Gilbert Ortega, Jr., faces three misdemeanor counts after confronting Indigenous performers recording a Super Bowl segment in front of his business.Denise Rosales and her daughter, Heather Tracy, dreamed for a long time of opening a Native-owned art market that would provide a safe space for Indigenous artists and performers. They hoped Native Art Market in Old Town Scottsdale would fulfill that dream.
This incident made nationwide news, circulated throughout social media and in the end Oretga was charged with three counts of disorderly conduct. The incident has been submitted to the city prosecutors’ office, Scottsdale Police Department said in an email to The Republic. “I have watched the video and I am both embarrassed and ashamed by my actions," he said."I see that I came off as incredibly insensitive toward the Native American community and that was not my intention. I deeply apologize for this."
“We are the platform for our artisans to get their brand out, get their name out there,” Rosales said. “We are here to promote our artisans so people can buy off their websites. Everything in the store is authentic. We don't have any imports, imitations, or mass-produced products. All the artists create their own designs, even if it's a print, it's still their design. It's nothing you can find anywhere else.
This type of mistreatment doesn’t only happen within galleries like Ortega’s, the artists say, but in other spaces as well. But many Native artists, silversmiths and weavers believe trading posts have long exploited their work and failed to treat them fairly. In August 2018, U.S. District Judge Judith C. Herrera sentenced Nael Ali to six months in prison after Ali pled guilty to two felony charges that he violated the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act. Ali also had to pay $9,048 in restitution. Federal prosecutors alleged that Ali or his employees sold counterfeit jewelry to an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent at his stores, including the Old Town Scottsdale location.
Their wide variety of merchandise in Native American Arts and Crafts includes jewelry from local vendors, pottery, moccasins, Navajo cradleboards, Navajo rugs, Native American Church instruments and peyote fans. She remembers selling alongside the road with her grandmother, Grace Tsinnie Yellowmexican, and to attract the tourists her grandmother would dress her up in traditional attire. She said her uncles taught her how to sell and told her they had to engage with the customers, so Rosales and her sister wrote little stories on a typewriter and handed them out to the customers.
In 2018, a few years after she told her daughter this, Rosales said she was able to get her art walk going at the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community's Talking Stick Pavilion. It started off small with 16 vendors, and she made her entire family come out just for the event.