Michelle St. Germaine, left, and her sister Roberta St. Germaine pose for a portrait in Regina. TROY FLEECE / Regina Leader-Post
Michelle St. Germaine looks at the camera and smiles.The 18-month-old girl is seated and wearing a white dress and dress
shoes in a portrait photo. There are also pictures of her three older
siblings: Terry, Roberta and Denise. Each grins for the camera.
Roberta and Denise are wearing identical dresses and knee-high socks.
Their brother Terry wears a dress shirt and a bow tie. The photos
resemble those taken by proud parents of their children.
Except this is an advertisement for the Adopt Indian Metis program
(AIM) in a Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times newspaper. Their
photos are located next to ads for men’s jackets, heavy-duty filing
cabinets and classifieds for local bridal showers.
The ad is titled “Is there a home that needs a family?” Interested
couples of Roman Catholic faith, with or without children, are invited
to inquire. The children’s names are even changed in the ad (Rose Marie,
Deanna, Cindy and Bobby), a tactic used to make it more difficult for
birth parents to find them.
Michelle and her siblings were eventually placed on a farm in
southeast Saskatchewan, but “family” isn’t exactly an accurate
description of what awaited them.
“It wasn’t good,” says Michelle, now 51, seated at the kitchen table in her Regina home.
“They were very physically abusive,” she adds. “It was just like they adopted all of us kids to work on their farm.”
One of her earliest memories of the farm is sitting on a platform
towed by a tractor driven by her adopted father. She and her siblings
were helping him plant evergreens on the farm.
“There was a hole in that platform, and we had to drop trees into
that hole, and I can barely remember that, so they put us to work right
away,” recalls Michelle. “I must have been like three years old.”
The family’s property stretched across 19 sections of land, where
Michelle and her siblings did “every kind of work there is to do on a
farm.”
They say the work was accompanied by frequent beatings from their
adopted father. Roberta, Michelle’s older sister, recalls one incident
during the spring when she was 13 and chasing cattle up a hill.
An adoption ad featuring the St. Germaine siblings that appeared in a
Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times newspaper. (Photo courtesy
Assiniboia Times)Photo courtesy Assiniboia Times
Roberta was up to her knees in mud when one of her boots fell off her foot.
“So I put a step back to try to put my foot back in my boot, and he
whipped me. He whipped me on my back and I had to run around in my sock
foot the rest of the way,” says Roberta.
At some point, Roberta had enough. She describes an incident in which
Terry lay on the floor in a Quonset as their father kicked him with
steel-toed boots. Seeing her brother rolled up into a ball while
receiving the beating, Roberta attacked their foster father.
“I took one hand and I took the other hand and I just pounded his head,” she remembers.
Roberta jumped off him and ran into the house, hoping to incur some of his wrath and save Terry from further blows.
It worked. Michelle remembers her father chasing Roberta into the house to begin beating her.
“It was very like living in fear most of our lives,” says Michelle.
Their adopted father passed away in 2007. An obituary published in
the Leader-Post describes him as a devoted husband and father. It says
he was survived by three children, but makes no mention his adopted,
Indigenous children.
“They never once told us that they loved us,” says Roberta. “Never.”
Michelle and her siblings never met their biological parents again
until 14 years after their adoption. But even after she escaped the
abuses of her adopted home, Michelle struggled with drug addiction,
worked in the sex trade, served jail time and experienced the pain of
being separated from her own children when they were taken into the
custody of social services.
SCOOPED
The St. Germaines are not the only ones with such a story. Hundreds
of thousands of indigenous children in Canada were taken by child
welfare workers during what is now called the Sixties Scoop, and many
were placed into the care of white families.
Stories of abuse are pervasive among survivors, who became
disconnected with their Indigenous heritage and grew up without knowing
their natural parents.
In Saskatchewan, Indigenous children were adopted through AIM, a provincial child welfare program established in 1967.
Dr. Jacqueline Maurice, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop herself,
authored The Lost Children: A Nation’s Shame. She is currently a
clinical preceptor at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of
Medicine. She’s also instructs youth care workers at Saskatchewan
Polytechnic.
Roberta St. Germaine in a photo taken on Aug. 2, 2017 (left) next to a
photo of her when she was five that appeared in an adoption ad placed by
the Adopt Indian Metis Program that appeared in the Sept. 20, 1967
issue of the Assiniboia Times.Troy Fleece Photo
Maurice estimates between 1,700 and 1,900 aboriginal and Metis
children in Saskatchewan were put through the AIM program. They were
adopted to families across Canada, as well as to the United States and
European countries, such as Denmark.
She describes AIM as a program with good intentions, but one that was
still an outright race-based policy. With some Indigenous people unable
to parent because of traumas they suffered in residential schools, the
notion was that AIM would help their children. Instead, it severed
another generation of Indigenous children from their families.
At the time, Maurice says the effects of intercultural adoptions was
not given consideration. “The impact of that wasn’t really a high
priority,” she adds.
