Today, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued a proclamation that designates
Friday, September 30, 2022, as a “Day of Remembrance for U.S. Indian
Boarding Schools.” The proclamation states that the United States
pursued, embraced, or permitted a policy of forced assimilation of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people for nearly
200 years. The proclamation comes at a crucial moment when Tribal
leaders, elected officials, and boarding school survivors around the
country are calling on Congress to pass the Truth and Healing Commission
on Indian Boarding School Policies Act (S.2907 / HR 5444).
‘Bones of Crows’ is an emotional account of the intergenerational trauma caused by the Canadian residential school system.
The Canadian history taught in school is a whitewashed version of the
truth, omitting much of the country’s sordid relations with its
Indigenous populations, which have continued to have negative effects to
this day. The last few years have brought appalling revelations that
had been covered up and ignored for so long. After years of silence and
denial, the government formed The Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
providing an avenue for those directly and indirectly affected by the
legacy of the Indian Residential Schools system to share their stories
and experiences. Bones of Crows is a fictional account of one woman’s life before, during and after being forcibly placed in the system.
Born in the 1920s to a large and happy family, Aline Spears (Grace
Dove) and her three siblings were taken from their parents under threat
of prison and sent to residential schools. There, they were subjected to
horrific physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of the
priests and nuns who oversaw their education. As a teen, Aline enlists
in the military, where she meets her husband, Adam (Phillip Lewitski),
and is eventually recruited for a special operation that uses Cree to
transmit secret messages during World War II. After the war, they return
to Canada to raise their children. But she is haunted by the years of
cruelty she endured, only finally able to confront her abusers in her
‘80s.
There are news stories, a day of reflection and professional sensitivity training,
but they don’t capture the impact and scars of this institution of
abuse as well as a film is able. The narrative does an exceptional job
interweaving so many experiences, traumas and repercussions into a
single movie. It highlights the anguish of families forcibly separated,
in many cases permanently; the degradation spewed by the clergy who view
their charges as less than human; the punishment for any miniscule
attempt to maintain the culture and language the schools were meant to
eradicate; the widespread abuse and intentional neglect as superiors
boast about keeping the children in a state of malnutrition during their
own feasts; the countless deaths due to disease and mistreatment; the
sexual assaults that steal their innocence and fill their nightmares;
the substance abuse to hide from the pain of their memories; the
suicides when the hurt becomes too much; and so much more. It also
touches upon the numerous unsolved deaths and disappearances of
Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
Nevertheless, it’s also a story of joy, strength and triumph, both
fleeting and lifelong. As a child, Aline enjoyed sing-alongs and family
meals. She and Adam shared a lot of love, which produced equally loved
children who grow up to have successful careers and their own children.
Aline engages her love of music by playing the piano and passes the
skill on to her granddaughter. One must savour the good through the bad
and the movie strives to capture both, revelling in the joys and not
cowering from the sorrows. This is the story of one family, but it
represents the tale of thousands of Indigenous people across the
country, giving voice and audience to their lived experiences.
Jason
Swartley (left) holds a shell from his biological mother, who died
before he was able to meet her; Lupe Krehbiel (center), adopted at 3 1/2
years old, holds a photo of herself during her first Christmas with her
adoptive family; and Jerome Staab, 37, holds a photo on his phone of
himself and his biological and adoptive siblings. (Molly Adams /
Lawrence Times photos)
The United States has a long history of removing Native American
children from their families and communities, stripping their cultural
identities. Now that a 44-year-old protection is at risk, the threat of
regression is ever present.
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978
is a federal law that was passed to give tribal governments some say in
where Native children would be placed in adoption cases. It’s meant to
keep Native children connected to their familial and cultural roots.
ICWA applies only to state family court in cases in which Native
children meet the definition of an “Indian child” — meaning they are
members of, or eligible for membership in, a federally recognized tribe,
according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA). In these cases, the child’s tribe has a right to intervene.
Now, ICWA is being challenged at the Supreme Court of the United
States level, which could lead to the law being overturned. SCOTUS
agreed on Feb. 28 to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of
ICWA, Brackeen v. Haaland, and arguments are set for Nov. 9.
“To find after all of these years that it’s unconstitutional would
require a pretty major explanation. But it’s an alarming case,” said
Sarah Deer, Citizen of Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Sarah Deer
“We try to be optimistic in this work, but it’s very concerning that the court decided to hear this case.”
Deer, who is a legal scholar, tribal law expert and University of Kansas distinguished professor, has co-authored an amicus brief
in the case in which she will help represent two Native adoptees. An
amicus brief, meaning “friend of the court,” is an opportunity to
present to the court additional sides to consider.
