They Took Us Away

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EMAIL ME: tracelara@pm.me (outlook email is gone) THANK YOU CHI MEGWETCH!

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Monday, July 28, 2025

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and the Legacy of Legal Erasure

 

The System Didn’t Forget Them. It Was Built to Look Away by Tony Michaels

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and the Legacy of Legal Erasure

Read on Substack
 
In 2016, over 5,700 Indigenous women and girls were reported missing. The U.S. Department of Justice recorded just 116 of those cases. That’s not a data error. That’s a decision repeated year after year by institutions that were never built to protect Native lives. 

The epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is not a mystery. It is a test of whether this country can confront the systems it built to disappear people.

The federal government has delayed.
Law enforcement has failed.
The media has ignored.
And most of America has looked away.

But Native communities never have.

They’ve searched when no one else would.
They’ve named their daughters when others erased them.
They’ve demanded justice when the system delivered only silence.


 

 

Forced?

 

Indigenous women in Canada were being forcibly sterilized by state sponsored eugenics operations as recently as 2019.  A report last year concluded “this horrific practice is not confined to the past, but clearly is continuing today.”  In May of 2023, a doctor was caught forcibly sterilizing an Indigenous woman.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220722024420/https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/441/RIDR/reports/2022-07-14_ForcedSterilization_E.pdf

The growing enthusiasm for eugenics thinking reached Canadian borders in the first half of the 20th century.  Even though forced sterilisation was already common throughout the territory, the Province of Alberta officially enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act (SSA) in 1928, followed in 1933 by British Columbia.  Considered the first Canadian eugenics law, this act legalised and regulated the sterilisation of mentally-disabled individuals.

Aggressive assimilation policies quickly extended these measures to Indigenous communities such as the Inuit, Indian, and Métis people.  While it is difficult to provide an accurate estimate, researchers agree that Indigenous women were disproportionately targeted.  Between 1966 and 1976, over 10,000 women would have undergone forced sterilisation in public hospitals, residential schools, and mental facilities.  And It has continued since then in more subtle and nefarious ways.

READ MORE:

https://open.substack.com/pub/gavinmounsey/p/why-i-still-do-not-celebrate-canada?r=cbskx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false 

What is planned? Federal government to go completely electronic by September 30

 

What about tribes? Can this coming dystopia be stopped?

I need your help and ideas! How can most poverty-stricken Native Tribes get out of the 15-Minute-City and digital currency planned by the US? Many tribes do not have electricity or running water. The majority don’t have banks. Some have modernized but not that many. There are 574 tribes. Is it even possible to do this change on the remote reservations? Or will there be a genocide (again)?? Thoughts?

- Trace L Hentz

Read on Substack
 
Please leave a comment👇 and share with your relatives, please... 
 

If you’re one of the 1.9 million people who still get a paper tax refund check from the federal government, you will need to make a change in the coming months. It’s the same for those who still count on Social Security checks in the mail rather than electronic direct deposit.  A presidential executive order requires those and other transactions by the federal government to go completely electronic by September 30.  The White House claims paperless transactions will save taxpayers as much as $657 million.  At the same time, it poses a significant challenge for the high percentage of Native Americans who choose not to utilize conventional banks
 
READ THIS: https://www.nicoa.org/native-households-have-highest-unbanked-percentage/ 
 
Listen to Native America Calling about the issues with banking in Indian Country:

 
 

AND...


 

Friday, July 25, 2025

The Situation We Are Facing

 



It’s going to be horrible for the victims but they need to be interviewed LIVE on TV and explain (in graphic detail) what Epstein did to them, and also by his girlfriend Maxwell. Time to end this bullsh*t.

- Trace L Hentz

Read on Substack

 
 
The Epstein case has many people triggered.  Many of us adoptees were abused, sexually and physically when we were children. Telling someone the truth helps greatly.... Epstein was a pedophile and so was his girlfriend.  The victims (one thousand children at least) need to be allowed to tell their story...  Trace

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Finding Your Ancestors in the Archives

Author Joseph Lee. (Photo/Aslan Chalom)
PHOTO: Author Joseph Lee. (Photo/Aslan Chalom)

By Shaun Griswold | Yahoo News

Summer memories of running with cousins in Zuni mud — all the weekends I spent at my Auntie Paula’s home on the Zuni Pueblo — return as I read Joseph Lee’s book Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity


A mixture of memoir, reportage and commentary, it documents Lee’s family history, describing how land and ancestry forged strong links to his Aquinnah Wampanoag home on Martha’s Vineyard. Lee’s stories echoed my own rez dirt memories, layers of loving Indigenous relationships with foundations deeper than any historical record.

