Delano Saluskin, former tribal chairman, Yakama

Jackleen de La Harpe

Guest writer

Portrait of Delano Saluskin, courtesy of Delano Saluskin.

Washington

Indigenous leadership

Delano Saluskin, Yakama, is a 2024 Indigenous Leadership Awardee.

Delano Saluskin, 78, has spent most of his working life serving Yakama Nation, building a governance framework necessary for successful economic development. For more than half a century, he contributed to the growth and evolution of his tribe, work that paralleled hard won legal rulings and legislation: the Boldt Decision (1974), the Indian Self Determination Act (1975), Public Law 280 retrocession and Ramsey v. United States. As tribes won in court, decisions that underscored tribal sovereignty, Saluskin integrated laws and decisions into practice to improve life for tribal citizens.

Delano Saluskin is honored for his stellar leadership in building agency, safety, and economic sovereignty for the Yakama Nation while protecting lands and waters and ensuring cultural continuity.

“It was a time of real change in how our tribe functioned, to have administrative regulations in place,” he said. “Our tribal council decided who got what pay, they did a lot of the hiring. Our job was to support them. We wanted to protect our elected leaders. I think we did well there.”

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Much of his leadership required acting as a bridge for Yakama Nation—both internally and externally and represents a lifetime of political diplomacy.

Saluskin’s first job in 1977, after earning a business degree from the University of Washington, was to create functional regulations for Yakama Nation: accounting and personnel policies, pay scales, administrative guidelines. For the next 56 years, he was instrumental in supporting the Nation as it gained ground: establishing Legends Casino, representing tribal interests at Hanford, unlocking federal contracts and jobs, and navigating the difficult years of COVID as Tribal Chair. Before completing his term as Tribal Chair in 2023, he opposed the Goldendale energy project, a proposal to build an energy storage system on sacred tribal lands. Much of his leadership required acting as a bridge for Yakama Nation—both internally and externally and represents a lifetime of political diplomacy.

He became Assistant Tribal Director in 1978 and Tribal Director in 1981. He was the first tribal member to be appointed as director of the environmental protection program at a time when tribes opposed the practice of using reservation lands as dumpsites. The Clean Water Act had been passed into law and, concurrently, the Department of Energy was developing a 30-year cleanup program for the Hanford nuclear production site.

“Russell Jim and I spent a lot of time traveling with the Department of Energy, making sure that Yakama Nation had the ability to protect what was important to us. Not only the land and the food, such as salmon, but the archaeological artifacts on the Hanford reservation. They treated us like concerned citizens,” he said. “But we were not concerned citizens. We are a sovereign government.”

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In his many roles serving Yakama Nation, he often acted as a liaison between Tribal Council and staff, helping leadership carry out their priorities.

He served as Tribal Director for 15 years before working for the Yakama Nation Credit Enterprise, overseeing economic development loans for the Nation. He was elected to Tribal Council in 2012 and became Tribal Chairman in 2020, the same week COVID was declared a pandemic.

Saluskin grew up on the Yakama Reservation and chose to attend high school at Fort Sill Boarding School in Lawton, Oklahoma, a deliberate decision to step away from the alcoholism that was then ravaging families on the reservation, an addiction that didn’t bypass his family, he said. After graduating from high school, he attended Haskell Institute to learn accounting and graduated in 1967.

“It was a good change of scenery, a good change of environment for me,” he said. “I have nothing bad to say about it.”

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from the University of Washington in 1976 and, when he was 23, married Philomena Tomeo. They celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary this summer and have four daughters, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.

In his many roles serving Yakama Nation, he often acted as a liaison between Tribal Council and staff, helping leadership carry out their priorities. In 1996, when Yakama Nation was considering establishing a bingo hall, Saluskin held a series of community meetings that resulted in a major shift in thinking on the Council. As a result, it was decided to build the Legends Casino.

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For the many wins during his lifetime, Saluskin says there is a great deal more to do for Yakama Nation.

As Tribal Administrator, he helped to put the Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance program in place, sovereignty-based legislation that protected the employment rights of Indian people. He helped create jobs for tribal people, including Yakama Forest Products, a lumber mill that employs about 150 people; Yakamart, a tribal convenience store with 30 employees; and another 600 jobs at Legends Casino.

His final years as Chairman for the Yakama Nation, he said, were somber and difficult as he navigated COVID on behalf of his people.

“It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he said. “We didn’t know what we were up against. No one did. We lost 60 friends and relatives to COVID.”

For the many wins during his lifetime, Saluskin says there is a great deal more to do for Yakama Nation. The cost of education is a great hardship for young people, he said, and tribal enrollment and how that is determined is another complex and difficult question that must be negotiated. The disappearance of the Yakama language is a major priority that must be tackled.

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I have a quiet leadership style, trying to get the job done. I like to try to listen and hear what the issues are and come up with solutions. And we go from there.

—Delano Saluskin, Yakama

“Over the past 50 years, I used to hear elders say, ‘We conducted all of our business in our language but we don’t do that anymore.’ We’re losing our language,” he said.

Saluskin’s aunt, Virginia Beavert, earned a PhD in linguistics from the University of Oregon when she was 93. (She walked on in 2024 at 103 years old.) Her life’s work, he said, was to develop a process so that the Yakama language would not die out.

“Elders would say ‘When we lose our language, our elected leaders will go back to Washington DC, and they’ll be asked, ‘Do you know your language?’ And if you don’t know your language, then they are going to say, You are just like me, you’re just a common citizen. They are going to terminate us as a tribe.’ I think that’s something we face on a daily basis.”

Saluskin’s traditional Indian name, Shii, was his maternal great grandfather’s name and was given to him by his grandfather. It means exactly this, he said: That’s who I am.

“I have a quiet leadership style, trying to get the job done. I like to try to listen and hear what the issues are and come up with solutions,” he said. “And we go from there.”