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Date Posted: 09:36:31 06/23/01 Sat
Author: Anonymous
Subject: News and Issues

By Bruce Selcraig
High Country News
and Shane Benjamin
Herald Staff Writer

Wendell Chino, the president of the Mescalero Apaches of southern New Mexico for 34 years, until his death in 1998, often joked: "Zunis make pottery. Navajos make rugs. Apaches make money."

Chino brought to his once-anemic reservation a ski resort, sawmill, metal factory and casino. But surely some must have doubted when, more than a quarter-century ago, he gazed upon a fallow field and declared it perfect for the country’s first tribal-owned golf course.

Chino’s dream – a manicured golf course attached to the Mescaleros’ Inn of the Mountain Gods resort – not only became a sensation among golfers, it also planted the seed for one of the more surprising economic success stories in all of Indian Country.

Tribal sources and golf-design firms estimate there are about 25 tribal-owned courses – now open or under development – in some 10 states.

Golf is now seen as a near-perfect magnet for attracting young professionals and small corporate conferences. But money and marketing savvy couldn’t draw golfers if pueblos didn’t have golf’s two essentials: land and water. The pueblos are blessed not only with landscapes that golf-course architects dream about but bountiful water rights.

Yet, with golf’s deserved but fading reputation for racist, sexist, Republican country clubs, and a sordid environmental record of excessive water and chemical use, one could understandably ask: Is there any game on the planet more alien to the American Indian ethic than golf?

The Colorado Ute tribes have been waiting to bring power plants, strip mining, a dude ranch and golf resorts to the Four Corners with water from the Animas-La Plata Project.

Leonard Burch, chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, said a golf course would compliment the Southern Utes’ Sky Ute Casino and give tribal members and local communities a place to recreate.

"It is a good sport, and we would like to see young people participate in it," Burch said. "Recreation is part of growing up and educating young ones."

A golf course does not exactly fit in with traditional Ute culture, but it would be a good resource to utilize where there is a need, he said. Some tribal members go to Oxford to play, Burch said.

"We’ve moved into the 21st century," he said. "Now we have to move ahead and develop according to the needs ... but not forget the culture."

The tribe is waiting to see if it is awarded enough water from A-LP to maintain a golf course, he said.

It would be conducive to the local needs rather than attract players like Tiger Woods, Burch said.

Surprisingly, golf came before gambling at the Santa Ana Pueblo near Bernalillo, N.M.

"We were looking for something where white people would come, spend their money and leave," joked tribal administrator Roy Montoya.

The pueblo opened the Santa Ana Golf Club in 1991. Today, the 27-hole Santa Ana Pueblo is joined by a new 350-room Hyatt Regency and Hyatt’s just-opened Twin Warriors golf course, which is already well-booked and will cost the public $125 per round.

The Cochiti Pueblo, north of Santa Ana, has opted out of a casino culture, and tribal members seem confident about their choice.

"We have been inoculated," says Princeton-educated Cochiti Governor Regis Pecos.

The Great Western Cities Corp. in the 1960s enticed Cochiti leaders to lease land for a retirement/vacation community called Cochiti Lake. But in 1984, the pueblo bought back its lease and title to the golf course. Now the Cochitis, who have rejected hotels, waste dumps and casinos, rely on the golf course’s million dollar-a-year gross.

"We want to define the kind of visitor who comes here," says Pecos. "We want them to have respect; golfers represent those kinds of values."Not ‘green’ enough?

One cannot discuss golf in New Mexico without talking about water. The third-driest of the 50 states, rainfall averages about 15 inches a year in Santa Fe and less in Albuquerque. During summer peak, many courses will use nearly 1 million gallons a day for irrigation, enough to supply three families of five for a year.

For some, the thought of a clover-green playground for the rich is unconscionable.

"Golf in the desert is a total abomination," says John Horning, director of the Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians’ watershed protection program.

The tribes, he says, have no corner on environmental sensitivity.

"Some have environmental ethics – some don’t," he said.

Clearly, the impact of the Indian-owned courses in New Mexico goes far beyond environmental practices and economic development: Many tribal members now regularly play for free or reduced rates, and youth programs are becoming "cool."

Michael Peacock, a golfer and director of the New Mexico Native American Business Development Center, credits the influence of pro golfers Tiger Woods and Notah Begay III, who is Navajo and Pueblo, with breaking down the game’s racial and cultural barriers.

Benny Shendo, senior manager of Native American programs at the University of New Mexico and a Jemez Pueblo member, says kids on his pueblo west of Albuquerque flock to golf summer camps.

"We’re the best sand-trap players because we have nothing but dirt out there," he jokes.

Yet, Shendo wonders if the pueblos are jeopardizing their cultural integrity.

"We’ve been approached about a resort-style golf course," he says, "but I don’t think the pueblo is ready to compromise itself.

"If you look at the pueblos that have done well economically, they have also lost quite a bit in terms of language, culture and ceremonies ... but we look at things through a different lens."



