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Indians decry banishment by their tribes
Protesters say power struggles, mainly over casinos,
have stripped them of gaming profits
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune national correspondent
Published January 14, 2006
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Dozens of American Indians in
several states tried to launch a national movement
this week as they protested the growing trend of
Native Americans being denied profits from tribal
casinos following political disputes.
They denounced what they said was tribal corruption
during demonstrations outside the Western Indian
Gaming Conference here, a meeting already overshadowed
by the scandal over Capitol Hill lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, who pleaded guilty this month to conspiracy
to defraud Indians with casino interests of more than
$20 million.
Thousands of Indians nationwide--including 4,000 in
California--have been stripped of or denied rightful
membership in their tribes, and 75 percent of the
California cases involved controversies over casinos,
said Laura Wass, founder of the Many Lightnings
American Indian Legacy Center in Fresno.
One of the protesters this week was Donald Wanatee,
who lived for nearly all of his 73 years on an Iowa
reservation but one day last spring went from tribal
elder to outcast.
His exile followed a struggle over a tribal casino
that pitted Indian against Indian within the Sac and
Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. He, his brother
and 16 other members of the tribe ultimately lost to a
rival faction. Last May they stopped receiving their
share of gaming profits amounting to $2,000 a month
each in the 1,300-member nation in central Iowa,
Wanatee said.
Disenrollments often are appealed to U.S. courts, but
tribal leaders have defeated or deferred the
challenges by asserting that Indian nations have
sovereignty in determining membership. Tribal councils
have defended the removals as legitimate and allowable
under their constitutions, with due process given to
all.
Anthony Miranda, chairman of the California Nations
Indian Gaming Association that sponsored the gaming
conference, said his group did not involve itself in
enrollment disputes, saying they were local matters.
"As an association we view that as an internal
government issue," Miranda said. "You really have to
look at that on a tribe-by-tribe basis."
About 1,500 of the disenrollments occurred after an
official challenge by another tribe member or leader
who questioned a fellow member's blood percentage or
alleged that an ancestor left the reservation or
tribe's rolls decades ago, voiding descendants'
standing, according to protesters here.
In the other cases, Indians often were denied
recognition after tribes imposed a moratorium on
enrollments, despite the individuals' long-standing
ties, said Mark Maslin, a protest organizer.
Protesters reject explanations
But the official explanations, protesters said, are a
pretext for purging tribe members seen as a threat by
a ruling faction, frequently after an argument over a
tribal casino.
In Maslin's case, his Indian wife, Carla, and 75
members of her extended family were thrown out of the
295-member Redding Rancheria tribe in Northern
California in 2004 after a woman elder questioned a
maternal lineage of Carla Maslin's grandmother. Each
of the 76 lost $3,000 a month in casino profits, Mark
Maslin said.
At stake is the wealth created by lucrative casinos,
granted by the government since the 1980s to
long-subjugated and impoverished Indian nations to
promote economic development and self-sufficiency. In
one tribe, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission
Indians in California, annual payments to each member
exceed $100,000, according to one disenrolled family.
Claiming civil rights violations, protesters demanded
a congressional hearing to raise public awareness of
the disenrollments, but Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman
for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate
Indian Affairs Committee, declined to comment.
While fellow protesters burned sage, some even
asserted that tribal sovereignty, long a sacred
political tenet among Native Americans, needs a system
of checks and balances.
"The corrupt tribal leadership has been using
sovereignty as a personal tool to hurt you," said
protester Vicky Schenandoah, 44, disenrolled and fired
from her $20,000-a-year job as tribal language teacher
in the Oneida Nation in New York in 1995 after she and
dozens of other tribe members demonstrated for open
meetings on casino operations. At the time, her casino
rights paid her $1,500 a month.
"What's really happening in Indian country, with the
weapon of a casino in place, the tribes are using that
as a weapon of mass destruction against Indians that
oppose them and anybody else," said John Gomez, 57,
who was disenrolled from California's Pechanga tribe a
few years ago and now is out of more than $100,000 a
year in casino profit-sharing.
Losing end of power struggle
"They are planning to disenroll us and banish us from
the tribe," said Wanatee, who was aligned with a
faction that lost a power struggle over how to conduct
2003 council elections and casino operations. The
dispute shut down the casino for half of 2003. "They
are going to throw us off our land," he said.
A spokesman for Wanatee's tribe declined to comment.
In an encounter that illustrated the divisiveness
caused by disenrollments, Lorena Foreman-Ackerman, 65,
walked across a giant lawn outside the convention
center and approached a member of the Redding
Rancheria council that ousted her and 75 relatives.
Feeling trepidation at first while wearing a black
T-shirt stating "Stop Tribal Disenrollment,"
Foreman-Ackerman was surprised to receive a hug from
the council member, Jason Hayward. Representing the
tribe in this week's gaming conference, Hayward has a
son by a niece of Foreman-Ackerman's, she said.
"I never voted for you to be out," Hayward told
Foreman-Ackerman. "I should have said something. I
think it was wrong."
Foreman-Ackerman blamed another woman for starting
rumors that led to the family's banishment.
"To me, when somebody knows the truth and doesn't step
forward ..." Foreman-Ackerman told Hayward, completing
her statement with an _expression of exasperation.
But Hayward, approached by a reporter, said only: "I
don't want to make speeches."