With the challenge of finding homes for so many children, AIM was
formed from a two-year grant provided by the federal and provincial
governments. Part of the push to find children homes involved taking out
ads in radio, TV and large print ads in provincial newspapers.
Adoptions were fast-tracked, with homes found for children in as
little as ten weeks. One of AIM’s founders, Frank Dornstauder,
co-authored a paper on the history of child welfare services in
Saskatchewan in 2009. It states AIM made an effort to recruit families
of aboriginal origin as part of “recognizing the importance of cultural
identity.”
The St. Germaines’ experience of not being treated as true members of
their adopted family was a common experience for victims of the Sixties
Scoop.
“Thousands of us really feel like we were not a part of the families.
We were always an outsider looking in, and treated like a visitor and
yes indeed kept for income,” says Maurice.
Michelle’s feeling of being more like an employee than a daughter is
also an experience other Sixties Scoop survivors have shared.
“I really do believe that some children were farmed out so to speak,” says Maurice.
Because of that mentality, children like the St. Germaines did not get to experience childhood.
She believes the perception of Indigenous children as workers stems
from them being seen and treated as a commodity, and describes the
government’s handling of the issue as a “wholesale policy of children.”
Michelle and Roberta are complainants in a class-action lawsuit filed
by Merchant Law Group against the federal and provincial governments.
The lawsuit seeks compensation on behalf of Sixties Scoop victims who
were adopted out to white families through the AIM program.
Last week the federal government announced it would provide $800
million in a compensation package to survivors of the Sixties Scoop,
with between $25,000 and $50,000 to individuals.
The provincial government said in 2015 that it would apologize for
the Sixties Scoop. In August, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said the
apology could come before the end of his time in office, which will come
when the Sask. Party elects a new leader in January.
TAKEN
The last time Shirley Pelletier saw Terry, Roberta, Denise and Michelle before they were taken was in a Regina courtroom.
Pelletier, then 30, was staying with family while her sister looked
after the children at home. Pelletier was then in an abusive
relationship, and feared returning home after discovering her partner
was having an affair.
Pelletier asked her sister to phone a social worker about the
situation. Her children were immediately seized by Social Services, and
Pelletier attended court to identify them. As soon as she did, they were
taken out of the courtroom. That was the last time she saw them for the
next 14 years.
“What could I do? I was a broken person,” says Pelletier years later, sitting beside Roberta in Michelle’s home.
The events are still traumatic for Pelletier.
“This is really hard,” she says, tears coming to her eyes. Roberta,
who was separated from her mother for so many years, leans in close to
comfort her.
“I didn’t need my children to be taken. I needed help from an abusive
relationship. That’s what I needed,” says Pelletier. “Taking my
children away just made everything worse for me and my children.”
Back then, as Pelletier was left to wonder what had become of her children, their pictures were running in the Assiniboia Times.
“They were advertised in the paper like animals, and they were
treated like animals, like slaves on the farm,” says Pelletier. “Now who
does that? Who does that to children?”
Michelle St. Germaine in a photo taken on Aug. 2, 2017 (left) next to a
photo of her when she was two-years-old that appeared in an adoption ad
placed by the Adopt Indian Metis Program that appeared in the Sept. 20,
1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times
In 1981, she ran her own ad, this one in the Western Producer, to
find her children. The ad appeared in a Thursday issue, and by Sunday,
Roberta had called her.
After getting to know their mother, the siblings came to understand
what had happened when they were children. And Pelletier learned what
her children had gone through on the farm.
“They told me a lot of sad stories of the way they were treated. And
that was my greatest hurt — wondering how are my kids being treated, are
they being loved, hoping that they weren’t being abused,” she says.
Pelletier had tried to learn how her children were doing after they’d
been adopted. She made an appointment with a family service bureau in
the city. She recalls being told her children were fine, and that her
daughters were studying ballet.
When she finally met her children as adults, Pelletier was once again
living with her partner, Robert. But Michelle and her siblings were
only able to know their father for five years before he passed away from
lung cancer.
Michelle and her father never spoke of her adoption, but she knows he was hurt by not seeing his children grow up.
“I’m thankful that I got to meet my dad, and I’m thankful that we got
to meet our mom and now we do know what family is like,” says
Michelle. “Before, we never really knew.”
Michelle has her birth father’s last name, as she had no desire to use that of her adopted father.
While Michelle was fortunate enough to start a relationship with her
parents later in life, many children of the Sixties Scoop are not so
lucky. For many survivors, Maurice included, those lost relationships
are never recovered.
“I’ve met my biological mom and my half-brother, and I can count on
one hand the number of conversations we’ve had,” says Maurice.
A TROUBLED NEXT GENERATION
Michelle was asleep when Social Services workers knocked on her door to tell her they were taking custody of her children.
She lived in a house in Regina without proper locks on the door, so
she had stuck knives into the door to keep it shut. Her children,
toddlers at the time, had crossed the street and rolled down a hill.
