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WOW!!! THREE MILLION VISITORS!
President
Joe Biden did something that no U.S. president has done. He offered a
formal apology for the horrific, racist abuse suffered by Native
American and Alaska Native children in so-called American Indian
boarding schools. Biden apologized on Oct. 25 outside of Phoenix,
Arizona, at the Gila River Indian Community, at a meeting which included tribal leaders, survivors and their families.
The timing and place of this apology
raises eyebrows since it comes within two weeks of the Nov. 5
presidential election, and Native Americans make up 5% of the overall
population of Arizona, which is a “swing state.”
Beginning in 1819, thousands of
Native American and Alaska Native children were kidnapped from their
homes and sent away to schools (in reality, concentration camps), where
they were denied the right to their cultures, languages, histories and
spiritual beliefs. Their long hair was cut, and many of these children
were mentally and physically tortured, scarring them for life.
At least 973 children died in Indian
boarding schools operated or supported by the federal government, often
from abuse and disease. (The number is likely much higher.) Their labor
was superexploited in the schools and by white adults who adopted them
or hired them out. Most large American Indian boarding schools closed in
the 1980s and 1990s following years of activism, the passage of the
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and the
Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.
Many of these schools were maintained by the Catholic Church, other Christian denominations and the Mormon Church.
This abominable treatment was an
instrumental part of a centuries-long genocidal campaign waged against
Indigenous peoples that began when the butcher Christopher Columbus
seized Caribbean islands in 1492, claiming them for the Spanish
monarchy.
While many who attended the Oct. 25
meeting were heartened to hear Biden’s apology, others said that the
apology wasn’t nearly enough to reverse the long-lasting physical and
psychological harm done to those forced to attend the schools and to the
generations that followed.
Rosalie Whirlwind Soldier, a
79-year-old member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who suffered severe
mistreatment at a school in South Dakota that left her with a lifelong,
painful limp, said, “Sorry is not
enough. Nothing is enough when you damage a human being. A whole
generation of people and our future was destroyed for us.” She and
others are asking what comes next after the apology. (Associated Press,
Oct. 25)
Indigenous activists and allies protest in Boston.
United American Indians of New
England (UAINE), the main organizer of the annual National Day of
Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts, stated on its Facebook page in
anticipation of the president’s Oct. 25 announcement: “Biden to issue
apology, without reparations, for U.S. Indian boarding schools. Nothing
pledged to help Native children and families now dealing with
intergenerational trauma, disproportionate number of children in care
and all the other effects of genocidal U.S. anti-family policies.”
UAINE continued: “No increased
support for Indigenous language revitalization. Not to mention the
necessity of landback. Nor the fact that this is being done for votes by
an administration actively committing genocide. And free Leonard
Peltier!”
Any formal apology by a U.S.
president to an oppressed people, such as one President Bill Clinton
made in 1997 to African Americans regarding slavery and Biden made
recently to Indigenous peoples, is certainly a concession. But these
apologies for state-sanctioned atrocities are toothless, because their
white supremacist legacies remain intact.
Workers World is in total solidarity
with UAINE and other Indigenous peoples in demanding that reparations be
put in place to make any kind of apology real for those who are still
fighting for their right to basic human rights, sovereignty and
self-determination.
Otherwise, these apologies amount to nothing but grandstanding.
Many
people can instantly remember a movie they saw as a teenager that
became a part of their identity. My husband still talks about The Matrix
(1999), and the way it deeply impacted his questions about free will
and technology in daily life. Some of my adult friends still dress up
like the characters in Clueless (1995) for Halloween; clearly,
its exploration of self-perception, fashion, and social status resonated
with many people. As a Black adoptee, I remember when I first saw Antwone Fisher
(2002) and related to how he grapples with questions about his origins,
wondering who he is without knowing where he came from. His search for
his biological mother and family symbolizes a desire for
self-understanding and a connection to his roots, which was my
experience, too. I also saw pieces of that conversation in Losing Isaiah (1995) and Matilda
(1996), but they were sensational, rags-to-riches, zero-to-hero stories
that fell short of capturing the nuance that most adoptees like me face
daily. I ached for shows that reflected the wholeness of the adoptee
experience on the silver screen.
The
popular representations of adoption do not capture the range and
complexity of adoptee experiences with real-life consequences. Adoption comes with trauma; being adopted doubles the odds of having contact with a mental health professional and increases the risk of developing a substance abuse disorder, and adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide. Those adopted by parents of a different race, like me, face additional challenges
in forming our identity. If we want to provide lasting, happy lives for
adoptees, we must transform how we support them throughout every stage
of life.
