Sources: American Indian Rights and Resources Organization; Laura Wass, Fresno office of American Indian Movement; interviews with disenrolled tribal members; newspaper reports; and public records


Casinos and Opening Dates in California

Sources: California Gambling Control Commission, newspaper reports, casino employees and tribal government offices

Mark Lucero is a Temecula Indian raised in East L.A. When he tried to enroll officially in the Pechanga tribe, he was turned away. Then the tribe disenrolled his entire family line. Now he’s working with an Indian human rights organization that he helped found to assist others facing similar challenges.

When California negotiated tribal-state gaming compacts with 61 tribes in 1999, it set up a revenue sharing trust fund that would collect a portion of the profits from the wealthier gaming tribes and annually dole out $1.1 million each to tribes that do not have casinos. However, fewer than 20 tribes continue to pay into that fund, and every year the state must dip into a special distribution fund to make up the resulting shortfall. But even that funding is expected to run out as early as 2011 or 2012, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

To ensure the 70 or so tribes that currently benefit from revenue sharing continue to do so, the state has promised to make up the shortfall from the general fund if the special distribution fund runs out. New tribal-state compacts with four of the biggest gaming tribes—Agua Caliente, Morongo, Pechanga and San Manuel—negotiated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ratified by voters in 2007, require those tribes to pay directly into the general fund. The problem with that, say some non-gaming tribal leaders, is that general fund expenditures must be decided by legislators who may be tempted in a recession to renege on their promise.

“It’s just very tempting for the state to keep that money paid in by tribes with amended compacts rather than fill the shortfall in revenue sharing. They have (paid) to date and promise to continue, but economic reality is what it is,” says Will Micklin, chief executive officer of the Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians, which does not operate a casino.

Micklin’s concern may be understandable in light of what his tribe stands to lose if they stop receiving their revenue-sharing checks. Even with the extra money, non-gaming tribes by default have not prospered to the degree of their gaming counterparts. The Ewiiaapaayp Band, which owns about 4,000 acres of land in eastern San Diego County, still doesn’t even have electricity or proper sewage, Micklin says.

A tribe can choose to spend its $1.1 million portion how it sees fit, including per capita payouts to its members, but in order to receive certain federal grants, such as those for health care, child care, transportation or insurance, a tribe must be able to match federal moneys with a certain percentage of their own, Micklin says. Since many tribes have no other form of income, they must rely on casino money just to be able to pay enough to get such grants, making casino money a vital lifeline for all tribes in California.

Not everyone agrees it’s a fair system, however. Since the state renegotiated its compacts with the big four gaming tribes in 2007, non-gaming tribes have seen no increase in the amount of revenue-sharing money they receive.

It’s sad, because when Indian gaming was evolving in Indian country, I was one of the lead spokespersons, whether they considered me one or not. But I was a main voice in California explaining that Indian gaming was going to benefit all Indian people, but as it turns out it’s not really been [that way],” says Francine Kupsch, spokesperson of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla Indians, also in San Diego County. Kupsch was featured in television ads promoting Proposition 5 and Proposition 1A, which brought “Vegas-style gambling” to the state.

Kupsch and the Los Coyotes Indians have felt the disparity perhaps most keenly. For nearly a decade, her tribe has been trying to open a casino of its own but has met with resistance both from state legislators and even from other tribes.

“The whole thing in the beginning was ‘We’re here to help Indian people,’ but to us the revenue sharing trust fund is another mini-welfare system. ‘Well, we’ll give you this money but we don’t expect you to live the life that we have now,’” Kupsch says.

Still, it’s money that is much needed to continue federal programs, and most tribes seem grateful to accept it.

“We’re just hoping that revenue sharing can continue,” says Mark Romero, chairman of the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians, which comprises some 720 members in San Diego County. “We’re all about gaming’s expanding, but we think that, as non-gaming tribes, we feel if gaming expands, then the revenue stream should expand as well. It didn’t expand. The $1.1 million stayed the same.”

