Confronting Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro at NCAI Marketplace Sacramento on Disenrollment of the Hunter Family

Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro is the 1st Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians.  He has overseen and approved of the disenrollment (the stripping of citizenship from tribal members) of two large families, my own, the Paulina Hunter descendants and the first family to be disenrolled en masse, the Manuela Miranda descendants.

We had a protest of disenrollment at the NCAI Marketplace in Sacramento.  Security and police were on hand to protect the attendees from 40 elders of many tribes.   

I was able to get inside the meeting, and confronted Chairman Macarro at a break.

Pechanga's Paulina Hunter Family Disenrollment: August 2006 Appeal JUSTICE Did NOT PREVAIL Against Masiel Crime Family

 The Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, which runs the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, CA, disenrolled TWO large families for political reasons, They ignored facts to accept hearsay. Our family disenrollment, the descendants fo PAULINA HUNTER  is detailed below

That's 14 years that Hunter descendants have been stripped of their tribal citizenship, due to unconstitutional actions by the corrupt Pechanga Tribal Council and by collusion with enrollment committee members, including Bobbi LeMere (who, in a quid pro quo, got her sisters enrolled in the tribe, even though scores of others were in the moratorium  READ Corruption Exposed… )  Ruth Masiel, the late matriarch of the Masie Crime Family and mother of council member Andrew Masiel Sr. and Frances Miranda, who two years before, had seen to it that her OWN FAMILY members, the descendent of Manuela Miranda were also stripped of their citizenship. Irhene Scearce received final justice for her actions in death.

Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians Destroyed Their TRUE ANCESTORS

Repost from 2010, for those who don't know the story:
Hunter cousin A'amokat has put together some historical facts on the Disenrollment of Paulina Hunter to answer a frequent "drive-by" commenter that smoothly says we couldn't prove our ancestry.  Yet, we have more evidence than ANY other family currently enrolled in Pechanga.  And people want to boycott Arizona for civil rights violations?  Try Pechanga.

Paulina Hunter
Recognized as Pechanga by those living at her time

Our critic from the tribe says we never answer what he considers tough questions but we have done so many times but since he just pops in and runs, I will tackle those issues once again for all to see.

1. “Dear Reader, that the mouthpieces for the Hunter clan never address the fact that their declared ancestor, Paulina Walla Hunter, had no available birth record.”

While it is true we couldn’t find a birth record for our ancestor Paulina Hunter, she is not alone in this regard as Dr. John Johnson from the Museum of Natural History in Santa Barbara, Ca, commissioned by the enrollment committee to research the ancestry of Paulina Hunter, said in his report to the committee, “The original books of baptisms, marriages, and burials for Mission San Luis Rey have been lost for more than 150 years which hinders many Luiseno families in their search for documentary evidence pertaining to their ancestors.”

So a lot of today’s Pechanga tribal members also don‘t have birth records for their ancestors who were born during the period after the surviving San Luis Rey padrones (census records), which were recorded between 1811 to 1835. So the only thing this proves is that Paulina Hunter was in the same boat as a lot of other tribal members from the historical period.

2. “Or the fact that while the historical record lists the parents of PWH, nobody knows their ancestry.”
While Paulina Hunter’s maiden name is listed as Walla in some records Dr. Johnson in his report on her ancestry indentifies her family name as being Quasicac and that the man who was almost certainly her father, Mateo, was the only Indian listed in the pardrones as being born at the place known as Pechanga over 75 years before the Pechanga reservation was even created! Also the records indicate that her maternal grandmother, Restituta Quenix, was from the from the original Temecula Indian village.
So how can we explain the discrepancy of last names from one generation to another generation?
Again Dr. Johnson elaborates in his report to the enrollment committee on the ancestry of Paulina Hunter:
“Many Indian families of this period (the 1800’s) were adopting the use of surnames, as was the Euro-American custom. The church records show that there was considerable experimentation with surname use by all former Mission Indians. A variety of surnames would be used, even within the same family, before one version was finally chosen that continued to be used as an inherited family name.”

So again the Hunters are in the same boat as a lot of other Pechanga families in proving with 100 percent certainty by today’s modern standards that their ancestors from previous generations, who often also had different last names from one generation to the next, are indeed their ancestors.

3. “Or the uncomfortable fact that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has no Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood on file for PWH, meaning the BIA never tracked PWH as an Indian.”

