Frances Snyder
Those Are Indians? They Just Look Like Mexicans
A Memoir of Racism, Identity and Indian Gaming in America
My tribe, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, is on a reservation that sits amongst some of the most valuable land in California. Our people suffered the deepest of poverty while surrounded by the wealthiest of the wealthy.
Our mere presence made some white people angry.
Then everything changed with the legalization of Indian Gaming in the year 2000. Now my tribe is wealthy, too.
And some white people are really angry. It’s called economic racism.
My memoir, Those Are Indians? They Just Look Like Mexicans, chronicles my experiences growing up brown in a white world and later, as an adult working for my tribe, dealing with economic racism from tribal opponents who didn’t believe our tribe deserved our success.
The New London Day, February 4, 2005
“They used to throw rocks at [my mom] because she was an Indian. Now instead of throwing rocks they're throwing lawsuits.”
The Economist, June 24, 2004
“The American dream is OK, but they don't like us having it.”
Los Angeles City Beat, October 7, 2004
“We had so many protests [over our liquor license], including from David Crosby. Now this is the same David Crosby that is now applying for a new liver. Maybe because he can’t drink, he doesn’t want anyone else to drink.”
Santa Barbara News-Press, March 11, 2004
“They want us to have a group hug and sing ‘Kumbaya’ but we're not going to do it.”
As featured in the book
California Elegance: Portraits from the Final Frontier.
“As a young girl, Frances visited relatives on Santa Ynez Reservation when it was just a dusty strip of land scattered with tumbleweeds and trailers. The reservation didn’t have running water until 1969, and houses weren’t built until the early 1970s with funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”