Confronting a past of forced sterilization

New Mexico is taking on an investigation into the sterilization of Native American women through coercion, deception, or by merely carrying out procedures entirely without consent. The state is mainly looking at time in the 1970s following the establishment of the federal Office of Population Affairs and a policy change that increased reimbursements for outside doctors contracting with Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities for each procedure. Native Americans were included in groups targeted for sterilizations because of the false impression they were less intelligent and that they were not as productive members of society as other groups. In 10 years, Native American birth rates were more than halved. Other states and Canada have broached the topic of forced sterilization that tried to formalize racist policies in the name of public health. New Mexico is the first to take aim at the role IHS clinics played in carrying out the policies.

NM lawmakers plan truth and reconciliation for forced sterilizations

Monday, February 9, 2026

February 9, 2026 | Antonia Gonzales

For decades, Native women and other women of color were subjected to forced sterilization by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.

New Mexico lawmakers introduced a memorial last week to create a truth and reconciliation commission that would conduct a study into the history, and continuing impacts of this abuse.

KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has this report.

Senate memorial 14 includes research dating to the 1970s which shows between 25%-50% of Indigenous women were sterilized, with some of the highest incidents occurring in New Mexico.

The memorial would develop a plan to create a state truth and reconciliation commission to research and find all cases of sterilization in the state, gather survivor testimony, and review and recommend educational policy.

Keely Badger is a human rights advocate who wrote her dissertation on the forced sterilization of Native women.

Lawmakers asked her about challenges finding and accessing records.

“I do think that the requests have to come from an official state body, official agencies, to get to the heart of this information. It is going to be more than one person’s ability to accumulate this information.”

She says this may have been intentional by the states.

“At a national level, they have sealed some of these records for a reason, in the same way that a lot of the information about the boarding school system was very challenging; took decades and decades of research to accumulate to get to a point where we could have a national apology.

“I believe that this is one of those situations where it is going to require real political will and advocacy from civil society groups to get to the real heart of this from a national perspective.”

If the memorial goes into law, New Mexico would be the first state in the nation to formally investigate and acknowledge these violations.

The memorial will head to the senate floor for a vote and if passed, will go to the House of Representatives.

Forced Sterlization of Native Women?

 

If passed, the resolution would make New Mexico the first state in the nation to formally acknowledge the reproductive abuse wrought on Native women by the federal government.

Jean Whitehorse's (Diné) Native name means "Many Children," but she only has one child. This spring, she spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York to explain why.

In the 1970s, during an emergency visit to a Gallup, New Mexico, Indian Health Service facility, Whitehorse was coerced into signing consent papers for a procedure she later learned rendered her unable to have any more children.

READ:  https://nativenewsonline.net/health/stolen-generations-new-mexico-takes-historic-step-to-address-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women 

New study confirms ancient human footprints in New Mexico date back 23,000 years

 Dario Radley  June 22, 2025

A newly published study in Science Advances provides the strongest evidence to date that ancient human tracks found at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, are approximately 23,000 years old. If confirmed, the find could dramatically change the history of human migration to North America, placing humans on the continent during the Last Glacial Maximum, thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

Some of the White Sands footprints. National Park Service (Public domain)

The footprints, first reported in 2021, were excavated in 2019 by a team from Bournemouth University in collaboration with the U.S. National Park Service. Early radiocarbon dating of seeds and pollen found in overlying and underlying sediment layers indicated an age between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. However, these findings were challenged. Some critics argued that using aquatic plants like Ruppia cirrhosa, which absorb ancient carbon from water, could result in artificially old dates.

To address these concerns, the new team, led by University of Arizona archaeologist and geologist Vance Holliday, returned to the site in 2022 and 2023. Instead of dating the plant material, they radiocarbon dated ancient lakebed mud. They sent the samples to two independent laboratories, both of which reported the same range of ages: 20,700 to 22,400 years ago.

Together, scientists now have 55 radiocarbon dates on three types of materials—seeds, pollen, and mud—all pointing to the same time period. “It’s a remarkably consistent record,” Holliday said. “You get to the point where it’s really hard to explain all this away.”

