Request to Gabriel Iglesias: Please CANCEL your Performance At Pechanga

Mr. Gabriel Iglesias

Creative Artist Agency
2000 Avenue of the Stars

Los Angeles, CA 90067

tel: 424-288-2000
fax: 424.288.2900

Dear Mr. Iglesias,

We are writing this letter in the hope that you will cancel your show at the Pechanga Resort and Casino, scheduled for October 6.

I’d like to make you aware of the disgraceful actions that are happening on the Pechanga Reservation.   The Pechanga Tribal Council, led by Mark Macarro, has stripped the citizenship 25% of Pechanga Tribal Members, including the descendents of the original chief of the Pechanga Tribe.  They most recently disenrolled the Paulina Hunter descendants.  Paulina Hunter was an original allotee of Pechanga and her family still resides on the reservation, where apartheid is still practiced, 18 years after it was abolished in South Africa.

I am sure that the decimation of culture, history and beliefs are not within your value system.

Stand with the disenrolled members of Pechanga.   There may be a protest during your performance date and we are informing the entertainment press about the request for acts not to perform at Pechanga.  We all enjoy your show and performances and would love to watch your show, elsewhere.    Please do not do your show at Pechanga.  Tell the PDC that you won’t play at a location that violates the civil and human rights of it own people

Thank you for your support.  Bill Cosby REFUSED to perform at Chukchansi if Fresno because of that tribe’s disenrollment action

I have included some information with this packette, but your team can check the website  Original Pechanga’s Blog   at http://originalpechanga.com

Respectfully,

  

 Pechanga's Tribal Disenrollment IS Paper Genocide and Filled with Civil and Human Rights Violations

It has been discussed that tribal disenrollments in Indian Country is nothing short of genocide of families.  It's nothing compared to the horrors in Rwanda or Armenia of last century, however, tribes are eliminating large percentages of their people.  

The Picayune Rancheria, near Fresno, eliminated almost 50% of their tribe.  Pechanga at about 25%.   The Redding Rancheria even terminated the family of their FIRST Tribal Chairman, Robert Foreman.   Tribes are small, so when you phrase it as 400 people, it doesn't sound so bad, if you equate that to say, 8 MILLION Californians or 78 MILLION Americans, you'd get a truer picture.  The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has done the same with their Freedmen population, and I'm sure many readers would be surprised to know the Cherokee to their SLAVES on the Trail of Tears.  

We've taken an article from Genocide Watch that details the stages of genocide and used them to illustrate what went on at the Pechanga Reservation in Temecula California, the tribe is led by Mark Macarro.  There is an urgent need for the enforcement of the Indian Civil Rights Act.

Please check out the links as the provide additional information.

From GenocideWatch.org: Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable (unalterable). At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.


1.Classification:   The Pechanga Enrollment committee claimed that Hunter Family was from a different set of Temecula Indians, not Pechanga. Pechanga claimed the Manuela Miranda (Manuelas) descendents had broken ties to the reservation, even though they served on tribal government committees. They are not us, they are "them" or "those people".  The similary marked people in the moratorium.

2. Symbolization:   Rather than calling Hunters and Manuela’s Pechanga, they claimed Hunter’s were “San Luis Rey” because one relation put that on a census form, disregarding the fact that so many other families did the same thing. San Luis Rey and Luiseno meant the same thing.  The separatists claimed that Manuela Miranda wasn’t Pechanga anymore, as she cut her ties to the tribe as a FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD.   Her mother died and she had to move in with an older relative who just happened to be Candarlaria Nesecat Flores, whose descendants are still in the tribe. Flores was NEVER listed on ANY Census in the 1800’s, as Paulina Hunter was. This disenrollment was targeted because of the numbers of voters, and because their family stood up for what was right, namely the enrollment of rightful members.

3. Dehumanization:   The separatist group Concerned Pechanga People (CPP) issued flyers saying Manuelas and Hunters were trying to “take over the tribe”. Which means they didn’t like the way we voted or rather, couldn’t control the votes. Hunters and Manuelas were no longer “We”, but “THEM”. “THEY” don’t belong. Hunters had been living on the reservation DECADES before chairman Macarro was born and raised in San Bernardino, CA.

