Saturday, April 30, 2016

#60sScoop adoptees rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa

More than 20,000 Indigenous children removed from their families from 1960s to 1980s

By Waubgeshig Rice, CBC News | Posted: Apr 29, 2016 Sixties Scoop adoptees gathered for a rally on Parliament Hill on Friday.

60s Scoop adoptees gathered for a rally on Parliament Hill on Friday. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

Indigenous people who were adopted during the Sixties Scoop rallied on Parliament Hill Friday in solidarity with other adoptees across Canada, and to put pressure on the federal government to reform the Indigenous child welfare system.
"We are here to celebrate our survival of the child welfare (system), and to raise those issues," said organizer Duane Morrisseau-Beck. "The message to those survivors is that you're not alone, and that we're really working hard to find some answers."

Indigenous Sixties Scoop adoptees want meeting with Canada's new government

From the 1960s to the 1980s, an estimated 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed with non-Indigenous families — often far from their home communities — during what's known as the Sixties Scoop.

Duane Morrisseau-Beck reconnected with his birth mother, Geraldine Beck, in 1997. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

Morrisseau-Beck was apprehended by child welfare authorities in Manitoba at birth in 1968. In 1977 he reconnected with his birth mother, Geraldine Beck, who joined him at the Ottawa rally.
"It's almost like I was away for a long time, and then I returned home," he said. "It was a seamless process, it just took time to get to know who I was and who my community is, and just sort of go through that validation. And some days I continue to do that."
KEEP READING

External Links

Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare

Andrew Jackson’s Adopted Indian Son

Lyncoya was a living argument for the supremacy of the white way of life. Jackson killed Creek people, took Creek land, and raised their children as his own—a primal act of domination.

The soldiers took 84 captives, including Lyncoya.

Was bringing home an Indian boy—after slaughtering his family—an act of compassion or of political expedience?

By Trace Hentz

I know the answer - psychopaths and politics for land theft!
A few days ago, my friend John Hopkins told me about the infamous "Indian Killer" Andrew Jackson, yes that guy famous for the Trail of Tears, adopting an Indian child. I never knew about this.
We do know that Lost Bird (below) was taken from her massacred dead mother and adopted by a military man. She only lived to age 29.
Lyncoya died at the Hermitage in 1828, at age 16, of tuberculosis.
Andrew Jackson named all his kids Andrew Jackson? That's a very special kind of egomania right there.

Read this astounding article at SLATE.

In case you didn't know, adoption was genocide.

Lost Bird Story

Friday, April 29, 2016

#ICWA under attack

ThinkProgress Article on the Goldwater Institute’s ICWA Challenge

Kate Fort | Turtle Talk

Why a Conservative Legal Organization is Trying to Kill the Indian Child Welfare Act.

A long article with lots of great sources (Shannon Smith of the ICWA Law Center is quoted extensively, for example) and solid research.

Despite what the URL might indicate, the video and site do not belong to an organization with a long history of pushing to expand civil rights protections to minority groups. Rather, they are part of a campaign by the Goldwater Institute — a conservative legal organization mostly known for its anti-government and pro-property rights work — aimed at eliminating ICWA, a 1978 federal law designed to protect Native American kids from more than 100 years of government-mandated assimilation. That legislation established tougher requirements for removing Native American children from their biological families and gave federally recognized tribes control over the adoption and custody processes for their citizens’ kids.

***
Matthew L.M. Fletcher, who directs the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at the Michigan State University College of Law says the key function of ICWA is that it “gives tribes a chance to have a say in what happens to their kids.” He notes that the due process requirements it provides have been held up by child welfare advocacy groups as “the gold standard for child welfare decisions for all children.”

***
Kathryn E. Fort, who works with Fletcher at MSU’s Indigenous Law and Policy Center, agrees. “I think what ICWA has done is given a backstop, in many ways, to the worst abuses,” she said. But recent problems in South Dakota, for instance, are proof that there are “still counties where they’re just not following the law.” Last March, a federal judge found that state officials had improperly removed scores of Native American children in one county from their parents’ custody, failing to follow ICWA’s procedure.
If the Goldwater Institute’s challenge is successful, not only will the strongest tool to stop those kinds of discrimination be taken away — so might a whole host of other laws.

