Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 16, 2006 13:30:06 GMT -5
American Indians protest their ousting from tribes
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune
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 in 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 people 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, Calif.
One of the protesters this week was Donald Wanatee Sr., who lived for
nearly all of his 73 years on an Iowa reservation but, in a single day
last spring, went from tribal elder to tribal outcast.
His exile followed a struggle over a tribal casino that pitted Indian
against Indian within the Sac and Fox Tribe of 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 are often 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
Commission that sponsored the gaming conference, said his group didn't
involve itself in enrollment disputes, explaining that they were local
tribal matters.
"As an association we view that as an internal government issue. You
really have to look at that on a tribe-by-tribe basis," Miranda said.
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 were often denied recognition after tribes
imposed a moratorium on enrollments, despite the individuals'
longstanding ties, said Mark Maslin, a protest organizer.
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, and that allowed the
remaining members to see payments rise to $5,000 monthly.
At stake is the wealth created by lucrative casinos, granted by
government to long-subjugated and impoverished Indian nations since the
1980s to promote economic development and self-sufficiency. In one
tribe, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Southern
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 this week.
While fellow protesters burned sage, some even asserted that tribal
sovereignty, long a sacred political tenet among Native Americans, was
in need of 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.
"They're doing what the U.S. Calvary, excuse me, tried to do us all —
exterminate us," Schenandoah said. "It's a problem becoming bigger.
There's many disenfranchised Indians who couldn't make it (to the
movement's kickoff), but we traveled over 3,000 miles to support them."
"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
is now out of more than $100,000 a year in casino profit-sharing.
"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.
Their exchange exuded a warmth resembling a family reunion.
"I never voted for you to be out," Hayward told Foreman-Ackerman. "I
should have said something. I think it was wrong."
Foreman-Ackerman, who started the tribe's health clinic years ago,
blamed another woman with "such a filthy mouth" 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."
Afterwards, Foreman-Ackerman and her husband, Roger, 65, blamed greed
for the membership purges. "Because of sovereignty, you've basically set
up a dictatorship," Roger Foreman-
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune
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 in 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 people 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, Calif.
One of the protesters this week was Donald Wanatee Sr., who lived for
nearly all of his 73 years on an Iowa reservation but, in a single day
last spring, went from tribal elder to tribal outcast.
His exile followed a struggle over a tribal casino that pitted Indian
against Indian within the Sac and Fox Tribe of 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 are often 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
Commission that sponsored the gaming conference, said his group didn't
involve itself in enrollment disputes, explaining that they were local
tribal matters.
"As an association we view that as an internal government issue. You
really have to look at that on a tribe-by-tribe basis," Miranda said.
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 were often denied recognition after tribes
imposed a moratorium on enrollments, despite the individuals'
longstanding ties, said Mark Maslin, a protest organizer.
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, and that allowed the
remaining members to see payments rise to $5,000 monthly.
At stake is the wealth created by lucrative casinos, granted by
government to long-subjugated and impoverished Indian nations since the
1980s to promote economic development and self-sufficiency. In one
tribe, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Southern
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 this week.
While fellow protesters burned sage, some even asserted that tribal
sovereignty, long a sacred political tenet among Native Americans, was
in need of 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.
"They're doing what the U.S. Calvary, excuse me, tried to do us all —
exterminate us," Schenandoah said. "It's a problem becoming bigger.
There's many disenfranchised Indians who couldn't make it (to the
movement's kickoff), but we traveled over 3,000 miles to support them."
"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
is now out of more than $100,000 a year in casino profit-sharing.
"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.
Their exchange exuded a warmth resembling a family reunion.
"I never voted for you to be out," Hayward told Foreman-Ackerman. "I
should have said something. I think it was wrong."
Foreman-Ackerman, who started the tribe's health clinic years ago,
blamed another woman with "such a filthy mouth" 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."
Afterwards, Foreman-Ackerman and her husband, Roger, 65, blamed greed
for the membership purges. "Because of sovereignty, you've basically set
up a dictatorship," Roger Foreman-
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company