After the defeat of a similar bill introduced last year, a state Assembly member is introducing a new proposal to return ancestral land to the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians. The bill introduced by Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego) in February 2025 failed in the appropriations committe e. Alvarez announced last week that he will revisit the effort with Assembly Bill 2770. For the last few years, leaders with the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians have advocated for returning the 50-acre San Pasqual Battlefield State Park to tribal ownership. Tribal leadership hopes to use the land to teach their younger generation about the band’s history, said Stephen Cope, chairman of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians. “It would be huge because we would be able to showcase our history and how we survived,” he said. “It’s part of our history.” San Pasqual Battlefield Park is a 50-acre park that was originally set aside not as a monument to war, but as a place of reflection of the human ideals, actions, and passions that can drive nations to bloodshed. (John Gastaldo / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park sits about eight miles from Escondido along Highway 78 in the San Pasqual Valley. The park commemorates the 1846 Battle of San Pasqual, which occurred during the Mexican-American War. The state park has been closed for years. Most of the 50-acre site is owned by the city of San Diego and leased to California State Parks in an agreement that runs through 2033. The state owns nearly four acres. The new Assembly bill specifically calls for the state to transfer ownership of the parcels it owns to tribal leadership at no cost and encourages San Diego to transfer the remaining land to the tribe, in which case the state would relinquish its lease on the land. The land being discussed is only a small part of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians’ original land, which also included where the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park is now. Tribal leadership has no plans to ask for the land where the animal park is now, largely because they consider the zoo to be good stewards, Cope said. “We have a good working relationship,” he said. “We don’t want to do anything to disrupt that. We’re proud of what they’re doing.” Though tribal leaders have wanted to petition for the return of the sites for years, they were inspired by moves Gov. Gavin Newsom has made in the last few years to make grants available for tribal land projects, including the return of ancestral lands, Cope said. When he announced the grants in 2023, Newsom said they were an effort to right historical wrongs and address climate concerns. “These awards are an acknowledgment of past sins, a promise of accountability, and a commitment to a better future – for the land and all its people, especially its original stewards,” he said in a prepared statement at the time. The history of the ownership of the land goes back nearly 200 years. The Mexican government established a civil pueblo for the tribe in 1835, 13 years before California became a territory of the United States. In 1870, the U.S. government granted the land to the tribe as a reservation, but that was rescinded a year later. In 1891, Congress passed a law that established a reservation for the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians. However, the reservation was sited incorrectly, and the tribe was forcibly removed from the San Pasqual Valley to where the reservation is currently located. Cope said he has been pleased to see the amount of support the effort has gotten from San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, the Escondido City Council, and other local agencies. “We have a lot of support, and it goes a long way,” he said. ...read more read less