While
working as a caseworker at an adoption agency, I didn’t have many pop
culture examples to show adoptive parents to provide a blueprint for how
to help their adopted child form a healthy identity. The media was full
of tidy, feel-good adoption stories that minimized the reality. Every
day, I spoke to well-meaning prospective adoptive parents, listening as
they struggled to understand practices that could benefit their adoptee,
like an open adoption that would allow their child to maintain a
relationship with their biological family. These ideas felt foreign and
frightening to many, leading to questions like, “Will the child become
confused about who their ‘real’ parents are?”
At the same time, I was going through my own search for my biological parents.
I
had a positive upbringing in my adoptive family, but I also felt a hole
in my heart that was left from growing up not knowing my birth parents.
One evening, after listening to my struggles to communicate with the
parents I work with, my husband said, “Why don’t we use the home video
footage we have of you meeting your birth mom for the first time and
turn it into something you can show your clients?” Our reunion had been
captured on camera, though at the time it was just for us, just for the
memory.
What
began as a casual passion project with our home footage quickly
evolved. Film had just been a hobby for my husband, but soon, he started
renting professional cameras and lights. He conducted interviews with
my parents, my siblings, and others involved in my life and my journey.
Friends of ours even offered to compose a soundtrack.
The result was Closure
(2013), a documentary that transformed from private family footage into
a film that found its way to Netflix. While on the screening tour, I
had countless conversations with adoptees who would share their stories
with me. Suddenly, they had a real, lived experience that could serve as
a blueprint for grappling with the complexities of adoption openly with
their parents. Adoptees who were of a different race than their
adoptive parents shared that they didn’t get the racial self-identity
support they needed and felt alone.
At
the same time, my parents, who often traveled with me to screenings,
were having a different kind of encounter. Adoptive parents would praise
them for allowing me to meet my birth mother. They believed that
because their child didn’t bring up their adoption, it wasn’t weighing
on them.
When
my parents and I compared notes after these events, we realized
something important. Many adoptees didn’t have safe spaces to share
their feelings about being adopted — not because their adoptive parents
were unkind or indifferent, but because adoption itself wasn’t a
normalized topic in their homes. It simply wasn’t discussed. Adoption
became a quiet shadow — present but unspoken. The adoptees I spoke to
longed for connection, for answers to questions that had been with them
their whole lives, but did not want to fracture their relationship with
their parents. They needed more ways to share their experiences without
fear and to have pathways to deeper understanding and healing along the
journey to find their identity and a sense of belonging.
Even
though many adoption agencies understand adoption is a lifelong
journey, very few can offer the kind of lifelong support adoptees need.
Action and Evolution
I
knew I had to create a space where adoptees could say the things aloud
that otherwise were filed away in the “not now/not safe”folder
in their brain. These conversations transformed into mentoring hundreds
of adoptees via Zoom. The strength, comfort, and mental well-being that
came from these conversations inspired me to found the Adoptee
Mentoring Society to reach more adoptees. We provide virtual one-on-one
and group mentorship facilitated by trained adoptee mentors. Our model
serves as an example of the power of offering post-adoption services by
adoptees for adoptees. Adoptees need a community and opportunities for
individual growth. Spending time with others who just get it by
having mentors or talking to other adoptees whose experiences reflect
our lives fosters the sense of well-being that is the foundation for a
happy, successful life.
We
need to make room for these raw, unfiltered truths in public discourse.
Only then can we foster real understanding and change for adoptees. I
loved working with the writers of NBC’s show This Is Us to ensure Randall’s character was as true to the transracial adoptee experience as possible. Adoptee and screenwriter Marissa Jo Cerar infuses her experience as an adoptee into nearly everything she touches, including the episode she wrote for The Handmaid’s Tale and her television adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel Black Cake.
This
National Adoption Month, support the healing work that we’re doing at
the Adoptee Mentoring Society by centering adoptees and ensuring our
voices are included in mainstream media and public discourse. This will
help support the basic needs and joys that lead to a healthy identity
formation for adoptees.
A painting that stands 15 stories high and depicts an Indigenous
woman in a ceremonial outfit holding a feather high in the air with a
full moon behind her was unveiled in Winnipeg Friday.
The artwork was done by Jeannie White Bird, a member of the Rolling River First Nation in southwestern Manitoba.
“It’s a work of love,” White Bird said of the mural. “We came up with
a really good foundation because it was clear this mural needed to be
about empowering the Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirited.”
White Bird grew up and raised her kids in Selkirk, Man. She said this
mural reminds her of looking into a mirror and believes many Indigenous
women and girls could see a piece of themselves in it as well.
“It was very powerful to my own spirit, very empowering to do this
because, I am going to be, I am older than I have ever been, I had a
birthday recently and in a couple of years I am going to be 60, so it
was really neat to know that I could do this,” she said.
