Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contention 1 is Inherency
The Tohono-Oodham tribe has been forced out of their own
land by the USfg and has become the artificial barrier to
freedom
Tohono Ooodham Nation 14 (Tohono Ooodham Nation, Fall 2014, TohonoOoodham History and Cultur http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/history_culture.aspx) DE
According to the terms of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States agreed to
honor all land rights of the area held by Mexican citizens, which included the
O'odham, and O'odham would have the same constitutional rights as any
other United States citizen. However, the demand for land for settlement
escalated with the development of mining and the transcontinental railroad. That
demand resulted in the loss of O'odham land on both sides of the border.Following
the Plan de Iguala, O'odham lands in Mexico continued to decrease at a rapid rate.
In 1927, reserves of lands for indigenous peoples, were established by Mexico.
Today, approximately nine O'odham communities in Mexico lie proximate to the
southern edge of the Tohono O'odham Nation, a number of which are separated only
by the United States/Mexico border. On the U.S. side of the border, the Gadsden
Purchase had little effect on the O'odham initially because they were not informed
that a purchase of their land had been made, and the new border between the
United States and Mexico was not strictly enforced. In recent years, however, the
border has come to affect the O'odham in many ways, because immigration laws
prevent the O'odham from crossing it freely. In fact, the U.S.-Mexico border has
become "an artificial barrier to the freedom of the Tohono O'odham. . . to traverse
their lands, impairing their ability to collect foods and materials needed to sustain
their culture and to visit family members and traditional sacred sites." O'odham
members must produce passports and border identification cards to enter into the
United States. On countless occasions, the U.S. Border Patrol has detained and
deported members of the Tohono O'odham Nation who were simply traveling
through their own traditional lands, practicing migratory traditions essential to their
religion, economy and culture. Similarly, on many occasions U.S. Customs have
prevented Tohono O'odham from transporting raw materials and goods essential for
their spirituality, economy and traditional culture. Border officials are also reported
to have confiscated cultural and religious items, such as feathers of common birds,
pine leaves or sweet grass.
The government has no concern about protecting our Mother Earth, says Jose
Matus, a Tohono Oodham leader and human rights activist. The land was
untouched by development before, and animals were free to move. There was
vegetation that the elders would use for medicine and food. Now it is being scraped
off by the Border Patrol for the building of roads, and this is creating a different
environment. The illicit activity taking place on their land is not only disturbing the
environment but also corrupting the community. Tohono Oodham officials estimate
that, together with the Border Patrol, they stop only a quarter of the traffickers.
Moreover, Tohono officials report that many times tribal members themselves will
participate in drug trafficking to earn money. In a tribe where the unemployment
rate is 60 percent and the 2000 per capita income was 33 percent of the American
average, the $5,000 that drug traffickers will pay locals to help them transport
drugs is a natural draw. There are so many young men in prison because the
conditions out there are very Third World, very impoverished, Rivas says sadly.
