On vacation this week. But while I’m away I thought of something.
On this blog, and others, I have repeatedly denounced the use of banishment and disenrollment as a means for unscrupulous tribal councils and factions to get rid of members of their own community based on little more than greed, petty family strife, and plain old petulance. The so-called “Paper Genocide” — (a term I dislike, but can’t think of a replacement right this second) — has claimed thousands of Native Americans’ identities, leaving many of them without access to subsidized health care, tribal schools, various services and casino money allotments. Currently, it is one of the great legal crises that is going on in America and more people need to be aware of it. Congress must do something about it. I’ve repeated these sentiments ad nauseum.
But, out of an abundance of fairness, I must ask: has there ever been a case where someone who was disenrolled actually deserve it? Put another way, has any Indian ever been banished or disenrolled as the result of a legitimate, non-nefarious purpose? I would appreciate some historical practices and examples as well.
The thing is, however, it’s hard to disentangle disenrollments that were made AFTER the tribe’s casino was built, or any time after the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed. The core excuse I’ve heard to date about why tribal councils want to disenroll their own members it that they’re just correcting their paper work. Of course, the retort is that why should tribes care now what their paperwork says when they’ve had decades prior to the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to correct it. At this point, it’s almost as if any disenrollment made after IGRA was passed is presumed to be tainted.
But, if there’s another way of looking at it, please clue me in.
Original Pechanga
July 30, 2012 at 9:41 am
I would have to look it up, but on a radio show I was participating in with Dr. Matthew Fletcher, he spoke of a case where a young boy was disenrolled when it was proven he belonged to another tribe.
Disenrollment has occurred sporadically prior to gaming, usually when there was a danger to the tribe. That being said, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, welcomed back to the tribe a child molester, who completed his prison term, and one, who gave hearsay testimony into the enrollment matters of the Hunter Family.
Erick
July 31, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Very interesting. I wonder what constituted “danger” in the eyes of the disenrolling tribes.
RW
August 1, 2012 at 11:15 pm
While profits from casino gaming exposes greed in our humanity and those that are just trying to get a bigger piece of the pie, it is also true that it exposes natives that have been breaking their own laws and lying to the US Government to get more money per-head, pre-recognition and casino’s.
So how are these 2 examples any different? Both examples are driven by greed (more heads = more money or less members = more money for those left on the rolls). When dis-enrollments occur, the reasons vary from tribe to tribe, each case is just a little bit different in degree’s from the other because it is people that always start and stop the problems.
In the case of the Snoqualmie Indians in Washington State, the excessive loading the rolls with members below the 1941 Constitutional requirements started in the early 80ies. At this time it was about getting the head count up for more federal dollars. The same family has been in control of the tribe since the 80ies. Currently there are an estimate of 150 – 170 that do not possess the requirements to be enrolled in the tribe. this leaves about 200 – 220 that do.
The current expired council 2 years ago ordered an enrollment audit from a well know Native American Geneologist at the University of Washington, who also has done the same work for the Tulalips and Muckleshoots (2 of the largest tribes in the NW). Now with the results in, it has revealed the last 40 years of lie’s of the Natives who have behaved like criminals since the early 80′s. And now all of a sudden its the casino’s fault?…and now all of a sudden its about greed?
BTW; the people without the right to be in the tribe, voted (voted? really?) to not accept the audit. What a joke of humanity.
Where were these cry’s for injustice and the violation of civil rights and due process when the eligible members were having their rights trampled by greedy and ineligible members being put on the rolls? This is robbery and theft by stealing the rights and benefits of those that it belongs too. And then you want to scream bloody murder when you get found out? really? Just because it has illegally been this way for 30 or 40 years, doesn’t make it right now.
Do not let the federal government make this an issue about the casino’s, because this just helps them build their case against the Native Americans even having them in the first place. These are your economic engines. Protect them, preserve them, and most of all respect the children-your future and preservation. This can be accomplished by being model citizens in your nations, not the standard and accepted law-breaking citizenry that we have today.
As of 7-30-12, the IBIA in DC has accepted the Snoqualmie members appeal, and the BIA Area Superintendent has been ordered to send the Administrative Record to the IBIA within 30 days. The Superintendent has asked for an extention of time because of the volumous data to be retrieved (this superintendent is going to be sure that his historical lethergy will not cost him his retirement, so he is going to be sure that the IBIA gets everything and the kitchen sink, to try and clear his incompentence for at least since federal recognition in 1999.
This family in power since the early 80′s stole the birthright of Chief Jerry Kanim who was Chief from 1914 – 1956 and who reorganized the Snoqualmie, over saw the first Constitution in 1941 and fought his whole life for treaty rights, long before the term ‘federal recognition’ became something to achieve, and eventually 43 years after his death fulfilled criterion (c) of the 7 criteria required for recognition based on his lifetime leadership. His step children ran off his real (only) daughter, and after she passed away, they assumed her family line identity and preceed to fill the rolls of the Snoqualmie with their own family line which had long been below the Snoqualmie Constitutional requirement for enrollment with no decendancy to 1919 Charels Roblins Roles, with many of them being found on the Duwamish Roblins Rolls of 1919 instead.
My point is that everyone crys about civil rights for those that have been disenrolled and who were put on the rolls against the laws of their own Constitutions back in the day. So how can this truly be a violation of their rights, when they legally never had any of these rights they are claiming were violated.
