'Repatriation is not a favor'

Chumash girls participate in a powwow wearing traditional garments

(Image credit: Nik Wheeler / Corbis via Getty Images)

published 24 July 2025

'Let the dead rest. Return these tribal remains.'

Robin Satori at The Washington Post

The University of California, Santa Barbara, has "held in its possession thousands of ancestral remains and funerary objects from the Chumash Indigenous people who once occupied its land," says Robin Satori. The "Chumash community has long sought the return of their ancestors' remains for proper reburial." Every "delay, every hesitation, every request for 'more time' reverberates as a failure to acknowledge what the Chumash have never forgotten: that their dead still wait to come home."

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Justin Klawans has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022. He began his career covering local news before joining Newsweek as a breaking news reporter, where he wrote about politics, national and global affairs, business, crime, sports, film, television and other news. Justin has also freelanced for outlets including Collider and United Press International.