Gunnison elects first Cora Indian to city council, giving voice to community that lived mainly in the shadows
Marisela Ballesteros was overcome with pride when she received her Gunnison County ballot in the mail last month. The 26-year-old daughter of immigrants rushed to show it to her mother.
“I was, like, ‘Mom, my name is somewhere important. Look at this.’”
There it was: Marisela Ballesteros listed as a candidate running unopposed for a seat on the Gunnison City Council.
Ballesteros, a Cora Indian, received 940 votes in the election and will be sworn in as a council member Dec. 12.
Her win has landmark significance for a growing Western Slope university town.
Gunnison is believed to have the largest U.S. population of the indigenous Cora people who, over decades, have come to the Western Slope from an area in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains of Nayarit state in Mexico. The Cora population, which has a cultural tendency to be shy and retiring, has lived mainly in the shadows in Gunnison without much interaction with mainstream communities. The Cora have had little to do with local politics.
Until now.
“I would never even have dreamed that this would happen,” said Magdaleno Diaz, a Cora who has worked in the Gunnison area for decades and has taken on the role as a liaison between the Cora and social service organizations in the Gunnison Valley.