“One of the real catalysts for even getting ICWA passed in 1978 were
the testimonies of people who had been ripped from their community and
from their culture. They testified in front of Congress and told their
stories, and parents who’ve lost children through those social welfare
practices of the state also did.
“Those testimonies have always been very, very important.”
Three local Native adults who were adopted into white families as
children shared their stories about the effects that cultural erasure
through adoption has had on their self identities and senses of
community.
‘A tremendous sense of loss’
Jason Swartley, 53, was always told he was Native American but had nothing tangible to prove it to himself and others.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Jason Swartley
Because he was born in 1969 and then adopted before ICWA was passed,
he did not reap the benefits of those protections. It was not until
seven years ago that he was finally able to connect with his biological
family.
“A lot of things that would happen today did not happen with me.
Normally a Native child would have been enrolled in their tribe
automatically and then given a lot of information. That was not the case
for me,” Swartley said.
“I was not enrolled, I had no documentation of that [and] I had no
idea what tribe. So it was ‘allegedly’ a part of who I was, but I had no
validation of that. It’s this feeling — a tremendous sense of loss.”
Swartley said his mother relinquished him at birth and he was adopted
into a white family at around 3 months old. Because he was just a baby,
ICWA had not yet been passed and some open record laws were not yet
passed in Colorado, he was never connected with his biological family.
When he was able to find his biological family in early 2015, he said he was “hungry to keep learning more.”
Though he was never able to meet his birth mother and biological
grandmother before they died, he connected with his two biological
brothers and aunt.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Jason Swartley holds a photo of himself with his adoptive family.
Pictured from left to right are Jason, his adoptive father, his adoptive
mother and his adoptive older brother.
“It’s been an incredible journey, I mean, so many powerful emotions
linked to that over the past few years,” he said. “At the same time,
it’s given me a sense of peace and belonging that I don’t know I’ve had
before. All my life I’ve struggled with not being sure who I am, I
think, so to speak, and I think a lot of that at high tide is from quite
literally not knowing who I am.”
Swartley, who’s an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska, now volunteers as the pantry director of the Kansas City Indian Center
in Kansas City, Missouri as well as individually helps to nurture
Indigenous culture in his community. Giving his three grown children,
four grandchildren and community the connection he was not given the
opportunity to have is important, he said.
In order to move forward, he said, America must reconcile with its
history — both good and egregious. ICWA was passed in response to the
alarming rate of Native children being removed from their homes en
masse, first through residential schools and then individually
through adoption or foster care systems. Swartley said efforts to
overturn ICWA disregard the initial reason the law was created.
A study
during the year ICWA was being passed found that 25-35% of all Native
children were being removed by state child welfare and private adoption
agencies, and of those, 85% were placed outside of their families and
communities.
“We need to teach even those difficult parts of history. We see a
movement today to get away from that — people want to not teach all
these things because they might make someone feel bad. I see parallels
with what’s going on with ICWA. There are so many people who don’t know
the history, or if they do know the history, they want to bury it,” he
said.
“From everything we’ve gone through and everything we’ve suffered,
just having our children removed from us, removed from our culture [and]
removed from their way of life and their traditional values, ICWA is
something that’s needed,” Swartley said.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Jason Swartley holds a shell from his biological mother, who died before he was able to meet her.
‘We belonged to the wrong culture, almost’
Given the chance, Jerome Staab would have liked to connect on a
deeper level with his biological mother before she recently became ill.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Jerome Staab
His mother has struggled with alcoholism her whole life, and he and
his siblings never knew who their father was, he said. Staab said he’s
been able to piece more moments and information together from his oldest
biological brother, who remembers the most out of all of them.
Growing up, Staab recalls his biological mother always being referred
to in a negative way, but that’s not necessarily how he felt about her.
“She’s an alcoholic, and everyone has their issues, but we were never
given the chance to be connected with her. It wasn’t that she didn’t
want anything to do with us; it was just that my adoptive parents never
built that bridge,” Staab said.
Staab, 37, was adopted into a white family when he was 5 or 6 years
old, along with four half siblings, all with the same mother, and one
cousin. The only memory he has from being adopted was all of them hiding
in the basement or in a closet and the state workers having to
physically remove them from the home.
Staab and the rest of the kids then grew up in Iowa with their
adoptive father, who was a second-generation German farmer, and mother,
who was a school teacher. Their parents had two biological children, who
became the oldest of eight total children.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Jerome Staab holds a photo of himself with his biological and adoptive
siblings. Staab, who’s pictured on the top row, second from the right,
was adopted when he was 5 or 6 years old.
Though he had a happy childhood filled with sports and playing
outside, Staab said his parents made “zero attempt” to expose him to
Native identity as he was raised going to a Roman Catholic church every
Sunday and Wednesday and attended predominantly white private schools.
