Reservation and Casinos
by Elton Chang
Homes

At the Morongo reservation, I noticed that there were two different types of homes. The first type were the old abandoned homes that was basically unlivable at its current state. The old abandoned homes had stone structures. It was pretty much hollow inside where there was no trace of anything left behind from it. There were some modern conveniences that I saw attached to the house like a fuse box. Another type of old abandoned homes were the ones constructed from leaves. These homes were pretty big, yet it was very traditional, as there were no modern conveniences of any kind around the homes. The old abandoned homes were definitely not suitable to live in today.
The other type of homes, were the newly built homes where people still live. These homes are no less different than the typical homes that you see everyday, with families living there with all the modern day conveniences that houses have today. What was curious about the Morongo reservation was that almost all the houses, both old and new, were not side by side with other houses, yet every structure was spaced out against the others. This makes sense seeing that the population of the people is a very small number. Our group went to the Tribal Administration building at the reservation.  This is the central office area in the Morongo reservation, our group headed there to ask questions in regards to the history of the Morongo Indians.
Public Library

 

 The library was located next to the Tribal Administration Building. The
library was smaller than I first believed. The building is smaller than you
would think to expect to have a location for a library. There were many
children's books and information about the Morongo Indians. There were also
computers for the use of children. 

   

Churches

The cemetery is located next to the Moravian Church, in fact, there were two
different cemetery spots. As we walked through one of the cemeteries, we
noticed that there were many gifts and momentos that people had put on top of
their beloved ones burial place. We noticed that some of the people that
were buried there, were decorated soldiers of the US Army and had
participated in historical US wars with Vietnam and Korea. The most unusual
thing I saw at the cemetery, was that most of the burial sites had beer
bottles on top of some people's plots. 

 
   

Casinos

Lastly, we went to the Morongo Casino which was not located on the
reservation, but rather nearby it. Usually, casino's are fairly big, but
this casino was just a little bit smaller than the usual casino that people
would go to in Las Vegas.  Unfortunately however, we were not allowed to enter the premises with our cameras.

 
 

 

 

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