Michelle was ultimately handcuffed because she kept trying to take her children out of the social workers’ car.
During her 20s, Michelle hardly communicated with her mother. She
temporarily moved to Calgary with her partner. The two became involved
drugs, and Michelle worked in the sex trade.
Michelle and her partner were hooked on the street drug “T and Rs.”
Also known as “poor man’s heroin,” the pills Talwin and Ritalin were
crushed and mixed with water, then injected.
She built up a long criminal record, involving thefts and fraud, to support their habit.
Michelle’s children were continually moved in and out of foster care.
She was serving time in jail when her second son was born in 2002.
Watching her daughter struggle with a life of drugs and crime was devastating for Pelletier.
“You want to see your children doing good for themselves. You don’t want to see your children being failures,” says Pelletier.
Michelle’s youngest son was taken into foster care when he was four years old. She didn’t regain custody of him until he was 11.
When Michelle did get a chance to visit with her children, she would
constantly inspect them for bruises, fearful they would experience the
same abuse she did.
Michelle’s husband, Gabrielle, passed away in 2009 from a leaky heart
valve, which she attributes partially to his drug use. Pelletier
believes it was his death that motivated her daughter to get clean.
On Oct. 5, 2013, Social Services closed Michelle’s file. She had been clean for four years.
“I was just tired. I didn’t want to live like that anymore cause you
have no purpose, no goals,” says Michelle. “I wanted to live for my kids
and be an example to them.”
Michelle now has a much more stable life, living Regina with two of
her children. Terry and Roberta also live in Regina, while Denise passed
away from breast cancer in 2010. She was 49.
Roberta is confident that her sisters would have known a more
peaceful life sooner had she been raised by their real mother, and
believes the proof is in Michelle’s oldest son.
“She raised Michelle’s little boy, and he turned out really good. He
doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do drugs, he’s a really good boy. And I wish
we were raised by her because that’s the way we would have turned out,”
says Roberta.
Instead, Michelle grew up in a home she described as having “no
love.” And that was when it was at its best. She and Roberta remember
feeling a sense of relief when their adopted father had one of his hands
disfigured by an auger.
“He got his hand taken away so he couldn’t hit us anymore,” said Michelle.
The moments of peace she remembers aren’t with her adopted parents.
Instead, they came from riding her horse out into the fields, where she
and her siblings would build fires and camp out for days, only sneaking
back onto the farm to take food from the garden.
The St. Germaines do occasionally have contact with their adopted mother, who they say still refutes that any abuse took place.
While travelling outside the city with her brother last summer,
Michelle decided to make a stop at the farm where they lived. She
wanted to see the evergreens that they had planted all those years ago.
They’re now fully-grown.
No one was home, so Michelle and Terry stood at the foot of the dirt driveway for a few minutes and took pictures.
Standing in front of the farm where she endured so much pain was
surreal for Michelle. Asked why she wanted to visit a place that held
such terrible memories, Michelle says there were still some moments
shared by the siblings that she wanted to acknowledge.
Just like the fires the St. Germaines would build during their
temporary escapes from the farm, their love for each other provided
warmth in a home devoid of the tenderness that parents provide.
“I had to take a moment to kind of push aside the bad and be grateful
that the farm was still intact,” says Michelle. “Even though there was
bad memories there, there was still good memories amongst us four.” mmelnychuk@postmedia.com
Sadly, this was taking place across North America. One group of 19 Hopi men were sent to the U.S. military prison on Alcatraz when they refused to give up their children.
Raven Sinclair was taken from her mother at age
four, along with her siblings. She hopes Friday's settlement helps fund
ways to help people like her heal from their past trauma. (University
of Regina)
143 shares
A Saskatchewan survivor says the federal
government's settlement with Indigenous survivors of the Sixties Scoop —
the details of which are expected Friday morning — has provoked mixed
reactions within herself.
"A small bit of money for a lifetime of change and turmoil and in
some instances pretty extreme trauma — I don't know if the compensation
really matches," said Raven Sinclair, now a professor of social work at
the University of Regina.
"But it's at least an overture that they're making."
Multiple sources speaking on the condition of anonymity told CBC News
on Thursday the settlement will include some $800 million in
compensation, or between $25,000 and $50,000 for each claimant. Roughly
$100 million will be dedicated to other reconciliation initiatives.
Carolyn Bennett, federal minister responsible for Crown-Aboriginal
Relations and Northern Affairs, announced on Monday in addition to the
$750 million earmarked for individual compensation, $50 million would be
set aside for a foundation to provide aid and supports for Sixties
Scoop survivors.
Another $75 million will be provided to cover legal fees accumulated over the years for the plaintiffs.
Conditions of the legal fees compensation, which is capped at $75
million, include the agreement that lawyers will not go back to the
survivors to try and get more money out of them.
During the time period known as the Sixties Scoop, thousands of First
Nations children were forced out of their homes and placed in
non-Indigenous care between 1965 and 1984, which resulted in
psychological harm that has dogged survivors into adulthood, according
to an Ontario Supreme Court ruling.
