Tribal Split Tangles Federal Recognition

The Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Orange County, first applied for recognition from the U.S. government more than a century ago.

Today, with a new century nearing, they still don’t have it.

Soon, however, the Juanenos may be rewarded with their own equivalent of the Holy Grail, one they and their ancestors have pursued almost as long as the swallows have been returning to Capistrano.

But there may be a problem. There are now two groups of Juanenos, each with the same name, which raises the question of which will obtain recognition. And will others be abandoned at the federal altar, left to stew on what went wrong?

Since 1995, the Juanenos have been divided into separate councils, overseen by two tribal leaders. One group answers to tribal chairman David Belardes, the other to tribal chairwoman Sonia Johnston, whose separate factions split in a schism that has yet to heal--and on one occasion ended up in Orange County Superior Court.

Does it make a difference? The answer, according to the government, is maybe . . . and maybe not.

The potential multimillion-dollar question is: Which group is more likely to win the elusive trophy of recognition?

The culmination of a lengthy and highly bureaucratic process, recognition in the end means nothing less than the ability to establish a sovereign government, opening the door to federal health and education programs and such moneymaking bonanzas as casinos.

“Well, there are three possible answers,” said Holly Reckord, chief of the Branch of Acknowledgment and Research, a division of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that determines recognition for Native Americans.

“It could be both groups,” Reckord said. “Or it could be neither . . . or it could be only one, meaning you could have one group of ‘Juaneno Band of Mission Indians’ recognized--and the other one not.”

With a sigh, Reckord added: “I’m sorry. That’s as clear as I can be.”

Amazingly, both groups have ended up on the government’s highly coveted “ready” list, meaning either or both could be considered--and then rewarded--with recognition any time now, though Reckord cast doubt on the bureau acting hastily. Federal cutbacks have dramatically reduced the number of people who evaluate recognition.

“Ready,” she said, means ready for “active consideration.”

According to the bureau, the Belardes group found its notch on the ready list Feb. 12, 1996, with the Johnston group reaching its own slot last May 23. At the moment, Reckord said, the Belardes group is No. 4 on the list of candidates eligible for active consideration, with the Johnston group at No. 8.

“We’re well aware” of the controversy dividing the groups, Reckord said last week from Washington. “There are two groups of leaders, two councils claiming to be Juaneno, each of which has membership lists that overlap but are not completely identical. For this reason and others, we now view the Juanenos as two separate petitioners.”

Reckord was reticent to say whether the conflict clouds the Juanenos’ chances for recognition, but did note: “This complicates the burden of having to decide who the leaders are--which is the business of the tribe itself and not the federal government.”

In the strongest language mustered during an interview, she added flatly, “They need to decide who their leaders are.”

Belardes, 49, could not be reached for comment, while Johnston, 52, declined to comment.

But Jim Velasques, 68, chieftain of the Coastal Gabrielenos, another of Orange County’s unrecognized tribes, said he was “astounded” by the government’s action.

“To me, that’s a bunch of crap,” said Velasques, who doubles as the head of a local intertribal council. “Sonia’s group has been in existence two years. You need to be in existence a lot longer--or so the government says--in order to become recognized. It sounds to me like the government is trying to recognize as many tribes as they can in the hopes that they’ll all open casinos and just leave the government alone.”

Velasques called the split between Johnston and Belardes “deep and wide--a snowflake would have a better chance in hell than a peacemaker would trying to get those two together”--but Belardes’ “is the original group . . . They’re the only ones I’ve ever known of. Sonia just took a few members out the door, to the other side of the street, as it were. That hardly means she’s a separate tribe.”

As for how he would resolve the dispute, which he equated with a nasty divorce, Velasques said, “I wouldn’t give it [recognition] to either one of them. What are we going to have? Two people running two casinos?”

Members of both factions dispute Velasques’ contention that casinos are motivating their drive for recognition, to which he responded: “Yeah, right. Do they really expect anyone to believe that? They want to become millionaires, like Indians all over the country. I find it disgraceful.”

The dispute notwithstanding, the Juanenos list more than 4,000 descendants scattered from the cliffs of San Juan Capistrano to the marshes of the Florida Everglades. Both groups claim to meet the requirements of a “tribe” in every way possible--they have their own language, their own genealogy, their own religion, their own constitution, their own link to a vivid past as Southern California’s earliest inhabitants.

For the United States to award recognition to either or both would not be the government granting them something, as if bestowing a gift; rather, both sides argue, it would mean recognizing the Acjachemen people--their original name--as a legitimate legal entity with whom the government has unfinished business.

It was the Spaniards who gave them the name Juanenos in honor of Mission San Juan Capistrano, which the tribe helped build in the 1700s. According to the Spaniards, the name described the raven-haired, brown-eyed, olive-skinned Indians who lived in the canyons and along the shores of what would come to be some of the priciest real estate in California: Dana Point and Laguna Beach.

“It would be a long-overdue acknowledgment by the government that we do exist and that we’ve always been here,” said Jean Frietze, 50, vice chairman of the Belardes group. “It would mean our own tribal courts, our own school system, as well as insurance and medical benefits for all our people.”

The Juanenos renewed their application for tribal status in 1982, well before the split, which Frietze conceded has frustrated all Juaneno efforts for recognition.

“Still, we refuse to see it as a problem,” she said. “The other group calls itself Juanenos. In fact, we’re all Juanenos, and neither side sees it as a hindrance.”

The government, of course, may see it differently.

Members allied with Johnston who asked not to be quoted by name for fear of jeopardizing their chances of obtaining recognition contend that she alone remains the duly elected leader--not Belardes, whose Juaneno ancestry dates back centuries.

“Our tribe is not two groups,” said the pro-Johnston member. “We’re only one group--the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians. And the fact that there’s been a disagreement makes us no different from any other family that sometimes has disagreements. There may be two sides, but we’re one family, and that shouldn’t hinder our efforts to be recognized. It’s really nobody’s business but our own.”

Aside from a pair of factions calling themselves the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, the only other group on the government’s ready list from the Golden State is the Tolowa Nation of Crescent City, Calif.

Frietze said that, in the event her group is awarded recognition first, their newly adorned tribe hopes to establish a community center, a cultural center, a preschool for children and “health benefits for people who are truly in need.”

Some members yearn for their own reservation, while others talk openly of making money the new-fashioned way--through a casino, such as those in San Diego County, where a number of Indian-run gaming operations have become dazzlingly profitable.

The Barona casino in Lakeside, for instance, recently hired singer Kenny Rogers as its marketing front man, and the Sycuan casino in El Cajon announced an extensive concert series last month that features country singer Willie Nelson, among others.

“I’m not saying [a casino] isn’t a possibility,” Frietze said, “but it’s all speculation at this point.”

The more compelling question may be whose casino--or whose tribe--would it be? And is sharing a possibility?

Only the government seems to know, and at the moment, Uncle Sam isn’t saying.