Some Indians switch tribes for better jobs

GRAND RONDE, Ore. – Charles Leno was working a dead-end minimum-wage job dealing cards at an Indian casino on the Oregon coast when he decided it was time to make a change – a change in membership from one tribe to another.

The 28-year-old switched from his mother’s tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz, to his father’s tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde – operators of Oregon’s most successful casino.

“They help you more here,” he said.

As a member of the Grand Ronde, Leno receives $4,000 to $5,000 a year in casino profits, paid out to every member. He had hiring priority for a better-paying job at the Spirit Mountain casino. And his newborn son, Future Warrior, gets an annual check that is put in a trust, which will amount to tens of thousands of dollars by the time the boy turns 18.

American Indians are discovering that one route out of poverty is joining a tribe with a successful casino, a transfer that is allowed if they can show they have blood ties to the tribe.

“We’re experiencing people enrolling in one tribe and relinquishing from another,” said Lynn Holder, an Indian demographer and director of the University of Washington tribal community partnership program. “Typically, this happens around the tribes that have been economically stronger and provide more housing and services.”

No national statistics on switching are available.

Tribal officials say they have no objection to such switches, and they stress that such decisions are not made lightly and sometimes involve personal reasons unrelated to casino payouts or job opportunities.

The movement opens a window on the disparity of wealth among tribes in the 16 years since the passage of a federal law that allowed tribes to negotiate with state governments to open casinos.

Bob Tom, 66, a retired powwow announcer, or master of ceremonies at tribal gatherings, said he transferred into the Grand Ronde for casino benefits and to gain access to tribal archives listing religious sites of his father’s tribe, the Shasta Indians of Northern California.

He now has access to documents revealing the location of spirit quest sites, prehistoric circles of boulders where men fasted and performed religious rites.

It is not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest for Indians to have ties to more than one tribe. It is the legacy of 19th-century policies that split families and collected multiple bands and tribes onto single reservations.

Madeline Queahpama-Spino, director of vital statistics at the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs east of Portland, said switching is not frowned on if a person has the heritage to qualify.

Two members of her tribe have relinquished enrollment this year, including one who headed to the affluent Kalispel Tribe in Washington, leaving behind the trailer homes and horse pastures of Warm Springs in the high desert.

The Umatilla in eastern Oregon, the Puyallup, the Coeur d’Alene and the Muckleshoot, all of which operate relatively successful casinos, also have become magnets for people who wish to transfer, Holder said.

Tribes set their own rules for membership. They usually require one-quarter tribal blood for membership, but the requirement sometimes is as little as one-256th.

There are 1.8 million enrolled members in 562 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

At the Grand Ronde, a confederation of 26 tribes and bands, the leaders welcome all who qualify under its one-quarter blood rule, said tribal spokesman Brent Merrill.

The casino is helping the tribe recover from decades of grinding poverty and a long exodus of ambitious young people.

By the time the tribe regained federal recognition in 1983, its holdings had dwindled to seven acres occupied by the tribal cemetery. Most of the tribal members who remained eked out a living as loggers.

The casino arrived in 1995 and was an instant success.

Rows of new housing units, a gleaming new medical clinic and a sprawling tribal headquarters soon sprang up — all built with casino profits. The parking lot is a panoramic expanse of recreational vehicles and cars, full even on weekdays. The casino nets roughly $65 million a year.

And the tribe has gone from between 600 to 900 members in 1983 to more than 5,000 today, including some who returned from other reservations.

“It’s no different than leaving logging to work for an up-and-coming industry with better pay and benefits,” said Tom, the former powwow announcer. “This tribe is doing a fabulous job.”