“The Salinan Tribe Seeks Federal Recognition”

Dave Congalton was kind enough to invite Ken Pierce and I to appear on his show regarding our federal acknowledgement application that is now before the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington DC. It was so wonderful to talk about our tribal group and to explain the our central coast communities what this process is and how we got to this point.

The basic application itself was just under 400 pages in length. The supporting documents and digital records account for a few thousand more pages as well.

Dave Congalton Hometown Radio • KVEC News Talk 920 AM 96.5 FM

One of the issues that we were able to bring to light was an understanding of how the federal acknowledgment process works. Most people are under the impression that being a member of a tribe is just a matter of demonstrating a genealogical connection to an identified Indian culture that existed a few hundred years ago. In actuality, it has to do with demonstrating that your tribal group has remained as an identified group since first European contact. It is a pretty steep hill to climb in showing the evidence but we do feel that our story has merit.