Joe Garcia: A Man of Many Names

Some call him Mr. President. Or Governor Garcia. Or Chairman Garcia. Or Joe, Dad, Husband, Grandpa, Brother, Warrior, Award Winner, Leader or Rock Star--yes, Rock Star. But when I first spoke to National Congress of American Indians President Joe Garcia for this month's feature story, I was tongue-tied. He has so many names and titles I didn't know which one to use. And it seems I'm not the only one with these troubles. Even his assistant referred to him several different ways through the course of our correspondence. (FYI, if you see him at the Indian Gaming '09 tradeshow and conference in Phoenix this month, he will respond to any of these names, except maybe "husband," unless you are his wife of 38 years, Oneva.)

Of his many names and titles, one in particular stands out. Four days after his birth, Garcia's grandmother gave him a traditional Ohkay Owingeh name: Sokuwa Owing Ta', which translates from Tewa as "Mark of the Misty Lake." Garcia assumes this name came to his late grandmother in a vision she had at the time of his birth.

As the current chairman-elect of the All Indian Pueblo Council, the president-elect of the National Congress of American Indians and the former governor and lieutenant governor of the Ohkay Owingeh Tribe (formerly the San Juan Pueblo), Garcia takes his leadership roles very seriously. He also takes the traditions of his tribe seriously, although he does admit the English interpretation of his name is "a funny translation about a lake."

Tewa is his first language, and he didn't learn to speak English until he was about 5, when he was forced to attend the Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the Ohkay Owingeh Reservation north of Santa Fe, N.M. Along with his eight brothers and sisters, Garcia participated in many traditional celebrations, dances and activities within his tribal community while growing up and still continues to play an active role in the traditions of his tribe today.  

While at the National Congress of American Indians' Winter Executive Session in March, Garcia spoke with CEM about his passion for music, how he transitioned from a career in electrical engineering to tribal leadership, his thoughts on the Obama administration and tribal gaming, and why he considers himself an "alien" when it comes to American politics.

CEM: I hear you're an avid guitar player and may even take the stage at NIGA in April. When did you learn to play guitar?

Joe Garcia: I think it started probably around 1969. I always used to like to sing, and my dad was a very well known singer and composer of traditional songs at home.

Back in those days, we didn't have CDs or MP3 players--we had vinyl. My mom really liked Hank Williams Sr. and had a whole load of his 78rpm records. She used to play them, and I'd sing along. I got to know so many of Hank Williams' songs that I eventually figured there was more I could do than just sing along. I talked some of my friends into forming a band, and we talked our parents into buying us instruments [from Sears]. That was the beginning of my work in music, and from that time on, I never quit playing.

After I graduated high school, I went to an all-Indian college in Lawrence, Kan. (Haskell Indian Junior College at the time) and joined choir and stage band. I ended up enlisting three other students to form a band, and we became the entertainers in the school from 1970 to 1972. That really helped me get my act together in terms of music.

The first band name we had in Espanola, or in Ohkay Owingeh at the time, was "The United Sons." When I went to Lawrence, we developed a different band name and were called "The Hunted Race." The sound got really developed and refined as we gained new members that played different instruments, like the organ, trumpet and flute. I guess you could say we turned into rock stars at that time.

CEM: Although you love music, you didn't pursue a degree in it. Why did you decide to study electronics at Haskell?

JG: Honestly, before I left home I didn't know much about careers, but I knew I loved music. I had ideas about how you could put systems into vehicles, and when they came out with the 8-track players and cassette players, I got really interested in electronics. My first run-in with electricity was when I was trying to repair transistor radios--they had AC adaptors. My radio had died, and I thought it might be a problem with the adaptor. I began fooling around with it and got the shock of my life. I think that's what spurred my interest in electronics.

After high school, I was mostly interested in music, singing, furniture making, woodshop, art, painting and all that kind of stuff. During my senior year, one of my Hispanic friends asked me what I was going to do after high school. I said, "What do you mean?" I had never thought beyond high school. His name was Fred, and he told me: "Joe, you ought to go into electronics. I hear there's a lot of money in electronics." I didn't even know what electronics was. When it came time to graduate, I listed electronics on my college paperwork and the rest is history.

CEM: How did you jump from electronics to electrical engineering?

JG: The engineering didn't come until I finished my electronics degree and started work at Los Alamos National Lab. I was doing what they call circuit design--building electronic circuits to function the way you want them to function--but I couldn't do all the things I wanted to do because I didn't have an engineering degree. One of my friends told me: "You know, you're pretty good at this stuff. You ought to go into engineering. If you do engineering, you could be doing that same kind of work but your paycheck would be about 10 times higher." I said, "That sounds like a good deal to me."

Being a little bit naïve, I went up and joined the Air Force to learn more about electronics and engineering. My goal was to become a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force because if I went through with all the requirements and completed my education in engineering, the Air Force would have paid for it, but I never quite got into military life. After that, I went back to Los Alamos and worked as a technician with my electronic technician degree. But I wasn't happy and knew that I needed to continue working on my engineering degree. So I went to school full-time and worked sometimes full-time at the laboratory. It took me about 10 years to complete my electrical engineering degree from the University of New Mexico.

CEM: How exactly does an electrical engineer wind up becoming a leader in tribal government?

JG: I blame that on the tribal government (chuckles). I never really expected anything from my tribe other than the traditional parts that I was active in. Back in January of '91, our tribal government knocked on my door and said, "They need you over at the council hall." And I asked why and they said, "You'll find out when you get there." So I went, and lo and behold, they had my name as the second lieutenant governor of Ohkay Owingeh.

