Adoption Reality: Forced Adoption Scotland

After 50 years of silence, victims of Scotland’s forced adoption scandal demand redress

By Marion Scott November 17, 2024 

© Andrew Cawley

Attendees of the meeting in Holyrood included The Sunday Post’s Chief Reporter, Marion Scott, second right. Attendees gathered to discuss the lack of action following then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s high-profile apology for the forced adoption scandal, which was issued last year prior to her leaving the role.

The Scottish Government must compensate the victims of the forced adoption scandal, now that it has accepted responsibility, a leading lawyer has said.

Experts say the injustice of taking babies from their mothers simply because they were not married compares with the harm caused by both the infected blood and in-care abuse scandals.

Solicitor Advocate Patrick McGuire, who heads negligence firm Thompsons Solicitors, told a round table inquiry in the Scottish parliament last week: “When Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered the forced adoption apology last year on behalf of the state, she accepted responsibility for what happened.

“Accepting that responsibility comes with the unanswerable requirement to create a redress scheme to help victims recover from the trauma and harm they suffered.”

Forced adoption scandal

Calling on victims to ditch the guilt cruelly imposed upon them for over 50 years, McGuire said: “The forced adoption scandal saw vulnerable women shamed into silence for decades, an unjust shame which remains a factor today over why so many still have not felt able to come forward to seek justice.”

McGuire, whose expert team has been investigating the injustice and human rights abuses inflicted upon Forced Adoption victims until the practice was halted in the late ’70s, said all those involved suffered lifelong harm.

Bullied, threatened with jail if they tried to find their children, and lied to over their legal rights, he warned the psychological damage inflicted upon 60,000 mothers, their children and families is still causing trauma today.

© Andrew Cawley

Forced adoption victims and experts meet MSPs in Holyrood.

On behalf of the Scottish Government, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered an unreserved apology in March 2023. She said: “Ultimately, it is the state which is morally responsible for setting standards and protecting people. As modern representatives of the state, I believe we – among others – have a special responsibility to the people affected. We have a responsibility to do whatever we can to support them, in dealing with the legacy of what happened.”

She added: “The issuing of a formal apology is an action governments reserve for the worst injustices in our history. Without doubt, the adoption practices which prevailed in this country for decades fit that description.”

McGuire said: “Forced adoption shares hallmarks with the infected blood scandal and the thousands of children in care who suffered appalling sexual and physical abuse decades ago in residential school and homes.

“Individuals were treated inhumanely decades ago, in circumstances that were ultimately the responsibility of government.

“The government recognised their responsibility in the formal apologies which followed, just as they did for forced adoption.

“Forced adoption victims have been shamed into silence for decades, and that unjust shame remains a factor today over why so many victims still have not felt able to come forward to seek justice.”

‘No excuse’

McGuire, who has championed victims harmed by exposure to deadly asbestos, mesh-injured patients and bereaved families in the hospital inquiry, told MSPs there is “no excuse” for the Scottish Government to delay delivering redress to forced adoption victims.

He said: “As they did in both the infected blood and in-care abuse scandals, Westminster and Holyrood decided, purely on the basis of a moral case, to create compensation schemes after recognising their responsibility for what happened. The Scottish Government already have the blueprint for redress schemes. They must proceed without delay.

“Without The Sunday Post exposing this dark, hidden episode in Scotland’s history, the victims of forced adoption would have continued suffering some of the worst examples of injustice I’ve ever encountered.

“It’s deeply upsetting so many mothers who had their babies taken from them have passed away without getting justice.

“That is why it is incumbent upon the government to do the right thing as a matter or urgency. The scandal becomes ever more shameful as time passes and more victims are denied justice for something which never should have happened.”

The campaign

Supported by MSPs Monica Lennon and Miles Briggs, campaign group Forced Adoption Scotland, who secured the apology, is calling on victims to put aside the shame unjustly forced upon them to come forward and seek redress.

© Andrew Cawley

Marion McMillan.

Campaigner Marion McMillan, 74, said: “We’ve been silenced for over 50 years. Our legal and human rights were taken from us at the same time our babies were torn from our arms and given to married couples as we wept.

“Times have changed so radically; we recognise how difficult it must be for people today to fully understand what was done to us. We were terrified of authority, threatened with being thrown in jail if we tried to find our babies. We were told we were worthless, not fit to be mothers simply because we fell in love outside of marriage.

