Pechanga's Moratorium People: Kept from the Tribe Though Family Members are IN

Pechanga's Moratorium People: From Pechanga, But Not OF Pechanga 

The Rios/Tosobal Family has ties to the Pechanga tribe, from his mother back to his great-great-great-grandmother, born in 1811. (That’s when Abe Lincoln was 2 years old!)

So, when his mother died in 1978 and left him a piece of reservation land, Manuel Rios Jr. began trying to make arrangements to bring water and electricity to the plot so he could set up a home there. 30 years later, he has yet to get tribal approval to do anything with the land.

Tribal officials had told him he and his family are not on the rolls, he said, and they won’t get considered for membership until a moratorium on new enrollments is lifted now extended past 2010. His family members, who number more than 100, have stacks of documents that they say they submitted to the enrollment committee 17 years ago.  

The Tosobol descendents belonged in the tribe.   Two enrollment committee members were concerned that the right thing be done and brought this family's paperwork forward.  This led to the families of those two members being terminated from the tribe.  Over 350 men, women and children, losing their heritage, their right to vote, now Pechanga is looking to steal their water rights.    Imagine that, denied your heritage for honoring the ancestors of the tribe.

In 2003, new members of the Enrollment Committee, including family members from the Hunter and Manuela Miranda famlies, who had been elected to the committee in 2002 sent a letter to the tribal council informing them of corruption on the Enrollment Committee.

The letter detailed how members of the Enrollment Committee had acted to deny enrollment to lineal descendants of enrolled members. These members would require DNA tests, delay meetings, and misinform parties before the Enrollment Committee.


So the Enrollment Committee prior to 2002 dominated by people from the CPP faction very well could have sat on applications of people who ended up in the moratorium and these and other irreularities were pointed out to the tribal council by people who ended up being disenrolled.


And the fact that those Enrollment Committee members who had been accused of not doing their duty by members of disenollee families were then allowed to vote on the fate of those families is a violation of Pechanga's own constitution that says under Article V, "It shall be the duty of all elected officers of the Band to uphold and enforce the Constitution, Bylaws, and ordinances of the Temecula Band of Luiseno Mission Indians; and also, TO UPHOLD AND ENFORCE THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OF EACH MEMBER WITHOUT MALICE OR PREJUDICE."

Read more on this family:  http://www.originalpechanga.com/2011/11/tosobal-familypechangas-moratorium.html