Splintered Tribe Working to Achieve Federal Recognition

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.

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.

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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 released only to federally recognized tribes. And many desire a homeland for their people, a sacred burial ground for family and ancestors.

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 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.

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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 Juanenosand 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, a second Fernandeno group that numbers about 300, 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.

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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.

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.

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However, leaders just don’t want to share power, said Valenzuela. Folkes says 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.

The bad blood mystifies Ortega.

“I don’t butt in with what she is doing,” he said. “

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.

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.”