If the BIA never recognized Paulina Hunter as a Pechanga Indian or even an Indian at all, then why do Hunter family members have CDIB cards that say Pechanga and why didn’t the enrollment committee make it an issue during the Hunter’s disenrollments?
One would think that if, as our esteemed critic from the tribe tries to imply, that if we the Hunters weren’t even Native Americans that the committee would have stated this was the case. After all, a slim majority of the committee, as we have shown here on this blog many times, was biased against us and I am sure they would have jumped at the chance to try to even further discredit us.

In fact the enrollment committee in its Record of Decision against the Hunters of March 16, 2006 stated:
“Nothing in the Committee’s findings shall be construed or interpreted that the Committee is making a determination of the Indian or Native American status of Paulina Hunter or her descendants.”
Also, in addition to the fact that the Hunters do have CDIBs, Hunter family members who have gone through probate for their share of the Hunter family allotment have official probate documents from the United States Department of the Interior that name their loved ones as “deceased Luiseno Mission (Pechanga Band) Indians” including those who have gone through probate after the Hunter family disenrollment.
So clearly the United States government still considers us Pechanga Indians even if the tribe officially at this time does not.

4. “Hunter clan tried to bring politics to bear on the disenrollment process, to stop its proper function of removing non-members from the membership roll. This effort failed. The process went forward. Doing its duty, the enrollment committee disenrolled the Hunter clan, returning it to its true status as non-members.”

The Hunters played politics with the process? Nothing could be further from the truth as it was our opponents who played politics with the process by perverting the process by going against the wishes of the people.
Because on July 17, 2005 the general membership of the tribe, the final authority in all matters of tribal government and business of the Band under Article VIII of the Band’s constitution and bylaws, voted to outlaw disenrollment and to strike from the books the disenrollment procedures. This law stated that as of the justification date of the petition of the new law, June 19, 2005, that all tribal members in the Band would remain tribal members and could not be disenrolled. So the disenrollment of the Hunters on March 16, 2006 was clearly illegal. By the way, the Hunter family were not the ones who presented the petition to outlaw disenrollment to the people so no, we were not playing politics with the process.

And I haven’t even scratched the surface by showing here once again how the evidence was very much in our favor but instead of what our opponent would have you believe, the list goes on and on in our favor not the other way around.

Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians' ANTONIO ASHMAN: Custom and Oral tradition

Antonio Ashman
Pechanga's "vaunted" Elder

I was looking through my cousin's old blog T'EETILAWUNCHA BLOG  here he discusses some oral history in 2009. 

Most recently before his death, Antonio Ashman in a sworn affidavit said he knew Paulina Hunter as a member of the Band. He also swore that Paulina stayed at the home of Michelle and Salvador Quiliq and heard they were related. He also stated Paulina was called Aunt by Martin Berdugo, another recognized member of Pechanga. This is recorded oral recognition that the CPP faction says Paulina Hunter did not have.

The enrollment committee also finds that Paulina was given a land allotment on the Pechanga reservation as a Temecula Indian. This confirms Paulina’s status as a Temecula Indian.  (OP: WE STILL LIVE ON THAT Allotment)

The record of decision regarding the descendants of Paulina Hunter says that because John Miller under the Act of May 18, 1928 (45 Stat. L 602), a direct descendant of Paulina Hunter states that his Grandmother “was allotted as a Pechanga Mission Indian, but his Grandmother and Great Grandparents were of the San Luis Rey Mission Indians.”

This statement somehow outweighs hundreds of other documents the enrollment committee has possession of detailing the Hunters as recognized members of the Pechanga band by tribal elders who were alive at the time the reservation was established.

STOP DISENROLLMENT: When the ACCUSERS are also your JUDGE and JURY, Where is JUSTICE?

My late cousin James Appel wrote this in 2010.  It's an example of what was written before in Like Being Raped and Going to your Rapist for Justice   

What happens when people who are your accusers, people that have always hated your family, become not only your accusers, but are also your judge and jury?

Pechanga Tribe Disenrolled
25% of the population

It is a fact that our ancestor Paulina Hunter was an Indian that lived in the original Temecula Indian village. She was also recognized by members of that tribe as a member via witnessed and certified documents of that period.

She was evicted along with the rest of the tribe from that village and moved to the area known as Pechanga to live with them. One of the most revered and respected members of the Tribe most recently wrote before his death in a signed and witnessed document stating that he knew her personally as a member of the tribe.

What Will Disenrolling Tribal Councils SAY, When they Face Their Ancestors?

