In twelve months, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe raised its flag at San José City Hall, lit its first cultural burn in nearly 150 years, won state funding to buy about 154 acres of its homeland, and testified at the Capitol. Here is the year, month by month.

Before sunrise on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Muwekma dancers and singers gathered in front of the Mission Church at Santa Clara University. The day, ÓTTÓY RÓOTE HUŠÍŠTAK, opened the mission’s 250th-anniversary year by starting with the time before the mission.

For generations, the first people of the Bay Area held no land of their own in their homeland. In August 2026, that changed. The Tribe announced that about 150 acres of grassland in the hills above East San José had come home.