Larry Banegas, Barona tribal leader and educator, dies at 69
By: John Wilkens
Born into a Kumeyaay family, Larry Banegas believed in preserving history. Making it, too.
Activist, social worker, college instructor, Barona tribal council member, musician — he spent much of his life exhorting others to seize opportunities for a better life.
“You don’t have to accept the world as it is,” he would tell them. “You can change things.”
Known to family and friends as “Moto,” Banegas died Aug. 10 at Grossmont Hospital after going into cardiac arrest. He was 69.
“I knew him for about 20 years,” said Richard Carrico, a lecturer in American Indian Studies at San Diego State University, “and the thing about Larry is that he was always, at one level or another, an educator.”
Born May 19, 1949, at Mercy Hospital, Banegas grew up seeing the consequences of his family’s forced relocation from land seized by the government in the 1930s to build El Capitan Reservoir.
They wound up on what is today the Barona reservation, and times then — well before the arrival of the casino — were hard. Poverty. Alcoholism. Illness.
“He saw the historical trauma of our people,” said his son, Ethan, “and he was determined to break the cycle.”
Banegas was among those who occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco in the early 1970s, a pivotal, 14-month-long protest that raised public awareness about the struggles of American Indians.
In 1974, he graduated from Long Beach State University, one of the first from his tribe to get a degree, according to family members. He helped start the Native American Studies program there.
Returning to San Diego, he worked as a youth counselor with students on the verge of dropping out. Encouraged by his success with them, he went to San Diego State and earned a master’s degree in social work.
He held a variety of child-welfare jobs over the years with the county and other agencies — adoptions, foster care, protective services — before retiring about five years ago.
On the Barona reservation, Banegas was active in numerous ways. He was on the tribal council in the 1990s, when Vegas-style gaming arrived. Barona is now among the top revenue-generating casinos in the country, money that has helped ease the poverty there and provide health care, education and public safety services.
“Like a lot of tribal leaders, he had mixed feelings about it,” Carrico said. “On one hand, he saw the good it can do, in terms of better opportunities. On the other, those opportunities contribute to what is called ‘de-tribalization’ as people leave.”
Banegas taught humanities at Kumeyaay Community College. He also taught elementary school children about their ancestral past — pre-1769, when the Spaniards arrived — during a month-long summer class. They burned sage leaves in a purification rite. They made clay pots fired with fuel made from dried yucca plants.
“What we try to do is instill the culture through experience,” he said during one session in 1996.
Five years later, he spearheaded the effort to create a website, kumeyaay.com, as a way to preserve history and to re-invigorate communal links between the more than dozen Kumeyaay bands and villages in the county and Baja California.
“In the beginning, we had our way of networking,” Banegas explained at the time. “We'd have the runners go out and tell the people there's a big issue we need to talk about. I want to have a place where people can join and continue our customs and traditions.”
Today, in addition to an extensive section on history, the site tracks local, state and federal news concerning Native Americans and has health information and events listings.
“He saw that the next generation was less likely to go to the library, less likely to pick up a book,” Carrico said. “But they would go to the Internet.”
Off the reservation, Banegas became the first Native American on the board at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park.
He loved music — a guitarist and accordion-player, he formed one band with his sons — and travel.
“My dad was a healer,” Ethan Banegas said. “His life growing up was pretty hard, and he figured out a way to help himself, and then to reach back and help others.”
Survivors include his sons, Brandon, Ethan and Zackary Banegas, all of Barona; his longtime partner, Denise Mahaffey; his brother, Bobby Banegas of Barona; his sisters, Beverly Means of Barona, Velma Schlater, Diane Bojorquez and Doris Magante of the La Jolla Indian Reservation, Linda Sanchez of Reno, and Gwendolyn Sevella of La Posta Reservation; and nine grandchildren.
He was predeceased by three siblings, Leon Banegas, Roberta Gitthens and Sylvia Banegas.
The tribal community held a traditional funeral service at Barona on Monday. A large pit was dug, and Banegas’ possessions were burned while elders sang bird songs.
Additional services are pending.
SOURCE: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/obituaries/sd-me-obit-banegas-20180815-story.html