Sinclair, a member of the George Gordon First Nation in southern
Saskatchewan who was taken from her mother at age four, knows what she'd
like the $10-million reconciliation portion to fund.
"I want to see adoptees have the opportunity to access healing
programs, whether that's individual counselling, group counselling,
healing retreats, culture camps," she said.
"There's endless ways that we can bring people together and help them
to deal with past traumas and find more effective ways of living."
Nakuset said if she knew her language and
culture, she could pass the teachings on to her own children. For now,
they have Cree names and that's a start, she said. (CBC)
Nakuset, a Cree woman from La Ronge who was taken from her family at
age three and adopted to a family in Montreal, told CBC Radio's The Morning Edition the ruling will mean different things to different people.
"What we learned from the residential school pay outs is that those
that weren't able to sort of -- if they weren't able to receive the
moneys, then the money disappeared quite quickly," she said. "It didn't
really help."
Nakuset questions how a dollar amount can be placed on loss of culture, trauma and loss of familial connection.
Nakuset is the executive director of the Native Woman's Shelter of Montreal.
For Nakuset, she said if she went back to her community, she doesn't think she would survive.
"I'm so urban — I don't speak the language. I don't know how to live
off the land. I don't know how to fish. I don't know how to hunt. I
don't know how to do beadwork; I don't know how to do any of the things
I'm supposed to know how to do."
If she knew how to do those things, then the teachings could be
passed on to her children. Nakuset's children have Cree names and that's
a start for now, she said.
Apologies awaited
She's still waiting for an apology, one promised by Premier Brad Wall.
"To me an apology is a recognition of wrongdoing, and also ideally an apology is made because it's not going to happen again."
Bennett said a final agreement still has to be reached, but the
government has set aside $750 million for individual
compensation. They've earmarked another $50 million for a foundation
dedicated to reconciliation initiatives.
Chief Marcia Brown Martel, the lead plaintiff
in an Ontario class action lawsuit related to the Sixties Scoop, drums
out of Centre Block on Parliament Hill. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Government to announce payout of $800M to Indigenous victims of ’60s Scoop
Sources say the agreement includes a payout of between $25,000 and $50,000 for each claimant.
The federal government has agreed to pay
hundreds of millions of dollars to survivors of the ‘60s Scoop for the
harm suffered by Indigenous children who were robbed of their cultural
identities by being placed with non-native families, The Canadian Press
has learned.
The national settlement with an estimated
20,000 victims, to be announced Friday by Crown-Indigenous Relations
Minister Carolyn Bennett, is aimed at resolving numerous related
lawsuits, most notable among them a successful class action in Ontario.
Confidential details of the agreement
include a payout of between $25,000 and $50,000 for each claimant, to a
maximum of $750 million, sources said.
In addition, sources familiar with the deal
said the government would set aside a further $50 million for a new
Indigenous Healing Foundation, a key demand of the representative
plaintiff in Ontario, Marcia Brown Martel.
Spokespeople for both Bennett and the
plaintiffs would only confirm an announcement was pending Friday, but
refused to elaborate.
“The (parties) have agreed to work towards a
comprehensive resolution and discussions are in progress,” Bennett’s
office said in a statement on Thursday. “As the negotiations are ongoing
and confidential, we cannot provide further information at this time.”
The sources said the government has also
agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees — estimated at about $75
million — separately, meaning the full amount of the settlement will go
to the victims and the healing centre, to be established in the coming
months, sources said.
The settlement would be worth at least $800
million and include Inuit victims, the sources said. The final amount is
less than the $1.3 billion Brown Martel had sought for victims of the
Ontario Scoop in which at-risk on-reserve Indigenous children were
placed in non-Aboriginal homes from 1965 to 1984 under terms of a
federal-provincial agreement.
In an unprecedented class action begun in
2009, Brown Martel, chief of the Beaverhouse First Nation, maintained
the government had been negligent in protecting her and about 16,000
other on-reserve children from the lasting harm they suffered from being
alienated from their heritage.
Brown Martel, a member of the Temagami First
Nation near Kirkland Lake, Ont., was taken by child welfare officials
and adopted by a non-native family. She later discovered the Canadian
government had declared her original identity dead.
Her lawsuit, among some 17 others in Canada,
is the only one to have been certified as a class action. Her suit
sparked more than eight years of litigation in which the government
fought tooth and nail against the claim.
However, in February, Ontario Superior Court
Justice Edward Belobaba sided with Brown Martel, finding the government
liable for the harm the ‘60s Scoop caused. Belobaba was firm in
rejecting the government’s arguments that the 1960s were different times
and that it had acted with good intentions in line with prevailing
standards.
While Bennett said at the time she would not
appeal the ruling and hoped for a negotiated settlement with all
affected Indigenous children, federal lawyers appeared to be trying to
get around Belobaba’s ruling. Among other things, they attempted to
argue individuals would have to prove damages on a case-by-case basis.
