The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band held a rally in front of the Santa Clara County Office Building Saturday to protest a project in Gilroy, where the county is seeking to build on sacred land.
The land is known to the Amah Mutsun as “Juristac,” where their ancestors lived and held sacred ceremonies. The traditional territory of the Amah Mutsun was all or portions of the modern San Benito, Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties, according to its website.
Sargent Ranch Management, a San Diego-based investor group, purchased the Juristac territory of the Amah Mutsun in 2019 at a bankruptcy auction to develop a 403 acre open pit sand and gravel mining operation.
Hannah Moreno, who teaches at Patterson Elementary School and is part of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and youth group, said the area is important because her tribe’s spiritual leaders and shamans live there.
Moreno said if the land is taken away from the community, so is the spirituality of the tribe.
“We're re-entering our culture, our spirituality and all of that would just be erased. But we all are still here,” Moreno said during the protest. “It's really important that we protect everything and that we protect this land so it's here for the next set of our youth that come up.”
An Environmental Impact Report is currently open to a 60 day public comment period, allowing Santa Clara County to receive the public view of the project.
Moreno said she’s meant to protect the land as that’s what she’s meant to do on earth.
“Our creator created us to protect all living things whether that is an animal, a plant, us as humans, but protecting Mother Earth and making sure that it's here for the next generation,” she said.
The quarry would destroy 29 acres of woodland that house many California native species including the California tiger salamander, a threatened species, according to the Protect Juristac website.
“This is important to not only the tribe, but everyone in the community as well,” Moreno said.
Teddy Simon, an indigenous justice advocate with the ACLU of Northern California, said the mining project is a continued act of cultural genocide and an attempt to ratio people.
ACLU of Northern California is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that says it protects and advances civil liberties.
“You can't exercise your most basic right if your identity as a person and as a collective people has been destroyed,” said Simon, who is a member of the Navajo Nation.
She said people should not be bound to corporate interests but instead respect tribal sovereignty, tribes and put human rights and morality over money.
“Tribal sovereignty predates the existence of the United States and it's inherent to tribes irrespective of whether the federal government or any government chooses to recognize it,” Simon said.
Roman Rain Tree, a 40-year-old Fresno native and founder of Rename S-Valley Coalition, said he thought the rally was very positive and welcoming with the feel of a ceremonial gathering.
Rain Tree also believes people should be registered to vote on local policies to help make a difference.
“It should matter to all of us because what happens to one person or one community can happen to another community,” he said.
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Vanessa Tran contributed to this article.