The footprints were found in streambeds which once flowed into an ancient lake called Lake Otero, in a region now dominated by gypsum sand dunes. Holliday first visited White Sands in 2012 and contributed geological data that was utilized to date the tracks and made him a co-author of the original and current study.

RelatedStories

Leprosy existed in the Americas long before European contact, new study reveals

June 1, 2025

Ancient DNA confirms Picuris Pueblo’s ancestral link to Chaco Canyon

May 1, 2025

Doctoral student Jason Windingstad, who worked with Holliday on the most recent fieldwork, described seeing the prints as a profound moment. “It basically contradicts everything that we’ve been taught about the peopling of North America,” he said.

The discovery challenges the long-standing Clovis-first theory, which held that humans arrived on the continent around 13,000 years ago.  While some scientists still question the evidence—particularly the lack of tools or settlement—Holliday argues that such artifacts wouldn’t necessarily be present.  “These people lived by their artifacts, and they were far away from where they could get replacement material,” he said. “They’re not just randomly dropping artifacts.”

With multiple dating methods and separate lab confirmations now supporting the timeline, the White Sands footprints offer compelling evidence that humans came to the Americas far earlier than had been believed.

SOURCE: https://archaeologymag.com/2025/06/new-study-on-ancient-human-footprints-in-new-mexico/ 

More information: University of Arizona

Publication: Holliday, V. T., Windingstad, J. D., Bright, J., Phillips, B. G., Butler, J. B., Breslawski, R., & Bowman, J. E. (2025). Paleolake geochronology supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico. Science Advances, 11(25), eadv4951. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adv4951

FOSTER CARE FAILURE: 2,150 children in New Mexico’s foster system are paying the price

 NEW MEXICO

Kevin S. settlement was a blueprint to change child welfare but progress has stalled

KUNM | By Taylor Velazquez |  February 6, 2025 

rawpixel.com-Gavel, court hammer. Free public domain CC0 photo.

This is the third story in a series on child welfare in New Mexico.

Attorney Therese Yannan had represented children in state custody for many years before she sued New Mexico in 2018.  She was seeing a pattern of resources just not being available.

“A court can’t order services that don’t exist. It was impossible to get appropriate services,” said Yanan, who works for the Native American Disability Law Center.

Attorneys Bette Fleishman and Sara Crecca encountered the same obstacles. So the three of them joined forces to go to court.  Fleishman is executive director of Pegasus Legal Services For Children, which is a plaintiff along with Yanan’s organization. Crecca is her co-counsel.

Together they joined 14 foster children in the class action suit seeking to improve the child welfare system.  The suit was named for one of the children, Kevin S.

“We needed to do something bigger to change the situation. Because kids were getting harmed then and they're getting harmed now,” said Fleishman.

Crecca said the faults in the system have been well-documented for decades.  But the Kevin S. team found three significant failures.

There was no strong system to ensure that temporary placements or foster homes were stable.  That meant children were sleeping in state office buildings.

Also, the state was failing to meet the medical and mental health needs of children. And there was a complete failure to implement any sort of trauma-informed practices for those in state care.

“Letting them rot in the office, just sitting there, no school, no attempt to engage them, no placement. That all felt kind of new. The outcomes we were seeing were getting worse, more dangerous for kids, violating all kinds of state and federal laws that existed,” Crecca said.

The 14  kids, who were in foster care at the time, agreed to become main plaintiffs and were chosen to represent the diversity of the state whether it was race, sexual orientation, or even geography. Together they would also represent the many more kids experiencing the same inhumane conditions.

Crecca said that what drove a lot of the suit was one question: Where are the foster parents?

Adoptee Assistance: Navajoland

Navajo Nation expedites membership verification for Indian Child Welfare Act

KNAU News Talk - Arizona Public Radio | By KNAU STAFF

Published October 31, 2023

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren signed a memorandum of agreement to streamline the process of determining whether a Native child is actually Navajo on Oct. 30, 2023. Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch, and Debbie Nez-Manuel, director of the Navajo Division of Human Resources, also signed.

The Navajo Nation has developed a streamlined process to determine whether a Native child who may be adopted is actually Navajo.

The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 to establish basic requirements to protect Native American children from removal from their homes and communities.

If a child is determined to be a tribal member, the ICWA then triggers legal protections and the right of the Navajo Nation to intervene.

