Episode Notes:
Land Return is not a historical debt already being settled. It is a live, present-day argument over who gets to hold title to the ground beneath us.
In this episode, we travel to Santa Fe for a conversation recorded live on the eve of the Santa Fe Indian Market with Jodi Archambault, founder and CEO at ANPO; Dallas Goldtooth, environmental organizer, actor, and co-founder of The 1491s; and Alvin Warren, vice president of policy & impact at the LANL Foundation, in conversation with Bridgespan partner Rohit Menezes.
The conversation moves from definitions — title transfer versus co-management — to a deeper argument that land is the source of language, song, and sovereignty itself. Together, the panel presses past land return as a historical debt already being settled and toward what it would mean to treat it as an active, ongoing responsibility.
Jump straight into:
00:00 Introduction, recorded live in Santa Fe on the eve of the Santa Fe Indian Market.
03:58 Alvin welcomes the audience to Tewa homelands, in place of the show's usual invocation.
09:46 Jodi draws the line between land return, co-management, and full title transfer.
17:54 Dallas explains how “Empire accommodates, it does not liberate.”
19:49 Alvin reframes land theft as a present-day activity, not a historical one.
28:57 Jodi recounts being asked point-blank why tribes should have to buy back their own land.
33:59 Dallas on the Black Hills settlement money tribes have refused to touch.
39:22 Jodi on human rights, relatives beyond the human, and the cost of becoming “indoor humans.”
46:09 Alvin on the responsibility his ancestors were gifted, and what it demands now.
1:07:49 Alvin closes on the trillions derived from stolen land, and who shouldn't “get cheap.”
Resources:
Organizations and Institutions Referenced:
ANPO: Founded by Jodi Archambault, an organization focused on the interconnectedness of Indigenous lands, languages, and cultures.
The 1491s: Native American sketch comedy group co-founded by Dallas Goldtooth.
LANL Foundation: Where Alvin Warren serves as Vice President of Policy & Impact.
Santa Clara Pueblo's Land Claims Rights Protection Program: Established by Alvin Warren.
California's tribal nature-based solutions program: A $100 million state investment in tribal land reacquisition referenced by Alvin, credited in part to Geneva Thompson, Deputy Secretary of Tribal Affairs at the California Natural Resources Agency.
Other Resources:
“This Land”: Rebecca Nagle's podcast on tribal sovereignty and land rights, referenced by Alvin.