They get enticed into drug trafficking by a lot of the main drug traffickers from
Mexico. More than anything, the Tohono Oodham are frustrated by their
powerlessness in the situation. While the Tohono Oodhams location on the border
potentially places them in a unique position to discuss immigration policy with the
U.S. government, they are never asked to participate. And they suffer the
consequences of border decisions. We are the last ones to know, says Motes. We
are never invited to the table to present our issues and concerns. Once they decide
on laws, then we have to deal with them. The legislation is not working at all. They
are putting on more border patrols, and it still hasnt affected the flow of
undocumented people. It has created more problems than not, so the issue is not an
enforcement issue, it is an economic issue. While increased border patrols would
appear to address illegal trafficking problems for the Tohono Oodham, it has only
made matters worse. Motes explains how tribal members are doubly afraid: The
smugglers create a criminal element and create fear, but on top of that you have
the Border Patrol. If you are driving home late at night from a ceremony, you are
stopped all the time and the vehicle is searched and human rights are
violated. In 2000, Arizona Representative Ed Pastor introduced a bill to Congress
that would allow all tribal members to become U.S. citizens. While this bill found
initial support in Congress, it eventually died without ever receiving a hearing. Then
again in 2003, Representative Raul M. Grijalva introduced a citizenship bill, but it
never got out of committee. Both of these bills would have given U.S. citizenship to
all enrolled tribal members turning their tribal membership card into proof of
citizenship. This U.S. citizenship would not change their status as a sovereign nation
but is a convenience for them, according to Margo Cowan, former general council
for the Tohono Oodham Nation. It would, she said, allow all Tohono Oodham to
cross the border freely. All the scholars recognize, whether you believe the
Oodham creation story or not, that they were here first, Cowan says. The whole
question of dual citizenship is really trying to figure out how to take a situation that
is not accommodated by either the U.S. or Mexico and make it work in the paradigm
of both of those countries. While Native American( this is just the phrasing used
by the card and not endorsed by the aff, terms such as Indigenous Peoples are the
preference of the AFF team)s living on the U.S.-Canada border were granted
freedom to travel and work across the boundary hundreds of years ago as a part of
the Jay Treaty, the Tohono Oodham do not have that right. An estimated 7,000 of
the Tohono Oodham do not even have birth certificates, making them easy targets
for border control officials. Ceremonial sites, planting sites, and sacred sites fall on
both sides of the border, but today most Tohono Oodham are afraid to cross the
border even to visit their family for fear of being treated like illegal immigrants.
You have the original people of the region really being conquered through time,
Cowan says. Then in modern time how are they supposed to negotiate this artificial
border? The ones born in Mexico are Mexican citizens. The ones born in the U.S. but
cant prove it require U.S. citizenship. Its like taking an apple and trying to close
your eyes and make it a tomato. Its a fundamental right of federally recognized
American Indians to engage in cultural and religious ceremonies. Thats the tomato.
The apple is immigration authorities that only consider state citizenship. Gustavo
Solo, spokesperson for the Tuscon Border Patrol, is upbeat about the agencys
relationship with the tribe. We have a great relationship with the Tohono Oodham,
he says, because we need to and are making strides in the right direction.
However, Rivas describes how the Border Patrol constantly raids Tohono Oodham
homes, searching for drugs and treating the homeowners as if they were criminals.
One woman was breastfeeding her baby at 4:45 A.M., and the border control just
walked in with flashlights looking for undocumented people. One elderly lady was
telling me that they were sleeping and they saw border control agents peeking in
their window. Many people feel very upset that they have no peace, and they feel
violated. Frequent home invasions have made many Tohono Oodham members
want to leave their land. Even traditional ceremonies are threatened, because the
Tohono Oodham are unable to cross the border with their medicine bundles to
traditional sites, and border control officials ignore the Tohono Oodhams requests
to remain undisturbed during ceremonies. The community becomes at risk even
though the Border Patrol claims that the quality of life has improved, Motes says.
The quality of life has gone down in the past 10 years. Rivas also recalls one
conversation between a man from her village and the Border Patrol. One of the
Border Patrol agents stopped a man from the village and the man from the village
tried to tell him that we have rights. The border control official responded by saying
Oh you Indians think you have sovereign rights, but you dont have any rights. We
are the authority here. Since the U.S. Senate approved building a border fence
along the U.S.-Mexico border on May 17 and President Bush initiated Operation
Jump Start, National Guard troops have been sent to the border in larger numbers.
More than 6,000 additional Guard members will be deployed in the coming months.
Rivas explains that the U.S. Border Patrol has mostly replaced tribal border control.
But more border enforcement does not seem to be the answer, according to many
members of the Tohono Oodham Nation. To us the problem is the border control,
Rivas says. The undocumented aliens have been coming across the land for many
years and every time I have talked to the elders they say they have never been
bothered by the people that come across before. While Solo says that the problem
in the Tohono Oodham nation is a problem of manpower, Rivas says a solution to
border issues must involve the Tohono Oodham people. She notes, We are the
people living there. If they called us to the table we would have a solution that was
better. The border issues that have plagued the Tohono Oodham for years are still
as alive today as they were when the Tohono Oodham first started pushing for dual
citizenship in 2000. You see these communities that can sleep peacefully at night
in the United States, comments Rivas, and they have noise ordinances. It seems
like they dont have any problems. In my community you cant sleep outside
because the Border Patrol is spotlighting you all night. You have no peace. Its so
disrespectful, and all our rights as people have been violated.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175834/tomgram3A_todd_miller,_the_creation_of_
a_border_security_state/)
* We do not indorse gendered or masculinized words *
Before 9/11, there was little federal presence on the Tohono Oodham reservation.
