Native American Day is now a paid state holiday in California, thanks to a bill proposed by an Inland Empire lawmaker.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill to create the holiday, which will be the fourth Friday of September.
Several other bills the governor signed — ahead of the Wednesday, Sept. 30, end-of-session deadline — celebrate the diversity of California’s Native American communities, formally apologize for past grievances, protect Indigenous children and push for equal opportunities for tribal members.
Newsom on Friday, Sept. 25, signed Assembly Bill 1841, from Assemblymember James Ramos, D-San Bernardino. The law recognizes “the role Native communities have played in shaping the state’s culture and identity,” a news release states.
Though the day has been an official state holiday since 1998, it will now be paid.
“This is a reminder that Native people were the first stewards and inhabitants of this land we call California,” Ramos said in a statement. “It also serves as a small acknowledgement of the atrocities they endured and the resiliency they demonstrated in the face of adversity.”
Ramos, who is the first and only California Native American elected to the state legislature, is a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe, and grew up on the reservation of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which in 2025 changed its formal name to the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, a return to the tribe’s ancestral name.
Similar bills by Ramos that Newsom signed Friday include:
- AB 31 — Makes the Tribal Police Program permanent and indefinitely extends the program.
- AB 1592 — Supports the California Indian Heritage Center, run through a partnership between state parks and a tribal support organization.
- AB 1769 — Requires the California State University and community colleges, and asks the University of California, to create transfer agreements and programs to support California tribal college students.
- AB 1824 —Strengthens the tribal notice, family-preservation, placement and legal representation protections in guardianship or conservatorship cases involving Native American children.
- AB 2115 — The state’s formal apology called the Rowena Mae Ramos Act, which “recognizes and accepts responsibility for all of the harms and atrocities,” including “enforced policies” and state-backed violence, against California Native Americans.
- AB 2187 — Grants federal tribe contracting authority, exempting “state service contracts that only a federally recognized California tribe can perform from covered advertising and competitive-bidding requirements.”
In 2022, Ramos pushed the California Indian Education Act — also signed by Newsom — which allows county offices of education and charter schools to work with tribes to teach Native American curriculum and identify achievement gaps among Native American students.
Ramos said the Rowena Mae Ramos Act builds on the governor’s historic first formal apology to Native Americans in 2019, but is the first time the state legislature and courts have apologized. He cited California’s “war of extermination” against Native tribes in the mid-1800s, when tribes were removed from their land and state laws made separating families easier.
“While we can never undo the wrongs of the past, the State has a responsibility to confront them with honesty,” he said in the release.
Other laws signed Friday support recognition of and opportunities for Indigenous groups.
AB 1641, by Inland Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, recognizes state tribal colleges and universities as an official part of California’s public higher education system.
And AB 2507 — by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove — makes permanent the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs, established by Newsom in 2022, with a tribal advisory committee that works with state agencies and tribal governments.
Calvin Hedrick, director of policy, training and tribal relations for the California Native Vote Project, which supported the holiday bill, said in the release that as someone who works with tribal communities and youth, he recognizes “the importance of being seen … the importance of society, knowing that we are still here and our history matters and that our culture is valued.”
“We’ve suffered through generations of efforts to eliminate us and erase our history and who we are as Native people,” he added.