Los Angeles, CA – TreePeople is excited to launch a new, interactive audio tour that explores the pre-colonial history of our headquarters at Coldwater Canyon Park by highlighting the indigenous names of native plants. Angelenos are invited to embrace the deeper stories of the land and join us in a planting, panel discussion, and launch event on the morning of September 27, 2025, as part of TreePeople’s The Plants of Tovaangar project.
In partnership with The Broad and Arts in California Parks, TreePeople will be installing signage for a self-guided tour of native plants spoken in the language of the Tongva people, the native language of this region. At 9:00AM, TreePeople and volunteers will plant the native shrubs, trees, and flowers highlighted in the tour along our scenic Oak Mesa hiking trail. After the planting at 11:30AM, TreePeople and The Broad invite guests to hear from Tongva elder and language researcher Virginia Carmelo, and others, about the significance of this project. Guests, and now the general public, will also be able to enjoy the newly installed signs featuring the Tongva names of each native plant species, created in collaboration with the Gabrielino-Tongva Language Committee and designed to deepen our connection to the natural world. All are welcome to join this meaningful celebration on September 27, 2025, please RSVP.
TreePeople’s “The Plants of Tovaangar” project was made possible because of a years‑long effort led by the Gabrielino-Tongva Language Committee and Dr. Pamela Munro to document and in some cases rediscover the Tongva names of native plants. This audio tour aims to connect the living plants in our park with their original Tongva names, and to share Carmelo’s firsthand account of why preserving these names is essential to protecting the culture and history of the Tongva people.
In partnership with The Broad and Arts in California Parks, TreePeople will be installing signage for a self-guided tour of native plants spoken in the language of the Tongva people, the native language of this region. At 9:00AM, TreePeople and volunteers will plant the native shrubs, trees, and flowers highlighted in the tour along our scenic Oak Mesa hiking trail. After the planting at 11:30AM, TreePeople and The Broad invite guests to hear from Tongva elder and language researcher Virginia Carmelo, and others, about the significance of this project. Guests, and now the general public, will also be able to enjoy the newly installed signs featuring the Tongva names of each native plant species, created in collaboration with the Gabrielino-Tongva Language Committee and designed to deepen our connection to the natural world. All are welcome to join this meaningful celebration on September 27, 2025, please RSVP.
TreePeople’s “The Plants of Tovaangar” project was made possible because of a years‑long effort led by the Gabrielino-Tongva Language Committee and Dr. Pamela Munro to document and in some cases rediscover the Tongva names of native plants. This audio tour aims to connect the living plants in our park with their original Tongva names, and to share Carmelo’s firsthand account of why preserving these names is essential to protecting the culture and history of the Tongva people.
“It’s not like we lost our shoes or our brush. [The language] was never lost. It was taken away from us in a very destructive manner. Our belief and the consideration of our ancestors is that the more that we can speak in their language, the closer it brings us to that connection that we have with them, but also … the remembrance of how they interacted with the land. They didn’t dominate it. They lived with it, and they helped it, and the land helped them.”
Virginia Carmelo, Tongva Elder and Language Researcher
As parkgoers listen to the new self-guided audio tour—accessible via QR codes—they will hear Carmelo’s reflections and learn the Tongva names for a variety of native plants, including the California grape, California wild rose, Catalina cherry, California lilac, chamise, coast live oak, elderberry, fuchsiaflower gooseberry, lemonadeberry, manzanita, narrowleaf milkweed, and poison oak.
TreePeople planting in Coldwater Canyon Park
This work honors the enduring presence of Indigenous culture that predates modern development of the Los Angeles Basin, and acknowledges the Tongva language as an act of remembrance and reconnection. The project emphasizes that Gabrielino–Tongva descendants contribute to current-day environmental stewardship through their ongoing use of native plants as materials for their traditional culture, art, and medicine.