“It was a difficult journey because in a private school it was all
white people, so you kind of see yourself that way. You don’t see color,
but not in the way that people use the term now,” Staab
explained. “It’s like, you’re just so deeply integrated with all the
kids who are around who look the same that you just kind of assume that
you look the same way, and it’s not until somebody says ‘Hey, you look
different’ that you stop and think ‘Oh, I guess I do look different.’
“We always felt like we belonged, but again, we belonged to the wrong culture, almost.”
Staab, who’s of the Santee Sioux Tribe of Sioux City, Iowa, said it
wasn’t until he attended Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence
in 2007 that he learned “what it meant to be Indigenous.”
He now lives in Overland Park with his girlfriend and their
6-year-old daughter. Though he remains close with his adopted family,
specifically his father, Staab said he feels at times he has two
separated identities.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Jerome Staab is pictured with his girlfriend, Alessandra Sanitate, and their daughter, Cora.
“The only issue is it’s night and day. I have essentially my white
family, and they’re totally, completely disconnected from my Native
side,” Staab said. “They don’t know anything about it. They don’t
understand the culture. A lot of my Native side … it’s poverty-driven,
all the issues that go with that, and frankly a bunch of kids without
fathers. There’s a lot of aunties and grandmas raising kids.”
Nonetheless, Staab said he holds mostly positive regards toward his life’s course.
“Everybody’s story is unique, and I’m grateful for my different
perspective. I’ve been afforded opportunities to be successful. But
also, I was disconnected from my family, so I lost a lot of my Native
culture, which I had to go back and relearn myself,” Staab said.
“I think ultimately ICWA is a good thing. It’s of course good to keep
Natives with Native families, but it doesn’t always turn out bad [if
they are not].”
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
‘It was just a lot of displacement’
For the entirety of her life up until about 12 years ago, Lupe
Krehbiel was told she was “Mexican.” That wasn’t true, but she wouldn’t
truly know that until she was well into adulthood.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Lupe Krehbiel
“It was just a lot of displacement,” Krehbiel said. “Sometimes I
didn’t know where I fit. I’ve never lived on a reservation, I’ve always
lived in a white family. But you can’t prove it because it’s like ‘Well,
where is your card? What tribe?’ You don’t really know your identity.”
Krehbiel, 54, was born in Texas and adopted into a white family when
she was 3 1/2 years old. Her adoptive mother and father were white, and
she lived with seven adopted siblings. She said her adoptive parents
were able to move her to Kansas and officially adopt her there in the
early ’70s. She moved to California in fourth or fifth grade, where she
grew up, and then moved back to Kansas in her 20s.
Her biological father died when she was a baby; her mother would
leave the older children in charge of caring for the younger kids for
long periods of time; and her grandparents were deemed unfit to care for
them because their grandfather was sick with tuberculosis, she was
told.
Krehbiel’s two biological, older sisters, who were adopted into a
different white family in South Dakota, shared with her about their
lives.
When she was in fourth or fifth grade, Krehbiel said, she would write
letters to one of them before losing contact for a while. She recalls
one sister telling her stories of traveling with their parents, who were
missionaries or preachers, indicating her other biological siblings
were said to be Mexican, too.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Lupe Krehbiel holds a photo book with photos of her and her adoptive
family. In the left photo, she is pictured at center in the bottom row,
and in the right photo, she is pictured standing second from the right.
“They would go to the reservation and people would ask them why they
had Native kids and they would say ‘They’re not Native, they’re
Mexican.’ They said they would be stared at and questioned when they
were little.”
She remembers around 12 years ago on New Year’s Eve when her
biological sister, Mary, called her house phone looking for “Lupita” —
Krehbiel’s full name. By the end of the night, she’d spoken to all of
her biological brothers and sisters.
After reconnecting with them, Krehbiel learned her biological father
and grandfather were Apache. She then dug further into her heritage on
Ancestry.com and found most of her family roots are in Texas, she said.
Krehbiel is now involved with supporting Native American communities
and educating folks about issues such as cultural appropriation through
the Kansas City Indian Center, where she serves as the office manager.
Though she’s found joy in years of submerging herself in community
activism, Krehbiel said she still feels she has to explain herself
because many family members and close friends don’t understand her
Native identity. When sharing about the violence perpetrated against
Native people, she has faced opposition from family members because much
of that history isn’t included in school textbooks, which has been
another reminder of whitewashed history.
She emphasized the importance of continuously expanding one’s mind,
saying, “I’m always learning. If I don’t know, I try to find out.”
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Lupe Krehbiel holds a childhood photo of her with all her biological
siblings. Two of her siblings were adopted into the same family, while
she and her other siblings were adopted individually into different
families. Krehbiel reconnected with her biological siblings around 12
years ago.
