Tribal Heritage

At grade school, he was given a drum to beat and called Apache. When he went home, Rudy Ortega asked why his teacher had called him Indian.

Because you are Indian, Rudy’s mother explained that day in San Fernando. But six decades later, no one has yet answered all of Ortega’s probing questions about his Native American ancestry.

Ortega is 73 now. His silvery hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and turquoise and silver jewelry adorns his neck and fingers.

Years of digging through yellowed records have yielded much about his heritage, dating to the early San Fernando Mission days. Now what he most dreams of is federal recognition for his Fernandeno/Tataviam tribe.

Federal status also means money--from government programs for health and education to the potential bonanza of Indian-run casinos.

The tribal recognition process can be exhausting. Tribes have labored for decades to assemble the genealogical and historical data required by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has recognized only 15 tribes nationwide in more than 20 years.

But the Fernandenos face an even bigger challenge: getting along with each other.

Political squabbles and family enmity have kept the Fernandenos and related tribal members separated into three rival groups. Two have started the federal recognition process, and a third splinter group says it will also make an application.

“It’s literally turned Indian against Indian,” said Beverly Salazar Folkes, a spokeswoman for the newest breakaway group and a cousin of Ortega.

Such divisions hamper recognition efforts, said John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

“They need to unite behind a common leader, and they haven’t done that,” said Johnson, who assists tribes with genealogical research. “I wish they would all work together for their common good.”

Many Native Americans sought federal recognition long before the advent of casinos.

They’ve coveted that validation to soothe centuries of wounded pride. Indian remains, for example, are only released to federally recognized tribes. And many desire a homeland for their people, a sacred burial ground for family and ancestors.

Casino Seen as Way to Pay for Dreams

Ortega, also known as Chief Little Bear, dreams of a clinic, a youth center and a home for the elderly. But it is his younger, more pragmatic son and heir apparent who sees a casino in Los Angeles County as the way to pay for those dreams.

“My father might not want to see that,” said Rudy Ortega Jr. after a recent meeting of about six of his tribe’s council members at his Sylmar home. “But on a reservation, the major funding is the casino.”

Reservation casinos were nationally sanctioned under a 1988 federal Indian gaming law that requires tribes to abide by state regulations. In March, California voters approved Las Vegas-style gambling on Indian land, and on May 5 the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs signed casino agreements with 59 California tribes, more than any other state. They will allow 41 existing casinos as well as new ones to bring in slot machines.

“A casino in Los Angeles County, there’s none around,” Ortega Jr. mused. “There’s none in Simi, Santa Clarita or the San Fernando Valley. Once someone gets federal recognition, you’ll probably see the [casino] developers coming to them.”

Fifty California groups are listed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs as applicants for recognition.

In addition to Ortega’s group, another four are from Los Angeles County, including two bands of Gabrielinos, whose ancestors lived at the San Gabriel Mission.

In Orange County, two groups of Juaneno Indians are seeking federal recognition, but the 1997 disclosure that one tribe had partnered with Nevada investors for a Vegas-style casino caused an angry backlash by other Juanenos and the city of San Juan Capistrano. The pro-casino Juanenos had received more than $250,000 to help fund their recognition efforts and to hire former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Espy.

As for the three local Native American groups affiliated with the San Fernando Mission, their leaders said they have made no deals with casino businesses. John Valenzuela, tribal chairman of the Ish-Panesh United Band of Indians, said his group was approached by a casino company last year that offered to help with federal recognition, but no deal was struck.

Because many California mission Indians like the Fernandenos no longer have tribal land, they have two ways to establish a reservation if they are recognized: The government can transfer federal land to them or they can buy property through a trust with the federal Department of the Interior.

Anthropologists say the Fernandenos and Gabrielinos are separate linguistic groups, and the Fernandenos speak a dialect of Gabrielino. Both groups have the intermixed Indian heritage that was common during the mission period.

As mission Indians, both the Fernandeno and Gabrielino have to trace their family roots back through a tangled web of Native American communities whose cultures and languages from California and Mexico were mixed and suppressed by Spanish priests more than two centuries ago.

Several Languages Spoken at Mission

Long before the Europeans’ arrival, Indian villages were scattered throughout the state. But at the missions, the village residents were centralized and intermingled.