Since then, the expansion of the Border Patrol into Native American ( this is just the
phrasing used by the card and not endorsed by the aff, terms such as Indigenous
Peoples are the preference of the AFF team ) territory has been relentless. Now,
Homeland Security stations, filled with hundreds of agents (many hired in a 20072009 hiring binge), circle the reservation. But unlike bouncers at a club, they check
people going out, not heading in. On every paved road leaving the reservation,
their checkpoints form a second border. There, armed agents -- ever more of whom
are veterans of Americas distant wars -- interrogate anyone who leaves. In addition,
there are two forward operating bases on the reservation , which are meant to
play the role -- facilitating tactical operations in remote regions -- that similar camps
did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, thanks to the Elbit Systems contract, a new kind
of border will continue to be added to this layering . Imagine part of the futuristic
Phoenix exhibition hall leaving Border Expo with the goal of incorporating itself into
the lands of a people who were living here before there was a New World, no less
a United States or a Border Patrol. Though this is increasingly the reality from
Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, on Tohono Oodham land a post-9/11
war posture shades uncomfortably into the leftovers from a nineteenth century
(Indian) Native war. Think of it as the place where the homeland security state
meets its older compatriot, Manifest Destiny. On the gate at the entrance to her
house, Tohono Oodham member Ofelia Rivas has put up a sign stating that the
Border Patrol cant enter without a warrant. It may be a fine sentiment, reflecting a
right embodied in the U.S. Constitution, but in the eyes of the law, its ancient
history. Only a mile from the international boundary, her house is well within the
25-mile zone in which the Border Patrol can enter anyones property without a
warrant. These powers make the CBP a super-force in comparison to the local law
enforcement outfits it collaborates with. Although CBP can enter property
warrantlessly, it still needs a warrant to enter somebodys dwelling. In the small
community where Rivas lives, known as Ali Jegk, the agents have overstepped even
its extra-constitutional bounds with home invasions (as people call them).
Throughout the Tohono Oodham Nation, people complain about Homeland
Security vehicles driving at high speeds and tailgating on the roads. They complain
about blinding spotlights, vehicle pull-overs, and unexpected interrogations. The
Border Patrol has pulled Oodham tribal members out of cars, peppersprayed them, and beaten them with batons. As local resident Joseph Flores
told a Tucson television station, It feels like were being watched all the time.
Another man commented, I feel like I have no civil rights. On the reservation,
people speak not only about this new world of intense surveillance, but also about
its raw impact on the Tohono Oodham people: violence and subjugation. Although
the tribal legislative council has collaborated extensively with Border Patrol
operations, Priscilla Lewis seemed to sum up the sentiments of many Oodham at an
open hearing in 2011: Too much harassment, following the wrong people, always
stopping us, including and especially those who look like Mexicans when driving or
walking in the desert... They have too much domination over us. At her house,
Ofelia Rivas tells me a story. One day, she was driving with Tohono Oodham elders
towards the U.S.-Mexican border when a low-flying Blackhawk helicopter seemingly
picked them up and began following them. Hanging out of the open helicopter doors
were CBP gunmen, she said. When they crossed the border into Mexico, the
helicopter tracked them through a forest of beautiful saguaro cacti while they
headed for a ceremonial site, 25 miles south of the border. They were, of course,
crossing what was a non-border to the Oodham, doing something they had done for
thousands of years. Hearing, even feeling the vibration of the propellers, one of the
elders said, I guess we are going to die. They laughed, Rivas added, as there was
nothing else to do. They laughed real hard. Then, a mile or so into Mexico, the
helicopter turned back. Americans may increasingly wonder whether NSA agents
are scouring their meta-data, reading their personal emails, and the like. In the
borderlands no imagination is necessary. The surveillance apparatus is in your face.