What’s to come?
As part of her co-authored amicus brief in Brackeen v. Haaland, Deer is working alongside two other Native attorneys and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
to tie together the “crisis of chid welfare in Indian Country to
violence against women,” she said. Deer explained her hope that the
Supreme Court will grasp concepts beyond what is simply in front of
them.
“The pessimist potential is pretty bleak, but that would be that the
court declares that Indian citizens are really a race of people and not
political. That could have huge ramifications for tribal sovereignty
because special treatment of Native people, if we’re a race, would
violate race discrimination laws,” she said.
“So we really need the court to understand that tribal citizens come
in all different races and colors — that it’s a political identity, it’s
not a racial category and that is something I don’t know that all the
members of the court will be able to get their heads wrapped around.”
Staab said the attempt to overturn ICWA contributes to the U.S.
government’s destruction of Indigenous culture, which is why Native
people “have an innate distrust with the government.”
Through repeated violence against Indigenous populations, Swartley said he must rely on inter-community healing.
“That’s just kind of the Native mentality about our songs, our
stories, our dances, our culture — it’s all healing,” Swartley said.
Read more about local leaders and activists who have discussed Indigenous erasure through residential schools at this link; forced sterilization at this link; land/people acknowledgements at this link; Missing and Murdered Indigenous People at this link; and abortion bans at this link and this link. More information about ICWA can be found at this link.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times Jason SwartleyMolly Adams/Lawrence Times Lupe KrehbielMolly Adams/Lawrence Times Jerome Staab
Note: This post has been corrected from a previous version.
The
U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the Indian Child Welfare Act sometime
in 2023, the Northern Arapaho are asking for state protections and
guidelines.
Northern Arapaho business council member Lee Spoonhunter has one request of the Wyoming legislature.
“Let's get started on working on legislation to protect the children of the state of Wyoming,” Spoonhunter asked
An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case looking at the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA),
first passed in 1978. A law that keeps tribes of Indigenous children in
the loop of family court proceedings to maintain families and
communities. Spoonhunter is asking the state-tribal relations committee
on behalf of the Northern Arapaho tribe to enact a state law protecting
the tenets of ICWA.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Brackeen v. Haaland before summer of next year, and some fear that ICWA will be repealed.
“We're
going to lose our children to the system. We're not going to find them
until they've been adopted out,” said Spoonhunter. “And that's just the
reality of what's going to happen if this law is struck down.”
An
ICWA case requires two things: One, a child who is enrolled or could be
enrolled in a tribe and one of their parents needs to be enrolled and
two: the child’s case needs to be going through some kind of child
custody proceedings. This includes foster care, adoption, or a
termination of parental rights.
Clare Johnson, the Northern
Arapaho tribe attorney, said she is currently working on 62 ICWA cases,
about half within the state of Wyoming and the other half Northern
Arapaho children in other states. They are all unique in what the
individual child requires to be compliant with ICWA. But all have one
thing in common.
“The Northern Arapaho tribe strongly believes in
bringing these cases back to tribal court to attempt to reunify the
child with their family. And if that's not possible to place them with
other members of their family or their tribe,” said Johnson.
Being
adopted outside of the community might lead a child to feel
disconnected from their culture. And the U.S. has a long history of
actively taking away Indigenous children from their families in boarding
schools. This was a policy that removed Indigenous children from their
homes in order to break cultural traditions.
Department of Interior Deb Haaland has enacted its Indian Boarding School Initiative, aimed at detailing the forced assimilation of Indigenous children.
ICWA has allowed children to stay in their communities.
“The
tribe likes to have the children within the tribal system so we can
look at alternative solutions,” said Johnson. “So, that maybe we place
with grandma, and parents have a chance to work the system and get into a
place where they can one day have their children back.”
The
proposed options could include drafting a trigger protection
legislation. What that means is if the federal government does strike
down ICWA, Wyoming could say ‘no, we will still follow the tenets of
ICWA’. Or use the federal law as a template to draft a state law.
But
Senator Affie Ellis said it might be prudent to wait and see what the
federal government does before drafting legislation. Since tribes are
political entities, they have a special status under the law that
describes them as sovereign, unlike other racial categories. This gives
them political power and protections under the tribes that they are
enrolled in.
Ellis said if the law was repealed, this unique political distinction afforded to tribes would be called into question.
“So,
that's what's at stake here, is if the Supreme Court somehow finds that
that political classification no longer applies, and it's just
race-based, then we can't just mimic the federal law, because then it
really just takes it all away,” she said.
So, Ellis said waiting might be the better move.
Kate
Fort, director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State University,
is an expert on ICWA. She said ICWA brings state and tribal governments
together in a unique way.
