The money has also added to the bitterness of marital breakups. Some tribal members are challenging the bloodlines of their fellow Chumash, contending that they lack the one-fourth Indian blood required for enrollment in the band.

The casino money has ignited bruising internal battles over ancestry. So many people have gotten overextended that the band has withheld money from members’ monthly checks to pay overdue car loans and taxes. Some of the Chumash have run through their riches, spending themselves back into debt. Yet the costs of newfound wealth are as striking as the luxury cars that ply reservation streets and the private pools that dot backyards. “Given the way we were raised, we could never have imagined what we have today,” says tribal chairman Vincent Armenta. Powerless for so long, the Chumash are asserting their sovereign rights with new vigor, aided by lawyers, lobbyists and consultants. Now, casino earnings are underwriting efforts to build a Chumash museum, scour European collections for Chumash artifacts and revive the Chumash Inezeno language.

Many were ashamed to acknowledge their Native American ancestry. A decade ago, the tribe - formally the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians - had been largely assimilated into the local Latino community. Gambling proceeds pay for free medical care at a modern Chumash clinic and subsidize private schooling, tutors and college tuition.Īnd a people who had been relegated to the margins of history are reclaiming their identity. “We’re not standing in line anymore to get cheese,” says Julio Carrillo, 60, a member of the tribe.

Women who once wore hand-me-downs and turquoise beads wear precious jewels and have cosmetic surgery. Members who once subsisted on rice and beans enjoy gourmet meals and expensive bottles of champagne at their own upscale restaurant, the Willows.

So many tribal members own vacation property in the Sierra Nevada that they jokingly call the area “Chumash North.” They play golf at country clubs and vacation in Paris, Madrid and Maui. Now, they hire day laborers to tend their own sprawling estates. In the decades before gambling, many Chumash Indians toiled as ranch hands, truckers, maids and farmworkers.

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