{"id":27373,"date":"2024-06-02T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/100th-anniversary-of-indigenous-voting-rights-is-bittersweet-says-s-ute-tribal-leader\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:58:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:58:37","slug":"100th-anniversary-of-indigenous-voting-rights-is-bittersweet-says-s-ute-tribal-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/100th-anniversary-of-indigenous-voting-rights-is-bittersweet-says-s-ute-tribal-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"100th anniversary of Indigenous voting rights is \u2018bittersweet,\u2019 says S. Ute tribal leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Crystal
Crystal Rizzo, left, director of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Cultural Preservation Department, and Summer Begay, communication specialist with the tribe, look over the tribe\u2019s display in the Leonard C. Burch Administration Building marking 100 years since the passage of the Snyder Act. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

IGNACIO \u2013 According to the Ute peoples\u2019 history, their ancestors have lived in the mountains of Colorado, eastern Utah, and northern New Mexico and Arizona since the beginning of time.<\/p>\n

So it remains a source of some cognitive dissonance, Southern Ute Indian Tribe Vice Chair Lorelei Cloud says, that Native Americans were denied citizenship and the right to vote as a matter of law until June 2, 1924 \u2013 100 years ago today (June 2).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first Winter Olympics happened before we became citizens,\u201d Cloud said.<\/p>\n

Even though the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924<\/a>, also known as the Snyder Act, formally granted Indigenous people citizenship and the right to vote, in accordance with the 15th Amendment passed in 1870, it was not until decades later that the right was realized.<\/p>\n

White women were granted the right to vote in 1920. <\/a><\/p>\n

The centennial of the Snyder Act\u2019s passage is less a day of celebration for Utes and more a moment for education and reflection, Cloud said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Snyder Act, signed 100 years ago today (June 2), granted Native Americans citizenship in 1924, as well as the right to vote. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re using this moment to help educate others on the amount of disparity that tribes and Native people have endured for more than 100 years,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a bittersweet moment, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

All along the Hall of Warriors, the main entrance to the Leonard C. Burch Tribal Administration Building, an exhibit opened Friday discussing a century of Southern Ute accomplishments.<\/p>\n

The series of posters reflects on the last century to demonstrate the tribe\u2019s accomplishments and contributions to the region and country despite Native people\u2019s relatively recent ability to exercise the rights of citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you become a citizen doesn\u2019t mean in any way that that becomes a practice,\u201d said Director of the Cultural Preservation Department Crystal Rizzo.<\/p>\n

The exhibit makes mention of contributions, including the tribe\u2019s advanced air quality monitoring program,<\/a> the recent $80 million investment in broadband infrastructure <\/a>and donation of part of the land where Mercy Hospital now sits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always important for tribal members to think about what we have done, where we have come from, and where we\u2019re going,\u201d Rizzo said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s also important for those who aren\u2019t members to understand the contribution that Southern Ute has made to this region and to this country more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Southern Ute tribal members \u2013 citizens of two sovereign nations \u2013 the right to participate in American democracy is both critical and fraught. To vote is to partake in the tradition of a nation that colonized the Ute people; to abstain is to relinquish the power to make one\u2019s voice heard in that system.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cIt\u2019s
\u201cIt\u2019s always important for tribal members to think about what we have done, where we have come from and where we\u2019re going,\u201d said Crystal Rizzo, director of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Cultural Preservation Department. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s also important for those who aren\u2019t members to understand the contribution that Southern Ute has made to this region and to this country more broadly.\u201d (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201c(Voting) helps us to remind our elected leaders, since sometimes they don\u2019t remember, that we are here, that we\u2019ve been here since time immemorial,\u201d she said. \u201cWe get left out of policies and laws that really affect us. \u2026 They forget to include us in some of those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also tied the power of Indigenous voters to the rising number of Indigenous officials<\/a> serving at the state and federal level. Just last year, Cloud herself became the first tribal member to serve on the Colorado Water Conservation Board. <\/a><\/p>\n

The tribe\u2019s own government was established in a 1936 constitution. Today, the tribe\u2019s 1,400 members vote to elect tribal councilors.<\/p>\n

Although Native Americans\u2019 right to vote was established in 1924, it was not until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which did away with racial barriers to the ballot box, that the right was actually realized.<\/p>\n

Those barriers persist today in some parts of the country, Cloud said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Southern Ute Tribe elections sign. (Durango Herald file)<\/span>Shane Benjamin\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

La Plata County\u2019s top election official, Clerk and Recorder Tiffany Lee, said the tribe has been a strong partner when it comes to voting access. Her office opened a 24-hour ballot drop box in Ignacio in 2015, before it was mandated by state law, and Lee said she will have a voter service center open for four days before the November election this year at the request of the tribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been efforts in the past few years to improve that voting access,\u201d Cloud said. \u201cThose efforts have included additional voting boxes for both Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute \u2026 within our reservation boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020, the Colorado Secretary of State celebrated a 70% turnout<\/a> of voters living on Southern Ute tribal lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very empowering to know that we can work to shape our future and our country, not just for what\u2019s happening now, but for our future generations,\u201d Cloud said.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Act, which established citizenship for Native Americans, signed 100 years ago today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1097,475,561,629,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-indigenous-people","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-native-american","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80041,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373\/revisions\/80041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27373"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}