Those boxes held Native American ancestors—human remains taken from their graves and stored in university collections.
What Piatti saw at Cal State Long Beach wasn’t unique. For generations, Native American remains and cultural belongings were stolen and stored in museums, universities, and institutions across the country.
At Cal Poly, the remains of 10 Native Americans had been in the university’s possession for years. The university returned all of them to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians within the past year, Cal Poly confirmed on May 13.
Other California public universities have more to do when it comes to returning Native American remains and objects to the tribes they belong to. UC Berkeley, for instance, has the fourth largest collection in the country. The institution has reported that the remains of at least 4,700 Native Americans have not yet been made available for return to tribes.
