Original Pechanga Blog's 4,000th Post: A Paper Genocide (Lament of the Disenrolled Indian) by Kent Appel

This is my 4,000th post since 2007 for Original Pechanga Blog, PROUD to have our cousin's song on tribal disenrollment here for you .  PLEASE click the youtube link to listen.  His words are below.

My cousin, Kent Appel, who contributes greatly to the comment section at Original Pechanga Blog, as 'AAMOKAT' , is also a songwriter and poet.  
His song on Disenrollment NAILS IT  The words are STRONG, you can hear Kent sing it on his YOUTUBE page.

"Casino people, Shameful Tribe, Betrayed Your Own, A Paper Genocide."

A PAPER GENOCIDE (LAMENT OF THE DISENROLLED INDIAN) 

BY KENT APPEL (‘AAMOKAT)

WE WERE ONE INDIAN NATION
WHEN THEY PUT US ON OUR RESERVATION
WE WERE AT ONE WITH THE LAND
BUILT OUR HOMES WHEN THERE WAS ONLY SAND

Winnemucca Indian Colony EVICTS and BANISHES ELDERS WITHOUT TRIAL

 NEWS from  Water Protectors Legal Collective (WPLC) & NEVADA LEGAL SERVICES:

Winnemucca Indian Colony, Paiute and Shoshone lands, Nevada, U.S.A — The Winnemucca Indian Colony is an Indian Colony created by the 1916 executive order of Woodrow Wilson and an act of 1928 Congress for homeless Paiute and Shoshone Indians to live and work nearby the developing railroad and town in far northwest Nevada. While the history of the Colony is complex, it is undisputed that Residents engaged in self-governance of their homelands until the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and others asserted involvement in the group’s affairs. The community has suffered from years of litigious disputes, harassment, and violence over who has authority over the Winnemucca Indian Colony. See generally Winnemucca Indian Colony v. United States of America Department of the Interior ex rel Ayers, (9th Cir. No. 18017121).

In November 2021, the disputed Interim “Rojo” Council filed the first case in the newly-created Winnemucca Tribal Court seeking the eviction of fourteen long-term Paiute and Shoshone Elders and Residents from their homelands. Attorneys from Nevada Legal Services and Water Protector Legal Collective have been representing these Elders and Residents. Attorneys, Elders, and Supporters alike believed that there would be a trial of the eviction claims in December 2022 wherein the Elders could present evidence of the history, relations, rights, and customs allowing them to remain on the land they have occupied and lived on, some for generations.

On Friday, December 2, 2022, a hearing was held wherein the Winnemucca Tribal Court summarily evicted the Elders and Residents without a trial, banished several people, and found for the Tribal Council without giving the Elders and Residents the benefit of a trial. As the proceedings were going on, some of the Elders and Residents were excluded from the zoom hearing when the decision was announced.

The official court order outlines many issues including: the denial of Defendant-Residents’ requests for dismissal, summary judgment granted allowing the disputed tribal council to evict and banish Elders and Residents, and evicted Elders and Residents will need to pay over $30,000 each in fines. The tribal court also ordered most Elders and Residents to leave the homes they have lived in for decades by Friday, December 9, 2022.

The conclusions and orders entered by the Court are incorrect and based on evidence not disclosed during the discovery or litigation process; the denial of a trial is an affront to legal fairness and due process, and many elements of the Court’s order are in contravention of international human rights standards and the rights and protections guaranteed by the Winnemucca Constitution, the Indian Civil Rights Act, and commonly understood notions of Due Process. The past year of litigation has involved intense, ongoing repression of the Elders, Residents, and the people who support them. WPLC and NLS continue to represent the Elders and Residents and are seeking an immediate stay of the decision and eviction order while the case continues on appeal.

Regarding the Court’s eviction order, Paiute Elder Resident JJ Ayer said “I am of seven generations of Native people that have lived on the Winnemucca Indian Colony. I was born and raised in Winnemucca, and my family alone outnumbers the whole list of eligible voters; when I was on the Tribal council we had 179 eligible voters, now none of the people who have lived here for over 40 years can even vote. This is wrong in every way, most of us are disabled and old with no other home but here and now we are banished from our land.”

Right The Wrongs on Tribal Disenrollment. MY Fight to Honor My Pechanga Ancestors.

From the dungeon of injustice, I fight for YOU.

