Compounding the sensitivity in Long Beach is the issue that the campus stands within Puvungna, a village for the Tongva people who called most of what's now Los Angeles County their own until Junipero Serra set up the mission system. The area also is sacred for other Southern California tribes who believe this is where Chinigchinich, an important deity in their religions, revealed himself. As a result, Native American activists have been at odds with the university for decades, especially after school officials tried to lease a stretch of Puvungna to a developer in the early 1990s.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 09, 2018 11:03 UTC