: Your book demonstrates how you and your family live as Indigenous people on colonized land. Can you introduce those experiences?

[Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in "High Country News. Used with permission. All rights reserved.]

Lee spoke with High Country News before his book’s July 15 release. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

High Country News: Your book demonstrates how you and your family live as Indigenous people on colonized land. Can you introduce those experiences?

Joseph Lee: I’m a Wampanoag, and my family and my tribe is from Martha’s Vineyard. It’s a small island in the Northeast, known for being this fancy vacation place where presidents and movie stars go. I grew up spending summers at my grandparents’ house, and that was the original framing for the book: How I thought about being Indigenous and being Wampanoag was filtered through the experience of how people see Martha’s Vineyard, along with how people see Wampanoag people and Native folks in the Northeast: We were there when the pilgrims came, Mayflower, the first Thanksgiving, all of that. 

That confused me, because what I was being told about being Indigenous didn’t really match up with the way I was experiencing it personally. I went to tribal summer camp, I went to our cranberry festival harvest. I did all these things, and none of it aligned with this version of stereotypical Nativeness, the disappeared Native gone in the past.

I was trying to make sense of the way that we’ve lived and the choices that we’ve made, and what is this going to look like in the future?

keep reading👇 

Monday, July 21, 2025

Native Bidaské: Alligator Alcatraz — The Fight to Protect the Everglades

How Public Media Cuts Hurt Native Americans

'When someone is missing, time is of an essence to locate them and to find them safely'

READ CBC LINK:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/landfill-search-red-dress-alert-mmiwg-1.7588327 

As one landfill search ends and another is planned to begin, an MMIWG advocate says countrywide implementation of the Red Dress Alert and addressing "systemic racism" could prevent the agony of such searches ever needing to happen again.

"We know when someone is missing, time is of an essence to locate them and to find them safely," said Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, a member of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in Manitoba and chair of the National Family and Survivors Circle.

Manitoba is in the process of launching the Red Dress Alert pilot project, which will provide a notification to people's mobile phones when an Indigenous woman, girl, two-spirit or gender diverse person goes missing — similar to how an Amber Alert works.

"They should be looking at the next phase to, alongside the federal government, fully implement the [alert] … and adequately resource it to ensure that it's long-term and sustainable," Anderson-Pyrz said.

"We'll be fighting for those resources, because what the Red Dress Alert means in this country is very powerful for Indigenous women, girls and children."

A composite image showing pictures of four women.
Morgan Harris, Ashlee Shingoose — also called Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe — Marcedes Myran and Rebecca Contois were all victims of a Winnipeg serial killer. (Submitted by Cambria Harris, Winnipeg Police Service, Donna Bartlett, Darryl Contois)
 
KEEP READING: Red Dress Alert  
https://www.canada.ca/en/crown-indigenous-relations-northern-affairs/news/2024/05/government-of-canada-and-the-government-of-manitoba-announce-partnership-to-develop-a-red-dress-alert-together-with-indigenous-partners.html 

Honouring Michael Linklater: Indigenous basketball icon and youth advocate

 


Journey Rooted in Resilience

Despite his family being from Thunderchild First Nation in Turtleford, Saskatchewan, Michael Linklater was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1982.

“Thunderchild is where our family is from.  My mother was a part of the 60s Scoop, and that’s how she ended up in New Jersey,” Linklater said.

However, Linklater returned to Canada shortly after his birth, where he grew up and eventually moved to Saskatoon at 10 years old. It was during this time that basketball became his calling.

“Hockey wasn’t something that was feasible for me, but there was an outdoor basketball court at my elementary school. That’s what inspired me. It was accessible and all you needed was a $5 rubber ball. I just fell in love with the game,” he said.

That love turned into excellence. At Mount Royal Collegiate, he was a multi-sport athlete and team captain, winning Athlete of the Year from Grades 9 to 11. By the end of high school, he had already started dreaming of the big stage.

“After I started playing basketball, I made the decision that I wanted to play at the highest level and I visualized playing at the highest level,” he said. 

