BY SANATH KRISHNA
Legitimate but unrecognized Native American tribes across North America are among the most marginalized indigenous populations on the continent. Embarking on the challenge to attain federal recognition is a difficult and expensive process, requiring millions of dollars for lawyers, anthropologists, lobbyists, and public engagement expenses. It takes decades, and more often than not the Bureau of Indian Affairs issues negative determinations.
Complicating this already difficult road are “Pop-up Tribes” — often groups of unrelated indigenous activists or single families that break away from legitimate Tribal governments, who declare themselves to be tribes. It deeply confuses the region’s body politic and defrauds legitimate tribes that are struggling to be seen.
Truthtelling encompasses characteristics such as transparency, factuality, and unbiasedness. One of the best examples of a tribe that preaches truth-telling as a whole is the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. Muwekma remains unafraid to show all of its facts to consistently prove its authenticity, such as how the tribe is comprised of all of the known surviving American Indian lineages aboriginal to the San Francisco Bay region who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara, and San Jose as well as how the tribe was previously federally recognized as the Verona Band of Alameda County, and it was never terminated by an act of Congress.
On the other hand, fake pop-up tribes paint a narrative that is inherently nonfactual and manipulative for audiences. Pop-up tribes attempt don’t attempt to pursue federal acknowledgement because they lack the facts and historical continuity that is required to attain it.
An example of a tribe that displays these characteristics is the Ramaytush Ohlone Tribe. After learning about a ancestor from the 1700’s, founder and chairman of the “Tribe”, Jonathan Cordero has made absurd claims to San Francisco — even suggesting that he should be recognized as a tribe — which is laughable to Indian Country. Cordero’s relatives understand themselves to be Chumash, not Ramaytush, and believe that Cordero’s behavior is embarrassing.
Neither Cordero nor any of his family members have identified as Ramaytush previously to the organization’s recent founding in 2009. The first time that the word was used in the public lexicon to describe an Ohlone language dialect was in 2009, in publications produced by the National Park Service.
As Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh points out, “Mr. Cordero is actively orchestrating a perverse identity theft against the Muwekma Ohlone people in his attempt to invent himself into a tribal entity that never existed. The word ‘Ramaytush’ was brought into the academic discourse to denote a specific dialect of the Ohlone/Costanoan Indians, and was never used by the Ohlone people to describe ourselves – whether on or off of the Peninsula that Mr. Cordero now inaccurately claims as his own.” And according to Nijmeh, “The Association of Ramaytush Ohlone has yet to provide any evidence that their direct ancestors were ever interviewed by anthropologists, historians, or Bureau of Indian Affairs officials at any point during the 20th century, and have yet to provide evidence that their direct ancestors spoke any Ohlone language dialect during the 20th century.”
Furthermore, Cordero has attacked the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe countless times, all based on false premises. For example, in a quote from the Ramaytush Ohlone Tribe’s official website, he has falsely pointed out how the Tribe has never attained federal recognition and falsely conflates the Verona Band with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.
However, The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has provided several hundred pages of documentation substantiating that 100% of its current 614 members are all directly descendant from the Verona Band, which was previously federally recognized. Among that body of evidence:
- two 1900 federal Indian censuses for Pleasanton and Niles;
- anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber’s 1904 field notes identifying direct ancestors of Muwekma Ohlone members;
- anthropologist C. Hart Merriam’s 1904 photos and field notes of direct ancestors of enrolled Muwekma Ohlone members;
- Indian agent Charles E. Kelsey’s 1905-06 census of the Tribe’s direct ancestors residing at Pleasanton and Niles;
- the 1910 federal Indian census of the Tribe’s direct ancestors residing at “Indian Town” near Pleasanton;
- two Kelsey maps of 1910 and 1913 identifying the Verona Band of Indians near Pleasanton;
- the 1914 interview of Angela Colos by UC Berkeley anthropologist Edward Gifford, and another in 1916
- seven Muwekma men identifying as “American Indian” enlisted and served overseas in Europe during WWI in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and four of whom were buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery (1914-1920)
But it’s not just the pop-up tribes on their own that attempt to impede Muwekma’s progress, it’s wealthy and powerful individuals that support these tribes as well. Tribal chairman Greg Sarris of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria has a history of being a brutal opponent towards California’s poorest, most marginalized, and most culturally rich tribes, instead favoring the pop up and rich gaming tribes like the tribe he petitioned to Congress to create in 2000. Sarris lacks Native American heritage and has been widely panned as a “Pretendian” and has been accused of identity fraud.
Sarris has improperly influenced Senator Bill Dodd countless times at the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s expense. One instance shows Sarris forcing Dodd to refuse to hold a vote on SJR-13, a resolution endorsing the federal government’s recognition of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.
In addition, Sarris and the other gaming tribes in the area have been lobbying to state officials to refuse Muwekma and other non-gaming authentic tribes in the area federal recognition.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference meetings of 2023 held in San Francisco, Sarris openly gave a land acknowledgement for the Ramaytush Ohlone Tribe, claiming that San Francisco, part of Muwekma’s aboriginal territory, was the Ramaytush’s ancestral homeland. After, Sarris welcomed cultural director of the Ramaytush, Gregg Castro, to give a peace acknowledgement. The acknowledgement lasted twenty-four seconds and addressed no major or substantial problems that Native American tribes faced today.
But unlike Sarris and Castro, outside the APEC meeting, Chairwoman Nijmeh passionately described the impacts and struggles that actual Native American communities endure at the behest of globalization policies being espoused inside. Nijmeh argued that APEC was a gathering of the global elite, and subjugated authentic tribes like the Muwekma who didn’t have the political connections that the special interest elites — manifested in Greg Sarris’ sponsorship of the fake Ramaytush organization — had to be speaking in front of the APEC audience.
Sarris donated $4 million to the Conference and was soon thereafter invited to deliver remarks to the finance ministers of many of the world’s largest economies. Despite that expensive and unique opportunity to articulate the interests of indigenous people, he said nothing of substance except to assert the falsehold that Ramaytush is a legitimate Tribe.
If Muwekma and other authentic Native American tribes want to be federally recognized, we as a community and as a country need to make a difference. This means researching further into what history these nations truly have and if what they are boasting on their websites is real or fake. This could also mean taking the extra step and seeing what cultural and tribal practices these nations have to support their historical continuity. And a message to the United States government on all levels: Don’t allow corruption and money-driven politicians to grant pop-up nations their undeserved federal recognition.
It is beyond essential to understand the difference between truth-telling and self-served storytelling for the preservation of all authentic Native American tribes in America.
Sanath Krishna is a sophomore at Bellarmine College Preparatory where he does Speech and Debate and is interested in marketing and sales. He is interning with the Muwekma Justice Coalition and Muwekma Times.
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