What will Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians Chairman Mark Macarro say to HIS ancestor, that called OUR ancestor, aunt? What will Butch Murphy say to our ancestors that took HIS non Pechanga family in?


It's interesting to think about what the tribal members remaining in tribes that have exterminated other members pray and think about when they go to church.

Do they pray that:

1. God won't remember what they have done to their family and ours?
2. I can just give a little more to the collection plate and that will get me off the hook.
3. Please, God, let there be more slot machines.
4. Please, God, I'm not really happy about it, but I didn't do anything about it, WHY didn't you give me strength?

Do they JUSTIFY their Shameful Actions with:

Well, I really didn't believe in the 5th, 8th, 9th or 10th commandments anyway?
Why are they always picking on us? Are civil rights, elder abuse, voting rights that important?

Some questions should be raised:

What has the parish priest talked to his flock about the situation? How much of the catechism have the disenrollers broken?
Are they still taking communion? What penance did they get for ruining the lives of so many?
Should Christian customers patronize a business that treats its family so terribly? Should Christians spend money for dinner at a place that abused their elders and children?
Should churches hold luncheons at a place like this?

Exposing Disenrollment to College Campuses: How Our Young People Can Help Spread The Word About Disenrollment and Corruption

I was proud to hear last week that  our cousin, Uvina Camacho, a descendant of Original Pechanga Paulina Hunter, brought the disenrollment story to her college speech class.

This is a perfect example of how our younger generation can help.  We talk about the fact that we must continue to shine the spotlight on the corruption.  We've seen what that can do, with the shutting down of the Chukchansi Gold Casino.

Here is another outlet, one that can be done for both college and high school classes.  This outline, from Uvina, can be used to tailor the story for any tribal disenrollment story.  Spreading the word, even if it's only 30 students and a teacher at a time.   At the end of the presentation, ask your classmates for their help in spreading the word.   Using social media as only they know how, can be our greatest asset.  

I'm optimistic that once people learn about the corruption, the abuse of civil rights, they will react with the same disgust that the students and teacher did in this class.  Politicians should take note that questions the students asked, included "WHY ISN'T the government doing anything?"

I'm also glad that the teacher still had questions after this presentation, as Uvina relayed them:   

My teacher said right away that he had a lot of questions. 
He couldn't believe that this was happening. He had no idea what disenrollment was. He didn't think it was fair for the enrollment committee to disenroll a family, the way they did to us without giving our family due process. 
At the end he said he knows the federal government will have to fix what the enrollment committee has done because this isn't right. 
He believes not all governments are corrupt. He believes that we will find are way back into the tribe & that someone will end up stepping in to help us.

Think he won't be talking about this to his counterparts?    That's how we use our own networks to help us.  This is what I've been asking for, this is what our young can do to honor their ancestors and family.   This is how all of us, who are  disenrolled, can win our battle.  Shame is a powerful tool, one we've let slip away.

I know it's nearly the end of the school year, but file this for next year.  And please, use social media to get this out. There are buttons on the bottom of the post that will help you. Have your young ones show you.....

Name: Uvina Camacho

Date: May 19, 2015

Course: Effective Speaking

Speech Title: "Corruption in American Indian Society"

Specific Purpose Statement:  “I’m going to inform my audience about my heritage, being Pechanga ‘Luiseno’ Indian and what my family had to go through almost 10 years ago.”

Thesis Statement: “Disenrollment is an abuse of sovereignty.”

Ask Question: What first pops in your head when you think about Indians? Do any of you know about tribal disenrollment and sovereignty?

I.  INTRODUCTION

A.    Gaining the Audience's Attention: I will talk about the corruption with Native American tribes and the disenrollment that has been going on for years now all over greed and power. In addition, I will explain how Native Americans are sovereign so that means only the federal government can do anything. However, sense tribes with casinos have lots of money that means they have power and can bribe and pay off congress.

A.    Preview of Main Points - (1) What was taken away from my family and many other natives; (2) how tribes are corrupt (3) how tribal disenrollment is happening all over the U.S.; and what people are doing to change it.

II. MAIN BODY

A.    First Point: What my family and I were stripped of from our own people.

1.      I am no longer federally recognized from a tribe which makes me ineligible for tribal benefits. So I can’t apply to a lot of Native American Scholarships and other stuff because they took away are papers to even say I am Pechanga Indian.

2.      Not being able to participate with tribal activities and meetings. Basically started treating us like second-class citizens. Like how African Americans were segregated from general society back in the day.