White Bird was commissioned to do the work by the province of Manitoba and had six weeks to do it.
“It was challenging but at the same time mother nature was on our
side,” she said jokingly as she referred to the above average
temperatures Winnipeg has seen of late. “And I think today was actually
the coldest day so that was very kind and gentle for us, too.”
Manitoba’s Minister of Families, Accessibility and Gender Equity
Nahanni Fontaine said this mural is part of her government’s greater
Indigenous Women’s Strategy.
“For generations, Indigenous women, girls and two spirited have
endured misogynistic, degrading, marginalizing, and harmful narratives
systematically denying our worth,” Fontaine said, noting the NDP is
working on changing those systemic issues.
“This mural serves as a direct and profound act of resistance, liberation and reclamation of our own narrative.”
The name of the mural is Giizaagiigo, an Anishinaabemowin word meaning you are loved.
It also has spirituality aspects painted into the design with the
inclusion of full moon and water ceremony elements. The feather carried
by the woman represents truth. The colours of the fringes on the woman’s
skirt represent two-spirited people.
Cora Morgan is the special advisor on Indigenous women’s issues for
the province. She said it was important for the mural design to be
inclusive.
“We thought a full moon would be symbolic for everything that we want
good for the women,” Morgan said, adding, “We also have representation
of the Métis carried out in the floral depiction and we have the
inukshuk to represent the Inuit women as well.”
Manitoba is expected to roll out its full strategic plan called the
Greater Indigenous Women’s Strategy on Nov. 22. It is aimed at helping
protect some of the province’s most vulnerable people.
Martha is a survivor of Canada’s Indigenous residential school system
and the Sixties Scoop. From the 1870s to the 1990s, Canada operated a
system of church and state-run residential schools that forcibly
separated hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children from their
families, communities and cultures with the intention of erasing
Indigenous languages, spiritual practices and identities. Abuse was rife
at these schools and thousands of children did not survive them.
The Sixties Scoop was an extension of the residential school system
and ran from the late 1950s through the 80s. During this period,
thousands of Indigenous children across Canada were forcibly removed
from their families by child welfare services and placed into
non-Indigenous foster homes or adoptive families, often far from their
home communities. Part of a broader government policy aimed at
assimilating Indigenous peoples into mainstream Canadian society,
authorities typically justified these removals by citing poverty, poor
living conditions, or perceived neglect.
November 4, 2024 - President Joe Biden's Proclamation on National Native American Heritage Month, 2024.
During National Native American Heritage Month, we honor the history,
rich cultures, and vast contributions of Native peoples. We celebrate
the hundreds of Tribal Nations that are ushering in a new era in our
Nation-to-Nation relationships. And we recommit to respecting Tribal
sovereignty and self-determination and working in partnership with
Tribal Nations to bring new prosperity and security to Native peoples.
Indigenous peoples’ history in the United States is defined by
strength, survival, and a deep commitment to and pride in their
heritage, right to self-governance, and ways of life. Native peoples
have built and sustained powerful Tribal Nations, and the knowledge they
developed still benefits us today. However, our Nation’s failed
policies of the past subjected generations of Native peoples to cruelty,
violence, and intimidation. The forced removal of Native peoples from
their homes and ancestral homelands; attempts to assimilate entire
generations; and stripping of Indigenous peoples of their identities,
cultures, and traditions are some of the darkest chapters of our
Nation’s history. The trauma and turmoil fundamentally altered their
communities. As the first President to visit Indian Country in 10
years, I delivered a national apology for the unspeakable harms caused
to Native peoples at Federal Indian Boarding Schools.
Indigenous peoples have persisted and survived — a testament to
their resilience and resolve. Today, Native communities are leading the
way forward and continuing to strengthen the fabric of the United
States. They have long served in the United States military and
currently serve in the highest levels of government — including the
Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, America’s first Native American
Cabinet secretary. In every field and sector, Native peoples are
pushing for progress and contributing to our shared prosperity.
Since I came into office, the Federal Government has made record
investments in Tribal Nations. Federal contracts with Native
American-owned companies increased by over $8 billion from 2020 to
2023. My American Rescue Plan made the largest direct Federal
investment in Tribal Nations ever, helping vaccinate Tribal communities
during the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping the economy going. My
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made the single biggest investment in
Tribal roads, bridges, water, high-speed internet, electricity,
irrigation, environmental cleanup, and so much more. My Inflation
Reduction Act made the biggest investment in fighting climate change
ever — including funding to help Tribal communities lead in the just
transition to clean energy and ease the impact of droughts, wildfires,
and rising sea levels, which threaten Native lives and precious
homelands.
