Our Souls Cry: Proposed ICWA guidelines and hearings underway

By Trace

 

Last week I did write a statement and submitted it via email to the BIA.

I also read the Regulations for State Courts and Agencies in Indian Child Custody Proceedings and made a comment as an adoptee, as an advocate for other Native American adoptees and as an unofficial expert since I have authored three books (one as a memoir) about the Indian Adoption Projects.

 

Article on Yesterday’s Public Hearing on Proposed ICWA Regulations

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Kate Fort

 

Here, via NICWA.

“That’s been the plan from the beginning,” Bradley Goodsky told a mostly sympathetic audience at Mystic Lake Casino on Wednesday. “It’s like [child protection] has a crystal ball and we’re doomed to fail.”
Goodsky was one of the speakers to address federal administrators who are considering making it more difficult for social workers to put Indian children in foster care. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is proposing new rules that it says will strengthen the Indian Child Welfare Act, the 1978 law passed by Congress to stop the “often unwarranted” breakup of Indian families.
The act provides guidelines to child protection agencies and juvenile courts that set a high standard for placing Indian children into foster care, and it gives tribes a say in those cases. The proposed changes would raise that bar even higher, by requiring that child protection and the courts first determine if a child is Indian, and then only remove that child from a home where there is “present or impending risk of serious bodily injury or death.”  Kevin Washburn, the U.S. Interior Department assistant secretary who leads the BIA, is touring the country with other agency officials to hear from tribes and the public about the proposals.

“Guidelines are great,” Washburn told the group at the casino in Prior Lake. “We need things that are legally enforceable.”

But those voices were far outnumbered by speakers who told stories about the damage caused to Indian children by being separated from their culture.

“Native adoptive souls have been stolen,” said Gio Cerise, who was just 2 weeks old when adopted into a non-Indian family in 1965. “Our souls cry.”

Do you have your written comments in yet? They are due May 19.

OPEN ADOPTION DEBATE: No matter what, some sense of loss (from my archives)

Experts on both sides of the open-adoption debate agree that most adoptees realize they've been given up once and fear it happening again. 


By Sonia Nazario, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer  August 6, 2007

EXPERTS who advocate open adoption as well as those who oppose it say that adoptees grapple with a sense of loss. Virtually all adoptees understand that they have been given up by their birth parents and fear deep down that they might be given up again. Open-adoption advocates say that most adopted babies grow into well-adjusted children. At any given time, however, these advocates say, adoptees might react to the loss of their birth families in more pronounced ways.
Some of them express loyalty and gratitude constantly, trying to win favor with their adoptive parents. In the extreme, these children become overly adaptive — compliant to a fault. They often show little or no interest in the "other mother."
Others act out. These children test their adoptive parents repeatedly, seeking reassurance that their second set of parents won't give them up. In the extreme, they act out violently to test their adoptive parents to the limit.
They love their adoptive parents, but they also long for their birth families and feel sadness, even anger, about being adopted.
Kendall McArthur's adoptive mother, Dorothea McArthur, a therapist who works with adoptees, places Kendall in the mid-range of the children who act out. This has made Kendall's experience with open adoption more difficult than most. Still, Kendall did not require help at a residential mental health facility, as do 7% of adolescent children who are adopted as babies, according to an Illinois State University study.
 
Some of the pitfalls that Kendall and both sets of her parents faced as pioneers in open adoption have been eased today by counseling. Many adoption agencies now require "vision matching" sessions, where birth and adoptive parents state their expectations about visits and future communication. These sessions determine how special occasions will be celebrated and how future conflicts will be resolved. Birth and adoptive parents learn how to deal with fear, distrust and anger.  They learn how to set boundaries and ground rules and how to be assertive but sensitive. Birth parents are counseled to stay in touch and not to contradict adoptive parents in front of their children. Adoptive parents are counseled to work with birth parents to keep children from dividing and conquering.
Many birth and adoptive families describe wonderful relationships in open adoptions, where the birth mother becomes like a loving aunt. Indeed, the most comprehensive longitudinal study of open adoption has found that openness is beneficial in significant ways.
The study, conducted by the University  of Minnesota and the University of Texas, is known as the Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project. It is ongoing and tracks 190 married couples in 23 states who adopted infants before their first birthdays in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The adoptions represent more than 30 levels of openness — from closed adoptions, through adoptions in which parents have contact through
intermediaries, to adoptions in which adoptees have direct contact with their birth families.
Though the study has found that the degree of openness does not affect self-esteem or emotional adjustment, it also has found that by adolescence, children in open adoptions:
•  Were not confused about who their parents were.
•  Clearly understood the roles of their adoptive and birth parents.
•  Felt their relationships with their birth mothers gave them a strong
source of additional support.
•  Helped them understand who they were.
 