The high-powered cameras are pointed at you; the drones are above you; youre
stopped regularly at checkpoints and interrogated. Too bad if youre late for school,
a meeting, or an appointment. And even worse, if your skin complexion, or the way
youre dressed, or anything about you sets off alarm bells, or theres something that
doesnt smell quite right to the CBPs dogs -- and such dogs are a commonplace in
the region -- being a little late will be the least of your problems. As Rivas told me,
a typical exchange on the reservation might involve an agent at a checkpoint asking
an Oodham woman whether, as she claimed, she was really going to the grocery
store -- and then demanding that she show him her grocery list. People on the
reservation now often refer to what is happening as an armed occupation. Mike
Wilson, an Oodham member who has tried to put gallon jugs of water along routes
Mexican migrants might take through the reservation, speaks of the Border Patrol as
an occupying army. Its hardly surprising. Never before in the Nations history
under Spain, Mexico, or the United States have so many armed agents been present
on their land.
Oodham community members spoke about the loss of language and ceremonial
knowledge in communities on both sides of the international border , and the need
to strengthen cultural and ceremonial ties across the international line. Dennis
Manuel, a Tohono Oodham elder and community activist working to protect the
Oodham sacred areas of Baboquivari peak, stated that Border Patrol stationed on
Oodham lands were driving through Oodham sacred areas, causing damage to the
land and cultural artifacts in these areas. In a workshop hosted by the Alianza
Indgena on the following Saturday, executive director of the Kumeyaay Border Task
Force in California, Louis Guassac, spoke against the Department of Homeland
Securitys plans for border wall construction that would plow through Kumeyaay
ancestral gravesites. The Tucson border indigenous community events organized in
August 2006 marked the beginning of a campaign launched by the Alianza Indgena
Sin Fronteras to organize indigenous community action in support of national policy
guidelines that would protect indigenous peoples rights of mobility and passage,
as well as indigenous environmental and cultural resources. Over two years later,
border wall construction from California to Texas continues. The Secure Fence and
Real I.D. Acts continue to allow the waiving of environmental and cultural protection
laws for border wall construction and other border security measures. Over sixtynine Oodham ancestral graves have been unearthed and cultural artifacts
disturbed for border wall construction, and Oodham activist Dennis Manuel reports
rumored plans for a new Secure Border spy tower to be constructed in the
Baboquivari sacred area. Yet, the Alianza Indgena Sin Fronteras and its community
partners continue to advocate for the rights of border indigenous peoples, and to
speak against the current policies in place to enforce the international border line
that divides their communities.
protect some of these areas, but the lands exposed to extensive degradation are
the lands in Mexico. Towns and agricultural farms now occupy many of the sacred
sites. An example is the town of Sonoita in Sonora, Mexico that once was the village
of Shon Oidag. The Mexican settlers bulldozed the burial sites of the Oodham and
build their homes on top of this area. The living decedents were powerless to
defend this area, as after all they are just indios, a slang insult in Mexico. Congress
recently approved a bill that in 2008 all people entering the US will be required to
have a passport. Many traditional Oodham do not have birth records that are
required to obtain a passport. The sealing of the international boundary is the
demise of the remaining Oodham way of lifelegal cultural genocide.
assistance from the tribal system. Many of these young people have never been
arrested or committed any offenses but now sit in prison awaiting sentences. The
young people returning from prison are forced into halfway houses and are not
allowed to return home to their families, they completely lose all rights as citizens of
the United States. This is a conspiracy to force the total assimilation of the Oodham
and neutralize the Oodham lands. This psychological warfare on the Oodham is
genocide, a genocide that many will not realize until generations to come.