Indians decry banishment by their tribes
Protesters say power struggles, mainly over casinos,
have stripped them of gaming profits
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune national correspondent
Published January 14, 2006
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Dozens of American Indians in
several states tried to launch a national movement
this week as they protested the growing trend of
Native Americans being denied profits from tribal
casinos following political disputes.
They denounced what they said was tribal corruption
during demonstrations outside the Western Indian
Gaming Conference here, a meeting already overshadowed
by the scandal over Capitol Hill lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, who pleaded guilty this month to conspiracy
to defraud Indians with casino interests of more than
$20 million.
Thousands of Indians nationwide--including 4,000 in
California--have been stripped of or denied rightful
membership in their tribes, and 75 percent of the
California cases involved controversies over casinos,
said Laura Wass, founder of the Many Lightnings
American Indian Legacy Center in Fresno.
One of the protesters this week was Donald Wanatee,
who lived for nearly all of his 73 years on an Iowa
reservation but one day last spring went from tribal
elder to outcast.
His exile followed a struggle over a tribal casino
that pitted Indian against Indian within the Sac and
Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. He, his brother
and 16 other members of the tribe ultimately lost to a
rival faction. Last May they stopped receiving their
share of gaming profits amounting to $2,000 a month
each in the 1,300-member nation in central Iowa,
Wanatee said.
Disenrollments often are appealed to U.S. courts, but
tribal leaders have defeated or deferred the
challenges by asserting that Indian nations have
sovereignty in determining membership. Tribal councils
have defended the removals as legitimate and allowable
under their constitutions, with due process given to
all.
Anthony Miranda, chairman of the California Nations
Indian Gaming Association that sponsored the gaming
conference, said his group did not involve itself in
enrollment disputes, saying they were local matters.
"As an association we view that as an internal
government issue," Miranda said. "You really have to
look at that on a tribe-by-tribe basis."
About 1,500 of the disenrollments occurred after an
official challenge by another tribe member or leader
who questioned a fellow member's blood percentage or
alleged that an ancestor left the reservation or
tribe's rolls decades ago, voiding descendants'
standing, according to protesters here.
In the other cases, Indians often were denied
recognition after tribes imposed a moratorium on
enrollments, despite the individuals' long-standing
ties, said Mark Maslin, a protest organizer.
Protesters reject explanations
But the official explanations, protesters said, are a
pretext for purging tribe members seen as a threat by
a ruling faction, frequently after an argument over a
tribal casino.
In Maslin's case, his Indian wife, Carla, and 75
members of her extended family were thrown out of the
295-member Redding Rancheria tribe in Northern
California in 2004 after a woman elder questioned a
maternal lineage of Carla Maslin's grandmother. Each
of the 76 lost $3,000 a month in casino profits, Mark
Maslin said.
At stake is the wealth created by lucrative casinos,
granted by the government since the 1980s to
long-subjugated and impoverished Indian nations to
promote economic development and self-sufficiency. In
one tribe, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission
Indians in California, annual payments to each member
exceed $100,000, according to one disenrolled family.
Claiming civil rights violations, protesters demanded
a congressional hearing to raise public awareness of
the disenrollments, but Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman
for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate
Indian Affairs Committee, declined to comment.
While fellow protesters burned sage, some even
asserted that tribal sovereignty, long a sacred
political tenet among Native Americans, needs a system
of checks and balances.
"The corrupt tribal leadership has been using
sovereignty as a personal tool to hurt you," said
protester Vicky Schenandoah, 44, disenrolled and fired
from her $20,000-a-year job as tribal language teacher
in the Oneida Nation in New York in 1995 after she and
dozens of other tribe members demonstrated for open
meetings on casino operations. At the time, her casino
rights paid her $1,500 a month.
"What's really happening in Indian country, with the
weapon of a casino in place, the tribes are using that
as a weapon of mass destruction against Indians that
oppose them and anybody else," said John Gomez, 57,
who was disenrolled from California's Pechanga tribe a
few years ago and now is out of more than $100,000 a
year in casino profit-sharing.
Losing end of power struggle
"They are planning to disenroll us and banish us from
the tribe," said Wanatee, who was aligned with a
faction that lost a power struggle over how to conduct
2003 council elections and casino operations. The
dispute shut down the casino for half of 2003. "They
are going to throw us off our land," he said.
A spokesman for Wanatee's tribe declined to comment.
In an encounter that illustrated the divisiveness
caused by disenrollments, Lorena Foreman-Ackerman, 65,
walked across a giant lawn outside the convention
center and approached a member of the Redding
Rancheria council that ousted her and 75 relatives.
Feeling trepidation at first while wearing a black
T-shirt stating "Stop Tribal Disenrollment,"
Foreman-Ackerman was surprised to receive a hug from
the council member, Jason Hayward. Representing the
tribe in this week's gaming conference, Hayward has a
son by a niece of Foreman-Ackerman's, she said.
"I never voted for you to be out," Hayward told
Foreman-Ackerman. "I should have said something. I
think it was wrong."
Foreman-Ackerman blamed another woman for starting
rumors that led to the family's banishment.
"To me, when somebody knows the truth and doesn't step
forward ..." Foreman-Ackerman told Hayward, completing
her statement with an _expression of exasperation.
But Hayward, approached by a reporter, said only: "I
don't want to make speeches."