The Political Influence of
Indian Gaming
Anthropology 85A
Sharon Cho
Haila Lee
HISTORY:
brief background
• Indian Reorganization Act (1934)
- part of the New Deal program by Roosevelt
- set up foundations for future Indian gaming
- encouraged Indians to form government & write constitutions
- allowed the applications for federal loans
• Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988)
- established the jurisdictional framework that presently governs
Indian gaming
- requires gaming tribes to have compacts with their respective
governments specifying types of gaming permitted on reservation
lands
INTRODUCTION:
California Indian Gaming
• Indian Gaming Regulatory Act did not end the disputes on gaming
between the tribes & the states
• Proposition 1A (2000)
- allow the Governor and federally recognized Indian tribes to negotiate
compacts permitting specified gambling activities on tribal lands in California
- authorize slot machines, lottery games, and banked and percentage card
games only on tribal lands and only under the terms of ratified compacts
- since the passage of Prop. 1A Indian gaming has generated revenues of
$5.1 billion per year in California and they have become the largest
contributor to California political campaigns
INDIAN GAMING:
pros & cons of Proposition 1A
• Pros:
- Indian casinos on tribal lands permit Native Americans to be selfreliant, and all Californians benefit from 50,000 jobs they provide for
Indians and non-Indians
- this measure allows for the sharing of revenues with non-gaming
tribes to use for vital services including education, housing, and
health care
• Cons:
- the number of slot machines would increase to possibly 113,000,
placing California second only to Nevada in the total allowed in a
state
- there are about 700,000 problem and pathological gamblers in the
state, with another 1.8 million “at risk” who need help to stop – not to
start – gambling
INDIAN GAMING:
portrayal of Indians post- Prop. 1A
What does this cartoon portray?
• since the passage of Proposition 1A, Native Americans have been
cast as no longer a humble, responsible, community-oriented
people. Instead, they have been relegated to casino tribes and
casino barons, intent on skirting environmental and social
obligations, corrupting the political process, and violating the public's
trust
• these stereotypes have the potential to create a new type of
intolerance that Native Americans have never experienced - class
envy
• "greedy" Indian is the latest in a series of related stereotypes:
- “Savage”/ “Uncivilized”/ “Good-for-nothing” Indians
INDIAN GAMING:
criticisms
Rise of Political Power of Indians
NATIVE AMERICANS:
rise of political power
• Implications that Indians control the state
• Entered the political arena by donating large sums of
money to both Democratic and Republican candidates
• Gaming has become so lucrative that hundreds of Native
Americans are petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs for
recognition of new California tribes in order to buy land
and build casinos
NATIVE AMERICANS:
disputes on sovereignty
• Throughout the 1900s the dispute over Native American sovereignty
was a significant political issue:
- many states maintained that Indians should be subject to state jurisdiction and that
native tribal governments had no legitimacy as separate institutions
- many tribes claimed to hold all of the rights to self-governance and land ownership
that they possessed before the arrival of Europeans
• U.S. Constitution gave Congress broad power to regulate commerce
with Indian tribes
NATIVE AMERICANS:
taxations
•
Issue of whether or not California Indians are subject to the full array of
taxes that non-Indians pay has led to misunderstanding and confusion for
both Indians and non-Indians
•
All residents of the U.S., including Indians, must pay federal income tax
•
California Indians do not pay state income tax if they are an “eligible” Indian,
live on a reservation or Indian trust allotment, and work on the reservation
or trust allotment
•
Indians are exempt from paying vehicle license fees by legislation signed by
trust allotment land, but are exempt from paying sales tax on most sales on
reservations
FEEDBACK:
do they deserve this?
•
•
•
•
•
Being granted federal trust lands
Profiting from gaming
Being exempt from state income tax, vehicle registration fees, etc.
Being independent of the state’s jurisdiction
Gaining federal grants and scholarships
• In a diverse group of people our survey shows:
- high school students: 32% YES
- college students: 58% YES
- post-college: 54% YES
OUR OPINION:
• Genocide of Indians
- 310,000 Indians lived in California pre-contact
- by 1900, 20,000 Indians remained
- federal orchestration of mass killings
• Ethnocide
- assimilation & integration of Indians
- but reservations were supposed to be temporary
Bibliography
• http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc.files/mar00/pc/prop1A.html
• http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/library/htIndianGaming.htm
• http://www.bluecorncomics.com/nastrips.htm
• http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Gaming/Prop5.html
• http://www.indigenouspolicy.org/xiv-2/xiv-2-fall-2003.htm