However, the process to verify tribal membership can take several months.

Tribal officials say this new agreement will significantly shorten the time to determine membership by improving coordination and the sharing of records between Navajo Nation divisions and the offices that work with children in custody, adoption or foster cases.

Caseworkers will then be able to determine if ICWA applies in a matter of weeks, which will allow the Navajo government to intervene sooner.

President Buu Nygren signed off on the memorandum of agreement October 30, 2023.

READ

https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/2023/09/how-to-enroll-if-you-are-navajo.html

ntsáhákees | nahat’á | iiná | sih hasin | Diné Action Plan

Nygren asks state child welfare experts to adopt traditional Navajo teachings

Who Are the Navajo People? - WorldAtlas  worldatlas.com

By Navajo Times | Sep 21, 2023 | News |

WINDOW ROCK – Child welfare services provided to by Arizona, New Mexico and Utah may soon be improved through the adoption of traditional Navajo teachings and knowledge if incorporated into their programs.

Officials with these states’ child welfare agencies were in Window Rock recently to discuss ways to expand the capacity of their existing partnership with the Navajo Nation.

The meeting sought ways to strengthen agreements between the Navajo Nation Division of Social Services and states to enhance services for Navajo children and families.

“My administration wants to encourage collaboration between child welfare agencies and to use the Diné Action Plan to help combat the challenges our Diné families and children face,” President Buu Nygren told state officials.

The Diné Action Plan is considered a living document that expresses Diné teachings. It was adopted by the 24th Navajo Nation Council in 2021. The plan was introduced in April 2018 as a blueprint to improve the quality of life throughout the Navajo Nation.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing inter-generational cycles that occur when a child is removed from his or her home,” said Thomas Cody, executive director of the Navajo Division of Social Services. “The increase of substance use, decrease of healthy parenting, and a decrease in teachings at home causes a decrease in spiritual connection.”

According to Cody, some Navajo services aid and provide services that focus on alleviating those generational challenges and traumas.

“Unfortunately, more is needed to combat these issues. This is why these collaborative partnerships are so important,” Cody said.

Although the Nation has the resources to treat those in need, it needed a plan to reflect Navajo values and principles of ntsáhákees (thinking), nahat’á, (planning), iiná (action) and sih hasin (reflection) that Navajos are familiar with through their traditional teaching.

The DAP was the result. It was designed to address public safety, violence, substance use disorder, suicide and missing and murdered Diné relatives on the Navajo Nation, said Cody.

According to the DAP, which references traditional Navajo teachings, in contemporary society Navajos face the “monsters” of the modern world.

“These include substance abuse, suicide and the various forms of violence that has come onto our people. With substance abuse, our people are attacked by the monster of addiction and lose their lives to chemicals that draw them into a trap of irresistible cravings where they are poisoned and die.

“With suicide, our Diné face the evil of hopelessness which results in the taking of one’s own life,” Cody said. “With violence, there are monsters of frustration and pain causing them to lash out on others. Finally, there are monsters outside Navajoland and within (which) take our people away from our families.”

The DAP states that the teachings of the Navajo deities, known to Navajos as the Holy People, “are embedded in our culture and traditions and the teachings provide us with the tools we need to defeat our modern monsters. The teachings have been given to us by our Diyin Dine’é (the Holy People).”

According to Navajo teachings, the seven monsters that have preyed upon the Navajo people from time immemorial are laziness, sleepiness, jealousy, hunger, poverty, lice and old age.

The DAP was established to maintain spiritual connection as the foundational component to self-identify and to our culture, said the president.

Nygren said the Diné Action Plan should be part of each state’s mental health programs because most Navajos would be familiar and comfortable with its concepts, and that would lead to better outcomes.

He said there is a need for a state-tribal cooperative approach because so many Navajos live off the Navajo Nation and use mental health care provided through neighboring state services.

“Mental health and wellness are so important, especially for our young people and elders,” he said. “By working together with our state partners, we can help ensure Navajos have access to culturally appropriate services no matter where they live.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted longstanding mental health challenges on the Navajo Nation. These include high rates of depression, substance abuse and suicide.
Isolation during lockdowns exacerbated these issues for many Navajos.

