Descendants of a Madera County woman who in 1984 was stipulated the only recognized member of the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians have filed a lawsuit in federal court to have that recognition reinstated.
According to attorney Dennis Cota of the Cota Cole law firm of Roseville and Madera, the descendants of Maryan Ramirez “have been unlawfully ostracized by the Chukchansi Tribe over several decades.”
Two of those descendants, Madera County residents Mona Bragdon and Anthony Ramirez, children of Maryan Ramirez, are seeking “appropriate recognition and authority” granted to them under a judgment in the matter entitled Tillie Hardwick et. al. v. United States et. al., which sought recognition of 33 small tribes that had been declined recognition under the so-called Rancheria Act in California, passed in 1958.
That judgment, Cota said, stipulated that in the case of the Chukchansis, Ramirez and her descendants would be “the only individuals with authority to formally organize the Chukchansi Indian Tribe and establish tribal leadership thereafter.” ...