A court hearing to determine damages in the
Ontario action, scheduled for three days next week, has been scrapped in
light of the negotiated resolution, which took place under Federal
Court Judge Michel Shore.
One source said some aspects of the many
claims might still have to be settled but called Friday’s announcement a
“significant” step toward resolving the ‘60s Scoop issue — part of the
Liberal government’s promise under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make
reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people a priority.
Jeffery Wilson, one of Brown Martel’s
lawyers, has previously said the class action was the first anywhere to
recognize the importance of a person’s cultural heritage and the
individual harm caused when it is lost.
Suzette Brewer specializes in federal Indian law
and social justice issues, having written extensively on the Indian
Child Welfare Act, the Supreme Court and the environment for Indian
Country Today Media Network. Her published books include Real Indians: Portraits of Contemporary Native Americans and America’s Tribal Colleges and Sovereign: An Oral History of Indian Gaming in America.
Todd Coon and his sister Patsy were “scooped” by child welfare
authorities when they were just toddlers in the wake of a 1966 Winnipeg
house fire. Coon’s father could made only one request — that his
children be adopted together.
The pair were shuffled through foster homes over two years before
they were adopted by a family in Ontario. For Coon, it was far from a
happy childhood. “I seemed to be bullied because of my skin colour. I
didn’t know why,” says Coon, now 53.
Coon was 11 before he understood that he was Indigenous and learned
much later he was part of the “Sixties scoop” generation. Between the
1960s and 1980s, thousands of Indigenous children were adopted by white
families. Like Coon, many found themselves with a foot in both cultures,
but feeling alienated by both.
He will be among the 75 scoop survivors gathering in Ottawa this week
from as far away as New Zealand, an event organized by National
Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare. In a way, it is a reunion of
people who may not know each other, but who share the same scars.
Surveillance. Turns out, we’ve invited it into our homes through digital assistants, connected toys and baby monitors. LISTEN: I Spy With My Digital Eye
In this podcast episode, Dr. Cindy Blackstock who advocates for Native children in Canada is featured.
We have posted many articles on her on this blog.
Government spies on advocate for Native children
Why is the federal government spying on Cindy Blackstock?
When does a life-long advocate for aboriginal children become an enemy of the state?
The answer, it would seem, is when you file a human rights complaint
accusing your government of willfully underfunding child welfare
services to First Nations children on reserves.
Accusing your government, in other words, of racial discrimination.
That’s what Blackstock, as executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, did in 2007.
Please share far and wide. Adoptees have come as far away as Alaska. Thank you!
Greetings everyone!
It's that time of year again when we call out for our relatives who are
making their way back to the circle. We also encourage birth
mothers/fathers and relatives to be part of this celebration of life and
healing.
Dancers! Please come dance and welcome our relatives back to our circle.
Adoptees/formerly fostered individuals, birth relatives, foster
parents, foster youth, adoptive parents and your children - this pow wow
is for you............come and celebrate and let us celebrate with you!
1. Adoptees/formerly fostered individuals and birth relatives are
invited to gather in the auditorium on the 2nd floor of the Indian
Center. There we will meet and visit with other adoptees. We will meet
at 10:00 a.m. - 2 hours before the 1:00 grand entry. 2. The ceremony
for adoptees/fostered individuals and others who wish to be part of the
ceremony, will be sometime in the afternoon session around 3:00. 3.
The meeting room will be open again after the ceremony so we can
process and talk about the ceremony or whatever else may be on your
mind. 4. Sometime after the evening grand entry there will be an
honor song for all our Young Relatives who have experienced foster care. 5. There will be an honor song for all our foster and adoptive parents and their families.
14th Annual Gathering for Our Children & Returning Adoptees Pow wow November 4, 2017
MINNEAPOLIS AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER 1530 EAST FRANKLIN AVENUE, MINNEAPOLIS, MNwww.maicnet.org for directions
Now a grandmother in the fourth season of her life, Linda LeGarde
Grover, Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, has crafted 50 short essays that
address what she characterizes as “contemporary and historical Ojibwe
life in northeastern Minnesota from my perspective as an Ojibwe woman.”
Each is a finely nuanced reflection on the spiritual and the mundane,
the everyday and the extraordinary, the seasons of the year and the
seasons of a life.
Courtesy Brett Groehler
Linda LeGarde Grover
“Our time on Mother Earth will end, but we mindimooyag dash akiiwensii know that when our seasons have completed there is continuity beyond our existence as individuals. Biboon [winter] leads that greater life to what always follows, which is another spring [Ziigwan] and thus the continuation of the story,” explains Grover in her introductory observations.
Written over ten years, the volume of essays is titled Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year (University of Minnesota Press, October 2017).Onigamiising
is the Ojibwe word for Duluth, where Grover was born, as were her
grandparents—and her grandchildren. A great part of what she is writing
about is continuity—of family, language, customs and culture. An important preserver of that continuity for the Ojibwe is storytelling, of which this collection is a superb example.
