Bad blood at tribal boundaries

Now, though, they’re more like his adversaries.

Roybal, a 65-year-old retired federal employee, is embroiled in a nasty dispute with San Ildefonso Pueblo over a road easement issue.

“They don’t care about their neighbors,” he said angrily, referring to the pueblo. “They’re Indians first and friends second.”

The strife between Roybal and the pueblo is not unique, at least not now. It is, in fact, a microcosm of what appear to be heightened tensions between Native Americans and non-Indians in New Mexico, a state that prides itself on its multiculturalism.

Depending on who you talk to, the animosity stems from such thorny issues as water rights, road and utility easements, casino projects and the commemoration of European colonists whose expeditions into the New World included the brutal slaying of Natives.

The bad blood between races of people who — for the most part — have lived in harmony for centuries comes as the state’s once-reticent tribes have grown more powerful and influential in the past two decades. Once brushed aside, New Mexico’s Native Americans are flexing their newfound political, financial and legal muscle more than ever before — and it’s rubbing some people the wrong way.

“In 2018, we’re no longer fighting with stones, bows, arrows or fists,” said state Rep. Derrick Lente, who is Native American. “Our fights today in tribal nations in the state and across the nation are fought with our brains, with our hearts and with our tongues. When people start understanding that we can wage those battles the same way that they’re waged against us, that’s the turning point.”

While gaming helped many tribes economically, Jicarilla Apache Nation President Levi Pesata and other tribal leaders said a new emphasis on education also has elevated Native Americans in New Mexico.

“We’re pretty much on the same playing field as other people now, on all levels,” Pesata said. “I think what changed was a lot of the treatment that we were getting from the government and even some of the communities, classifying us as second-class citizens, and with the education of young people coming up, that changed tremendously. We are a force to be reckoned with.”

Hallowed ground

But power sometimes leads to discord.

Perhaps the most recent example of the dissonance is a plan by Tesuque Pueblo to build a casino adjacent to The Santa Fe Opera, which to some represents the pinnacle of white European refinement and culture.

Among supporters of the arts, the famed opera house is considered a hallowed institution.

But a casino is on the horizon — literally. Graders and other heavy equipment already have begun to move dirt on the hilltop lot just off U.S. 84/285 north of Santa Fe to begin construction of the casino. Once complete, the casino, and later a hotel, will be part of the once unobstructed view from the balcony and terrace of the exclusive and ritzy opera club.

Paul Margetson, chairman of the opera’s fundraising arm, called the pueblo’s plans to build a casino next to the opera “unfortunate.”

“Obviously, they’re entitled to do whatever they want,” Margetson said, referring to the tribe’s sovereign status.

“But I would think they have land elsewhere that they could do that,” added Margetson, who is the general manager of Hotel Santa Fe, The Hacienda & Spa, which is owned by Picuris Pueblo. “This probably could be made residential or part of the pueblo residential community or something else, as opposed to a big, old, loud, noisy [building] and bright lights. The big concern is here we are sitting halfway through an opera, and the car alarms go off. How do you stop that? Beep. Beep.”

Tesuque Pueblo has promised to be “responsible and good neighbors with the opera,” which also has expressed concerns about light pollution from the casino.

Elena Ortiz, a Native American activist and member of the Ohkay Owingeh pueblo north of Española, finds it baffling that anyone would even question Tesuque Pueblo’s plans to build what it wants on the tribe’s ancestral lands.

“The Santa Fe Opera had better be grateful that Tesuque has announced that they want to be a good neighbor,” she said. “That land is theirs, and it is sovereign. They can do whatever the hell they want to do with it and more power to them. It’s time we stopped being cowed by the political and social elite in Santa Fe. We are here, have always been, and if they don’t start to respect that, they may find themselves surrounded by neon lights and the sound of slot machines in July and August from 8 to midnight.”

At a groundbreaking ceremony earlier this month attended by some opera officials, Tesuque Pueblo Gov. Frederick Vigil described the casino as an economic development engine intended to invest in tribal youth and preserve pueblo traditions, including its language.

In an interview afterward, Vigil acknowledged that some people don’t like the idea of a casino next to the opera. But he said the pueblo needs to look out for itself.

“Who had the first footprint on this land? It was our people,” he said.

“Did the opera, when it was being built, did they come to our [tribal] council to acknowledge that this was going to happen? No. And then you see the [residential] development on our homelands. Did anybody come to say to Tesuque: ‘We have this initiative in this area?’ No. Only now that we’ve become aggressive leaders are we saying, ‘These are our homelands,’ ” he said.

Stronger and louder

The tribes’ assertiveness makes some people uneasy, said Lee Moquino, a vocal opponent of Santa Fe’s Entrada, an annual re-enactment of Spanish conquistador Don Diego de Vargas retaking the city following the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

“Most people have this romanticized idea of what it is to be an Indian, what it is to be Native,” said Moquino, 32, a Santa Clara and Zia Pueblo Indian who is a quarter Hispanic. “They’re silent. They’re quiet. They’re one with the earth. They’re peaceful people. But for us, Tewa people have always been known as warriors. That’s in our bloodline.”