KEEP READING: 

https://larongenow.com/2025/07/15/honouring-michael-linklater-indigenous-basketball-icon-and-youth-advocate/ 

Half of Households on Native American Reservations Lack Access to Reliable Water Sources, Clean Drinking Water, or Adequate Sanitation


EDITOR NOTE: I was collecting information on banking and how it does not exist on many reservations - no banks, no ATM's?  Exactly: It's obvious that Third World reservations are not on anyone's radar, except Native People living on the rez.  It's obvious we are neglected in many modern systems... that is "their" playbook: NEGLECT.  What year is this?  

Then there is this: No Water?

(JULY 14, 2025) 

U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), along with U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), have introduced the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, a bill aimed at significantly improving access to clean water in Tribal communities through major investments in water infrastructure.

The legislation would increase funding for water projects through the Indian Health Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Reclamation. These investments would support critical infrastructure development and help ensure that Native American households without reliable access to clean water are finally connected to safe, sustainable water sources.

“Too many Tribal communities in Colorado and across the country cannot access clean, safe water,” said Bennet. “This legislation builds on our efforts to improve access for Tribes in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It fulfills the federal government’s promise to provide these communities with the clean water they deserve.”

“Nearly half of Native American households lack access to clean and reliable water supplies. That is completely unacceptable,” said Heinrich. “By addressing a significant backlog of infrastructure projects and removing barriers to federal programs that provide technical and financial assistance to Tribes, this legislation is an important step toward delivering clean drinking water to all families in Indian Country.”

“Clean drinking water is a basic necessity. Yet, so many of our Tribal communities have been left without the infrastructure. It’s unacceptable,” said Hickenlooper. “Let’s cut red tape and invest in modern resources to finally deliver safe, accessible water to every Tribe.”

“Access to clean water is a basic human right—and yet for far too long, Native American tribes have lacked access to safe and affordable water and reliable wastewater infrastructure. Our tribal communities deserve better,” said Neguse. “That’s why I’m honored to join Senator Bennet in introducing the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, a bill that takes meaningful steps to close the gap between Native American households and access to clean and reliable water supplies.”

“An estimated 48 percent of homes on tribal lands lack access to clean drinking water or sanitation services. This is a serious public health issue that demands a federal response. I join my colleagues in supporting this important legislation, which will help tribes improve longstanding water infrastructure challenges and uphold trust and treaty obligations under the Constitution,” said Moore. 

Lack of access to clean drinking water is a significant barrier for many Native American communities.  According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Native American households are 19 times more likely than white households to lack indoor plumbing. A 2021 report commissioned by the Colorado River Water and Tribes Initiative documents the different barriers to accessing safe and reliable drinking water among tribes in the Colorado River Basin, along with some of the deficiencies in the federal programs designed to address this problem, and offers recommendations for improvement. Lack of access to drinking water negatively impacts health, education, economic development, and other aspects of daily life.

READ MORE: 

https://nativenewsonline.net/environment/half-of-households-on-native-american-reservations-lack-access-to-reliable-water-sources-clean-drinking-water-or-adequate-sanitation 

 


In Pine Ridge: I remember my relative Ellowyn Locke didn't have a land line or telephone until Bill Clinton was president.  That was in 1999.   Trace

Friday, July 18, 2025

Cuts to Tribal Radio Stations could spell disaster (UPDATE)

NEW: 7/18/25

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds announced Tuesday he's secured an agreement with White House budget director Russ Vought to move $9.4 million from an account within the Interior Department to at least two dozen Native American radio stations in multiple states.

Those include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to Rounds' office.

LINK: https://www.kunc.org/news/2025-07-17/native-american-radio-stations-part-of-funding-deal-as-us-senate-takes-up-cuts-to-npr-pbs 


Editor's NOTE:  As you know, many tribe's living conditions in the US are not great, not prosperous, unless some casino monies trickle down and reach the rez, and they've made structural improvements.  Poverty is all too common and rampant for too many tribal nations.

TRIBAL RADIO AM and FM has been a lifeline, like KILI radio in Porcupine, South Dakota - my relative Ellowyn Locke (Oglala Lakota) listened to them every single day.  https://www.kiliradio.live/

In South Dakota, KILI of Porcupine, KDKO of Lake Andes and KLND of McLaughlin all stand to lose around $200,000 in Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) grants.  This would spell disaster.

MORE:

Tribal public broadcasting under threat by CPB rescission

KOYA logo
KOYA logo

The United States Congress is considering a rescission request from the Trump administration to pull funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The maneuver would negatively affect SDPB—as well as the four public tribal radio stations in South Dakota.

