Tribe to not use Luiseño in name

Pechanga Band says long-used references to Mission San Luis Rey marked ‘time of enslavement’

The Pechanga Band of Indians in southwest Riverside County changed its name to move beyond a dark chapter in its history, the tribe’s chairman said.

The federally recognized tribe, with a reservation bordering Temecula, used to be known as the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. But the tribe formally dropped Luiseño from its official name in 2022.

The tribe had been known as Luiseño Indians for at least 100 years and “maybe Mission Indians before that,” Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro told the Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 6.

“It’s an outdated term. It’s obsolete,” Macarro said. “It refers to a time of enslavement by the missions at San Luis Rey and other places throughout California’s mission chain.”

Tribal members in 2021 “voted overwhelmingly” to drop Luiseño and Mission, “which reflect a very dark and tragic period in our history,” from the name, Macarro said in an emailed statement.

“Compared to our long and deep history, Luiseño is a recent term assigned by the Spanish during colonization to describe which mission asserted subjugation over which people,” Macarro said.

“We have long discussed this name and its origins associated with the mistreatment, enslavement and killing of our ancestors.”

The tribe’s roots in the Temecula Valley go back at least 10,000 years. Spanish missionaries first made contact with the tribe in 1797, ushering in an era of forced labor, disease and cultural erasure under the mission system.

In 1847, Mexican soldiers killed more than 100 tribal members in what became known as the Temecula Massacre. While the end of the Mexican War in 1848 was supposed to give the tribe the same rights it held as Mexican citizens, the U.S. government withheld citizenship from Native Americans and in 1875, ranchers forcibly expelled the tribe from their village.

Seven years later, President Chester A. Arthur signed an order establishing the Pechanga Indian Reservation.

The tribe opened its first gaming facility in 1985.

Today, Pechanga Resort Casino — one of Riverside County’s largest employers — offers more than 200,000 square feet of gaming space, an 1,100-room hotel, a spa, a golf course and other amenities.