Wabanaki, State of Maine, Team Up to Stop Abuse of Indian Foster Children

The signing ceremony was an emotional moment for Altvater.

By Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today, August 15, 2011

When Denise Yarmal Altvater talks about the abuse she and others suffered as Indian children in foster care in Maine, the stories are so painful to hear that it is impossible to imagine how those little girls lived through it.

On May 24, Altvater, a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik (Pleasant Point, Maine) and of the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, participated in a public ceremony at the Penobscot Indian Nation’s Sockalexis Bingo Palace on Indian Island to launch a Truth and Reconciliation process that will help heal her and others like her who endured the same awful separation from their families and communities and the brutality of a government child-welfare system whose negligence was horrifying.

At that ceremony, chiefs of the Wabanaki nations, Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Altvater signed a Declaration of Intent to Create a Maine/Wabanaki Truth and Reconciliation Process that will heal the past and create the best possible child-welfare system for Wabanaki children. A truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) will be convened as part of the process.

(Wabanaki means “the people of the dawn” or “first light.” The Wabanaki nations are the Houlton Band of Maliseets, the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point and the Penobscot Indian Nation at Indian Island.)

TRCs have been established in various places around the world, most notably in South Africa, where it dealt with the violence and human rights abuses under the apartheid system. TRCs are an alternative to the criminal-justice system—the idea behind them is restorative justice, which considers crime or wrongdoing to be an offense against an individual or community rather than the state and seeks to repair the harm through cooperative processes that include all the parties involved.

Maine’s policy regarding Indians was to assimilate them into the dominant society, a process that has its roots in the federal boarding-school program defined by the slogan, “Kill the Indian to save the man.” In Maine, Native children were removed from their homes and tribes almost 20 times more frequently than other children placed in foster care. During the past century across the country, some children were put up for adoption, others were sent to boarding schools where a number died from neglect and abuse, and still others were placed in foster care. The truth and reconciliation process will encourage Wabanaki people to come forward and share their childhood stories of abuse and neglect. The idea is to work — through acknowledgement of the wrongdoings — toward healing and reconciliation, reparations and institutional reform to ensure that the abuse and neglect never happen again. The TRC may include public testimony from the victims, comprehensive reports by the commission and policy recommendations.

When she was 8 years old, Altvater, who is now 52, and five sisters were removed from their Sipayik home where they were being raised by a single mother and placed in foster care with a non-tribal family in Old Town near Indian Island. Two of her sisters were older than she and three were younger — the oldest was 11 at the time, and the youngest around 3 years old.

The decades-old memories are blurred around the edges, but Altvater remembers the day they were taken. “They showed up with big station wagons and they came in and took all our clothes in big garbage bags and put us in the station wagons and drove away—they were state workers,” Altvater says, adding that no one had told them they were going to be taken away from their home. “I don’t even remember if my mother was there. Nobody said anything the entire ride. Nobody talked to us. When we were little on Pleasant Point we didn’t have any cars. We were surrounded on three sides by water. We didn’t have TV or running water or bathrooms back then. We were very isolated so when they took us it was terrifying. We didn’t even know the road went that far and they just kept driving and driving and driving till they got us to this great big house in Old Town.”

In foster care, she was repeatedly abused, Altvater says. No charges were ever brought against the couple that abused her. “In this [truth and reconciliation] process I’ve always used my maiden name, Yarmal, because I think my two [deceased] sisters need to be remembered, and had we not gone through what we did, they would be alive today,” says Altvater. When Altvater joined the working group she says she was filled with mistrust, anger and fear. “I came as an adult with childhood memories of all the torture and abuse I suffered as a young child, as a little girl.”

While the truth and reconciliation process has already helped her heal, Altvater is still reconstructing events as memories emerge. She doesn’t know how the state was notified to remove her and her sisters from their mother’s home. “My mother is old and I know my mother suffers a lot and I just want my mother to have the rest of her years.… ” Altvater says, without completing the thought. “I don’t want my mother to have to deal with this so I’m not going to ask her. It’s too late to ask my two sisters who probably remembered, because they’re gone, but I did contact the state and ask for my records because I wanted to find out why we were removed. Did my mother call the state and say, ‘I can’t take care of them, come and get them’? Or did the state decide they needed to come and take us out of the home? I’ve made two requests already. The state said they can’t find the documents.”

Another recently recovered memory solved the mystery of why the fall season was always so disturbing, Altvater says. “I just found out it was the fall when we were taken away. Recently, with all this [publicity surrounding the TRC], I remembered that when we got to the house the leaves were falling off the trees. All these years I had no idea why I hated the fall.”

A lot of work has led to this point, she says. More than a decade of efforts preceded the signing of the declaration of intent. For 13 years, Altvater and other Wabanaki women worked with a Truth and Reconciliation Convening Group composed of individuals from Maine’s Tribal Child Welfare programs, state Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child and Family Services and staff from the Muskie School of Public Service, American Friends Service Committee and Wabanaki Mental Health Association. She says that taking control of her childhood story has helped in the healing process. “It has been 13 years since I first told my story. I didn’t even know it needed to be told. Since then I’ve learned to feel, care, love and, most of all, strive to become the person the Creator meant for me to be when I was born. Healing is not going to be easy, but it will transform all of us.”

After two decades of work as a social-justice activist for the Wabanaki people of Maine, Altvater was well prepared to take the lead in moving the truth and reconciliation process forward. Altvater works as the Wabanaki program director with the American Friends Service Committee in Perry, Maine, where she advocates for the rights of all Indigenous Peoples. During her 16 years on the job, she has brought together tribes, state workers and communities to confront injustices and promote healing among Maine’s four Wabanaki tribes by holding regular meetings hosted by the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. She and other Wabanaki adults who went through the Maine foster-care system as children helped train more than 500 Maine Department of Human Services workers since the Truth and Reconciliation Convening Group formed 13 years ago on complying with the 1978 federal law, the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was passed to reduce the inordinately high number of Native children being sent to live with non-Native families. She has also provided anti-racism and cultural training for Washington County jail guards and the University of Maine System. Altvater is currently a member of the Maine Indian Child-Welfare Coalition and chairs the Wabanaki Criminal Justice Commission, which exposes and addresses issues of racism and abuse in the Maine Criminal Justice System. “Everyone wants to know what the goal of this project is,” she says of the TRC. “For me, it is about healing, education and learning. It is about changing how we do our work so that every child we are responsible to protect is treated with kindness and dignity and given the best we have to offer so they will have a place that is always safe.”

Maine’s rate of placement of Indian children in white homes was 19 times higher than the national average, says Esther Attean, a Passamaquoddy who works with the Muskie School of Public Service, which is facilitating the reconciliation process between Maine’s child-welfare agency and the tribes. After the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, Maine’s child-welfare agency made improvements, but there were still problems in 1999 when the Truth and Reconciliation Convening Group began. The formal process of reconciliation began in 2008 because child-welfare advocates felt “an invisible wall” was impeding their progress, she said.

The invisible wall surrounding the abuse and neglect of Indian children continues to exist although improvements have been made in the system. One of the difficulties is collecting information, according to a study by the National Indian Child Welfare Association. At best, only 61 percent of the data on abuse and/or neglect of American Indian and Alaska Native children, which often leads to foster care, are reported. The primary investigators of abuse or neglect at the tribal level are the tribes themselves (65 percent), followed by the states (42 percent), the counties (21 percent), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (19 percent) and other sources (nine percent), the report says. It is clear, however, that Indian children are disproportionately represented in foster care compared to their representation in the total U.S. populations: American Indian children make up one percent of the U.S. population, but comprise two percent of the foster-care population, according to research by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care.