“State ICWA laws are going to protect
and ensure that the protections that exist now continue,” she said. “It
provides guidance to your state agencies. I think one thing that is
really hard to explain to the Supreme Court is sort of how much work has
been built up around ICWA.”
Fort said it's hard to say if the
federal government is prepared to upend decades of federal Indian law,
but being prepared isn’t a bad thing. While the tribes are essential to
getting a state ICWA law going, the state should get involved.
“ICWA
is the state's responsibility, it was, frankly, a remedial law to
ensure that states aren't acting agencies and courts aren't acting wrong
when they get native children in front of them,” she said.
Ten states currently have state ICWA laws including Iowa, Nebraska, and New Mexico.
The next tribal committee meeting is in October
on the University of Wyoming campus where the committee will continue
to discuss whether to write a bill or wait to see what the supreme court
does.
Group of Omaha boys in cadet uniforms, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, ca. 1880. (National Archives Identifier 519136)
The ACLU of Wyoming is weighing in on a U.S. Supreme Court case that
could overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law that protects
Indigenous children from forced removal from their families and tribes.
The
court will start reviewing the act in November, and the Wyoming ACLU
branch recently sent the justices a brief, along with 13 other states,
urging them to uphold the act.
"It basically ensures that all
efforts are made to maintain those ties and connections between Indian
children and their heritage," said Stephanie Amiotte, legal director of
the Wyoming ACLU, and an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux
tribe in South Dakota.
The back side of Lippincott Hall on the University of Kansas campus is pictured on Sept. 20, 2022. (Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times)
The University of Kansas has remains of Native American people in its
museum collections, according to a statement from administrators.
The remains are being stored in the annex of Lippincott Hall, which
is the building that currently houses offices of staff members in KU’s
Indigenous Studies program. Offices were closed Tuesday, and they will
be moved to a different location on campus.
KU Chancellor Douglas Girod; Barbara Bichelmeyer, provost and
executive vice chancellor; Nicole Hodges Persley, interim vice provost
for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; and Melissa Peterson
(Diné), director of tribal relations, sent out a joint statement Tuesday
morning.
“While some efforts have been made in the past to repatriate items,
the process was never completed,” the statement says. “The continued
possession of these human remains causes great pain for many in the
Native community and beyond.”
“As a university, we have a responsibility to follow the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), a federal law
enacted by Congress in 1990, which sets criteria for tribal nations to
reclaim human remains (ancestors) and funerary objects held by museums,”
according to the statement. “The University has a responsibility to
tribal nations and the Native American community to continue a
relationship built on dignity, respect, and enduring support.”
An online federal database shows that KU is in possession of remains
belonging to a minimum of 380 individuals, as well as 554 associated
funerary objects. However, Peterson said that 380 number was probably
from a complete inventory that KU did back in the 90s.
University of Kansas Melissa Peterson
The current number of individuals may be closer to 200 — “That is
early kind of numbers that we received. We don’t know lots of details,
but that’s what we’re working on so that we’re able to … identify those
that will need to consult with tribes and kind of go through the NAGPRA
process and then just to understand the issue” of why KU has these
remains, Peterson said.
She said the discovery came about recently because “We’ve had new
people start at KU, and I think someone from the museum was getting to
know the collections and realized these were in there and that’s when it
was brought forward.”
KU’s Indigenous Studies Program tweeted
on Tuesday, “It’s been a heavy, heavy week. There are no words. Please
keep our Native students, faculty, staff, alums and community in your
thoughts as we try to process this and work for all ancestors to find
their way home.”
KU is still gathering information, according to the administrators’ statement.
“We are fully committed to the work of creating meaningful
institutional memory by properly repatriating the ancestors and funerary
objects,” the statement continues. “We are working with members in our
Native American community and outside consultants specializing in
repatriation.”
Peterson said the university is planning to make a website that will have updates on the NAGPRA process.
Spokespeople for KU’s Natural History Museum and Spencer Museum of
Art forwarded our requests for information to Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a
spokesperson for the university.
“We are working to (communicate) more fully with our Native American
students, staff and faculty and address their immediate needs at this
time,” Barcomb-Peterson said. “We are still gathering information and
will share more details in the future.”
Geographic origins listed for the remains and artifacts attributed to
KU in the online database include Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Missouri,
Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York and several counties in Kansas.
Remains of at least 73 individuals are listed as coming from an unknown
geographic origin.
Rep. Christina Haswood, a Lawrence Democrat and Diné, tweeted
late Tuesday, “My heart is heavy with this news and how we have
ancestors who have not completed the journey home. Native students of
Lawrence, I’m here if you need my support.”
Indigenous population is on the rise, housing still an issue.