FOR justice's sake, I will give my last breath and posts FOR ALL disenrolled and violated Native People.

I WILL NOT QUIT

                                                              Rick Cuevas

People ask me, WHY don't you quit?  Move on with your life.  Well, why should I?  Because it's hard?  Part of my life IS fighting for my rights to belong, per the Pechanga Tribal Constitution, the same constitution the then tribal council acted outside of, detailed in the link above. 

Tribes have a sovereign right to determine membership.  Just as South Africa had a sovereign right to be an apartheid nation, which, my Pechanga tribe certainly is.  Sovereign right doesn't make it right

My name is Rick Cuevas, my great great grandmother, pictured below was an ORIGINAL PECHANGA Temecula Person, PAULINA HUNTER.  How do we know?    Pechanga hired renowned expert, Dr. John Johnson to research her ancestry.   His  2006 statement on how wrong the Pechanga Enrollment Committee was to posthumously strip her tribal heritage is HERE.   The full letter here .  Pechanga Chairman Macarro stated that "tribes know their own history"  If that were true, why did the TRIBE hire Dr. Johnson?  I've been coming to the Temecula Indian Reservation since Chairman Macarro was in diapers, now I must come through a guard gate to visit family.

Paulina Hunter

Disappointing that we can get many to say disenrollment is wrong, or we were abused, but we can't get enough to actually do more to fight for themselves.  I've been asked, WHY WON'T SOMEONE DO SOMETHING?   Well, we have and we DID, where were they?

Me holding sign

I am 65 years old now, I was disenrolled when I was 49 (In fact, I got my notice on my birthday)  I AM STILL HERE.  Enterprise Rancheria, Robinson Rancheria, Grand Ronde HAVE ALL restored the rights of those they disenrolled.  THERE have been positive outcomes because THEY WORKED HARD to keep the pressure on. There are 11,000 of us, that should be plenty of weight behind our struggle.     PLEASE, honor your ancestors. 

SILENCE ISN'T GOLDEN, but akin to GIVING UP NEVER GIVE UP

Tribal Disenrollment; GRAND RONDE LIGHTS the Path on Ending Disenrollment

 We published story after story on the Grand Ronde when the tribe took the despicable and unlawful action to disenroll some of their members.  Tribal Courts ruled against the council.  And the descendants of Tumulth were restored to the tribe

Now, INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY has this story  up on the END to disenrollments

Being Indigenous and living in the homelands of her ancestors is the most important part of Erin Bernando’s identity.

It’s a history she can trace back to Ta-hon-nah Tumulth, a chief of a Chinook band of Cascade Indians who signed the Willamette Valley treaty in 1855 and lived near present-day Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge. The treaty that Ta-hon-nah Tumulth signed led to the formation of a reservation for what would become the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

Yet, that connection to Chief Tumulth would be used against Bernando and dozens of her relatives during one of the most divisive periods of the tribe’s modern history. That painful period exposed broad disagreement over how the tribe determines its formal requirements for belonging that persist today.

Despite being part of negotiations for the 1855 treaty, the U.S. government executed Tumulth before he was able to move to the reservation. Residency there would eventually become an enrollment requirement — and the basis the tribe used in 2014 to revoke citizenship for Bernando and 85 of Tumulth’s other descendants.

READ the full story at the link above.  And learn more about the original disenrollment here  and here 

Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians and UCLA Agree on Traditional Tribal Ways for Tending Campus

A new agreement between UCLA and members of the Gabrielino Tongva tribe ensures that the traditional tribal ways of tending to campus land will be practiced and that descendants of the original inhabitants of the land shall have access to it.

CBS NEWS ARTICLE HERE

In 2019 UCLA implemented an acknowledgement, now used during campus events and in official communications, that the campus is located on the traditional, ancestral lands of the Tongva. The new agreement is one of a series of recent developments at UCLA and across the University of California, that expand access to education for Native students.

The university has occupied the tribal land for nearly 100 years and not only will it be open to descendants of the original inhabitants for ceremonial events, workshops and educational opportunities, but will also be cared for and landscaped with planting, harvesting and gathering opportunities in accordance with tradition.