“Nobody at Forced Adoption Scotland made a lifestyle choice to give their baby up. If what was done to us was attempted today, those responsible would be behind bars. The Scottish Government did the right thing by delivering a formal apology. But since then, they’ve failed to engage with Forced Adoption Scotland and failed to keep the promises they made to our mothers, adoptees and families who have suffered unbearably.

“Because of those failures, we believe the only way forward now is for a redress scheme. We need funds to pay for the specialist support and counselling to repair the damage done to us.”

Forced Adoption Scotland adoptee Marjorie White, 73, said: “After recognising the harm done to us, the Scottish Government then tried to do things on the cheap by funding counselling services from inexperienced groups with no experience of dealing with the kind of the trauma we suffered.

“At the same time, experienced trusted organisations like Birthlink have not been given adequate government funding to provide the support and services we need, and they are best at delivering.

“When Nicola Sturgeon delivered the formal apology, we were full of hope that after decades of silence and pain, at last our suffering would end and the wrongs of the past would finally be recognised.

“She promised all victims would get the help and support we needed to recover from the harm we suffered, the trauma of having our identities taken from us and the years of searching and never getting answers because the adoption system prevented us.

“But after she stepped down as First Minister, those who were supposed to keep the promises she made failed us dismally. In fact, the blundering attempts they made to provide support which was entirely unsuitable have caused even further damage. That is unforgivable.

“Government ministers and officials have made little or no attempt to work alongside Forced Adoption Scotland despite our decades long fight for the formal apology and our success achieving it.

“Our group contains members from every side of the adoption scandal, but there has been no consultation with us. Adoptees in particular have been left out of discussions. We all matter. We all suffered lifelong harm and distress.

“I have spent much of my adult life receiving counselling for what was done to me, and I have trained as a counsellor so in effect I could try and heal myself. When I compare the quality of the services the government are offering, I have more experience than those being paid public money to supposedly help us. It’s unacceptable.”

The Scottish Government said: “Our deepest sympathies are with the mothers, adoptees and families who have endured immense pain and suffering as a result of these unjust practices.

“We recently held sessions with mothers and adoptees. We are taking forward actions based on these discussions, and we continue to fund the charity Health in Mind to offer specialist support to those affected by historic adoption.”

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If you’re a victim, you can contact Forced Adoption Scotland on Facebook and Thompsons Solicitors Scotland on 0800 0891 331 or on WhatsApp. The Sunday Post’s chief reporter is Marion Scott – mascott@sundaypost.com

Bad River: Enbridge’s reroute

 Please watch the movie BAD RIVER ...now showing on Peacock/Comcast...

NATIONAL NATIVE NEWS:

A post marks where Enbridge’s Line 5 crosses the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa on Friday, June 24, 2022. (Photo: Danielle Kaeding / WPR)

After securing key state permits, hurdles remain for a Canadian energy firm’s plan to reroute an oil and gas pipeline around the Bad River tribe’s reservation in Wisconsin.

As Danielle Kaeding reports, that includes renewed calls from tribal leaders to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5.

Bad River Tribal Vice Chair Patrick Bigboy says he’s shocked and upset with the state’s decision to grant permits for Enbridge’s reroute.

The company proposed a new 41-mile segment around the tribe’s reservation after the band sued the company to shut down and remove Line 5 from its lands. Bigboy says he wants the pipeline completely out of the Bad River watershed.

“It’s now at the headwaters, which compromises more of the reservation and the waterways, wetlands, all the things that are in line with the river and the flow of the water.”

Bigboy says the federal government should uphold the tribe’s treaty rights and water quality standards and deny federal approval of the project.

Enbridge’s Midwest operations director Paul Eberth says federal regulators will determine if its reroute poses impacts downstream.

“We expect to be able to, like we did with the state, meet the conditions in order to be able to secure a permit.”

An attorney for the tribe says they’re evaluating next steps for a legal challenge.

Proud To Be (NCAI)

Powerful Important Read: THE INDIAN CARD: Who Gets to Be Native in America

 

STARRED REVIEW

November 2024

The Indian Card

By Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz

Review by Deborah Mason

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz’s powerful The Indian Card considers the history of Native American tribal membership and its impacts on people today.

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe and a former advisor on homelessness and Native American issues in the Obama administration, loves data. When she noticed that the number of people self-identifying as “American Indian or Alaska Native” on the U.S. Census has more than doubled since 2000, while the number of enrolled members of federally recognized tribes has remained low, she wanted to know why. In The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America, Schuettpelz not only details how these records hide a history of racism, genocide and erasure, but also how they continue to affect Native people.

The federal government has recorded the number of Native Americans throughout its history, with varying degrees of accuracy. Before ejecting Natives from their land and forcing them on death marches to reservations, the counts were expansive. But when records were used to mete out some kind of reparative benefit, the government’s definition of “tribe” or “Indian” was contracted to exclude as many people as possible. These rules also dictated tribal policy: To receive recognition from the federal government, tribes must have a constitution with similarly restrictive qualifications for membership.

Schuettpelz uses archival records to divulge insights into America’s disastrous history with Native people, while her in-depth interviews with present-day Indigenous Americans reveal how their lives and identities continue to be shaped by that history. For example, the Meskwaki constitution requires its members to trace their ancestry patrilineally. Tricia Long, one interviewee, is “the epitome of what it means to be part of a tribe,” yet she cannot pass her Meskwaki membership onto her older son because his father is white. Her younger son, whose father is Meskwaki, is entitled to tribal benefits like “land rights on the settlement, per capita payments, access to health care, housing assistance.” Her older son is entitled to none of this. 

Schuettpelz herself has questions about her own identity. She is enrolled as a Lumbee member because one of her grandparents was Lumbee, but she did not grow up in the Lumbee community. Is she, she asks herself, Native enough? Her questions are open-ended, and her responses are invitations to further conversations in this powerful and important read.

BOOK REVIEW: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/the-indian-card-carrie-lowry-schuettpelz-book-review/ 

 MORE:

www.latimes.com /opinion/story/2024-10-18/native-american-identity-the-indian-card-review-carrie-lowry-schuettpelz 

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-complex-politics-of-tribal-enrollment

 

America's Weekend Sport (content warning: redskins, racism)

LINK: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/11/2285215/-Carter-Camp-s-Indian-Mascot-Essay-Mass-Racial-Taunting-America-s-Weekend-Sport

 Carter Camp gave me his permission (when he was alive) to repost his essay entitled “Mass Racial Taunting; America’s Weekend Sport” in the comments of "Stereotypical Elements (that) appear... in Athletic Contests" posted at Native American Netroots. I had mentioned that I wanted to cite the Shadow Report as an introduction, so here’s what the Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report says about Indian Mascots on page 72.

Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (and Monday night) millions of Americans will scream and beg for my Indian people to be scalped, chopped, burned, tomahawked and murdered, by the Indians, Savages, Redskins, and Braves across the field.

KEEP READING:  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/11/2285215/-Carter-Camp-s-Indian-Mascot-Essay-Mass-Racial-Taunting-America-s-Weekend-Sport

Pope Francis Receives Book: The Price of Children | Vatican adoption scandal

Maria Laurino's exposé on the Vatican adoption scandal has made its way to the head of the Catholic church.

By Kaytie Norman | Nov 15, 2024

• 
• Photo Credit: Vatican Media

In October 2024, investigative journalist Maria Laurino published a book she had been working on for seven years: The Price of Children. Her groundbreaking work told the shocking-but-true story of an adoption scandal that was directed by the highest levels of the Vatican from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Laurino's astonishing research landed her on 60 Minutes, where she discussed her discoveries in depth.

"There were women who were trapped into this situation and tremendous pressure to relinquish their children," Laurino said. "There were women who were tricked, who signed forms they didn't understand. And, in the worst cases, there were women who were told their child had died."

Now, her story is quite literally in Pope Francis's hands.

• 
• Photo Credit: Vatican Media

Along with an Italian copy of the book (titled Il Prezzo degli Innocenti), the Pope received a letter from 60 Minutes, and also a letter on behalf of American adoptees from John Campitelli, whose own adoption story was featured in the book.

According to Italian newspaper Ansa, the letter from 60 Minutes included the following quote:

"We wanted to bring this to your attention," the letter delivered to the Pope reads, "because many of these American adoptees are still struggling in their search for their Italian birth mothers. In your recent trip to Belgium, you acknowledged and apologized for forced adoptions similar to those we described in our story. In light of your words, we wondered whether the Vatican is also considering apologizing to American adoptees and their Italian mothers?" 

Upon learning the Pope had received her book, Maria Laurino stated the following:

“I wrote The Price of Children to give voice to thousands of Italian women silenced by history, and to their children adopted in America. I also wrote this book to address how the shaming of women and loss of our rights continue around the world. I’m hopeful that Pope Francis will recognize the suffering of these women and children as we need his leadership more than ever to give some light to an increasingly dark world.”

To hear more from Maria Laurino, listen to her discuss The Price of Children on the “Open Book” podcast here.

Want to learn more? Buy The Price of Children now.

The Price of Children

By Maria Laurino

“I could not put this book down. An amazing read…I was spellbound by the variety of stories revealed here of heartache, of children longing for their mothers and mothers forced to give up their children. Lives were changed irrevocably, and she warns us that they can be changed again in a similar, though more-up-to date manner. One of the best books I’ve recently read.” —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kittredge

Petition to OPEN ADOPTION RECORDS (2024) (USE ICWA)

If you or your parent was adopted, here is what you need to do: FILE a petition in STATE where you were adopted or your parent was adopted.... ICWA gives you that right. (Even if the state has closed adoption records, you still have the right to obtain your records.)  

The Indian Child Welfare Act, 25 U.S.C. 1901 et seq., provides in pertinent part:

Upon application by an Indian individual who has reached the age of eighteen and who was the subject of an adoptive placement, the court which entered the final decree shall inform such individual of the tribal affiliation, if any, of the individual's biological parents and provide such other information as may be necessary to protect any rights flowing from the individual's tribal relationship.

CLICK👉	Petition to Obtain Adoption Records	PDF	Microsoft Office Word®

5 Middle Grade Books To Read For Native American Heritage Month And Beyond

These new middle grade books by Indigenous authors educate about residential schools and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Margaret Kingsbury  Nov 11, 2024

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

November is Native American Heritage Month. These new middle grade books by Native American and Indigenous Canadian authors explore various topics, from residential schools to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in fiction and nonfiction formats. They’re all wonderful books.

Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan

This is a lovely middle grade novel centering two Cree girls in Alberta, Canada. Summer spends every summer on the reservation where her mom’s family lives. She and her little brother and cousin Autumn swim in the lake, collect sweetgrass, pick berries, and have a wonderful time. But this summer is a little bit different. Authorities have gathered around a former residential school—one where Summer’s grandfather had been kidnapped and taken to as a child—to scan the ground with new technology. They’ve discovered the bodies of Indigenous children buried there. Meanwhile, Summer begins having vivid dreams of the past about a girl, named Buffalo Dreamer, who runs away from the school when her friend Ann disappears. It’s a slim, fantastic novel.

Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools by Dan SaSuWeh Jones

If your middle grader wants to investigate more about residential schools after reading Buffalo Dreamer, then check out this detailed and gut-wrenching middle grade nonfiction. It combines the author’s family history with nonfiction investigation. The author’s grandmother, Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight, was forcibly taken from her family home by federal authorities when she was just four years old, and taken to a residential school to rid her of her Ponco culture and heritage. Jones traces her story from the time she was stolen to when the residential school was shut down during his lifetime. It’s a very informative read, and I recommend it for upper middle grade readers.

Red Bird Danced by Dawn Quigley

This is a beautiful, accessible middle grade novel-in-verse told from the perspectives of two Ojibwe tweens who live in a Native American urban housing community. Ariel’s aunt is missing, so she chooses to study the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis for a school project. She’s also learning how to dance the jingle dance, though part of her wants to learn ballet. Tomah has a reading disability and struggles in school, though he hides the problem from teachers and his family. Words dance on the page. However, he’s an excellent storyteller and a valued member of his Native community because of it. He loves feeding the birds. Ariel and Tomah are friends, both slowly untangling what it means to be Native and their roles in their community.

READ MORE:  https://bookriot.com/middle-grade-books-native-american-heritage-month/

WRONG Side of History

 

OPINION:  Alan Simpson  Nov 9, 2024

Halito! Chim Achukma? (Hello, how are you?)

It’s Native American Heritage Month again. I would like to discuss something that’s been endeared to me for some time.  I seek transparency, and I do not desire to be offensive in any way, but I’m on deck, and it’s my turn to bat.

This concerns school curriculums and at least offering ‘Native American’ studies as an elective.

We seldom hear anything about Native American history, and after all, we are Oklahoma and home to 69 tribes who were displaced here in the 1800s. The Oklahoma History course in school only skims the surface of Native studies, and, after all, with its indigenous history, no other state compares to Oklahoma.

There’s been a sudden urgency to actualize how Native American history should be taught in our schools.  For a start, why not tell the truth instead of withholding, editing, and sanitizing it? In layman‘s terms, “tell it like it is.”.

We’re talking transparency here.  It’s necessary to open ‘Pandora’s box’ and discuss land theft (I call it ‘land grab’), government corruption, hundreds of broken treaties, rape, human trafficking, taking children from parents and sending them far away, and even scalping men, women, and children and collecting ‘bounties’ for scalps.

The prestigious yet dishonest Texas Rangers even murdered Mexican people scalped them, and sold scalps as being Indians.  Rangers called it glory, and they answered to nobody.

For many years, our history books have failed miserably regarding Indigenous history.  Three years ago, Kim and I were in West Point, New York, and I finally found an 8’ x 8’ section in the museum basement devoted to ‘Indian Wars,’ which referenced it as ‘Indian Uprising.’ I might also add that Native people should never be referred to as ‘renegades’ when referencing people who were fighting for their land, families, and the honor of being the true and quintessential Americans. Unfortunately, they have been... on the wrong side of history.

Such was the case when Indigenous people fought on what I call the ‘wrong side of history.’

Indian Boarding School Survivors and Their Loved Ones Have Responded to Biden’s Apology. Their Message: Now Take Action

By Nancy Marie Spears IMPRINT

“The only thing we have left is the cemetery where a lot of our Quapaws are buried,” says Carrie Wilson, whose mother was forced to attend St. Mary of the Quapaws school in Oklahoma. Photo illustration by Julie Reynolds.

In its attempt to crush Native America through assimilation, the U.S. government created, operated, funded and perpetuated a network of hundreds of Indian boarding schools across the country. For centuries, the government forcibly severed Indigenous children from their families and tribal homes. Countless students were subjected to sexual, emotional and physical abuse. Nearly 1,000 schoolchildren died. Many were buried in unmarked graves.

Last month, over 200 years after the first school opened, outgoing President Joe Biden apologized.

How the apology landed for everyone is impossible to fully capture. But The Imprint reached out to boarding school survivors and their descendants, and compiled public statements made in recent weeks. 

For some, the apology rang hollow. Others described it as an important first step. But they all said more specific action must follow: more funding for education, the return of buried children’s remains, and adherence to reforms called for by the U.S. Interior Department, which is led by the nation’s first Indigenous cabinet-level secretary, Deb Haaland.

“The apology was a welcome statement to me that should result in solid action in terms of remedying harms to Tribal families and communities,” wrote legal scholar Angelique EagleWoman, chief justice on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Supreme Court and director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

President Biden’s apology is the latest in a short list of acknowledgements of historical harms caused by the U.S. government:

• 1983: The U.S. apologized for shielding a former Gestapo officer known as the “Butcher of Lyon.”

• 1988: President Ronald Reagan apologized to Japanese Americans for their forced removal to internment camps during World War II. The apology was accompanied by $20,000 in compensation to each person who was imprisoned.
• 1993: Congress apologized for a 1893 coup staged against the Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani by American businessmen and sugar plantation owners.
• 1997: President Bill Clinton formally recognized the U.S. role in the infamous 40-year Tuskegee experiment, involving doctors from the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama who withheld medical treatment to hundreds of Black men infected with syphilis in order to study the long-term progression of the disease. More than 100 men died. 
• 2008: The second-most recent — and entirely symbolic — apology was issued by Congress, an acknowledgment of the U.S. government’s perpetuation of the Atlantic slave trade and Jim Crow laws. 

President Joe Biden after his apology in Arizona for the U.S. government’s boarding school policies. Photo still from C-SPAN livestream.

Biden acknowledged Indian boarding school survivors 16 years after the Canadian government apologized for its own network of such abusive institutions. Canada’s apology was followed by a $2 billion settlement with First Nations to compensate survivors for the schools’ acts of “cultural genocide.” 

Mental health experts interviewed for this piece emphasized restitution as critical for individual and collective healing from historical trauma. They pointed out that unlike Canada, the U.S. president did not announce his apology alongside any meaningful next steps beyond verbal acknowledgement.

Spero Manson, medical anthropologist and director of the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, said when answering the question of ‘what does an apology need to have in order to offer healing?’ that self-determination is key. Individuals on this recovery journey, he said, must have the opportunity to dictate their own course in navigating the consequences of their traumas. Boarding school survivors and their descendants are no exception.

“When we talk about treating patients who suffer from trauma — and the emotional and psychological consequences thereof — after that first acknowledging of the root causes, we begin to explore ways to reassert a sense of self-efficacy, of reacquiring the ability to interact positively with one’s environment,” Manson said. “We see this happening at community levels as well as individuals, or at least the prospects of that happening.

So what resources are necessary to enable people to continue on this recovery journey? There are many different resources. The problem is, from my point of view, with the changing nature of federal initiatives and priorities, there’s great uncertainty about the ability of the government to commit consistently, long term, to the provision of these resources and attendant support for tribal communities.”

The Association on American Indian Affairs has called for burial remains to be returned home to ancestral lands.

“Justice requires action, including the repatriation of children who were buried at these schools,” reads a public statement released after the apology. “We must ensure this work not only continues but expands in the next administration. Our next generations depend on it.”

Self-described Indigiqueer scholar and activist Autumn Asher BlackDeer was not impressed with Biden’s apology.

“Apologies without action are like the drive-by privilege checks or hollow readings of land acknowledgments,” said BlackDeer, who is Southern Cheyenne and an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. “No imperialist is getting a pat on the back from me anytime soon.”

Below are responses to Biden’s apology to boarding school survivors and their descendants from around the country:

Judge Abby Abinanti. Provided photo

Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Nation

Abinanti’s mother and her two sisters were sent to Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, California.

“The apology is an important starting point and must be followed up by substantive efforts to ‘make it right.’ That is where the major work must be done with the families, the descendants. Discussions must occur at the ground level, and plans must be created.”

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Robert Ludgate, child welfare expert and Siksika Nation descendant

Although he is employed by the University of Washington as a development and facilitation specialist, his views do not reflect the views or positions of the university.

“Taking steps to remedy the effects of the boarding/residential school systems means focusing on contemporary child welfare system reform as they are inextricably intertwined. An apology without action to address what is happening now to Native families in the child welfare system means very little.

Any meaningful apology related to the boarding/residential school system needs to acknowledge both its context in the contemporary child welfare system and be followed with action for systemic changes within the contemporary child welfare system.”

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Angelique EagleWoman, chief justice on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Supreme Court

EagleWoman’s father, grandparents and great-grandparents attended Indian boarding schools.

“U.S. President Biden spoke for a government that was engaged in genocidal acts toward Tribal Nations for over a hundred years when he gave the apology on Oct. 25, 2024. This was a long time in coming and absolutely necessary to acknowledge the intergenerational trauma stemming from deliberate U.S. policies towards Tribal children.

The suppression of this history must end. By understanding the harms from the U.S. Indian boarding school era, the need for contemporary responses such as the Indian Child Welfare Act to provide active efforts in unifying Tribal families and transferring child cases to Tribal courts is better understood. 

The apology was a welcome statement to me that should result in solid action in terms of remedying harms to Tribal families and communities.”

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Sen. Mary Kunesh

Minnesota Sen. Mary Kunesh, a New Brighton, Minnesota lawmaker of Lakota heritage

“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems. This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught. 

The generational trauma caused by over a century of family separation and forced cultural assimilation still weighs on Indigenous communities to this day. In a time where we see a resurgence of white supremacist attitudes in this country, it is crucial that we reject these hateful ideas, in order to make sure we do not repeat these injustices of history. Furthermore, we must remain vigilant of acts of ethnic cleansing and prevent them from happening, both in our country and around the world.”

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan

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Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of White Earth Band of Ojibwe

Flanagan is a descendant of boarding school survivors.

“There literally is no Native person who hasn’t been impacted by this,” she told The Minnesota Star Tribune. “I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities. It’s a powerful first step toward healing.”

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Angelique Albert, CEO of Native Forward Scholars Fund and member of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes

Albert is the granddaughter of boarding school survivors. 

“As we build upon this moment, I encourage President Biden and the next administration to execute the additional seven recommendations from the Interior Department’s report. This includes the responsibility to educate the American public on Native history, including the history of federal Indian boarding schools, and to invest in education for Native people.”

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Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe

Barnes speaks often about boarding school survivors within his own tribe and how their needs should be uplifted. 

“I’m delighted that President Biden’s apology today has shed an unprecedented light on the evils perpetuated by the United States in Indian boarding schools and elevated the visibility of tribal nations and our fight to find justice for boarding school survivors and descendants. However, I am incredibly disappointed President Biden did not utilize this once-in-a-lifetime occasion to announce any meaningful new action that will bring us closer to those goals.

Until the U.S. Truth and Healing Commission bill is passed, and until American education systems tell the full history of this chapter in our shared history, we will still have a very long fight for justice ahead of us.”

 

SOURCE: https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/indian-boarding-school-survivors-respond-biden-apology/256088