The station KOYA stands to lose about $200,000 if Congress ultimately approves the rescission.

John Miller is manager for the station in Rosebud.  He said the funding reduction would be very detrimental to the people of his community.

“Because, we serve a purpose of keeping them up to date and passing along emergency information—passing along pertinent information that helps them in every way and every day," Miller said.  The Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding that we do receive is very beneficial in keeping the station on the air.  It wouldn’t be a good outcome for us.”

KILI of Porcupine, KDKO of Lake Andes and KLND of McLaughlin all stand to lose around $200,000 in CPB grants.

South Dakota’s lone representative in the U.S. House, Republican Dusty Johnson, voted in favor of rescinding the money. 

The question now heads to the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds said he does not want to see funding cut for radio stations in rural areas that rely on public broadcasting—particularly on reservations.

“Let’s not cut the stuff where we really do need to be able to help some folks that are in some rural areas, and on the reservations, where they simply don’t have other resources available to keep those radios in operation,” Rounds said.

Rounds said his rescission decision will be based on whether the package can be amended to allow for funding to continue to reach rural radio stations.

The CPB rescission would also affect SDPB to the tune of $2.2 million. Earlier this year, SDPB received full funding from the supermajority Republican controlled state legislature, after former Gov. Kristi Noem suggested slashing the statewide network’s state funding by 65 percent.

 

MORE: 


Minnesota’s Tribal Radio Stations at Risk of Losing CPB Funding

Northeastern Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation is home to “Niijii Radio” KKWE (88.9), one of the state’s four tribal radio stations which serve their local communities with news and information, along with traditional music.

These stations are now in danger of losing much-needed federal funding, as President Trump’s executive order to “ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage” threatens to take away Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants that keep stations like KKWE on the air.

“[CPB] probably covers about 45% of our costs,” KKWE Station Manager Maggie Rousu, part of the station’s small staff, tells MPR. “CPB funding pays one full-time staff. It also covers our emergency broadcast system [and] some of our programming.”

Although the executive order focuses on pulling money from NPR and PBS, Rousu points out that it trickles down to smaller stations such as KKWE.

While most larger public radio stations can survive on corporate and listener donations, that’s not the case for “Niijii Radio,” where listeners aren’t able to provide enough funds to keep the station running. “We do have some contributors that are contributing $1 a month,” Rousu says, meaning if CPB funds are cut, “we could lose some local production.” 

 

KILI is Under Attack!

KILI Needs Your Help

Trump is attempting to remove the board of directors and cancel funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides significant funding to our station. Please donate now to help us recover the necessary funding to keep our station on-air and operating!

KILI_RADIO_STATION

 I have been to this station. It is awesome! ... Trace

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Child Welfare League of America CEO on the Future of Indian Child Welfare

Child Welfare League of America CEO on the Future of Indian Child Welfare

Linda Spears (Narragansett) is the president and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America. Provided photo.

One day, long before she became head of the Child Welfare League of America, Linda Spears sat in her office in tears, surrounded by archival records pulled from an old cardboard box.

The dry documents told a disturbing story. 

Between 1958 and 1967, the League partnered with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to enact the Indian Adoption Project, a federal initiative across 16 western states promoting the systematic separation of Indigenous families. Some children didn’t have families. Others were removed by social workers who went into tribal homes and arbitrarily deem families unfit — if they talked to the adults at all. Then tribal children were sent to live with white families, in an attempt to assimilate them through adoption.

Newspapers at the time colloquially called the effort the “Papoose Project.’’ A 1964 Miami Herald article stated, “Frequently the illegitimate children run wild and uncared for on reservations and help must be found among the white population.’’

It was an effort Spears’ organization once called “one of the League’s most satisfying activities.”

For Spears, that pivotal moment in her office offered a glimpse of her purpose within the League.  As the first Indigenous woman to lead the Washington D.C.-based advocacy nonprofit, she said that along with looking out for all the nation’s children, she feels it’s also her responsibility to help right the course of an organization that has historically caused harm to tribal children and families. 

KEEP READING👇 

Members of Congress Call on DOJ to Restore the ‘Not Invisible Act’ Findings, an Accounting of Missing and Murdered Native People

 

President Donald Trump surrounded by tribal leaders as he signed the Not Invisible Act during his first term in office. Still image from White House video.

The Not Invisible Act requires the Departments of Justice and Interior to create a joint commission on violent crime involving Indigenous communities. It also details how federal agencies should address what it calls an “epidemic”: the high rates of Native American youth and adults who are missing, murdered or victims of violence. 

