Burial sites found at 53 Native American boarding schools | More Headlines

 May 11, 2022  REUTERS

May 11 (Reuters) - A U.S. government investigation into the dark history of Native American boarding schools has found "marked or unmarked burial sites" at 53 of them, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said on Wednesday, May 11, 2022.

'IDENTITY ALTERATION'

Researchers examined government records and spoke to Native Americans to prepare the report. The results detail a history dating to at least 1801, when the first such schools opened, and one in which education was used as a weapon.

Native American affairs, including education, were a War Department responsibility until 1849 and the military remained involved even after civilians took over, the report noted.

The schools were described as resembling military academies in their regimentation and strictness and emphasizing vocational skills. Police were called on to force families to send their children to the schools. Food was denied to families as another way to force them to surrender their children.

"These conditions included militarized and identity alteration methodologies - on kids!" said Bryan Newland, the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Interior Department, who heads the investigation.

Conditions at former Indian boarding schools gained global attention last year when tribal leaders in Canada announced the discovery of the unmarked graves of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops residential school for indigenous children, as such institutions are known in Canada.

Unlike the United States, Canada carried out a full investigation into its schools via a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The U.S. government has never acknowledged how many children attended such schools, how many children died or went missing from them or even how many schools existed.

The report released on Wednesday included recommendations for funding programs to preserve the Native American languages the schools tried to stamp out, and establishing a federal memorial.

READ MORE 

 

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'Our children deserve to be found': Federal report examines Native lives, cultures lost at Indian ...

Wisconsin Public Radio |

At least 500 Native American children died while being forced to attend federal ... He said this means protecting the Indian Child Welfare Act, ...

 

Report: Christians May Have Helped Run Half of Native American Boarding Schools

Christianity Today

... times more than the number of schools documented in Canada's residential school system by that country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

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Travelling exhibit shows legacy of 'Sixties Scoop' - Cranbrook Daily Townsman

Cranbrook Daily Townsman

Exhibit telling the history of the “Sixties Scoop” and its survivors was on display at the Cranbrook History Centre May 11.

 

 

Exposing and Repairing the Devastation Caused by the Indian Adoption Project

repost from December 2011

Terry Cross

By Stephanie Woodard

Indian Country Today Media 

December 6, 2011

 

 

St. John, snatched from his family when he was 4, says he was raised without his culture.

.

I’m an angry Indian,” Roger St. John, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, told the First Nations Repatriation Institute’s second annual adult adoptees summit. The elite panel included child-welfare specialists, judges, lawyers, community activists and scholars. The most important experts, according to the organization’s founder/director, Sandra White Hawk, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, were adult adoptees—such as St. John—who related their experiences at the three-day meeting at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in St. Paul in 2011.

 

“I’m more than glad to tell you I’m pissed off,” continued St. John, a 49-year-old truck driver with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. “I was the youngest of 16 children, grabbed at the age of 4, along with three older brothers—no paperwork, nothing. The other kids in the family escaped because they took off.”  Soon, St. John and his siblings ended up in New York City at Thanksgiving time. The year was 1966: “We were on the front page of the newspaper, along with lots of good talk about the holiday and adoption. We were brought up without our culture, which took a terrible toll on our lives. I grew up angry and miserable.”
 

St. John’s experience was replicated all over Indian country in the mid-to-late 20th century. The boarding-school era that had begun in the late 1800s was winding down and the abusive residential schools set up to isolate and assimilate Native children were being closed down or turned over to the tribes, a process that was largely completed by the 1970s. Meanwhile, another means of separating Native children from their communities was gathering steam.
 

The Indian Adoption Project was a federal program that acquired Indian children from 1958 to 1967 with the help of the prestigious Child Welfare League of America; a successor organization, the Adoption Resource Exchange of North America, functioned from 1966 until the early 1970s. Churches were also involved. In the Southwest, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints took thousands of Navajo children to live in Mormon homes and work on Mormon farms, and the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations swept many more Indian youngsters into residential institutions they ran nationwide, from which some children were then fostered or adopted out. As many as one third of Indian children were separated from their families between 1941 and 1967, according to a 1976 report by the Association on American Indian Affairs.
 

“People have heard of the boarding-school era and know it was bad, but they don’t know our adoption era even exists,” said White Hawk, who was taken from her family on the Rosebud reservation as a toddler in the mid-1950s. “A few small studies of adult adoptees have been done, and we’re just learning how to talk about what happened. We need think tanks and conferences and scientific research to explore what occurred and how it affected us.”
 

Then, White Hawk said, that information can inform current Indian child-welfare cases. “When experts take the stand to testify in a child-welfare hearing [about placement of a child or termination of parental rights, for example], they need academic backup to explain the relationship between, for example, suicide and being disconnected from your culture,” she explained. “The courts want Ph.D.-level research to back up what we tell them.”
 

A paper by Carol Locust, Cherokee, describes Native adoptees suffering from what she calls Split Feather Syndrome—the damage caused by loss of tribal identity and growing up “different” in an inhospitable world. Lost Bird is another term researchers have used to refer to the group, recalling one of the earliest Indian adoptees. A Lakota infant who survived the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee sheltered by the frozen corpse of her mother was claimed as a war trophy by a general who named her Lost Bird, according to her biographer, Renée Sansome Flood in Lost Bird of Wounded Knee.
Thanks to copious newspaper coverage of the massacre and its aftermath, Lost Bird became her generation’s celebrity adoptee, but fame did not save her from a fate that was a harbinger for too many Native children. She endured intolerance and isolation, and when she rebelled as a teenager, was shipped back to her birth family, where she no longer fit in. After a stint in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and the loss of three children—two died and she gave away the third, according to Flood—Lost Bird was felled by influenza in 1920, at the age of 30. “Throughout her life of prejudice, exploitation, poverty, misunderstanding and disease, she never gave up hope that one day she would find out where she really belonged,” Flood wrote.
 

