San Jose lawmakers influence vote over Muwekma Ohlone recognition

San Jose leaders have suspended discussions over supporting the federal recognition of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe — pushing it to a vote in mid-September after receiving letters from two congressional leaders critical of the proposal.

Councilmembers Domingo Candelas, David Cohen, Dev Davis, Bien Doan and Peter Ortiz first requested a resolution to champion the tribe’s federal recognition efforts at an Aug. 13 meeting before it was placed on Tuesday’s agenda. But recent letters from Congressmembers Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo raising eligibility concerns have led city officials to postpone a vote supporting federal recognition. As a result of these letters, the San Jose City Council has deferred it until Sept. 17.

Almost 100 years have passed since any Ohlone tribes held federal recognition, with the Sacramento Indian Agency of the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs dropping the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s status in 1928. A spokesperson for the tribe said it has been fighting for federal recognition since the Bureau of Indian Affairs mistakenly forgot to include it on a 1978 list of officially recognized tribes. Tribe representatives said they submitted an additional petition in 1995 and the process is ongoing.

Muwekma Ohlone Tribe member Cynthia Arellano attended the meeting and said she was not only disappointed to hear about the deferral, but also to hear it from a stranger sitting next to her in the council chambers.

“No one told any of us the resolution was going to be deferred,” she told San José Spotlight. “They already pushed it back before and now they’re pushing it further down, how do we know they won’t do it again when we come back?”

Davis, who suggested suspending the discussion during the meeting, said she needs the additional three weeks to reflect on the two letters from Lofgren and Eshoo — even though city employees had already prepared a 15-minute presentation on the topic.

Lofgren said in an Aug. 7 letter the Bureau of Indian Affairs made clear the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe does not meet the necessary criterias for federal recognition when it denied the tribe’s application and appeals in 2002, 2011 and 2013. She urged councilmembers to vote against supporting federal recognition.

“Congress has never granted federal recognition to a tribe that was denied by (Bureau of Indian Affairs) and exhausted all appeals. Doing so for one tribe would create significant issues of fairness for other tribes who have also received negative determinations under the BIA process,” she said in the letter.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the tribe’s application because the tribe couldn’t prove it was a distinct community, continuously identified as an American Indian entity since 1900. Nor could it prove it held political influence over the tribe’s members, Lofgren said.

A spokesperson for Lofgren told San José Spotlight she had no further comments beyond the letter.

Eshoo wrote a letter on Aug. 22 in support of Lofgren’s request that councilmembers drop the item. Eshoo said she worried granting federal recognition to the tribe would allow it to run a gambling operation.

A spokesperson for Eshoo told San José Spotlight she had no further comment beyond the letter.

Tribe Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh, who unsuccessfully ran against Lofgren in the March primary, said Eshoo is protecting the interests of wealthy casino donors by raising concerns about the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe campaign for federal recognition.

“I have always said it’s not about gaming. It’s about sovereignty,” Nijmeh told San José Spotlight. “Every one of the over 100 tribes in California enjoys this right and if Muwekma is denied the same rights as all the other tribes in California it would make us second class citizens in Indian Country. And it would diminish our sovereignty.”

Supporting federal recognition would not obligate San Jose to grant any land or bring any specific economic activity to the city, nor would it stop the city from establishing a relationship with another indigenous group or supporting their federal recognition.

Ortiz said federal recognition has been given to tribes outside of the Bureau of Indian Affairs process, often in response to local resolutions like the one he and other city leaders proposed.

“I personally, strongly believe that it’s in our city’s best interest to build trust and partnership with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and I believe that the resolution would be a good first step,” he said at the meeting.

The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and its close to 600 members have been fighting for federal recognition through an awareness campaign launched on Aug. 5 known as the “Trail of Truth” — where Nijmeh is leading a march of supporters from Sacramento to Washington, D.C.

Tribal member Corina Arellano said the city celebrates its diverse community, including members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, yet refuses to support them in seeking recognition from the U.S.

“This is the city where I’m raising my kids, they deserve to see San Jose support recognizing the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe,” she told San José Spotlight. “They keep saying it’s about gaming, but it’s about us having the same sovereign rights as all other tribes — these are our rights.”

Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X, formerly known as Twitter.