Contention 3 is Solvency
When surveillance is ended, abuse will stop
Leza 9 (Christina, Approved Dissertation for doctor of philosophy,
Anthropology,5/29/09, DIVIDED NATIONS: POLICY, ACTIVISM AND INDIGENOUS
IDENTITY THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER, Arizona University, Accessed 7/16/15,
http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/193815/1/azu_etd_1078
2_sip1_m.pdf)
Joseph Joaquin, an Oodham elder and Tohono Oodham Nation cultural resources
specialist, states, We were brought into this world for a purpose, to be the
caretakers of this land. Due to present border enforcement policies and
procedures, however, ancestors' graves are unvisited; relatives go years without
seeing family; and fiestas, wakes, and ceremonial offerings go unattended. Elders,
hampered from crossing for a number of reasons, fail to share traditional stories,
and to pass on knowledge about the past, about plants and animals, and about
caring for their desert home (Arietta 2004). Current border enforcement,
therefore, severely disrupts the Tohono Oodhams ability to fulfill their purpose and
sustain the vitality of their community. Eileen Luna-Firebaugh (2005) argues that
because border enforcement inhibits the right of Oodham people to move freely on
Tohono Oodham traditional lands, enhanced and restrictive border crossing
procedures are an assault on indigenous sovereignty and violate native religious
freedoms guaranteed under federal Indian Native law26 and advocated through
international human rights law. Many Oodham make an annual pilgrimage to
Magdalena de Kino in Sonora to honor St. Francis Xavier, an indigenous Catholic
pilgrimage also carried out by the Yaqui. Oodham have also traditionally traveled to
Baboquivari, the sacred mountain on Oodham lands north of the U.S.-Mexico border
where Itoi, the Oodham Creator, resides. Such visits are now impossible for
Mexican Oodham who lack travel documentation required by U.S. officials to cross
the border into Arizona. Any movement through the desert is also difficult for
Oodham in the U.S. who are often approached by Border Patrol to prove their
identities as U.S. citizens. Traditional medicine men on both sides of the border
lacking required travel documents are limited in their ability to attend healing
ceremonies (Norrell 2009). Even when Oodham medicine men do hold the
appropriate paperwork, they must give over their medicinal bundles to Border Patrol
for search, disrupting the healing ceremony, according to one Tohono Oodham
traditional medicine man voicing his concerns at an Alianza meeting earlier this
year. According to Tohono Oodham activist Mike Flores, Oodham ceremonies that
require movement across the U.S.-Mexico border, like the Oodham deer hunting
and salt gathering ceremonies, are constantly disrupted by border official
questioning and detention. As Flores states, To be detained for eight hours disrupts
the whole ceremony. Two members of the Baboquivari Defense Project, and
affiliated members of the Alianza Indgena, have also observed and spoken against
Border Patrol presence in and damage to sacred areas of Baboquivari Peak.
The Tohono O'odham Tribe suffers fundamental human rights violations under
current policies governing the international border between the United States and
Mexico. The survival of this indigenous culture depends upon its ability to pass through traditional lands freely,
to collect raw materials for traditional foods and crafts and to visit religious sites and family members . Current
policies and laws of the United States deny the Tohono O'odham these rights.
Border crossing legislation will help to eliminate these abuses. However, in order to be
effective, the legislation must allow the Tohono O'odham people to participate in decisions regarding regulation of
The goal of the Tohono O'odham Tribe is to protect its culture and assure its
continued existence. Approaching the Tohono O'odham claim for border crossing rights as a claim for basic
human rights places indigenous groups within the scope of international principles. The new movements of
intemational law focus on the unique claims of indigenous groups, which amount
not to secession, but to a level of autonomy which permits the survival of their
cultures. Guided by these fundamental international principles, the United States
and neighboring nations must recognize the right of the Tohono O'odham to keep
their culture alive.
the border.
might call you killers and murderers as you just came from killing people. To the
O'odham you are a dangerous person, to walk onto our lands bringing fresh death
on your person is very destructive to us as a people. You may have diseases we do
not know, illnesses of your mind that you might inflict on us. Please do not approach
us if you are afflicted with fresh death. Remember we do not want you on our
lands, we did not invite you to our lands. Do remember that we have invited
allies that will be witnessing your conduct on our lands and how you treat our
people..
Contention 4 is Framing
This outweighs all impacts.