At the San Fernando Mission, established in 1797, several languages could be identified, Johnson said, including the Fernandeno dialect of Gabrielino, Tataviam, Ventureno-Chumash and Serrano.

Those disparate languages and groups blended into a rich stew, culturally vibrant yet with difficult to distill origins. “Every person I have met who has a history at the San Fernando Mission has more than one linguistic background,” Johnson said.

By the end of the mission period in the 1830s, Native American families returned to their former separate communities in Piru, the Antelope Valley, Chatsworth and Ventura County near Ahmanson Ranch. Some, like the elder Ortega’s family, remained near the San Fernando Mission.

Today, descendants of that mission Native American community know each other and can be found from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Clarita to Ventura, Johnson said.

Although the tribal rifts are familiar, they are still painful.

“If we were together, we would have federal recognition by now,” said Ortega Jr. His father’s group will probably have 600 to 800 members in its application.

However, leaders just don’t want to share power, said Valenzuela, whose Ish-Panesh group numbers about 300. Folkes claims that her group, which broke away from the Ish-Panesh, is 150 strong.

“Everyone wants to be chief,” Valenzuela, 62, of Hesperia said. “There are people in our group that are not in favor of Rudy Ortega. It’s all a family thing.”

Folkes, a Thousand Oaks resident who is part Chumash, Fernandeno and Tataviam, said her group, Antik, will also seek recognition. Though casinos weren’t the impetus, she doesn’t dismiss that possibility.

Raised in San Fernando, Folkes, 61, disavows any familial ties to Ortega. Her split last fall from Valenzuela’s Ish-Panesh stemmed from rivalry over leadership of the Oakbrook Regional Park and Chumash Interpretive Center in Thousand Oaks. She then asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to transfer names from Ish-Panesh to her new group, whose members are Chumash and Tataviam.

The bad blood mystifies Ortega Sr.

“I don’t butt in with what she is doing,” he said. “She is supposed to be a spiritual leader over there.”

While Folkes struggles over membership roles, Ish-Panesh and Ortega’s group recently agreed to avoid listing the same members in their separate applications, a factor closely scrutinized by the bureau.

Recognition, Valenzuela said, will help his people get medical and educational benefits. But it is not a quick process, he said, and casinos may be beyond his time.

The lengthy application process requires groups to meet seven criteria, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs sets a high burden of proof.

Applicants must show that a tribe has been a continuous community from historical times to the present; for New England Native Americans that can mean sifting through records from the 1600s. Another requirement is to show how a tribe has historically maintained political authority or influence.

The bureau’s genealogists, historians and anthropologists pore over evidence and fact-check documentation, said R. Lee Fleming, branch chief of the department that reviews applicants. Evaluating petitions, including public comment and a possible appeal, takes a minimum of 22 months, he said.

Family History Proves Puzzling

Family history can often be baffling.

Born in a house on Coronel Street in San Fernando, Ortega Sr. said his family always called him Rudy and that he was baptized Rudolph. Only as an adult did he learn his birth certificate listed him as Edward Arnold Ortega.

His grandfather, who was born at the San Fernando Mission in 1857, also had two names--Jose Rosalio Ortega and Antonio Maria Ortega.

In an elegant, flowing script, a 1900 San Fernando census counter listed Antonio Mario Ortega as “In” or Indian.

Whether Antonio Ortega insisted he was Native American or if the enumerator was just a stickler for details is anyone’s guess. But for the next two decades, on the 1910 and 1920 censuses, his race was marked white.

He was probably the last living person to speak Fernandeno, Johnson said. Records state that he died in 1941, and his last daughter, Sallie, died a few years ago.

Federal recognition for those ancestors and their descendants would close the gap in their Native American “hoop,” their cultural lives, said Ron Andrade, executive director of the Los Angeles City-County Native American Commission.

“They’ll be Fernandeno whether they are federally recognized or not, whether they have a casino or not,” Andrade said.

“But they feel there is respect lost. . . . They just want to die federally recognized.”

Rudy Ortega Sr. remains optimistic.

“I dreamed I wanted something for my people before I left this earth, this happy hunting ground,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been working so hard. Now I feel like it’s coming to a close.”