Gavin Newsom's Truth and Healing Council Takes Comments on Disenrollment TELL YOUR STORY

The Native American Truth and Healing Council includes the leader of an apartheid/segregationist tribe, Mark Macarro.  We've written many posts on Mark and the council invited comment on their agenda items including disenrollment to 

info@catruthandhealing.com

I asked on of my friends who also suffered under a despicable ruler, Robert Smith of Pala Band of Mission Indians to help draft a letter to them. YOU can copy, paste and make any adjustments to your situation SO THEY CAN NEVER SAY:  "We didn't know" as I did at the end of the letter. 
My name is Rick Cuevas and I was disenrolled from the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians under the leadership of YOUR council member Mark Macarro.

Thank you for allowing comment on your agenda item of disenrollment in your June 18th meeting. A disenrolled member of the Pala Band of Luiseno Indians has put together some thoughts on the comments at this meeting. I have added links for convenience. 

At a recent meeting of the California Peace and Healing Council the subject of disenrollment was on the agenda for about 3 minutes. Sitting on the Council as a voting member was Mark Macarro, Chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians, and the force behind the disenrollment of the descendants of Paulina Hunter (after the disenrollment of Manuela Miranda descendants). Chairman Macarro used disenrollment to reduce tribal membership, increase per capita share among enrolled members, eliminate political opposition within the tribe, and as a demonstration of power.

Commenter Cathy Cory of the Chukchansi Band spoke out against disenrollment as an act to negate Indian people and cited previous California policy that acted to negate tribal people. Her assertion is simple. It was wrong for California to negate and terminate tribal people then and it is wrong now. Since those times, the policy of state and federal government has shifted to promote tribal self-determination, but this shift only placed the power of termination in the hands of tribal leaders. These leaders have adopted a twisted rationalization that blames previous government actions for including members that do not belong, and now they claim they must terminate their own people through disenrollment.

Disenrollment and termination have exactly the same effect. They both destroy Indians. Termination through government action was historically at the tribal level, and disenrollment is at the individual level, but the end result of both is the negation of tribal identity, community, heritage, and access to government programs and services.

 The state recognizes the harm inflicted by policies of negation and termination. The goal of the Peace and Healing Council is to mend the relationship between the state and the victims of these policies, and the matter of disenrollment should be a strong focus. Unfortunately the state has continued its policy of negation by playing hands off with tribes that disenroll. There was one response from the Council members; it came from Carmen Lucas and was non-committal. There was no resulting action, no promise to address the issue, not even the whisper of a desire to work towards peace and healing.

So what does the Peace and Healing Council do? If tribal genocide doesn’t get a rise out of them, then they are not working to promote the intent of the Council and the state is wasting its time and money. 

Cuevas:  I have a website on tribal disenrollment Original PEchanga Blog which has over 3700 posts during the past 14 years.  I have convenient links to California disenrollment stories on the left side bar. As you get further into the tribal disenrollment issues, these links provide good research opportunities.

A last question, should Mark Macarro have a VOTE on any disenrollment issue, or should he be recused.

Rick Cuevas

Original Pechanga blog

Voting member Macarro should be recused from any disenrollment vote.