By adolescence, 62% of the study subjects had stayed in contact with their birth mothers. Of those, 98% wanted the contact to continue or to increase.
Among the adoptees in closed adoptions, the study found, half wanted their adoptions to stay closed, mostly because they felt that being adopted was not important and that contact with birth families might be negative. The other half wanted contact and felt hurt that their birth mothers had not sought them out.
 
Thomas Atwood, the president and chief executive of the nonprofit National Council for Adoption, which has lobbied against open adoptions, rejects the notion that adoptees are somehow incomplete if they do not know their birth family. "We will defend the option of confidentiality," Atwood said.
 
Sharon Roszia, coauthor of "The Open Adoption Experience," and who proposed open adoption to Dorrie and David McArthur, said children in closed adoptions wrestle with many of the psychological issues that Kendall faced. For these children, Roszia said, the issues simply remain submerged. These children deal with additional issues: Didn't my birth mother care enough to find me? Are the people I come from so terrible that I can't know them?  Parents who approach open adoptions with an open heart find that the benefits outweigh the risks, Roszia said. "It is better to deal with reality than fantasy and fear. Better to know than not know."

[ I know children need good homes, of course. But if it is possible to have an open adoption, it is much better for the child adoptee...  And again, if it is a Native child, they need to remain in their tribal nation.... Trace]

UNCOVER YOUR HISTORY (Thanks to everyone at the Pequot Museum)

Having just visited the Pequot Museum on Saturday [March 5] to read from One Small Sacrifice, I know the history of American Indians and First Nations is one of the most neglected (or blatantly ignored) in these United States.
Few Americans care about the Pequot or other Native Americans or our struggle or our truths of what happened since First Contact. The Pequot in Mashantucket built a museum to tell the world their story of their bravery and their survival, despite the odds stacked against them by various invaders and colonizers.
The genocide of the Pequot didn’t happen. The genocide via assimilation of American Indian adoptees didn’t happen either.
I am proof of that, along with the many Lost Children/adoptees I talk to regularly. The colonizers did attempt to erase us (via SEALED ADOPTIONS) but they didn’t succeed in erasing our blood. In fact, they failed miserably. Like I told the audience about my friend Jess, if your Mormon adoptive mother says “you are no longer Lakota, you are a Mormon” – in fact she is wrong. You are Lakota forever, despite her adopting you and converting you to her Mormon religious beliefs.
Our Indian blood is our memory. It can never be erased.
Adoptees who are American Indian are regularly getting around the laws of sealed adoption records and many find their tribe, despite the odds stacked against them.
I was happy to see friends in this audience and I made many new friends. There were people who already read my book. This was good to hear. One beautiful Taino man asked me how my book can become a best seller. I told him my book was written for Indian people – so that they learn about what happened to Lost Birds/adoptees. I told him my book will not be a "bestseller."  I never expected my memoir to hit the New York Times bestseller list.
It's ironic I found this advice on a blog today and it struck me how true it is -- for adoptees!
This was the quote: “Uncover your history to discover your current mystery. Patterns and habits can be deep. Look at your early childhood experiences. Are you a people pleaser? Why? How did this start? Are you shy and withdrawn? How did this start? Finding the root of your emotional habits will equip you to make different choices. Conscious choice is incredibly empowering.”
OK. Many ADOPTEES are not exactly able to uncover their history. We were supposed to remain a mystery, right? Our status as adopted human beings is a monster of a mystery. I hated being that mystery. I opened my adoption at 22 to solve my mystery. Then I did years of self-study to see how my patterns set me up for low self-esteem and deep dark attachment issues. I was a shipwreck, sinking and suffering many years.
YES, I was a “people pleaser” – but not anymore. I think I was a “people pleaser” because I feared more rejection. I didn’t want anyone to not “like” me. This is serious stuff for adoptees to overcome.
Writing about your life helps to reveal patterns and habits. I found that sitting with a pen and paper at 4 a.m. could release some very painful memories of my childhood. I had years that were blank. I know other adoptees with this same experience.
Uncovering your history is so important. If you start with the idea you began your life at Chapter Two, something rapper Darryl McDaniels recently said in an interview, then you realize you need to find out what is in your Chapter One. You must open your adoption to do that.
I did open my adoption and it did change me. In fact, since I started writing One Small Sacrifice and doing this blog, I found there are ways to open your adoption and get around these inhumane archaic  laws. There is plenty about this in my memoir. And I have found search angels who do this work and help adoptees (and first families) for free or for small fees.
Please know adoptees, you are not alone. There are perhaps 10 million adoptees in America. 10 Million! If we stand together for open adoption records, we can win this human rights battle.
Many thanks to all who came to hear me read at the Pequot Museum. It was a day to celebrate my book was even published and how adoptees do survive against the odds, just like the brave Pequot did.

