Yesterday I was talking to my husband about an adoptee who is in another country and needs help to find her family and tribe. Her (amended) (fake) birth certificate is from Utah.
Utah is a closed record state. BAD NEWS. But Utah has an adoption registry: and she can register online, which is new. https://adoptionregistry.utah.gov/ - Their website says: The Utah Adoption Registry is a voluntary, mutual consent registry that
helps adult adoptees born in Utah and their birth parents and blood
related siblings reunite with one another.
Of course there is a fee: Check or Money Order made out to 'Vital Records'. New registration: $25. Update to Match Search information: $10.
She was adopted in Utah but could be born somewhere else. She sent me a copy of her fake OBC (the original birth certificate, amended after adoption) and it lists her adoptive parents as her birth parents.
She told me in an email her adoption was private, which means lawyers were involved, I guess. Why? Paperwork.
I emailed back: Are
your adoptive parents still alive? I ask this because they have your
adoption papers (from the adoption hearing) that probably lists your
birth mother. (mine did) There had to be a hearing in order to produce
your fake birth certificate with the adopters names. This adoptee was born in 1981 but the birth certificate was issued in 2006. (Weird -- 25 years later?) Even if it was a
private adoption, lawyers and a judge had to create paperwork to
make the (fake) birth record.
Nothing on her birth certificate tells us where she was actually born, what hospital, what time, her weight and length, etc.
I had already sent her a list of tribes in Utah: Utes, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshone, and Navajo. There are eight federally recognized tribes.
I also suggested that she do a DNA test to find a relative.
But the problem with DNA tests- some Native people DO NOT WANT to have their DNA and blood is some database. We know why. History is a horror show. The government created this barbaric practice of closed adoptions and fake papers. And they created the INDIAN ADOPTION PROJECTS: we do not know how many children were trafficked and given new fake identities to make them "white" and "American."
Canada claims about 20,000 were part of the 60s Scoop (their adoption trafficking project) but others say it was triple that number. The US has never released any numbers of children for all their Indian Adoption Projects or ARENA or an apology. It was thousands and thousands.
Until we reunite with our relatives, which many of us have done, Closed Adoption accomplished our erasure as sovereign citizens in our tribal nations.
I do think about what we need to do. Do we need a website for Native moms to list their children's date of birth and their names, to help her find them. That might not work since adoptees have little to no information. How can the adoptee know their real date of birth or where they were born? Adoptees are the most lied to, and denied the truth, and denied their paperwork. I can barely stomach this ongoing atrocity.
How can we match missing children to their parents and their tribes?
Do you see the mess this is? Do you realize this was created by a government to make it nearly impossible to find your tribe?
The clock is ticking. Parents age and pass. How long must we wait to see a change in the US?
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson points to one of 5,703
state flag designs posted in the Utah office in Millcreek, Utah, 2022 | Photo by Carter Williams, KSL.com, St. George News
SALT LAKE CITY — Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson has
joined a number of Utah leaders voicing support for the Indian Child
Welfare Act and enacting legal protections for Native American adoptions
at the state level.
Henderson recently tweeted her support for the act. The law, often referred to as ICWA, was passed in 1978 to safeguard against extensive forced separation of Native children from their families and communities. It is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court.
“A tribe is a political and governmental classification, not a racial one,” Henderson tweeted.
“Utah supports the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and will seek to
codify it to protect the eight federally recognized Native American
tribes in our state.”
Codifying ICWA in Utah law has widespread support,
including from Utah’s eight federally recognized tribes, the Indian Law
Section of the Utah State Bar and the Utah Native American Legislative
Liaison Committee, which voted unanimously in
November to introduce an ICWA bill in the 2023 legislative session.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes was also a part of a bipartisan
coalition that submitted an amicus brief in support of ICWA, arguing
that the law fosters good relationships between states and tribal
governments.
U.S. Supreme Court's pending decision on a Native American adoption law will impact Mississippi Choctaws. Credit: Courtesy of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
A challenge to a decades-old federal law has the potential to impact tribes around the country,
including those in Mississippi.
The Indian Child Welfare Act governs child custody of Native
children. If a child is removed from their parents, the act sets
preferences to place the child with another family member, another
member of the tribe or a different tribe.
The case Brackeen v. Halaandbefore the Supreme Court
challenges these preferences. Three pairs of non-Native foster parents
and three states are suing the federal government and five tribes,
arguing the act discriminates against non-Native people based on race.
Tribes including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are watching the case and see more at stake than adoption.
“As the only federally recognized tribe in the State of Mississippi,
our 11,000 plus members are descendants of those members who chose to
remain here in Mississippi to preserve our cultural heritage on our
ancestral homelands,” the tribe said in a statement. “Today, just as in
the past, the preservation and security of our tribe, and our tribal
children and families are of utmost importance.”
“I look forward to taking all of my professional experience and diligently applying it to the work ahead of me,” Maldonado said.
“This
is a moment of importance not just for me, but for all of Indian
Country as the Governor’s wisdom in this appointment sends a message
about the critical importance of the work of tribal courts,” Maldonado
added. “I am grateful to the Governor and her team, and I look forward
to giving all of Michigan my best.”
I think of
greatest importance is Maldonado’s work on the Indian Child Welfare Act.
The act was designed to try and keep native children in welfare cases
with their family, extended family or a tribal nation. The
constitutionality of the law is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As a tribal member she brings a Native sensibility to the state appeals court.
Sierra Charwood, 19, said the
possibility of overturning the act is especially scary since her
great-grandmother was forced to go to one of the boarding schools the
federal government used to forcibly removed American Indian children
from their homes in order to assimilate them into white culture. Because of that, Charwood lost the chance to learn more about her
language and culture because it was not passed down, she said.
"It directly affected me that way — I don't have access to my language, my history, my roots," she said.
Charwood and other American Indian students fear that if the act were overturned, it could bring back boarding schools.
"Doing
this would be taking multiple steps back, and with placing Native
children in homes that aren't equipped for them and cannot better them,"
she said. "If this happens again, we're going to see a big hit to our
community."
If ICWA is overturned, it could have ramifications affecting generations of Native children, Littlest Feather said.
