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Discussion: H.R. 3084, The Chinook Nation Restoration Act (22 comments ↓ | 3 wiki edits)
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Visitor Comments
Linda Gilbert
July 3, 2009, 11:49am (report abuse)I strongly feel that Bill H.B. 2576
should be restored. We are very hurt that our recognition was given to us, then taken away. We are still here, and we are still waiting. What do we tell our children? These children work very hard making their own canoe paddles they harvest grass from the water and learn to cure them. They make baskets,hats and many other things. We have a plank house where we celebrate Winter Gathering. We've invited other tribes from around the area.
they recognize us, why don't you
Amber Myers
July 9, 2009, 3:35pm (report abuse)Now is the time to make things right! Support the Chinook Nation with recognition! We have been waiting for this for a long time! Support us with a yes vote!!
Alex Myers
July 9, 2009, 3:36pm (report abuse)Please support the Chinook Nation! Pass this bill!
Ben Myers
July 9, 2009, 3:39pm (report abuse)Please pass this bill! It is the right thing to do!! Show your support for the Chinook Nation with a yes vote!!
Kate Elliott
July 14, 2009, 10:44pm (report abuse)Please vote yes and support the Restoration of the Chinook Nation. This is a correction to US policy long overdue.
Phillip J Elliott
July 15, 2009, 10:22am (report abuse)Please make HISTORY by voting YES to the Chinook Nation Restoration. It will help right a wrong done many years ago and to the present.
Bill Elliott
July 15, 2009, 3:16pm (report abuse)Please vote Yes on the Chinook Nation Restoration we have been waiting years it is the right thing to do let us get on with our lives. Thank You
Jean and Walt Wakefield
July 15, 2009, 4:16pm (report abuse)The Chinook Nation, long recognized and respected by historians, Pacific Northwest residents, visitors to the region, and even by government in a variety of ways, justly deserves the formal recognition that this bill would belatedly provide.
Marlene Hanson
July 18, 2009, 8:25pm (report abuse)Please vote yeas on this Chinook Restoration Bill...It has been a long time coming and please remember that the Chinooks assisted Lewis and Clark on their arrival at the mouth of the Columbia Ricer!
Mary Marczak
July 19, 2009, 12:36pm (report abuse)Please vote yes. Jean and Walt expressed my feelings exactly.
John Mail
July 20, 2009, 7:09pm (report abuse)This Bill is illegal, unethical and immoral. It does NOTHING to honor my people. It strips us of our Indigenous rights and treats us as Children to a Federal Government that has done nothing to ensure us of a survival of our heritage. It strips our lands away from us, denies us our hunting and fishing rights and was "agreed" to by ONE tribe out of the 13 that constitute our Nation. It is an abomination and nothing more than ethnic cleansing, homogenizing our diversified cultural traditions to one, take it or leave it, future. This is a bad bill which honorable people should neither endorse nor sign. Read it, see what we are supposedly "willingly" giving up! What Indian would willingly trade their heritage for such a paltry return? See my letter at http://northcoastoregon.com. I am the great-grandson of Chief George Charley, last of the Chief's on the lower Columbia to challenge the US government to fish our traditional grounds. This bill does nothing to honor him or his memory.
Julie Cartwright
July 28, 2009, 4:53pm (report abuse)Please support this bill as it is the right thing to do.
Our people have waited a very long time for this. Our Elders are dying and we lack good healthcare
How many decades have we waited for our tribe to be a federally recognized tribe---The time is now
Please support this bill as it is the right thing to do.
Our people have waited a very long time for this. Our Elders are dying and we lack good healthcare
How many decades have we waited for our tribe to be a federally recognized tribe---The time is now
melinda jones
September 15, 2009, 5:12am (report abuse)please realize that our people still exist and always have we deserve whats owed to us my great grandmother sara ero fought for this as well as my father charles jones waiting for this and now me and my two children and it will just go down the kine but we will still be here so do whats right
victorlahr
(logged in user) September 18, 2009, 7:42pm (report abuse)Please support this bill.Let's get it done!It's the right thing to do!Come on Congress the Chinook have waited to long for this,right the wrong.
Kathy Henry
October 1, 2009, 4:41pm (report abuse)The Chinook people have diligently tried to preserve their culture and their history. They have had managed to survive without the any of the support which might have come with federal recognition. Non-recognition put the Chinook Tribe at a distinct disadvantage in their efforts to preserve their culture. Is this right, is it fair? I do not think it is and I hope you agree and vote for the long-overdue recognition of the Chinook Tribe.
Sam Robinson
November 2, 2009, 1:47pm (report abuse)Please support the Chinook Restoration Bill HR3084. There has been three generations working on Chinook Federal Recognition. We are fast loosing those from the second generation.It is time to correct this injustice and restore status to once was the biggest Tribe in North America.