Survivor of Boarding School (and a true hero) passes

Residential school survivor overcame ordeal
By Mark Lemstra, Special to The StarPheonix
March 3, 2011

On Tuesday night, Doreen, a close friend of mine, passed away.
She was a survivor of residential schools. Doreen's story is remarkable not only for the trauma to which she was exposed as a child, but for the way she chose to respond to such adversity.
Instead of quitting, she rose to obtain a university degree in social work and spent her time counselling other victims of residential schools.
Residential schools were first conceptualized in 1820 by the Sir Peregrine Maitland, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, to gain "influence over children." The Department of Indian Affairs rationalized that the government needs to "kill the Indian in order to save the man," and that to do so, "It is to the young we must look for the complete change of condition."
The Gavin Report of 1879 recommended forcibly removing children from their parents, placing them in custody of the government and church, and maintaining separation from parents for as long as possible -"the better for success."
The other justification was to maintain order. After the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, Superintendent James McRae from Indian Affairs concluded: "It is unlikely that any tribe would give trouble of a serious nature to a government whose members had children completely under government control."
To keep parents away from their children, the secretary general of Indian Affairs, Edgar Dewdney, in 1891 authorized "the employment of the police to keep the visitors off the precincts."
The goal was to take Indian children from their parents "at earliest age possible," which was deemed to be six years of age. Removal from the parents for 10 years was needed to ensure that "all the Indian there is in the race should be dead."
Duncan Campbell Scott, superintendent of Indian education, declared before Parliament in 1920: "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question."
The first major problem was chronic underfunding of residential schools. It took $185.55 per student per year to provide basic services. Regrettably, only $115 per student was allocated. Thus the underfunded schools were poorly built and maintained, and over-crowded, resulting in a crisis of sanitation and health.
It also forced the children to work extreme amounts of physical labour in order to pay their own way. The Indian Affairs Department labelled the residential schools "a disgrace to anybody."
Dr. P.H. Bryce, chief medical health officer for the department, wrote in 1922: "Fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education they had received therein." Bryce concluded that these schools were a "criminal disregard" and " a national crime" of the responsibility placed on the government and its thirdparty provider.
In fact, the legal opinion from S.H. Blake to cabinet minister Frank Oliver was that: "The appalling number of deaths among the younger children appeals loudly to the guardians of our Indians. In doing nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the department within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter."
For example, the death rate from tuberculosis in residential schools was 86.1 per 1,000 children, compared to 0.09 deaths per 1,000 children in Canadian cities.
To save costs from the high death rates, Indian children were buried two per grave.
The second major problem was physical and sexual abuse committed against the children. Children were often strapped, whipped, chained to beds and locked in cold, dark rooms. Reviews conducted by Indian Affairs of the abuse concluded that "beating was the norm, more or less, in every boarding school in the country."
Approximately 80 per cent of the children were routinely physically abused and 50 per cent sexually assaulted. The last school closed in 1986.
Doreen was kind enough to share her personal stories and wisdom with me for about half an hour at a time, almost daily, for two years. She gave me an education I could never receive by reading books.
As well, she often attended my university classes to share her stories with graduate students. When she got to the part about how she was prepared by the nun, and what she was forced to do with the priest, there was never a dry eye in the room.
Perhaps most surprisingly my friend believed in forgiveness. Instead of hating the government or the church, she believed it was the work of individual failings.
Doreen also believed in the spiritual world. I have no doubt that she is there now. I will never forget her.
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

Tend to the soul

By Trace Hentz (blog editor)

I recently created a better balance in my life. Since 2004, I had one focus and little else: adoption.
Now there are days when I do not think about being an adoptee or monitor the business of adoption. Instead I tend to the soul. I did this by creating a new environment. I play music, watch movies and read books for the pure joy. I have been dumping old papers and clearing space, creating a more joyful place to sit, read and write. I listen to NPR each day. All this feeds me.
If you’d noticed, I was all about adoption…deeply immersed. And it served me well. I birthed articles in 2005, created this blog in 2009 and published a memoir in 2010.

Finally I have a new identity – one who is well-adjusted and happily complete; one who met her makers and know who they are. Everyone in my life has brought me to this place in my life. It is a momentous time when the split-feathers are joined. The splits in my life were disjointed emotions, painful ideas and dreadful disappointments. After 50 years of trying to understand the people who made me and raised me, the weaving of me is now complete. I am no longer defined by what I did not know but rather what I do know. I see all my experiences for their important lessons. I searched for my answers and I found them. I feel more present, more alive. I greet every sunrise and sunset with gratitude.