Minneapolis ICWA Law Center Video

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Kate Fort

One of our very favorite groups we get to work with has a beautiful new video up:


Password: icwa


The Minneapolis ICWA Law Center represents parents in ICWA cases, among other things.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Two Worlds, Called Home, Stolen Generations: Telling Our Stories

CLICK: Two Worlds, Called Home, Stolen Generations: Telling Our Stories

Challenges to ICWA based on legally and historically false assumptions

archive photo

Fletcher & Singel on the Historical Basis for the Trust Relationship between the US and Indian Children

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher | Turtle Talk

Fletcher & Singel have posted “Indian Children and the Federal Tribal Trust Relationship” on SSRN. (click title to download the free pdf)

Here is the abstract:

This article develops the history of the role of Indian children in the formation of the federal-tribal trust relationship and comes as constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) are now pending. We conclude the historical record demonstrates the core of the federal-tribal trust relationship is the welfare of Indian children and their relationship to Indian nations. The challenges to ICWA are based on legally and historically false assumptions about federal and state powers in relation to Indian children and the federal government’s trust relationship with Indian children.
Indian children have been a focus of federal Indian affairs at least since the Framing of the Constitution. The Founding Generation initially used Indian children as military and diplomatic pawns, and later undertook a duty of protection to Indian nations and, especially, Indian children. Dozens of Indian treaties memorialize and implement the federal government’s duty to Indian children. Sadly, the United States then catastrophically distorted that duty of protection by deviating from its constitution-based obligations well into the 20th century. It was during this Coercive Period that federal Indian law and policy largely became unmoored from the constitution.
The modern duty of protection, now characterized as a federal general trust relationship, is manifested in federal statutes such as ICWA and various self-determination acts that return self-governance to tribes and acknowledge the United States’ duty of protection to Indian children. The federal duty of protection of internal tribal sovereignty, which has been strongly linked to the welfare of Indian children since the Founding, is now as closely realized as it ever has been throughout American history. In the Self-Determination Era, modern federal laws, including ICWA, constitute a return of federal Indian law and policy to constitutional fidelity.

Very important history!

Monday, April 25, 2016

Destruction of Victim Statements #60sScoop #ForcedRemovals #StolenGenerations

Working Link To Canada Court Decision Included – In 15 Years Destroy TRC-Canada Victim Statements Of Canada Scoops Victims, Doesn’t Refer To USA & West Europe-placed Victims

April 25, 2016 [Originally published April 19, 2016]

Whether the decision of Canada Court mandates or allows destruction of recently concluded Canada – Truth & Reconciliation Commission victim statements, nowhere in the opinion of the Canada Court are the victim statements collected and certified by Truth & Reconciliation Commission – Canada of USA Placed Victims – Survivors of Canada Scoops referred to.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/stories-of-residential-school-abuse-can-be-shredded-after-15years-1.3520210

Link to full text of court decision, http://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2016/2016ONCA0241.htm

SOURCE : USA Placed Victims-Survivors of The Canadian Scoops blog

Archive photos (Trace Hentz) Yale 2014

Survivors of Canada's notorious residential school system have the right to see their stories archived if they wish, but their accounts must otherwise be destroyed in 15 years, Ontario's top court ruled in a split decision (April 4).

At issue are documents related to compensation claims made by as many as 30,000 survivors of Indian residential schools — many heart-rending accounts of sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

******************** and also from their blog

USA’s 1st Lady On The Forcible Removal Of North American Indian Children

June 26, 2015

The First Lady Michelle Obama says it well, “given this history, we shouldn’t be surprised at the challenges that kids in (North American) Indian Country are facing today. And we should never forget that we played a role in this. Make no mistake about it – we own this.”

“For more than a century, the governments of Canada and the United States pursued a policy of forcible removal of indigenous children from their homes and communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada recently released a report on these removal practices, recognizing them to be part of a policy of “cultural genocide.”

It could not have happened without the complicity of the elites of the Canadian Indian Bands themselves.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/245996-if-truth-be-told

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Why it's so important? #ICWA #adoption #stolengenerations

If you thought that ethnic cleansing was something for the history books, think again...