READ MORE:  https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/members-of-congress-call-on-justice-officials-to-restore-the-not-invisible-act-findings-an-accounting-of-missing-and-murdered-native-people/262550 

Military says over 1,000 people flown from fire-threatened Manitoba community

 The Manitoba government said Friday over 12,000 people were out of their homes, and it gave notice that it intended to use Winnipeg’s major convention centre to house more evacuees.  The military began removing people from Garden Hill First Nation on CC-130 Hercules transport airplanes on Friday, and it says that as of Sunday afternoon, over 1,550 have been flown to Winnipeg.

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Little Hawk on Wisdom

Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie | #NOMOAR

 


Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman

(Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program)

Read on Substack

👉This is all why I’m working on building NOMOAR — the National Online Museum of American Racism. (in my spare time that is). Not to just “educate” but to interrupt the dangerous narratives we have all been duped as truths and to create not only an archive, but also a much need mirror of American identity.

NOMOAR is what happens when we stop waiting for school boards and start telling the truth ourselves. Education doesn’t need a monetary component we can start by teaching truths at home and giving our children the tools to critically think for themselves when presented with alternative perspectives and untruths.

My Vision:

  • Crowdsourced local history maps. Zoom into your hometown and see the redlining maps, the sundown town signs, the massacre sites, the stolen land deeds and any narrative worth sharing so we may never forget.

  • User-submitted exhibits — family stories, archival documents, oral histories, newspaper clippings — all validated by community, not just institutions.

  • Interactive timelines that connect racist laws, uprisings, acts of resistance, and how they relate to today’s policies.

  • Virtual and traveling exhibits that can reeducate Americans everywhere and challenge the status quo of the whitewashed histories we have been force fed for so long.

  • Tools for teachers and organizers — truth packs to bring real history into classrooms, workshops, or kitchen tables.

This isn’t about replacing a physical museum in D.C. It’s about building one that actually tells the truth — and lives in your pocket.

Because if we’re not documenting these truths now, they’ll get erased again.

We can’t afford another generation raised on lies and we definitely can’t remain silent as we watch entire histories get silenced for the comfort of white people.

Want to help build the NOMOAR platform? I created a GoFundMe to raise funds to create the base website, but it will need immense help to become reality. So what can you do outside of donating?

Just reach out and let’s start a conversation. The only way to Make America Great Again is to be truthful with our past and move forward with understanding and empathy.

Oh and Fuck Trump…

SUPPORT HERE:

https://gofund.me/c421293b

#NOMOAR ##EducationalSovereignty #DecolonizeEducation #HistoryMatters #DismantleWhiteSupremacy #DecolonizeNow #IndigenousResistance #BlackLiberation #AmericanMythology #ThanksgivingWasALie #MakeAmericaThinkAgain

www.NOMOAR.com (coming soon)

 

The Real Rapid City, Vol. 1

Lakota Law and Sacred Defense Fund director Chase Iron Eyes visits so-called "Founders Park" — an obvious misnomer, since Native People have occupied the territory now known as South Dakota for millennia — and dissects some of the real history of Rapid City.   


VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ZsyVpi8ip-U 

As I think you’d agree, the state of our nation — and the world — is also troubled, to say the least. That’s why we’ve dedicated so much time and energy over the past months to creating content and action opportunities aimed at tackling pressing, society-wide issues.  We can’t stand idly by and watch, for instance, while our (mostly southern) relatives are harassed, deported, and abused without due process or respect to their human rights and dignity.

That said, I believe it is always worth taking time to explore the conditions — and the colonial history and systemic barriers put in place to keep our people subjugated and subject to those conditions — within our own homelands. Taking a good, hard look at the real history of Rapid City as a microcosm for communities across our territory is an excellent lens through which to explore these difficult but important topics.  And, of course, the struggles of Indigenous People locally, nationally, and globally are interrelated.  They share so many of the same causes and effects.

Our plan is to release several more of these over the coming weeks, using the setting of Rapid City — often called “Racist City” around here — as a jumping-off point to look at other Native perspectives on history. You’ll hear more about my family’s struggle, the boarding school era, and much more.

So I hope you’ll watch this video and the ones to follow, think on the context and lessons they provide, share with your friends on social media, and even write to tell us your thoughts.  Whatever community you call home, we think of you as a relative, and we value your input. We are all in this together, and by staying connected and aware, we will persevere through the challenges we face.  By acknowledging and learning from our past, we can create the future we need for ourselves, our children, and the generations to come.