The agreements will aim to address barriers of lack of transportation, shortage of Navajo-speaking providers, and the high cost of care.

Specific programs being discussed include the development of a mobile crisis unit, school-based telehealth services and funding for traditional healing.

New Mexico needs to act to protect Native children #ICWA

OPINION

• By Robert A. Mora Sr. | Jan 13, 2022

As governor of Tesuque Pueblo, I know firsthand how vitally important it is to keep Native children in Native communities.

For generations, federal policies aimed at the erasure of Native culture focused on forcibly separating our children from their families and communities. These horrendous policies effectively disrupted the continuity of our Native culture by severing our connection to coming generations.

Despite these attacks, our communities have resisted and fought to protect our children through the centuries; we are still here. This year we are hopeful the New Mexico Legislature will protect Native families and communities and correct these historic injustices by creating a New Mexico state Indian Child Welfare Act.

After years of advocacy, the federal Indian Child Welfare Act was signed into law in 1978. The federal law was a response to the alarming rates of removal of Indian children from their communities. This act put into law minimum standards for the removal of Indian children from their families and placement in foster or adoptive homes outside their communities. These standards include a requirement for the child welfare system to engage with the child’s tribe, identify potential family or community foster care when necessary, and provide active efforts toward the child’s reunification with their parents or caretakers.

Through the years, federal law has ensured thousands of Native children could remain in their communities, surrounded by extended family and brought up in their own traditional culture. This law provides added protections against systems-level abuses directed at Indian children and puts an emphasis on placement with relatives or tribal community members.

But despite the protections the federal law has provided, New Mexico’s tribal nations still have some of the highest numbers of children and families impacted by the child welfare system. In addition, legal challenges to the federal law threaten the safety and well-being of Native families by undermining tribal sovereignty and the right to self-determination.

Responding to these challenges, representatives from all 23 tribal nations of the state, tribal ICWA workers, tribal-serving nonprofits, the Children, Youth and Families Department, and other advocates and stakeholders have worked for over two years to craft New Mexico state Indian Child Welfare Act policy. The result of this work is legislation that will provide lasting protection for our tribal nations and our children. Moreover, it will stand as an example of how New Mexico is dismantling systemic injustice by centering our Native children, family and communities first.

The goal of state ICWA policy is to ensure that we have legal protections at the state level regardless of what happens at the federal level and at the same time exceed the minimum standards established in 1978. We can take this opportunity to improve on those minimal standards by enacting best practices for Native families in ways that are unique to our state. We know that when we elevate the most vulnerable populations, we elevate the level of services for everyone involved in the system. By working across government systems, we can pave the way for our families to be healthy and whole.

As we head into the new year, I call on the Legislature and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to advance this policy and correct the historical injustices against our children and Indigenous communities.

Our children are precious, and we must do everything possible to keep them in our communities surrounded by Indigenous culture and language. Together, we can build a lasting legacy that uplifts our children and ensures they will grow up to be our future ancestors.

Robert A. Mora Sr. is the governor of the Pueblo of Tesuque.

Renewed Debate over U.S. Indian boarding schools

 

Oney M. Roubedeaux

As tribes wait for investigation to conclude, debate over Indian schools continues

Nancy Marie Spears | Gaylord News | Tuscon, AZ

Tribes across the Southwest dread the possibility that thousands of unmarked graves might be uncovered by a federal investigation into abandoned Native American boarding schools expected to wrap up early this year.

The investigation, ordered by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, came in the wake of the discovery this year of more than 1,200 unmarked graves at two long-shuttered boarding schools in Canada’s British Columbia and Saskatchewan provinces.

The probe also has renewed debate over Indian boarding schools, which were established in the 19th and 20th centuries with the primary objective of assimilating Indigenous youth into white culture by denying the use of their languages, dress and other cultural aspects.

Most boarding schools were closed in the 1980s and early 1990s, but dozens of schools remain open, with 15 still boarding students as of 2020, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Some are controlled by local tribes, while others are operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, a division of the Department of the Interior.

Boarding school alumni are widespread among Indigenous communities, and their thoughts about their experiences vary widely.