My Administration is also working to ensure that Native
communities are safe and secure and have the resources they need to
thrive. I signed an Executive Order that improves the Federal response
to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples. When we
reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act in 2022, we included
historic provisions to reaffirm Tribal sovereignty and expand Tribal
jurisdiction in cases where outside perpetrators harm members of their
Nation. And for the first time ever, my Administration also secured
advance funding for the Indian Health Service so hospitals can plan
ahead, order supplies, and hire doctors. We have provided historic
funding to Tribal communities to help fight the behavioral health crisis
and taken significant steps to improve maternal health for Native
American women, who are twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related
complications as white women.
I have always believed that we must know the good, the bad, and
the truth of who we are as a Nation — we must acknowledge our history so
that we can begin to remember and heal. That is why I became the first
President to issue a formal apology for the Federal Indian Boarding
School era, one of the most horrific chapters in our Nation’s history.
For 150 years, the Federal Government mandated the removal of Native
children from their families and Tribes — and as a result, generations
of Native children had their childhoods stolen and whole Tribal cultures
were erased. I am proud to formally end the silence surrounding this
shameful era and I remain proud that my Administration defended the
Indian Child Welfare Act in court, ensuring that our Nation respects
Tribal sovereignty and protects Native children by helping Native
families stay together and grow up with their languages and cultures.
And we are working to support Native American families and communities
as they heal from the Federal Indian Boarding School era through the
Department of the Interior’s Road to Healing initiative and by
supporting Native language preservation and public safety initiatives.
My Administration has also worked with Tribal Nations to
preserve, protect, and steward important ancestral Tribal lands and
waters. Through more than 200 co-stewardship and co-management
agreements signed under my leadership, we are working side by side with
Tribes to make decisions about how to manage the lands that are most
precious to them. And to date, I have protected and conserved more than
45 million acres of our Nation’s lands and waters. That includes the
Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, vast offshore waters off
California’s coast and the first sanctuary to be proposed by Indigenous
communities. I have also established, expanded, and restored
11 national monuments, many containing sites considered sacred to Tribal
Nations — from Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument, and Avi Kwa Ame National Monument to Baaj Nwaavjo
I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National
Monument, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, and others.
During National Native American Heritage Month, we honor the
heritage and contributions of Native peoples, and we work tirelessly to
build a future grounded in dignity, respect, and partnership. We remain
committed to working with Native communities to write a new and better
chapter in American history for Tribal Nations — one that honors the
solemn promise the United States made to Tribal Nations, fulfills our
Federal trust and treaty obligations, and works together to rebuild
Tribal economies and institutions.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim
November 2024 as National Native American Heritage Month. I urge all
Americans, as well as their elected representatives at the Federal,
State, and local levels, to observe this month with appropriate
programs, ceremonies, and activities. Also, I urge all Americans to
celebrate November 29, 2024, as Native American Heritage Day.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord
two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the two hundred and forty-ninth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. Source: Office of the White House
The timing of the APOLOGY did seem strange but it is ELECTION season... Trace
By Marianna McMurdock | Native
American leaders and survivors of the federal Indian boarding school
system are calling on the Biden administration to do more than apologize
to facilitate healing for their communities.Their calls have
been mounting for decades, but the remarks marked a milestone: the first
time a U.S. President ever acknowledged and apologized for the system
where federal agents removed children from their parents, often at
gunpoint, sending them to schools thousands of miles from home,
stripping families of their language and culture.
The
exact number of children who were forced into boarding schools in the
U.S. for over 150 years is unknown, due to poor record keeping, but
nearly 19,000 have been confirmed. Physical, sexual and psychological
abuse was rampant at the schools often run by religious institutions.
Some children were referred to only as numbers, pre-teen girls were raped and sent home pregnant. Thousands never returned home.
Native American girls from the Omaha tribe at Carlisle School, Pennsylvania. (Getty Images)
Addressing
the public on the Gila River Reservation outside of Phoenix, Arizona on
October 25, President Joe Biden fulfilled a long-delayed promise to
visit Indian country and called the boarding school system a “sin on our
soul,” adding there was “no excuse” for how long-overdue the
acknowledgement was and that “no apology can or will make up for what
was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy. But
today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.”
The timing of the visit has also been noted as a tactic in the swing state to woo Native voters to cast votes for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. But many Native Americans are frustrated by government inaction to adequately protect lands, provide access to quality education and healthcare, and enact an arms embargoagainst Israel.
TOP PHOTO: A
protester holds a sign as US President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila
River Crossing School in the Gila River Indian Community, in Laveen
Village, near Phoenix, Arizona on October 25, 2024. (Andrew
Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images)
Survivors
and descendants both acknowledge how meaningful Biden’s speech was
after centuries of fighting for recognition from the federal government,
and call on the administration to act swiftly on the apology.
