 Rhonda Morningstar Pope is tribal chairwoman of the Buena Vista Rancheria in Amador County. Once a thriving band of Miwaks, it's now down to just a handful of members. In our family, there weren't a lot of children. Only a few of the children of the lineals had children, so our band shrunk dramatically. It's so small, Pope is the last remaining lineal member. Reorganizing the tribe became a priority for Pope. And she found the future lies in the children. I wanted to have my children grow up connected to their culture. I don't think it's under dispute that they are the eldest known descendants of Buena Vista Rancheria. As the Buena Vista Rancheria was recognized by the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, they are the descendants, they are the granddaughters of John Oliver, who was the eldest sibling who signed that Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 for Buena Vista Rancheria. Okay, so you're suing or you're not the spokesperson for the people that are, suing the U.S. District Court to get the tribe recognized and the judge on Monday, December 6th, that was just the other day, agreed to reconsider the argument made by the attorney James Marino. Is that correct? Yes, yesterday. So this is a good word for you because the case was stopped or thrown out, but now it's going to be reconsidered. Am I correct there? Yes. Okay. So they were asserting that they are a part of that tribe and you, I think, just said they were the oldest members of the tribe, am I correct there? The Buena Vista Rancheria, yes. But the organization that's called the Buena Vista Rancheria of Milwaukee Indians has got, you know, has got a gaming compact. The Friends of Amadar County is disputing whether or not Buena Vista Rancheria is Indian lands. Okay. And so that... Basically, didn't they find something in the tax code that made it sound like that it's a tax that they owe taxes to the county and therefore it wouldn't be Indian land if they owe taxes? Now, I'm probably, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not really sure, but do you know what I'm talking about there? I know what you're talking about. First of all, Milwaukee people did more than homestead all of this area. You know, we took care of it for a long time before it was settled. So that's my aunt's position. You know, her grandparents did way more than homestead Buena Vista Rancheria. However, in 1959, the United States government passed this Rancheria Act that's also known as the Termination Act. That's when the Rancheria became privately owned. And Louis and Annie Oliver were the two, were the couple who accepted all of the Rancheria assets into their own name for their own private use. So since that time, the county has considered Buena Vista Rancheria privately owned and it's been treated that way except for the gaming compact. Okay. And so what's at stake here in this suit? At stake in this suit is, is federal recognition, I think, for the elders. I mean, they don't have anything to lose. Will that put them into the tribe with Morningstar Pope? No. What, how will everything be affected? No. And you need to try to get it in about a minute and a half if you can. The elders, the two elders, June, Gary and B Crabshree do not deserve to incur any of the debts that Rhonda Morningstar Pope has incurred by trying to pursue a project that they have been left out of. Okay. So they're asking for the right to reorganize as themselves a tribe of people descendant and coming from the homeland of Buena Vista Rancheria. Our suit against the federal government, but I want to be redundant, involves the approval of a gaming ordinance for a tribe that we feel doesn't exist lawfully. Their own Bureau of Indian Affairs representative Mr. Riesling reached that conclusion in 2001 that my clients, B Crabtree and June, Gary, had to have been located by the BIA and perhaps other potential descendants for a proper organization of the tribe in the first place. Sorry, maybe I misunderstood it. Is part of your lawsuit a request by Ms. B and Ms. Crabtree to be recognized as members of the tribe? I expected and I think I pointed out that they were never notified of Mr. Riesling's decision. He mentions in his decision that right to appeal. Let's just start with a yes or no answer to my question and then you can elaborate any way you want. But is that one of the claims that's lurking in this litigation? I missed that one. Yes. But I thought you conceded that they were federally recognized. I mean, whether that was correct or not correct, if you look them up in the BIA's regulation, then they're a federally recognized tribe. You know, if we don't say anything now, they'll do what they please, you know what I mean. So with Oliver's, my mother's people, and she grew up there. How did she grow up? She grew up in, it was in my own area, and they rounded up all the Indians there and sent them down to that Sherman Institute. So they sent her down there and that's where she learned all the stuff she knew. How to take care of people, how to take care of the white people, that's what it was for. But before she went, when she was up at Buena Vista with her parents, what kind of work did they do? Her father was a woodcutter. Her mother deserted them while he was gone. He didn't know it. And she had these little brothers to take care of. One little brother would hold the baby's legs up while she tried to change it. She'd do that, you know, vomiting, wanting to vomit and everything, and then finally she got used to it, but she had to take care of the baby when she was a little girl and cook for them, and finally they didn't have anything to eat, so she made flour soup. Just put water in with flour and salt and whatever she could throw in there. There was some watercress in the creek, and that was their