BILL NUMBER: SJR 47 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 24, 2002
INTRODUCED BY Senators Soto and Polanco
MAY 22, 2002
Senate Joint Resolution No. 47--Relative to the Gabrieleno
Indians.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SJR 47, as amended, Soto. Gabrieleno Indians: federal
recognition.
This measure would memorialize the President and Congress
of the United States and the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs
in the United States Department of the Interior to grant
support the extension of federal recognition to the
Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians through the enactment of H.R.
3824 .
Fiscal committee: no.
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Indians, aboriginally known as
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is a sovereign
Indian tribe located in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in
California, consisting of 47 documented members with its tribal
headquarters located in Beaumont, California; and
WHEREAS, During 1851 and 1852, the ancestors of the Gabrieleno
Band of Mission Indians lived as virtual prisoners on the San Gabriel
Mission, and thus were unable to travel to Temecula in order to sign
treaties of recognition with the United States; and
WHEREAS, The inability to sign these treaties has prevented the
Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians from receiving federal recognition
as an Indian tribe; and
WHEREAS, Even in the absence of this recognition, individual
members of the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians were recognized as
Indians by the federal government in the 1928 California Indian
Census conducted by the Department of the Interior, and were again
listed on the supplemental enrollment book of 1933 by the same
department; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians has had
ethnography completed by the well known anthropologist and foremost
authority on California Indians, Dr. Lowell Bean, and the Gabrieleno
Band of Mission Indians were also the subject of his book, "The First
Angelinos"; and
WHEREAS, Because the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is not
listed as a federally recognized Indian tribe, it is unable to
participate in health, education, and social service programs
provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health
Services; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians are seeking
federal recognition to enable its members to have the same rights to
health, education, and social services that members of other Indian
tribes possess; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians has filed a letter
of intent with the Bureau of Acknowledgement and Research, a branch
of the Department of Interior, to petition for federal recognition;
and
WHEREAS, This petition has been listed in the Federal Register
since 1999 as petition 201; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians has met the
criteria for federal recognition pursuant to 25 C.F.R. 83.7; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is not seeking
land in Los Angeles County, nor are they seeking to conduct Indian
gaming on lands taken into trust for the benefit of the tribe
pursuant to federal recognition; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians has survived the
Spanish conquest of the 17th century, the deprivations of the
missions in the 18th century, the transfer of power from Spain to
Mexico, and from Mexico to the United States in the 19th century, and
the urbanization of the Gabrieleno homeland in the 20th century, and
continue to assert their sovereign right to self governance today
and for generations and centuries to come; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and Assembly of the State of California,
jointly, That the Legislature respectfully memorializes the President
and the Congress of the United States, and the Assistant Secretary
for Indian Affairs in the United States Department of the Interior,
to grant the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians full federal
recognition and all the rights and privileges that arise from that
declaration, including listing the tribe in the Federal Register
under the relevant provisions of Title I of the Federally Recognized
Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-454); and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, each Senator and
Representative from California in the Congress of the United States,
and to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the United
States Department of the Interior. the kumi-vit, live
within their homelands along the drainages of the Santa Ana and San
Gabriel Rivers and the San Pedro, Wilmington, and Paso Robles areas
of southern California; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is recognized by
anthropologists, historians, and genealogists, as the lineal, social,
and political descendants of Native Americans contacted by Spanish
and Portuguese explorers and settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries;
and
WHEREAS, In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Spanish Mission San
Gabriel was established on Gabrieleno Indian homelands causing the
loss of their land base and disruption of the Gabrieleno Band of
Mission Indians; and
WHEREAS, Today's Gabrieleno Indians are direct lineal descendants
of enrollees on the 1928 Indian Census and on the 1933 supplemental
roll book pursuant to Section 7 of Chapter 624 of the United States
Statutes at Large approved May 18, 1928; and
WHEREAS, Gabrieleno tribal culture, manifest in life and burial
rites and other social and religious practices, has been handed down
from generation to generation to the present day; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is an Indian Tribe
which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and
services provided by the United States to Indians because of their
status as Indians and does in fact receive such services; and
WHEREAS, The Bureau of Indian Affairs has determined the
Gabrieleno tribal blood quantum of each of the enrolled members of
the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians; and
WHEREAS, For this and other reasons, the members of the Gabrieleno
Band of Mission Indians receive certain federal and state services
that are afforded to them only because they are Indians; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians of California,
Inc., was incorporated as a California nonprofit corporation on May
16, 2000, for the purpose of administering the business of the tribe;
and
WHEREAS, The federal Department of Health and Human Services has
determined that the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians of California,
Inc., is eligible for certain federal programs because of its tribal
and legal status and has provided grants to it in support of tribal
governance; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians, Inc., is
recognized by other federally recognized tribes in San Bernardino and
Riverside Counties of California, as the governing body of the
Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians; and
WHEREAS, The Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians is desirous of
securing its cultural and its social and economic future and land on
which to bury the remains of ancestors and for other purposes; now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and Assembly of the State of California,
jointly, That the Legislature of the State of California respectfully
supports the extension of federal recognition to the Gabrieleno Band
of Mission Indians through the enactment of H.R. 3824 and requests
that all laws and regulations of the United States of general
application to Indians, or nations, tribes, or band of Indians,
including the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 (25 U.S.C.
461 et seq.), shall be applicable to the tribe and its members; and
be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of California requests
that the tribe and its members shall be eligible, on and after the
date of the enactment of H.R. 3824, for all future services and
benefits provided by the federal government to federally recognized
tribes without regard to the existence of a reservation for the tribe
or the location of the residence of any member on or near any Indian
reservation; and be it further;
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States,
to the Secretary of Interior, to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and to each
Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the
United States.