At the summits and other events White Hawk has organized or spoken at since 2003, modern-day adoptees have recounted their dramatic life journeys, sometimes for the first time. “The stories vary from the most abusive to the most beautiful, but that’s not the point,” she said. “Even in loving families, Native adoptees live without a sense of who they are. Love doesn’t provide identity.”
 

“I never felt sorry for myself,” said St. John, “but if I ever got hurt, it wounded me to my soul, because I felt no one was there for me.” In recent years, he has found his birth mother and connected emotionally with his adoptive parents. “They were so young, in their 20s, when a priest convinced them to adopt four Sioux boys from South Dakota. It was too much—for all of us.”
 

During the adoption era almost any issue—from minor to serious—could precipitate the loss of an Indian child. Two Native people interviewed prior to the summit said they were separated from their families after hospital stays as young children, one for a rash, the other for tuberculosis. A third was seized at his baby-sitter’s home; when his mother tried to rescue him, she was jailed, he said. A fourth recalled that he was taken after his father died, though his mother did not want to give him up. A fifth described being snatched, along with siblings, because his grandfather was a medicine man who wouldn’t give up his traditional ways. As in St. John’s case, no home studies or comparable investigations appear to have been done to support the removals. “Indians had no way to stop white people from taking their kids,” said yet another interviewee. “We had no rights.”
 

Eighty-five percent of the Native children removed from their families from 1941 to 1967 were placed in non-Indian homes or institutions, said the Association on American Indian Affairs report. The aim, said White Hawk, was assimilation and extinction of the tribes as entities, as their younger generations were removed, year after year—just as it had been with the boarding schools.
 

“We can’t be afraid to use words like genocide,” said summit participant Anita Fineday, White Earth Band of Ojibwe, managing director of Casey Family Programs’ Indian child-welfare programs and a former chief judge at White Earth Tribal Nation. “The endgame, the official federal policy, was that the tribes wouldn’t exist.”
 

As Native adoptees struggle to recover their identities, some have trouble accessing their original birth certificates. Many states seal adoption records to protect the confidentiality of the process. “In a state that does this, you have to be a detective to find out where you’re from,” said White Hawk.
Or lucky. According to Sharon Whiterabbit, Ho-Chunk Nation, a business consultant and internationally known rights advocate, the son she’d given up as a teen mother found her because he lost his social security number. To get a new one, he had to petition the courts for his original birth certificate and, using the information he found there, tracked her down.
 

Could something be done on a tribal level to keep adoption records open and available for those who want them? Whiterabbit asked the group. This summit was about solutions, as well as problems, and Fineday had an answer: “Tribes have a right to know their members, so we can demand the records. We’re not requesting, though. We’re demanding. At White Earth, we were successful with this tack in a couple of cases. When the [adoption] documents arrived, I got goose bumps.”
 

Carrie Imus, director of social services for and former chairwoman of the Hualapai Tribal Nation, suggested that tribes do pre-enrollment of children who are being adopted out, to ease their return.
According to Terry Cross, Seneca Nation of Indians and founder and executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, nontribal child-welfare workers usually did not recognize the large support network that Native children enjoy: “In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, children were removed from Indian families because auntie was taking care of them, and the system called that neglect. But it was simply a different cultural way of meeting the child’s needs. To this day, social workers who remove Native children don’t know what an Indian family is and what supports are available
in the extended family and tribe.”
 

Decades of stolen children caused unresolved personal and community-wide grief and high rates of alcoholism, suicide and other social ills that stalk individuals and tribes to this day. “It took me years to realize nothing was wrong with me and the response I had to the trauma I’d experienced as an adoptee,” said Sandra Davidson, White Earth Band of Ojibwe and a program manager for Praxis International, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating violence toward women and children.
 

Often referred to as “historical trauma,” the pain can’t be cured with quick-fix programs, said Cross. “In Canada, we looked at places where suicide is the highest, and it’s where the culture is most broken down,” he said. “In such cases, do you start suicide-prevention programs, or do you restore balance in the community through more self-governance? I have found that unless you change a community systemically, you can’t affect the symptoms of imbalance, such as suicide.”
 

Linear thinking—see a problem, apply a solution—is ineffective, he added. “Mainstream society’s services are so fractured. Medical doctors get the body, psychologists get the mind, judges get the social context, and clergy get the spirit. But, in fact, we are all whole people, and real solutions have to address that.”
 

Cross pointed to the sweat lodge as a way of caring for the whole person. “It’s done in groups and includes teachers, stories and protocols for how to conduct oneself, which relate to the social context,” he said. “You sweat, and you experience aromatic herbs, which heal the body; you participate in prayers and songs, which are in the realm of spirit; and when you come out, you feel better and have moments of clarity that are aspects of mind.”
 

That type of healing is required for entire communities, as well as for individuals, and is a part of what Cross called the “remembering” of indigenous cultures. Colonization has pulled indigenous cultures apart worldwide, as colonizers have taken land and resources. “They also usurp sovereignty and attack spirituality,” he said. “The last item is removal of children to educate them in the language and worldview of the colonizer. Now, though, we Native people are remembering our traditions and remembering our communities. We’re healing from within.”
 