While Indian foster care has improved greatly in Maine over the past several years, the Maine Tribal-State Child Welfare TRC is expected to accelerate its improvement even more. The agreement will be the first of its kind in the country, Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis said at the signing ceremony. “This is truly a historic event.… This TRC process is unique in that [tribes and the state] have come together with the best interests of Wabanaki children and families at heart. It is a model of collaboration that can be replicated in other areas of tribal-state relations in Maine and has the potential to be a model for other states as well.”

Francis said that many Indian children in foster care were punished for being Native. “They wanted to assimilate them and make Native people [be] like everyone else. The TRC will assure that past atrocities will never happen again and our children have the right to stay Wabanaki and stay connected to that. My hope is this collaboration [from the tribes and state] will serve as a model for how to respect each other and overcome our difference while acknowledging our past.”

Maine’s TRC is driven by three key goals: to create an understanding between the Wabanaki and the state concerning what happened and what is still happening to Wabanaki children in the welfare system; to act on the information revealed during the TRC process to implement changes to improve the system; and to promote healing both among Wabanaki children and their families and the people who administered the abusive system.

LePage, who came to Indian Island for the signing ceremony, spoke about his own childhood, adding a note of empathy to the event. When he was 11 years old, LePage was forced to flee his impoverished home and the abuse he regularly suffered at the hands of his father.

“It’s beyond me to think that, in my case, I chose to leave home,” says LePage. “And to think that somebody would be taken from a home, and think that it could be replaced, is beyond imagination.”

LePage says that the TRC project is “long overdue” and that the signing of the declaration of intent is “an important step to allow the commission to establish its mandate and get to work.” He added that although there have been abuses in the past and “the system has had a negative impact,” the state is now committed “to protecting the rights, dignity and traditions of the tribes” while delivering needed services to all children and families.

More photos of signing here: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/08/wabanaki-state-of-maine-team-up-to-stop-abuse-of-indian-foster-children/

Guatemalan Child Kidnapping for Adoption

Missouri Couple Silent on Order to Return Adopted Daughter to Guatemala

By RESHMA KIRPALANI and CHRISTINA NG, Aug. 5, 2011

A Guatemalan judge has ordered an American couple in Missouri to return their 6-year-old adopted
daughter to her birth mother in San Miguel Petapa, Guatemala.

There are major questions about whether the judge’s ruling is enforceable in the U.S. and whether the

couple who adopted the girl, Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Mo., will comply or simply ignore it.
The Missouri couple has remained silent since the judge’s ruling.
Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez ruled on Monday in favor of the child's birth mother, Loyda
Rodriguez, who is represented by the Guatemalan human rights group, Survivors' Foundation. The foundation claims that the child was kidnapped from her mother in 2006 and was illegally put up for
adoption by traffickers who financially benefited when the child was adopted by the Missouri couple in

2008.

The foundation does not allege that the U.S. couple knew the girl had been kidnapped, according to the

Associated Press.

Court Rules Missouri Couple Adopted Stolen Baby

Court documents released by the Survivors' Foundation lists the adoptive parents as Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Mo., a suburb of Kansas City.  Calls to Monahan, an orthopedic surgeon, were not immediately returned to ABCNews.com.

Hernandez ordered the cancellation of the child’s passport, made out to Karen Abigail Monahan
Vanhorn when she was adopted out of the country.
The court order says that the American Embassy should coordinate efforts with local agencies in
Guatemala to help locate the child in the U.S. and return her to Rodriguez. If she is not returned within
two months, Interpol will be solicited to help locate and return her, the court stated.
Nine Guatemalans, including a judge, have been charged in the case.
Survivors' Foundation said in a statement, "The resolution is considered historical and it's a light of
hope for all the Guatemalans, because the justice in Guatemala, despite all of the obstacles, is changing
not with giant steps but hopefully case by case."
In 2008, Loyda Rodriguez told ABCNews.com, "My daughter... was kidnapped as I was entering my

home. A woman appeared in my backyard and grabbed her out of my arms. There was nothing I could do."

At the time, the child was known as Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez. Her birth mother said that
local police were indifferent to her case and offered virtually no help in finding the kidnappers.
The foundation said that Rodriguez and other mothers whose children have been victims of rampant
trafficking have endured "fear" and "desperation" in their constant search of their children for the last five years.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-couple-silent-order-return-adopted-daughter-guatemala/story?id=14234379

More on this: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=14225981

I write about Guatemala and the crisis of child kidnapping in my book "One Small Sacrifice." If you want to read the e-book version, email me: tracedemeyer@yahoo.com. I will send it FREE!

Papal Bull declared war on Indians in 1452

"The power to commit horrible crimes against children, and others, and then absolve itself and the rapists and killers it shields within its ranks, has made the Vatican a criminal, rogue body under every international standard of law and morality."

Read about the Papal Bull and what it means to federal laws here today in the US in the article "Ending Catholicism And Related U.S. Imperialism" by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer at http://www.towahkon.org/endofimperialism.html

Papal Bull declares the legitimacy of Christian domination over (Indian) pagans, sanctifying enslavement and expropriation of property:

Romanus Pontifex, January 8, 1455 - …We bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic kings and princes, …athletes and intrepid champions of the Christian faith… to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and… to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate… possessions, and goods, and to convert them to… their use and profit.* (European Treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648, Editor Francis Gardiner Davenport, pages 20-26)

HISTORY: Papal Bulls are the fabric of United States and International law. Papal authority is the basis for United States power over Indigenous peoples, not generally understood. The Doctrine of Discovery is still being used as an active legal principle by the United States Supreme Court in the twentieth-first century, revealed in the case City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York decided in March 2005. The case involved a dispute over taxation of ancestral lands of the Oneida Indian Nation. During oral arguments, it became clear that the case would hinge on whether, in the opinion of the Court, the Oneida Indian Nation “has sovereignty status” with regard to the ancestral lands the Oneida Nation had reacquired. To decide the sovereign status of the Oneida Indian Nation, the Supreme Court relied upon the Doctrine of Discovery. Revealed in footnote number one of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsbergʼs decision for the Court majority: “Under the Doctrine of Discovery,” wrote Justice Ginsberg, “... fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign — first the discovering European nation and later the original states and the United States... The Supreme Courtʼs reference to the Doctrine of Discovery places the context for the Courtʼs decision in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York within the Framework of Dominance, dating back to the era of the Vatican Papal Bulls.”

Empire attitudes and dominance are not dead. ----Trace

First Nations Children Still Taken from Parents (CANADA 2011)

powwows.com photo contest

John Beaucage has given the heartbreak he sees around him a name: the Millennium Scoop.

The First Nations leader was recently hired by the Ontario government to look into aboriginal child welfare and what he found -- not just in Ontario, but across the country -- was despair.

After decades of wrestling with the impact of the residential school system -- and then with the "Sixties Scoop" that placed so many aboriginal children in non-aboriginal homes -- First Nations are now facing another tragedy of lost children in the new millennium.

There are more First Nations children in care right now than at the height of the residential school system. That system was a national disgrace that prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to apologize for its catastrophic impact on natives.

Instead of being at home with their parents, brothers and sisters, tens of thousands of First Nations children are in foster homes, staying with distant relatives or living in institutions.

"It's a culmination of decades worth of social ills," Beaucage says.

A disheartening mix of poverty, addiction, history and politics has conspired to separate First Nations children from their parents.

Researchers aren't certain how many native kids are no longer living with their parents. A major study in 2005 pegged the number at 27,500. Since then, provincial and federal data as well as empirical reports suggest the numbers have risen.

That's easily double the size of the cohort forced away from their homes and into residential schools during the late 1940s and 50s -- a brutal period of Canada's history that still haunts First Nations families.

There's no question native children dominate the child welfare system.

