Many Native Americans, Citing History, Angry Over Trump Immigration Policy

Native Americans are no strangers to the break-up of families

Source: Many Native Americans, Citing History, Angry Over Trump Immigration Policy

White liberal friends stop saying that separating children from their parents is “unAmerican.” That is ahistorical & insensitive as hell to the 100ks of Native people who were separated from their children by official US policy from boarding schools & the Indian Adoption Project.

— BigIndianGyasi (@BigIndianGyasi) June 16, 2018





Many Native Americans, Citing History, Angry Over Trump Immigration Policy

Native Americans are no strangers to the break-up of families
Source: Many Native Americans, Citing History, Angry Over Trump Immigration Policy

White liberal friends stop saying that separating children from their parents is “unAmerican.” That is ahistorical & insensitive as hell to the 100ks of Native people who were separated from their children by official US policy from boarding schools & the Indian Adoption Project.

— BigIndianGyasi (@BigIndianGyasi) June 16, 2018

Reflections from the Hogan: Separating Families? It's What the US has Always Done

Wirelesshogan LINK: There is a crisis going on at our borders. Children are being separated from their families. Mothers are being separated from their babies. ...



Throughout our history the United States of America has used the
separation of families as a means of controlling people of color.



Indian Boarding Schools:

"In
1961, when I was six years old, my parents were ordered by the U.S.
government and the BIA to put me in Kinlichee Boarding School. My father
took me there and left me crying after him. I remember crying all the
time. I was in Kinlichee for six years, Toyei Boarding School for two
years, and Fort Wingate Boarding School for one year.  When we arrived
at boarding school, we were assigned a number, were given baths, and
were dressed in identical clothes and shoes. I was stripped of my Navajo
clothes and moccasins, which had been sewn for me by my mother, and
they were thrown away."

"I was always lonely. Every chance I got, I would go to the laundry
room. It had a big window, and if I sat in a certain place, I could see
the road at the top of the canyon or mesa. I would watch the road to see
if my parents were coming to get me. Kinlichee Boarding School was
built near a wash and was surrounded by a fence. I tried many times to
run away as I got older, but I was always caught. One time at Toyei
Boarding School, I crawled through the sagebrush, dirt, trees, and
cactus for miles, but they found me and brought me back for more
punishment."

(Written by Susie Silversmith, a boarding school survivor – quote taken from CRCNA Doctrine of Discovery Task Force – “Creating a New Family: A Circle of Conversation on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery” - pg. 55)

In Canada, hypocrisy is a uniquely potent force

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its final report, with ninety-four calls to action, and Justin Trudeau was elected to great gusts of hope that we might finally confront the horror of our history.

In the time since, the process of reconciliation between Canada and its First Nations has stalled, repeating the cycles of overpromising and underdelivering that have marred their relationship from the beginning. The much-vaunted commitment to “Nation to Nation” negotiation has been summarily abandoned. The National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls—another Trudeau election promise—has been plagued by resignations, inertia, and accusations of general ineffectiveness. Nonetheless, the acknowledgment is spreading. No level of government has mandated the practice; it is spreading of its own accord.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report of 2015 described Canadian colonization as a conquest with two major thrusts: the starvation of indigenous groups, and the attempt to erase indigenous languages and religious practices.

READ: Canada’s Impossible Acknowledgment | The New Yorker

KINSHIP: State Turns to Urgent Placement of Foster Kids with Relatives, Friends

Making matters more urgent are the strict requirements under the Indian Child Welfare Act, which strongly favors placement in tribal households like the Tointighs’. The family said the fact that John Tointigh and their three biological children are members of the Apache tribe increased their appeal in the eyes of DHS. The foster kids they took in come from a different tribe.

Source: State Turns to Urgent Placement of Foster Kids with Relatives, Friends | Oklahoma Watch

Since the latter half of 2016, the percentage of children placed first in a kinship foster home by the state has increased, according to Oklahoma Department of Human Services data. Under DHS' definition, kinship can include not only close blood relatives but also more distant relatives, family friends, community members who have played an important role in the child's life, and others.