The adoptees’ stories must be articulated so they can heal, so their communities can be restored, and so the experiences can help remedy Indian country’s ongoing child-welfare crisis, said White Hawk. The percentage of Native children cared for outside the home remains disproportionately high across the nation, despite the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 1978 law that sought to ameliorate the situation—but has yet to do so.  In Alaska, Native children make up 18 percent of the child population but 55 percent of the children in foster care; in South Dakota, Indian kids are 15 percent of the state’s youngsters, but 53 percent of those in foster care. Other states topping the list for skewed numbers include Minnesota—where the overrepresentation of Native kids in foster care increased substantially from 2004 to 2009—Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota.
 

Another summit attendee, Gina Jackson, Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians, is educating judges through a model-court program of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, in Nevada. The program helps jurists understand ICWA and relevant best practices. “We’ve signed up 66 jurisdictions and will help them work for compliance,” she said.
 

Education of the judiciary is crucial, said Arizona state judge Kathleen Quigley: “ICWA cases are not the bulk of a judge’s work, so many are not familiar with the law.” And the concept of the “active efforts” needed under ICWA to find and notify a child’s tribe of a possible removal from the family is not dealt with sufficiently in case law, she said.
 

“At this meeting, it has been critical for me to hear from folks who’ve been in the system and to understand how being taken from their families and communities affected their lives,” Jackson said. “I want everyone who works with kids and families to hear these voices.” Michael Petoskey, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and chief judge of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, agreed. “Thank you for sharing your stories,” he told the survivors of the adoption era. “We judges may underestimate the impact on people’s lives when we terminate parental rights.”
 

“Your saying that is medicine for those of us who’ve been through this,” White Hawk responded. Going forward, the repatriation institute will work to affect policy and will organize a day of prayer and healing for Friday, November 2, 2012. “We’re hoping to have events at state capitols nationwide,” said George McCauley, Omaha, head of the Institute’s board of directors.
 

Jerry Dearly, the renowned Oglala Lakota storyteller and educator who serves as White Hawk’s advisor, informed the group that healing is about identity, understood on a profound level. “You have to find out who you really are, who you really were,” he said. “Go to a quiet place where it’s just you and the Creator. All of us are beautiful, but you have to believe in yourself.”
 

“Now I have cancer and am waiting for an operation,” St. John told the summit. “But I believe in myself, and I can survive anything.”

SOURCE: https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/native-americans-expose-the-adoption-era-and-repair-its-devastation

[And each story like this one will finally change this devastating history... Megwetch everyone...Trace]

What is Doctrine of Discovery?

 The Doctrine of Discovery: Its effects are still being felt, but only the Pope can rescind it

Truth and Reconciliation commissioner says it's 'a matter of time' before doctrine dies 

Bryan Eneas · CBC News · May 12

Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors in Saskatchewan called on Pope Francis to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery. The Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the highest officials in the Church of England, also recently promised to see what he could do about the doctrine. (Gregorio Borgia/The Associated Press)

When the Archbishop of Canterbury visited Saskatchewan earlier this month, those who spoke with him made him aware of the damage caused by the Doctrine of Discovery.

Many survivors tie its existence to the creation and presence of residential schools, and a commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recently said its ripple effect is still being felt in schools today.

The commission's findings, as survivors told the archbishop during his visit, show residential school policy could be traced back to the doctrine and the papal bulls.

Chiefs and leaders who attended the archbishop's visits in James Smith Cree Nation and Prince Albert commended the promise to discuss the doctrine with the Roman Catholic Church. 

"How can we dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery in a way so it can never be  used again?" Rev. Justin Welby asked the crowd who gathered to meet him in James Smith Cree Nation.

Rev. Justin Welby visited the James Smith Cree Nation to listen to residential school survivors earlier this month. He promised to aid in dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery by engaging with local officials and with the Roman Catholic Church. (Bryan Eneas/CBC)

The doctrine and its powers

The Doctrine of Discovery's supposed power came from the Roman Catholic Church. 

Papal bulls, edicts from the pope guiding colonial powers on the treatment of Indigenous people, were issued in the 15th century. 

The bulls, which empowered Christian colonial expansion, said any land "discovered" by colonial powers could be claimed as their own.

They also stated Indigeneous people who inhabited those lands were not Christian and could be subjugated and converted to Christianity. 

Sol Sanderson, a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations senator and former chief, says colonial powers and nations eventually formed via the doctrine would create their own policies designed to terminate the rights of Indigenous people. 

Only Pope Francis can rescind the papal bulls issued in the 15th century that gave colonial nations the power to ignore the rights of Indigenous people. (Vatican Media/Reuters)

In Canada, the termination of Indigenous rights came through the Indian Act, and policies within the act led to the creation of residential schools in Canada — a system, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says, was designed to destroy Indigenous people's sense of cultural identity. 

Sanderson says as he sees it, historically, the Canadian government has made numerous attempts to diminish Indigenous rights, based on the ideas passed through the generations that colonial powers are better suited to govern Indigenous people, thanks to the doctrine.

But Sanderson says Indigenous people's inherent rights aren't and weren't ever superseded by the doctrine, just ignored by it.

"People don't know nothing about inherent rights … they supersede everything, but what are they, where do they come from?" Sanderson said.

"When you look at the inherent rights we have, the inherent sovereignty of our nations and inherent rights to self-determination, the inherent right to education, health, social development, lands, resources, economics, justice … that's the inherent rights we have."

Sanderson says he hoped the Archbishop of Canterbury would come to an agreement with the pope to implement a plan and put teeth into a strategy resulting in the rescinding of the doctrine.

He says such an agreement should recognize the sovereignty of Indigneous people, their natural power to govern, their natural power to make treaties and their natural power to legislate internally and externally both at home and abroad — terms he says need to be dictated by Indigenous people.