Former auditor general Sheila Fraser estimated First Nations children were eight times more likely to be in care than other Canadian kids. She pointed out that in British Columbia, of all the children in care, about half are aboriginal -- even though aboriginals are only about eight per cent of the population.

Beaucage's report says aboriginal people make up about two per cent of the population, but between 10 to 20 per cent of the children in care.

"Given the data I've had a chance to see, if anything, it's an underestimation," said Nico Trocme, director of McGill University's Centre for Research on Children and Families.

"It's getting harder to be a parent in these communities."

Jeremy Meawasige is on the cusp of becoming the next child in that pile of statistics.

The 16-year-old Mi'kmaq from the Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia has myriad challenges: autism, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus and a tendency to hurt himself.

But his latest affliction comes courtesy of inter-jurisdictional squabbling.

Ever since his mother had a double stroke last year and was no longer able to give her son the support he needed, she has had to rely on government funded social services.

But with each level of government pointing to the other for support, and his mother turning to band generosity in the meantime, Jeremy is now poised to be sent to an institution far from the only home he has ever known.

"They did an assessment on us, and say Jeremy is at the level where he should be institutionalized. I told them, over my dead body," said mother Maurina Beadle.

"I'm the only person he will eat for. If you put him in an institution, that's it."

But with no one willing to provide long-term funding that would cover the costs of supporting Beadle and Jeremy on reserve, authorities want to send him to an institution outside the province.

His supporters say it's a classic case of what has become known as Jordan's Principle.

"Jordan" was Jordan River Anderson, a Cree boy from Manitoba who died in hospital at the age of five as he waited for federal and provincial governments to agree how to pay for his care.

Ottawa and provincial governments have vowed not to let such a thing happen again. They say a child in need of services will receive the services immediately, and the governments will work out the payment scheme later.

But Jeremy's mother argues that if her son were off-reserve, he would be entitled to far more funding and services than he is receiving now -- funding and services that would enable her to keep Jeremy at home where he belongs.

"I've decided I'm going to fight for that," she says.

She has launched a formal court challenge, one that echoes a broader dispute taking place at the Federal Court of Canada.

In that case, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, along with the Assembly of First Nations and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, are arguing the discrepancy in funding for child welfare services on reserves versus off reserves constitutes discrimination.

Ottawa contends it's not fair to compare the two.

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the caring society, says she sees case after case of First Nations children in trouble being sent routinely into care because that's where the funding is instead of trying to help families deal with their problems.

As the lawyers duke it out, laments Beadle, "Jeremy regresses."

It would be myopic, however, to blame only jurisdictional wrangling and funding discrepancies for the high rates of First Nations children in care.

Expert after expert recognizes that family dysfunction is more broadly rooted in poverty, poor health and the oppressive legacy of the residential school system that robbed the parents of first-hand knowledge of how to raise a family.

"The simplest reason why, the most important reason why, is that these children are living in communities where families are facing enormous hardships," says McGill's Trocme. "The supports to bring up kids just aren't there."

A child at risk often comes from a home that is over-crowded, with up to four people to a sparse room. The home may not have clean drinking water. It may have mould or boarded-up windows as the house falls into disrepair.

The parents are often not there, or not paying attention.

Instead, they're in their own cycle of trouble, often related to addictions. Or they have not developed the social skills or parenting skills they need to deal with a precarious situation.

In the fridge, there might be some pop or processed food, but little fresh produce.

At school, there would be reading and writing. But not much in the way of library books or gym equipment or things to do after school.

In remote communities, the volunteer network that the urban poor rely on, such as the Salvation Army, shelters or food banks, is virtually non-existent.

In some cases, the child at risk is the victim of violence or abuse. More often than not, when the child welfare system steps in, it's because of neglect.

Neglect, however, "is not trivial," Trocme warns. Studies have shown that neglected children have the hardest time moving beyond their troubles, as their cognitive development becomes impaired.

"They have the absolute worst outcomes," Trocme says.

Still, the Millennium Scoop is not the Sixties Scoop, when children were removed from their homes and adopted by families far from the reserve. There was little discussion then about what would happen to a child once he or she was taken into care.

There is now a recognition that assimilation is not an option, says Beaucage, and there is some attempt to plan for family reunification.

Troubled children are increasingly being removed from their homes, but about half the time, they are placed in other First Nations homes, says Trocme. About 90 per cent of them eventually wind up back home at some point, perhaps as an adult, he says. So the family ties are not being broken as in the past.

"Families don't disappear when you remove a child," he says.

The number of First Nations children in the child welfare system is rising. But slowly funding is also on the rise and so is discussion and innovation about how to help them, he said.

In mainstream society, the number of children in care dropped suddenly in the 1970s. That's when child welfare agencies switched their focus. Instead of removing children from their home as a first resort, they devoted resources to prevention and help for troubled families.

The same approach wasn't applied toward First Nations, Trocme says, but that is changing.

The federal government has added a new layer of child-welfare funding directed toward prevention. It is also funding a growing number of child welfare agencies run by First Nations themselves.

Many First Nations complain that their other child services are so broke that the prevention dollars are sucked away by other more immediate needs.

But Ottawa points to some success in Alberta, where it invested $98 million over five years for its new approach.

The number of children in the care of First Nations agencies in that province has now stabilized, or even edged down slightly, federal documents show.

Not every province has such a program quite yet, although Ottawa hopes to achieve that by next year.

The federal numbers don't take into account the children who are in the hands of provincial agencies. And there are pervasive reports of widespread disillusionment and despair at the local level, says Beaucage.

But there are signs at senior levels of government of creative thinking and a willingness to allow First Nations a stronger hand in child welfare, he says.

"There's a fair bit of flexibility and open-mindedness at the top level," he said.

"We're going to have to measure our success in decades and generations."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/02/pol-first-nations-kids.html

From the cause: First Nations & Aboriginal Rights

Read more: http://www.causes.com/causes/2181-first-nations-aboriginal-rights?m=6584a9cb

America has its own story which you will read in the new anthology "Two Worlds'...the book is available on every e-reader and at amazon.com.. Trace

Coming Home to Self: Interview with Nancy Verrier

Read this interview with the brilliant author of "Primal Wound" Nancy Verrier. She writes about “The Three A’s” for adoptees which are awareness, authenticity, and accountability in her second book "Coming Home to Self."

Here is the link to the interview in Adoption Mosaic.

Verrier's work helped me so much as I was writing my adoptee memoir "One Small Sacrifice." Writers do read much more than they write! It seems I had to release myself out of a fog and find the light. All my issues as an adoptee had to be viewed and witnessed all over again, childhood to present, victim to survivor.

Verrier said in this recent interview," One of the things people need to recognize is that there is no biological mirroring for the adopted child. They don’t see physical and personality traits reflected in the relatives around them. (These are inherent genetic traits; they’re not things you just pick up from living around people.) People who are born into biological families and stay in them take biological mirroring for granted. But this isn’t present in an adoptive family. So the adoptee is always trying to figure out how to be in that family and the family is trying to figure out how to be around that child."

True words for the thousands of us adoptees who were transracially-adopted and assimilated via adoption..... Trace

Journey Home: Wayne Snellgrove (archive)

One Man's Journey Home

Torn Apart 32 Years Ago By Canadian Policy Toward Aboriginals, A Mother And Son Met For The First Time.

September 21, 2003|

BY MARGO HARAKAS STAFF WRITER (Florida Sun-Sentinel)

He called himself Lost Cub, and for years he tried futilely to find his way home.
Then last year, feeling that at last he was closing in, Wayne Snellgrove hired a private investigator to follow up on the final four names on his list. He needed a shield, a buffer from the searing pain of renewed rejection. When the Canadian investigator finally telephoned her news, Snellgrove took the phone to the bedroom, closed the door, and, lying down on the bed, braced himself.
"I found your mother," she said. Then it all tumbled out.
Nora Smoke, a Saulteaux Indian living on a reserve in Saskatchewan, told the investigator, she loved Wayne, always had, that it was the happiest day in her life that he had found her. She had never forgotten the child she'd never seen.

