Tribal membership allows access to various social, health, housing and education programs funded by casino profits. Multiple federal court decisions have affirmed that tribal membership criteria are “pretty much up to the discretion of the tribe,” said Dorson Zunie, a tribal operations officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Sacramento. Some tribes exclude certain blood relatives if they have not participated in tribal affairs, Dickstein said. But blood ties do not necessarily guarantee admission. Most tribes determine membership by the applicant’s percentage of tribal blood: one-quarter, one-eighth or even less in some cases.
“The tribes have little or no time for these wannabe members who weren’t there when the going was tough.”Ībout 250,000 people living in California claim Native American blood, according to the California Research Bureau, an arm of the State Library.Ībout 18,000 Indians belong to the 41 tribes that now operate or have recently run casinos, according to the state’s figures. “There may have been two or three generations who didn’t care a whit about their relationship with the community-until they read in the newspaper that there’s now money available,” said Howard Dickstein, an attorney who represents several tribes. Throughout California and the nation, formal tribal membership was not much of an issue before the advent of casinos, because, in times of poverty and struggle, there were few benefits.
