NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

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In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation



Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html

Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

• Playlist
• Download   

In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

• Playlist
• Download   

In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

• Playlist
• Download   

In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

• Playlist
• Download   

In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

• Playlist
• Download   

In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

History: Indian Child Welfare Act

History Behind Enactment of The Indian Child Welfare Act

        In 1978 Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act ii (Act or ICWA), in response to a national crisis in which an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families were being broken up due to the often misguided removal of Indian children from their families and tribal communities. Prior to the Act's passage, Senate oversight hearings in 1974 yielded numerous examples, statistical data, and expert testimony documenting "the wholesale removal of Indian children from their homes ... the most tragic aspect of Indian life today." iii Congress also heard testimony indicating that, by conservative estimates, one out of five Indian children has lived in foster or adoptive home at some time. iv It was found in States with large Indian populations an incredible 25 to 35 percent of Indians were in out of home placement or adoptive homes at one time in their lives.v

        In Minnesota for example between 1972 and 1974, one-quarter of Indian children under one year of age were adopted. vi In Minnesota Indian children were placed in foster care or adoptive homes at a per-capita rate of five times that of non-Indians, and 97.5% of Indian children placed for adoption were placed into non-Indian families. The removal rates for Indian children in other states were just as alarming. In South Dakota Indian children were disproportionally represented in foster care at a rate of sixteen times that of non-Indians. vii In Washington Indian children were being adopted at a rate of nineteen times that of non-Indians. viii

        The disproportionate rate at which Indian families were being broken up has had severe consequences to Indian children, parents, and tribal communities.  Dr. Joseph Westermeyer, a University of Minnesota social psychiatrist, testified to Congress about his research, which indicated that Indian adolescents who are raised in non-Indian homes typically have difficulty coping in white society, despite the fact they had been raised in a white environment. ix A 1975 report prepared for the American Academy of Child Psychiatry states, "native American children placed in off-reservation non-Indian homes are at risk in their later development. Often enough they are cared for by devoted and well-intentioned foster or adoptive parents. Nonetheless, particularly in adolescence, they are subject to ethnic confusion and a pervasive sense of abandonment." x

        Puyallup Tribal Chair Ramona Bennet succinctly stated the parents' perspective: "If you lose your children, you are dead; you are never going to be rehabilitated, you are never going to get well." xi 

        For the tribes, Congress heard the testimony of Mr. Calvin Isaac, Tribal Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian, who stated:

Culturally, the chances of Indian survival are significantly reduced if our children, the only real means for the transmission of the tribal heritage, are to be raised in non-Indian homes and denied exposure to the ways of their People. Furthermore, these practices seriously undercut the tribes' ability to continue as self-governing communities. Probably in no area is it more important that tribal sovereignty be respected than in an area as socially and culturally determinative as family relationships. xii

Chief Isaac also summarized the principal reason for the high rates of removal of Indian children:

One of the most serious failings of the present system is that Indian children are removed from the custody of their natural parents by non-tribal governmental authorities who have no basis for intelligently evaluating the cultural and social premises underlying Indian home life and child rearing. Many of the individuals who decide the fate of our children are at best ignorant of our cultural values, and at worst contemptful of the Indian way and convinced that removal, usually to a non-Indian household or institution, can only benefit an Indian child. xiii

        One of the particular points of concern to Congress was the failure of social workers to understand the role of the Indian extended family. The House Report on ICWA thus states:

An Indian child may have scores of, perhaps more than a hundred, relatives who are counted as close, responsible members of the family. Many social workers, untutored in the ways of Indian family life or assuming them socially irresponsible, consider leaving the child with persons outside the nuclear family as neglect and thus grounds for terminating parental rights. xiv

        In addition to the alarming removal rates of Indian children is the Federal Governments well documented involvement in the destruction of Indian families through Federal policies. For example in 1971, 17% of Indian children where removed from families to attend Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding schools. xv The Indian children were often times isolated from families and punished for speaking their own language and practicing their own religion. Based upon this evidence, in passing the ICWA Congress found:

...that the States, exercising their recognized jurisdiction over Indian child-custody proceedings through administrative and judicial bodies, have often failed to recognize the essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families. xvi

        The Indian Child Welfare Act addresses the crisis in Indian placement in two ways. First, it provides that no Indian child may be removed from the home unless qualified Indian expert testimony indicates that the child is in danger of experiencing physical or emotional harm. xvii This requirement, if followed, will ensure that removal of an Indian child from the home is based upon objective indicia of harm to the child, rather that subjectively applied cultural or social standards. Secondly, where Indian expert testimony does indicate that likelihood that continued custody in the home will result in harm to the child, the ICWA generally requires that the child be removed from the home, but placed, in order of preference, within the Indian extended family, within the family of the child's tribal affiliation, or within another Indian family. xviii Placement of Indian children in Indian homes was Congress' way of ensuring that when state court and child-protection agencies place Indian children outside of the home, they do not sever the children from their only means of receiving their cultural heritage - the Indian family. xix

Congress found as the purpose of the Act:

The congress hereby declares that it is the policy of this Nation to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by the establishment of minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children from their families and the placement of such children in foster or adoptive homes which will reflect the unique values of Indian culture, and by providing for assistance to Indian tribes in the operation of child and family programs.

        Congress concluded as the legislative history shows that proper implementation of the Act itself would serve the "best interests" of Indian children.

i Parts of the following History were taken from the Indian Child Welfare Law Center Case for Support (6/28/93) prepared by Mark Fiddler.
ii 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq. (1978).
ii Indian Child Welfare Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 93 Cong., 2d Sess., at 3 (1974)(statement of William Byler)(herinafter 1974 Hearings).
iv American Indian Policy Review Commission, Report on Federal, State, and Tribal Jurisdiction, at 19 (1976) (hearinafter the 1976 Report).
v The House Report, H.R. Rep. No. 1386, 95th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1978), reprinted in 1978 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 7530 (hereinafter House Report) at page 9.
vi See House Report at 9.
vii Id.
viii Id.
ix 1974 Hearings, at 46.
x Indian Child Welfare Act of 1977 Hearing on S.1214 before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 95 Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), at 114 (hereinafter the 1977 Hearings)(statement of Drs. Carl Mindell and Alan Gurwitt, American Academy of Psychiatry).
xi Id. at 164.
xii Hearings on S. 1214 before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs and Public Lands of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. (1978), at 193 (hereinafter 1978 Hearings).
xiii Id, at 191-192.
xiv House Report at 10.
xv House Report at 9.
xvi 25 U.S.C. § 1901.
xvii 25 U.S.C. § 1912(e),(f).
xviii 25 U.S.C. § 1915.
xix See House Report at 19 (where the House stated that compliance with ICWA is "in the best interest of an Indian child").

If you need help or more information:

Indian Child Welfare Act Law Center
Suite 104
1730 Clifton Place
Minneapolis, MN 55403

1-866-879-0123

Tribes line up support as Supreme Court takes up ICWA dispute

March 6, 2013
  

The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund are lining up some major support as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, an Indian Child Welfare Act case. At least a dozen briefs will be filed in support of Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation whose rights are at issue in the case. Briefs are coming from individual tribes, national tribal organizations, adult Indian adoptees, several states, national child welfare organizations, law professors, religious groups, psychologists' associations, current and former members of Congress, military and veterans organizations and even the American Civil Liberties Union. "We have brought our A-team to this case," NARF attorney Richard Guest said at NCAI's 2013 executive council winter session in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Read it here: http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/008782.asp

Kind Hearted Woman: Documentary follows Sioux woman's struggle

Watch Kind Hearted Woman Preview on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/181060/group/News/
By Chuck Haga, Forum News Service, The Jamestown Sun

GRAND FORKS - The Spirit Lake Nation's continuing efforts to deal with deficiencies in its child protection system is about to get another round of national exposure.

The PBS news program "Frontline" has produced a two-part documentary titled "Kind Hearted Woman" featuring Robin Charboneau, a 32-year-old divorced single mother who lived on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation.