"Please tell my son," Smoke pleaded with the investigator, "I've always thought of him."

And the 6-foot-3-inch, 225-pound athlete sobbed, sobbed like a baby, sobbed with 32 years of repressed emotion, sobbed like a kidnapped child returned to his bereft mother.
The search had ended; however, the story of a newborn's disappearance three decades ago was yet to be told.
Snellgrove, like many Canadians, calls it kidnapping. Others call it cultural annihilation or cultural genocide. Officially, it's been dubbed the Sixties Scoop.
Throughout the 1960s, 70s and into the mid-80s, thousands of Native children were separated from their mothers and adopted out to middle-class, non-Native families in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
"Some communities lost an entire generation," says Darrell Racine, professor of native studies at Brandon University, in Manitoba, Canada.
At best, say the critics, the action of the Children's Aid Societies, authorized at the time to administer Canada's child welfare services, was misguided. At worst, it was racism.
"It goes back to the usual manifest destiny complex white people have over red people and the idea they are more civilized than aboriginal people. They thought they were doing the aboriginals a favor," says Emma LaRocque, professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba.
The problem was those removing the children were usually white and, because of bias or ignorance of Aboriginal culture, they were, say critics, unqualified to determine what was in the best interest of the native child.


READ: http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-09-21/news/0309210300_1_native-studies-aboriginal-children-native-children

Repeating his words (an adoptee reacts to purchasing babies and the cost)

I want all of you to read the words of a bright young wise adoptee: http://adoptiontruth-casjoh.blogspot.com/2011/07/repeating-his-words.html

There is nothing more humbling than the truth... Trace

Standing Bear's Footsteps, Ponca Chief, new documentary (preview)

Film Clip: http://blip.tv/napt/napt-standing-bear-s-footsteps-trailer-4950155

The 4th biennial VisionMaker Film Festival will be held September 30 through October 6, 2011, with screenings at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center and Sheldon Museum of Art.
The VisionMaker Film Festival showcases Native film and video projects that often do not get the spotlight they deserve in a crowded entertainment market. This Festival provides a forum for these productions to gain media and viewer attention. The Festival will aggregate and screen the best of not only Public Television productions, but feature-length and short films as well.
The Festival will feature a range of generations from the story of Standing Bear, a Ponca chief who went to court in 1877 to prove he was a person in the eyes of the law and in the process redefined what it means to be an American to the story of four young Native Alaskan athletes as they compete in the traditional sports of their ancestors.
The Social Media-friendly weekend, October 1-2, 2011, is a new addition to this year’s Festival. Half of the theater will be open to text messaging and status updating via Facebook and Twitter. This initiative is designed to increase public awareness, public engagements, strengthen social movement and ultimately promote social change. Filmmakers will be available for Q&A via Skype, an online, live video chat.
The Sheldon Museum of Art will feature "GRAB," a new NAPT documentary and an Official Selection in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival; plus, attendees will be able to interact with filmmakers Billy Luther (Navajo Hopi Laguna Pueblo), Princella Parker, Omaha (Associate Producer, Standing Bear’s Footsteps), Christina King, Creek/Seminole/Sac & Fox (Co-Producer, Up Heartbreak Hill), Bennie Klain, Navajo (Director, Columbus Day Legacy), and Heather Rae, Cherokee (Family: The First Circle)
Read more: http://netnebraska.org/extras/standingbear/

Adult Adoptees: Documentation and Deportation

In all but SEVEN states, adoption files are sealed tight. Adoptees don't have rights to see their own documents. Adoptees like me are given a fake birth certificate that says adoptive parents are your real parents.

Where were you born, adoptees? This is the new burning question!

I am still wrapping my brain around this since so many First Nations children from Canada were brought to America through the Indian Adoption Programs and ARENA. These children did not choose to come here! Thousands were brought here and adopted here!

Now this -- Adult Adoptees may be deported if their adoptive parents forgot to file paperwork and get them citizenship? This is real, folks. It's already happened!

I used to think it was hard being raised by strangers, forced to pretend I was someone else, given a fake birth certificate to show as my identification. Now adoptees must prove they are American-born or face deportation. 

Could this get any crazier? You spend your childhood in American and then get shipped out?

Unsealing my sealed adoption required nothing less than a miracle in Wisconsin, a closed record state. Fortunately, after many years and many attempts, I found my first family... And yes, Helen and Earl were American-born citizens. Even though Helen and Earl are deceased, I am still denied my OBC- my Original Birth Certificate - from Minnesota (another closed record state)... Other adoptees have this same dilemma and disconnect from the truth and their identity.

What if you were born in Canada or South America and adopted in America? These children did not choose to be adopted or choose to come to America. How are we supposed to know where we were really born? What if your adopters didn't tell you the truth or file the papers? 

This topic will surely gather momentum here in the USA very soon, with immigration so busy deporting adult adoptees who were not born here.  

How many adoptees will be affected? It's unclear.

How did this happen? Unknowing adoptive parents who didn't file papers.

Will immigration help First Nations adoptees find their tribal families? I honestly don't know. But I plan to find out and investigate!

If you were deported, please leave a comment on this blog so I can contact you.

To read the Guide for Adopted Adults,  Click here.

Read Von's excellent blog: Guide for Adopted Adults... Click here....

Yakama teen in 22 foster homes - ICWA not working

Teen who committed suicide had been in 22 foster homes

By Rikki King, Herald writer © 2011 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA

LYNNWOOD, WA -- A boy who jumped to his death from a Lynnwood overpass in January had been on a waiting list for a bed at a state-run psychiatric hospital. He had been in 22 different foster homes since 1998.

The boy, 14, ran away from his Lynnwood-area group home Jan. 21. Just 20 minutes later, he jumped from the Alderwood Mall Parkway overpass onto I-5 below.

His public death, which played out in front of shocked witnesses and stalled traffic on I-5 for hours, haunted many. The state's Children's Administration on July 20 released an executive fatality review of the boy's death. The administration is a division of the state Department of Social and Health Services.

The boy was a dependent of a Yakama tribal child welfare agency and had been a ward of the state since he was a toddler. The Herald is not naming him because of his age and the circumstances surrounding his death.

State law requires the Children's Administration to conduct a fatality review every time a child dies unexpectedly while in its care or while receiving its services, spokeswoman Sherry Hill said.

The fatality reviews don't seek to explain all the circumstances surrounding a child's death.

"We look at ways to improve education, policy, training and then if there are any legislative changes that may be needed," Hill said.

During the boy's life, the Children's Administration had worked with the welfare agency and tribal courts to provide services to him.

Tribal leaders and tribal health care workers were involved in the fatality review. So were representatives from multiple districts within the Children's Administration where the boy had lived, Hill said.

Since June 2009, the boy had been in group homes supervised by staff. Just weeks before his death he was placed at Cypress House in the Lynnwood area awaiting room at the psychiatric hospital.

In the year leading up to his being placed in tribal care as a toddler, the boy was visited at least six times by Child Protective Services, records show. Each visit investigated allegations that the boy's mother was abusing or neglecting her children.

Social workers for years tried to involve the boy's parents in his care.

His mother committed suicide in 2001. A few years later, his father was sent to prison.

The boy and his siblings' longest stay in one place was several years in a Yakama Nation foster home. The stability of the home was good for them while they dealt with their mother's death, the review says. However, the foster father died in 2004, and the grieving foster mother asked for the children to be removed.

After that, the boy had a history of struggling to adjust to new homes. He had significant behavioral and mental health issues, the details of which are blacked out in the report.