Book One

By Trace L Hentz, editor of the new book STOLEN GENERATIONS

In the last few days, I checked the book reviews in the UK (England) and was so happy to read this great honest review for Two Worlds by Yassmin. She gets it! (read her quote above and the review below)

The writers in the first anthology Two Worlds (Book 1) broke new ground. They told their story in their own way in their own words. (I like to tease them and call them rock stars.) We are the pre-ICWA adoptees - before the federal law was signed, preventing adoption to non-Indian parents and thereby supporting kinship adoption when children remain in their tribal community.

For these adoptees, it takes real courage to think about the past and try to make sense of it. Many of us adoptees thought we were the only one... I know I did.

Many of us felt alone, isolated, confused.

Then we have to look at the reunion aspects of our journey with relatives and parents, and doing that we reconnect to our sovereign nations again. Maybe we were already enrolled, maybe not. Maybe we have land to inherit, maybe not. (The purpose of these adoptions was to erase us, end our rights, take our land and erase "the Indian" us off the BIA books.)

Book 2 (40 adoptees +)

Now in 2016 I find that we have more than one generation who was affected by the various Indian Adoption Projects. We have adult children of adoptees who are living their own identity issues... and they have questions. Two of these men wrote in the new book Stolen Generations. Their parent was adopted out.

Can you see how widespread this is (in Canada and the US) and how it's a growing problem? The problem is exasperated by states with sealed adoption records and the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is not actively helping us adoptees rejoin our tribes.
The deception is obvious - their point was to not have any of us be Indian and enrolled!

reviewed Two Worlds: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects

1 of 1 people found the following helpful

Thought-provoking and moving 11 October 2012

Two Worlds - Lost children of the Indian Adoption Projects

If you thought that ethnic cleansing was something for the history books, think again. This work tells the stories of Native American Indian adoptees "The Lost Birds" who continue to suffer the effects of successive US and Canadian government policies on adoption; policies that were in force as recently as the 1970's. Many of the contributors still bear the scars of their separation from their ancestral roots. What becomes apparent to the reader is the reality of a racial memory that lives in the DNA of adoptees and calls to them from the past.
The editors have let the contributors tell their own stories of their childhood and search for their blood relatives, allowing the reader to gain a true impression of their personalities. What becomes apparent is that nothing is straightforward; re-assimilation brings its own cultural and emotional problems. Not all of the stories are harrowing or sad; there are a number of heart-warming successes, and not all placements amongst white families had negative consequences. But with whom should the ultimate decision of adoption reside? Government authorities or the Indian people themselves? Read Two Worlds and decide for yourself.

LINK

What is significant about this new book? Everything. 10 years ago there were no books. Now we have more than one generation who experienced the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop.

We have documented new history in our own words in Three Books!

For me, that is all I hoped for, prayed for... I have been reunited with my own family over 20 years.

...and because I feel as I do doesn't mean adoption will ever change... it probably won't.

I am a voice in the wind... I just want to spare a child the pain of secrecy, lies, hurt, loss...

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

STOLEN GENERATIONS! Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop ON SALE tomorrow

cover art by Ojibwe adoptee Terry Niska Watson

NEW BOOK NOTICE: April 20, 2016

A highly anticipated follow up to the history-making anthologies TWO WORLDS (Book One) and CALLED HOME (Book Two): Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects series, STOLEN GENERATIONS: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop offers more narratives on the history of land-taking and child theft/adoption projects in the name of Manifest Destiny in North America. These narratives make clear that Lost Children are not only survivors but resilient.

A collection of adoptees’ firsthand accounts and the historical background of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop, along with pertinent news, history, documentaries, quotes and bibliography, this stunning new anthology has been edited by award winning journalist, adoptee-author Trace L Hentz (formerly DeMeyer).

"Stolen Generations" is available now in the Kindle Store. It is available here.

By Trace Hentz (Shawnee-Cherokee-French Canadian mix)

I am honored to be editor of this new anthology, to know these adoptees (or their relative who wrote an essay) and to work with them. Their stories will amaze you, make you cry, make you proud and best of all, this collection writes new truth, new history, blazing new ground!

After doing two earlier anthologies, WE are survivors and WE are resilient. That I know.

Ebook proceeds will benefit the IronEagleFeather Project for adoptees. Levi and I are creating a safe haven and workshops for adoptees...