The documentary follows her over three years, according to PBS, as she "struggles to raise her two children, further her education and heal herself from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child."

The programs are to air April 1 and 2.

The tribe's problems, especially allegations of sexual abuse of children and failure of authorities to investigate and prosecute sexual predators, already have received considerable regional and national attention.

The exposure has been promoted, welcomed or at least tolerated by some at Spirit Lake who have been critical of responses so far by tribal government, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and FBI. Other tribal members have lamented the attention, however, arguing that it paints a false picture of conditions and efforts by the tribe to make improvements.

At a "town hall" meeting on the reservation Wednesday, organized by the BIA at the urging of Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., several members of the tribe decried the "negative" focus of the attention. One man asked that news cameras be removed. Organizers declined to do that, saying the meeting had been set up and advertised as an open session.

Charboneau, who also uses the name Robin Poorbear, was among those who spoke at the Wednesday meeting. Along with several others, she challenged Mark Little Owl, hired by the tribe last summer as director of tribal social services.

Helping victims, raising awareness

The PBS documentary was done by filmmaker David Sutherland, who previously produced the documentary portraits "Country Boys" and "The Farmer's Wife."

"Kind Hearted Woman" opens with Charboneau walking home on the reservation after a 20-day stay at a rehabilitation center.

"Now I'm sober," she says, "and I'm really, really scared I'm going to start drinking again."

According to PBS, the two-part program will follow Charboneau through a custody battle with her ex-husband over her two children, her efforts to obtain a college degree and her hopes of becoming a social worker.

"When Robin's daughter reveals that her father has sexually abused her, echoing Robin's own childhood abuse, it ignites both emotional turmoil and a dramatic criminal trial in federal court," according to PBS.

(Anthony Charboneau was convicted in U.S. District Court in Fargo in 2009 of sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact of minors, according to court records. He was sentenced to almost four years in prison. He appealed the conviction, but his appeal was rejected in January by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)

Robin had lost custody of her children to the tribe, "a move Robin believes is the result of her ex-husband's connections to tribal leaders," according to PBS, but when her ex-husband is convicted she regains custody and moves to International Falls, Minn.

There, Robin works as a sexual-abuse educator, her daughter organizes a fundraiser for victims of domestic abuse, and the family participates in a walk to raise awareness.

"A march like this could never happen on the Spirit Lake Reservation," Robin says in the documentary, according to PBS, "because there, we just don't talk about abuse."

A spokesman for the tribe said Friday that tribal officials were not aware of the documentary.

A spokeswoman for PBS said the company has reported on the ongoing child protection issue at Spirit Lake, including a report on Wednesday's meeting, and that attempts have been made to speak with tribal officials but were unsuccessful.

The documentary is separate from that reporting, the spokeswoman said. "This doesn't fall under Frontline's typical investigative work," she said. It is rather a portrait, "one woman's journey."

For more on the documentary, visit www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kind-hearted-woman.


Please watch this one. It's vital we help parents who are struggling to keep and raise their own children.  More effort is needed to help all families, to keep them intact which is better than fostering and adopting children out to strangers...Trace

Watch http://video.pbs.org/video/2332643066" David Sutherland, Filmmaker

on PBS.

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity



The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

RED ROAD: The Barry Hambly Story

Poster advertising the children

One Man's Search for Identity

The events that lead up to the removal of Barry Hambly and his three brothers from their mother, reflected a series of policies that adversely affected — and continue to affect — First Nations people. 

Barry's mother, Darlene Whitecap, has experienced firsthand the impact of these policies on her life, and the lives of her children. Darlene Whitecap was raised on a reserve and taken away to a white-run residential school at age four.

 Eventually returning to the reserve, she found herself in an abusive relationship when she was 16.  By the time she was 24 years old, with four young children, alcohol had become a part of her life. It was then that she decided to run from the reserve to Regina. Soon after, she would lose her children to social agencies due to her alcoholism.

The adoption policies of this era were controversial and became known as the "Sixties Scoop."