“In
his last two weeks in office, we demand that President Biden also pass
S.1723/H.R.7227: The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding
School Policies Act,” said the Native American Boarding School Healing
Coalition, a nonprofit that has worked with survivors and Tribal leaders
for over a decade to educate about the system and facilitate
repatriations.
The legislation would provide a path for investing
in language and culture revitalization efforts, educating the American
public on the system via museums or curricula, and establishing
trauma-informed mental health resources.
It
would also enable subpoenas to be used to investigate the scale of the
system: Catholic entities have been able to hold onto private records
for decades, some of which contain the only known photographs or
remnants of survivors’ ancestors. Reintroduced in both the Senate and
House last year, the bill has yet to reach a vote.
The mental and
physical health concerns of survivors and lack of widespread
reconciliation reached national spotlight earlier this year when the
Interior Department released its final investigative report
on the system, which revealed at least 1,000 Indigenous children died
or were killed. The schools operated using over $23 billion federal
dollars, adjusted for inflation.
Left:
Portrait of Justin Shedee (Apache) from 1889 (Cumberland County
Historical Society) Right: Letter from Justin Shedee expressing his wish
to leave Carlisle (National Archives and Records Administration via
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center)
Thousands
were subject to child labor to operate facilities and be “outed,”
working without wage for white families near the schools.
Angelique
Albert, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and
chief executive of the nation’s largest direct scholarship provider for
Native students, Native Forward, referred to the boarding schools not as
places of education but as places of “extermination.”
Just as
slavery was used as the tool to harm Black people across the Americas,
“education was the tool to harm us, to assimilate us. That’s the tool
where we lost our children,” Albert said, adding that the apology is a
testament to the work done by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the
nation’s first Native American cabinet member and former recipient of
their scholarships, to unearth survivor testimony and investigate the
system.
“She’s in the very position that implemented the boarding
schools. Do you understand? It gives me chills,” Albert said,
emphasizing how critical it is for the federal government to maintain
close relationships with Tribal nations and put more funding behind
college access for Native youth so their voices can be heard in
positions they’ve been historically excluded from.
While the
apology, however late, is a “critical first step in the truth and
reconciliation process for Native and Indigenous communities,” Albert
stressed, “Indian boarding school policies are not a horror of the past —
these institutions operated through 1969, and many Native people who
were subjected to these cruel policies are still living today.”
Shower in the girls dorm on the Blackfoot Reservation, Cutbank Boarding School (Bureau of Indian Affairs, Morrow, May 1951)
The
boarding school system, while the focus of President Biden’s remarks,
was not the only widespread, forced removal of Native children.
Throughout the 60s and 70s, over a third were removed from their
families and overwhelmingly placed in non-Indian homes after
discriminatory welfare investigations.
In Washington, Native
children were placed in foster care and adopted at rates 19 times
greater than their peers. The practice was widespread until 1978’s
Indian Child Welfare Act was passed by Congress, who stated “wholesale
separation of Indian children from their families is perhaps the most
tragic and destructive aspect of American Indian life today.”
Native populations now face disproportionately poor health outcomes,
including the highest rates of substance abuse, suicidal ideation and
chronic illnesses, which researchers have linked to centuries of
genocide, disinvestment and generational trauma.
Following Biden’s address, an Indigenous collective gathered to pray, mourn, sing and push for more action in South Dakota, on the lands of what will soon be the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy, a “culture-based school” for Lakota, Dakota and Nakota children.
“Tonight,
we took to the land and reminded the world that we are the children of
survivors … We will honor our ancestors by holding this country
accountable for what it has done to our people,” NDN Collective
president Nick Tilsen said in a release. “The U.S. government tried to
exterminate and erase us. We will continue to remind them they have
failed at doing so, and the warrior spirit of our ancestors lives in all
of us.”
One word not found in President Biden’s apology is "domination"
But instead of acknowledging the U.S. government’s ongoing claim of a right of domination over Native nations,
Biden’s remarks made it seem as if all of that ended a long time ago.
It’s called “A Lie of Omission” by leaving it unmentioned and out of
focus. (How funny that the word “mission” is embedded in the word
“omission”).
Lori Long Chase disappeared in 1983, and so did much of her life story.
Her body had been unknowingly found almost a month after she was last seen by family. But she remained nameless for decades and her homicide went unsolved.
Now after 41 years, Lori is able to reclaim her name, as the details of her life and death begin to unfold.
Lori was adopted out of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in about 1965 when she was only days old, her little sister, Memory Long Chase, says. Memory was also adopted 13 years later as a baby out of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She’s now one of the last surviving people ever to know Lori.
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).
“I want to think that she knows I didn’t forget her,” says Memory, who was only 5 years old when Lori went missing. Most of what she knows is based on her childhood memory and bits of information she’s heard from their family over the years.