Considering hankies, moccasins, dream catchers and urban chickens,
Grover escorts us through her personal landscape, recalling a childhood
summer [Niibin] graced by an ersatz vehicle made from the
discarded frame of a worn-out baby buggy, a visit to the
temperature-controlled Tweed Museum of Art on a hot and steamy
afternoon, the gatherings and rituals of women: wedding showers, the
collective sewing of ribbon skirts, and a tea party/luncheon/baby shower
arranged by a plethora of girl cousins—all in the service of Mino-bimaadiziwin, the living of a good life, a concept that is “at the foundation of traditional Anishinaabe teaching and learning,” she writes.
Grover talks about the trauma of the boarding school era between 1879
and 1934, when most Indian children were removed from their homes, and
notes that the children were not the only ones to suffer grievous harm.
She refers back repeatedly to the federal Indian boarding school
system that damaged so many lives and led to what she prefers to call intergenerational, rather than historical, trauma.
And she delights in writing about the children, grandchildren, cousins
and relatives whom she has had the privilege of helping to raise—all in
the gentlest possible lyrical prose that is a joy to read.
“The privilege and blessing of raising children were cruelly denied,
which hurt tribes and communities far beyond the family unit,” she
writes. “The heart’s blood of a nation is its families, and the future
of a nation is its children.”
Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year will be published in early October.
Tribal Justice | POV | PBS: In Tribal Justice, two Native American judges reach back to traditional concepts of justice in order to reduce incarceration rates, foster greater safety for their communities, and create a more positive future for their youth. A co-production of Vision Maker Media and American Documentary | POV.
This year's Pow Wow was dedicated to the Scoop survivors of the 1960s. The Sixties Scoop refers to the practice of taking, or “scooping up,” children of Aboriginal peoples in Canada from their families for placing in foster homes or adoption beginning in the 1960s and continuing until the late 1980s. An estimated 20,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and fostered or adopted out to primarily white middle-class families, some within Canada and some in the U.S. or Western Europe. Earlier this year, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that the federal government failed in its common law duty of care to failed to take reasonable steps to prevent thousands of on-reserve children who were placed with non-native families from losing their indigenous heritage.
A national movement led by adoptees has improved access to adoption records in 19 states since 1997. This year, thousands of people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will see their original birth certificates for the first time. Adoptees in Missouri and Arkansas will get that chance starting next year.
When children are adopted in Minnesota, the state creates a new birth certificate
with the child’s adopted name. Adoptees who have requested original
birth certificates from the state Department of Health are often
surprised to get a call back from the private agency that handled their
adoption.
That’s
because Minnesota law requires that agencies try to find the birth
parents before honoring an adoptee’s request for original birth
certificates. About 5 percent of birth parents have notified the state
ahead of time about their preferences. Ninety percent of them said they
welcome their names being known.
Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, circa 1900.
Exhumed remains don't match 19th century Indian child, in fact contains two unidentified sets
CARLISLE, Pa. — According to the Associated Press, the remains unearthed at a Pennsylvania Army base
don't match the Native American child thought to have been buried there
after dying at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School in
the 19th century, authorities said Friday.
The U.S. Army said
Friday the grave thought to contain 10-year-old Little Plume, also
called Hayes Vanderbilt Friday, doesn't match his age, and in fact
contains two sets of unidentified remains.
The remains of 15-year-old Little Chief, also known as Dickens Nor,
and 14-year-old Horse, also called Horace Washington, do match and will
be returned to a Northern Arapaho delegation on Monday. They'll be
reburied in Wyoming's Wind River Reservation.
The grave with
Little Plume's headstone contains remains from a teenage male and
another person of undetermined age or sex. They will be reinterred at
the site.
The government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School,
founded by an Army officer, took drastic steps to separate Native
American students from their culture, including cutting their braids,
dressing them in military-style uniforms and punishing them for speaking
their native languages. They were forced to adopt European names.
More
than 10,000 Native American children were taught there and endured
harsh conditions that sometimes led to death from such diseases as
tuberculosis.
The exhumations began early Tuesday at the post
cemetery on the grounds of the Carlisle Barracks, which today houses the
U.S. Army War College.
Seventeen members of the Northern Arapaho
tribe, including tribal elders and young people, came to Carlisle to
take part in the process. In 2016, the tribe had formally requested the
bodies be returned to them.
"The U.S. Army honored its promise to
reunite Native American families with their children who died more than
100 years ago at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School," Army National
Military Cemeteries Executive Director Karen Durham-Aguilera said in a
statement. "We are thankful to the Northern Arapaho families for their
patience and collaboration during this process."
Editors Note: This is so wrong. And we are expecting them to find more remains that are not officially registered.
The most difficult cases in Montana District Courts involve children who have been abused or neglected in their own homes.
When children are in danger, judges must decide where and with whom they will live, making rulings that could affect the children for life.
