Bay Area Becomes Sister Cities Site for Rival Tribes

For generations the Yurok and Hoopa Indian tribes have fought over control of their ancestral lands on the north coast of California.

Now, the battle has moved south to the Bay Area. The Hoopa Indians can claim the town of Pinole. But the underdog Yuroks will soon have Berkeley.

The two East Bay cities, entering the arena of Indian affairs, are developing sister-city relationships with the rival tribes.

For Berkeley, this is in keeping with a long tradition of activism. After all, this is the city that last year declared Columbus Day to be Indigenous People’s Day.

Over the past decade, it has established other sister-city relationships that highlight its liberal political views: a village in rebel-held El Salvador, a city in Nicaragua during the reign of the Sandanistas, a community in the rain forests of Borneo.

“It’s funny, because it’s such a Berkeley Berserkely thing,” said Beth Weinberger, an aide to City Council member Linda Miao, who is pushing the proposal. “But we won’t let that stop us.”

But Pinole? This is a bedroom community better known as a pit stop on Interstate 80 than as a hotbed of social adventurism.

The small town nine miles north of Berkeley was once the site of an American Indian settlement. Its name comes from an Indian word for meal. With that in mind, said City Manager Donald Bradley, it seemed natural to establish fraternal relations last year with an Indian tribe and chance provided the Hoopas.

City officials hope to promote cultural exchanges and foster better understanding between Pinole and the tribe. In an early sign of success, a former Pinole City Council member has moved to the reservation to serve as the Hoopa’s attorney.

Bradley noted that Pinole was the first city in the nation to establish sister-city relations with an Indian tribe. “We don’t look to gain anything other than better understanding of the Indian culture,” he said.

Neither Pinole nor Berkeley has any intention of entering the long-running dispute between the two tribes along the Klamath River, 350 miles to the north.

The feud between the Yuroks and Hoopas began more than a century ago when the federal government created a reservation north of Eureka and gave the most valuable land and timber stands to the Hoopas. The Yuroks have attempted to wrest a larger share from the Hoopas, but acts of Congress and years of litigation have yet to resolve the disagreement.

For Berkeley, the sister-city relationship with the Yuroks offers a forum for environmental activism, education about the plight of Indians and an opportunity to provide practical assistance to the tribe.

One of the major problems facing the Yuroks is rebuilding the Klamath River salmon population, which has been seriously depleted by water diversions and timber harvests.

“Establishing a sister-city relationship with a Native American community would further Berkeley’s explicit recognition of Indigenous People’s Day, 500 Years of Resistance, the vast social contribution of California indigenous communities, and the sovereign rights of all Native American nations,” says the Berkeley sister-city proposal.

The idea was raised by former Councilwoman Nancy Skinner, a popular environmentalist who decided not to run for reelection after her house became uninhabitable. In keeping with her environmental views, she painted her house with a milk-based paint but it went sour, forcing her to find a new home.

In her place, the Berkeley-Yurok proposal has been picked up by her successor, Miao. Backers hope that it will be approved before Earth Day, April 24, so it can be included in local celebrations focusing on “environmental racism” and indigenous people.

Chances for passage seem good. Like the Pinole-Hoopa program, it would not cost the taxpayers any money. The Berkeley council has approved nine other sister cities in the past 10 years. And when a Berkeley delegation was raising money for a recent visit to the Yurok reservation, most of the council members chipped in $25 from their own pockets.