“The Plants of Tovaangar project is more than signage—it’s an invitation to experience the land through the living language of the Tongva people,” said Alex Miller, Director of Marketing and Communications at TreePeople. “By sharing these names in the very places these plants will grow, we’re honoring an enduring cultural heritage and helping visitors see Los Angeles not just as a city, but as part of an ancient, ongoing story.”
Please visit The Plants of Tovaangar webpage to see where this project will live. Audio from the page is available for use in media.
“The Plants of Tovaangar project is more than signage—it’s an invitation to experience the land through the living language of the Tongva people,” said Alex Miller, Director of Marketing and Communications at TreePeople. “By sharing these names in the very places these plants will grow, we’re honoring an enduring cultural heritage and helping visitors see Los Angeles not just as a city, but as part of an ancient, ongoing story.”
Please visit The Plants of Tovaangar webpage to see where this project will live. Audio from the page is available for use in media.
The Map of Tovaangar draws upon the work of a number of scholars, including Steven Hackel, Stephen O’Neil, Nat Zappia and Jeanette Zerneke, whose Early California Cultural Atlas, a spatial-history project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Early California Population Project, developed by the Huntington Library, are essential resources. Based on a Los Angeles Times Project and a map by Sutimiv-Pa’alat. Map design by Elisa Foster at Keith&Co.
Our Partners:
The Plants of Tovaangar was developed with The Broad inspired by the Social Forest: Oaks of Tovaangar project. To learn more about Social Forest, click here; to bring this project to your classroom, click here.
The Plants of Tovaangar is funded in part by the Arts in California Parks Local Parks Grant Program, administered by Parks California. Arts in California Parks, a new program from California State Parks, supports artists, culture bearers, California Native American tribes, and communities in creating artwork that offers a perspective on our past and present and help us imagine our potential. Please visit ArtsinCaliforniaParks.org for more information.
The Plants of Tovaangar was developed with The Broad inspired by the Social Forest: Oaks of Tovaangar project. To learn more about Social Forest, click here; to bring this project to your classroom, click here.
The Plants of Tovaangar is funded in part by the Arts in California Parks Local Parks Grant Program, administered by Parks California. Arts in California Parks, a new program from California State Parks, supports artists, culture bearers, California Native American tribes, and communities in creating artwork that offers a perspective on our past and present and help us imagine our potential. Please visit ArtsinCaliforniaParks.org for more information.
"The Plants of Tovaangar reflects what Arts in California Parks was created to do — bring people, communities and nature closer together through meaningful art," said Sarah Scheideman, program manager for Arts in California Parks at Parks California. "By honoring Indigenous language and knowledge in the very landscapes where it has always lived, this project invites us to have a deeper connection with the land and inspires new ways of seeing California’s past, present and future."
This evolving project is made possible through support from The Broad and the Arts in California Parks Local Parks Grant Program, reflecting TreePeople’s commitment to cultural and ecological regeneration. This collaboration brought dozens of K-12 students to local parks for twelve interpretive tours, painting sessions with artist and culture bearer Lazaro Alvizo Jr., and a community mapping activity from The Broad’s teaching staff.
Join Us
Visitors can enjoy a quiet walk, listen to the Tongva language, and reflect on the land’s deep-rooted history. RSVP HERE.
Join Us
Visitors can enjoy a quiet walk, listen to the Tongva language, and reflect on the land’s deep-rooted history. RSVP HERE.
About TreePeople:
TreePeople is a nonprofit organization that inspires and supports the people of Southern California to come together to plant and care for trees and restore ecosystems and natural landscapes. With community at its core, TreePeople has been transforming urban and wild lands into greener, healthier environments since 1973. Visit treepeople.org for more information.
TreePeople is a nonprofit organization that inspires and supports the people of Southern California to come together to plant and care for trees and restore ecosystems and natural landscapes. With community at its core, TreePeople has been transforming urban and wild lands into greener, healthier environments since 1973. Visit treepeople.org for more information.
For more information, please contact:
Kai McDaniel
Public Relations Specialist
kmcdaniel@treepeople.org
Kai McDaniel
Public Relations Specialist
kmcdaniel@treepeople.org