Jacqueline Jackson in solitary confinement

June 22, 2001BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU Jacqueline Jackson was
thrown into solitary confinement after refusing to be strip-searched at the
Puerto Rican jail where she is protesting U.S. naval bombings off the island
of Vieques, her son Yusef said Thursday.Jacqueline Jackson, 57, declined to
post $3,000 bail, her son told the Chicago Sun-Times, because "she wants to
be released with dignity on her own recognizance."Yusef Jackson said his
mother refused a body cavity search as she was returning to her cell after
meeting with her legal team, which includes Yusef, 30, a corporate attorney
who is the president of a Chicago beer distributorship.A prison guard told
Yusef Jackson that his mother was put in solitary for refusing to disrobe, a
sanction that is standard policy at the prison."I said that is most excessive
for someone who is here for civil disobedience," her son said.Yusef Jackson
flew to San Juan, arriving early Thursday morning "after I realized she was
not going to be released on her own recognizance." He was interviewed by
telephone from his room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Juan.He said his mother is
not allowed visits by family members, and he was able to see her only because
he is a lawyer.Jacqueline Jackson was arrested on misdemeanor trespassing
charges Monday as she climbed through a fence to a restricted area of the
bombing range.The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson plans to fly to the island today to
appeal to the judicial authorities for the release of his wife.Yusef said he
expects to be joined today by his brother, Jonathan, 35, and sister,
Jacqueline Jackson II, 25.Another son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), was
part of a news conference in Washington on Thursday protesting his mother's
confinement and the Navy's use of a portion of Vieques for target
practice.President Bush announced last week the Navy will leave in two years,
while critics want an immediate halt to the bombing.Jacqueline Jackson came
to Puerto Rico at first to observe, Yusef said, and "she rather quickly
decided to cross the fence for an act of civil disobedience for which she was
rightly detained." Her decision to stay "kind of shocked everybody," he
said.Jacqueline Jackson went to Vieques at the suggestion of Rep. Luis
Gutierrez (D-Ill.), himself arrested twice for trespassing on the range. He
is awaiting a trial on Aug. 29.Gutierrez wrote to Attorney General John
Ashcroft on Thursday, urging him to "intervene immediately on Mrs. Jackson's
behalf." He said "this type of detention is extreme, dehumanizing and
completely inappropriate." A Justice Department spokesman could not be
reached to comment.


"COURAGE IS THE PRICE THAT LIFE EXACTS FOR GRANTING PEACE..."



Chief Seattle's tribe clings to its identity
By SARA JEAN GREEN, Seattle Times staff reporter

[Photo caption: "Chief Seattle's daughter, Kickisomlo, who was dubbed
Princess Angeline by the white settlers, was born sometime around 1820. She
died in 1896. In this 1890 photo, she's seated by a photo of Snoqualmie
Falls."]

"Theirs was the land the white people wanted most.

To the Duwamish, the indigenous people of what is now Seattle and King
County, this place was an ideal site for winter longhouses and summer camps,
salmon weirs and canoe landings. To the newcomers, the place lent itself to
a new town, with gridded streets, a mill, deep-water anchorage and,
eventually, steel mills and boat docks, concrete plants and sports stadiums.
The newcomers' vision won, and the Duwamish were dispersed. For them, there
would be no reservation, no fishing rights, no visible landmark of their
legacy.
"But ... many of our people never left," says Cecile Hansen, the Duwamish
tribal chairwoman.

One hundred and fifty years after the Denny Party arrived and started the
settlement that would become Seattle, Hansen and other Duwamish have no
desire to turn back the clock. But they do seek federal recognition as a
distinct tribe and want a place where their people can gather in the city
that bears their chief's name. Hansen is the great-great-grandniece of Chief
Seattle, and her grandmother is buried next to him on the Suquamish
reservation.

The Duwamish want to deal with the United States on a
government-to-government basis and want to offer their members services such
as education and health care - rights guaranteed in the treaty they signed.

In the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, 81 Indian leaders representing 15
tribes ceded Puget Sound to the United States. Chief Seattle was the first
to make his mark on behalf of the Suquamish and Duwamish. The Suquamish got
their own reservation; the Duwamish didn't.

The Duwamish were supposed to move to the Suquamish, Tulalip, Muckleshoot or
Lummi reservations and live among other tribes. Many did, but others never
left or soon returned to their homeland, dismayed by the restrictions of
reservation life.

Without a land base, the 570 or so registered Duwamish members struggle
against invisibility. Their numbers are small, their blood mixed. Without
recognition, "the prospects of the tribe existing and surviving are
extremely limited," said James Rasmussen, a third-generation Duwamish
council member. "We followed through on our end of the agreement, and we're
waiting for the federal government to follow through on theirs."

Federal recognition, he says, will fulfill the treaty that guaranteed
signatories a government-to-government relationship with the United States.
And it will ensure the Duwamish "more than a place at the table" when
decisions are made about environmental and other issues, said Rasmussen,
whose great-great-great-grandmother was a Duwamish elite and niece of one of
Puget Sound's last medicine men.

