Santa Ana Cafe – Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico
As you gaze in awe at the sheer opulence of the expansive Tamaya hospitality complex and resort and consider the Santa Ana Pueblo’s Vegas-style, high-stakes gaming center or 27-hole, championship golf course, you have to conclude that the Pueblo’s tribal enterprises are flourishing–and you would be right. An entrepreneurial spirit is nothing new to the Santa Ana people. The Santa Ana (Tamaya) Pueblo has a long and storied history of forward-thinking and self-reliance. To increase its land base and agricultural production, in 1709 the pueblo purchased 5,000 acres along the Rio Grande. Coupled with its 15,000-acre Spanish land grants and other land purchases, the reservation (population about 500) is today a vast expanse of about 73,000 acres. While Tamaya, the…