As children we've all heard the saying "go pick on someone your own size." For some, the experience of being picked on lingers into adulthood.Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians
Temecula, CA
"Quit picking on our elders and our ancestors"
As children we've all heard the saying "go pick on someone your own size." For some, the experience of being picked on lingers into adulthood.
Unfortunately, today we have some Tribal leaders/officials who pick on tribal members not because of their size, but because they perceive them as a threat to their leadership. These tribal leaders have discovered the best way to eliminate that threat is to pick on the dead ancestors of the opposition who cannot defend themselves.
Left- Redding Rancheria Tribal Chairwoman Tracy Edwards Left- Wintun Tribal leader Colleen Sisk-Franco
Center- Disenrolled Tribal Councilwoman Debra Foreman-Sarot Right- Disenrolled Pechanga Enrollment Committee John
Right- Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro Gomez Jr. photo above taken at the 2005 "Indian Day" rally Photos above and below taken at the commercial shooting of California State Capitol building
"Yes on 5" legalizing Indian gaming in California Below a Redding Rancheria disenrolled child
These tribal leaders disrespect their tribal ancestors and have forgotten the way of their Indian people. "While Macarro was speaking on the need to preserve Indian sacred sites for the value of their heritage, he was also supporting the ejection of living members. It seems he and many other tribal members are more concerned with old bones than they are about the very few tribal members living today." March 25, 2004 North County Times “When bones are more important than people.”
After requiring and then rejecting conclusive genomic DNA from the "Foreman's" deceased mother and grandmother, Redding Rancheria's Vice-Chairman and new spiritual leader James Hayward Sr. “...Many of our ancestor's resting places are under siege from development and plain greed." February-March, 2005 Redding Rancheria’s Sounds in the Winds newsletter article title "Preserving Our Sacred Sites."
If picking on the dead were not bad enough, these same tribal leaders are picking on their tribal elders.
Eight months ago, Lawrence Madariaga basked in the praise of his fellow Pechanga Indians for the decades of volunteer work that the lifelong reservation resident had done for his tribe.
< Lawrence Madariaga, 89, says he and his wife, Sophia, 86, are at a loss as to what to do after their ejection from the Pechanga tribe. Earlier this week, long after the accolades from the tribal Christmas party had faded, the reservation's oldest male inhabitant received a final notice that he and about 90 adult members of his extended family were ejected from the Temecula-area gaming tribe. His is now the second family to be kicked out of the band since March 2004.
"I have been stripped of all my tribal rights and privileges," the 89-year-old tribal elder said in a 
statement that marked the first time a descendant of Paulina Hunter has gone public about the ejection. More than a century after her 1899 death, Hunter's lineage to the tribe has been challenged.
Madariaga and John Gomez Jr., whose extended family of about 130 adults was ejected in March 2004, separately complained that the tribal committee did not follow the findings of a prominent anthropologist it hired. Yet the committee accepted a May 2004 statement submitted by former Tribal Chairman Vincent Belasco Ibanez, who at age 73 is nearing the end of an eight-year state prison term for child molestation. August 18, 2006 The Press-Enterprise "Pechanga gives family final notice of ejection."
A renowned anthropologist hired by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians to study their lineage and ancestry has called the tribe's recent disenrollment of a large family from its rolls "unfortunate and not based on solid evidence." "They ignored whatever I did in their decision-making," said John Johnson, who was hired by Pechanga to determine whether Paulina Hunter was one of the tribe's ancestors. "It's too bad economics and politics have been injected into (tribal lineage rulings)."
78 year old Juanita Sanchez
grandmother of John Gomez Jr. In a written statement of his own, Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro on Friday defended the steps taken.
"This is a very complex intertribal matter involving Pechanga history and genealogy," he wrote. Questions about citizenship, therefore, are resolved by the Pechanga enrollment committee, the government body with the proper authority and ability to determine if a person meets criteria for Pechanga citizenship.
"The insinuation that these actions are motivated by politics or profits is reprehensible. The fact is that disenrollments occurred long before Pechanga ever opened its gaming facility." September 25, 2006 North County “Expert contradicts Pechanga disenrollment”
Mark Macarro's statement sounds remarkably similar to a quote of Redding Rancheria's Tribal Chairwoman Tracy Edwards' defending the disenrollment of the Foreman family “It's just always been a question, The Foremans’ lineage hitch dates back to the rancheria's reconstitution around 1987 - not just since the tribe started making big profits on its casino and business ventures.”... The Foremans are not the first to be excluded. A family of five was disenrolled in recent years." February 19, 2004 Redding Record Searchlight "Tribe Defends Decision to Expel Foremans" February 19, 2004.
< current Redding Rancheria Tribal Chairwoman Barbara Hayward-Murphy and Mark Macarro must have went to the same seminar how to disenroll your tribal members. “it does not have anything to do with money and to even ask that question is offensive to me personally, and it's offensive to this tribe,” she said. “The way we do everything has been based on honor, respect and integrity. September 18, 2002 Redding Record Searchligh
" Rancheria Threatens to Oust Family.'
Perhaps these tribal leaders should come clean and admit that they are greedy and hungry for power. Give us the straight scoop. Don't dazzle us with your "my heart soars like an eagle" crap. Tell us the truth like tribal attorney David Colvin, who represents the Las Vegas Paiutes, when he explained how "someone" in the tribe was able to commit fraud when they disenrolled some of their tribal members:
Prior to the disenrollment vote, someone in the tribe used whiteout to alter or obliterate the blood records of the ousted Paiutes. Colvin told the I-Team back then that the heavy-handed forgery of the records didn't affect the council's decision. David Colvin, lawyer for Paiute tribe, said, "The burden of proof is whatever the tribe says it is. Basically, whatever the council says." Aug 23, 2005 LasVegas Now.com " Las Vegas Paiute Tribal Blood Feud."
What is happening in Indian Country today is best summed up in the following quote:
"It was a sad day for us as a family and a sad day for Pechanga and a sad day for Indian Country," said John Gomez Jr, one of the members kicked out of the tribe. March 20, 2004 The Press-Enterprise “Pechanga panel ejects 130 adults from tribe”