Photo: Darrel Cowan.
Twenty-five years ago, President Clinton signed the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act, granting the Timbisha Shoshone tribe official possession of their land within Death Valley National Park. Although Timbisha had been there long before the park existed or white people had set foot in the territory, their status had never been secure, and the National Park Service had made various attempts to eject them from their homes. I wrote about the Timbisha in my 2016 piece about Death Valley and added an update after the election of Trump. The second Trump administration, as part of its ever-cresting tsunami of malevolent stupidity, is threatening to delete language honoring the Timbisha from displays at the park’s visitor center. Today, the Timbisha and their local allies, including my friends Susan Sorrells and Darrel Cowan from the Friends of the Amargosa Basin organization, marched from the Timbisha village to the visitor center, marking the anniversary of the Homeland Act. Among them was the 101-year-old Pauline Esteves, whom I interviewed in 2016. Her persistence is magnificent.