The boy in 2009 faced legal trouble in Benton and Yakima counties, court records show. Both cases involved assaults. He was still under active court supervision at the time of his death.

Late last summer, caseworkers started trying to get him into a psychiatric hospital.

The fatality review found that case workers did not consistently convey information about the boy's history to all involved in his care, especially regarding his behavior issues and safety planning. People at the group home in Lynnwood may not have known about the behaviors that led the state to seek a hospital placement. He was supposed to be under constant "visual and earshot" supervision at the home.

The review team concluded more supervision may have been needed. It also suggested more scrutiny for placing young people with such complex cases outside their home communities.

The review recommends that Children's Administration workers in similar cases make sure every caregiver has a comprehensive summary of the case. That discussion should occur before the child is placed at the home. The administration also may want to develop additional training for foster parents who care for children with complex mental health and behavioral issues, the team suggested.

In the week after his death, the boy's body was returned to his family for burial. An obituary that ran in an Eastern Washington newspaper said he was an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation. He spent at least part of his life on the Yakama Reservation and was a member of the Shaker and Longhouse religions.

Memorial services took place over several days in the Yakima area shortly after his body was sent back home.

[I am saddened by this story so much. This tragedy again scores the fact that the Indian Child Welfare Act has not worked in many ways and needs attention.   Prayers for this teen and his tribe...Trace]

Aboriginal Sixties Scoop Class Action Lawsuit

This class action lawsuit has been filed against the Government of Canada. The lawsuit alleges that between 1962 and 1996, Canada negligently delegated Indian child welfare services to the Province of British Columbia. Ignoring its obligations to Aboriginal children, Canada took no steps to prevent them from losing their Aboriginal identity and the opportunity to exercise their Aboriginal and treaty rights when they were placed in foster homes and adopted by non-Aboriginals.
The plaintiff, a status Indian, was taken from her parents and placed in foster care when she was a young girl. She is bringing this lawsuit on her own behalf and on behalf of status Indians who were living in British Columbia and placed in foster care or adopted between 1962 and 1996.
If you are a status Indian who was placed in foster care or adopted between 1962 and 1996, please complete the Do You Qualify? form or Contact Us for more information.
Click here for their website and contact info

Indian Child Welfare Act (history) short documentary

Lies the Social Worker Told

Guest Blog By Mary-Lee

When I was adopted in 1946, the unrealistic expectations my adoptive parents were given by the adoption social worker were terribly unfair to them, but also pretty darned unfair to me, too.
Of course there are all the usual ones. Most egregious is the one we adoptees all know... the one that said, “If you do a really good job as a parent, she will never want to know anything about her birthparents.”
Then, hedging their bets I suppose, is the one that said, “If she ever does want any information about her birthparents, all you need to do is come to us and ask.” Not all she needs to do, notice, but all you need to do. My adoptive parents, in partnership with the social worker, were set up from the start as the sieve through which all my questions and the answers would be strained and filtered. I was not a part of that plan. But I digress.
The one really unrealistic expectation “my” social worker set up before my adoption was finalized was, “Her I.Q. is one point below genius, so she will be able to take advantage of every opportunity you will be able to offer her.”
I really wonder how the social worker knew this. I was a bit over a year old at the time and barely able to speak. If I had been older, I might have laughed out loud. But again, I digress.
Still, my adoptive parents were required to have me tested, at their own expense of course, sometime before the adoption was finalized. I needed to prove myself able to see and hear perfectly or I would not have been offered for adoption. I also needed to demonstrate my intelligence.
And the intelligence test I was given? My adoptive mother told me about it years later. The doctor had a large picture of some items that he held up for me. He said, “Show me the shoe.” It seems I had just received a new pair of shoes for the special occasion so, quite naturally, I stuck my newly-shod foot straight up and out. “Yes, that’s a very nice shoe,” he said, “but show me the shoe in the picture. “ The second time I barely missed hitting him in the face with the shoe... the one that was definitely not in the picture.
So... onward. No sense kicking a dead horse, or a lively doctor either.
The next task was to put the doll in the chair. The problem was that there was a piece of glass between the child with the doll (me) and the designated chair. The less gifted child would try to put the doll through the glass and into the chair. The “genius” would simply walk around the glass and install the doll safely in the chair. My response? I pulled the glass over and shattered it. But I did put the doll in the chair exactly as I had been instructed.
And so on it went. I can only wonder how the doctor managed to score his test... after he swept up the glass from his floor. Whatever dilemmas he must surely have dealt with, the score eventually did come back to the social worker and I was one I.Q. point below genius. Yeah! You bet!
My parents’ problem, especially my mother’s problem, was that I never managed to live up to my hype.
Yes, at first I got A or A+ in the school subjects, but my teachers wrote that I could do so much better if I would only apply myself, and they all staunchly refused to give me better than A- in effort.
My mother dissolved into tears when I eventually brought home a B+ in arithmetic. I clearly remember her sitting on the lid of the toilet seat sobbing, “Blessed Mother, where did I go wrong?”
Then I got my first D, in religion of all things. My own suspicion was that the grade was given in a fit of pique because I had, only recently, not stopped blowing my nose in class while Sister was giving the meditation. But that’s just my suspicion. My mother had her own suspicions. None of them boded well for me.
I was truly a mediocre student all the way through school. My mother had told me that she would send me to college to become something “respectable,” like a teacher or a nurse... but not an artist or a translator, which were my preferences. I took as many elective foreign language credits and art credits as I could manage, and those good grades actually helped save me from flunking out completely, but still I stuck with teaching. I really tried to please. Doggedly.
Then came a day that I remember especially well... the day before my adoptive mother died. I was barely twenty-one, and still needed her approval desperately, so I pointed out to her that I was finally a teacher, and that I was living on my own and able to support myself, and wasn’t she at least proud of me for that? Maybe that was the wrong time to ask. I don’t know. But her answer?
“No. I'm not proud of you. You could have done so much better.”
My mother died thinking that she had failed as a mother. But I had to live knowing that I had disappointed her in some basic way and truly not understanding how I could have done otherwise. All because of an unrealistic expectation... a lie actually, among many lies that need not have been told. I have long since forgiven my adoptive mother for believing them... and myself, for not living up to everyone's expectations. But I will never, ever forgive the social worker. Never.

Henry Roe Cloud - first Indian graduate of Yale

New Documentary on Henry Roe Cloud (First Indian to Graduate from Yale) Matthew L.M. Fletcher | July 5, 2011| URL: http://wp.me/p7zky-4Ta

Reynaldo Morales, the documentary maker, sent this link to the excellent documentary on Henry Roe Cloud, the first American Indian to graduate from Yale in Connecticut and also a co-author of the Meriam Report. Henry was a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. Ned Blackhawk at Yale helped to make Henry the face of American Indian alumni at Yale.
Click here for documentary

This is a hero of mine. Henry is Thunder Clan, a true leader. Please watch this movie....Trace

Navajo Elder gets birth certificate at 74

Click here for the story about the Elder...

Thanks to my Dine brother Leland Morrill for sharing this. S

everal of us adoptees are in for a shock (as if we aren't already in shock!) when we go to apply for a new driver's license in the USA. If we cannot supply an original birth certificate, they can deny us. It happened to Leland, who was adopted by Mormons. (His story is posted on my blog here and he is also a contributor in the new book "Two Worlds."
Leland has taught me so much about the Real ID Act of 2005 - which forgot to take into account many Native adoptees have amended (fake) birth records or no birth certificate.

So, please leave a comment if you are having issues with getting a new driver's license. There ought to be a class action lawsuit over this one, eh?

Read Leland's blog: http://amiauscitizennavajo.blogspot.com/

Google: Real ID ACT of 2005 if you need more information...

