Until one makes a break with Mexican and Chicano nationalism, one will become prey to the opportunism of nearly seven dozen Chicano (Mexican American) identity thieves in operation in Southern CA. Platforming Chicanos who profit from the stealing of Native peoples’ identities is genocidal practice because the identity thievery is completely dependent upon Native lineal descendants’ erasure.
Chicano identity theft of Gabrieleno and false claims to other Native peoples’ lineage is a modern re-colonization effort. “Tongva” and “Kizh” are fake tribal names concocted in the 1990’s in a quest to satisfy capitalistic greed. None of the public funds stolen by these criminals has gone back into any Native village descendant families.
It does complicate and muddy the waters that some Los Angeles Basin Native village descendant families and individuals were (and continue to be) complicit in the original promotion and genesis of the term “Tongva.” However, it should be known that other local Native descendants were and are not with this scam.
Later, “Kizh Gabrieleno” was concocted as a public funds grifter competitive entity to the “Tongva” money grab scam, reaching the level of corporate enterprise.
A more complete summation of the genesis of this modern Mexican American/Chicano epidemic of of identity theft is long overdue and this is probably not an ideal place for such a piece to be published, but it should be known that it started with an earlier effort to win Federal tribal recognition that failed in the early 2000’s. This effort was driven largely by aspirations to establish a casino. But it was fraught with problems related to a lack of understanding of basic genealogy and oppressed peoples’ submission to settler colonial state rules and authority, including the notion that the CA Judgement Rolls had anything to do with “tribal identity.” CA Judgement Rolls opened the door for people claiming “Indian” by collateral, non-lineal family association.
Despite the failure of earlier tribal recognition efforts (others are ongoing today), the opportunity to steal public funds under a new concocted tribal name remained at the state and local levels. In CA it’s a multimillion dollar industry and no systems for vetting identity theives have been established. Since the 1990’s the Chicano identity fraud has now become institutionalized throughout the entire settler colonial superstructure. Diversity has manifest in the identity thieves also now claiming legit names such as “Chumash” or “Cherokee” or other groups, and not just “Tongva” or “Kizh.”
Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Do some genealogy research and find out for yourself. There are no “Tongva” or “Kizh” in any credible historical or anthropological records. Persons claiming such tribal affiliations mostly have both paternal and maternal lineage to south of the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s all public record.
Regardless of original capitalistic Native aspirations of specific LA Basin Native village descendants, the widespread and popular adoption of both fake tribal names by NON-Native persons of Mexican descent has extended the genocide of the actual Native descendants. Similar to the Spaniard Mission System designation of autonomous LA Basin village descendants as being “Gabrieleno” or “San Fernandeno,” terms like “Tongva” and “Kizh” seek to reframe LA Basin Native history as one with a singular tribal entity reality.
This is ahistorical and completely inaccurate. The historical record from investigations by A. L Kroeber, Geronimo Boscana, Rupert and Jeannette Costo and other researchers, as well as the massive database of Mission records confirm the fallacy that LA Basin Natives lived as a single tribal entity. They did not. They lived and functioned out of individual autonmous villages. This was the case for much of, if not most, of California pre-colonization.
Giving frauds public platform and public funds granting awards to persons capitalizing under false claims of Native lineage is criminal and this thievery should be stopped, which is why the public should support AB 52 and efforts by the NAHC to require verification of identity claims. Genealogy is the only definitive answer and we should all hope that things move in this direction, which is the original standard of the Native peoples themselves. Genealogy is integrated into the original cultures.
https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=hornbeck_ind_1