Lori Long Chase (Phoenix Police Department)
“Maybe I’ve invented some in my mind as I’m kind of piecing things together but I want to think that they’re real,” she says of her memories of her big sister Lori.
Lori was a distance swimmer, and a really good one, Memory says. She swam the 1500-meter butterfly and might’ve held a state record at one point. Memory remembers a detective with the Phoenix Police Department sharing a yearbook photo they found of Lori “in that Michael Phelps pose.”
One memory that stands out in Memory’s mind is the time Lori used the money she made from her first job to buy her a book about Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. “It was a really big book … it had all these artist drawings and storyboards. It was the coolest thing ever,” she says before becoming silent for a moment.
“It’s so unfair that those are the only memories I have of her,” Memory says, her voice quavering. “But they were pretty great, the ones I do have.”
Missing since 1983
On the first Saturday in October, about a dozen people attended a memorial service honoring Lori, even though most had never met her.
They gathered under a ramada outside the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community where a rosary and mass had just ended. Nearly everyone who showed up for Memory and Lori wore red — a color that’s come to symbolize the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s movement.
“I think one of the hardest parts about this was knowing that there’s so few alive that remember who she was and so I wanted to keep (Lori’s memory) alive because it mattered to me that she lived,” Memory says as everyone sat around a few folding tables to listen to her talk. “I’m sorry that her life was brief and I’m sorry it was difficult.”
Lori was just a few months shy of her 18th birthday when she went missing in Phoenix on about July 21, 1983. It was the same day she started a new job at a pizza restaurant, Memory and a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department told Arizona Luminaria. When her mom went to pick up Lori at the end of her shift, she was told her daughter had been fired because her boyfriend kept showing up and being disruptive.
That was the last time anyone in their family saw or heard from Lori, Memory says. At the memorial people around her quietly nibbled on slices of pizza, which Memory picked to signify the day Lori went missing.
Candles bearing the words "We love you" and "Gone too soon" at Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
Until recently, most of what was known publicly about Lori was written across a missing person flyer from the Phoenix Police Department. At its center is a cropped photo of Lori that Memory says was taken outside her family’s new home on the Gila River Indian Community weeks, maybe even days, before her disappearance.
The uncropped version of the photo shows Lori sitting against the hood of a Triumph Spitfire and staring directly at the camera. Her brown hair is fluffed and feathered, like many teens her age styled it in the 1980s.
And while her smile illuminates through the old photo’s fading color, it’d likely been a tough time for Lori. Several months earlier she lost her baby boy shortly after he was born.
Reclaiming her name
Lori’s disappearance would go unsolved for the next four decades, though she wasn’t officially reported missing to the Phoenix Police Department until 2021. Memory says she doesn’t know if their mom, who died in 2016, ever tried to report Lori missing before then.
“My mom wouldn’t want to talk about it,” Memory says.
Four years ago, Memory contacted detectives because she believed an unidentified girl listed on the police department’s website could be Lori. The girl — known at the time only as Ahwatukee Jane Doe — was believed to be affiliated with the San Carlos Apache Tribe and had been found dead nearly a month after Lori disappeared.
“The first composite drawing has really tightly curly hair. I didn’t remember Lori having curly hair. But, page 2, that composite drawing is almost identical to that last picture that we have of her,” Memory says.
Because Memory wasn’t biologically related to Lori she couldn’t undergo DNA tests to help confirm the girl’s identity. Ahwatukee Jane Doe remained unnamed. Lori remained missing.
In May 2022, the department released a video with photos of Lori and a plea on National Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Awareness Day. They described a young woman found on the banks of a canal in Ahwatukee and asked for information to help locate potential biological relatives of Lori for DNA testing.
"Last year, a family came forward saying this might be their adopted sister, Lori Megan Long Chase, who went missing around the same time period in the early 80s," said Ryan Cody, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department. "Now, almost 40 years later, we are asking the public for their help again to identify this Jane Doe."
No one has yet come forward.
The department decided to find the burial place for Lori’s infant son, Bronson Hawk Long Chase. With help from the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner, Lori’s baby and her only known blood relative was exhumed for DNA testing.
More than a year passed as Memory waited. And on Sept. 5 her phone rang. The DNA testing had confirmed Ahwatukee Jane Doe was indeed Lori, closing the chapter on her missing person case but opening another into her death.
“This leg of the journey is over, but Part 2 begins,” Memory says. “It’s so surreal because her being missing has been a fact in my existence for most of my existence so now it’s like I don’t even know what to do with myself.”
“It took 41 years for science to give Lori her name back and so I think we have every reason to hope that science will give her justice,” she later added.