Trace Hentz (blog editor)

"Dad" Reunions ( and what I learned about REUNION meeting my dad)

Maryland father finds his son after 35 years: After many false starts, DNA test leads to reunion http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-adoption-search-ryba-20110619,0,1793711.story

Father, daughter, find each other, in life and song
http://www.ajc.com/lifestyle/father-daughter-find-each-982010.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746





There is great truth and importance in these stories, dispelling myths how reunions between adoptee and first parents won't work...  I have my own reunion story with my dad Earl Bland in my memoir "One Small Sacrifice." I met my dad in 1996.

This is what I learned about REUNION:

• After our first phone call, I wrote my dad a letter and explained what I knew about my adoption and gave details, like my date of birth, where I was born and what I knew from my adoption file. It gave him and his family time to process and adjust to my showing up in their life.
• We made plans to see each other - later we'd talk on the phone, just the two of us. (Repeat after me: "We can't start over. We start here and now.") My dad and I began our lives together when we reunited in person for the first time.
• Plan to meet. Schedule DNA tests if there is any doubt about paternity. Not sure at first, our DNA test said Earl and I were a 99.9% match. Hooray!
• Expect to feel very overwhelmed at first. Reunion is not about rivalry but if you have siblings, expect their surprise (and maybe some jealousy, too). Avoid controversy and meet one-on-one, just you and your parent first. Later spend quality time with the entire first family (your siblings, their kids, your kids and all the relatives.) Don't rush into this one but take lots of pictures! Meet your siblings one at a time, too. It takes time and energy to get to know one another.
• Watch your expectations, adoptees. Earl and I knew there was no way to go back to reverse the past or fix it. He did not apologize nor I didn't expect him to... My dad didn't ask me about my life or what I experienced being adopted. This might happen in your reunion, too. Plan your future together as time, money and distance will allow. Each and every reunion is unique. Share your story if and when you are asked.
• Listen and be patient: that is what I did.  I had no idea how my dad spent his life but I knew it was going to take time to hear his story. I took copious notes!  My siblings and relatives shared much more than my dad and gave me tons of genealogy.
• I knew my dad had no clue how hurt I was being adopted.  That was the truth for me. (Again, don't expect an apology.) I never expected he would fix my brokeness but hearing his voice the first time healed me in so many ways.  The fog I'd walked in started to disappear. Old illusions vanished. My grieving faded.
• Depending on your adoptive family, only you the adoptee can determine if they can handle any news of your reunions.  I know just one adoptee who connected his mothers - now they are friends.  That takes some very strong loving women (and men) to make this happen. Many adoptees did share their reunion stories and it abruptly ended their relationship with the adoptive parents. Be sensitive and don't share details if they don't want to hear them. Many adoptive parents do not realize the importance of reunions in an adoptees life. It is up to the adoptee how to procceed and if you share the news. The risk of rejection by your adoptive family is a whole new chapter to reunion.
• Last but not least, get counselling if you need to and early.  Spouses and friends may not be able to help you process all this. Go slow and be gentle with yourself but try and proceed with the reunion - since noone knows how much time you'll have to reconnect in this life.  In my reunion, I had a little over a year before Earl died. We made the best of our time. I knew he was very sick when we first met. Earl and I spoke often and I wrote letters and cards. When Earl became very ill and was hospitalized, I was updated by my family constantly. Sadly, I only met Earl once but I did attend his funeral and was listed as his daughter in his obituary.

Closed adoption advocates want us to believe secrecy is best and privacy was promised. That was not true in my experience at all. Yes, my mother Helen did not want to meet me but that was her choice, and I respected that. But ADOPTEES have TWO PARENTS. If one reunion fails, there is still hope we can meet someone else in our first family. It may be relatives - aunts, uncles or siblings. Never give up hope or your search! First, we have to permanently end closed adoptions - they do not serve the adoptee or their emotional and spiritual well-being. We must unseal adoption records and shine the light on the truth. We must demand Unconditional Access - so birthparents cannot withhold your original birth certificate or your adoption records.
I pray for each adoptee and natural parent to have a good reunion. There is good medicine and healing waiting for all of you.

An Elder Blessing

A Blessing for the Native American Caucus

[by Ojibwa for Native American Netroots. I am unable to attend NN11 and the Native American caucus. Navajo had asked me for some words for the caucus, and since I do not have email at this location, I’m going to put these words into a short diary for all to read.]

Traditionally, Native American events began with a blessing. We understand that there are a great many different religious and spiritual traditions, and beginning discussions with a spiritual blessing does not imply that all must “believe” the same—rather it simply indicates that this is an important event. Traditional Indians have little concern for making converts, for carrying “the message,” or for proselytizing. An elder is simply asked to bless the event. This blessing might involve smudging with sage, sweet grass, cedar, or some other herb. It might involve a song. It might involve a pipe ceremony. It might involve some symbolic gestures.

Spoken words are different from written words, and many of us who live in oral pagan traditions are reluctant to write down the words that we would speak at a blessing. The power of the word changes when it is written and it loses its sense of the here and now. If I were to do a blessing at this event, it would probably involve smudge and the use of the pipe. What follows is not the words which I would speak, but a description of their intent.

This is a blessing calling upon the seven directions. It starts with offerings to that which lies above and that which lies below. It is a way of reminding ourselves of our need for fresh air, for rain that falls clean and free of chemicals, for the sun, the moon, and the star people. It reminds us of our dependence of the earth and our responsibility to nourish and care for it, just as it nourishes and cares for us.

Next would come an offering to the manitos (spirits) of north and a reminder of the importance of dreams. It is a reminder that it is our responsibility to bring our dreams to life.

Next would come an offering to the manitos (spirits) of south and a reminder of the importance of words. We should remember that words are living things and they continue to impact our lives long after they have been spoken. At meetings such as this we should speak words which bring us together, which create harmony. Words which separate us—those which reflect racism, sexism, homophobia, agism, classism, and other divisions—should have no place here.

Next would come an offering to the manitos (spirits) of west and a reminder of the importance of death. If I have lived well, then it is a good day to die. The focus among traditional Native Americans was on maintaining harmony in life: there was not a lot of concern for what happens next. The offering to the west is also about endings, about changing things in our lives.

Next would come an offering to the manitos (spirits) of east and a reminder of the importance of birth. This is a reminder of the need for birth, rebirth, and new ideas. New ideas, new concepts, like newborns, must be nurtured and nourished.

And the final direction, the seventh direction, is inward. It is placing myself within the circle that has gatherered and opening myself up for the words which will be spoken and the concepts which will be presented.

We come from many traditions. We come here to find harmony in our common cause.

to order prints: go to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/09/983796/-A-Blessing-for-the-Native-American-Caucus?via=blog_787671

More Voices, More Discussion

By Trace Hentz (blog editor)

archive photo

I read adoptee blogs. This one I particularly liked.
Joy's Division wrote:

"...That is exactly what drives me crazy about those that try to control the story of the emotional world of the adoptee, I spouted, they are trying to bear our souls, that is why I make so many bitchy posts about people who are trying to tell the story of adoption sans the frustrated adoptee. Which you know, happens, some adoptees are frustrated, some adoptees find this situation difficult to deal with." - from  http://joy21.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/you-can-only-bear-your-own-soul-controlling-the-adoptee-narrative/...

"...So no, I am not in charge of the adoptee experience, I was shocked as shit to recognize my mother and feel the damaged love I do feel for her. I want to be more compassionate with her experience and at this moment I am, my last comment feels a bit harsh. It tears me up, it leaves me twisting in the wind. I am just a small part of a much bigger story, but we should be allowed to tell our stories without getting comments like, “Poor Innocent Dismissed.” I may be poor and I may be dismissed but I have never pretended to be innocent, I am as big of an asshole as you would ever want to meet. I mean the caveat being we are all assholes if you catch us in the right moment. At least I can own that." Joy's blog is gone since she passed...