Red Road was produced by Lost Heritage Productions in association with Life Network, and with the financial participation of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). Film Previews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7--Lt11tTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujau8Fm4Tko&feature=related

LET'S TALK NATIVE on March 3

I'll be visiting and talking with John Kane at www.kb1520.com from 9 - 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, March 3.   Here's a link to my interview: http://wwkb.radiotown.com/audio/jkane/ltn0303hr2.mp3

This is John's blog: http://www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/

I interviewed John way back in 1998 when I was writing a story about him for News From Indian Country in Wisconsin. Tonite he'll interview me!

John's Radio Guests: Ken Parker of "Food Is Our Medicine and Holly John from the Seneca Diabetes Foundation will join some of our regular crew this week. And journalist and author, Trace A DeMeyer ("Two Worlds: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects") is visiting Seneca Territory this weekend so she'll join us in studio as well.

Reclaiming her identity: Suzie Fedorko

Two Worlds contributor Suzie Fedorko has a fantastic interview in Indian Country Today about her new memoir!!

Susan Fedorko was 40 years old when she found her birth family—or rather, when a long-lost sister found her. Her first book, Cricket: Secret Child of a Sixties Supermodel (Outskirts Press, 2012) chronicles Fedorko’s journey from Native American adoptee-turned “white” mother and wife, to a person reunited with her extended family. That family hails from the Grand Portage Indian Reservation people on her mother’s side and the White Earth Nation on her father’s, both Chippewa/Ojibwe. In an unexpected twist, Fedorko discovered that just a few years after her birth, her birth mother—Cathee Dahmen—had become an immensely popular supermodel, probably the first Native American woman to attain that status.
Fedorko’s story is a bittersweet mix of hard-won healing and humor. She recalls gazing at her then 11-month-old daughter, Samantha: “I broke down, thinking how terrible it must have been for my birth mother to part with me. It would rip me apart to be separated from Samantha.” Just pages later, she captures the voice of one of her husband’s good-old-boy friends, “whose accent made him sound like his name could have been Cletus.” Her experiences have been diverse, her responses unfailingly human, and her writing utterly frank.
Thousands of Native children—up to 35 percent of Indian youth in some states—were taken from their homes and adopted into white families before the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act.  Fedorko is one of them. Her story will resonate both with those who have reconnected and those still dreaming about that day.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/02/26/reclaiming-her-identity-conversation-native-adoptee-and-author-susan-fedorko-147877

 

An interview with Susan Harness on MPR

In Other Words (Montana Public Radio)

 

January 11, 2013

By Susan Harness

Recently, I was interviewed for a radio program in Missoula, Montana regarding my research on American Indian transracial adoption. It originally aired on Montana Public Radio (MTPR.org) Tuesday, December 11th 2012, on the program In Other Words, which explores experiences through a feminist perspective. The interview looks at American Indian transracial adoption and its intersection with race, history and class. If you weren’t able to catch it live, click on the link below to listen now.

http://www.susandevanharness.com/in-other-words-montana-public-radio/#comments

Susan and I are good friends and both transracially adopted. Please listen to this podcast. It's important. Her important book is listed in the reference section on this blog.

Tribunal: Canada's human rights abuses of First Nations children

Archive photo: Sitka, Alaska Residential Boarding School

Canadian Government faces allegations of discrimination towards First Nations Children at Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

OTTAWA, Feb. 22, 2013 /Canada News Wire

 

On February 25, 2013, the Government of Canada will appear before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to face 14 weeks of hearings to determine if its flawed and inequitable First Nations child and family services program is discriminatory. The federal government controls and funds child and family services on reserves where as the provinces and territories do so for other children. The Auditor General of Canada and other expert reports confirm that the federal government's funding and program approaches to child and family services, including the more recent enhanced funding approach, are flawed and inequitable.

There is clear evidence linking the inequality in services to hardship among First Nations families and to the growing numbers of First Nations children in care.

Dr. Cindy Blackstock said, "This generation of First Nations children deserve an equal chance to grow up safely at home - something the Federal Government deprived many of their parents and grandparents of during the residential school era."

