Tribal leaders gathered Saturday afternoon in the World Peace Rose Garden at the California State Capitol to commemorate the centennial of the Indian Citizens Act of 1924 and celebrate the achievements of Native American military veterans.
Frank Ramirez, national director of government affairs for the National American Indian Veterans Inc., hosted the event with tribal leaders and veterans from across California and the US. The event began with a ceremonial Eagle Staff march led by veterans of the Tule River Tribe of Central California. California.
“Native people, American Indians, Alaska Natives, have been here for hundreds of thousands of years,” Ramirez said in his opening statement to an audience of about 40 people. “So we’ve been working on it for a while now. But we have never been officially recognized as citizens of this country. It’s shocking that we were here first and we were never citizens until 100 years ago.”
Victorio Shaw, member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and chief judge of the Shingle Springs Tribal Court, gave a keynote address before attendees released peace doves, and Ramirez unveiled a plaque on one of the benches in the rose garden. .
“While it’s nice to have monuments and dedications like the one we have on the bank,” Shaw said, “the greatest monuments we have as Native people are the ones that truly reflect the sacrifices and hardships our ancestors endured.”
Those monuments “are not benches, but those of you who sit on them, the indigenous elders and youth here today. Your faces are our real moments.” Shaw recalled the “invasion, war, disease, and genocide” that exterminated millions of natives at the hands of white settlers during the Manifest Destiny of the West.
“The Indian problem was simply that we existed,” Shaw said. The solution was ‘assimilation’.
What the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 gave Native Americans was “the ability to walk in both worlds.” Shaw also said the act gave the United States “a great gift.”
“You can now consider every Indian an American,” he said. “We still have much to teach you about this country and our Mother Earth, who was entrusted to us so many centuries ago.”
Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and representatives of Attorney General Rob Bonta were also in attendance.
“We cannot erase the dark history of our state and nation,” Isaac Bojorquez, of the Office of Native American Affairs in the Attorney General’s Office, said on behalf of Bonta. “But we can acknowledge it, apologize for it and pledge to right these historical wrongs.” Bojoquez too chairman of the KaKoon Ta Ruk Band of Ohlone-Costanoan Indians in Big Sur.
Around noon Saturday, Shaw, Ramirez, Bojorquez and other elders and community members released 15 peace doves among the brightly colored roses as the rose garden’s co-founders, TJ David and Sylvia Villalobos, looked on.
“This garden is for you,” Villalobos told the crowd.
‘And in this garden the only language spoken is love. And… we need to make sure that Native Americans are recognized in this garden.”
