Cathedral City and Yucca Valley suddenly were names I was familiar with. My vocabulary had changed so much after we had decided to move from one coast of the country to the other one.
Every plant, every scent, every tan, had changed for good. That feeling of being on vacation had slowly left after some weeks of living in this new town. All we had to do was buy a house and we would be locals.
But no warning given for a document we needed, before closing the deal. A piece of paper, with updated records, coming directly from the Bureau of Indian affairs — BIA for short.
Essentially, indigenous tribes own these lands, and anybody taking interest in properties, let’s say a developer trying to build a new complex, needs to lease the land from them and get further authorizations.
52,000 acres were deeded in trust by the U.S Government to the Agua Caliente Indians in 1876. Since then, lands have been leased from the tribes, before building any structures on them. 100 years is the average lease-length, after which a new contract needs to be issued, perhaps for another century.
Some of the finest neighborhoods of the Coachella Valley are on Indian lease land and 6,700 acres lay within the city of Palm Springs. As of 2017, over 29,000 residential properties were located on Indian lease land, which means that they all pay an annual fee to the BIA.
It all took a long time to be processed by my capitalist brain. The whole idea of renting land to build your own house, seemed pretty eccentric to me at the beginning.
After several hours learning about it, and making sure we understood every aspect of it, that piece of paper with their approval started to sound not only logical, but fair.
Coming from a minority group myself, I find this process remarkable. Sure, it is a living nightmare to get through the records of a federal-run institution, and it was in the end, another process to be added into escrow. Like buyers need more steps to climb up the ladder, right?
In hindsight, I was pretty shock with the way this process is handled. But why are we surprised? This should be expected from any lease. At the end, we are using their land, aren’t we?
A constant phrase in my head while buying our 1st home together was Me, an immigrant from South America, where native tribes are neglected to bizarre standards, paying a fee in another country, to an organization that manages their resources and tries to distribute them equally. So much to digest.
I learned to like the idea of paying a fee for the land, where my own house sets. These are populations that have been marginalized from the beginning of our history, which was not the beginning of theirs, but most certainly an attempt to end it.
Their structure as a community, their ways of being, languages, healthcare, daily traditions, chain of commands, among many other things, had changed. EVERYTHING was disrupted, with little to no opportunity to defend themselves.
Their depressing, blood-stained history lingers around downtown, next to the popular orange fancy restaurant and the Contemporary Gallery. You got it! Behind the Mid-Century Museum. See? You know the desert. Hence, you know their land. Why shouldn’t we pay respect to them?
That store where you get salted caramel ice cream at 11pm on Taco Tuesday, might be on leased land. The pharmacy you stop by on your way home. Leased as well. And the long list goes on and on throughout the whole valley.
In need of a good eye-opener? Zoom in on a map of the desert and realize they own a good chunk of California, at least in Riverside County.
It is essentially a checkers board, where entire neighborhoods are built on Indian territory, and they are typically intercalated with lands that belong to homeowners instead.
For political reasons, and to encourage the economy, the US government subdivided the lands into one-mile-square sections, giving the Natives every other one, hence the odd distribution. This act served as payment for their assistance during the Mexican-American war.
Here’s a little confession of mine: my knowledge on American tribes, and their history is very limited. I promise, I’m working on it.
I remember having interesting conversations with a former colleague from NYC, who repeatedly mentioned how scarce it is, in consensus, our understanding on Indian history.
He mentioned several times, how vital it was to learn about Indian reservations and their past. The history lessons we are learning in school, and articles that normally make it to social media, tend to focus on wars, and deathly battles that other countries have fought. How about our own history? Our own genocides?
I quietly disagreed with so much he said. On this one, he had a good point — We are heavily misinformed about Americans that populated this land, way before European-Americans did.
As soon as we made the decision of moving to an area with so much BIPOC history, I became obsessed with it. Coachella valley is flooded with names, streets, museums, monuments, and parks, dedicated to The Cahuilla.
These Natives populated southern California, in the shape of various tribes, whose territory is known today as Cahuilla Nation. They had little-to-no interaction with Spanish soldiers and missionaries, thanks to their far inland location.
This quickly changed after The US annexed California. The interest in newly found gold around 1848 rose abruptly, unleashing Native’s starvation and disease, during what is known today as the Gold Rush.
Agua Caliente Indians also operate some casinos and hotels in Coachella. In fact, Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa -90 minutes East from Los Angeles, and considered nowadays as one of the biggest Indian casinos in the country— is owned and operated by The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, part of the Cahuilla nation.
I couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment after realizing, I had been in these casinos so many times, or walked by their lands, while being oblivious to all the history surrounding.
I am proud to say now, that I pay a fee every year to help maintain Native economy. And make no mistakes, it’s not charity. My house is built on their land. I am just a temporary occupant.
By keeping ourselves in the darkness, we help them get extinct. There are a number of museums and monuments dedicated to Native Americans and their history. Check them out! Keeping the status quo doesn’t help anybody.
Grab a book, click that link, demand from your leaders, learn some names. You will immediately feel the appeal given by knowing a bit more about the first ones that populated this land.
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Previously published on medium
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Photo credit: by Sandro Cenni on Unsplash