Wopila tanka — thank you for your attention, your voice, and your solidarity
Chase Iron Eyes
Executive Director
Lakota People’s Law Project
Sacred Defense Fund

 

Friday, July 11, 2025

Day school survivors legacy fund now open for funding requests

CBC News | Posted: July 9, 2025 

Fund was named for survivor and lead plaintiff Garry McLean

Indian day school
Students at the grounds of the Cote Indian Day School, near Kamsack, Sask., in September 1958. (Library and Archives Canada)

A fund for projects for healing, language and cultural revitalization and commemoration for day school survivors and their families is now accepting applications.
 
The McLean Legacy Fund 
is named after Garry McLean, a Manitoba-based advocate for Federal Indian Day School survivors, who was the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the Government of Canada.  McLean died from cancer in 2019 at the age of 67, just before a final settlement agreement was reached.
 
Like residential schools, Federal Indian Day Schools were designed to assimilate Indigenous children while eradicating Indigenous languages and cultures.  There were 699 Federal Indian Day Schools across Canada including one in Lake Manitoba First Nation, the Dog Creek Day School, which Garry McLean attended.  About 200,000 Indigenous children attended day schools.
 
The $1.47 billion settlement included a $200 million legacy fund. The McLean Day Schools Settlement Corporation says the legacy fund was created to support healing and wellness, language and culture preservation, commemoration and truth-telling for survivors and their families.
 
"We know the journey began with tremendous pain and with that pain comes a powerful opportunity for healing, truth telling, revitalization of our languages, strengthening our cultures, and enhancing the pride of our identity," said Claudette Commanda, the settlement corporation's CEO, at a news conference in Ottawa Monday.
Garry McLean

Image | Garry McLean was the lead plaintiff in the Federal Indian Day School Survivors class action lawsuit. (CBC)


Elder Gloria Wells, a board member with the legacy fund, said, "I strongly believe that ceremony and our language and our culture will be the ones to help us."
 
The first call for submissions for funding opened Monday. There are two categories: survivor committee establishment that is one-time funding of up to $25,000, and money for community programs, up to $100,000 or $250,000 a year for four years, depending on the type of program.
 
Southern Chiefs Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels, who was a friend of McLean, said he was "a powerful voice for justice and a relentless advocate for survivors of Indian Day Schools.... His efforts led to real change for thousands of our people."
With the launch of the legacy fund, "his legacy will continue to uplift survivors and their families for generations to come," Daniels said.
The application deadline for the first round of funding is the end of September.
 

Adoptees Melissa Gilbert and Patrick Labyorteaux

Both adoptees, the Little House on the Prairie alums bonded over their similar experiences...

You know her as Laura Ingalls from “Little House on the Prairie,” but Melissa Gilbert is so much more! Patrick and Melissa talk about growing up on the prairie, Michael Landon, acting, adoption, SAG and Melissa tells the most amazing Hollywood story you will ever hear! 

 

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Sold Like Cargo

'Sold like cargo': Korean adoptee in Norway fights to erase past she never chose

The Korea Times

More than 50 years after adoption, Jung Kyung-sook plans to sue the Norwegian government for human rights violations

For most of her life, Jung Kyung-sook, 57, lived with an unrelenting ache — a longing for people who looked like her and for the mother tongue she never had the chance to learn.

Sent from Korea to Norway in 1970 at the age of two, she was among the tens of thousands of Korean children sent to Western countries through a flawed adoption system operating from the 1970s to '90s.

Jung was adopted by a Norwegian couple who, she says, subjected her to years of abuse and neglect.

Now living in the rural town of Ramnes, Norway, Jung is among the 56 Korean adoptees who have received the results of a sweeping investigation by Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The findings, announced in March and sent to applicants in June, revealed significant irregularities in past overseas adoption processes.

"I waited almost three years for this result. I was so happy and relieved. It felt like a dream," Jung said in a recent video interview with The Korea Times.

Jung Kyung-sook / Courtesy of Jung Kyung-sook

Jung Kyung-sook / Courtesy of Jung Kyung-sook

According to the TRC report, Jung was born on March 27, 1968, and was registered for adoption through Holt International that December. Although the identities of her biological parents had been properly documented, she was falsely registered as an orphan and sent abroad.

