Pechanga Injustice: Paulina Hunter's Descendant James Appel, Walks On at 65 Without A Tribe

Sad news this morning that our cousin, James  Appel, walked on.  James was a good Christian family man, who worked his entire life, part time the last few years as a locksmith. He raised three sons and he has two grandchildren. He had a fondness for astronomy, sharing it with his brother Kent. And he loved fishing, which he did with his brother Stan.  A longtime resident of Oregon, he would attend tribal meetings in Temecula, CA, something many resident members didn't do.

A sad loss for the family and another Paulina Hunter Descendant to DIE, without the justice of restoration to the rightful place in the tribe, thanks in large part to Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro.

James used to comment frequently, under the nom de plume LUISENO.  One of his comments was so good, it deserved his own post.  I'm reprinting it here, in his honor.

Cousin Luiseno laid out how a "witch hunt" was started by a lie, perpetrated by Yolie McCarter and Basquez Crime Family Members.   The lies were easily disproved which should have halted all disenrollment activity.   Please read.

There were several statements that were stated as "fact" in the letter provided to the enrollment committee. This "information" was said to be enough to start the disenrollment process going.

1). They stated as a "fact" that a search of the public record revealed that Paulina Hunter never lived on the reservation, and that she was not on any of the reservation census records.



This statement is so silly and foolish I don't understand why the enrollment committee even gave it any weight at all. As a search of the public record revealed to the committee that she not only lived on the reservation, but that she was on all the census records until her death, recorded as a Temecula/Pechanga Indian.

2) Also stated as "fact" that public records found no evidence that Paulina Hunter had no Indian ancestry, much less Pechanga Temecula Indian ancestry (they stated that she was some white woman from Ohio) has also been PROVEN as WRONG, not only by certified documents showing her on the Indian census rolls for Temecula Pechanga for many years from 1893 until her death in 1899, but by deposition given by Dolores Tortuga and Jose David Rodriguez in 1915 that they knew her as a member of the tribe. I won't even address that the person THEY hired, they hired not us, also came to the conclusion that she was 100% Temecula/Pechanga Indian.

3). The deposition given by one of the oldest members of the Pechanga tribe Antonio Ashman in 1979 that he knew Paulina Hunter to be a member of the Band should not be taken lightly. As our chairman stated so well in the tribal meeting on June 2005 we should listen to elders when they say something, and when someone as old and respected like Antonio Ashman speaks we should listen (our chairman's own words).

The CPP repeatedly state that it is oral tradition of tribal recognition not written documents (of which we have provided in abundance), they say oral unless the person who gives the oral statement is dead or disagrees with there own stand.

The Hunter Family has been members of the Pechanga Band from its very beginnings, even before they were forced to relocate to the area known as Pechanga. We were members in the Original Temecula Village before the relocation to the area known as Pechanga (this is easily verified from official certified documents on file).   It has only been recently that the Hunter family has been put into question by a very small minority in the tribe.

You might ask me if its a very few why hasn't the rest of the tribe put a stop to it. Well they did try a little over a year ago, in the largest gathering of our tribe in history they voted to STOP the disenrollment of the Hunter Family and to remove the disenrollment process from tribal law. Well this so shocked the small minority who had been trying to wrest control of the tribe from its members that they canceled all meetings for the next few months, and in secret behind closed and locked doors decided to overthrow the Tribes vote and continue with the disenrollment process. Once they had the Hunter family out they now have pretty much insured there control and takeover of the tribe as they further pad tribe membership with those new members whom they secretly enroll who will agree with there agenda.

How can they disenroll the Hunters when there was no disenrollment process in Tribal law? It was almost a year after the Tribe voted to end all disenrollment processes, and remove it from Tribal law that we were disenrolled.

It seems to me that since there was no disenrollment process in Tribal law, and it was voted to make it illegal to disenroll anyone (the disenrollment of the Hunters coming almost a year after this was passed into Tribal law) that this would make there disenrollment ILLEGAL.

HE added more in the comments section:

I remember one of the Chairman's favorite sayings after a vote was taken "The will of the people has spoken". But when the vote to remove disenrollment from Tribal Law and make it illegal to disenroll anyone (including the Hunter Clan) was taken and passed overwhelmingly by the General Membership, our wonderful Chairman didn't make his cute little statement. Instead he stormed out of the meeting hall. He was so angry he no longer had control of the voting membership. And using his heavily armed hired thugs, hid himself behind locked doors canceled further General Membership meetings, and came to the conclusion that his will trumped the General Membership's and disenrolled us anyways.

And....BOOM:On my last statement it should have read "we were not allowed to provide any new evidence", because obviously if allowed, those would have also been easily disproved.

Also concerning my brother Aamokat statement " two of the ways listed as proving tribal membership included a recognized tribal member vouching for an applicant... and being a direct lineal descendant of an original allottee " were ways listed as proving tribal membership. Those two facts alone should have ended the disenrollment process.