Old history, modern effects

The doctrine itself might seem like a relic of the past but retired Senator Murray Sinclair, a commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says its effects are still very much being felt today.

There's no doubt the doctrine contributed to the creation of residential schools, Sinclair says. 

But the doctrine also allowed for and created the thinking that colonial powers could occupy Indigenous lands and territories — and in turn the thinking that Indigenous people are inferior to non-Indigenous people, particularly European settlers.

Thinking that colonial powers are superior to Indigenous people is something he says permeated the education system even beyond residential schools and is still being felt today, even if schools have taken a "softer, more gentle approach" to Canada's history.\

"They still talk about the beauty of colonialism, the beauty of European growth, the wisdom and intelligence of the leaders of Confederation, the wisdom and intelligence of the people who've been in charge of government over the years," Sinclair said. 

"It's Indigenous people who are made to look bad in the history books in this country and that not only has a negative effect on the Indigenous children, it also has a negative effect on non-Indigenous children."

He says non-Indigenous children taught in school early on to believe they're superior are potentially jeopardizing their relationship with Indigenous people. 

Sinclair says that factor is something that affected him and other Indigenous people as children and caused a deep distrust of all levels of non-Indigenous society — churches, educational systems, government and many others.

'A matter of time'

The Archbishop of Canterbury himself can't rescind the papal bulls making up the Doctrine of Discovery. 

His promise to survivors gathered in James Smith Cree Nation and Prince Albert earlier this month was to engage in discussions with the Pope about the harms he learned about the doctrine while in Saskatchewan. 

Rescinding of the document would come down to the Pope.

Murray Sinclair says he expects the Doctrine of Discovery will be rescinded in the near future. (Darin Morash/CBC)

Sinclair says that's something this generation could see in its lifetime — and it's something that needs to be done now for survivors' sake. 

"I think it's a matter of time before the Doctrine of Discovery is ruled as being an irrelevant doctrine," Sinclair said. 

He says the question of what legal basis the Crown has to justify its legal title over Indigenous people has appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada a number of times, but hasn't been properly answered. 

In reading through legal decisions, he says, he's seen justices point out the major act of reconciliation that needs to happen in Canada is reconciling Crown sovereignty and Indigenous sovereignty.

 "We're hoping that the parties can do that, but if they leave it to the courts to do that, then they may not be happy with the result," Sinclair said. 

MORE

• Low-profile apologies from Archbishop of Canterbury amounted to a missed opportunity, says former TRC chair

• Archbishop of Canterbury promises release of residential school records in England following survivors' calls

 Residential school survivor hopes Pope Francis brings more than an apology to Canada

• Indigenous student praised after altering 'European discovery of Americas' worksheet

US Boarding School Report

US boarding school investigative report released

By Kalle Benallie
The findings show the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of at least 408 federal schools across 37 states and roughly 53 different schools had been identified with marked or unmarked burial sites ... continue reading

 

The Assistant Secretary Releases the Boarding School Report

May 11, 2022 Kate Fort

Here:

Boarding_School_Initiative_Volume_1_Investigative_Report_May_2022

Assistant Secretary Newland makes eight recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior to fulfill the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, including producing a list of marked and unmarked burial sites at Federal Indian boarding schools and an approximation of the total amount of Federal funding used to support the Federal Indian boarding school system, including any monies that may have come from Tribal and individual Indian trust accounts held in trust by the United States. Assistant Secretary Newland ultimately concludes that further investigation is required to determine the legacy impacts of the Federal Indian boarding school system on American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians today.

 

‘Remembering the Children’ memorial gets $2 million grant

 

The Remembering the Children memorial — envisioned as a place of prayer, gathering & remembrance meant to honor the children who died at the former Rapid City Indian Boarding School — has received the grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. https://t.co/xfJxAX5WMV

— Ruth H. Robertson (Red Road Woman) (@Ruth_HHopkins) May 9, 2022

 

Community
members stand in prayer at a hillside in South Dakota that is believed
to the the site of unmarked graves of children who died at the
long-shuttered Rapid City Indian Boarding School. Plans to build a
first-in-the-nation memorial to children who died at the school are
moving forward with a recent $2 million donation. (Photo courtesy of
Rapid City Indian Boarding School Memorial Project)

Stewart Huntington
Special to Indian Country Today

RAPID
CITY, South Dakota — A memorial planned to honor children who died at
an Indian boarding school has received a $2 million grant that pushes
the project beyond its initial fundraising targets.

The
Remembering the Children memorial — envisioned as a place of prayer,
gathering, and remembrance on a hillside near the site of the former
Rapid City Indian Boarding School — received the grant from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation.

It is the largest single donation to date
for the project, which has received numerous contributions from the
Rapid City community and a $100,000 donation from the Monument Lab, a
nonprofit working to cultivate critical conversations around past,
present and future public art.

A private funder is also
underwriting South Dakota Artist Laureate Dale Lampher’s work on
sculptures that will be included in the project.

Keep Reading 

Related stories:
— Historic settlement inches closer in SD land dispute
— 'They are not forgotten'
— Rapid City puts up $9M for Native center

 

Land Back in the 2020s #LandBack

There
is no blueprint for how to return stolen land, but with thousands of
acres returned to Indigenous care over the past two years alone, we know
it can be done. 

SOURCE

Meet the Makers #ChildrenBack #MMIW

 WATCH IT

America ReFramed

Daughter of a Lost Bird

By Brooke Pepion Swaney. A co-production of Vision Maker Media.