3.      Education rights and benefits. My little sister had to leave the school on the rez because we were not allowed to attend anymore. I had to leave the private school I had attended K-6^th grade because they stopped paying my tuition to attend.

4.      No longer receive medical benefits and per-cap, which is a huge change impact on our life.

5.      Allotted land give to eligible Indians by president of the U.S. They are starting to try and take away, and water. When my family has been on that rez before there was even a casino.

6.      Mail delivery has now stopped after almost 100 years of receiving mail, which now makes us unable to verify we live on Indian land. Which also takes away our tax benefits.

A.    Second Point: How they are corrupt.

1.      Since Pechanga is one of the most successful California Indian casino they pay off congress to ignore the fact they did not go through the right steps.

2.      Disenrollment is happening all over the nation due to rising casinos, large per capita checks, and sovereignty. Fewer tribe members means a bigger share for those remaining on the rolls, attorneys say.

3.      Sovereignty means a self-governing state.

4.      Their own hired expert researcher John Johnson called out Pechanga Tribe’s termination committee.

5.      They ignored the BIA “Bureau of Indian Affairs” when they did research back to my families’ ancestry to see if we are from there and they found several ties to how my family is one of the firsts Pechanga Indians and that we have more blood and lineage than other families. But still disenrolled my family.

6.      Didn’t follow their own bylaws. Skipped many steps in the disenrollment laws to kick us out as soon as possible. Which is against their own laws they set for a reason.

7.      There is no third-party intervention when it comes to tribes not following DUE PROCESS.

8.      Due Process is an order of steps which must be carried out in the exact order the bylaws were made.

A.    Third Point: How it’s happening all over the U.S. with other tribes and how we are fighting to make it right.

1.      Here are some tribes that have disenrollment issues in California; Pechanga, Pala, San Pasqual, Robinson Rancheria, The Grand Ronde, Chukchansi and many other Indian tribes across the country.

2.      Have went to the White House and Sacramento and have had meetings with people from the senate and congress.

3.      Had a News special a couple years back, shown two consecutive nights.

4.      My family and many other families from Indian tribes have protested in Sacramento, in front of Pechanga other casinos and reservations, and recently in front of the BIA office.

III. CONCLUSION

A.    Main points summarized. So I informed you guys about how my family got stripped away our rights as Native Americans, why Indian tribes have become so corrupt they choose money and power over their own family, also how Natives all over the U.S. are fighting for their rights to become federally recognized.

I feel like this topic is informative because most people don’t really know about Indian tribes and what really goes on with all the corruption. Also, people always assume we are fighting for our rights back just because of the money but its way more than that when that’s all your family knows from decades of living on the rez and being involved with the tribe and your family, until it all gets taken away. My family is continuing to fight for our rights as Native Americans and to bring awareness to the issue that needs more light shine upon. We do believe in time we will become reunited with are tribe

Pechanga Tribes HIRED Renown Archaeologist Who PROVES PAULINA HUNTER IS Pechanga

House Committee staffers asked for copy of Dr. Johnson's report in our meeting last week.  We told them we had VIDEO of him explaining Paulina Hunter was Pechanga.  Obviously, there was a bit of disgust over what they did.

Pechanga hired Dr. Johnson, but didn't use his report.  WHY?  Because the TRUTH didn't fit into their plan.

As always, if you can tweet this to:  @USIndianAffairs @IndianCommittee  and to ALL your friends and ask them to do the same.

Carrie Madariaga Premieres RUSER at 5th Annual Skins Fest; Terminated Pechanga Member Scores

VERY Proud to announce that our cousin Carrie Madariaga has produced a short film RUSER for the 5th Annual Skins Fest, which will premiere on Nov. 19th at 5 p.m. at the Gene Autry Museum.

Take a look at the trailer:





Congralations cousin on your film.

How the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Tribal Council Corrupted The History of a Tribal Person

Hunter cousin A'amokat has put together some historical facts on the Disenrollment of Paulina Hunter to answer a frequent "drive-by" commenter that smoothly says we couldn't prove our ancestry.  Yet, we have more evidence than ANY other family currently enrolled in Pechanga.  And people want to boycott Arizona for civil rights violations?  Try Pechanga.

Our critic from the tribe says we never answer what he considers tough questions but we have done so many times but since he just pops in and runs, I will tackle those issues once again for all to see.