Contributors:

INTRO: Johnathan Brooks (Northern Cheyenne)
Preface: Trace Hentz (Shawnee-Cherokee mix)

Joseph Henning (Cree)

Leland Pacheco Kirk Morrill (Navajo)

Nakuset (Cree)

Debra Newman (Choctaw Cherokee)

Belinda Mastalski Smith (Oneida New York)

Janelle Black Owl (Mandan, Hidatasa, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Lakota)

Susan Devan Harness (Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes)

Dana LoneHill (Oglala Lakota)

Joy Meness (Iroquois)

Levi William EagleFeather Sr. (Sicangu Lakota)

Patricia Busbee (Cherokee)

Karl Mizenmayer (Minnesota Ojibwe)

MITZI LIPSCOMB/ROSEMARY BLACKBIRD (Walpole Bkejwanong First Nations)

Rebecca Larsen (Quinault Indian Nation)

Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee)

Mary St. Martin (Koyukon Athabascan)

Joshua Whitehead (Peguis First Nation Manitoba)

COVER ART: Terry Niska Watson (White Earth)

This illustration I painted years ago when I was in a very dark place in my life. This is a painting of a subject matter that has always drawn my interest, that is the Native life and the beauty of tradition, family and nature. As my sister, Elizabeth Blake, said about this painting that still hangs on my wall, “the most interesting part is that the face is not visible. That is how it is when you do not know your birth family.”

PREVIEW: Once Upon A Time

Stolen Generations (Book 3)

Survivor Narratives of 60s Scoop and First Nations adoptees

An anthology of adoptees’ firsthand accounts and the historical background of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop in North America

ISBN-13: 978-0692615560 (Blue Hand Books)

Paperback $12.96

Kindle ebook $3.96

Email for more information: bluehandcollective@outlook.com
On Kindle: US UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR Canada MX AU IN

Friday, April 15, 2016

Zintkala Nuni - Lost Bird of Wounded Knee

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Witness - Voices of the Heart - Part 1

Watch all the Al Jazeera videos on Native Americans. All of them.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Today's Child Propaganda

Here is a link to read the article:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Wr8yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ve8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1401%2C8236310

Today's Child - over 15,000 kids adopted out in Ontario, many of them Native.
Leland Kirk who sent me this said: I think the adoption networks across Canada are covering up the native children Helen Allen adopted out...I still wonder how many she was responsible for... And then understand we will never know because those stats won't ever be revealed.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Drunktown's Finest Trailer (Official)

This movie is a MUST SEE!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Critical time for #ICWA

Photo by Suzette Brewer: Hillary Tompkins, Solicitor General at Interior, Lawrence S. Roberts, Acting assistant secretary for BIA, Commissioner Raphael Lopez from the Administration on Children, Youth and Families; and Sam Hirsch, deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice are seen at the opening session of the 34th annual National Indian Child Welfare Association.

Federal Agencies Launch Initiative to Support the Implementation and Enforcement of ICWA

Suzette Brewer

4/4/16

Today at the opening session of the 34th annual National Indian Child Welfare Association in St. Paul, Minnesota, acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts announced an interagency memorandum of understanding (MOU) in collaboration with the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to ensure compliance with and implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Calling for more robust enforcement and compliance with ICWA, the three federal agencies were joined this morning by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-Minnesota), and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman in support of the federal law, which has recently come under attack by the adoption industry seeking to overturn the 38-year-old federal statute.

“This MOU marshals the appropriate focus and resources of Interior, Justice and HHS to ensure that Congress’s intent in protecting Indian children and families is carried out,” said Roberts. “We want to assure Indian families and tribal leaders that the Obama Administration’s dedication to ICWA’s goals remains an enduring policy for Indian country. Focused implementation and compliance of ICWA protects Indian children and families, strengthens the social fabric of tribal communities, and ensures that tribes are able to serve their citizens for generations to come.”

According to the BIA, the purposes of the MOU are fourfold: To establish the continued commitment of the three partner agencies regarding the importance of ICWA and its implementation for the health and well-being of Indian children, families, and communities; to formally establish the ICWA Interagency Workgroup to promote the purposes of ICWA and the agencies' mutual interests in ensuring implementation and compliance; and to promote communication and collaborative efforts in federal activities that support ICWA implementation and compliance; and to establish structures and procedures to ensure that the Workgroup operates effectively and efficiently.

