In a rare turnabout, a Lake County tribe is reinstating nearly 70 members who eight years ago were stripped of their tribal status and benefits, cultural identities and, in some cases, their homes.
Exiled Robinson Rancheria Pomo Indians still feel deeply the sting of that banishment but most welcome the chance to regain their tribal citizenship, which is expected to be finalized within weeks.
“It was heartbreaking,” said Julie Moran, 41. But “I’m going to re-enroll; my heart has always been with the tribe.”
Two other family members, however, have said they no longer want to be part of a tribe that cast them away, Moran said.
The Upper Lake tribe’s decision to reinstate its former members is an encouraging sign and counterweight against the massive, nationwide disenrollments embroiling Native American tribes for more than two decades, said Gabe Galanda, a Seattle-based attorney who specializes in disenrollments. He is a member of the Round Valley tribe in Mendocino County.
Some tribes in recent years have spoken out against the practice, a long-time problem that spiked in the 1990s following the legalization of Indian gaming. Native Americans also are widely using social media to protest the disenrollments.
“They are saying enough is enough,” Galanda said.
Galanda believes the Robinson Rancheria case is the first time an entire group of people disenrolled en masse has been re-enrolled without a court order. There has been at least one case in which dozens of people were voluntarily re-enrolled at once, but others in their group remained outsiders, he said.
Robinson tribal members first voted 52-25 to re-enroll members at the end of January during a general membership meeting. Thesix-member elected council affirmed that decision early this month and set the process in motion. The tribe has more than 400 members.
A majority of the tribe wants to undo what many believe were unwarranted disenrollments based on politics, ill will and a desire to increase casino revenue payments to the remaining members, said tribal Chairman Eddie Crandell. Those seeking the disenrollments at the time claimed the victims had questionable tribal heritage.
“There was a threat to power,” Crandell said. He wasn’t disenrolled, but several of his family members were the first to go, he said.
Thousands of Native Americans nationwide are believed to have been kicked out of their tribes since the 1990s.
“It’s very difficult to get precise figures,” said David Wilkins, a professor of Indian studies at the University of Minnesota and who has written extensively on the subject. He said he knows of 30 tribes just in California and 49 tribes in another 20 states that disenrolled or banished members. There are 576 tribes in the United States according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs website.
A Native American blog that tracks disenrollments, originalpechanga.com, has counted more than 11,000 people across the country kicked off tribal rolls for various reasons.
At Robinson Rancheria, the formerly disenrolled members included four generations of a family whose say they can trace their ties to the tribe back almost 80 years.
“It’s still unreal and still unbelievable what was done to us,” said Julie Moran. Her grandmother, Mildred Goforth, 86, is one of the last of Lake County’s native Pomo speakers and had been a member of the tribe since the early 1940s, more than a decade before the tribe was disbanded by the federal government. It was reconstituted in 1956.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
