STOP TRIBAL DISENROLLMENT: Which is the BEST WAY to FIGHT for Our Ancestors?

As we are 7 months from the last   and possibly final STOP DISENROLLMENT DAY.  The  #stopdisenrollment movement helps draw attention, but what about the other 364 days of the year?

Do we fight the unJUST action, or do we JUST HOPE something will happen?

Do we pray for JUSTICE or actively SEEK JUSTICE for our ancestors?

Do we wait and see while our elders die without seeing their rights restored, knowing we didn't do ENOUGH? 


What say YOU?  WHAT will you tell your children and grandchildren about WHAT YOU DID about disenrollment?

I've been writing this blog to expose the corruption of Tribal Disenrollment for over TEN YEARS.  As most of my regular readers know, my ancestor, Paulina Hunter was an Original Pechanga Indian, disenrolled 106 years after she walked on in death.



I've been fighting for ALL who have been harmed by their own tribes, and have offered my site to increase the information flow.  MY activism is DAILY, via this blog, not a once a year art project or rather visual advocacy movement to draw attention.  Our attention should be regular, not drive by.  Both are useful, which is more useful?

At a two day conference in March 2017,  WHO BELONGS? FROM TRIBAL KINSHIP TO NATIVE NATION CITIZENSHIP TO DISENROLLMENT   Tribal leaders and those who were aggrieved gathered to discuss disenrollment, government action and inaction, and sovereignty

The link above has the transcripts (pg. 93 starting.)   I received a few calls from my cousins, noting that former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Keven Washburn made this statement:

The federal government has kind of stayed out of it mostly and people have shined the light on the bad things that tribes are doing, on those handful of tribes that are kind of not getting this right. They deserve to be accountable for what they are doing, and I applaud the people that have been holding them up to that scrutiny and making sure that they are bearing that accountability in some public fashion

One of my cousins, knowing that I've written over 3,200 blog posts, told me, "He's talking about YOU!"   Well, maybe, because, I've written about Washburn many times.  Some links below:

Washburn Can't be Serious Part ONE
Washburn Can't be SERIOUS Part TWO
Washburn Can't be SERIOUS Part Three
Washburn Can't be Serious Part FOUR

Imagine my chagrin to read further into the transcripts to read this from a prominent attorney, who reportedly did some work for Pechanga:

There is a blog that I won't name that is just hateful. And I know that's pain and anguish that's being projected, but when that blog gets sent out to Congress in e-mails that Professor Washburn has received or through Twitter feeds, that isn't going to persuade Professor Washburn to want to do what's right because there's so much anger and hostility and hate in those blogs that it turns people the other way. It makes people shudder, it makes people uncomfortable.

Shouldn't the STRIPPING of Citizenship of Indians, abuse of elders and children, stealing of compensation, threats of banishment MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE?   More so than a bit of hostility?


Another attendee, noted Prof. David Wilkins had this to say about me in the acknowledgement of his book Dismembered:

RICK CUEVAS, through his website Original Pechanga , has been a stalwart defender of the rights of disenrollees for YEARS. And I extend a hearty handshake to him for his uncompromising efforts to see that justice is provided..

Three prominent voices with differing opinions.  

Do we fight?  
Do we hope? 
Do we wait and see while our relatives die without justice?  
What say YOU?