04/04/2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APARTHEID IN CALIFORNIA - TRIBE SANCTIONS ITS PEOPLE BY STRIPPING THEM OF THEIR CITIZENSHIP
April 4, 2016 – Lake County, California - On March 28, 2016 a large percentage of the adult Tribal members of the Elem Indian Colony of Pomo Indians learned that as punishment for not supporting the Tribe’s purported government they are being stripped of their citizenship. On November 8, 2014 the majority of the qualified voters of the Elem Indian Colony of Pomo Indians, 60 adults, elected a new Executive Committee. The current purported government certified just 54 votes to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
As punishment for not supporting their government, the ruling government started “disenrolling” their own tribal and family members a few days ago. Unlike in other situations where “disenrollment” has arisen in California or across the country, this stripping of citizenship is not connected with an alleged lack of genealogical connection to the Tribe. Instead the disenrollment is a punishment, a sanction.
“Disenrollment” is the stripping of a Native American’s citizenship, membership, in a tribe. “What is being done to us is not just undemocratic, its cultural genocide. From one day to the next, we are being told that we are not part of the Tribe,” said Rose Brown, an Elem Tribal Member.
“Even before this disenrollment we have been treated as second-class citizens, prevented from receiving tribal services, health care, or the right to vote. We are required to enter through different doors in the back of our meetings and not allowed to participate in our own Tribe. It is an apartheid situation, right here in California,” explained Kiuya Brown, an affected Tribal Member.
The turmoil arises from tactics the unlawfully elected government used on the Elem Tribe’s election day in which they forcibly prevented the majority of the Tribe’s voters from participating in the Tribe’s election. Ultimately, 60 adult Tribal Members decided they would not let the tactics stand and they continued the election at an adjacent park. Participating in that election, in addition to pages of trumped up charges, are the grounds for stripping the affected Tribal Members of their right to be considered part of the Elem Tribe.
“Our families are part of the fabric of Lake County. We have been here since time immemorial. By the stroke of a pen we are being told we are not Elem people. That we have no rights. We cannot and will not let that stand,” stated David Brown, another affected Elem Tribal Member who was elected as the Chairman of the Tribe at the November 8th election.
Elem Tribal Member Robert Geary offered, “we hope the local community and our local politicians will help spread the word that this plague of disenrollment must stop. We respect tribal sovereignty to determine with due process whether people have the bloodlines to be part of a tribe, but we cannot support using disenrollment as a punishment. That is not the Native way. We used to talk through and work out our problems. Disenrollment comes from unscrupulous lawyers who don’t care about tearing our communities apart. It comes down to their greed.”
For more information and for copies of any pertinent documents please contact our representatives: David Brown, 925-207-0555 or Little Fawn Boland, 415-648-7670, ext. 101 / [email protected].
For more information about “disenrollment”:
Tribal Leaders Must Talk About Disenrollment, Indian Country Today Media Network, http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/10/05/tribal-leaders-must-talk-about-disenrollment
Disenrollment Threatens Native American Identity, WNYC – The Takeaway, http://www.wnyc.org/story/disenrollment-threatens-native-american-identity/
I enjoy a piece of warm frybread as much as anyone.But I know that this supposedly “traditional” food was first made from U.S. Government commodity lard and flour, and that it’s unhealthy.