Season 10  Episode 4

Kendra, a Native adoptee, is a thriving woman who grew up in a loving, upper middle-class white family, and feels no significant loss with the absence of Indigenous culture or family in her life. And yet, as a Blackfeet/Salish woman, director Brooke Swaney could not imagine that Kendra could be content or complete without understanding her heritage. Together, they embark on a seven-year journey featured in the film.

During this journey, Kendra finds her biological mother April Kowalski after being apart for 34 years. April, also an adoptee, is a survivor of abuse, addiction, homelessness, and sex trafficking. Kendra and April must navigate what it means to be native and to belong to a tribe from the outside looking in. DAUGHTER OF A LOST BIRD documents the complex process of finding oneself in the context of a history filled with both trauma and resiliency.

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MEET THE MAKERS: DAUGHTER OF A LOST BIRD

Listen to an in-depth conversation with 'Daughter of a Lost Bird' filmmaker Brooke Swaney and other thought leaders about the generational effects of adoption on Native American families and how communities are advocating for justice and tribal sovereignty. Georgiana Lee-Ausen and Cynthia M. Ruiz also take time to recognize National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Awareness Day, a time when the Indigenous communities and allies gather to remember, honor and raise voices of women who have been silenced. Listen now!

Daughter of a Lost Bird

 READ THIS AMAZING REVIEW

America ReFramed

Daughter of a Lost Bird | Trailer | Season 10 Episode 4

 

Here are some of the other resources I suggest to learn more about Native American adoption in the U.S.: 

• The documentary Blood Memory, featuring my friend and amazing advocate, Sandy Whitehawk. Sandy is the founder of First Nations Repatriation Institute and created Welcoming Home ceremonies for adoptees and former fosterees (and generously included non-Native adoptees)
• Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Susan Devan Harness
• The work of Dr. Raven Sinclair (her work is from a Canadian context which had a similar history as the U.S.)
• The National Indian Child Welfare Association website. They have an online Indian Child Welfare Training available here.
• The Relational Worldview training series (I was part of developing this training) featuring Terry Cross, available at the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare.
• Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s excellent book, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.
• American Indian Adoptees blog
• Information about the Indian Adoption Project by the UpStander Project

MMIP webcast DOI | Not Invisible Act Commission

 WEBCAST: Missing and Murdered (MMIP) WATCH

National Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day Event

transcript

Deb: I'm Secretary Deb Haaland at I'm honored to join you from the ancestral homelands of the Anacostia and Piscataway people on what President Biden has proclaimed as National Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. I wish we didn't need to be here. I wish that this day was obsolete, that we didn't have to keep fighting year after year for our people to be honored and respected. But we are here. And I want to use today to shine a light on the national crisis of missing and murdered indigenous peoples and give space to others to share the work they are doing on this issue. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their communities, but the MMIP crisis is one that communities have faced since the dawn of colonization. For too long, this issue has been swept under the rug by our government with a lack of urgency, attention, or funding. The rates of missing persons cases and violence against American Indian, Alaska native, and native Hawaiian communities are disproportionate, alarming, and unacceptable. It is heartbreaking to know that our loved ones are at an increased risk of disappearing without warning, leaving families and communities devastated. I want to extend my gratitude to the organizers, advocates, native women who have been shedding light on MMIP crisis for decades. People who have had an empty chair at their kitchen tables, loved ones who tirelessly searched or their relatives, service providers who hear the heartbreaking stories of family members of the missing. I want you to know that I see you and I stand with you. In our first year, there is much the Biden-Harris administration has done to take this issue seriously. As many of you know, last year, I announce the formation of a new missing and murdered unit within the Bureau of Indian affairs office of Justice services to provide leadership and direction across departmental and interagency work involving missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska natives. The MMU is marshaling resources across agencies and throughout Indian country to focus on this crisis. Since the launch ofMMU, the department has built up personnel and increased infrastructure capacity by launching new offices. Today, 17 BIA offices located throughout the nation have at least one agent dedicated to solving missing and murder cases for American Indians and Alaska natives. In December, the BIA announced on lots of its new website dedicated to solving missing and murder cases in Indian country. The website is bia.gov/mmu. Bia.gov/mmu. The site is an important tool to help law enforcement, families, and communities to share critical information about missing and murdered individuals that can help the MMU solve cases and give closure to families. The website showcases individual missing and murdered case profiles that can be quickly shared via social media and other digital media to raise visibility of victims. It also provides multiple pathways to submit important tips and other case information that may help investigators with detection or investigation of an offense committed in Indian country. The MMU has enabled the Department to expand its collaborative efforts with other agencies such as working to enhance the DOJ's national missing and unidentified persons system. Staff are also developing strategic partnerships with additional stakeholders such as the FBI, behavioral analysis units, FBI forensic laboratories , U.S. marshals missing child unit, and the National Center for missing and exploited children. This unit and interior will continue to engage in collaborative efforts with tribal, federal, and state stakeholders to ensure accurate data and enhance community outreach. The MMU is a critical tool in our work to address this crisis, and today, we announce steps for another. In Congress, the Not Invisible Act now in partnership with the Justice Department and with extensive engagement with tribes and other stakeholders, we are putting that law into action. Today, our agencies announce the membership of the new Not Invisible Act Commission which we formed the last year. For the first time, the interior and Justice Department will be guided by an advisory committee composed of law enforcement, tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and most importantly, survivors. This commission will ensure that we hear the voices of those who are most impacted by this issue. It includes diverse experience, backgrounds, and geographies to provide balance once of use. The commission will hold hearings, take estimate, and -- testimonies, and receive evidence to develop recommendations for the federal government to combat violent crimes against indigenous people. The missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis is centuries in the making, and it will take a focused effort and time to unravel the many threads that contribute to the alarming rates. I'm grateful to those of you who rang the alarm and gave a voice to the missing. My heart goes out to the families of loved ones who were impacted by violence. We will keep working to address this issue and together, I believe we will provide justice for survivors and families. And that I will turn the floor over to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who will share recorded remarks for today's event. 