“She’s brought awareness for our Native people, for our children,” retired elementary school teacher Oney M. Roubedeaux said of Haaland. “I feel like that is opening up a box of worms. I mean, just a whole big old span of our people that nobody paid attention to.”

Roubedeaux, who is Ponca and Otoe-Missouria, was 6 in 1971, when she rode a Greyhound bus from Stillwater, Oklahoma, to Concho Indian Boarding School in El Reno with her brother, who was 8. She is the youngest of 17 siblings, many of whom attended boarding schools.

After her mother’s death in 1973, Roubedeaux was separated from her brother when she transferred from Concho to the Seneca Boarding School.

She said one of her other brothers was beaten to death in his room in Chilocco Indian School, 20 miles north of Ponca City, in 1980, the year it closed down. By the time she left Concho, there had been three student deaths, one being her best friend’s brother.

After her mother’s death, Roubedeaux was placed in foster care.

She went through 10 foster homes before one foster mother realized Roubedeaux – who was 16 – could not read or write. The teachers at the public and boarding schools she attended had never taken the time to teach her, Roubedeaux said.

She caught up, she said, with help from her foster mother, and eventually obtained a degree in special education from the University of Central Oklahoma. Roubedeaux, who lives in Pawnee, concluded her 20-year teaching career in March 2020.

Although “not everything was good,” she said, boarding schools gave her self-reliance, which was her biggest reclamation of agency.

“Boarding schools were a learning experience for me as a young child … it took me through life, to be able to rely on myself,” Roubedeaux said. “To this day, at the age of 57, I can still do that.”

According to the Boarding School Healing Coalition, 367 Indian boarding schools operated in 29 states, from Alabama to Alaska. Seventy-three were operating in 2020, and 15 of them still boarded students. Oklahoma had the most, with 83 schools, some of which still are operating. Arizona was second with 51 schools, 25 of which are open and three of which board students; New Mexico was fourth with 26 boarding schools.

Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, organized in 1871, is the oldest of four federally operated boarding schools in the nation.

Today’s boarding schools are a good thing, said Constance Fox, who is Cheyenne and Arapaho and graduated high school from Riverside in 1984.

“I think they’re a good thing because of the uniqueness Native students have,” said Fox, who’s a self-determination adviser for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma. “For many, it was all they had, good and bad. I hope they continue. I know there’s been a lot of positive strides made … I go back to Riverside and it’s a whole different place.”

Fox said Riverside has upgraded its buildings and athletics department over the years. When she attended Riverside, Fox said, no advanced courses were offered, but teachers now are recruited for such courses.

“I have friends that have kids and grandkids that go to boarding schools and it’s because they want to … because there is still discrimination in public schools,” Fox said. “Being around their Native people makes them want to do better and want to succeed. So, I think that’s a dynamic that has changed over the years.”

Fox attended Concho from grades 3 through 8 and graduated from Riverside as valedictorian. She holds a bachelor’s degree in tourism management from Northeastern State in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and a master’s degree in education from the University of Oklahoma.

Fox, who lives in Yukon, has worked for the BIA for nearly three decades, mostly in the area of self-determination.

Fox said boarding schools – specifically the adults who worked at them, who she says practically raised her – helped shape her passion for self-determination and her career working to better tribes.

“What at the time was negative to me ended up really being positive,” Fox said. “I learned so much about self-responsibility, and that came from the dorm parents, teachers, and other people who worked at both Concho and Riverside.”

Fox said she fully supports Haaland’s efforts and thinks her investigation shows goodwill to create an understanding of the traumas her ancestors suffered and the impact it has in 2022. Although closure can’t begin without acknowledging the history, she said it is hopeful to begin the healing process for the families and tribes impacted.

Hopi journalist Patty Talahongva got her start in journalism at Phoenix Indian High School in the 1978-79 school year. She is the executive producer of newscasts by Indian Country Today, a national nonprofit digital news publication focusing on Indigenous issues.

Although Talahongva, who lives in Phoenix, knows about the brutal history of her grandparents’ boarding school experiences, her year at Phoenix Indian School was different.

“People want to cling to this idea that it was always, always bad,” Talahongva said. “I would say there’s always good in whatever story, no matter how bad it got.”