A brief recognition

The Duwamish thought they were close to establishing such a relationship
when, on Jan. 19, just before 9 p.m., Washington, D.C., time, tribal
chairwoman Hansen got a phone call from Lee Fleming, head of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs' Bureau of Acknowledgement and Research.

With three hours left in the Clinton administration, Fleming told Hansen the
federal government was recognizing the Duwamish tribe.

But less than 48 hours later, Hansen learned President Bush suspended a
batch of his predecessor's 11th-hour orders, including federal recognition
of the Duwamish.
"Now we're 'pending.' We're in this terrible limbo," Hansen said.

The Duwamish had the misfortune of living on some of the most sought-after
real estate in the region, says historian David Buerge. Their longhouses
were torched, and they were banned from owning land that had been theirs for
generations.
The Duwamish ceded 54,700 acres of land, but it took almost 120 years and a
long court battle for the United States to pay up: In 1971, about 1,000
people were each paid $64.
"I bought groceries," said Hansen. "What else can you do with $64?"

The Duwamish and other landless people were dropped from the list of
federally recognized tribes sometime in the 1960s, Hansen said. Though Judge
George Boldt ruled in 1974 that tribes who signed the Point Elliott Treaty
had rights to half of the area's fish, he later ruled the Duwamish and four
other groups weren't political entities and so weren't entitled to treaty
rights.

Tribe takes priority

Hansen's story is much like the story of her tribe, a people who have
adapted to survive while holding tight to their Duwamish identity.

She's brusque, tough and funny. She's a Catholic and volunteers at her
church. She has borne eight children and buried three. She loves Neil
Diamond, boats and her rose bushes.
She's a private woman who has tried to resign many times in her 26 years of
leadership. The last was in 1996, when the BIA rejected Duwamish
recognition.

Hansen called the council together and they split up the tribe's roster,
phoning every Duwamish to find out what to do next.
"They overwhelmingly said, 'We want to keep fighting,' " Hansen said. "That
gave me the motivation to go on.
"The tribe always takes priority to everything else," she continued. "As
many times as I've tried to get away from this work, I think this is the
Lord's plan for me because I was just minding my own business, trying to
raise my kids."

She was elected tribal chairwoman in 1975. It's a lifetime position and,
until this year, an unpaid one. Hansen was a young mother when the tribe
began fighting for recognition in 1978. Now, she's a great-grandmother.
Hansen works out of the tribe's office, most recently a rented Burien
storefront next to a hair salon, less than two miles from the house where
she lived as a Highline High School student in the 1950s.

Her dad was a longshoreman, fisherman and woodsman who knew how to fix cars.
Her mom was raised in Indian boarding schools from age 4 to 17, worked in
canneries and raised five children. At age 50, she went to college and
became a nurse.
In the early 1970s, Hansen's late brother Manny was arrested several times
for fishing in the Duwamish River, and that was the beginning of Hansen's
research into her people's past. Around the same time, she met Buerge, a
teacher and local historian who is writing a biography of Chief Seattle.

Hansen credits him with piecing together much of what's known about Duwamish
history. But there were many people along the way - historians,
anthropologists, linguists and others - who helped compile necessary
evidence for the tribe's application for federal recognition.

Should the Bush administration approve Duwamish recognition, the decision
inevitably will be appealed, likely by tribes already recognized.

According to Rasmussen, the Muckleshoot have already indicated they would
appeal. The Muckleshoot didn't return phone calls requesting comment.

Herman Williams Jr., chairman of the board of directors for the Tulalip
Tribes, said it was unlikely the Tulalips would appeal, having lost other
recognition cases. The Tulalips argue that the Puget Sound Indians who moved
to reservations are the ones who kept their end of the treaty bargain.

"We ceded our land and moved to reservations, went through the hardships,
sifted bugs out of our flour and endured the diseases. We were Indian when
it wasn't popular to be Indian, while other people got to assimilate into
the community," said Williams.

Hansen knows if and when recognition comes through, there will be more red
tape. The tribe will need to write a constitution, determine membership
criteria and establish ordinances.

The tribe's top priority now is getting a longhouse built on West Marginal
Way, across the street from the city's new Herring House Park, site of an
old Duwamish village and a 360-foot potlatch house.

A couple of years ago, an anonymous group of West Seattleites gave $52,000
so the tribe could put a down payment on a small parcel of land downstream
from Terminal 107 and Kellogg Island.

So far, the tribe has secured two $60,000 grants from King County and $5,000
from Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods for design work and mortgage
payments. Hansen estimates the tribe needs to raise $2 million more.

"We need to be able to bring our people back together again, to educate our
children in their culture, to welcome other tribes to the area, and most
importantly, to be able to tell a story to the people who live here, to give
them a sense of place and history," Rasmussen said."

[Sara Jean Green can be reached at 206-515-5654 or at
sgreen@seattletimes.com]

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