The complaint was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2007 by the Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society after the Government of Canada failed to implement two evidence informed solutions to address the problem. Since then the Government of Canada has spent over 3 million dollars in its numerous unsuccessful efforts to get the case dismissed.

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said, "This case is important for everyone concerned about human rights. The outcome will affect both the quality of vitally important services available to First Nations children as well as the integrity of human rights protection in Canada."

Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) says, "It is very important that this case move forward, and that issues of discrimination be promptly addressed. What is at stake in this case is the integrity of our human rights regime and its ability to respond meaningfully to allegations of discrimination."

 

SOURCE: FNCFCS, http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1118727/canadian-government-faces-allegations-of-discrimination-towards-first-nations-children-at-canadian-human-rights-tribunal

Tribunal: Canada's human rights abuses of First Nations children

Archive photo: Sitka, Alaska Residential Boarding School

Canadian Government faces allegations of discrimination towards First Nations Children at Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

OTTAWA, Feb. 22, 2013 /Canada News Wire

 

On February 25, 2013, the Government of Canada will appear before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to face 14 weeks of hearings to determine if its flawed and inequitable First Nations child and family services program is discriminatory. The federal government controls and funds child and family services on reserves where as the provinces and territories do so for other children. The Auditor General of Canada and other expert reports confirm that the federal government's funding and program approaches to child and family services, including the more recent enhanced funding approach, are flawed and inequitable.

There is clear evidence linking the inequality in services to hardship among First Nations families and to the growing numbers of First Nations children in care.

Dr. Cindy Blackstock said, "This generation of First Nations children deserve an equal chance to grow up safely at home - something the Federal Government deprived many of their parents and grandparents of during the residential school era."

The complaint was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2007 by the Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society after the Government of Canada failed to implement two evidence informed solutions to address the problem. Since then the Government of Canada has spent over 3 million dollars in its numerous unsuccessful efforts to get the case dismissed.

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said, "This case is important for everyone concerned about human rights. The outcome will affect both the quality of vitally important services available to First Nations children as well as the integrity of human rights protection in Canada."

Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) says, "It is very important that this case move forward, and that issues of discrimination be promptly addressed. What is at stake in this case is the integrity of our human rights regime and its ability to respond meaningfully to allegations of discrimination."

 

SOURCE: FNCFCS, http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1118727/canadian-government-faces-allegations-of-discrimination-towards-first-nations-children-at-canadian-human-rights-tribunal

Tribunal: Canada's human rights abuses of First Nations children

Archive photo: Sitka, Alaska Residential Boarding School

Canadian Government faces allegations of discrimination towards First Nations Children at Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

OTTAWA, Feb. 22, 2013 /Canada News Wire

 

On February 25, 2013, the Government of Canada will appear before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to face 14 weeks of hearings to determine if its flawed and inequitable First Nations child and family services program is discriminatory. The federal government controls and funds child and family services on reserves where as the provinces and territories do so for other children. The Auditor General of Canada and other expert reports confirm that the federal government's funding and program approaches to child and family services, including the more recent enhanced funding approach, are flawed and inequitable.

There is clear evidence linking the inequality in services to hardship among First Nations families and to the growing numbers of First Nations children in care.

Dr. Cindy Blackstock said, "This generation of First Nations children deserve an equal chance to grow up safely at home - something the Federal Government deprived many of their parents and grandparents of during the residential school era."

The complaint was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2007 by the Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society after the Government of Canada failed to implement two evidence informed solutions to address the problem. Since then the Government of Canada has spent over 3 million dollars in its numerous unsuccessful efforts to get the case dismissed.

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said, "This case is important for everyone concerned about human rights. The outcome will affect both the quality of vitally important services available to First Nations children as well as the integrity of human rights protection in Canada."

Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) says, "It is very important that this case move forward, and that issues of discrimination be promptly addressed. What is at stake in this case is the integrity of our human rights regime and its ability to respond meaningfully to allegations of discrimination."

 

SOURCE: FNCFCS, http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1118727/canadian-government-faces-allegations-of-discrimination-towards-first-nations-children-at-canadian-human-rights-tribunal