Land acknowledgement mural unveiled at University of New Mexico May 5

Land acknowledgement mural unveiled

at University of New Mexico May 5

Kalle Benallie

Indian Country Today

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An Indigenous

peoples’ land and territory acknowledgement

was unveiled on May 5 and placed at the heart of

the University of New Mexico campus.

The mural is placed on the main level of

the Student Union Building that acknowledges

the university and their branches campus being

on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of

Sandia and the pueblo, Navajo and Apache people have deep connections to the land and have

made significant contributions across the state.

“By respectfully honoring our history through

an Indigenous land and territory acknowledgment, we are formally, and gratefully, recognizing Indigenous Peoples as a vital part of our

Lobo DNA,” UNM president Garnett S. Stokes

said. “Our land acknowledgment has become a

foundational part of our identity as Lobos, and

I am proud that today it is becoming—quite

literally—a permanent part of our very infrastructure.”

Other universities have issued land acknowledgments across the country. One is Arizona

State University, which also has a high Native

student population and Native population in the

state.

Stokes spoke on how the student diversity

today does not look how it did when the school

opened in 1892. There were zero Native students in the beginning and almost none for the

next 35 years, according to Stokes.

Then from and since the tenure of President

James Zimmerman from 1927 to 1944, thousands of Native students have attended and

graduated the university.

Nearly 11 percent of New Mexico’s population is represented by 23 federally recognized Native nations, including 19 pueblos, three

Apache nations and the Navajo Nation. It makes

New Mexico the third largest Native population

per capita in the United States.