The ancestors of today’s Native Americans lived for centuries on
this continent, managing their resources and sustaining thriving
communities. Over the course of millennia, groups of families that
shared traditions and collective patterns of life formed tribes and
loose federations. These groups recognized and respected each
other’s mutually independent status and gave it due deference in
matters of diplomacy, politics and commerce.
Editor,
The ancestors of today’s Native Americans lived for centuries on this continent, managing their resources and sustaining thriving communities. Over the course of millennia, groups of families that shared traditions and collective patterns of life formed tribes and loose federations. These groups recognized and respected each other’s mutually independent status and gave it due deference in matters of diplomacy, politics and commerce.
During the invasion of Native American lands and through systematic genocide, our federal government destroyed a large part of that independence, along with entire cultures, languages, and millions of lives, consequently placed itself in a powerful position of authority to determine tribal status. Whether or not a tribe is officially recognized by the government determines the allocation of federal resources to that tribe. Access to those resources may often mean the difference between the preservation of a people and the loss of an entire culture. Descendants of unrecognized tribes must now apply for federal recognition, an unacceptably slow-moving, complex bureaucratic process which, as noted by the Free Lance Editors on March 25, 2005, “makes a snail look speedy.”
In the early 1990s, the Amah Mutsun Tribe began the process of seeking federal recognition, and for the past 15 years have dutifully adhered to the Bureau of Indian Affairs requirements to be restored to federal status. The tribe has gone to painstaking lengths and cost to demonstrate its continuous existence as a distinct community and political entity, gathering and providing BIA officials with appropriate documentation to support its petition.
The Amah Mutsun Tribe’s petition has languished, with scores of others, due to unpardonable delays by BIA. Witness statements by former BIA Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover who testified before Congress in 2004, and concluded that “the pace of decision making in the program was indefensible and unacceptable.” The lengthy delay of the Amah Mutsun’s petition for recognition deprives its members of not only services and benefits that would improve the lives of Native Americans living in our valley, but deprives them of justice due a people who have undergone what has become a nearly forgotten genocide.
I have offered legislation to assist the Amah Mutsun Tribe in resolving the BIA’s broken process – a process criticized by the Dispatch editors. Last month, I introduced HR 3475, a bill to provide for timely consideration of the Amah Mutsun’s application for federal recognition. The Tribe has already waited nearly 15 years, and without my legislation will likely wait another 10 years. HR 3475 calls for a review and decision on the tribe’s petition on the merits within one year of the petition for recognition.
The Amah Mutsun Tribe deserves the timely consideration HR 3475 would provide. The Tribe, like many communities, has its own internal issues to deal with, including a much-publicized split over leadership, and they must resolve those issues as part of the recognition process. My bill makes no determination as to the leadership of the tribe and I have met with officials on both sides of the dispute to assure each of them that I have no bias regarding their respective claims.
My only interest in this matter is to assist the Amah Mutsun Tribe to get proper and timely consideration on its petition for federal recognition. I simply want the tribe to get what it deserves: Fair treatment after hundreds of years of broken promises.
Rep. Mike Honda, CA-15