4. Organization:   The CPP, includes adopted member Butch Murphy and gadfly Ed Burbee, pushed for disenrollments. Murphy had previously tried to splinter the tribe. Burbee was concerned about increasing his income from the stolen per capita. Mark Macarro, stacked the enrollment committee with those pro-disenrollment families, even allowing families to be brought up out of turn, so that more enrollment committee members could vote for disenrollment. Families who were cleared from disenrollment out of the order the cases were taken were cleared by only three members of the enrollment committee, less than a legal quorum of the committee so they were never lawfully cleared. Mark Macarro also overruled the will of the people, claiming a lawful petition was invalid.

5. Polarization: The CPP pushed for disenrollment with numerous flyers and vocal shouts at meeting of “you don’t belong here” even though Hunters had an allotment from 1890’s when the reservation was created and vaunted elder Antonio Ashman’s sworn deposition stated he knew Paulina Hunter as a tribal member. The tribe believed Ashman about the eviction of 1875, but did NOT believe him about Paulina Hunter, whom he KNEW personally. The Macarro-led tribal council did nothing to stop the tactics, not using the “bully pulpit” to bring the tribe together. They preferred the separatist view, because it meant more money for them.

6. Preparation: The enrollment committee forced all Hunter paperwork to be certified, yet accepted handwritten notes, not notarized as evidence against the family. They refused to answer when questioned if there was anything missing or were there any other evidence against us. They paid the highly respected anthropologist John Johnson to trace Paulina Hunter’s ancestry and he proved Paulina Hunter was Pechanga. They did not use his report. There was a quid pro quo with enrollment committee member Bobbi LeMere, enrolling members of her family, despite a moratorium on enrollment.

7. Extermination:    Macarro’s goal was to wipe the opposition votes out, to control his chairmanship. Extermination of families was no big deal to this man, who was a member of the Democratic Party’s platform committee. While the genocide against the Manuela’s and Hunters is "paper genocide" the reality is there. His goal was to make sure the Manuela’s and Hunters no longer exist as Pechanga. We lost all voting rights, right to attend and speak at meetings, health benefits, educational assistance, per capita distribution, elder assistance. Tribal members, who get a huge per capita check per month (As high as $30,500 at one point)that went up each time families were disenrolled still get benefits from the federal government that they don’t even need, but we who need those benefits cannot get them because we were disenrolled.

8. Denial:  Macarro had stated that there would be “no more disenrollments” after the Manuela Mirandas were terminated. He also said “what goes on in the tribe is no business of the white man”. He claimed it was “not about the money” yet the total lost to terminated members is over $250 Million. Lost to terminated members, means “found” by those remaining. He claimed that all parties had due process, when if fact, we were herded into groups, denied writing implements, denied attorneys, denied copies of charges and denied the right to question our accusers. We were given 30 minutes to appeal and again were forced into groups.   While not the ovens of Nazi Germany, the implications were clear, we were exterminated.

Disenrollment is PAPER GENOCIDE.   GOOGLE  Original Pechanga’s Blog

Casino Tribe Outcasts Claim They Were Unfairly Expelled Over Greed

 By Cristy Fajardo

TEMECULA (CBS) — A CBS2 News investigation has examined accusations that money pouring into Indian gaming casinos is bringing trouble to Southland reservations.

Two local tribes have been banishing members, stripping them of healthcare, education and monthly stipends. The tribes argue that it comes down to bloodlines, but those kicked out insist that it is really about money.

For more than a century, generations of distant cousins Rick Cuevas and Michael Madariaga’s families have walked the same dirt roads on the Pechanga Reservation in Temecula.

“We have the original deed signed by President McKinley,” Madariaga said.

Miles away at the Pala Reservation in Northern San Diego County, Gina Howard and her family have similar roots.

“My mother, Teresa Denver, we were both born in that house,” Howard said.

Although the two families have never met, they share a common story — members of both clans find themselves without a tribe.

“You’re whole community turns away from you. And they look at your like you’re a pariah,” Howard said.

“Nobody has more of a right or is more Pechanga than us,” Cuevas said.

It is called disenrollment. In both cases their tribal councils have questioned their bloodlines.

