An outside investigator’s report on West Covina’s botched centennial Indigenous land acknowledgment has concluded that while city officials did not act with implicit bias or “overt discrimination,” one councilmember’s characterization of the ceremony as “too political” along with other officials’ comments were so offensive to the planned tribal guest speaker that they prompted her to pull out of the event.
In the aftermath of the February centennial, the cancellation of the acknowledgment — and blessing from the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California — sparked an outcry from many in the region’s Indigenous community.
During Feb. 21’s City Council meeting, a heated three hours of public comment was critical of Mayor Rosario Diaz and City Councilman Tony Wu for what appeared as their role in discouraging the ceremony.
Public criticism culminated in an apology from the city manager and the council’s approval of an investigation into how and why the centennial celebration programming was planned and ultimately fell apart. Questions also focused on whether the entire City Council had been informed and who authorized the program in the first place. The city manager’s office was instructed to hire an outside investigator.
The investigation — conducted by the JL Group, LLC, at the behest of the city manager’s office and which is on the agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting — shed light on actions of city staffers and elected officials that led to the botched prayer.
It confirmed that the night before the Feb. 18 centennial event, the city manager’s office approved the addition of the acknowledgment, requested at the “last minute” by Councilmember Brian Tabatabai. The request was accommodated through Assistant City Manager Roxanne Lerma, who was organizing the centennial.
According to the report, local resident Jamie Rocha, of the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California, had reached out to Tabatabai and offered to facilitate the land acknowledgement ceremony.
Lerma — who was under no obligation to obtain pre-approvals from the City Council for any of the performers, guests, or vendors for the event — was tasked by Carmany to be inclusive of all cultural, racial, religious, and ethnic groups within West Covina and had already brought Chinese Dragon Dancers, Folklorico Performers, Filipino-American and Latin groups into the event, according to the report.
As such, after checking with Rocha what the ceremony would be, Lerma offered Rocha a time slot to offer what was supposed to be a land acknowledgement with council members that “acknowledges the Indigenous people as the original caretakers of the lands we now reside on.”
Rocha accepted a booth location and the time slot for program, according to the report.
While only one councilmember — Tabatabai — was aware of the land acknowledgement prior to the event, nothing found during the investigation indicated that any other programming passed through the council ahead of time or that the other councilmembers were required to be told in advance.
Still, it was that fact that riled other councilmembers.
On the day of, according to the report, Tabatabai joined Rocha, but as the council members assembled near the main stage, a bemused Wu approached asking what was going on, stating “this was not the time or place for a political statement,” and questioned why the larger council was not informed of the moment.
On the night of the event, urgent calls were made. Approvals were affirmed. But by then, the back-and-forth among city officials soured Rocha on doing an acknowledgement or blessing in the first place.
‘Too political’?
Ultimately, the mayor, Wu, Councilmember Ollie Cantos and Tabatabai began expressing their own opinions, within earshot of Rocha. Wu reiterated his disapproval because it was “too political.”
Without approaching Rocha, Wu chose to leave the event, saying it was the mayor’s decision to make, according to witnesses and the report.
According to Tabatabai, Wu appeared agitated but Wu later insisted that he was simply tired and went home.
The exchange among officials happened in front of Rocha and her mother, who watched and listened. By the time Diaz had approached Rocha to ask about the process involved in giving a blessing, Rocha said “she was personally offended the ceremony was deemed a political statement as she felt it marginalized indigenous people,” according to the report.
But at that point, according to the report, Diaz spurred further emotion from Rocha after comparing Rocha’s participation in the event to “showing up at Diaz’s quinceanera to celebrate her own 15th birthday.”
Rocha was sent reeling from the comment, and while Diaz ultimately said Rocha could go ahead with the ceremony, by then Rocha was “too emotional to move forward” and pulled herself out of the event, as well as the booth that Lerma had secured for her.
Diaz could not be reached for comment.
Wu, responding to the report during an interview Friday, said that he believed the statement to be political not because of the statement Rocha presented — one he now says he has no issue with — but because of Tabatabai’s “agenda” and alleged support for Land Back, a movement that calls for transferring power and wealth back to Indigenous people and land restitution to support Indigenous sovereignty.
“We were here trying to unite people together,” Wu said. “Including Asian people, Hispanic people, African American people — all people are invited. We want to see the future, we don’t want to continue to bring hate. If we continue to spread hate into our children or into our community, then we cannot come together.”
Tabatabai said that while he practices land acknowledgements — and did so the night of Feb. 17 to the crowd gathered — he never discussed Land Back theory or movements with the City Council as a councilmember nor as a resident.
“That hasn’t been part of what I have been trying to do within the city,” he said. “I’ve been trying to build partnerships with people who have been excluded from West Covina and bring them into the fold of the city and that’s just going to make our city better and stronger.”
“The agenda that they’re attaching to me is based on, I think, framing of a progressive and is taking all the most extreme Fox News talking points and just attributing them to me,” he added.
Still, the night of the centennial, Rocha’s statement did not refer to partisan divisions nor Land Back theory or indigenous sovereignty.