“This is a critical time for ICWA given the unprecedented attacks on the statute, which goes to the heart of Congress’ authority to pass legislation regarding tribes and Indian people,” said Sam Hirsch, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ, in his remarks to the NICWA general assembly. “We are handling lawsuits that challenge the constitutionality of ICWA itself, as well as the BIA guidelines interpreting the statute. Importantly, these cases could potentially have repercussions for other laws regarding Indian tribes and their members. The popular press accounts have a similar theme. In those accounts, there is no recognition of the sovereignty of tribes, of the significance of tribal citizenship or the legal, moral framework that underpins federal policy in this area. This portrayal of ICWA is grossly distorted.”

According to the BIA, each federal agency will designate the appropriate components or subcomponents to participate in the Workgroup. Additionally, other federal agencies may participate in the activities of the Interagency Workgroup as appropriate and, with the written agreement of all then-current permanent members, may also become permanent members by signing on to the MOU.

“We know from the federal Adoption Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS) that American Indian/Alaska Native children are disproportionately represented in most child welfare systems nationally at two times their population rate and as much as 10 times in state systems―that is unacceptable,” said Raphael Lopez, Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF). “These are data points that tell the story of our children. They tell the story of our families, they tell the story of America. It is often not the easiest to hear, but important to squarely name and engage in issues of race and class and culture and politics that we must struggle with every day to make this work.”

Lopez said the ICWA Interagency Workgroup is an important step in aligning Congress’ intent in passing ICWA with the force of federal agencies to support its continued enforcement. Additionally, he said that, for the first time since ICWA was passed in 1978, the AYCF will begin specifically collecting data under the AFCARS system on the well-being of American Indian/Alaska Native Children.

“Why does this matter? Because it will be able to tell us exactly what is happening to every child across the country,” said Lopez. “We know that ICWA is the best practice, we know it is the gold standard. It is the law and we are going to enforce it.”

Addressing the recent firestorm of controversy surrounding the return of a Choctaw Nation tribal member to her relatives in Utah by the Los Angeles County DCFS, acting Assistant Secretary Roberts said that while foster families are deserving of respect for the work they do in providing temporary homes to children in state custody, that this was a standard reunification case that is the law in most states across the country.

“This was a reunification of a child with her family and two sisters, which is a very common objective among the courts in over 35 states,” said Roberts, who is also an attorney. “This was not national news, so it is unfortunate that these folks want to use a 6-year-old girl to spin their narrative, in which they ignore the facts and do not follow the law. So it’s important to protect the privacy of our children while we continue to share the facts and the law. This child is with her family and ICWA supported that.”

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Still Looking for Peace

The grave in the first row, first stone, belongs to Lucy Pretty Eagle, one of the Rosebud students buried at the Carlisle cemetery. Toys, coins, and other gifts left by visitors mark the spot.

Inquirer Editorial: Indian school children still looking for peace

It's time for the federal government to grant requests by Native American tribes to return the remains of hundreds of children who died more than a century ago after being taken to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School for assimilation training.

Some children were torn from their families. Others were voluntarily sent to the Pennsylvania school by families who believed a Eurocentric education would help them succeed in America's white-dominated culture. They could not have known that many children would die, mostly from injuries or diseases.
"A lot of them just thought maybe their tribes had given up on them," said Yufna Soldier Wolf, director of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office in Riverton, Wyo., in an interview with Wyoming Public Radio.
Children suffered from tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the flu. They were forced to forsake their traditions and religious beliefs. Those caught speaking their native languages were beaten. Many were not allowed to return home during the summer. Others were tasked with performing menial chores in local homes.

"Kill the Indian to save the man" was the way former Cavalry officer Richard Henry Pratt, who founded Carlisle in 1879, described his philosophy.

Evidence of the children's ordeals is now buried in their graves on the former school's grounds, which was closed in 1918 and today is home to the U.S. Army War College.

KEEP READING

[I went there to look a few years ago but it had a guard at a gate... I parked across the street and said my prayers... Trace]