You see how adoption is complicated, messy, a pain! There are many discussions happening across the blog world on the myths, benefits and damages of adoption. It is definitely clear that each in the triad (birth parents, adoptive parent and adoptee) has their own unique voice and view. That is how we learn - by reading and listening to others who went through the adoption process as parents or as an adoptee.

Even Facebook has created new discussions and arguments, too. Divisions do not serve anyone but create the impression there is no common ground or mutual agreement. Yet we all walk the path together as humanity.

I am no longer a "frustrated" adoptee but the survivor of a closed adoption. I opened my adoption file at age 22. At age 54 I read my "identifying" information in my formerly-sealed Wisconsin adoption file. I have had many reunions.

I do not judge my mother Helen for giving me up. I know she made the only decision she could at the time - which was find new parents for me. I am not her and cannot read her mind. Sadly she has already died so I will never know how giving me up affected her past or her future. I do know society judged her and she lived with their judgements.

I do know many frustrated adoptees, and I try to help them navigate each step to finding their identity and eventual reunion with relatives. There is no guidebook on this, by the way. There is no "ALL" since each mother and father and each adoptee is unique.
The changes in communication with the internet, blogs, Facebook and email has opened up my world since 2004. Teach me, contact me, post comments...

As Joy's Division writes: "...I will be called names, I will endure ridicule, but also some adoptee somewhere will find my blog like so many others already have and as a result find the courage to tell their own story. They will feel less alone, less alienated, their story will be different because they always are, but my story will encourage others to own their own. Controlling your own story, your own narrative is one of the most delicate and beautiful gifts you can give yourself. The h8trs are gonna h8t, love yourself anyway. I can only bear my own soul and I am, here."

We need more voices and more discussion like this.

We need to change the archaic laws and end closed adoptions and give access to sealed adoption files  - period.

The Daily Bastardette: BUSTED: Adoptive Parents Speak

The Daily Bastardette: BUSTED: Adoptive Parents Speak

Surprise #2 Genealogy

By Trace (blog editor)

As I wrote before, I spoke with a cousin who shares my great-grandmother Mary Morris. Buddy shared how he met my parents Earl and Helen in Chicago. He is the only one I know who did meet them prior to my birth and knew them as a couple. That was no small miracle!

Next surprise: a new relative on Helen’s side. As an adoptee, nothing has been more exciting than finding pieces in the family puzzle. A new relative found me and emailed me! Am I ever glad I wrote a book!! Thank you Google!

I met my grandmother Helen Ryan Kilduff Thrall back in 1993 – a long time ago. As I wrote in my memoir, she didn’t know I was her granddaughter, but she showed me my first picture of my mother Helen. For me this was life-changing. I took lots of notes that day and wrote down her father was Michael Kilduff. When I drove near Ottawa in 2006, my interest in the Kilduff line was ignited again but I had not met or found anyone in Canada or the US with this name.
Now a cousin who shares my Kilduff blood found me. He has helped me trace back to my great-grandfather Michael Kilduff who lived in Ottawa then moved to Michigan then Wisconsin. This family started in Quebec and migrated to Ottawa. Peter even sent me a genealogy on this side of my family. He also sent a link to a website showing my ancestors were shipbuilders and stone masons. Who knew I have Canadian blood in my veins?

I told Peter it is a shame I didn’t know him prior, when I was a rock musician who traveled in Ontario and sang in clubs near where he lives.
Peter and I are kin and going to keep in touch. This was a gift I never expected and one I am truly grateful for, indeed.

(to be continued)

VIDEO: Tribe remembers boarding school era, begins healing (Michigan)

VIDEO: themorningsun.com http://t.co/VkbByNu
By MARK RANZENBERGER

Willie Johnson looked over at the old, crumbling, red-brick building and recalled his grandparents.
They attended the Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School, one of many across North America with the avowed purpose of “taking the Indian out of the child” beginning in the late 19th century. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the land and the buildings belong to the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, and Tribal leaders and elders say it’s time for healing.
The Tribe accepted eight acres of property and six historic buildings from the state of Michigan. Monday, a day-long service of honoring, healing and remembrance began the Tribe’s ownership.
Johnson was one of four people who read the names of nearly 150 children believed to have died at the school during the 40 years it operated. Officially, just five children died, but many more are believed to have buried quietly somewhere on the approximately 300 acres of land now owned by the city of Mt. Pleasant and the Tribe.
The aim of the Indian schools was to “enlighten” the Native children, force them to learn English and forget their Native language, introduce them to Christianity and Western values, and teach them useful trades. Many children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to the schools.
Experts say the boarding school experience resulting in the wholesale destruction of Native values and near-loss of Native culture.
The school closed in 1934. The state of Michigan converted the property to a state hospital for the developmentally disabled, which is now closed.
Lorraine “Punkin” Shananaquet, a healer and a member of the Tribal Council of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, said the echoes of the grief, pain and loss continue across the generations.
“My muscle and my blood remember things,” Shananaquet said. She said the day of remembrance could bring emotional, mental, spiritual and physical healing as Native people struggle to regain their language, family, culture and ceremony.
The Tribe has yet to decide how it will use the property. Tribal spokesman Frank Cloutier said the healing and remembrance had to come first.
“Today,” Cloutier said near the end of the ceremonies, “the place is no longer what it was before.”

Wabanaki Tribes TRUTH & RECONCILIATION COMMISSION (MAINE)

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/06/wabanaki-tribes-maine-sign-historic-foster-care-trc/

INDIAN ISLAND, Maine – When Denise Yarmal Altvater talks about the torture and abuse she and her younger sisters suffered as Indian children in foster care in Maine, the story is so painful to hear that it is impossible to imagine how those little girls lived through it.


On May 24, Altvater, a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission, participated in a public ceremony to launch a Truth and Reconciliation process that will help heal her and others like her, who experienced the same awful separation from their families and communities and the brutality of a government child welfare system whose negligence could—or perhaps should—be considered criminal.

Chiefs of the Wabanaki nations, Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Altvater signed a Declaration of Intent to Create a Maine/Wabanaki Truth & Reconciliation Process, a process meant to heal people from the traumatic experience of the past behind and move toward the best possible child welfare system for Wabanaki children. “Wabanaki” means ‘the people of the dawn” or ‘first light.” The Wabanaki nations are the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, and the Penobscot Indian Nation at Indian Island. A Truth & Reconciliation Commission will be created as part of the process.

For more than a decade, Altvater and other indigenous Wabanaki women have worked with a Truth and Reconciliation Convening Group of individuals from the Maine Tribal Child Welfare, state Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child and Family Services and staff from the Muskie School of Public Services, American Friends Service Committee and Wabanaki Mental Health Association to bring the Truth & Reconciliation project forward.

“In this process I’ve always used my name Yarmal because I think my two sisters need to be remembered and had we not gone through what we did, my two sisters would be alive today,” said Altvater. Her two sisters, who lived until their early forties, died of lingering trauma-related causes connected to their early abuse. When Altvater joined the working group 13 years ago she came to the table with mistrust, anger and fear, she said. “I came as an adult with childhood memories of all the torture and abuse I suffered as a young child, as a little girl.”

Altvater and her sisters were placed in foster care with a non-tribal family near Indian Island when she was eight years old. When she began working with the Convening Group 13 years ago, Altvater said she came to the project “full of childhood memories about the abuse and torture that I suffered in a foster home for four years as a young girl.” The abuse included ongoing sexual molestation and nights locked in a dark cold cellar in the foster home, she said. Attempts to tell the state what was happening fell on deaf ears, Altvater said. No charges were ever brought against the couple that abused her and her sisters.