That was my introduction to tribal government. I went to the council hall and saw the honor and respect my people gave me by appointing me second lieutenant governor, and so I vowed that I would serve my people. I found out quickly that there were a lot of faults and deficiencies in tribal government and in our relationships with the state, relationships with funding sources, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, social work, the children and education, and the whole gamut of things I am now involved in.

CEM: How did that lead to your election as president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)?

JG: I was one of NCAI's critics back in 1995. I knew there were bad relationships between the federal government and the entities that were supposed to serve Indian country, like the BIA, and so I wanted to find out how all the decisions were made in Washington, D.C., on our behalf. I didn't know if anybody even bothered to speak to Indian country about the issues or if it was simply Congress, the president and the courts that decide these things.

A colleague of mine was a governor for the Santa Clara Pueblo, and he was a little bit older than me and a little bit more involved in tribal government. He told me about an old organization out there that makes a lot of decisions for Indian country called the National Congress of American Indians, and I said, "Who are they to make decisions on our behalf?" I had never had a member of the NCAI come to speak with our people and couldn't figure out why the federal government would talk to the NCAI and not each tribe. We talked a lot about that in 1995, and we had talked to all the Pueblo governors that year. We asked them about NCAI, and none of them seemed to know the slightest thing about it. We figured the only way to find out was to go to one of their sessions, and so we went to their annual meeting in San Diego that year.

We went to San Diego and were proven wrong. I was proven wrong in my presumption and my conclusion about what NCAI did. I ended up leaving San Diego as the NCAI's Southwest vice president. That's where I got my beginnings in NCAI. I've been actively involved ever since, having served in a variety of roles for the organization, including two terms as first vice president and two terms as president. This is my last year as president, and I will be done in October. We're term limited.

CEM: When did you first became involved in tribal gaming?

JG: Back in 1988 when IGRA was passed, I didn't know much about Indian gaming. In fact, I didn't even know it existed until 1995 when I was governor of the Ohkay Owingeh for the first time. By that point, our tribe was interested in gaming and I worked on signing the first compact that Ohkay Owingeh had with the state. I signed the second compact as well in 1997 when I was governor.

I found out there were a lot of uniformed people out there, and that the laws were not really made for the benefit of Indian country. They were more set up for regulation. That prompted me to learn as much as I could about gaming and as much as I could about IGRA. After I did my homework, I began to advocate it, saying, "There are some things wrong, but this is the law right now and we've got to deal with it the way it is." If we were to wait until it got fixed, we would just delay the progress we could make by taking advantage of it. The basis for IGRA was to help tribes with economic development.

CEM: How has the Ohkay Owingeh Casino affected your tribe?

JG: Very positively. It provides a lot of jobs and consistency. It's increased the opportunities for our tribal members to provide their families with the care they need, not only monetarily, but also with healthcare and other social services.

It's also provided our tribe the opportunity to branch out in other economic development efforts, which is extremely important. If you depend solely on gaming, then the economic success of your tribe is diminished and threatened. One of the goals we set in our own community was to develop a revenue-stream corporation, which we set up in 1994. The casino is just one enterprise of the corporation.

We now have about 11 different enterprises within the corporation. A few are convenience stores and gas stations. We also have a construction company that is redoing the regional airport, which is an active runway that we would like to generate more business and eventually hope to call it an Air Park. We're also doing work in Los Alamos, Santa Fe and other places. Some of the work is through contracts for providing construction services, cleaning services and the like. We also have a laundry mat and grocery stores. We are running the wastewater treatment facility and tribal lakes that we have expanded. We also have some contracts outside the state and we are looking at other opportunities across the country.

CEM: As president of NCAI, do you work with NIGA closely?

JG: We do major work together. In fact, most of our major meetings involve joint-sessions with NIGA. There is also a NIGA/NCAI tribal leaders taskforce that we hold every year. We definitely stay in touch with the current state of Indian gaming. Even though you'd think it would be stabilized by now, we still see trouble from the opponents of Indian gaming. We are continually battling opponents, and there are continual updates on the progress and what is happening in the gaming world.

We have an incredible working relationship with NIGA, and Chairman Ernie Stevens and I are like relatives. I have adopted him as my little brother, so I guess that makes me his big brother. I think the executive directors of both our organizations also have a great working relationship, as do the board members. We work together to make things happen. The one thing we are really pushing together to accomplish right now is economic development. They are helping us with economic development, and we are helping them with economic development from a legislative policy side. These are the kinds of partnerships that Indian country has grown accustomed to, and that is one thing we said we would continue to do, at least when I came on as president.

CEM: What are your thoughts about the Obama administration's plans to help Indian country?

JG: President Obama has met with Indian country more times in the short time he's been in the public eye as a presidential candidate and as president than past presidents who've been there for eight years. What he's doing is commendable, and we need to support him. This is the first time since I've been involved in the NCAI that we were able to get six secretaries on the agenda to speak to us. I think that's a heck of an accomplishment. And each individual came with the message that they would work with Indian country even though there is a lot of work to do. I think they also understand that it's not just one or two problems but multiple problems that persist. Some are legislative, some are policies, some are protocol, some are operations. If we don't work on it together, then we'll never come to the right solution.

CEM: Do you align yourself more as a Democrat or Republican?

JG: I'm just an alien (laughs). There is a group of people out there that are either not from here, meaning they're aliens, or don't agree with the bi-partisan political environment. They see the world from a completely different view. The way I see it is that the problems we have in America and Indian country were caused not by a party but by the illnesses we all face. It's like a virus. The virus isn't going to say, "Let's attack that guy because he's a Republican." It's going to attack all of us because we are all humans. This party-line stuff is what will kill America and what it's supposed to be doing, at least in my eyes. The ailments that we have know no party lines, so the solutions should know no party lines.

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