A Winnipeg mother says she was scarred for life when her first child
was taken away at birth by social workers, who told her she was unfit to
parent her newborn daughter because she was just 17 at the time.
“I don’t know how one could fully heal from that trauma,” said the
woman, now 41, whom The Canadian Press has agreed not to identify
because of her family’s involvement in the child welfare system. “Having
a baby taken away from birth the bond is broken.”
Statistics Canada says 2021 census data shows Indigenous children accounted for 53.8 per cent of all children in foster care.
This has gone up slightly from the 2016 census, which found 52.2 per
cent of children in care under the age of 14 were Indigenous.
At the time, only about eight per cent of kids that age in Canada were Indigenous.
More than three per cent of Indigenous children living in private
households in 2021 were in foster care compared to the 0.2 per cent of
non-Indigenous children. Nationally, Indigenous children accounted for
7.7 per cent of all children 14 years of age and younger.
Statistics Canada says because of difficulties in collecting census
data on First Nations and other Indigenous communities, some caution
should be exercised in comparing census years.
In recent years there has been a significant push from Indigenous
leaders and child welfare advocates across the country to address the
myriad systemic issues contributing to the overrepresentation of
Indigenous children in care.
But experts say factors like colonialism, chronic underfunding of
child welfare systems, discriminatory practices and poverty remain.
Thousands
of people gathered at Poppy Plaza in Calgary to protest against racism
and police brutality on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. For Paul Kuster, it was
a catalyst for putting his life back together.Photo by Azin Ghaffari /Postmedia Archive
The
irony was that I am a survivor of the ’60s Scoop. I’d been taken away
from my native family at birth (no, my mother didn’t drink or do drugs)
and was what I call “The Flavour of the Month,” the feature brown baby
in the Regina Leader-Post. (Yes, they actually did that, it was a
thing.) I felt like I was in the adopt-a-pet section of the paper:
“Here, everybody, you can adopt this pooch or tabby, or even this brown
kid!” and was adopted by a lovely white family (That’s why I’m an Indian
named Kuster — place punchlines here) and at that particular time, I’d
just found my true biological family (no thanks to Saskatchewan Social
Services, the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs in Ottawa,
but THAT’S a whole other tale). I was lucky, I have two amazing families; one white, the other Aboriginal, and I fit in both worlds.
Indigenous people in Canada and the U.S. are recognizing September 30 as “Orange
Shirt Day”, or “Every Child Matters Day” to raise awareness and educate
about the harms of Indian schools in North America.
Orange Shirt Day 2022 at Camosun
September 27, 2022
Orange
Shirt Day will be commemorated at Camosun on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022
with a ceremony at Na’tsa’maht. The open-sided structure inspired by
Coast Salish designs, and designed by lək̓ʷəŋən artist Butch Dick, will
host this year’s event.
Camosun
encourages students to wear an orange shirt on Sept. 29 and 30, and to
take the time to learn and reflect as an act of reconciliation.
“Orange
Shirt Day is an important day to honour Indian residential school
survivors, as well as those who didn’t survive or died, often, young and
tragically as a result of the horrors they experienced in these
schools,” says Ruth Lyall, Chair of Indigenous programs at Eye? Sqa’lewen: The Centre for Indigenous Education & Community Connections (IECC) and Orange Shirt Day spokesperson.
Elder Dr. Barney Williams, Nuu-chah-nulth Nation from
the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, will be emceeing the gathering. Hosted
by Eye? Sqa’lewen, the event will include invited guests from Quilts for Survivors, a poetry reading by Beth Mills, as well as drumming and music.
Early
in September, a purple haze of smoke ascended over the colonial cross
on top of tekanontak (Mount-Royal), at the heart of Tiotiake (Montreal).
Kanien’kehà:ka oral tradition says that smoke signals sent by their
ancestors on tekanontak used to be picked up in the Adirondaks, making
its way down the East Coast with surprising rapidity. Our
signal today calls on people across Turtle Island to “open their minds
and think how to help” so that these issues do not become white noise.
Tekanontak
is at the heart of a colonial dispute. In their press conference of
July 27th the Mohawk Mothers detailed their legal struggle to stop the
construction of McGill University's New Vic project. The risks are
damaging multiple archeological sites of Rotinonshionni presence on the
island of Montreal and throughout onowarekeh, turtle island, and
destroying evidence of unmarked graves from the Mk-ultra experiments on
indigenous children, orphans and innocent children classed as juvenile
delinquents.
Contrary
to colonial history's cover ups, the smoke signaled that it is time to
make things right! Mainly to do away with the religious symbols of the
atrocities committed on Indigenous peoples ever since the Europeans
grabbed Turtle Island. *** To stand firm with the Mohawk Mothers, we
call on all solidarity groups to join in action to end the cycle of
unquestioned ways of doing.
