.). Kosay Kumeyaay Market. https://kumeyaaymarket.org/
Lonetree, A. (2012). Decolonizing museums: Representing Native America in national and tribal museums. University of North Carolina Press.
Louv, R. (2011). The nature principle: Reconnecting with life in a virtual age. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Museum of Us. (n.d.). Decolonizing initiatives and repatriation. https://museumofus.org
National Park Service. (n.d.). Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/index.htm
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. (n.d.). Tribal partnerships and community collaboration. https://nhm.org