I strongly feel that our surrounding communities are ready as well!
Reverend Josh Taylor
November 12, 2009, 4:17pm (report abuse)Bigman is my Native American name and I support this bill. But please exclude casinos from this bill because it's a sin of greed. We must give our respects to the Native Americans and their ancestors. Some of them have even converted to Christianity.
Carol Olden
November 20, 2009, 7:40pm (report abuse)I was asked in 1997 to write a letter of support for the Lower
Chinook Nation to obtain Federal recognition, before I was aware of the situation regarding adopting in of inlaws and giving them my family's identities, so I have some concern about enrollment procedures. The current bill is not Federal recognition as it denies the Lower Chinook Nation the Boldt decision fishing rights which has stood for over 30 years in Federal Court, as well as hunting rights,trapping rights, NAGPRA, aboriginal title to land ,NAGPRA, and many other rights which all Federally recognized tribes have. As such it is unconstitutional. I personally would not have voted for fishing only twice a year for ceremonial purposes or funerals instead of a share of fish under the Boldt decision and have ceremonial fisheries managed by the WA state Dept of Fisheries instead of the tribal fishery program and the allocation taken from the state's recreational and commercial fishing allocation for nontribal members.
Carol Olden
November 23, 2009, 8:09pm (report abuse)My letter for Federal recognition of the Chinook Indian Nation sent on August 7, 2000 to Holly Reckord,Branch of Acknowledgement, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington . D.C.; outlined who my family members were and that we were always identified as Chinook, as our enrollment records from the Yakama Nation list us as Cascade Chinook, an Upper Chinook group from the now Bonnville Dam area. After Federal recognition came reversal from the Federal government that the persons enrolled in the Chinook Indian Nation living in Bay Center could not trace their ancestry back to the tribes from Ilwaco or Dahlia removed to Bay Center. 238 people were listed as being descendants of Suzanne Tawakon and Amable Petit,sister of Thomas Tawakon Jr,my ancestor, who were actually descendants of Rose LaFrambois, a sister in law of the Scarborough family and not Chinook, but Sioux, Cayuse, and French. This shouldn't be grounds for reversing recognition to cheat the Chinook out of hunting and fishing rights.
Carol Olden
November 24, 2009, 3:40pm (report abuse)The Chinook were told by the US govt.they would have to change their enrollment rules to reflect their acual practice of enrolling sister-in-laws like Rose La Frambois and her descendants,otherwise they wouldn't be enrollable in their tribe.Rose LaFrabois lived in Cathlamet,home of the Wahkiakums and their chief Tim Tarabochia who asked me to write the letter of support. In the meantime my family heirlooms were looted and my father ,a Yakama Tribal member,eventually deceased by the same group of people who evidently had been arrested for drug charges in Pacific County that thought by being listed as the descendants of Suzzanne Tawakon and Amable Petit, even though they were not our relatives as Tawakons, they could steal our family heirlooms and award themselves the same,and claim they had the right to our fishing rights as Cascades in the Columbia River Gorge, even though that is not Lower Chinook territory,after robbing my late father of his salmon dipnets as a traditional fisherman.
Carol Olden
November 24, 2009, 5:02pm (report abuse)In summary i believe that somewhere along the line the meaning of Federal recognition was misunderstood by the Lower Chinook Nation and the fact that being honest about who they consider tribal members, including inlaws, would have been better than trying to trick well-intended persons like my family out of their identities and property in the hopes that the US govt. wouldn't discover the discrepancy, as it did. Being restored after being Federally recognized then derecognized is like being in terminated status like the Siletz, who when restored did not get back their hunting and fishing rights. The Lower Chinook Nation should not be in the same situation,so their full hunting and fishing rights established commensurate with other Federally recognized tribes should be returned.
Likewise their situation should not deny full treaty rights to Upper Chinooks enrolled in Federally recognized tribes who have established fishing stations and hunting rights in their ancestral locations.
Carol Olden
November 25, 2009, 5:03am (report abuse)The sad part about the enrollment issue is that my family members, as descendants of Louise Tawakon, listed as the daughter of Thomas Tawakon Jr, and his wife Francois Walla Walla, who along with her brother Pierre, the Tawakons had before they were married in the Catholic Church in Dayton, OR appear to be the children of Louise Chinook, who died the same year that the Tawakons were married as was buried at Fort Vancouver, so they were adopted children in that scenario, but a differet type of adoption from adopting inlaws into the tribe.
Whatever the case, honesty would have been best instead of robbing our family members or asking us to donate our time and effort into helping out the Lower Chinook Tribe as good intent failed.