The
Mohawk Mothers have filed an interlocutory injunction to "stop
excavation of unmarked graves of children and disturbance of
archeological remains of kahnienkehaka/Mohawks on tekanontak [Mount
Royal Montreal]". Regardless of the upcoming hearing on 26th October to
address the unmarked graves on the grounds of the Royal Victoria
Hospital, McGill and the Société Québécoise des Infrastructures
announced that they will start excavating work in early October.
In Ojibwe our words for stolen children are gimoodinaan binojiinhyan. This week let’s learn to be gentle and patient with our students- their history has been difficult. Painting by Cree artist Kent Monkman. pic.twitter.com/KgWK5LuhhF
On Sept. 10, the Quinault Nation, under the leadership of President Guy Capoeman, amended their Constitution to eliminate fictional blood quantum as a metric of belonging. Instead "[a]ny person who has a biological parent or...grandparent who is currently enrolled," will belong. pic.twitter.com/jBBw8rjNqp
— Gabe Galanda, Indigenous Rights Lawyer (@NDNlawyer) September 26, 2022
American Indian and Alaska Native foster children’s health and well-being is best protected when they are placed with family or tribal members, physicians tell the U.S. Supreme Court. #ProtectICWAhttps://t.co/CPmQVLwZR6
— Ruth H. Robertson (Red Road Woman) (@Ruth_HHopkins) September 21, 2022
Allowing children from these communities to be placed through state
foster care when there are family or tribal members to take them in
dissociates children from their culture and perpetuates the harmful
effects of decades of state and federal policies that enabled removal of
Native children from their families and tribes.
Because evidence shows that children’s mental and physical health are
best served when placed with a family or tribal member, the Litigation Center of the American Medical Association and State Medical Societies
and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are urging the U.S.
Supreme Court to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978.
The law—passed in response to decades of laws that took children away
from their families and tribes and promoted forced assimilation—says
that a child’s extended family is the first preference for adoption,
followed by members of the child’s tribe. In the case before the U.S.
Supreme Court, Haaland et al. v. Brackeen et al., seven people,
along with Texas, Louisiana and Indiana are challenging the ICWA’s
provisions as race-based discrimination infringing on state sovereignty.
“Invalidating ICWA risks returning far too many children to the
assimilationist realities of the past. The historical trauma that so
many already suffer would be compounded and magnified with fresh loss.
Preserving ICWA, however, protects the critical familial and tribal
support networks” that American Indian and Alaska Native “children need
to thrive,” says the amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court (PDF) by the AAP and AMA Litigation Center.
PLEASE Support First Nations and Inuit Survivors that Survived these horrid schools. Post an Orange Shirt logo or even better, wear Orange Shirt. pic.twitter.com/hZln46WQ1d
TW: Suicide So back in 2015 there was a spirit going around all the reservations in SD by the name of Tall Man, and when he was around the suicide rates raised so much. Anyways, after awhile it seemed like he left, but on Thursday night he was spotted here in CRST.
I haven’t heard his name in a long time, but last Thursday my Lakota teacher says he was spotted in a small community on my rez. It’s called Tiospaye Topa, and that’s where Elora and I stay. 🥲 They had to smudge the students at school the next morning.
2021 BOOK: After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and asks what reconciliation might mean in light of this haunted history. In this timely and urgent book, settler historian Margaret Jacobs tells the stories of the individuals and communities who are working together to heal historical wounds--and reveals how much we have to gain by learning from our history instead of denying it.
Margaret D. Jacobs is professor of history and director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Her books include White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940.
Jacobs will be in conversation with Alaina E. Roberts, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on the intersection of Black and Native American life from the nineteenth century to the modern day with particular attention to identity, settler colonialism, and anti-Blackness. In addition to her first book, I've Been Here All The While: Black Freedom on Native Land, and multiple academic articles, her writing has appeared in outlets like the Washington Post and TIME magazine and her work has been profiled by the likes of CNN and the Boston Globe. Find her on Twitter @allthewhile1.
A necessary reckoning with America's troubled history of injustice to Indigenous people
Jacobs traces the brutal legacy of
systemic racial injustice to Indigenous people that has endured since
the nation's founding. Explaining how early attempts at reconciliation
succeeded only in robbing tribal nations of their land and forcing their
children into abusive boarding schools, she shows that true
reconciliation must emerge through Indigenous leadership and sustained
relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that are
rooted in specific places and histories.
In the absence of an official
apology and a federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ordinary
people are creating a movement for transformative reconciliation that
puts Indigenous land rights, sovereignty, and values at the forefront.
