For more than 150 years, leaders in the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians (FTBMI) have been petitioning for federal acknowledgement to protect the rights of their people, who saw land holdings taken from them and were evicted from their homes.
There have been multiple petitions over the years, many of which were unsuccessful. But on June 19, the tribe made a significant step by passing the first phase of a two-step process that would see them finally achieve their goals.
The FTBMI was able to satisfy the four mandatory requirements set by the United States Department of the Interior and its Office of Acknowledgement to complete this step.
This included proving that their membership, around 99%, consisted of individuals who descend from a historical Indian tribe; providing a copy of the tribe’s Constitution describing its governing procedures and citizenship requirements; showing that membership is composed principally of people who are not members of federally recognized Indian tribes; and finding there was no congressional legislation expressly terminating or forbidding a federal relationship with the tribe.
Until this year, the FTBMI had never been able to complete the first phase.
“This was a tremendous success for us,” said Tribal President Rudy Ortega Jr. “There are many people who wished to have seen this stage [completed] who have now passed away, such as my father [Rudy Ortega Sr.] in 2009.
“This was a huge milestone, a complete success for us, and everyone’s extremely excited because the first phase proves the fact, without a doubt, that we descend from the historical Indian community [Mission Indians of San Fernando] in the 1800s,” he continued. “This is the first time for a tribe in Los Angeles County to achieve this milestone.”
The tribe celebrated the announcement on Oct. 23 at Casa Torres Banquet in the City of San Fernando, inviting tribal citizens, families, leadership and other guests. It was also around this time that their petition entered the second phase.
In this stage, the FTBMI must provide evidence that the tribe has been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900; that the tribe has existed as a distinct community from 1900 to the present, with continuing relationships and significant interaction among its members; and that they’ve maintained political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous entity from 1900 to the present.
A Struggle More Than a Century Long
The tribe’s fight to achieve federal acknowledgement has been ongoing since 1843. Their ancestral homeland, which spanned approximately 1.5 million acres in the early 1800s, would be reduced to zero by 1900.
They initially sought recognition from the Mexican government, where 50 leaders were able to secure 18,000 acres in the San Fernando Valley for their people. California was Mexico’s land from 1821 to 1848 after gaining independence from Spain, but it ceded the territory to the U.S. after the Mexican-American war with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. However, the U.S. broke the treaty and its promises to protect land titles and thousands of Mexican-American landowners lost their ancestral ranchos and holdings. The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians lost the land grants they received from Mexico.
Similarly, the tribe was unjustly evicted from their homes and forced off the land – most infamously by City of San Fernando founder Charles Maclay when he purchased the land in 1874 and refused to recognize the protections provided to the FTBMI.
But tribal leaders refused to give up. Namely, Ortega Sr., who continuously wrote to the U.S. government seeking federal acknowledgement, even before a formal process was established in 1978.
If the petition does pass the second phase, Ortega Jr. said that, for him, it would mean finally accomplishing the goals that his father set out to achieve and to have the recognition of being seen as a tribal nation.
“It doesn’t mean the work is finished, but it allows [for our] identity to be fully acknowledged, that there’s no question that we are a tribe,” Ortega Jr. said. “That’s what we feel will be more exciting than anything else, that we’re able to accomplish that and be standing alongside and identified as one of the tribes in the United States government who were here before.”
There is no set timeframe for how long the second phase will last, but given that the tribe submitted their latest petition in July 2023 and it just passed the first phase nearly three years later, Ortega Jr. estimated it will take a minimum of two years before another decision is reached.
But if it does end up succeeding, Ortega Jr. said they could start to apply for resources set aside for federally recognized tribes through various programs and agencies, including Tribal TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), the Indian Health Service and the Office of Public and Indian Housing.
As the tribe looks into building housing for its senior members and preserving other areas of its ancestral homeland, reacquiring 51 acres in the San Gabriel foothills in late October, the hope is that these resources can be used to fulfill the tribe’s aspirations.
“Those are the things that we would be able to do going forward and … to expand and enhance the community that we never had [the chance to] before,” Ortega Jr. said. “We would get to do that now with this federal designation.”