That scene has occurred thousands of times across the United States, but perhaps nowhere more so than in California, where being American Indian means sharing in the state casino industry’s $7.3 billion worth of annual revenues, which is more than the combined take on the Las Vegas Strip. Why so many people have been expelled from their tribes remains a hotly debated subject, but the victims of these disenrollments and the activists who support them have claimed it boils down to one obvious explanation: decreasing membership rolls leads to greater profits for those who remain. However, their critics, including Indian law experts and the tribal leaders themselves, say greed is too pat an answer and that controlling membership has become a critical issue as the tribes grow and prosper.

The history of California Indians is riddled with betrayal. Federal and state authorities have flip-flopped repeatedly on whether Native Americans here should be recognized formally as tribes or forced to integrate with the mainstream population, and that history has led to increased confusion and intra-tribal tension as families that may have once had little to no affiliation at all found themselves banding together under one name or on a single plot of land. In the mid-20th century, the government officially referred to them collectively as “homeless Indians” rather than calling them members of a particular tribe. It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that many groups began to reclaim their federal recognition, and for most it was an uphill battle waged in the courts.

But while many of these groups once struggled to increase their numbers after the state and federal governments had quashed their status as sovereign nations, they are now actively trying to decrease their numbers in what some say is a historical first.

In 2002, for instance, a former tribal chairman of Redding Rancheria was effectively banished from his tribe along with some 75 members of his extended family. In 2004, the tribal government of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians voted to disenroll 200 people, going so far as to escort the children out of the tribal school. Two years later, nearly 200 more people from a different family were expelled. More recently, in what might be the largest disenrollment in California history, the government of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians voted to kick out 700 of its members.

No government agency officially tracks these disenrollments, so it is difficult to determine exactly how many people have been expelled from tribes, but based on estimates from Indian rights activists, the issue appears most widespread in California, where more than 2,000 people have been expelled from about 20 tribes.

This is the first entry in an on-going series devoted to understanding the rising trend of disenrollments and its implications, particularly in the state of California. All reporting will culminate in a complete multimedia package, including video, audio and text, and there will be a forum up soon for those on both sides of this issue to give voice to their own stories, whether they represent the tribal leadership or those being disenrolled.

In another post, I will look at Indian gaming more closely and how it does or does not benefit tribes. With $7.3 billion in annual gaming revenues at stake, California’s gaming tribes have collectively become a massive industry and state lobby. Yet only 31,000 of the state’s approximately 680,000 American Indians belong to a federally recognized tribe, and of those fewer than 10 percent actually benefit from casino money, according to a 2005 report commissioned by then California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Most tribes—the non-gaming tribes and the poorer gaming tribes—collect $1.2 million a year to spend on tribal government services. That’s a large sum for tribes with half a dozen members, which is not unheard of in California. But it’s not much for larger tribes.

Also, I will take a closer look at how tribes determine their enrollment and why it has become such a sensitive issue, and why one expert calls it the most important issue facing tribes today. It’s sticky territory, as the various methods at a tribe’s disposal each have their perks and pitfalls, and much of the history reeks to some of segregation. Relying on blood quantum, which measures the fraction of Indian blood a person may claim, could make some tribes disappear altogether as the ratio is diluted from one generation to the next, for instance. But creating governing documents, by-laws and rules for enrollment lies at the heart of Indian sovereignty, and many argue not the government, the courts or the media has a right to interfere.

Finally, I will look at the growing Indian civil rights movement organized by the very people who were disenrolled. Having found no justice in the tribal courts and having exhausted their appeals to state and federal courts, which have shied away from taking the cases on jurisdictional grounds, this growing tide of dissidents is coming to see Congress as its only remaining option. For the courts to agree to hear a case, the laws must be rewritten.

So for the one side, the disenrollment speaks to the core of sovereignty issues, but for the other, it represents what some are labeling a “paper genocide,” in which whole family lines are losing their racial and cultural identities. Either way, with a backdrop of billions in gaming revenues, that old adage remains true: to the victor go the spoils.