The Pechanga Band Today: Sovereignty and Continuity

The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians holds a reservation of more than six thousand acres within the traditional Temecula territory, the same land their ancestors occupied for thousands of years. After the eviction of eighteen seventy five, Pechanga ancestors rebuilt their community around the Pechanga spring, the place they called Pecháa'a, and sought federal recognition of their land. The federal government established the Pechanga Reservation by executive order in eighteen eighty two.

The tribe maintained its government and its land base through the twentieth century despite poverty, the federal termination policies of the nineteen fifties and sixties that ended recognition for many California tribes, and the pressures of the fast-growing suburban region around them. The Pechanga Band survived as a federally recognized tribe. The opening of Pechanga Resort Casino in two thousand two transformed the tribe's economic situation.

Gaming revenue funded investments in education, healthcare, housing, and cultural preservation that had been impossible in previous decades. The resort employs thousands of workers from the surrounding region. The tribe has used its resources to pursue cultural projects alongside economic development.

The Pechanga Cultural Center maintains archives, artifacts, and records related to Luiseño history and language. Repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural objects held by museums has been an active priority. The language revitalization program works to preserve Luiseño, a language in the Uto-Aztecan family, which very few people now speak fluently.

The Pechanga people's continued presence in their ancestral valley, despite everything designed to displace them, is itself one of the valley's most significant facts.