"It is with our deepest gratitude that we, the Gabrielino/Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, enter into a partnership with UCLA," said Anthony Morales, tribal chairman. "There are those that speak words and those that follow up with action. When action is taken, healing can begin. This is the first step of many that are needed to ensure our tribal members and ancestral home lands have a shared space where gathering can occur. We look forward to future endeavors and continued partnership with UCLA."

UCLA is one of a handful of colleges and universities across the country that are formalizing such agreements with tribal communities. The memorandum addresses several goals expressed during listening sessions with the community.

BLACK Muscogee Creek Freedmen Get Day In Court But NO RULING On Treaty Rights DO THE RIGHT THING Judge

MUSCOGEE CREEK TREATY 1866
 
 “Persons of African descent…shall have and enjoy all the rights and privileges of native citizens, including an equal interest in the soil and national funds, and the laws of the said nation shall be equally binding upon and give equal protection to all such persons, and all others, of whatsoever race or color, who may be adopted as citizens or members of said tribe.”

MUSCOGEE CREEK ATTORNEY GENERAL 2022

Not so fast there, you African descended people. We didn't really MEAN IT.

Geri Wisner
Muscogee Creek AG

The BLACK WALL STREET TIMES has a very complete story on the hearing into the treaty violations against the slave descendants of the Confederate supporting Creek Nation still performing discrimination against African Americans who rightfully belong.

Excerpts: 

As one of Five Tribes in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) who enslaved people of African descent, the Muscogee Creek Nation (MCN) signed a treaty in 1866 with the U.S. government. The treaty required the tribe to give full citizenship rights to their melanin-rich relatives, both free and enslaved Black Creeks, and their descendants.

Yet in 1979, the MCN rewrote its constitution, effectively eliminating Black Creeks and their descendants from being recognized as tribal members. Today, those descendants are considered Creek Freedmen without any rights or benefits, and Thursday’s court hearing represented a push to eliminate the racial apartheid. 

Mr. Allen Mitchell
Creek Freedman
2009 Protest at 
Pechanga in Temecula CA

For the last four decades, Black Creeks have fought for their rights. Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons is a Black Creek descendant whose fourth great-grandfather helped negotiate the 1866 treaty. He argued on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“We were hoping that the discrimination would stop today with this hearing,” attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons told The Black Wall Street Times inside the courtroom shortly after the ruling. “Our judge said she’s not going to make that determination today. She’s going to take everything we studied under advisement, and she will issue a ruling.”

READ THE REST at the link above, to see RACISM in ACTION

It's time to #RightTheWrongs  but let's bet the farm that the MCN Judge will kick this can down the road and NOT do the right thing.
Read how/why

JONODEV CHAUDHURI AMBASSADOR OF THE MUSCOGEE (CREEK) NATION Testifies Against Honoring Treaty

Gavin Newsom Gives CA Tax Dollars To Rich Pala Band of Mission Indians Casino Tribe For:

HOMELESSNESS?  Why are ANY tribal people HOMELESS?

REMEMBER when casino Tribes PROMISED Californians they would help balance our budget, if we gave them expanded gaming?

Pala Casino Spa Resort

Why is Governor GAVIN NEWSOM giving the rich casino tribe The Pala Band of Mission Indians OUR money to help tribal HOMELESSNESS?     This is the same Pala tribe that EVICTED their own people.  They have a 500 room hotel with 84 suites, PERFECT for their own people to end their homelessness.  Last report is per capita for Pala is nearly $60,000 per year


This is the same Pala Tribe that stripped the citizenship of 150+ of their tribal people and stole their per capita. (read tribal disenrollment is bloodless genocide)

ICWA: Disenrollment Keeps Native Families From Fostering Native Children

 One more thing that tribes take away from Native Americans they disenroll from their tribes.  THE RIGHT TO FOSTER Native Children.  I had a discussion in the comments of Stephanie Benally who is on the Board of Directors at Utah Tribal Relief Foundation putting out a call for help under ICWA. 

Stephanie's post included this urgent message

There is an immediate need for a kinship/foster Native American home for a newborn baby. 

The potential Native American kinship parent needs to be an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe. The parent needs to be able to pass a background check and be a Utah resident.

NOT IN UTAH
you Disenrolled

DO not shoot the messenger here,  Stephanie was putting out a call for help.   Looks like Utah's Mixed Blood Uintah  can't help.  When Pechanga disenrolled us, they said, "we aren't saying you're not native"  well we were UNRECOGNIZED by the feds.