It read: “The city of West Covina acknowledges the Indigenous people as the original caretakers of the lands we now reside on. We Acknowledge that the City of West Covina are located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Gabrielino-Shoshone, Tongva and Kizh Nations. We not only recognize the importance of acknowledging our ancestral history of our city, but to also acknowledge that these Indigenous communities still thrive here to this very day. While the history may be painful and violent to recall, it is not only necessary but vital to acknowledge this so history will not repeat itself.”
Additionally, per the summary report, she and Tabatabai welcomed any edits to the statement from the other council members before going on stage.
Wu reiterated that he left that day because he was not properly notified of the programing and, at the time, understood the acknowledgement to be divisive.
“Why didn’t they tell us we had this program,” Wu said. “The point is — where is the disclosure? Where is transparency?”
Ultimately, Wu said Tabatabai never previously approached the council to educate them on land acknowledgements and Tabatabai said Wu has never asked to learn about land acknowledgements.
The investigation emphasized that it found no evidence that the discussions or decisions were based upon any implicit bias or overt discrimination against Rocha or her tribe though the exchange, which Rocha posted 90 minutes later on Facebook, drew condemnation.
Text messages shed more light
In the methodology of the investigation, the report listed emails as correspondence used to conclude the findings.
But text messages obtained through the West Covina city clerk’s office from the night of the centennial, shed more light on the back-and-forth of city officials.
Wu messaged Carmany: “None of you are here and put this thing on without our approval, I have no part of this and you can do anything you want I am going home.”
Later Wu sent: “Mayor overrode your decision. No Political statement in our centennial celebration.”
That same night, in a Feb.18 text exchange between Councilmember Ollie Cantos and Wu, the two described Tabatabai’s inclusion of Rocha as a political stunt aimed to divide the council.
“He wants his political beliefs to be force down into our throats and approved by our incompetent (city manager) at the most (joyous) time of the centennial celebration to create hate and separation among us,” Wu said. “He is just a bad, evil person.”
During the council meeting on Feb. 20, Cantos would introduce a motion on March 7 to strip Tabatabai of his mayor pro tem title over the episode.
“If we are to do this with Native Americans, then what about slavery with African Americans or Chinese ancestors who were exploited through the building of the Chinese railroad or etc. etc. etc. it is political because it is espousing a philosophy that is not non-partisan,” Cantos wrote to Wu.
“And, before Mexico, and Arizona there were dinosaurs that were destroyed by a large comet that created the Grand Canyon, so we need to remember the dinosaurs came before people but from Mexico,” Cantos added. “But even before dinosaurs there was God who created Earth. Then who created the universe? It just goes on and on.”
Later in the exchange, while discussing which religious groups are involved in city affairs, Cantos stated, “We don’t have a mosque in West Covina. We don’t have a synagogue here either as far as I know. It isn’t against those religions. We are just asking churches to participate who are based here right?”
“Inviting Christians doesn’t mean that we are excluding others,” Cantos added. “That would be ridiculous for anyone to say that.”
Temple Ami Shalom of the San Gabriel Valley, is a Jewish place of worship located in West Covina on East Temple Way. The Islamic Center of the San Gabriel Valley, while not in West Covina, is located in neighboring Rowland Heights. Rocha and her family are long time residents of West Covina and Indigenous people have lived on the land that is today known as West Covina since before colonization.
Wu said he stands by the text messages but added that he feels that there is now a “witchhunt” happening against him.
Cantos could not be reached for comment.
The entire episode was enough for 25-year resident Angie Gillingham to also file a Public Records Act request of the text exchange.
“The fact that Councilman Wu considers ‘our’ as being the ‘Council’ for celebration, is clearly not representing all of the 105,000 population in our city,” Gillingham said. “He wants to make it exclusive instead of inclusive … If this is inclusive, then why are we singling out the other groups.”
“It just went a direction that was very disturbing to me,” she added.
Tabatabai ultimately kept his position as mayor pro tem after a May 21 vote, with Cantos voting against the removal.
Upon seeing the exchange, he said he was disappointed by the conversation.
“The most offensive part right is that whole diatribe where they went through every racial group and then you know, finally going to the dinosaurs — It was disgusting,” Tabatabai said, adding that the public deserves an apology. “The hypocrisy is galling — most of the community sees through it … none of that talk was what was best for the community.”
Months after the incident, Rocha has moved on.
“I am going to be completely honest: the whole investigation report the city was doing fell into the back burner in my mind,” she said, responding to the release of the report.
She just wanted to help educate the public on the area’s Indigenous roots, and ultimately that’s what happened, she said.
“That was my goal when I asked to do the land acknowledgement, and even though what I went through was ugly, it had me connect to people beyond West Covina and be supported by those communities. I couldn’t ask for a better outcome than that.”
The summary report is posted on West Covina’s website within the staff reporting documents ahead of the May 16 City Council meeting. At the time of this reporting, it was unclear how much city funding was paid to JL Group, LLC, for the investigation.