There is a presence in my life now that was not so evident before. Even the internet reconnected parts of my injured soul. I made many new friends; they healed my heart. Their art, writing, blogs and poetry are food for my soul.

As an orphan-child I had no control over what was happening to me, so I spun out of control. Being split was the only way to handle it. I was on a very disturbing emotional journey that I would not wish for anyone. Many things I could not control, and the people who controlled my path did not respect or see what I truly needed. I had to be very patient and grow strong enough to see the point. I learned what control means. Now I can see how many laws and moral judgments controlled all my parents and formed their opinions which informed their decisions.

My mother Helen was cruelly judged as a young woman and she was unable to keep me. She named me Laura Jean Thrall. This was all she could give when I came into the world. I read about her experience in my adoption file. Her story changed me. It opened me. I could not love her more. I completely understand what she had to go through, even though she was not able to tell me or meet with me. I no longer grieve this.

It seems funny to say this but I had to learn how to choose. I had not been given choices for such a long time, deep down I did not know or believe that I could make good choices. Now I know I can. I can create and do whatever I want. I can heal myself. I choose what to feel and what to let go. My feelings of being powerless are gone.

On other days, adoption work is all I do: I read blogs, read Facebook, read news, plus I am working on BOOK 2 called “Two Worlds.” I have met more new adoptees since my radio interview with Jay Nighthawk in Washington DC on January 7th.

This work feeds my soul that yearns for justice for all Native American adoptees. I do this work with a purpose: to open sealed adoption records so that others can feel complete and make their journey. I teach this story so it will never happen again. I will continue to help others make their reunions with tribal family a reality.

I have two readings coming up, one in February and one in March (2011).  

There is a Lakota saying, Mitakuye Oyasin, which means “we are all related.” 

This is a very powerful statement concerning our small planet, how we are all interconnected and woven into one world. I pray one day the entire world will see every child is sacred and closed adoptions will be a thing of the past. I pray every mother can raise her own child because family and community will support her. I pray for every adoptee still in pain and searching. I pray for those parents who lost their child because of poverty, powerlessness and oppression. If one suffers, we all suffer. We are all woven in this one web, one world. We are all related.

The Strong People | Adoptees

posted by Trace L Hentz (1-17-2011)
 

Australian Senate Inquiry into Forced Adoptions: a Facebook Group: moderated by Lizzy Brew: Adoption should be outlawed because it is a cover for the truth. It is a created reality. Everyone has a family. There is no such thing as a birth relative, just a relative which a legal contract forbids a child to see. There is no justification for such a destructive arrangement. Anyone entering into such an arrangement is prepared to hurt a child in order to have it as their own.

The Strong People

Since the 1800s, Indigenous children from across North America were removed great distances from their homes and culturally-reprogrammed in large military-like facilities called residential boarding schools. One word to describe what happened to them is “brainwashed.” The kinder word is “assimilated.”

Why were these children treated like savages? Indians weren’t human; they were fierce warrior-like bare-chested wild Indians who shot arrows from bows and rode bareback and painted their faces and bodies. The “western” movie images never captured the beauty, or bravery, or dignity, or explained why Indian people fought the colonizer.

Laws were enacted to civilize Indians, to teach them “Christian values,” and to force them to stay in one place and become farmers instead of hunters. The Great White Fathers, the Presidents of the United States who lived in Washington, worked to seize more and more territory and tribal lands, and created bogus treaties only to break them later. These presidents forcibly removed tribes onto reservations, east to west. Then residential schools opened.

No matter what happened in these schools, these children grew into the strong people who endured every loss and suffered every indignity. They learned and realized what was happening. Some lived to return to their tribe, while others did not. These schools changed the Indian and Indian Country. The effects are still being felt.

Adoptees/Lost Children

Even erased, adoptees are still a part of Indian history. Wherever our tribes settled, they remain sovereign and sacred. Indians teach their own. Friends teach friends.

For adoptees with Native ancestry, we don’t know whether to feel abandoned or just plain robbed. “How can you miss people you haven’t met?” That is the million dollar question. We just do. It’s in our blood (even when we have more than one ancestry).

If you grow up near an Indian reservation and witness poverty firsthand, even today the U.S. government will insist Indian people are better off in cities or urban areas. What arrogance to suggest indoor plumbing and three meals a day are all an Indian family needs to survive. They need their families intact to survive.

The Adoption Projects and Programs, the next solution to the Indian problem, was to adopt and assimilate Indian kids far away from their homes and put them in new non-Indian families. The governments decided if you seal the records, the adoptee will never know.

I do not accept their plan. I plan to change their plan. I have many friends helping do this work. This blog was created to be a friend to the adoptees who have Native ancestry. If you are a Native adoptee, and need help, I am here for you.