When Native American children are involved, the legal situation is more complex. In addition to state law, the federal Indian Child Welfare Act must be applied, and the child’s tribe is part of the decision making.
At any given time, the number of Native American children in Montana’s foster care system is much higher than their 10 percent share of the total child population would suggest.
In Yellowstone County last year, 43 percent of the 550 civil child abuse and neglect cases filed involved children who are tribal members or eligible for membership. But there hasn’t been court resources dedicated specifically to improving outcomes for ICWA children — until now.
Published August 7, 2017 Editor’s Note: This article was published on PENNLIVE.
CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA – It has been more than a century, but they are finally going home.
Three Native American children, buried at what is now the Carlisle Barracks, will be disinterred on Tuesday,
starting the process of returning their remains to their rightful home
in Wyoming, capping decades of efforts to get them there.
The three children are members of the Northern Arapaho Nation and are
among the 200 who died when they were students at the Carlisle Indian
Industrial School. Read more …
FUNK — Cynthia S. “Cindy” Lammers, 51, of Kearney died Tuesday, July 11, 2017, near Funk.
Private family memorial services will be later.
There will be no visitation. Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services is in charge of arrangements.
——
Cindy
was born on Feb. 10, 1966, in Rosebud, S.D. She grew up in Kearney and
graduated from Kearney High School in 1984. She then attended Central
Community College. She married Mike Splitter in Kearney on Aug. 14,
1993. They later divorced.
Cindy worked at Mount Carmel Home and Rehabilitation Center in Kearney. She enjoyed fishing and camping.
Surviving relatives include her father, LeRoy K.
Lammers of Kearney; sister, Shellie Ingersoll and her husband, Odee, of
Kearney; stepbrothers, John Moss and Jeff Moss, both of Fort Wayne,
Ind., David Blankenship and his wife, Sandy, of Alliance and Johnny
Blankenship and his wife, Jennifer, of Lincoln; also many nieces,
nephews, aunts and uncles.
Cindy was preceded in death by her
mother, Norma Lammers; brother, Mitch Lammers; grandparents;
stepbrother, Earl Soden; and birth mother, Amy Standing Soldier-Busch.
Memorials are suggested to the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, S.D.
Visit www.hlmkfuneral.com to leave a tribute or message of condolence.
Photo from the memorial on August 4 (Jessica photo)
Cynthia (Sherry Standing Soldier of Rosebud) contributed her story to the book CALLED HOME: THE ROADMAP, published last year. Our hearts are heavy... Cynthia had finally found her brothers who were also adopted out... Trace
A roadside marker where she was killed (Family Photo)
Tale of Discovery ‘Am I Indian?’: A young man’s journey to reclaim identity Growing up, Matthew Shorting knew that he was Indigenous — but
didn’t know much more than that. Join Matthew on his journey of
discovery as he seeks to find out more about his Indian heritage.
For
the entire NewFire article visit here.
NEWS Tribes Call For Testimony on Children Who Went Missing at Boarding Schools
July 24, 2017. The Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is working
with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) and the Native
American Rights Fund (NARF) to file a submission with the UN Working
Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) to call on
the United States to provide a full accounting of American Indian and
Alaska Native children who were taken into government custody under the
U.S. Boarding School Policy and whose fate and whereabouts remain
unknown.
Vice Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Tom Udall - D - New Mexico
WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall,
vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, held a
stakeholder meeting on ways to more effectively prevent, prosecute, and
improve data collection on human trafficking in Indian Country. Federal
data on human trafficking in Native communities is limited, but
available information suggests human trafficking in the United States
frequently targets vulnerable populations, which would include Native
Americans who disproportionately face high rates of poverty and trauma.
In order to address the shortage of information, the Indian Affairs
committee requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) seek
data on the prevalence of human trafficking in Native communities and
research the frequency with which law enforcement agencies have
encountered it, the services that are available to victims, demographic
information, efforts to increase prosecutions, and other federal
initiatives.
Udall released the following statement:
"Human
trafficking affects every community in the United States – regardless
of age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background. And because
Native Americans disproportionally face high rates of poverty and
trauma, they are especially vulnerable and frequent targets of human
trafficking. For years, Tribal leaders and Native activists have raised
the issue of human trafficking with Congress. By sharing their powerful
and often heart-breaking stories, they have elevated our awareness about
the need for more information and more resources to combat the spread
of human trafficking in Indian country.
"But
the fact is that the federal government knows very little about the
rates of human trafficking on Tribal lands. And it knows even less about
human trafficking of individual Native Americans. After reviewing these
GAO reports, it is clear that the true extent of human trafficking in
Indian Country remains unknown. But it is also clear to me that the
federal government could do more to help Native victims who are slipping
through the cracks. Congress must take a long, hard look at how federal
agencies collect and monitor data on this issue, ensure their
accountability, and then work to provide federal and Tribal law
enforcement agencies with enough resources to keep Indian Country safe.
