Tucson, Arizona Saturday, 8 February 2003
By C.J. Karamargin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A bill granting American citizenship to more than 8,000 members of the Tohono O'odham Nation will be introduced next week by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
The Tohono O'odham Citizenship Act seeks to correct a "historical injustice" that has artificially divided the nation since the mid-19th century, said Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat.
Among the bill's provisions is recognition of O'odham tribal membership credentials "as the legal equivalent of a certificate of citizenship or a state-issued birth certificate for all federal purposes."
If the bill is passed and signed into law by President Bush, tribal members who were born in the United States but can't prove it, or born in Mexico to American parents and can't prove it, will be granted rights denied them for generations.
"I'll be able to vote," said Silvia Parra, the director of human services for the nation. "That is clearly the most important thing for me."
For decades, the U.S. government allowed Tohono O'odham members in both countries to cross the border freely to work, participate in religious ceremonies, keep medical appointments and visit relatives.
But as border security tightened in the mid-1980s, border crossings became more difficult.
"The O'odham are caught up in the debate about immigration," Grijalva said.
"This is not about immigration. It's a horrible double standard."
The U.S.-Mexico border has split the Tohono O'odham Nation in half since the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, when the United States purchased what became the southern portions of New Mexico and Arizona.
Tribal members have said that citizenship should have been granted in 1937, when the U.S. government recognized the tribe.
Parra was born June 28, 1962, to an American mother visiting Mexico. Her mother, a resident of Ajo, traveled south of the border to attend a religious festival, she said.
"She went across and I was born in the village of Sonoyta, where they had a doctor," she said.
A Mexican birth certificate was issued and Parra's mother brought her into the United States six days later, on July 4.
Parra went to school in Ajo and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in business administration in 1984.
It wasn't until she applied for financial aid as a UA graduate student that she realized the country in which she had spent her entire life did not consider her a citizen.
To prove she was born to an American citizen, Parra said, the Immigration and Naturalization Service required that her mother come up with proof that she had lived in the United States prior to her 15th birthday.
That proved impossible, Parra said.
The reservation home in which her mother lived, Parra said, did not have electricity, running water or a telephone. Utility bills, the most common way to verify residence, did not exist.
"All of these things they were asking for just didn't make sense to the O'odham culture," she said. "I felt helpless."
Ultimately, Parra obtained a resident alien card allowing her to remain in the United States. Now married, mother of five and one of the few tribal members who hold an MBA, Parra said she can't understand why her status is taking so long to rectify.
The language in Grijalva's bill is identical to a bill introduced in 2001 by U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, a Phoenix Democrat who represented the Tohono O'odham Nation until this year.
That bill had 122 co-sponsors but never got a hearing. Among the reasons, Grijalva said, is the security concerns that became paramount after Sept. 11, 2001.
* Contact C.J. Karamargin at 573-4243 or at cjkarama@azstarnet.com