ANTHONY PICO
Anthony Pico served as chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians for some 24 years.
His tribal "rags to riches" story includes his band's rise from abject reservation poverty to tribal ownership of the successful multi-million dollar Viejas Casino and shopping outlet center on the Viejas Indian Reservation.
"Before gaming and revenue our people lived in despair, in abject and grinding poverty.
"This lifestyle was not a choice that we made.
"We were driven into the mountains, into the rocks — languished there for 150, 200 years not having an opportunity to access the economics of this rich and abundant country.
"We need to be in a place where those children that are not yet born — we know those seven generations ahead of today — need to be in a place where they can stand, have their own land to stand on to be able to make choices, to be able to live in dignity."
- -Excerpted from Anthony Pico, PBS interview, 1997
Kumeyaay historical photo courtesy of www.kumeyaay.info
Kumeyaay Bird Singer Anthony Pico pictured playing a Kumeyaay rattle and singing bird songs with Louis Guassic (Ipai, Mesa Grande), and John Christman (Kumeyaay, Viejas) during an election rally on the Viejas reservation in support of Proposition 1A in 2000. Kumeyaay historical photo courtesy of www.kumeyaay.info.
PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY:
 nthony Pico is a nationally recognized authority and lecturer on American Indian sovereignty and self-governance. For more than two decades he has been a strong voice for Indian self-reliance, economic development and diversification.
Mr. Pico served for most of the past two decades as the elected leader of his tribe, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians of Alpine, Calif. Under his stewardship and vision, the Viejas Band achieved national and state recognition for its economic and social progress. Operators and Owners of the Viejas Casino, Viejas Outlet Center and two RV Parks, Mr. Pico currently sits on the tribe’s Finance Committee which oversees and provides recommendations on the tribe’s business enterprises and future economic development.
Mr. Pico was a driving force and spokesman in the landmark California ballot initiatives in 1998-2000 that brought economic growth to many of the 107 federally recognized tribes in the state and San Diego County. Pico served as co-chair of the Proposition 1A initiative to amend the California Constitution, enabling tribes to engage in gaming on tribal land.
During Mr. Pico’s tenure as tribal chairman, Viejas was a leader in promoting inter-tribal business ventures, most notably the establishment of Four Fires and Three Fires LLC, tribal coalitions in the development of Marriott Residence Inns in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, Calif.
A Kumeyaay leader and traditional bird singer, steeped in the customs and traditions of his people, Mr. Pico leads by consensus, example and a commitment to the well-being of the Viejas people.
Mr. Pico recently served as a director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a nonprofit law firm dedicated to asserting and defending the rights of Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide. In 2007, Mr. Pico was appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Gene Autry Center. Based in Los Angeles, the Center celebrates the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Museum of the West and the Institute for the Study of the American West. He is also a director for Borrego Springs Bank, one of the first American Indian owned banks in the United States. Mr. Pico was named the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) Man of the Year in 1997 and received the organization's 2007 John Kieffer Award demonstrating a lifetime of achievement and commitment to Indian Gaming. Pico is also a recipient of the prestigious 2008 Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution.
He has an associate of arts degree from Grossmont College in El Cajon, California, and an honorary doctor of humane letters from Long Island University, New York. He served as a U.S. Army paratrooper in Vietnam, where he received a number of Distinguished Service medals.
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