“Now the kids don’t have no hardships,” Sandoval said in a 1994interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, noting that even18-year-olds were given their own houses. The tribal office supplied the roofers,and food for the potlucks came from caterers. Once the money started flowing, however, oldcustoms started to fade. She said that in the pre-casino days, if your roof leaked, youcalled your neighbor for help, and when there was a potluck,everybody made a dish.

Unemployment disappeared, and the Sycuan became one ofthe richest tribes in the nation. Within a decade itwas replaced by a glittering 68,000-square-foot casino complex thathoused a 1,500-seat bingo parlor, a 35-table poker area and a20-seat off-track betting theater, as well as a restaurant, bar andgift shop. In 1983, shortly after California began toallow Indian tribes to enter the gaming business, she brought in abingo hall, which succeeded beyond expectations. 28 at her home on the reservation, atribal spokesman said. Sandoval, 76, a pioneer of the Indian gaming movement, died ofcomplications of diabetes Oct. When she stepped down two decades later, the Sycuan had risenfrom abject poverty to become a national model of tribalself-sufficiency, a transformation that Sandoval was largelyresponsible for - and which she came to regret.

About 80 members lived on the tribal land, and nonehad steady jobs. When Anna Prieto Sandoval became leader of the Sycuan Band ofMission Indians in 1972, its reservation near El Cajon in SouthernCalifornia was a tumbledown settlement of wooden shacks withouthouses, a 100-year-old Catholic church and a cinder-blockmeeting hall.

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