Ten people with the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, based in the Bay Area, were arrested in Washington D.C. this week after the tribe joined others traveling to the nation’s capital ahead of Indigenous People’s Day to demand federal recognition for the tribe.
Nine people were arrested on Tuesday by the U.S. Park Police, according to a National Park Service spokesperson. One was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and eight were arrested on suspicion of interfering with an agency function and disobeying a lawful order, the spokesperson said; another person was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, disobeying a lawful order and interfering with agency operations.
San Jose resident Julie Dominguez, a member and ambassador for the tribe and the community education chair of the Muwekma Ohlone Preservation Foundation, said that her brother and the husband of tribal chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh were among those arrested on Tuesday. They had been cited and released as of Wednesday. Matt Ricchiazzi, the tribe’s spokesman, said the person arrested Wednesday was also cited and released by Thursday.
In August, around 30 to 40 tribal members and supporters from other Native American tribes embarked on a three-month journey on horseback from San Francisco to Washington D.C. seeking to persuade federal officials in the Department of the Interior to recognize them as a legitimate tribe.
Joey Iyolopixtli Torres, left, and Charlene Nijmeh, Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, speak during a rally in front of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
The Muwekma Ohlone tribe is made up of 614 members; their ancestral homelands consist of several areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. The tribe was federally recognized in the early 1900s, but their recognition was terminated in 1927. According to an interview with Nijmeh on KALW, the tribe lost its federal recognition status after someone with the Bureau of Indian Affairs submitted a report saying the tribe no longer needed land.
Dominguez said that if the U.S. government recognizes the Muwekma Ohlone as a sovereign tribe, they will be given the ability to repatriate their ancestral remains and artifacts and access to financial benefits and other federal protections. Federal recognition would also grant the tribe powers of self-government, which tribal members have sought in order to pursue gaming rights. Last month, tribe leaders accused San Jose city officials of obstructing their efforts to regain federal recognition and pursue a casino when they delayed considering a resolution to support them.
“A lot of our members were being gentrified out of our homelands, because it’s Silicon Valley, it’s the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s a very wealthy place within the United States,” Dominguez said. “So we’re fighting against a lot of big corporations that already live here.”
Dominguez said that Nijmeh was scheduled to meet Tuesday with Bryan Newland, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. Dominguez said tribe members were under the impression that officers with U.S. Park Police would escort the tribe to the meeting, but instead, they said the police threatened to confiscate the tribal horses.
From that point, tribal members created a “daisy chain” around a trailer holding the tribal horses to prevent their seizure, but the situation became “really aggressive” as police “seemed to antagonize” the tribe, Dominguez said.
A National Park Service spokesperson said officers responded to an unpermitted event on Tuesday. The agency attempted to help the tribe obtain a permit to protest but the members refused, according to an agency statement.
“NPS respects the right to peaceful protest but repeatedly failing to follow the law and property damage will not be tolerated,” NPS said in a statement. “NPS officials have emphasized that permits are necessary to ensure public safety, coordinate logistics, and protect the National Mall’s historic and natural resources, and that permit holders are expected to comply with the law and permit terms.”
Tribal members continued their demonstration despite numerous dispersal warnings; one person was arrested for allegedly assaulting an NPS officer, an account that tribal officials disputed. The tribal member was arrested and eight other tribal members were arrested on suspicion of “interfering with federal operations and disobeying lawful orders,” according to the agency’s statement. Muwekma Ohlone horses brought to the demonstration were seized by NPS officers and medically evaluated before being released to tribal members.
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Dominguez said that her two sons, ages 17 and 12, were present at the protest in Washington D.C. She said one person, a mother and ally from the Lakota Nation, who was involved in the protest, was arrested on Wednesday and shared a video with the Bay Area News Group of at least four officers holding a person face-down on the ground before they pick the person up and escort them away.
“I’m a proud mom, but also, I’m very hurt and very sad for what’s going on and I just want there to be peace out there. I want for the state parks and people, police, to work with our tribe,” Dominguez said. “We’re not there to cause violence or to bring an uproar, we’re there to bring an uprising towards our injustices.”
Dominguez said that Nijmeh’s meeting with Newland was rescheduled to next week, and their goal remains to speak directly with someone from the Biden Administration to reaffirm their federal recognition.