WHEREAS, June 2, 2024, marks the centennial of the federal Indian Citizenship Act of 1924; and

WHEREAS, The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, signed by President Calvin Coolidge, granted citizenship to Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States; and

WHEREAS, On June 2, 1924, Alice Piper from the Big Pine Paiute Tribe made history by winning a California Supreme Court case known as Piper v. Big Pine School District of Inyo County, initiating the integration of Native American students at Big Pine High School in Big Pine, California. Piper sued the district for the right to attend on the grounds that Piper’s 14th Amendment rights had been violated. The California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Piper’s favor on the same day that the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was signed; and

WHEREAS, On June 2, 2014, the 90th anniversary of Alice Piper’s victory, the Big Pine Paiute Tribe and the Big Pine Unified School District commemorated the landmark case with the unveiling of a statue on the property of the same school grounds where Piper was originally denied the right to attend in 1923. Today, the majority of the students who attend Big Pine High School are Native American; and

WHEREAS, June 18, 2024, marks five years since Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-15-19, which gave a formal apology on behalf of the citizens of the State of California to all California Native Americans for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect California inflicted on tribes; and

WHEREAS, Executive Order N-15-19 established the Truth and Healing Council to bear witness to, record, examine existing documentation of, and receive California Native American narratives regarding the historical relationship between the State of California and California Native Americans, in order to clarify the historical record of this relationship in the spirit of truth and healing; now, therefore, be it