The administration’s proposed cuts to federal law enforcement agencies
and Tribal programs would only further strain public safety initiatives
on Tribal lands. Instead of jeopardizing Native communities by cutting
policing and justice budgets, Congress should look for new ways to get
funding resources to Tribes.
"Like
with other crimes in Indian Country, addressing human trafficking will
require Congress to look at and pass legislation that addresses issues
of jurisdiction and inter-agency cooperation, and I’m hopeful that we
can work together to provide Tribes with more resources to combat human
trafficking and ensure that all Native victims of crime get the support
they so desperately need."
People throughout the country might see some big changes happening to
their driver’s licenses and state IDs. As of February 2013, 19 states
have demonstrated compliance with the REAL ID Act,
a piece of legislature that imposes much stricter measures on how
people can obtain a driver’s license, and sets more thorough standards
as to what will be displayed on them. Called the new “national ID,” the
REAL ID Act has gained some traction in light of recent events like the
Boston Marathon bombings.
But what exactly is the REAL ID Act, and how will it affect drivers across the nation?
The History of REAL ID
After 9/11, the federal government began to look at ways to increase
security surrounding state identification cards and driver’s licenses,
in an attempt to prevent further terrorism and/or unlawful entry into
and out of the country.
In 2005, the House of Representatives passed a bill into law called
the REAL ID Act. This Act would set certain federal standards upon all
driver’s licenses, which are currently regulated by each individual
state. After being passed into law, the bill was tabled until 2007, when
it was announced that the federal enforcement of the act would be
postponed for a period of two years. However, many state governments
were slow to support this act, feeling that it not only infringed upon
states’ rights handed to them by the 10th Amendment, but also created
unnecessary cost to taxpayers in order to implement the change. It
wasn’t until this year that the federal government announced that all
states would need to be in compliance with the REAL ID Act by the end of
2017.
How IDs Will Be Affected
The REAL ID Act sets forth new federally mandated requirements for
all state driver’s licenses and ID cards. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) has set standards not entirely dissimilar from the
requirements already in place for most states throughout the country. On
each ID, the following information must be present:
Full legal name
Residential address
Birth date
Gender
Driver’s license/identification card number
Digital front-facing photograph
Signature
Driver’s licenses and IDs must now also include a common barcode and
security devices to prevent any tampering with or counterfeiting of the
card, and must display a star in the upper right-hand corner, signifying
that your identification has been approved by the TSA and your identity
has been verified. There are also new requirements put in place to
obtain an ID or license; all applicants must present the following
documents during the application process:
A photo ID, or non-photo ID that contains the applicant’s full legal name and birth date
Valid birth certificate
Social Security number
Proof of legal U.S. citizenship, OR proof of lawful admittance into or temporary residence within the U.S.
Lastly, each state must also agree to share its database of licensed
citizens and drivers with all other states, including every piece of
data on the cards themselves (name, address, birth date, etc.), along
with all driving records and driver histories of everyone licensed to
drive in the state.
The Pros and Cons of REAL ID
Proponents of the REAL ID Act cite its advantages to national
security. These measures ensure that non-citizens are unable to obtain a
state-issued ID or driver’s license, and also prevent anyone without
one from boarding aircraft or entering high-security locations.
Similarly, these IDs would place the United States in the company of
nearly 100 other countries in the world (including most European
countries) that have some form of a national ID card.
Cost, Freedom, and Privacy Concerns
However, many states oppose the implementation of the REAL ID Act
based upon the estimated cost. The Act is a unfunded mandate, meaning
that while the requirement is federally issued, the entire cost of
recreating and re-issuing millions of licenses and ID cards would fall
solely upon the states – without any financial assistance from the
federal government. States are therefore required to raise their
licensing fees in order to make up the added cost… putting an extra
financial burden upon the licensee, who may simply be attempting to
transfer one valid license into the REAL ID format.
Once the Act is fully implemented, residents without the new mandated
ID will also be barred from boarding airplanes, entering nuclear
facilities, and performing any other actions that require “official”
federal identification. Citizens will need to provide a valid U.S.
passport or permanent residency card in place of the new ID.
Another major concern is the idea of personal information being
gathered and stored into what some are calling a “national database.” In
order for the DHS and TSA to validate a citizen’s identity, they need
to collect and store the information that otherwise would be solely kept
by individual states. Many are worried about the “Big Brother”-esque
implications this may have to personal privacy.
Major Effects Upon Immigrants
Immigrants and foreign nationals working in the United States are
similarly worried about how the REAL ID Act may affect their abilities
to live and work within the country. As the requirements for obtaining a
new ID card are much more stringent than what some states may currently
employ, foreigners without legal proof of entry into the country or
without a Social Security number will be barred from obtaining a
driver’s license, limiting their means of travel throughout country by a
huge margin and possibly forcing them to return to their home country
to renew their ID. Then again, supporters of the REAL ID Act cite this
as an example of the system working properly, as it ensures that the
only people working and traveling within the U.S. are those that the
government has officially allowed to be here.
Mark Melnychuk, Regina Leader-Post
