PHOENIX (AP) – Members of the Pascua Yaqui tribe now have a supermajority on the Guadalupe City Council, but new council members hope to heal the culturally divided community.

The latest Census data shows exactly half of Guadalupe’s residents identify as Native American, predominantly Yaqui, while 57 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino, largely Mexican. Some people identify as both.

Mary Bravo, a third-generation Mexican-American who has lived in Guadalupe for 57 years, said the two demographics didn’t mix often in the early years of the community, which became incorporated in 1975.

“Guadalupe has barrios. South of Guadalupe Road is my barrio and it’s mostly Mexican-Americans,” she said. “We never even went to the same schools. Those people over there (on the north side of Guadalupe Road) never met those people here, across the street, until we went to high school.”

Bravo said relations have improved, especially as couples like her and her husband, who is Yaqui, intermarried and had children. She said the new council could do a lot to help mend lingering divisions.

Incoming mayor Valeria Molina, who is half Yaqui and half Mexican-American, said the new, younger council members will focus on healing the divided community. The 38-year-old says divisions between Mexican heritage and tribal heritage should not matter anymore.

“There’s been a lot of separation over the years, and I think that’s where the healing needs to come,” said Molina. “We’re all one community. It shouldn’t matter that I’m an enrolled member or that I’m a person from the Mexican community as well.”

New council member Anita Luera Cota said the new council members would work for all Guadalupe residents, regardless of tribal affiliation.

“I believe it’s the dawning of a new era,”schools and in our community already that we’re excited to see it move to a new level.”

–––

Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com