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Lisa: I'm pleased to join you for this important event on a day the president has dedicated to highlighting the crisis of missing or murdered indigenous persons. This is an opportunity to reflect on the violence endured by far too many native persons or far too long. It is also a chance to reaffirm our commitment to bringing justice and answers to grieving communities. Today marks a major milestone in those efforts as we take the next step in launching our joint commission under the Not Invisible Act. The mission is an essential one, to reduce violence against American Indians and Alaska natives. Today, you'll hear from several tribal leaders about how important the commission is to that work. I want to extend a special thanks to Secretary Holland -- Haaland for her time in Congress and during her interior efforts to establish this commission. Today's announcement is a testament to her dedicated work and to the many people across native communities who fought to make their voices heard. The Department of Justice is committed to supporting the work of the commission. We are pleased the director of our office of tribal justice will serve as a cochair of the commission, and that he will be joined by representatives from across the department, including from both our law enforcement and grantmaking components. No one agency can solve this problem alone. We are also grateful the commission will include representatives from our partners at the Department of the Interior and Health and Human Services. But it is the appointee just announced by Secretary Haaland who come from outside the federal government who will form the backbone of the commission. These commissioners represent a diverse range of appearances, expertise and perspectives, and critically, the include survivors who can speak firsthand to the urgency of the commission's work. They also include tribal leaders and members who know best what their communities need when it comes to making them safer. The commission will issue recommendations to both the Department of Justice and Department of the Interior on how to improve intergovernmental coordination, as well as how to identify best practices for federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement when responding to the violence erected at American Indians and Alaska natives. I know that native voice of have not always been heard in these issues, but this administration is committed to doing better. Today's announcement reflects that commitment. More broadly, the commission also demonstrates the emphasis that the Biden-Harris administration has placed on addressing the crisis of missing or murdered indigenous people. Last November, the president issued a new executive order which reflected our whole of government response to promoting public safety in native communities. The same day, I launched a new steering committee, which is dedicated to marshaling the Justice Department's personnel and resources to the MMIP crisis. Since it launched, the steering committee has made tribal engagement the cornerstone of its work, including through consultations and engagement with stakeholders. While those conversations are ongoing, the department is already moving to address the concerns we have heard from you. First, we have heard a clear and consistent message that the department must do more to reach native victims, survivors, and families. That is why I'm pleased to announce that, today, we are crating a new position to spearhead our efforts, a national Native American outreach services liaison. The liaison will work in our executive office of U.S. attorneys and help ensure that victims and their families have a voice within the department as they navigate all stages of the criminal justice system. This new position is part of a larger effort to raise awareness and increase outreach on the MMIP crisis. Last month, the department launched a new page on our tribal justice and safety website dedicated to elevating the issue of MMIP. This new website serves as a central hub of resources for families and victim and also promotes transparency on the department's law enforcement efforts. Last week I also had the opportunity, along with Secretary Haaland, to celebrate the reauthorization of the violence against women's act and its important provisions to promote safety in tribal communities. That includes expanded special tribal criminal jurisdiction, which recognizes the authority of tribal courts to exercise jurisdiction over crimes of family balance, including child abuse that too often are precursors to missing or murdered person cases. Of course, we know there is much more work to do. This day is a reminder of just how critical those efforts are even today, and every day, the federal government must be committed to working with tribal nations to address the crises of missing or murdered indigenous people. And I expect the commission to play a major role in doing so. The Department of Justice is eager to support and learn from the commission's work. Thank you.

Deb: We are so grateful to Deputy Attorney General Monaco and the Department of Justice for their partnership as we move the Not Invisible Act Commission forward. Now, we will hear from Fawn Sharp president for the National Congress of American Indians, and fierce advocate for indigenous communities. Resident, the floor is yours.

Fawn: thank you for inviting me to join this important event to highlight missing or murdered indigenous people across our country. Due to the limitation that the federal government unjustly placed on tribal nations and our ability to hold non-Indians accountable in a tribal justice system. The violence grew because the federal government has chronically failed in its responsibility to properly fund tribal public safety and justice needs. Often our relatives go missing and/or murdered with little to no response from law enforcement. In the year 2018, broken promises report, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reported that although overall funding for public safety in Indian country has increased, it doesn't even come close to being the public safety needs in Indian country. In 2017, BIA estimated only 21% of law-enforcement, 49% of detention centers, and 3% of tribal court needs, and the commission noted the failure to provide sufficient federal funding undermines the ability of tribal governments to provide remote justice and public safety for our citizens. Having the authority to hold perpetrators accountable is an important first step, but tribal nations cannot follow through to hold bad actors accountable without adequate and consistent funding for tribal justice systems to support our courts, judges, police, prosecutors, public defenders, victim advocates, and array of victim services. Tribal leaders have continued to share the lack of security and sustainable funding has prevented us from holding perpetrators accountable, helping survivors establishing preventive services in our communities, and instituting alternatives to incarceration. In addition to securing sustainable and mandatory public safety and justice funding, our government partners must effectively communicate and coordinate both in funding and information sharing. We must take bold steps to fully restore tribal nations inherent authority to prosecute bad actors and to ensure that the federal government provides steady, equitable, and nondiscretionary funding directly to tribal nations for their public safety needs. Our federal partners must effectively communicate and coordinate among themselves and with tribal nations to ensure our people no longer fall through the cracks. Thank you so much, Secretary, for your fierce leadership in bringing us together to celebrate yet another historic and long-overdue milestone of success during your tender as Secretary. I look forward to the rest of our important discussion today. Thank you.

