[R-G] "Minority Adoptions" and Native America, Lands, Resources

[Hunter Gray]

Note by Hunter Bear:

Jyri Kokkonen, a Finn of course, has also lived in Australia and visits there on occasion.  He knows the general situational setting of which he writes. His good note and comments follow this of mine.

[I say at the outset that this is not an argument against all -- all -- cross-racial and cross-cultural adoptions.  Some can work out -- depending on a variety of factors including bona fide situational needs and genuinely positive motivational currents in the basic, primary sense -- heavily mixed with empathetic understanding.  Even so, much commitment and work are required.]

The seizure of  Aboriginal -- indigenous -- children in Australia by government and their adoption-out to Euro-Australians in an effort to promote assimilation [a goal that invariably failed but produced plenty of serious difficulties for the kids and their natural families] certainly has its parallels in other national situations.  In the United States, this was attempted by the almost all-White Indian Rights Association in the latter 19th century and the beginning years of the 20th.  The reasons were altruistic but dead wrong nevertheless and, behind all of it, was the hand of the government and the corporate forces that sought to eliminate Native people and secure Indian lands and resources.  This was also accompanied by the nefarious Allotment Acts [Dawes 1887 and Curtis 1898], which, with a sheen of ostensible altruism provided by the misguided Indian Rights Association, promoted [and arbitrarily pushed] the breakup of tribal lands into small individual/family portions and the creation of individual Native land ownership, This was a super cunning effort to strike at the embracive and protective Native communalism, break the tribal national structures, and eliminate Indian cultures. Again, the coveted goals were Indian lands and resources via "assimilation".  [The recent HBO film, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, covers the basics of some of this surprisingly well for a commercial work.]

Although the Indian Rights Association early on reversed its "adoption policy" and ended its support for the allotment process, a great deal of pain and suffering occurred on multi-faceted fronts.  The land allotment campaign -- which affected, partially or massively, many tribes [not all, there was much resistance and other inhibiting factors] -- resulted in the loss of two thirds of the then existent Native land base, via a myriad of Machiavellian legal devices, within a matter of a relatively few years.  The allotment process was halted as one of the first steps taken when John Collier was appointed  Indian Commissioner by FDR at the very onset of the Roosevelt Administration and designed and implemented the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Some of the lost land, not much, was eventually restored.]

In all of this, Native tribes and cultures survived -- and while most Native individuals did also, not all did by any means.  In the post WW2 Cold War epoch, attacks were made on the Roosevelt reforms -- and this included initiating new "assimilation" campaigns.  Again, whatever the "altruistic" window-dressing, the real goals once again focused on Native lands and resources.  The "termination" policies sought essentially to functionally break the protective treaty rights of Indian nations -- and did in some cases. "Urban relocation" forced -- through a carrot-and-stick approach -- many tens of thousands of Native people from reservations into the large cities, deliberately situating them as far from their Native homes as possible.  Public Law 280 removed, in a number of reservation instances, Federal coverage and replaced this with the even far more problematic state jurisdiction.

Natives resisted vigorously, with slowly growing success.  Termination was ended and, in slow due course, there was -- and it's still continuing at glacial pace -- some substantial redress in the context of "restoration".  In the cities, "urban Indians" came to set high marks for fight-back militancy.  Although it's been difficult, some PL-280 coverage has been  reversed in a few situations.  

All of this also included new efforts to promote the adoption of Indian children by non-Indians.  The Bureau of Indian Affairs in these dismal 1950s worked closely with a number of state welfare departments to summarily seize Native children and "place" them in Anglo adoptive and foster home situations.  And, as had been the situation a half century and more before, these efforts usually hurt kids and their natural families badly. The National Indian Child Welfare Act [1978], though often under attack right to the present, has pretty successfully implemented its mandate of -- should a transfer from natural parents be genuinely necessary -- placing the child in its extended family as first choice, or in a family setting within its tribe, or at least with another Native family of another tribe.

As a full-time Univ of Iowa prof in the early and mid '70s -- and also its designated counselor and advisor for Native students -- I encountered a case [pre Indian Child Welfare Act] where two unrelated Minnesota Chippewa children had been adopted and placed in the same white family when extremely small, via the BIA and the Minnesota Department of Public Welfare.  The adoptive  parents were sensitive and committed.  Neither of the girls, as they became young women, felt any particular antipathy toward them -- in fact, their relationship was good.  They did want to locate their natural parents and this effort was supported by the adoptive parents.  Minnesota refused to provide any background info. The older of the two kids was able, through her own efforts, to make contact with her home reservation and her original family.  The other tried but with no success.  Minnesota remained recalcitrant.

I came into the situation when the younger of the two became pregnant via a local white boy -- with productive results.  He and his parents wanted the baby -- and the still quite young Native woman wanted to keep the infant. In this, she was backed up by her adoptive parents. The young man and his parents went to court, enlisting the backing of the county welfare department.  I located a first rate attorney, Patricia Kamath, who, although non-Indian had represented the Meskwaki tribe [of Iowa] quite well.  We all wound up in a very long, closed court hearing presided over by a tough-looking, non-smiling older judge, a man.  I testified as the designated expert witness for the young woman [and infant] for about two hours, dueling with the country attorney. [He had once been a Catholic seminarian and, for a time, we even argued theological doctrine.]

The tough-looking old judge almost immediately ruled for us and the young woman kept her baby.

A year or so later, the young man and his parents tried again.  We went through the whole thing, I testified for an even longer period than before, and the old judge again backed us forthwith.

A corollary victory was our securing the young woman's family background data from Minnesota. I'd picked up suggestive info via Chippewa contacts in Minnesota.  The state finally agreed to provide all of it, in full, through me -- with the understanding that I would handle it with "sensitivity."  And, of course, I did; and that all turned out well.  As with her older adoptive sister, this young women now had two families: original and adoptive.

That was, all things considered, a happy ending.  A great many of these situations -- the majority -- certainly have not been happy.

But, again, through Everything -- physical genocide and attempted cultural genocide -- Native tribes, Native cultures, and Native people have fought back and persevered.  And the Aborigine brothers and sisters are obviously hanging tough as well.

Always and Forever,

For something of our own family situation with the Indian Rights Association and its adoptive program,  see  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm



And from Jyri -- this short note:

Hunter, 
You may have heard about the official address of apology by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (Labor Party) to indigenous people, re. the "lost generation" issue of aboriginal children taken from their families and raised in forced adoption with white families or in children's homes over a long period from the 1910s to the 1970s . I think it's something of a milestone in that country's history. It won't right the wrongs and it won't improve the lot of indigenous people in any direct sense, but it is an important statement nonetheless. I know rhetoric doesn't cost much, but this might point the way to better policies. The former PM of the Liberal Party  (i.e. conservative) flatly refused to do so, and ultimately earning a lot of scorn even from his own supporters.  He also lost his seat in Parliament in the last election. . .

Best wishes,
Jyri,

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR]   Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
 and Ohkwari'
 
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