Heurich, who helped launch the program in the early 2000s, described NamUs as “a one-stop-shop tool” that helps law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, and the general public track missing, unidentified and unclaimed persons cases. The program can also help resolve cases by offering resources such as investigative support, training and outreach and forensic sciences similar to what investigators used to identify Lori.
Heurich has worked on hundreds of cases over the past two decades. Finding resolution in missing and unidentified person cases, he said, can bring about feelings of immense gratitude for the family and investigators involved.
Even in instances when a missing person is later discovered to have been a victim of a violent crime, he said, families may be comforted in the fact that they’re closer to justice and can lay their loved one to rest.
“It's undescribable when you have a family member come up and hug you … and they cry on your shoulder,” Heurich said. “I've cried with a lot of family members whose cases have been solved and whose cases have been unsolved and it's probably one of the most impactful experiences I have had through my career.”
NamUs is a voluntary program, meaning there is no federal law requiring agencies to enter cases into the database, he said. Sixteen states including Arizona have legislation mandating the use of NamUs for either missing and/or unidentified person cases, according to the program’s website. However, none of those state statutes include an enforcement component making it difficult to ensure agencies are complying with the law, Heurich said.
In Arizona, law enforcement agencies are required to submit information about a missing, kidnapped or runaway child to NamUs, among others, within two hours of receiving a report. No other Arizona laws specifically mention NamUs and it is not clear if any Tribal Nations in Arizona have laws related to NamUs.
“The numbers of cases in NamUs are vastly different from the numbers of cases we’re hearing out in the United States,” Heurich said, adding that the missing people in its system only represent cases reported to the program.
In order for a case to be published in the database, there has to be an active missing person report created by a law enforcement agency, he said. As part of the services the program provides, NamUS staff can work with law enforcement to create a report for a missing person at the request of families.
“We do understand there is a very large issue out there not just in the tribal communities but in the law enforcement community, in general, with actually taking missing persons reports, especially with people over the age of 18 who are considered adults,” he said.
“For lack of a better word, there’s a stigma out there that people who are over 18 are allowed to go missing for whatever reason they want to,” Heurich continued. “Sometimes those cases are taken less seriously until there is actual proof that that person is probably and most likely endangered.”
A T-shirt bearing the words "You are not forgotten" and "MMIW" at Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
‘The database is only as good as the number of cases in it’
Closing gaps in state laws that would require and enforce reporting of missing people of all ages could help increase the number of successfully resolved cases. It’s especially important for Indigenous communities in Arizona, a state that was identified in a 2017 study from the Urban Indian Health Institute as having the third highest number of cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country.
Native Americans, particularly Native American women, rank the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women among the most important issues facing their communities, according to the First Nations Development Institute’s 2023 National Native American Justice survey.
Indigenous families searching for their missing loved one, or seeking justice for their murdered loved one, often face systemic failures that contribute to gaps in data and reporting. Some families wait years and many never find justice or resolution.
There are 1,072 missing person cases in Arizona entered into NamUs, almost 9% (93) of which are identified on the database as Native Americans, an Arizona Luminaria review of the website on Oct. 30 showed. Yet, Native Americans make up just more than 5% of the state’s total population, according to 2023 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
NamUs could not immediately provide Arizona Luminaria with an example of an Indigenous person's case it helped to solve in Arizona.
“We still encounter a little bit of skepticism on the science and we're trying to help bridge the mistrust with collecting DNA samples from family,” Heurich said, adding that in some Indigenous communities taking someone’s DNA can be considered taking part of their spiritual being.
“We want to convey to the communities that taking (a DNA sample) may be the only way that we can identify or find their person.”
In comparison to state and local law enforcement agencies, Heurich said there is a general lack of reporting of missing person cases to NamUs by tribal police, which he attributed to a lack of resources, trust and training. That’s why outreach and education — not only about the possible benefits of forensic sciences, but also the existence of NamUs as a resource — is a goal for the program, he said.
“We're always looking at ways to do better outreach. To let, not only families and everyone in the general public know about NamUs as a tool, but also police agencies,” he said.
“I think one of the biggest things that we could say out in the community of victims, survivors and law enforcement is: Use NamUs because the database is only as good as the number of cases in it.”
Memory Long Chase speaks to guests attending her sister Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
Part 2 for Memory
Memory passed out remembrance cards with a photo of Lori wearing a hospital gown and mask while holding her baby boy in her arms. The cards also showed the photo of Lori taken outside their family’s new home at the time on the Gila River Indian Community. The same photo police used on Lori’s missing person’s flyer.
“There are not enough words to express our grief at the loss of Lori, but forever grateful she is no longer lost,” the card reads near the bottom. “Rest in Power after 41 years.”