With historical sensitivity and an eye to the future, Jacobs urges us to
face our past and learn from it, and once we have done so, to redress
past abuses. Drawing on dozens of interviews, After One Hundred Winters
reveals how Indigenous people and settlers in America today, despite
their troubled history, are finding unexpected gifts in reconciliation.
Graphic Novel
Developed for a classroom audience, this graphic novel is available for download, print-on-demand, and for a limited time - free on request.
Jaya, a Native teen temporarily separated from her mom, accompanies her Grandmother and Aunt to a family reunion. Between chores and activities, the older women lead her through a story about Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, combining history and their own memories of attending the boarding school in northern Oklahoma. Their account arouses a range of emotions in the teen, from tears, to laughter, to anger, to compassion. The result: a new respect for her family and the resilience of Native peoples, along with insights into how Jaya might handle the changes in her own life.
This story, set in present-day Oklahoma, was compiled from the experiences of real students who attended Chilocco, and their recollections were shared through oral history interviews, photographs, letters, and other archival sources. It engages students and adults in an often overlooked part of U.S. history and pushes back against stereotypes of Native identity.
Get the free digital download of the graphic novel!
Want a physical printed copy of this book, you can order a printed copy from Literati Press for $5.
Want a library or classroom copy of the printed book, contact us.
Also see this related Project Based Learning module from Dr. Lisa Lynn Brooks.
Project support from Oklahoma Humanities.
Join
NABS as we screen the short film “Voices from Pezihutazizi Oyate:
Boarding School Histories” followed by a panel discussion. Over the past
few years NABS has partnered with the Upper Sioux Community on a
digitization and oral history project, one of the results of this
partnership was a short film looking at the unique experiences of the
Yellow Medicine Nation.
The panel will be moderated by NABS Creative Director Kenrick Escalanti and will feature community members and experts.
Documentary description: As hurtful truths come to light in the public eye regarding
historically operated Federal Indian boarding schools in the United
States, many Native Nations are reclaiming their voices regarding these
assimilative educational institutions. For the Upper Sioux Community
(“Yellow Medicine Nation”) living in Minnesota, these historical truths
are known to have cast profound ripples that effect their present. This
mini documentary explores community interpretations of this boarding
school past and offers hope for justice and healing.
Building better relationships with Vermont’s Abenaki tribes
Building
better relationships with Vermont’s Abenaki tribes-- that’s what the
Vermont Department for Children and Families is hoping to achieve with
the creation of their newest position. - File photo(FILE)
By Kiana Burks
Published: Sep. 4, 2022
MONTPELIER,
Vt. (WCAX) - Building better relationships with Vermont’s Abenaki
tribes-- that’s what the Vermont Department for Children and Families is
hoping to achieve with the creation of their newest position. The role
is called the Indian Child Welfare Act coordinator. The title references
the
federal law that aims to keep Native American children under the care of
relatives or tribe members whenever safe and possible. Because Abenaki tribes are recognized by the state but not by the federal government, that federal law doesn’t apply to them.
“Vermont
is one of the few states that does not have any federally recognized
tribes. But that doesn’t mean that we do not see these families,” said
Lindsay Barron, the policy and planning manager for the Department for
Children and Families.
When a child
could have tribal affiliation or heritage, the coordinator will be
responsible for verifying that information with the relevant tribes
before a child is placed in another home. Advocates like Jeff Bena,y the
director of Indian education for Franklin County public schools, say
that placing an emphasis on the child’s culture could be a game changer.
“It
breaks your heart when you see some of the stuff and some of the things
that these kids go through. And it really is a traumatic experience. If
we can reduce that level of trauma, for so many of the kids this would
be amazing… If the state of Vermont can finally say that we want to work
with you, and we understand that there’s a culture here and we
understand that there’s this distinct community, what can we do to
support kids? Well, this is going to go a long way,” said Benay.
Currently,
a paralegal with the Vermont attorney general’s office conducts these
tribal verifications after DCF workers speak with a child’s family
member.
“It’s rethinking where it’s
sitting within state government. And so, our intention first and
foremost of this position is to continue to maintain compliance with an
ICWA and all the notification work that we’re already doing that’s
already happening. It’s not just about federal compliance, and it’s not
just about the law, but it’s about doing what is right and doing what is
best practice,” said Barron.
The
Department for Children and Families hopes the coordinator will help
build collaborative relationships with Vermont’s Abenaki communities, as
well as strengthen existing partnerships.
Joanne Crawford, the chief of the Abenaki nation of Missisquoi, says she hopes the same.
“I
think this is a great opportunity for there to be more communication
and support and for us to work together and make sure that it’s
happening in a very sensitive way to all that are involved because this
is a very traumatic event for children and it’s traumatic for families. I
would love to see us be part of creating policy around this,” said
Crawford.
The application for the position has already closed and the person who is hired for the role is expected to begin in October.
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