Taking control of her own narrative has helped in the healing process, she said. “It’s been 13 years since I told my story. I didn’t even know it needed to be told. Since then I’ve learned to feel, care, love and most of all strive to become the person the Creator meant for me to be when I was born. Healing is not going to be easy, but it will transform all of us,” Altvater said.

Altvater works with the American Friends Service Committee, the Muskie School of Public Service and the Maine Indian State Tribal Commission to help the healing process for others with similar experiences.

“Everyone wants to know what the goal of this project it,” Altvater said. “For me, it is about healing, education and learning. It is about changing how we do our work in the future so that every child we are responsible to protect is treated with kindness and dignity and given the best we have to offer so they will have a place that is always safe.”

The Maine Tribal-State Child Welfare Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will be the first of its kind established in the country, said Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis.

“This is truly a historic event,” Francis said at the ceremony. “This TRC process is unique in that parties on both sides have come together with the best interests of Wabanaki children and families at heart. It is a model of collaboration that can be replicated in other areas of tribal-state relations in Maine and has the potential to be a model for other states as well.”

Francis said that Indian children were punished for being native. “They wanted to assimilate them and make Native people like everyone else. The TRC will assure that past atrocities will never happen again and our children have the right to stay Wabanaki and stay connected to that. My hope is this collaboration and support on both sides will serve as a model for how to respect each other and overcome our difference while acknowledging our past.”

The TRC is driven by three key purposes: to create a common understanding between the Wabanaki and the State of Maine concerning what happened and what is happening to Wabanaki children in the welfare system; to act on the information revealed during the TRC to implement changes to improve the system; and to promote healing both among Wabanaki children and their families and the people who administered the abusive system.

Governor Paul LePage, who visited Indian Island for the first time in many years, said the signing of the Declaration of Intent is “an important step to allow the commission to establish its mandate and get to work.” He talked about his own youth when, unlike Indian children who were taken from their homes, the decision to leave home was his. The TRC project is “long overdue,” LaPage said. Although there have been abuses in the past and “the system has had a negative impact,” Maine’s child welfare program is now committed “to protecting the rights, dignity and traditions of the tribes” while delivering needed services to all children and families, LePage said.

“We are one state. We are one people. And we share similar backgrounds,” LePage said. The governor said he visited Indian Island on several occasions years ago when he was a student at Husson College in Bangor, and that he spent 10 years working for a lumber company and living with the Maliseets in New Brunswick after graduating.

Truth & Reconciliation Commissions have been established in various places around the world, most notably in South Africa to deal with the violence and human rights abuses that occurred under the Apartheid system. The idea is to work through acknowledgement of the wrong doings toward healing and reconciliation, reparations and institutional reform. In Maine the TRC may include public testimony from the victims, comprehensive reports by the commission, and policy recommendations. The commission’s work will be helped by the Andrus Family fund, which has provided financial support for the project. More information about the Maine Tribal Truth and Reconciliation Commission is available online at www.mainetribaltrc.org.

One Small Sacrifice: New Review by Prairie Mary

http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/
posted on June 8, 2011
Thank you Prairie Mary!!!

Happy Dance!... Trace

Note: I only have the blog here. I closed down my former website (http://www.splitfeathers.com/)

Our Children are Sacred by Judge Tim Connors

Seven generations ago someone was praying for us. We are the answer to their prayers. We take this responsibility seriously. When you are working with our children, it is sacred work.  Our children are sacred.

My mother Donna Lou was born in 1939. She and her family lived on Beaver Island in Michigan. After my grandmother died, my mother was separated from her brother and sent to be a domestic servant for a Mennonite minister and his wife in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This happened despite the fact that we had literally dozens of tribal family members who could have cared for her. Her Uncle Leo and his wife, for example, always wanted a daughter and would have loved to raise my mother. Unfortunately, she was sent away without any notice to her Indian family. While she was living with the Mennonites, she was forced to cut her hair outside of her Native tradition, prohibited from practicing Native
American traditions, and prohibited from any contact with her Native American family and tribe. When she turned 17, she was forced into a loveless, arranged marriage. The marriage didn’t last very long and she was on her own, alone in the world. She never had the courage to return home to her tribe because she felt so different and damaged. With her dark skin, black hair, and brown eyes she stood
out as different from the majority of her peers in the 1950s and beyond. She never felt like she belonged anywhere. Without good examples of parenting, raising her children was a struggle for her. If my mother had been born after the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act, and ICWA had been followed, she would’ve had a very different life and I would’ve had a very different mother.

Our Children Are Sacred
Why the Indian Child Welfare Act Matters
By Judge Tim Connors

http://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/jj_spr11_connors.pdf

[Please read this powerful paper by Judge Connors.. I am amazed at his eloquence on this topic. We need more judges like him  ...Trace]

Lawsuit filed for 60s Scoop First Nation adoptees in British Columbia (NEWS)

new link: http://ipolitics.ca/2011/06/01/b-c-natives-sue-federal-government-for-millions-over-sixties-scoop/

Postmedia News June 1, 2011

A class-action lawsuit that could cost Ottawa millions of dollars has been filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on behalf of aboriginal children affected by the "Sixties' Scoop."
The "Scoop" refers to the thousands of Native children who were allegedly taken between 1962 and 1996 after the federal government signed over its responsibility for Indian child welfare to the provincial government.
The B.C. government received money for each status Indian child taken into care. This is the first Sixties' Scoop class-action suit filed in B.C. and only the second in Canada. An Ontario case was given court approval in 2010.
A Vancouver lawyer representing victims said the Sixties' Scoop victims could win "millions of dollars in federal compensation," such as that given to residential school survivors.
"But the purpose of this lawsuit is for the survivors to seek justice for the wrongs that were done to them," said Jason Murray. "Just as the residential schools closed, aboriginal children were again taken away, into foster care.
(c) The Victoria Times Colonist
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/life/Lawsuit+filed+Sixties+Scoop+kids/4872693/story.html#ixzz1O6B5YF8a

[This is only the beginning... the abuses here in America will come to light, too  ...Trace]

Washington state ICWA passed today

WASHINGTON INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT PASSED (6-1-11) NEWS!!

After a multi-year tribal effort to make this Act a reality, Governor Chris Gregoire has signed the Washington State Indian Child Welfare Act (WICWA) into law. AAIA has worked closely with Washington state tribes on Indian child welfare issues for many years and we believe this is an important step forward in the ongoing efforts to promote the safety and well-being of Indian children and families.

WICWA has two main purposes. First, it codifies in Washington law the main provisions of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). This helps to make sure that state courts, attorneys and others involved with the state legal system incorporate ICWA protections for Indian children, families and tribes into their everyday practice. AAIA has long been involved in Indian child welfare advocacy. Studies and efforts by the AAIA were the catalyst for the enactment of the ICWA in 1978.

Second, WICWA clarifies how the federal law should be implemented and expands upon its protections. Among the most meaningful additions are provisions which define important legal terms, such as “active efforts,” “best interests,” and “qualified expert witnesses,” modify the placement preferences and improve procedures for identifying Indian children, including recognizing tribal decisions on membership as conclusive.

AAIA provided technical legal assistance to Washington tribal leaders and attorneys drafting and advocating for WICWA. WICWA builds upon previous tribal efforts to implement ICWA in Washington State which AAIA has assisted, including negotiation of a landmark tribal-state Indian child welfare agreement with the state, incorporation of provisions in the agreement into state practices and procedures, and legislation requiring the state to recognize tribally-licensed foster homes.

WICWA will help to advance the central goals of ICWA – namely to keep Indian families together and to ensure placement with extended family or tribal members whenever possible.
http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/washington-icwa-passes/

[Great news...now we need other states to do this... Trace]