Casey Chang & Jackson Woodward | Daly Cal Staff The Daily Californian
Oct 3, 2025
This November marks the 10-year anniversary of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust’s creation of the Shuumi Land Tax, which lets residents of traditional Lisjan Ohlone territory contribute financially to the maintenance of Indigenous land.
The tax was inspired by the “Honor Tax” created by the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples in Wiyot territory, according to Ya Nuunukne, the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust’s newsletter . The tax was adapted for the Bay Area and launched to invite non-Indigenous people to support the rematriation of Indigenous land.
Alessandra Aprile Borriello | Daly Cal Staff
According to the Sogorea Te’ website, Shuumi means “gift” in the language of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, who called nearly the entire East Bay home prior to colonization.
The organization encourages individuals and institutions in the East Bay to contribute an amount of money based on rent or home size or, in the case of institutions, budget or revenue, toward their cause each year. Donors can determine their recommended contribution using a calculator available on Sogorea Te’s website.
“We created a calculator to help people try to take these big ideas of stolen land, genocide, Indigenous sovereignty, repair and translate them into an actual dollar amount that you can write a check for,” Luckey said.
The money collected from the tax goes toward the stewardship of the Trust’s more than 10 land sites throughout the Bay that make up about 55 acres of land.
The organization’s properties include a garden called Pinnantak — meaning “place of the bees” in Chochenyo — on Ashby Avenue in South Berkeley, in addition to a historical shellmound site in West Berkeley acquired in a $27 million settlement last March and more.
Another property includes a traditional village site in Oakland called Lisjan, which houses the first arbor, an Indigenous ceremonial site, built in the region in more than 250 years. There, Sogorea Te’ also started its first Himmetka, meaning “in one place, together,” a space for storing supplies for the event of a natural disaster and one of Sogorea Te’s many community initiatives.
“Returning indigenous lands to Indigenous hands isn’t just about a property transfer, it’s also about reforming community,” said Nicole Halvorsen, the finance director for Sogorea Te’.
Halvorsen said Sogorea Te’ encourages those who cannot donate financially to the group to volunteer and involve themselves in the Trust’s community efforts.
The Trust provides cultural education to the community, including classes aimed at revitalizing the Chochenyo language in the region and teaching Indigenous agricultural practices.
“Indigenous people are not some bygone character in a story,” Halvorsen said. “They are real and present and still around today. And the best that we can do is to be the best stewards of the land that we can.”
Published in the Daily Californian 10/3/25.