For thousands of years, Gabrielino Indians say, they have lived in the Los Angeles Basin. They survived the Spanish missions, Mexican settlers and white developers.
Now, a tribe that nearly disappeared is mired in a legal battle over who has the right to control its destiny -- and what role gambling might play in its future.
For six years, a recently organized group of Gabrielinos has worked with Santa Monica lawyer Jonathan Stein, who convinced them he could do what many said was impossible: win them the right to open a casino in the heart of the Los Angeles Basin. Such a casino, according to proponents, could generate more than $1 billion a year.
They made some progress, but the partnership has collapsed in acrimony and lawsuits.
The Gabrielinos say they have been taken advantage of. Stein contends it is he who has been victimized -- by tribal members who spurned him after he got investors to give them millions of dollars to pursue their long-shot quest for gaming rights.
Watching the spectacle from the sidelines, other Native Americans in Los Angeles say they are aghast.
The whole affair "is just giving legitimate tribes a bad name," said Ron Andrade, director of the Los Angeles City-County Native American Indian Commission, who said he has tangled with Stein in the past. "It's just hurting all our image."
There are an estimated 2,000 Gabrielinos in Southern California. Their ancestors are buried at local missions, and the tribe is recognized by the state. The tribe in modern times has not had its own land, however. At the end of the 19th century, the Gabrielinos, through intermarriage, had melded into local Mexican barrios and were thought to be extinct.
In recent years, they have been trying to reconstruct their history, revive dances and folklore and win federal recognition. Complicating their efforts have been divisions among Gabrielino descendants and a lack of documentation on the tribe's culture.
The current legal saga began six years ago over dinner in Westwood.
Stein, a Harvard- and University of Pennsylvania-educated lawyer who had been active in the 1998 voter initiative that legalized Indian gaming in California, met with Sam Dunlap, a Gabrielino who said he wanted to see his tribe get a piece of the action.
Most people had told Dunlap to forget his slot machine fantasies. The dozens of Indian casinos that have sprouted in California are on federally recognized Indian land, something the Gabrielinos do not have.