Lori Long Chase (Phoenix Police Department)
Beyond a short explanation about Lori’s body being found in 1983, Phoenix police did not share any details with the public or Arizona Luminaria about its investigation into her death. At one point in 2018, the department tried to determine if she was Peggy Elgo, a 20-year-old San Carlos Apache woman who also went missing in 1983. The following year another unidentified person found in Pinal County was confirmed to be Peggy.
The Phoenix Police Department did not respond to multiple requests dating back to July for an interview about Lori’s case, and on Sept. 10 ultimately denied an interview saying a detective new to the case was still reviewing it.
The department instead offered to share questions with the detective. Phoenix police spokesperson Sgt. Brian Bower provided an emailed response to those questions to Arizona Luminaria on Sept. 17. Bower has not responded to follow-up questions emailed multiple times.
A public records request with the agency is also still pending.
Lori’s death was determined to be a homicide. Her body was found on Aug. 15, 1983, along a canal in the 4300 block of East Williams Field Road, according to an Arizona Republic news brief Phoenix police shared in their 2022 plea for help solving the case. It was described as a rural farming area south of Ahwatukee and within a mile of the Gila River Indian Community, where Lori’s family had just moved and Memory was raised.
Phoenix police at the time said she appeared to have been killed somewhere else before being moved to the area where she was found and possibly laid alone for days, according to the news brief.
“I was kind of wanting to focus on her life more than her death but … I think highlighting her death is equally important because she died horribly,” Memory says. “I think her official cause of death is strangulation, she was found nude, beaten and bloody in a canal where she laid for a couple of days in August.”
During the memorial service, Memory says Lori’s boyfriend is an alleged suspect in her homicide case. Responding to Arizona Luminaria’s inquiry about suspects, a Phoenix police department spokesperson said they would look into the case.
Memory also told the group that Phoenix police learned Lori had been hospitalized between the time her family last saw her and when her body was found. “Her boyfriend beat her severely enough to put her in the hospital for several days,” Memory says. “That was the last time anybody saw her alive.”
Memory Long Chase wipes away her tears during her sister Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
‘She was meant to be here for a reason’
After sharing Lori’s story with the group, Memory thanked everyone for attending her sister’s memorial. “It’s an orphan’s lot to go through things by yourself,” she says. “Thank you for being here and helping me celebrate the fact that she lived because she mattered.”
Then, Memory fell silent. In the quiet, the low rumble of cars passing by on the nearby main road sounded like a roar. She cupped her face with her hands, propped her head over the table and began to cry.
“She didn’t deserve that,” Memory muffles into her hands.
Her cries hung in the air for a moment while everyone else sat in silence. Many of the guests were women working to end domestic violence. They were there to support Memory, but also to pay respects to a girl who may have fallen victim to domestic violence — the very people they aim to help.
“I had that last bit of hope that she’s off living her life somewhere,” Memory later says. “But once I saw that drawing it was over for me, I think I kind of knew without knowing.”
“I don't think it was any coincidence that I do the work that I do and it reaffirms that this is where I’m supposed to be,” she continued. “It’s heartbreaking but I love it … I believe in what we do and I believe in who we do it for.”
Memory’s journey into advocacy began in 2014 when she worked at the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. Now, she serves as the Domestic Violence Response Director at SWIWC, formerly known as the Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition.
The organization helps Tribal Nations in Arizona address and respond to domestic and sexual violence in their communities through education, training, policy advocacy and more, according to its website. They also helped organize the first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls event at the Arizona State Capitol in May 2019.
For her work, Memory was awarded a “Courage in Action” Distinguished Service Award from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes in 2023. The award recognizes a crime victim or survivor who creates “positive systemic change on behalf of other victims,” according to a brief from the attorney general’s website.
“Working with Indigenous communities and drawing on personal experience of being a victim herself, has given her a unique perspective on how to address and respond to all forms of violence, as well as how to educate community members on the dynamics within Native communities,” the brief states about Memory alongside a photo of her and Mayes.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s also Lori’s birthday month.
She would have turned 59 on Oct. 11. Rather than celebrating together, Memory is instead planning where to lay her sister and nephew to rest. She launched a GoFundMe campaign days after Lori was identified to help cover cremation costs. It had raised $3,150 of its $3,500 goal as of Oct. 30.
Memory says she might return Lori with her son to the San Carlos Apache Reservation, where she originally was from.
“She was meant to be here for a reason and maybe this was it, maybe her case helps advance science for the next family and maybe the detectives who worked her case can be a model on how investigations can go,” Memory says.
“I refuse to let it be without purpose and I’ll continue to share her story until I die.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect date for when Phoenix police responded to emailed questions. A spokesperson responded to Arizona Luminaria on Sept. 17.
This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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