1. “Dear Reader, that the mouthpieces for the Hunter clan never address the fact that their declared ancestor, Paulina Walla Hunter, had no available birth record.”

While it is true we couldn’t find a birth record for our ancestor Paulina Hunter, she is not alone in this regard as Dr. John Johnson from the Museum of Natural History in Santa Barbara, Ca, commissioned by the enrollment committee to research the ancestry of Paulina Hunter, said in his report to the committee, “The original books of baptisms, marriages, and burials for Mission San Luis Rey have been lost for more than 150 years which hinders many Luiseno families in their search for documentary evidence pertaining to their ancestors.”

So a lot of today’s Pechanga tribal members also don‘t have birth records for their ancestors who were born during the period after the surviving San Luis Rey padrones (census records), which were recorded between 1811 to 1835. So the only thing this proves is that Paulina Hunter was in the same boat as a lot of other tribal members from the historical period.

2. “Or the fact that while the historical record lists the parents of PWH, nobody knows their ancestry.”
While Paulina Hunter’s maiden name is listed as Walla in some records Dr. Johnson in his report on her ancestry indentifies her family name as being Quasicac and that the man who was almost certainly her father, Mateo, was the only Indian listed in the pardrones as being born at the place known as Pechanga over 75 years before the Pechanga reservation was even created! Also the records indicate that her maternal grandmother, Restituta Quenix, was from the from the original Temecula Indian village.
So how can we explain the discrepancy of last names from one generation to another generation?
Again Dr. Johnson elaborates in his report to the enrollment committee on the ancestry of Paulina Hunter:
“Many Indian families of this period (the 1800’s) were adopting the use of surnames, as was the Euro-American custom. The church records show that there was considerable experimentation with surname use by all former Mission Indians. A variety of surnames would be used, even within the same family, before one version was finally chosen that continued to be used as an inherited family name.”

So again the Hunters are in the same boat as a lot of other Pechanga families in proving with 100 percent certainty by today’s modern standards that their ancestors from previous generations, who often also had different last names from one generation to the next, are indeed their ancestors.

3. “Or the uncomfortable fact that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has no Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood on file for PWH, meaning the BIA never tracked PWH as an Indian.”

If the BIA never recognized Paulina Hunter as a Pechanga Indian or even an Indian at all, then why do Hunter family members have CDIB cards that say Pechanga and why didn’t the enrollment committee make it an issue during the Hunter’s disenrollments?
One would think that if, as our esteemed critic from the tribe tries to imply, that if we the Hunters weren’t even Native Americans that the committee would have stated this was the case. After all, a slim majority of the committee, as we have shown here on this blog many times, was biased against us and I am sure they would have jumped at the chance to try to even further discredit us.

In fact the enrollment committee in its Record of Decision against the Hunters of March 16, 2006 stated:
“Nothing in the Committee’s findings shall be construed or interpreted that the Committee is making a determination of the Indian or Native American status of Paulina Hunter or her descendants.”
Also, in addition to the fact that the Hunters do have CDIBs, Hunter family members who have gone through probate for their share of the Hunter family allotment have official probate documents from the United States Department of the Interior that name their loved ones as “deceased Luiseno Mission (Pechanga Band) Indians” including those who have gone through probate after the Hunter family disenrollment.
So clearly the United States government still considers us Pechanga Indians even if the tribe officially at this time does not.

4. “Hunter clan tried to bring politics to bear on the disenrollment process, to stop its proper function of removing non-members from the membership roll. This effort failed. The process went forward. Doing its duty, the enrollment committee disenrolled the Hunter clan, returning it to its true status as non-members.”

The Hunters played politics with the process? Nothing could be further from the truth as it was our opponents who played politics with the process by perverting the process by going against the wishes of the people.
Because on July 17, 2005 the general membership of the tribe, the final authority in all matters of tribal government and business of the Band under Article VIII of the Band’s constitution and bylaws, voted to outlaw disenrollment and to strike from the books the disenrollment procedures. This law stated that as of the justification date of the petition of the new law, June 19, 2005, that all tribal members in the Band would remain tribal members and could not be disenrolled. So the disenrollment of the Hunters on March 16, 2006 was clearly illegal. By the way, the Hunter family were not the ones who presented the petition to outlaw disenrollment to the people so no, we were not playing politics with the process.

And I haven’t even scratched the surface by showing here once again how the evidence was very much in our favor but instead of what our opponent would have you believe, the list goes on and on in our favor not the other way around.