Last year, Moquino exhibited warrior-like behavior when he faced off against the Rev. Adam Lee Ortega y Ortiz, the rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, while the priest delivered an opening blessing at the Entrada.

In a last-minute shift designed to avoid an ugly and potentially violent protest, the Caballeros de Vargas, a religious fraternity that puts on the annual re-enactment, moved back the scheduled start time of the Entrada to noon from 2 p.m.

Moquino, who was in the downtown area at the time, got wind of the change and rushed to the Santa Fe Plaza, where he loudly protested alone for several minutes before other protesters arrived. Moquino wore an Indian headdress and held an eagle staff as he screamed in protest of a dramatization that he and others say provides a racist and false narrative.

Protests of the Entrada are not new. But they have grown in size and intensity in the past three years as a new generation of Native American activists, including college students, take up the fight. As a result, changes may be afoot.

Tribal leaders have been meeting with city and church officials to discuss the future of the event, which some Native Americans want to be abolished or moved into a private venue.

Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe plans to “continue in the dialogue” and make sure that the various stakeholders have a voice in the process, said Allen Sánchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“After the dialogue process is over, he will be issuing an apology from the church” to indigenous people for the wrongs that were committed against them during colonization, Sánchez said.

Sánchez said Wester was inspired by Pope Francis, who in 2015 apologized for the “many grave sins [that] were committed against the Native people of America in the name of God.”

“He’s making an apology on behalf of the institutional church and its history,” Sánchez said. “We’ve got baggage. When you have a 2,000-year-old institution, it’s going to have some baggage.”

Moquino, who used to work for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and is now the director of religious education for Tewa Missions, said issues affecting Native Americans have resulted in a wave of activism.

“The reason that it’s stronger and louder and more present now is the fact that there’s so many issues that have come up relating to Indian people, all the way from the Dakota Access Pipeline to fracking near Chaco Canyon to protecting our language, our culture, our tradition, our heritage and really taking claim to that,” he said. “That’s power.”

‘We were all crying’

At least one tribe’s efforts to preserve its traditions came at a price for non-Indians.

Last year, Pojoaque Pueblo essentially kicked out all nontribal youth from its Boys & Girls Club.

Pojoaque Pueblo Gov. Joseph Talachy told The New Mexican in August that the pueblo was closing the club temporarily. The tribe wanted to restructure the pueblo-funded youth development program to focus primarily on tribal children and pass along the pueblo’s cultural and language traditions to its youth.

The club reopened about two months later, serving only youth from the pueblo.

Parent Jessi Sanchez, 36, said the pueblo alerted parents about the closure the Friday before school started, leaving dozens of parents who work scrambling to find a place to send their children after school.

“Everybody was just flabbergasted,” she said. “We were all in a lurch and trying to figure out what we were going to do.”

The pueblo alerted parents late in the afternoon rather than in the morning, leaving them little time to plan ahead.

“I felt like it was pretty personal,” Sanchez said. “We weren’t part of the pueblo, and so therefore we didn’t deserve to have a notice necessarily. They didn’t feel like they owed us anything, and that’s just not good. It’s just not nice.”

Christian Hill, a Pojoaque High School senior who worked at the pueblo’s Boys & Girls Club, said the staff found out about the closure the same day as parents.

“That whole week, we repainted. We remodeled the entire Boys & Girls Club. We got new equipment for it,” he said. “We put in all the hard work and then on Friday, we walked in at 7 and by 2 o’clock, we walked out, all fired, all in tears. We were all crying. It was very devastating.”

Hill said pueblo officials made it clear that non-Indian youth were not their priority.

“They were all — direct quote — ‘You guys serve 268 kids altogether and only 60 of them are Native American, and that does not benefit the pueblo,’ ” Hill said. “That’s exactly what they said.”

Talachy declined to discuss the genesis of the tribal council’s decision but said it wasn’t personal or meant to harm anyone.

“It was just a decision that tribal council made,” he said Friday in a brief interview.

A new reality

Despite the hurt feelings, many Native Americans say the time has come for them to protect their own.

Last month, the All Pueblo Council of Governors took umbrage when state Public Education Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski called Manifest Destiny one of the “fundamental principles of the country.”

In a letter to Ruszkowski, the council called his comments “utterly disgraceful, lacking any sensitivity, understanding and appreciation of the atrocious impacts of Manifest Destiny upon generations of our people.”

“People are asking, ‘Why was there such a strong response from tribal leaders?’ ” said Regis Pecos, a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo and co-founder of the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute. “Well, it’s necessary to respond to those statements that he used with a great deal of insensitivity, not understanding that New Mexico is one of those places in this country that has a very long history that defines one of the darkest chapters in American history.”