greens, watercress, and what else was there. But anyway, she knew what plants to pick, and that was edible. There was a little one room schoolhouse that was up the hill from Buena Vista, where they were living, and they'd have to go up there. In the wintertime, they had to swim the creek. The water would rise through that creek, and they had to go through the water. So they had to walk from, you remember what Perpunivist is, from the house clear of that coal mine road and over the creek and up the hill to that one room schoolhouse. What happened to her brothers? Perpunivist's name was Lester, and he died. He was a price fighter when he got bigger, and the other brother was his name, and he was struck down by a car walking home, and that was the sport of the white youngsters that they saw in India walking on the road. No cars around, they'd run him down and kill him. When you were a kid, did your mom take you out there? Oh yeah, every year. And your sisters and your brother? Before she passed away, did you have to say that she wanted to be buried there at all, or did you guys just know? Well, we just knew there was a place there for her next to. I have a sister buried there, and you know, relatives and her brothers and all her people were buried there. Did you go to your mom's funeral? Yes. Why didn't you dance at Vuna Vista? I don't know. Did you cook? I cooked and washed dishes, kept the biscuits out of the oven at different times if I had anything. I helped everything. In the kitchen, I kept pies with the biscuits and, you know, burgers. You remember taking your kids to Vuna Vista? Taking the kids there. Oh yeah, every year. Because of the cemetery and everyone there, we went there and took care of the cemetery and put flowers on it. That was enlarged as it was needed to be enlarged. We just went out and pulled the weeds and used a shovel and hose and took all the weeds down and piled up the graves up bigger as that, you know, during the winter, the rain would wash it down and would do all of that. I think we should have it written on CMA, put in the cemetery, too. Some saying, you know, what flowers are, how are you, that doesn't do too good in the cemetery, but it has its comedy. Did your mom say anything about the cemetery before she passed away? Because that's where we would all be buried, that was our, Vuna Vista was our place. So in effect, this lawsuit is an attempt to re-terminate the tribe. This tribe has been through it probably worse than many others. The California rancherias have been through it historically worse than many other tribes across the country, and not to diminish what happened across the country, but... They've come back a lot of what they could have, because I knew a lot of them. I can appreciate these rain, the rain in the shell, the rain in the people. Rain in the eyes, the rain in the shape. How do you say it's raining people? The shape of the shell, the pud. How high can you count? They go back to their civilization? I was talking to you, my grandmother taught me how, to bully the west. And then he just clipped her, he taught me how. He used to wanna taught me that, look how she'll go. I'd say it's raining better if you look at the way it gets rain. Tell everybody, it was raining people, raining guys. What about the Ocean Mist? Toei is Ocean Mist or fog? Toei? Because of drinking water. The Rancheria Act provided that an individual Indian lost their status as an Indian if they were deeded land, Rancheria land, under the act at the time. So they did not, they lost their status as Indians. That's what the class action was about. That is a sacrosanct list. Because once you get on the list then it does it not entitle you to services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs including money and other assistance? Yes, it entitles you to a government-to-government relationship with the United States. When they had to put in their name they didn't say anything about us. It was just them. Did they always welcome you there? As such, yeah. Do you think Uncle Louis and Annie could have known at all what would happen with one of us? I think they died before that came up didn't they? Was Uncle Louis nice to you guys? Well, he embraced me. He was nice and we went there, yeah, because we'd go every year on Memorial Day. They took care of my mother and her brother. His name was Lester Oliver and he said he had only come back to dance on their grave. They treated the kids mean. They took care of them but they treated them mean, terrible. We think Rule 19 is extraordinarily straightforward. The judge did not abuse his discretion below. He found that several and I think he counted 10 legally protected interests implicated by the plaintiff, implicated by the complaint. Those interests directly attack, as Judge Shub found, directly attack the tribe the most fundamental interest is a tribe of its Indian lands, of its compact, the ability to assert jurisdiction and govern the reservation. One could hardly imagine a lawsuit filed that more directly challenges the tribes and absent tribes. The thing that most concerned me was the point the opposing council made which is the last factor about no adequate remedy for the plaintiffs. What do we do about that? For you, I would like you to call the BIA or go up there and talk to them telling them that I would like to be buried at Buena Vista where my mother is buried, her father, my grandfather, my sister, and my cousins are buried there. So my grandfather, John Oliver, selected the burial plot there at Buena Vista Cemetery for the Milwaukee Indians. So I'm entitled to be buried there because I'm an heir to the land. Without any repercussions from anybody, I think they own the place and don't. And then later we can have a dinner for the total tribe that is buried there and that is alive also.