Month	Children Placed in Kinship as First Placement	Children Removed from Family Home and Eligible for Placement	Percent of Kinship as First Placement
Baseline: July-December 2016	878	2,540	34.6%
January-June 2017	1,001	2,594	38.6%
July-December 2017	1,009	2,264	44.6%
January-June 2018 (YTD)	664	1,417	46.9%

How Do We Mend The Hoop?

By Trace Hentz (Winyan Ohmanisa Waste La Ke)

This is an essay from the anthology The Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption From a Place of Empowerment and Peace was edited by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Julie Stromberg, Karen Pickell, and Jennifer Anastasi. (published in 2011)

Years ago I was embarrassed to say I was adopted. I did not feel lucky. I did not have a clue that my adoption hurt me so badly, its tentacles reached into every aspect of my life, even as an adult. My hoop, my connection to my ancestors, was broken by my adoption.
I ached to know my own mother, the woman who created me.

One expert wrote, “Loss of the most sacred bond in life, that of a mother and child, is one of the most severe traumas and this loss will require long-term, if not lifelong, therapy.” (now called toxic stress)

Really?  No one helped me with this. I had therapy twice. The counselling I received in my 20s or 30s concerned my dysfunctional childhood and yet all my issues stemmed from my adoption wound and loss. They missed it or didn't inquire or connect the dots. Why is that?

For close to 20 years, on my own I searched and simply wanted to find answers and the truth. I made calls before I showed up anywhere; I did not disrupt anyone’s life.  If I was invited to meet relatives, I went. In 2011 alone, two cousins have filled giant gaps in my ancestry. Prayers are answered, even the unspoken ones.
I can see how adoption loss can last a lifetime. For some friends, they're stalled with sealed adoption records, not knowing which tribe, and suffer greatly with grief and depression.

For them, I wrote my book as a journalist and adoptee and now I write a blog for other American Indian adoptees, raised by non-Indians.
For those who attempt to open their own adoption, or simply want to understand, I explain many stages, steps I had taken: some good, some hard. 

Sharing stories is how we heal, how we mend the hoop.

Even now there is persistent rampant poverty in Indian Country. Even now it isn’t easy being Indian, on and off the reserves. But it is definitely better to know who you are, which tribe, and not live in a mystery. Someone needs to build a bridge for these adoptees. Open records will accomplish this.

It's hard to admit but adoptees with Indian blood find out soon enough their reservations are closed to strangers. Without proof, without documents, you’re suspect.
We don’t always get our proof since state laws prevent it.  Just one Minnesota tribe, White Earth, decided to call out to its lost children/adoptees; this made news in 2007.  Just a few adoptees showed up. Why? Adoption records are still sealed in Minnesota.

America’s Indian Adoption Project was not publicized or well known, just like a few more secrets I found out. Congress heard Indian leaders complain in 1974, “In Minnesota, 90 percent of the adopted Indian children are placed in non-Indian homes.”

I was born in Minnesota.

For any adoptee going back to their tribe, this requires a special kind of courage. Adoptees know this. Rhonda, a Bay Mills Tribal member, an adoptee friend of mine, was told early on – be happy, be white.  Ask yourself, how would you react?

When did Indian Country become such a bad place to be from? When did this happen? How did this happen?

My mission is to find these answers and build new bridges... it is time to mend the hoop for all adoptees.

The Hoop symbolizes the never ending circle of life which starts with birth, then goes to maturity, then to old age and death with the completion of the hoop in rebirth here or in the spiritual world. The individual who has his life in order stands in the center of the hoop to see, to understand, and to be guided by the various paths of life around him. The best compliment one can pay an individual is to say that he stands in the center of the hoop of life or that he lives on the correct path of life. http://www.grandfathersspirit.com/Hoop-of-Life-Buffalo-Skull.html

THE BOOK


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