The old sense of tranquility no longer exists in tiny San Lucy, roughly the size of 30 football fields and one of 11 political districts in the Tohono O'odham Nation. Sometimes Manuel ventures through the old reservation land that is frequently flooded by water backed up from the dam. He doesn't find much tranquility there either.
"This area used to have a lot of life to it," Manuel said. "You could hear the doves cooing and the small animals rustling in the bushes. Now look at it."
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In sight are a couple of concrete slabs, a few stacked bricks, remnants of an outdoor grill, heaps of blackened and broken trees — and a cemetery with a few dozen white crosses circled by man-made berms to protect it from the periodic flooding.
But the water sometimes pours over the berms and carries away cemetery markers. "There are a lot more graves," Manuel says, "than there are crosses here."
The graveyard and a site where centuries-old petroglyphs were discovered are the most important remnants of the lost reservation. The petroglyphs are where the ancestors of Manuel and his people etched on stone the stories of their lives in the hard desert.
Today, the Tohono O'odham Nation is trying to write a new chapter in its story. The southern Arizona tribe is moving forward with plans to build that $600 million resort-style casino on the dusty, vacant piece of land it owns in the West Valley.
As a result, a battle rages in Arizona over the fate of the tribe's 134-acre parcel of county land that sits between Peoria and Glendale. Governor Jan Brewer and a smattering of state and local politicians have spent more than a year trying to derail the casino.
Their opposition campaigns have been hypocritical, hysterical, and untruthful.
Somewhere inside the rhetoric of those who object to the West Valley casino and the rights of the Tohono O'odham Nation are voluminous and complex federal laws that deal with Indians reclaiming lost land or establishing casinos on "replacement" acreage.
Though Indian gaming laws prohibit casinos on reservations created after 1988, they make exceptions for reservations established as part of a "land settlement."
And it is a land settlement that the Tohono O'odham believe was granted when Congress in 1986 adopted Public Law 99-503, also known as the Gila Bend Indian Reservation Land Replacement Act.
The law pointedly gives the tribe the right to search for replacement land in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa counties that is "suitable for sustained economic use." It also requires that the federal government take the replacement land into trust, which effectively creates new reservation acreage.
That is why Nation leaders are pushing ahead with West Valley Resort, which would sport the state's largest casino. It would be just a couple of miles from Westgate City Center, Glendale's sports-and-entertainment district, Jobing.com Arena, and University of Phoenix Stadium, home of the Phoenix Coyotes and the Arizona Cardinals, respectively.
The area is already a magnet for mega-events such as the Super Bowl, WrestleMania, and concerts by artists such as Paul McCartney and the Black Eyed Peas.
The casino, expected to generate 6,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs, would lure another 1.2 million people to the region each year. It promises 1.2 million square feet of posh rooms and fine dining, a full-service spa, bars, and a nightclub. The project also calls for a convention center and more than a dozen retail shops.
Not a bad prospectus at a time when the Valley faces double-digit unemployment, a massive budget crisis, and businesses shutting down left and right.
While local leaders typically salivate at the opportunity to stimulate an economy that is showing few signs of life, Glendale officials have been leading the all-out battle to keep the casino from building next to their city; in fact, they would like to see it as far away from the Phoenix area as possible.
They don't want to hear that a major project like the Tohono O'odham development would draw professional conferences, out-of-state visitors, and give well-heeled pro sports fans a big reason to stay in the West Valley (instead of heading to Phoenix or Scottsdale). Proponents of the casino argue that the extra pedestrian traffic might even create a strong enough buzz that other businesses would flock to the area.
All state and Glendale officials want to talk about is that an Indian reservation casino in the middle of suburbia is a bad idea. They bring up the standard morality arguments, saying the surrounding area would be ruined by a massive gambling establishment that plans more than 1,000 slot machines, 50 table games, 25 poker tables, and a 1,000-seat bingo hall.
Opponents have argued from atop every soapbox imaginable, shifting from social disdain (the casino will destroy families and give way to organized crime) to disapproval for financial reasons (it will force nearby businesses to close) to legal arguments (the federal government's creation of the reservation land it would occupy is unconstitutional).
Mayor Scruggs has likened an Indian reservation next to Glendale to the German government's buying land next door and declaring it Germany.
Glendale's opposition to the casino is born out of desperation.