"Despite existing records identifying the biological parents, the English-language orphan registry submitted to the receiving country stated that no such information was available, thereby infringing upon the applicant's right to know their identity," the report read.

The TRC's findings mark the first official acknowledgment by the Korean government of its wrongdoings in international adoptions.

However, Jung says it is only the beginning.

Based on the TRC's findings, she plans to file a lawsuit against the Norwegian government, arguing that her adoption violated basic protections that should have safeguarded her as a child. She is also considering taking similar legal action in Korea, depending on how the case unfolds in Norway.

"I was bought and sold like cargo," Jung said. "Receiving countries always knew children came with falsified papers; so did Norway. Western countries demanded children from Korea, and many Korean families paid the ultimate price. My family was one of them."

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

“Alligator Alcatraz is Florida’s Auschwitz”

READ:  Protest: https://www.dailynews.com/2025/06/26/florida-alcatraz-protest/

OP-ED (excerpt)

The Florida Everglades have been home to the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida for centuries.  Both federally recognized tribes oppose the facility’s location, but their governments were never consulted. 

Betty Osceola, an elder of the Miccosukee Tribe and co-owner of Buffalo Tiger Airboats that operates in the Everglades, is opposed to the detention center. With a bullhorn in her hand, she led  a group of protesters from her tribe and environmental organizations who protested in late June along U.S. Highway 41.  One protester carried a sign that read: “Alligator Alcatraz is Florida’s Auschwitz.”

“I have serious concerns about the environmental damage,” Osceola told local reporters. “It’s disrupting the circle of life that these animals need.”

She fears the government’s claim that the facility is temporary; she believes it will operate for years.

On July 2, 2025, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma joined the Florida tribes in protesting the new detention center.  The tribe says the center insults their ancestral homeland and threatens the ecosystem.

Chief Lewis Johnson of the Oklahoma Seminole Nation said that Indigenous lands are not vacant but vital to their people.

"When we see these people that come in and want to oppress people of brown skin essentially and tell them they’re illegals, that doesn’t line up with us, because we don’t have this ideology of citizenship.  No one should be illegal, because all this land has been stolen from us,” Johnson said.

Tribal governments were not consulted. Environmental warnings were ignored.  This detention center isn't just bad policy — it's an affront to Native American treaty rights and trust obligations.  South Florida's tribes deserve partnership, not more broken promises. 

And migrants deserve compassion, not cages. - Levi Rickert

READ:  https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/trump-s-immigration-theater-ignores-whose-land-alligator-alcatraz-really-is 

 

Univ. of Michigan Museum starts return process for remains of 10 Native Americans

 

The University of Michigan museum holds the 25th largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the nation. 
 

READ:  https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/07/09/um-museum-will-return-the-remains-of-10-native-americans-to-tribes/84422824007/

I remember reading about diggers in Wisconsin in the early 1900s who desecrated, destroyed and robbed mounds - they called themselves anthropologists. And sold what they stole... Trace

People adopted from outside Ireland face challenges about identity and race, report finds

A report by the Adoption Authority of Ireland found that adoptees experience the most challenges around identity during adolescence.

People adopted from outside Ireland face challenges about identity and race, report finds 
By  Ellen O'Donoghue

Adults who were adopted from outside of Ireland as children can often feel isolated and may face discrimination, a study has found.

A report by the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) found that adoptees experience the most challenges about their identity during adolescence.

The report, titled The Lived Experience of Intercountry Adopted Adults in Ireland, found there was a need for more prolonged post-adoption support for adoptive parents, and targeted supports for teenagers to help them navigate the challenge of adoptive identity development.

While some of these supports are already provided by Barnardos, many participants in the study were not aware of their existence, highlighting an opportunity for increased communication and promotion of such services to the people who need them.

Since 1991, 5,000 children have been adopted into the country, but this number started to decline in 2010 when the Adoption Act was introduced.

Minister for Children Norma Foley told Newstalk that home adoption has not replaced intercountry adoption, and foster systems remain the norm.

"More than 87 per cent of children in State care in this country are actually in foster care, which is a very high percentage, but I think it’s important that we look at all opportunities for children," Ms Foley said.

"For some the best place for them and what meets their needs is adoption, for others it’s foster care so we would have a suite of measures and supports."

Orlaith Traynor, the Chair of the AAI, highlighted the study's significance.