It would seem to me that those who still currently meet the enrollment requirements are the ones who’s rights have been violated all these years. Yes it is true that sovereignty allows Native American tribes to determine their members, but this sovereignty is governed by the laws of each Nation, which is usually a Constitution of some sort. Sovereignty does not over rule a Constitution. The Constitution guides the sovereignty.
So while the Snoqualmie does have a casino, it has been these casino profits that have exposed longtime illegal enrollment practices by Natives who have fallen prey to greed long ago before recognition or the casino. Now when these ones are exposed post casino, it is unfair to say that it is because of the casino profits, because a wrong is a wrong all the time, not just when it is convienent to ones agenda, whether that agenda was pre or post a casino.
If you want your relatives in the tribe, who currently are not eligible, then rally to ammend or change your Constitution so that this can be done legally and truthfully, so as not to damage the lives of your great great grandchildren. Don’t make them live a lie just because you choose to.
This expired council family did not want to change the Constitution because they had already instilled in the minds of the people that they were from the Chiefly line with the requirements to be enrolled, and those that knew they were lying stayed quiet so that they could stay in the tribe themselves. So before casinos came along, greed was already in full bloom, so you can’t blame the casino’s, they only amplified the social issues that have long been plagueing Native Americans and all of humanity.
Stop claiming that there is great honor and respect among Native American’s when you don’t know how to live that out, or don’t even know what it looks like in your generation.
Look at your ancestors. Honor and respect were common place in their day, and they followed the community rules that were set up by them all, in how they would treat on another.
Thats why they didn’t feel it was nessesary to ever write their laws, because their word meant so much.
RW
Erick
August 2, 2012 at 7:23 am
This is the exact reply you gave in one of my earlier posts.
RW
August 3, 2012 at 12:47 am
Sorry Erick, Initially I had wrote that comment under the wrong article so I copied and pasted it under the article that I thought was more apporpriate. RW
w.d. s
December 10, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Good afternoon, I’m a retired American Indian Marine, who is a member of a federally recognized tribe, who is seriously thinking about asking the tribe that I want to be disenrolled from the tribe. How can I accomplish this? Thank you for your time
Erick
December 10, 2012 at 12:12 pm
I can’t offer you any legal advice, but I would imagine you would have to call your tribe’s enrollment office, or if there is none, contact the tribal council itself and ask.
Elizabeth King George
March 26, 2013 at 9:49 pm
A Modern Day Cultural Genocide?
So it is claimed in recent articles throughout Indian Country that the Nooksack Indian Tribe is disenrolling 306 members because of their Philipino mixed blood. The words ethnic cleansing and racist were tossed out there to make the mass media believe yet again, a tribal government has gone awry. “It’s plain and simple.” Moreno Peralta, the spokesperson for the would be disenrollees. He claims that they have indisputable evidence that they are Nooksack, that they are in fact lineal descendants. Proof of which is still lacking.
There is more to this story than meets the eye. It is not a “racist” or an act of “ethnic cleansing.” It is not based on greed or an act of political vengeance against one family. It is a correction of an error that occurred when the tribe was merely a decade old under the constitution that was adopted under the 1934 Reorganization Act by the Nooksack Tribe when they became federally recognized in 1973. The constitution was a cookie cut document provided to the Nooksack Tribe by the United States Government’s Department of the Interior.
The basic understanding of Tribal membership requires a first hand knowledge of your family history. Grandma’s and Grandpa’s take the time to explain to their grandchildren who’s who and how.
I was dating a young man when I was 18 years old. I brought him over and introduced him to my Grandpa and Grandma. My grandfather asked him who he was:
“Who is your people? Who is your father? Your mother? What is your Mother’s maiden name? Where are they from?”
Next my grandmother chimed in and proclaimed: “Did you know that your great grandmother and my mother were half sisters?”
Then we were told right there, we were not allowed to date each other because we were “related….of the same blood.” That was the sort of lessons I received from time to time, especially while I was dating. This is how I learned from my grandmother about her Aunty and her children, from Canada. I was told later that my grandmother’s Aunty was her mother’s half sister; they shared the same father but had different mothers.
There is a process to become enrolled into the Nooksack Tribe. There are guidelines set forth and a due process to follow for becoming a member. The burden of proof lays on the applicant. But in this case, this was settled with a mere phone call that proved to be detrimental to the Nooksack Tribe. This phone call was made to my grandmother in 1983. She was asked if she was related to a woman named Elizabeth Eugenio. My grandmother said “Yes, Elizabeth, “Libby” is my cousin.” There was no other information requested at the time. Nothing like “how are you related to ‘Libby’ or anything like that.” Next thing I remember was that my grandmother was upset to learn that Libby had a house down the road from her. My grandmother lived in a housing development owned by the Nooksack Indian Tribe. She proclaimed, “Libby is not Nooksack! She is Canadian!”
That was the story I learned from my grandmother. Her mother was Amanda George. Amanda George was a full sister to Louis George and William George. Amanda was a half sister to Cornelious Kellehar. They had the same mother and different fathers. Amanda was also a half sister to Annie George. They had the same father and different mothers. Their father was a Canadian Indian from Mission BC according to numerous documents obtained from Canada. Amanda’s mother was Madeline Jobe, from Nooksack. Annie’s mother was Marie from Canada. Madeline did not take in Marie’s children, they were raised elsewhere. Amanda, Annie, Louis and William’s father was Matsqui George, a Canadian man.
That is my family.