Deb: Thank you so much, President Sharp. You are absolutely right, resources to address this crisis have been chronically underfunded for too long. We will be looking to the Not Invisible Act to guide us on where the federal dollars can be aimed most effectively. President Sharp this year, we made money mental strides with the 2022 reauthorization of the violence against women act. In your opinion, what steps should we be taking next to continue combating the MMIP crisis?

Fawn: Thank you for the question, Secretary Haaland. The importance and magnitude of the tribal provisions that were passed in 2022 cannot be overstated David it is truly a significant a compliment that we must celebrate. When it seeks to fully acknowledge our inherent tribal sovereignty and restore our tribal jurisdiction. We must also make sure that 2022 is successfully implemented so it can be in permitted across Indian country. The federal government -- Deb: President Sharp? This is such an important message. We will give her a half a second to see if she is able to reconnect. President Sharp, your voice is incredibly important. I'm so grateful for your leadership at -- on MMIP. Your leadership is invaluable. Now I want to turn the floor to the executive director of national indigenous women's resource Center. Lucy?

Lucy: Needing my camera turned on from the host. I'll go ahead and get started. Good afternoon. I want to thank Secretary Haaland for the invitation to be a part of this esteemed panel and the long-awaited announcement of the Not Invisible Act Commission members. The promise that the commission holds is such an important one and we really look forward to the work the commission and its members will do to move us toward a more safe and just reality for our native relatives. All the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is just recently getting national attention, the MMIW crisis is not new. It was born in colonization and is a continuation of past federal laws and policies that were intended to terminate Indian nations. One example that is similarly now getting national attention is the legacy of Indian boarding schools. As more and more horrifying findings are being made at Indian boarding schools across North America, we can clearly see the connection between these policies and the thousands of missing and murdered Indian children. It is important that as we move forward to address MMIW that we in include addressing the full spectrum of violence against native women included domestic violence, sexual assaults, stalking, and sex trafficking, because they are off and acted and all born in colonization. Surely, the federal government has an important role in improving the response to MMIW. For one, because the violence has ignored federal laws and policies and their lasting impact today, but two and more importantly, the federal government has an ongoing trust response ability to Indian tribes. To move forward, we must demand real and meaningful coordination from all federal agencies beyond the Department of the Interior to also include the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services. But the federal government cannot do it alone, nor should it. As the Not Invisible Act Commission membership shows, we need a broad coalition to create true social change. As we move forward with implementation of the Not Invisible Act, Savannah's act, reauthorization of 2018, we must demand coordination and real buy-in beyond the federal government to include state and local governments with leadership coming from our tribal governments on the sovereign nations because our tribal governments are in the best position to ensure safety for their citizens. Most importantly we must ensure families and survivors of our centered at all times as their experience as will be the guideposts how to improve the response to MMIW. I look forward to the Not Invisible Act Commission's work and the recommendations that will come out of that work, but more importantly, I look forward to real, meaningful implementation of those recommendations. Thank you again, Secretary Haaland, for your dedication and moving the commission and the work to end violence against native women forward in your tenures so far. Thank you.

Deb: Thank you so much, Director Simpson. You are absolutely right. Coordination with tribal communities and families is paramount to effectively undress violence against native people and the MMIP crisis is an extension of that. In addition to improving the response to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous peoples, what else can everyone do to help?

Lucy: We need to be looking at prevention, move beyond just improving the response to missing and murdered relatives after they go missing, when we need to move toward prevention. Native communities have countless strength that we can build upon to create a more holistic approach to safety, so we need to really center our indigenous protections we have from our own communities. It will require leadership from our tribal governments, increased investment in our infrastructures which means more resources. Infrastructure is key to reducing crime and safety generally. An important place to start is ensuring safe housing. The ongoing and historical crisis of MMIW is reflective of the severe shortage of safe housing and shelter disparity that is experienced by native survivors of violence. Safe housing is a foundational aspect of prevention. That is why at MIWRC we have launched a resource center, the stars resource Center, the center staff has greeted a platform of housing and shelter as a nonnegotiable human right. This new center is going to be a key part of our prevention focus in regards to MMIW and other forms of gender-based violence. You can follow us on social media @safehousingforall for updates.

Deb: Thank you so much, director Simpson. I want to thank you and the entire national indigenous resource women's center for the work you do every day to support families and survivors. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Lucy: Thank you.

Deb: I am now very proud to bring president of the Bay Mills Indian community, Whitney Gravelle to the screen to share another facet of this crisis. President, you have the floor.