By the time she was in school, Talahongva said, children were allowed to speak their languages freely, and cultural customs were celebrated, not suppressed. The overall experience, she said, made her more independent. The school, which opened in 1891, shut down in 1990.

Even the launch of Indian Country Today’s newscast in April 2020 has roots in boarding schools.

Talahongva said the newscast began a month after the pandemic was declared, so studio options were few. The solution? The former grammar building of Phoenix Indian School, built in 1935 and now used as a visitors center. Indian Country Today used it for seven months before moving into a studio at Arizona PBS.

“Those kids who went to school in that building were never encouraged to go to college, get a degree, or do whatever they wanted to do,” Talahongva said. “They were certainly never encouraged to become (television) anchors and producers. I can hear our relatives laughing. It’s like, ‘Take that, government. We’re using the building you put up to hold us down, and we’re broadcasting to the world.’”

This story was originally published by Gaylord News, a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Nancy Marie Spears, a Gaylord News reporter based in Washington, D.C., is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Cronkite News contributed to this story.

In New Mexico, ICWA bill coming in 2021 | Watch Dawnland Now (free)

 

Bill to codify the federal Indian Child Welfare Act into state law an important step, say advocates

By Susan Dunlap

A bill to protect Native American children so they can remain within their tribal communities and extended families will be pre-filed in the state Legislature in January, supporters say.

The bill, still in draft form, will codify the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) into state law if it’s passed by the state Legislature next year. The U.S. Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act into law in 1978 but it is too often not enforced, according to experts working on the state law.

Because of implicit bias against Native Americans, Native children are often removed from the home when a white child in an identical situation is not, said Donalyn Sarracino, director of Tribal Affairs for the Office of the Secretary for Child, Youth and Families Department and of the Pueblo of Acoma.

She said this is a national problem and that, in some cases, the rate of removals of Native children from their families is sometimes four times higher than white children removals.

“(Native) children are removed for reasons white children might not be removed,” Sarracino said.

Jacqueline Yalch, President of New Mexico Tribal Indian Child Welfare Consortium and of the Isleta Pueblo, said that often, tribal communities are seen “as unfit to raise our children.”

The consortium formed in 2015 to address this issue.

Keep Reading 

 

FREE AGAIN:: 

DAWNLAND (86 min)

For decades, child welfare authorities have been removing Native American children from their homes. DAWNLAND goes behind-the-scenes as this historic body grapples with difficult truths, redefines reconciliation, and charts a new course for state and tribal relations.

New court designed to keep Native American kids close to tribes, pueblos

The court's goal is to work directly with tribal members, families, and state agencies on finding the best solution for the child, all while preserving cultural ties. It's only the 6th one in the country.

 BERNALILLO COUNTY, NEW MEXICO—

In the pueblo of Pojoaque, there's a saying they take to heart.
"No one gets left behind, and we don't shoot our wounded," said Joseph Talachy, the governor of the Pojoaque.

When a tribal member is down, the pueblo as a whole works to bring them back up.
"We're all wounded to some extent here in the pueblo, and in northern New Mexico in general we come from very historically traumatic background," Talachy said.

For Talachy, the trauma is all too familiar.
"It wasn't until fairly recently, when I figured out that this was all a traumatic experience," Talachy said. "I thought everyone got adopted. I thought everyone got put in a different home."
Talachy was born in an Illinois prison. His biological mother is a Pojoaque tribal member who wasn't able to financially care for her kids, so she put them up for adoption.
"But given the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, it opened up the doors for me to come back to my pueblo," Talachy said.

