Mark Macarro, 45, tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, was first elected as a Councilman in 1992. He is serving his eighth consecutive two-year term on the council and is in his 14th year as Tribal Chairman. Macarro's vision for the Pechanga people is to see the band strengthen its political self-determination and economic self-sufficiency by developing a diversified economy for the Pechanga Band while maintaining its distinct and unique cultural identity.
A national leader, Macarro represents Pechanga in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) as an alternate area Vice-President of the Pacific Region 2007-2009 and represents the Pacific Region on the board of directors for the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA). He is a member of the Electoral College 2008 US Presidential Election, 2008 Platform Committee Member of the Democratic Party and a member of the Board of Governors, Harvard Honoring Nations. In 2008 he was presented as a Pathbreaker Award Honoree at the 20th Annual IGRA Symposium.
He also served as a Riverside County Board of Supervisors appointee to the County Historical Commission and served on the board of directors of Borrego Springs Bank, NA. In the 1990s as a charter board member, Chairman Macarro helped found the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS), a non-profit organization with the mission of funding tribal language speakers in the state.
Chairman Macarro believes it is critical to maintain and cultivate the Pechanga tribal culture, language, and traditional life ways so that the Pechanga people can preserve their unique tribal identity. Macarro is a traditional Luiseño singer, singing ceremonial Nukwáánish funeral songs at tribal wakes throughout area Indian reservations, and is a practitioner of Cham'tééla, the Luiseño's native language. He has also been an apprentice bird singer to Robert Levi, an elder of the Torres-Martinez Reservation; having learned hundreds of Levi's birdsongs.
Macarro served as program manager for the library and museum of the Rincon Reservation from 1992 through 1995, as the director of youth education at Soboba Reservation's Noli School from 1990 through 1992, and began his career in Indian country as a grants/contracts administrator for the Pechanga Reservation in 1988. Macarro also served as a credentialed substitute teacher for grades 7-12 in the Riverside County Schools system, the San Jacinto Unified School District, the Colton Joint Unified School District, and Riverside City School District.
Macarro has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Chairman Macarro's father, the late Leslie Macarro, was a Pechanga tribal member and a correctional peace officer killed in the line of duty in May of 1988 while working for the California Youth Authority. Mark's great-grandfather, Juan Macarro (1851-1920) served as Captain for the Pechanga Band during the first decade of the 1900's and was also a Nukwáánish singer. Among southern California tribes, the office of chairman was formerly called "captain."