Hunter Cousin A'amokat raises some good points in our comment section that I though deserved a promotion to a full post. It has to do with getting a fair and impartial hearing from the Pechanga Enrollment Committee. Disenrollment of hundreds of Pechanga people by three despicable people. (AKA the 3rd Pechanga Massacre) Do you think that black South Africans got fair hearing from their white rulers under apartheid? Would Americans expect a fair and impartial hearing from Iran?
A'amokat: Article V of the Temecula Band's constitution and bylaws, sometimes referred to as the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians,says:
"IT SHALL BE THE DUTY OF ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS OF THE BAND TO UPHOLD AND ENFORCE THE CONSTITUTION, BYLAWS, AND ORDINANCES OF THE TEMECULA BAND OF LUISENO MISSION INDIANS; AND ALSO, TO UPHOLD THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OF EACH MEMBER WITHOUT MALICE OR PREJUDICE."
Irehne Scearce and Ruth Masiel are the sisters of Raymond Basquez Sr, who submitted a statement against our tribal membership, and they were closely related to at least ten other people who submitted and/or signed another letter that was against our tribal membership.
Francis Miranda was also closely related to a person who signed the letter against our membership and these three women were party to a challenge of our membership that was submitted against us before any evidence was even presented that would have warrented opening up an investigation against us.
I know I have posted this information about a million times and I have asked the following question just as many times.
How was allowing those three women to sit in judgement of us and to rule on our fate in our disenrollment case not malice or predjudice against us and how does it not violate the equal protection clause of the Band's constitution and bylaws under Article V?
We can document what I have stated by at least six letters that were sent to the enrollment committee and/or the tribal council asking for the recusal of those three women from participating in our disenrollment case but our request was ignored by both the committee and the council. How fair is that?
OP: Here is some pertinent information from a previous A'amokat post:
1. Applications that had the required number of signatures for approval (6) but were never processed. When confronted with this a committee member who was responsible for processing new applicants, a descendant of Candarlaria Nesecat Flores, replied, “I don’t care if it has 24 signatures on it, if I don’t think there is a bloodline, I’m not processing it.” OP: Frances Miranda was a descendent of Flores, and was on the enrollment committee.
2. Some 40 applications of children of enrolled tribal members were banded and set aside so they would not be processed because the committee members from the CPP faction of the tribe, who to that point had controlled the committee by having a majority, had no intention of enrolling these children. OP: Keeping children from their rightful place in the tribe. Their lineal descent was proven. This created a virtual moratorium on membership.
3. The new committee members found that there were families where one sibling was enrolled and another was not, even though both submitted identical applications at the same time.
4. Applications that were placed in the moratorium, even though the applications were submitted prior to the deadline, and the individuals had repeatedly contacted the committee to follow up on their status.
5. Refusal to sign enrollment applications or birth certificates for individuals who are members of families they don’t like
We keep working to get the story out front, the unethical tribal council of Pechanga hides behind the cloak of sovereignty. Would people stand up for Wal-Mart is they cut wages and cut all health coverage? NO, they'd exercise their moral outrage and quit shopping at Wal-Mart. Shouldn't the same be done at Pechanga, which has cut of rightful per capita payments, health care, educational assistance, the right to be buried with family at Pechanga cemetary...
A REPOST from Decemboer 2010
5 comments:
A main point about this post is that when new members of the enrollment committee, including a member of our Hunter family, were elected to the committee by the people the new committee members saw that the committee was not doing there job in a fair and impartial way. When they pointed this out nothing was done to correct anything and also when they went to the the attorney from Indian legal services for advice on what to do he said he couldn't advise them, after talking to the Pechanga general council, who told him not to. The tribal council also swept it under the rug.
So the members of the committee who had been accused by one of our Hunter family relatives of not doing their jobs in a fair and impartial manner were then allowed to rule in our disenrollment case sounds like payback to me, tit for tat, for whistle blowing on our family member's part.
They couldn't go after our family member directly so, also because our family were part of a voting block that could vote down issues they wanted, they went after our whole family and got us all, about 100 or our extended family and all of our children, kicked out of the tribe, disenrolled, on the basis of hearsay so called evidence that was refuted by credible sources.
Again, the Pechanga tribal constitution and bylaws, under Article V, forbids malice or predjudice against tribal members so our disenrollments should be thrown out on that basis alone, among others such as the evidence presented in our favor.
Also, people who should not have been stuck in the moratorium on new adult tribal members that has been in place for over 15 years now are caught in the moratorium because the committee members were not doing their jobs in a fair and impartial way.
1.children of existing members who are now adults whose applications were not processed when they were submitted. 2. adults who submitted their applications before the deadline for the moratorium whose applcations were not processed when they should have been processed.
When my elder mother confronted Mark Macro that the enrollment committee had lied to her about enrollment applications, he laughed in her face and told her "if you don't like lying, then why don't you create a petition to make lying against the law".
'aamokat said...
A main point about this post is that when new members of the enrollment committee
For those who do not know the story one of those members was John Gomez. When the disenrollment's began the order of families to be disenrolled were switched so that the Manuela Miranda decedents were first on the list. There has been speculation as to why, but it is because we were the largest voting block and we were vocal and in opposition to the tribal council. Jenny Miranda and Francis Miranda knew that the only person who could refute every made up allegation against the family was dying and as such the very year he died was the year we were disenrolled. One last fact we created binders with original documents and ribbon letters as well as authentic statements proving we were who we said we were. When we received our disenrollment letters the tribe did not dispute ore linage, but rather introduced a new allegation that My grandfathers grandmother Manuela had cut her ties to the tribe and for this reason we were said to not belong. There is nothing about our disenrollment that is credible on the part of Pechanga without even going into the breaking of tribal constitution and bylaws and custom.
Johnson is not a "credible" his research is flawed and is disputed by other academic scholars in the field. Maybe that is why Pechanga did not use his recommendations as the only reliable source, maybe they could not because Johnson is not that credible.
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