But the families believe that this is not about ancestry, it’s about settling old scores and about money.

“It’s about greed. I think it’s about control,” Howard said.

“It’s about money and political power,” Madariaga said.

Ever since the tribes got casinos, members have been entitled to a share of the windfall. Indian gaming is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry in California.

In July when Howard and seven of her relatives were disenrolled, she says that her cut of the Pala profits equaled about $9,000 a month.

At Pechanga W2 forms show that in 2005 members received $269,175.25 – more than $22,431 per month.

After Cuevas and his clan were kicked out in 2006, he says that number jumped to $30,000.

“Each person that has been disenrolled now, 250 of us, has lost $1.6 million, our rights to vote, our rights to healthcare, educational system. They threw a couple of our little cousins out of the tribal school, physically removed them from the school and told them that they could no longer be here again,” Cuevas said.

In documents obtained by CBS2 News , an anthropologist hired by Pechanga itself to study ancestry said that there is significant evidence that Cuevas and his clan are Pechanga.

The anthropologist is quoted in the documents saying that he is “surprised and dismayed that the tribe continues to maintain otherwise.”

Pechanga refused repeated requests for an on-camera interview. But in a statement, the tribe’s chairman, Mark Macarro said that it was a question of ancestry.  A QUESTION that was ANSWERED BY THE TRIBES OWN EXPERT, who prove that the Hunter Family BELONGED, more so than any other family.

“Though deeply painful for our tribe and the people affected, this correction was necessary to protect the integrity of the tribal government, our culture and our history,” Macarro went on to say.

Pala chairman, Robert Smith, did sit down with us. He said the issue boils down to lineage, not money.

“It has nothing to do with money. They can say what they want, but that is not true. Right is right, wrong is wrong and they don’t meet the requirements to be enrolled in here,” Smith said.

He insisted that he had documents and records, that he would not show us, proving that Howard’s great-great grandmother was only half Native American.

That would mean Howard and her cousins do not meet the blood requirement to enroll as members of the Pala Tribe.

We asked Smith why he would not show us the documents.

“Again, we’re a sovereign Indian Tribe, we shouldn’t have to show you,” Smith said.

But the Bureau of Indian Affairs disagrees. In a letter obtained by CBS2, the BIA recommends that Howard and seven relatives be put back on the membership rolls, saying that they meet the required degree of Indian blood.

“We’ve got a document from them that says that she’s half, so they talk about of both sides of their mouth, the BIA. At the end of the day, under the tribe’s constitution, it’s the tribal council that determines membership,” Smith said.

A few months ago Pala disenrolled about another 150 of Howard’s extended family. They accounted for about 15 percent of the tribe’s membership.

“It’s pretty clear that there are tribal members, who should be in the tribe who are being disenrolled,” said Matthew Fletcher, an indigenous law professor at Michigan State University.

Fletcher has been studying mass disenrollments and says that he has noticed a pattern.

“We’re mostly seeing mass disenrollments in California and some of the other tribes around the country that have very successful gaming enterprises,” Fletcher said.

For now the disenrolled have no legal recourse, because Indian reservations are sovereign. State and federal judges have ruled the courts have no jurisdiction and the BIA has said that it has no authority over membership decisions.

“It’s going to take an act of congress,” said John Gomez Jr., president of the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization, who is a disenrollee.

Gomez says that congress must amend the Indian Civil Rights Act to allow courts to hear the cases.

“There is no available recourse and those tribal officials understand that. Their attorneys understand that. So they can manipulate the process,” Gomez said.

Everyone agrees that that will not be easy. Casinos pour money into campaign coffers and other tribes may not want the federal government meddling in tribal affairs.

In the meantime, Cuevas, Madariaga, Howard and others are left with memories and nowhere to turn.

“Now we can’t be buried here next to our relatives,” Cuevas said.

“They just threw us away like yesterday’s trash,” Howard said.

“They have the Rolexes, but we have the time,” Cuevas added.

Although disenrollments are taking place up and down the state, we want to be clear that locally it is specific to Pechanga and Pala.

Other Indian gaming casinos in Southern California, such as Morongo and San Manuel are not presently embroiled in similar disputes