The Indian Child Welfare Act, also known as ICWA, is a federal law that prevents state agencies from removing Native American children from their parents and placing them in outside communities. The goal is to keep the children as close to their cultures, traditions and tribes as possible.
"Actually under the obligations of the feds, they had to contact the tribe, in order to ask 'Hey tribe do you want your child back?'" Talachy said.
The Pojoaque governor at the time was able to find a tribal family to take Talachy in at the age of 4. Becasue of that he was able to be raised back in the pueblo, learning his culture, language and traditions. But that's not always the case for American Indian kids.
"I can't imagine what it's like for that 4-year-old child to be placed in another home and continue to be confused," Talachy said.
According to statistics from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, about 10 percent of kids in the foster care system are Native American. Native American children are also removed from their homes and communities at a much higher rate than non-Native American kids.
"There has been this historically trauma in this whole country," said Melody Wells with CYFD. "Having a distrust, and really not wanting to work with them."
Even though ICWA was enacted in 1978, many realized there was still a disconnect with state agencies and tribes.
"Sometimes it's as simple as walking into a courtroom and not seeing people who look like you," said Special Master Catherine Begaye. "Sometimes there's been some animosity between the tribes and CYFD, not knowing what one another is doing. For lots of families the way we've been doing things, doesn't always work for them."
Judges with the children's court ran an audit and found out that there were at least 100 children whose cases would likely end up in a courtroom, which is why Bernalillo County launched the ICWA court in January.
"That spoke to the need that we have to do much better," said Judge Marie Ward with the Second Judicial Court. "If we can do this better then, ultimately it's the kids and the families that get to stay together and have better lives."
The court's goal is to work directly with tribal members, families, and state agencies on finding the best solution for the child, all while preserving cultural ties.
"This new administration really looked at it and said why is this happening? That's really not how we want to be," Wells said. "I think as we see the ICWA unit working with more and more departments and individuals we will see a shift in how CYFD does things over, across the board."
Advocates of the program said structural racism, historical trauma, and institutional bias has had an impact with how New Mexico's courts treat Native American families, which is why many believe this court is long overdue.
"Native people should see a system that is changing to meet their needs, instead of them having to fit our cookie-cutter version of who their family should be," Begaye said. "Native people can thrive with the right support, and if that means a child who is 4 years old is in front of me, I want to be part of the group of people who want to set them on the course so that they can lead their people to a better future."
CYFD created an ICWA unit, that is composed of predominately native lawyers, case workers, and supervisors. The new court here in Bernalillo becomes only the sixth ICWA court in the country, joining cities like Billings, Denver, and Los Angeles. Since the court's launch, judges have heard two cases so far.
"We want to establish trust between us and the families, that we're really here for reunification," Begaye said.
For Talachy, his life was changed by the the ICWA system.
"Without the courts, I wouldn't have the opportunities that I've been given today. Who knows where I'd be?" Talachy said.
He knows who he is, he knows his roots, and he hopes every Native kid who ends up in the system will know theirs', too.

"Our children are our No. 1 asset, who we are ultimately gets passed down through our children; without their well-being, our culture dies, our language dies," Talachy said.

Currently the court is only hearing cases in Bernalillo County, but the judges hope to expand it statewide in the coming years.

THE NEW COURT IN BERNALILLO BECOMES THE 6TH ICWA COURT IN THE COUNTRY JOINING CITIES LIKE DENVER AND LOS ANGELES. SINCE JANUARY, THE COURT HAS HEARD TWO CASES. C.Y.F.D CREATED THIS UNIT, THAT IS COMPOSED OF PREDOMINATELY NATIVE LAWYERS, CASE WORKERS, AND SUPERVISORS. CURRENTLY THE COURT IS ONLY HEARING CASES IN BERNALILLO COUNTY, BUT THE JUDGES HOPES TO EXPAND IT STATEWIDE.


Source: Meeting the needs of Native kids through new court

Native American Court to Run Under Bigger Concept of Family

In 2017, Second Judicial District Children’s Court judge Marie Ward and ICWA court hearing officer Catherine Begaye (Diné/Navajo) sketched out an ICWA court blueprint for New Mexico.

But it wasn’t until a November 2018 visit by Judge Katherine Delgado, who helped start an ICWA court in Adams County, Colo., that pushed Ward and Begaye to accelerate. The Second Judicial Court in Albuquerque presides over the largest amount of overall child welfare cases as well as ICWA cases in the state, Ward said. A few months after Blalock’s January 2019 appointment to cabinet secretary, CYFD created an internal, all-Native female ICWA team of four ICWA caseworkers, an ICWA supervisor and two children’s court attorneys. The ICWA unit educates ICWA court caseworkers, guardian ad litems, lawyers and affiliated parties on the historical and intergenerational trauma that a Native family has experienced. “They need that expertise and knowledge so that Indian families can receive support,” Chavers said.

READ: Native American Court to Run Under Bigger Concept of Family - Youth Today