Whitney: Thank you, Secretary Haaland for the honor to join today for the announcement of the Not Invisible Act Commission . The Indian community was one of the first tribal nations in the United States to complete a missing and murdered indigenous people tribal community response plan. In preparation for the limitation of this plan, we learned firsthand that improving safety in the day-to-day lives of our tribal citizens in Indian country is the responsibility of a broad range of justice institutions both within and outside our reservation boundaries. It requires a strong element of cooperation as improving safety this estates the involvement of social services, public health providers, pop -- tribal and nontribal policymakers, federal and state officials, residents of tribal communities among others. It also requires a broad range of education. As the current spectrum of violence against indigenous women is intertwined with systematic barriers embedded within state and federal governments. Through the efforts of many women, including those here today, state and local law enforcement agencies are becoming more aware about the issues surrounding missing and murdered indigenous women. But they do not yet understand the complex jurisdictional schemes that exist for tribes in the United beats. They do not yet understand that tribal nations have been denied that ability to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators, and that a lack of resources in peas investigation and help from the federal government, which then prevents tribes and tribal nation from providing native women, indigenous women protection and the help they deserve. Although we were able to create strategic partnerships within tribal and state law enforcement agencies in the developing of our community response plan, the developing of that plan did not come without many lessons regarding the gaping holes and information systems data collection, and resources available to respond to any case of missing or murdered. Time is a critical element for effective response. It is not days or even hours but rather only minutes that law enforcement has two save someone. Minutes to alert the appropriate agencies. Minutes to investigate and detain or arrest. Minutes to identify an individual missing, or experiencing violence, so that they can be found before they are lost forever. One important tool that could be developed is the creation of a national notification system to close the gap in response to time for tribal law enforcement officials. The Indian community and our response plan has created a partnership with the state of Michigan that would allow tribal nations access to the AMBER Alert notification system. But that criterion needs to be modified to allow for more immediate use by tribal law enforcement rather than communication to state law enforcement. Furthermore, the AMBER Alert notification system cannot be utilized for adults, which is a majority of missing and murdered cases. A national notification system would also be instrumental in helping tribal nations deal with commercial business operations, extraction industries, and large infrastructure projects where tribal nations are more vulnerable for targeted acts of violence. We must include implementation of that basic human right, and elements of human security in all aspects of all industry that touches Indian country. National notification, tribal notification system should be a part of the not invisible act commission final recommendation. I am so looking forward to the work that that team, the commission will be completing. I want to say thank you, Secretary Haaland. for your work in protecting indigenous women everywhere.

Deb: Thank you so much, President Gravelle. The insight you have about the international pieces of this crisis highlight where the Not Invisible Act Commission is a multi agency mission. I would love for you to describe some solutions that your community has identified for MMIP issues residing on an international border?

Whitney: Yes, if we didn't think that missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis was complicated enough, there is a fourth. Involving international barriers that must be taken into consideration as well. Tribal homelands were artificially divided when the United States, Mexican, and Canadian borders were formed. It cut off indigenous peoples from their traditional homelands, relatives, sacred sites. Currently, more than two dozen tribal nations have land within approximately 200 miles of international borders, and six tribal nations actually have borders that straddle international borderlines. However, we know that borders do not stop crimes and that barriers are invisible as we conduct ourselves. So when a crime occurs that ends up traversing international boundaries, directly adjacent or nearby tribal reservations, tribal law enforcement officers have no authority. State law enforcement officers have no authority. In instances like this, allowing deputation agreements or memorandums of understanding to encompass communication strategies in identifying points of contact are essential in order to strengthen cooperation between all law enforcement agencies involved. Presently, this is done by Indian community on an informal basis through our traditional relationships with first Nations that reside across the border. However, the Not Invisible Act Commission stand in a unique position to form that partnership with the Government of Canada, with the government of Mexico, to create international memorandums, international notification systems and commitments, so that we all work together to resolve the crisis of missing and murdered persons across all of turtle Island. It is my hope as well but that will be a part of the committee's final recommendations.

Deb: Thank you, President Gravelle. We appreciate so much your strong voice and everything you have brought to the conversation. Thank you for joining us today.

Whitney: Thank you. I just want to take a moment to recognize that we are embracing each other today in healing, recognize those grandmothers and mothers and daughters, sisters, aunties so that the injustices they have suffered will not continue in the future.

Deb: Thank you very much well said. I am so grateful to have you here. Thank you. I would like to go back to President Sharp. Thank you for rejoining us. We understand you may need to keep your camera off. We recognize the infrastructure needs of Indian country in real time. Thank you for getting back on with us. Please continue.

Fawn: Thank you. And that is a case in point on broadband connection. I am here in the homelands of these clownish people, and even a distance from Seattle, we have challenges in Indian country. The last point I wanted to make, the departments of interior justice, health and Homeland Security must coordinate, collaborate, and communicate among themselves and with tribal nations. Each of these agencies must have a meaningful hand in the approach to address the MMIP crisis or what will not be effective. We must pass key legislation such as the family violence and prevention services act to fun tribal domestic violence shelters and preventative services and pass a permanent 10% tribal nations set aside from the crime victims fund. We must ensure our federal partners fully fund tribal public safety and justice needs, and that this funding is transitioning away from competitive grants, to being steady, equitable, and nondiscretionary. This starts with the inclusion of these priorities and the president's budget and ends with Congress appropriate that funding. Finally, we must approach the MMIP crisis from a holistic perspective and listen to tribal leaders, survivors, family members, on what are the best ways to address this issue in our communities. We have lost way too many relatives over the years to this crisis. Today's proclamation is important moments to celebrate. This is also a time to continue forward on this positive and powerful momentum to finally draw a line in the sand to stop this crisis and stand together to say no more. This crisis will no doubt end with our generation. Thank you.

Deb: Thank you so much, President Sharp. Very grateful to have you here today. And I want to thank all of our panelists today for joining us, lending their important perspectives, experience, and expertise to the day's discussion, and for the many years of dedicated advocacy all of you have given to the MMIP crisis. Thank you. As we continue our partnership with the Department of Justice, the newly announced members of the Not Invisible Act Commission , we will make strides in addressing violence against indigenous people. We have a long road ahead, but it takes time to address the root causes of violence against indigenous people, which are centuries in the making. It is not my goal to put a Band-Aid on this crisis, but rather, address and bring the impacts of colonialism, objectification, marginalization that contribute to the missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis. That takes time, but I know that with everyone working together, and the advisement of the Not Invisible Act Commission, we can do this. Thank you all so much for joining us. Stay safe.