Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York

Racial Equity

Land Acknowledgement

The land on which the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York (LASNNY) maintains offices and provides services within is the original territories of the Mohican, Abenaki, Wabankai Nations, and the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy.  LASNNY would like to acknowledge with respect the indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands LASNNY is located and which it provides services.

 

Consistent with the Haudenosaunee The Dish with One Spoon Treaty of Peace and Friendship, LASNNY pledges to peaceably share and care for the resources in the territory, and we are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and peaceably share ideas in this territory.

 

We also acknowledge the people of African descent who were forcibly removed from their land and separated from their families through slavery; and pay reverence and respect to them for building this country’s infrastructure and economy with no compensation or reparations to date.

 

 

Why make this acknowledgment?

“Acknowledgment is a simple, powerful way of showing respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase Indigenous people’s history and culture and toward inviting and honoring the truth. Imagine this practice widely adopted: imagine cultural venues, classrooms, conference settings, places of worship, sports stadiums, and town halls, acknowledging traditional lands. Millions would be exposed—many for the first time—to the names of the traditional Indigenous inhabitants of the lands they are on, inspiring them to ongoing awareness and action.” –from #HonorNativeLand

 

“Since our activities are shared digitally to the internet, let’s also take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technologies, structures, and ways of thinking we use every day. We are using equipment and high speed internet not available in many indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we [make] leaves significant carbon footprints, contributing to changing climates that disproportionately affect indigenous peoples worldwide. I invite you to join me in acknowledging all this as well as our shared responsibility: to make good of this time, and for each of us to consider our roles in reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship.” –Adrienne Wong of SpiderWebShow

 

To learn how you can honor native land, visit the US Department of Arts and Culture, by clicking here.

To learn about the land you currently occupy, please visit Native Land’s interactive map, by clicking here.