"Adoption is an intervention in a child’s life which has lifelong consequences. Today’s launch highlights the experiences of a small sample of intercountry-adopted people. Ireland has a responsibility to support its 5000-strong intercountry adopted population as they move through the lifespan, and I look forward to working with the Department of Children, Equality and Disability to progress the development of policies and services in this area."

Dr Judy Lovett, research officer with the AAI and author of the report, said: "Thanks to the time and effort of these participants, their generosity and enthusiasm in engaging with the research process, we now know more about the lived experience of intercountry adoption in Ireland. This will help us to contribute to the global knowledge base about this under-researched area".

SOURCE:

https://www.westernpeople.ie/people-adopted-from-outside-ireland-face-challenges-about-identity-and-race-report-finds_arid-63215.html 

Natural Disasters, Diasporas and International Adoptions

 

by | Jul 1, 2025

As a little girl, I was always afraid to cross bridges over turbulent waters.  This irrational fear complicated things for my parents since I grew up in Valladolid, a small city in northeastern Spain with a river passing through it.  Every time we crossed the Pisuerga River with its abundant current, I asked them to grip my hand and not let go.  I had recurring nightmares in which the river overflowed and I was swept away; my parents were unable to rescue me.

The years went by and I learned to manage this terror until last October 30, 2024, when I saw the images of the unexpected flash flood that swept through several municipalities of Valencia. My memory could not stop the images of my childhood terror and the reason for which I grew up in Europe and not in my country of origin, Colombia.

I saw photos of Valencia’s destroyed streets, immersed in water and mud, cars carried away by the current, 227 dead, families looking on helplessly as they gathered up the little that remained of their possessions. “Why didn’t they warn us sooner?” was a constant refrain.  I thought my wounds were a thing of the past, but with the relentless floods in Spain, my emotional memory brought me back to the disaster—the mud and water— that marked my life before I could truly remember it: the tragedy of Armero, Colombia.  

It has been 40 years since my town was completely destroyed by the eruption of a volcano, taking the lives of more than 23,000 people. I am one of the survivors, but I also belong to the silenced past of thousands of forced migrations and the open wounds of a diaspora of people adopted throughout the world.

 I was given in adoption and taken to Spain, where I grew up with a family that always told me the little they knew about my history of adoption, but always with many unanswered questions about my roots.

For many years, these questions lay dormant inside of me, like the lava accumulating under a volcano that appears to be sleeping. But the fire inside sooner or later seeks a way to get out. 

My reply has been the creation of Hija del Volcán (the Volcano’s Daughter), a documentatry that tells the story of my search for my origins as an adopted child in the context of one of the worst natural disasters in Latin America. The film began not only as an exercise of personal memory, but as a way of putting into context that which had never been named.

KEEP READING👇 

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Open Call for Genocide?

Have you heard about the latest open calls for genocide from right-wing influencers? This weekend, quickly following Trump confidant Laura Loomer’s unconscionable tweet suggesting feeding 65 million Latino people to alligators, conservative pundit Ann Coulter weighed in to target Natives. In response to an anticolonial statement made by an Indigenous professor, she tweeted, “We didn’t kill enough Indians.

Lakota LawWatch our video: Watch my video about Coulter’s genocidal remark.

There’s just no excuse for this kind of rhetoric.  Especially at a time when political tensions are already so high, stoking the fires of violence will only harm us further. When the worst elements of our society are on full display and those who display no regard for human lives, rights, and dignity control the levers of power, it’s important that we come together in common cause to raise our collective consciousness and make our homelands a better place.

Coulter — and the world — should really listen to what Indigenous People and our allies have to say, which is why I recorded this latest installment of our Original Homegrowns video series: This is Our Country. Yes, we are often critical of federal policies, but there’s nothing more American than dissent. It’s part of our shared American identity to work toward the creation of a “more perfect union.” As an important piece of that puzzle, we have to tear down systems of racist oppression and replace them with ones that work for everyone. At Lakota Law, we aim not to harm this land and those who live here, but to protect them.

If you don’t yet follow us on Instagram, now is a great time to start! In addition to the content we produce, you’ll see that the comments sections yield some good discussion. For instance, we’re grateful to actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, who responded to one of our posts about Coulter to say, “Well. It shows you where they are and who they are. Truly sociopathic, hateful and wildly cruel. Let’s keep building a better world together.” Thank you, Mark! We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.

Wopila tanka — thank you for your attention and solidarity!
Chase Iron Eyes
Executive Director
Lakota People’s Law Project
Sacred Defense Fund


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To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

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NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS

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ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

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