Pecos, a former executive director of the state Office of Indian Affairs, said the reasons that New Mexico is seeing heightened tensions between Native Americans and non-Indians is “very complex.”

“The history of colonization as an overlay makes it complex,” he said.

Native Americans are also taking a much more proactive role in protecting their interests, Pecos said.

“Here’s the reality that few understand or appreciate,” he said. “On my reservation in Cochiti, for 50-year leases and rights of way negotiated on our behalf by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, our trustee all but provided what would be equivalent to 500 dollars over a 50-year period. Now you go back and apply a whole different concept of evaluating the rights of way and easements … now instead of a dollar a year for 50 years, it becomes several million dollars with a new calculated value of the lands affected.”

Pecos said other tribes also received “ridiculously low” payments for rights of way and easements.

“The value of lands and resources change over time,” he said.

‘Like living in the Middle East’

In communities across Northern New Mexico, the issue over road and utility easements on reservations has created deep divisions and ill feelings toward Native Americans and vice versa.

“I’ve been to meetings where people have said, ‘I have a gun. I’m not afraid to load it, and I’m not afraid to shoot it,’ ” said Cristella Trujillo-Neal, a Hispanic woman who lives on land passed down from her grandfather in El Rancho near San Ildefonso Pueblo.

When the state’s precious resources are at play, it’s no surprise relations are strained.

“There are always tensions that get accentuated and even amplified between communities, whether Native or non-Native, particularly when it relates to resources such as roads, utility easements and land use,” Estevan Rael-Gálvez, a former state historian, said in an email. “In order to address these matters, communities and leaders need to commit to the difficult work of reconciling these matters in a respectful, thoughtful manner to create alliances and relationships that result in outcomes which will improve and strengthen our communities.”

Rael-Gálvez said a commitment to building trust and open, honest and respectful communication is imperative. While it is easy for lawyers to take over, the harder work requires sitting down over a meal and talking honestly face-to-face.

“It is easy to highlight a grievance, which is sometimes a necessarily part of the process, but it is harder to commit to a good-faith process to identify the common ground, which outlines shared values, shared resources, shared outcomes,” he wrote.

But for people like Roybal, the retired federal employee who grew up within the boundaries of San Ildefonso Pueblo, reconciliation seems unattainable.

Roybal lives on property first owned by his grandmother. The only way he can access his property is through pueblo land, which his family had done freely for decades. In 2010, though, Roybal was shocked when the tribe asked him to pay a $500 annual fee. Roybal initially complied but now refuses, claiming the road to get to his home has always been public.

According to scholars and the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, a Spanish governor issued land grants in the early 1700s to Spanish families in the area now known as El Rancho, which is completely surrounded by pueblo land.

“When I was a kid, I’d go sled up there,” Roybal said, motioning to a fenced-off mesa in the distance. “I could walk over there, walk to the river, go fishing, and now, uh-uh. It’s like living in the Middle East. This is Israel, and this is Palestine, and by God, you better not cross. It’s real bad, and it could get worse because we’re not giving up. We’re not going to give up. We’re just not.”

State Rep. Carl Trujillo, a Democrat who represents the area, said he has been pushing hard to get Santa Fe County, the federal government and the pueblos to resolve access issues fairly so that property owners can obtain title insurance.

“When several thousand community members in my district cannot obtain title insurance to their homes, it does create fear and anxiety. I get it,” he said. “Many of these folks rely on refinancing to pay for their child’s education or to put a new roof on their home.”

Santa Fe County has been working on a series of agreements with San Ildefonso Pueblo and three other pueblos to settle the long-standing disputes over rights of way on county-maintained roads within tribal boundaries.

The roadways issue threatened to derail a regional Pojoaque Basin water system, part of the settlement in the long-running federal Aamodt water-rights litigation, after county commissioners passed a resolution to withhold funding for the project until the roadway disputes were resolved.

San Ildefonso Pueblo Gov. Terrence K. Garcia did not return a message seeking comment.

Sovereign nations

Moquino, who is calling for an end to the Entrada re-enactment, said New Mexico tribes have long been underestimated.

“Indian people have the right to do what they see best for their tribe, their tribal members and their future generations, to preserve their culture,” he said. “They’re their own entity, own government, own country within a country. People fail to recognize that sovereignty that gives them the right to do what they want on their lands for the betterment of their people.”

Pecos, the former Cochiti Pueblo governor, said non-Indians have to accept that “it’s a different day” for Native Americans in New Mexico. He emphasized the tribes’ sovereignty and that they’re making decisions that affect the last of their homelands.

“Accept it as a necessary part of people’s passionate response to protecting their lands, their environment, their people, providing for a quality of life that they deserve — that’s at the very heart,” he said. “It’s a very fundamental and inherently human response to protect your interests. … If we could appreciate that, then maybe it helps to lead to a deeper and heightened understanding.”

From heightened tensions to heightened understanding?

Only time will tell.

Contact Daniel J. Chacón at 505-986-3089 or dchacon@sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter @danieljchacon.