Short 10(Damien, PHD and director of human rights at London University,
November 2010, THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Cultural
genocide and indigenous peoples: a sociological approach, accessed 7/14/15) CH
The second element of Lemkins prior formulation, vandalism the destruction of
culture was now a technique of group destruction.42 Lemkins central ontological
assertion here was that culture integrates human societies and consequently is a
necessary pre-condition for the realisation of individual material needs. For Lemkin,
culture is as vital to group life as individual physical well-being: So-called derived
needs, are just as necessary to their existence as the basic physiological
needs....These needs find expression in social institutions or, to use an
anthropological term, the culture ethos. If the culture of a group is violently
undermined, the group itself disintegrates and its members must either become
absorbed in other cultures which is a wasteful and painful process or succumb to
personal disorganization and, perhaps, physical destruction....(Thus) the destruction
of cultural symbols is genocide...(It) menaces the existence of the social group
which exists by virtue of its common culture.43 This quotation gives us clues to
Lemkins conception of genocide. He was more concerned with the loss of culture
than the loss of life,44 as culture is the social fabric of a genus. Indeed, in Lemkins
formulation, culture is the unit of collective memory, whereby the legacies of the
dead can be kept alive and each cultural group has its own unique distinctive genius
deserving of protection.45 National culture for Lemkin is an essential element of
world culture and nations have a life of their own comparable to the life of an
individual. On this point Lemkin wrote: The world represents only so much culture
and intellectual vigour as are created by its component national groups. The
destruction of a nation, therefore, results in the loss of its future contributions to the
world. Moreover, such a destruction offends our feelings of morality and justice in
much the same way as does the criminal killing of a human being: the crime in the
one case as in the other is murder, though on a vastly greater scale.
granted patterns of the way the world is. From this follow some important and very
challenging insights. First, the same structures that render life predictable, secure,
comfortable and pleasant for some of us, also mar the lives of others through
poverty, insecurity, ill-health and violence. Second, these structures are neither
natural nor neutral, but are instead the outcome of long histories of political,
economic, and social struggle. Third, being nothing more (and nothing less!) than
patterns of collective social action, these structures can and should be changed.
Structural violence thus encourages us to look for differences within large-scale
social structures differences of power, wealth, privilege and health that are unjust
and unacceptable. By the same token, structural violence encourages us to look for
connections between what might be falsely perceived separate and distinct social
worlds. Structural violence also encourages an attitude of moral outrage and critical
engagement, in situations where the automatic response might be to passively
accept systematic inequalities.
freedoms. 15 Whether or not you believe in individual rights, whether or not you are convinced by
arguments one way or another about the metaphysical grounds of rights, we can all appreciate the idea
that any ethics should recognize the fundamental dignity of human|||s||| beings. This is precisely what
worries critics of utilitarianism, that it may require us to violate that dignity, for some at least, if doin g so
will promote the greatest happiness. But to violate human dignity is to ignore or to misunderstand the
very point of ethics. For the deontologist, such as Kant, we have a duty not to violate human dignity, even
if it causes us pain, even if the consequences fail to maximize the overall happiness. The inviolate
character of human dignity is expressed most practically by the idea that we have certain basic rights
(whatever the source of rights are, whether natural or by convention). John Locke defined rights as
prima facie entitlements, which means that anyone who would restrict my rights bears the burden of
proving that there are good reasons for doing so. For example, the right to private property is sometimes
trumped by the principle of eminent domain, provided that I too sta nd to gain by seizure of my land. My
right to free speech is limited by the harm it might cause by, say, shouting fire! in a crowded theatre.
There are times when we feel justified in limiting or abrogating certain positive rights for the common
good, but even here no social outcome justifies torture, slavery, murder, or any action which violates my
fundamental human dignity. Deontological ethics assumes there to be a line that cannot be crossed ,
regardless of the consequences. Thus, Kants type of ethics would seem to fair best with respect to the
fairness of application criterion beca use it requires, as intrinsic to the Categorical Imperative itself, that
we treat all persons, at all times, as ends and not merely as means to an end. This is not due to any good
benefits that may stem from doing so; in fact, respecting the dignity of others may actually diminish
overall pleasure. But we have a duty to do so, regardless, because reason demands it. It demands it
because to do otherwise is irrational given the requirements of the Categorical Imperative, which are
(arguably) three: