A Baby Adopted, and ICWA failed

 

A video leaks of a wealthy politician describing how he adopted a Native child, leading to outrage from the child’s biological family and members of her tribe. 

LISTEN:  https://revealnews.org/podcast/native-adoption-utah-politician-northern-cheyenne/

The Morrill Family on National Television Summer 1981, 7 Ojibwe Adoptees placed in Mormon family...

By Leland P Morrill  (Navajo adoptee and contributor to the book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects) posted in 2013

"Today's Child" started in June 1964 when Helen Allen - a veteran reporter for the Toronto Telegram - was questioned at the time by a skeptical Children's Aid Societies, but supported by Ontario's provincial government. 

During its first few years, about 80% of the children featured in the column were adopted. Helen Allen in this National Television show states that she personally adopted 10,000 to 11,000 children.  Who knows how many native and aboriginal children were adopted through her in Ontario, Canada?

Featured on this video are seven Ojibwe children, my adopted brothers and sisters, to a Mormon family who adopted 10 children. 

I was a Navajo "undocumented adoptee" before we moved to Ontario, Canada. 

Note on the video how many of my brothers and sisters are not white like our adopted parents. 

What is Genocide?  What constitutes Human Trafficking? 

Native Children who are deemed adoptable because of the 3rd world conditions forced on them through the Reservation system (Concentration Camps) may be labelled under "neglect", by Departments of Social Services that blur the lines between neglect and impoverishment; thus creating the definition of "abused or neglected" to encompass those "whose environment is injurious to the child's welfare." 

Genocide is the worst crime possible, undoubtedly the most serious crime that can be committed under international law. 

The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (hereinafter the Statute) testifies to the fact that this is the most serious of the crimes within its jurisdiction. It places Genocide first, followed by Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes and the Crime of Aggression. 

The crime of genocide is defined in Article 6 of the Statute in the following terms: [A]ny of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

United Nations defined genocide as the intentional "destruction of racial, national, linguistic, religious or political groups," "with the purpose of destroying it in whole or in part or of preventing its preservation or development,"either "causing the death of members of a group or injuring their health or physical integrity" or interfering with their biological reproduction or also "destroying the specific characteristics of the group" through the "transfer of children." 

This video is evidence.  This is why ICWA and history matters. - Trace

 

Wyoming: Indigenous women discuss growing up with non-Native guardians

Clarisse and Pat Harris are in their mid-70s. They live in a white house on a hill in Ethete, Wyoming, with the seven children they’re raising.  In the yard, there’s a chicken coop, a sweat lodge and a view of two snow-capped mountain ranges: the Wind River to the west and the Owl Creek to the north. STORY

Federal protections for Native children in jeopardy

SOURCE  | December 7, 2022

WYOMING:  The Riverton Peace Mission’s online discussion about the Indian Child Welfare Act highlighted the experiences of two local Indigenous women who were fostered or adopted by non-Native families before the federal law was put into place.

Since 1978, ICWA has given Tribal nations “sole authority (to) determine what happens with children who belong to their Tribe,” RPM co-chair Chesie Lee explained at the beginning of the Thursday event.

But before the law was enacted, “large numbers of Native children were being separated from their parents (and) placed outside of their families and communities – even when fit and willing relatives were available,” according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

“Congressional testimony documented the devastating impact this was having upon Native children, families, and tribes,” the association says. “The intent of Congress under ICWA was to ‘protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families.'”

Identity

Both of the women who shared their stories Thursday said growing up in non-Native homes impacted their sense of identity.

“We didn’t know who we were,” said Clarisse Harris, a Northern Paiute from the Big Pine Reservation in California who has lived in Ethete for decades.

Harris and her younger siblings were sent to live with white foster parents when she was 10 years old, and she said their guardians did a good job making the children feel like “part of (the) family.”

“We did everything like everybody else,” Harris said, recalling 4H activities, long bus rides to school, family celebrations and trips throughout the region. “But that was not who we were. … We were Native Americans. And we should have been told that.”

The foster parents “didn’t try to change us,” Harris noted, and “we weren’t abused or anything,” so “compared to some people (we) had it pretty good.”

The “only thing” missing, she said, was “access” to information about their Tribe.

“No one in the home or in the community that we lived in ever talked about it,” she said. “We (didn’t have) anyone to say, you know, this is what you do, this is what your Tribe does, or anything like that.”

‘Two worlds’

When she turned 18, Harris returned to live with her biological family, and over time she learned more about her Tribal community.

Now, she says she is able to “walk in two worlds.”

“I know both sides,” she said. “And I choose the Native side. I can make that choice. (And) that’s the way I raise my kids.”

Harris’ biological children are enrolled members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, and before they became teenagers, the family decided they should move to the Wind River Reservation so they could be closer to the community there.

“(My kids) learned how to be Arapahos, and the language and the ways,” Harris said. “That was important. … It’s important that our people know where we’re from (and) who we are.”

She makes sure the same community connection is available for all of the Arapaho children she has fostered “on and off” for the past 40 years.

“The children that I have in my homes, they all know they’re enrolled Arapahos,” she said. “(They) know that they’re Native Americans.”

Those messages are re-emphasized in the local schools, which are “a lot” different now than they were when she first moved to Fremont County, Harris added.

“Everything is slowly changing to reflect Native American culture,” she said, referencing lessons on Indigenous languages, dress, dances and songs. “Forty years ago, they didn’t have that. (But) it’s the core of the schools now.”

‘A Lamanite’

Carol Harper of Riverton said she was “impressed” with Harris’ ability to “walk (in) two worlds” – a skill Harper has begun to develop later in life.

“I’m on my own journey now … to understand my Native roots and my heritage,” Harper said. “After all these years I’m really trying to define myself.”

Harper was born in Fremont County to a Native American and Hispanic woman who gave her up for adoption to a white family in Riverton when Harper was still an infant.

Her adopted parents allowed her to visit with her birth mother and other Native relatives on the reservation when she was a baby, Harper said, but when she got older, they decided it would be “too confusing” for her to maintain those relationships.

They did not take the same steps to shield her from the confusion she experienced as a Native American member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where she said she was “programmed to believe” that she was a Lamanite – a class of people defined in the Book of Mormon as “dark, filthy and loathsome.”

“That was very, very confusing for me,” Harper said.

She also had to contend with the fact that some of her adopted relatives were “very racist against Natives” and other minority groups – opinions that were handed down to her adopted mother “by default.”

“My mom had a hard time with me,” Harper said, describing multiple instances when her adopted mother physically and emotionally abused her in the home. “She would say she was going to beat the Indian out of me one way or another. (So) I just relented, and I conformed.”

Harper went to college at Brigham Young University, and she got married in the Salt Lake Temple to an LDS man who also was physically abusive.

She later divorced her husband and then left the LDS church.

Around that same time, Harper also received a call from her adopted mother, who “tearfully apologized for the abuse that she perpetrated throughout my childhood.”

“And I forgave her,” Harper said. “But I obviously haven’t forgotten about it.”

She explained that her childhood experiences, both at home and at church, had “devastating” and lasting impacts on her sense of self.

“That religion stole my identity,” Harper said. “I feel like I’m a baby again, trying to get my identity back with my Tribe.”

She’s also interested in learning more about her ancestors of Hispanic and Welsch descent, Harper said, prompting Harris to point out that every child in the foster or adoption system should have access to information about their biological background, no matter where they’re from.

“(They) have the right to know that,” Harris said, urging the guardians of Native children, in particular, to “take it upon” themselves to “provide that baby with what it needs to be a Native American,” regardless of the outcome of the ICWA case next year.

To learn more about ICWA, click here.

The Walker War

1987 by the South Dakota State Historical Society

The Walker War was started in part by the Mormon refusal to participate in the Indian slave trade. However, Mormons did reluctantly buy children to "save" them.   Eventually, the adoption of Indian children by Mormon families became a major theme in Mormon-Indian relations and continues to be so today. After a visit to southern Utah in 1851, Young wrote that he advised the people there to "buy up the Lamanite children as fast as they could, and educate them and teach them the gospel, so that many generations would not pass ere they should become a white and delightsome people." After the territorial legislature passed an antislavery bill in 1852, the Saints made it a point to secure all the Indian children available. Probate judges indentured these chil-dren—either rescued or bought from slavers —to suitable Mormon families for rearing.
Widespread adoptions continued, especially in southern Utah, for the next several decades and aroused the suspicion of many gentiles. In 1857, the Mountain Meadows Massacre overshadowed Mormon missionary and adoption efforts and convinced many that the Mormons had indeed enlisted the Indians to fight the United States. 

PDF

walker war on wiki

How adoption trafficking works: rooted to missionary work

**

Paul Petersen's property, bank accounts frozen in $1.5 million seizure warrant

An investigation by The Arizona Republic, based on contracts, texts, emails and internal documents, found Petersen treated birth mothers and their children like monetary transactions.

He moved multiple women in and out of homes he owned in Mesa and Utah, took cuts for living expenses out of money he promised birth mothers and made every effort to  enroll them in Medicaid programs.

The Republic found Petersen was connected to at least three other adoption agencies in Arizona and Colorado. 

Petersen's adoption practice was rooted in his 1998 mission to the Marshall Islands for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A top church official this month said he was disgusted and sickened by the details of Petersen's case.

Latter-day Saints Apostle Ronald Rasband calls Paul Petersen's adoption scheme 'sickening'

Robert Anglen, Arizona Republic Nov. 10, 2019

Ronald Rasband, a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks on Oct. 18, 2019, to The Arizona Republic Editorial Board. (Photo: Brady Klain/The Republic)

A top leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denounced Paul Petersen's adoption scheme as "sickening."

Ronald Rasband, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said Petersen's membership in the church does not exonerate his conduct nor excuse any wrongdoing.

“We’re just as disgusted with it as anybody," Rasband told The Arizona Republic in a recent interview. “The details of this case are sickening.”

The Quorum is the second-highest governing body in the church, after the president, and helps set worldwide policy for its 17 million members.

Rasband's comments mark the first time the church has taken a public position on the case, which is reverberating with political, cultural and legal implications.  

He acknowledged the church will review Petersen's membership.

Petersen is the elected Maricopa County assessor. He was indicted on human trafficking charges last month in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas related to his private adoption practice in  Mesa.

Authorities say Petersen illegally transported pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the U.S., fraudulently enrolled them for Medicaid and orchestrated adoptions of their children to American families for up to $40,000 each.

Neither Petersen nor his attorney would comment on Rasband's remarks.

Petersen has pleaded not guilty to charges in Arizona and Arkansas and is scheduled to appear Friday in a Utah court.

A church mission to the Marshall Islands

Latter-day Saints officials acknowledged Petersen's practice was rooted in his 1998 church mission to the Marshall Islands, where he said he learned the language and began facilitating adoptions.

They said a recent inquiry found that individuals within the church community previously had expressed concern about Petersen "and sought to distance" themselves from him years before his arrest.

Rasband said Petersen's alleged conduct was not sanctioned by the church and said no overlap was found between Petersen's adoption practice and the church’s Family Services arm.

“The fact that he’s a Latter-day Saint does not exonerate him,” Rasband said.

He questioned if Petersen's religious ties would undergo rigorous scrutiny if he was not a church member.

Church Elder Paul Pieper said missionaries can develop strong ties with members of the communities they serve. An unscrupulous person might take advantage of those ties, he said.

Text messages and interviews obtained by The Arizona Republic show Petersen frequently placed children with Latter-day Saints families. 

WHAT WE KNOW:  How Paul Petersen's Marshall Islands adoptions worked

Adoptive parents said Petersen was regarded as a family man and a trusted source for adoptions, particularly among the Latter-day Saint community in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas.

It was human trafficking, not adoption

Task Force Aims To Recruit More American Indian Foster Families

Indian Child Welfare Act task force (Kenneth Ramos)

 





















PUBLISHED IN 2014

The way Navajo Indian Leland Morrill sees it; he was a victim of trafficking when he was four years old. 
In the 1970s, Morrill, 48, was living with his grandparents on the Arizona Navajo reservation. His mother had died in a car crash a few years earlier. Besides one picture, her relatives were all she left behind for her young son.
But, as the state government would soon decide, that wasn’t enough.
The Morrill grandparents lived in a hogan, a Navajo Indian dwelling made of dirt, branches and mud, with an open fire pit. Morrill’s grandfather was blind. One day, when his great-grandmother went out with the sheep, Morrill stepped into the fire.
At the hospital, doctors determined that he suffered from first, second and third degree burns, broken bones and malnutrition. Morrill said the last affliction was through no fault of his grandparents.
“There was no electricity and no running water on the reservation. I would say everyone in that area was malnourished,” Morrill said.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a federal organization designed to provide services to American Indian tribes, placed Morrill with a Caucasian Mormon couple as foster parents. The BIA paid them $65 a month to give him a home. Soon after, the Morrills adopted Leland and moved the family to Canada. Now, tribes across the nation are trying to recruit Native American foster families to keep their children in the tribe. Morrill has fought on the front lines in this effort. He filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple vs. Baby Girl last year. The case interpreted the Indian Child Welfare Act and concerned a Cherokee girl whose mother adopted her to a non-native family without her father’s consent. The father, who ultimately lost, sought to obtain custody of his daughter again.

“I know the inequality of children not being able to speak for themselves,” Morrill said. “Who’s going to speak for them?” Fifteen years would pass before Morrill himself saw the Navajo reservation again.

During that time, Leland Morrill was one of about 2,000 Navajo children adopted annually by a Mormon family, according to the blog American Indian Adoptees. This was due to the Indian Adoption Project, a plan launched in 1958 by the BIA and the nonprofit Child Welfare League of America. The project paid states to remove American Indian children and place them in non-native or religious families to assimilate them into ‘conventional’ society. One goal was to give them opportunities the impoverished reservation could not provide for them, according to Reuters.
In the 1970s, Indian leaders went to the Senate and demanded an inquiry into the large numbers of their children disappearing. William Byler, the executive director of the Association of American Indian affairs, testified that under current conditions, tribal survival looked grim, according to American Indian Adoptees. In response, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978. Under this law, states must do everything possible to keep Indian children with their families, or at least send them to Native American adoptive or foster families that the child’s tribe selects.
But many states, such as New Mexico, Alaska and California, lack licensed Indian foster families. In Los Angeles, about 200 American Indian kids are in the foster system and the city has no licensed foster families, according to L.A. children’s court judge Amy Pellman. In California, 439 Native American children entered foster care in 2012. This is a large number, given that Native Americans make up slightly over one percent of the state’s population, according to the Child Welfare Dynamic Report System, a joint effort of the California Department of Social Services and the University of California at Berkeley. The disproportionate amount suggests that welfare agencies still may pull Indian children from their homes too quickly, which children’s social worker Roberta Javier confirmed.
“When I was growing up, I had a cousin in my adoptive family who stepped into a pile of burning trash,” Morrill said. This was similar to the incident Morrill suffered that resulted in his removal from his Navajo grandparents. “When I asked my adoptive family why he didn’t get taken, they had no response.”
Javier, who is Cherokee and Sac & Fox Indian, formed a task force with other Los Angeles Natives to recruit more foster and adoptive families. They are working on a public service announcement to air on local TV channels and FNX, a Native American channel. The key message, ‘lend a hand,’ evokes a cultural ideal. Morrill attends the task force meetings and has contributed ideas, but is not a member of any committee.
“It’s traditional in Native American culture when you see someone who needs help you step up. It’s part of being in a collective community,” Javier said.
Adopted Native children are often disconnected from their culture. Growing up, Morrill’s foster parents raised him in the Mormon Church. They did not teach him anything about his tribe or its customs.
“My dad once took me on a business trip to Pine Ridge reservation (South Dakota). I don’t think he really understood the importance of culture,” Morrill said. The reservation is home to the Oglala Sioux, a tribe that Morrill does not belong to.
Even if non-native adoptive parents do show appreciation for their child’s background, children can still feel alienated without others around like them. Jennifer Varenchik, 42, an adoptee and member of the Tohono-O’odham tribe, said her adoptive dad researched her tribe and hung their baskets in the house. But she said still felt like an outsider in her predominately white neighborhood.
“When I was in sixth grade, a black family moved down the street and I was so happy because I wouldn’t be the only one with dark skin,” she said.
But when Varenchik tried to learn more about her roots, the process was not as natural as she expected.

“I took some Native studies classes in college, but it felt really foreign to me,” Varenchik said. “I felt like it should have a deeper meaning, but it didn’t.”

After finishing college at St. Mary’s, in Moraga, Calif., Varenchik moved to Los Angeles, which she knew had a large urban Indian population (the second largest in the U.S., according to Indian Country Today Media Network). She started work at United Indian American Involvement, a nonprofit providing service and support to American Indians in California, and began attending powwows. She even reconnected with her biological siblings on the reservation in Arizona.
But not every adoptee’s story ends as happily. Javier’s own painful experiences compelled her to campaign for more Native foster families.

“I’ve been in 17 foster homes from the ages 6-16. I was separated from one of my (biological) sisters who then got lost in the system. A social worker took her to a group home and my sister ran away. Four days later, her social worker killed herself so there was a disconnect (in information),” Javier said. “It took me 25 years to find my sister.”

The task force efforts began two years ago, but members have yet to find a single foster family. They are collaborating with Los Angeles County, but Javier cites a lack of cultural awareness among officials as part of the problem. She gave the example of the county sending a non-native woman to an American Indian church sing to speak on the shortage of foster parents.
“This is like sending an African-American to recruit for a Chinese home,” she said.
But more Native adoptees are coming together to talk about the issue. Morrill has started a blog and a Facebook page where he shares his story and circulates others’.  He said his efforts are “normalizing the craziness of what it’s like to be an adoptee,” and helping disconnected Natives repatriate to their tribes. Though Morrill and Varenchik cannot control the past, they are combining their influence and education to improve the future for other American Indians.
“I’m the opposite of the people on the reservation, but I’m fighting for their rights and their children’s rights,” Morrill said.

Reach Staff Reporter Anne Artley here

Leland was 48 at the time of this story. He lives in LA, CA.

(The links are old and may not work... Trace)
Leland's search and reunion is laid out in the book series (see the sidebar for the Lost Children books...)

RUMBLE: The Indians who rocked the music world

“In those days, if you were Native American, you had to be careful of the Mormon Church. Back then, the Mormons would take Indian babies, cut their hair and turn them into servants. In fact, they made a lot of money doing that until the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1972 put an end to it. It was very common for kids of a family to live with an aunt for six months or a year. Well, as soon as this would happen, the Mormon Church would come in and say this woman has abandoned her family. They would come in and cut their hair, not allow them to speak their native language anymore and, basically, sell them. It was a bit like slave trade. It was amazing they got away with it as long as they did.”

READ THIS STORY

Lawsuit Shines Spotlight on Sexual Abuse of Navajo Children within the Lamanite Placement Program

PRESS CONFERENCE: Lawsuit Shines Spotlight on Sexual Abuse of Navajo Children within the Lamanite Placement Program

Two enrolled members of the Navajo Nation filed suit against LDS Family Services and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the “Mormon” or “LDS” Church, stemming from child sexual abuse that occurred during the Church’s “Lamanite Placement Program” in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

Religion and Assimilation

Photo by Charles R. Savage/LDS Church History Collection

Daniel D. MacArthur is seen here baptizing Paiute Indians in a stream near St. George, Utah. Augustus P. Hardy is shown standing on the bank.

How Mormons Assimilated Native Children

Alysa Landry | Indian Country Today MEDIA

1/11/16

Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series about the Indian Student Placement Program, a foster-care and education program for Native youths administered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints between 1947 and 2000.

Veronica Wallace pressed her face against the bus window and stared into the darkness.
At 13, Wallace was en route from her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to Lakewood, Colorado, to live with a family she’d never met. The bus cut across the darkened countryside during the wee hours of the August morning as its passengers slept, talked quietly, listened to Motown music or cried, Wallace says.
“It was a very lonely, very sad trip. It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and I had no idea where I was going.”
It was 1970 and Wallace, who is Sac & Fox, had agreed to spend the next nine months in the Indian Student Placement Program. Run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the program matched Native youths with white Mormon host families who took care of them during the school year and returned them to their reservations for the summer.
For the half-century the program was in operation (from 1947 to 2000), an estimated 40,000 Native youths from 60 tribes left their homes in favor of a better education and a brighter future. But the program had a secondary goal: bringing Indian students in contact with the morals and cultural practices of the Mormon Church.
Wallace, who was baptized as a Mormon at age 8, was accustomed to the principles of the church, which is known for its high moral standards and emphasis on the family. When her host parents welcomed the “little Indian girl” into their home, Wallace readily adopted this second family.
Cultural and religious clashes were inevitable, however, Wallace says. Her birth parents divorced when she was young and a grandmother raised her, introduced her to the church and encouraged her to go on the placement program. During a visit to Colorado, Wallace’s birth mother sat in the host family’s house and smoked a cigarette.
“That was bad,” Wallace says. “Her lifestyle was not keeping with the standards, and so I knew I had to choose.”
Wallace’s choice, though difficult, was common for placement students. The program, founded on principles of assimilation, forced some students to choose between birth parents and foster families, and between Native tradition and the church’s “higher law.” And the stakes were high: students who failed to meet the church’s standards were sent home.

Read entire article:  http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/11/how-mormons-assimilated-native-children-162962

 

PART ONE

Assimilation Tool or a Blessing? Inside the Mormon Indian Student Placement Program

Alysa Landry

1/7/16

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/07/assimilation-tool-or-blessing-inside-mormon-indian-student-placement-program-162959

Baby Veronica and the fight to preserve Native American culture

Opinions By Ben Shelly, Published: July 5 

Ben Shelly is president of the Navajo Nation, which is headquartered in Window Rock, Ariz.

The recent Supreme Court ruling regarding the fate of a young Cherokee girl has reignited debate about the role of the Indian Child Welfare Act in today’s society.
The law has faced critics since its passage in 1978. But understanding why it was implemented also helps explain why it remains necessary.

For hundreds of years, the official policies of the United States were to eradicate American Indians from their homelands. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny did not have room for the first peoples of this land. While the practice of genocide gave way to assimilation policies, the goal was still the same: to remove the Indian or Indian culture from these lands. As a result, Native Americans have been forcibly removed from their homelands and forbidden to speak their language or practice their culture. In the 1970s, a study by the Association of American Indian Affairs found, as many as 35 percent of Indian children were removed from their homelands through religious programs, boarding schools and adoption.
I was assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture through such practices. The cost to me of learning mainstream American values was the loss of my understanding of the Navajo belief system. I had to work very hard to reconnect to Navajo culture later in life.
When I was knee-high in the 1950s, I began my Bureau of Indian Affairs schooling in my home town of Thoreau, N.M. I entered a school system that drew many of its philosophies and practices from the 1870s, when boarding schools first became a tool of the federal government to “fix” the Indian problem.
Other programs were designed to help Indian children become acculturated, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Indian Placement Program, which began in 1947 and ended in 2000. This program took Native American children from their reservations and placed them with foster families. The children were supposed to be gone for only a year, but some still haven’t returned.
While it’s good for young people to learn about different cultures, it is just as important for youths to gain identity by learning about the culture they are born into. This is especially true when long-standing U.S. government policies have sought to eradicate that culture.
Teachers in my schools washed out our mouths with soap or openly punished us in other ways, sometimes physically, if we spoke our native language. I witnessed this until I graduated from high school in Snowflake, Ariz. As an Indian, I learned to be ashamed of a language and life that were designed to be my strength in times of greatest need. I never liked the taste of soap.
For decades, many of our young people were denied the right of cultural inheritance because of programs and adoptions eager to take American Indian children and assimilate them into the larger, dominant American society. Most of these efforts probably stemmed from people’s desire to help children. In reality, however, these actions resulted in confusion and mental trauma about identity, and many American Indians lost a basic sense of self. The tribes’ fundamental right to determine the best teachings for our children were denied.
This is why the Indian Child Welfare Act continues to play such an important role for American Indian tribes. Whether the children are Potawatomi, Seneca, Umatilla, Navajo or Cherokee, the law allows tribes to give our children the opportunity to experience the beauty of their culture and to ensure that we as a people survive.
I have been disturbed by the blood quantum discussion that has been part of the debate, sparked by the lawsuits about Baby Veronica, over whether a child is considered American Indian. Tribal membership is a sovereign and sacred right. A child determined to be a member of a sovereign nation is just that. Arguments of whether a child is “Indian enough” based on an outsider’s concept of what it is to be American Indian have no bearing.
American Indian people have long fought for our rights and practices to have a place in U.S. society. Our language, culture and traditions are as sacred as the air we breathe. Despite attempts to remove us in one form or another, we remain intact and culturally strong as ever. The chance to teach our children the ways of our ancestors is a sacred honor and duty.
The Navajo Nation has more than 320,000 tribal citizens who can call a 27,000-square-mile area home. In our home, our language flourishes, our culture remains intact and our ceremonies are performed. We live according to the beliefs and traditions bestowed upon us by our Holy People, our deities.
It’s a beautiful way of living.