Native children suffer under a modern-day version of forced assimilation

by Donna Ennis

The federal government began sending American Indians to off-reservation boarding schools in the 1870s, when the United States was still at war with Indians. An Army officer, Richard Pratt, founded the first of these schools.

Pratt believed that the Indian Wars weren't extinguishing the culture fast enough, so he came up with the idea of separating children from their parents. The first boarding schools were started in the late 1800s. Our elders describe trains coming into tribal communities and grabbing children from their homes and taking them to these boarding schools. The effects of boarding schools are far-reaching and have resulted in historical, intergenerational and cultural trauma to our Native people.

Those boarding schools have an echo today.

Beginning with his separation from his family at the age of 4, Andrew was shuffled 28 times from foster home to foster home. He was stripped of his identity and placed in homes outside of his culture. He grew up not knowing who he was or where he came from because he was removed at such an impressionable young age, leaving him with no sense of belonging. I believe that a child's most important need, besides food, clothing and shelter, is the need to belong. Although Andrew had many siblings, he saw only a couple of the older ones on occasion and never saw his younger siblings again.

Andrew committed suicide at the age of 17 by hanging himself from a tree on the property of what was to be his last foster home. After his death, arrangements were made to get the family together for his burial. I have worked with many youth over the years, and it never gets any easier for me to comprehend what kind of child welfare system allows these atrocities to happen.

The trauma that Andrew suffered echoed the assimilation policies set out by the government through the federal Indian boarding school program. He too was separated from his family and tribe. Dominant cultural values were forced on him through a process of forced assimilation.

The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act was created by the federal government in order to establish federal authority over adoption of Native American children. The goal of the act was to strengthen and preserve Native American families and culture.

Each year, South Dakota removes an average of 700 Native children from their homes. Of these 700 children, 90 percent are placed in non-Native homes or group care. The continuing separation of children from their heritage is a tragic and destructive aspect of these cross-cultural placements.

Despite federal law to the contrary, a boarding school mentality exists in favor of placing Native children in non-Indian settings. The identity of Native youth is devalued. Forced assimilation leads to conflict with these young people, who can become very confused about their tribal identity.

There is again a price on Indian children's heads, seen in the distribution of federal money to social services for their care. In addition, South Dakota has a record of designating Native children as having special needs -- which means they are worth more to the state financially than other children.

Social service agencies like Children's Home Society have become the new boarding schools for South Dakota. Just like in early tribal communities, children are being forcibly taken from their homes with no real basis. Families and tribes are being forced to hide their children from the state.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/08/ennis/

ACLU to probe if SD breaks child-protection laws

Associated Press

The American Civil Liberties Union is investigating whether the South Dakota Department of Social Services violated federal law by removing Native American children from their homes and placing them in foster care instead of with relatives.

Tate Walker, an ACLU spokeswoman in Sioux Falls, said the civil rights organization has fielded individual complaints for years from families who said the state violated the federal Indian Child Welfare Act. The law directs officials to place Native American children removed from homes with their relatives or tribes except in unusual situations.

But the cases had been too scattered and disparate to tackle, Walker said, until a recent National Public Radio series accused the state of routinely breaking the law and disrupting the lives of hundreds of Native Americans each year.

"That aired and then boom: We're getting calls left and right," Walker told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "The outcry was phenomenal, not only from people demanding that something be done, but also from several potential plaintiffs."

The ACLU investigation could lead to a potential lawsuit that would unite complainants as plaintiffs against the state.

The three-part NPR report described Native American children as being placed in South Dakota's foster care system at a disproportionate rate: More than half of all children in foster care are Native American, despite them accounting for just 15 percent of the state's child population.

The series suggested that the motive might be money, since the state gets federal financial assistance for each child removed from his or her home. It also suggested a conflict of interest in Gov. Dennis Daugaard's work for Children's Home Society of South Dakota when he was a lieutenant governor. That organization received millions of dollars for housing Native American children under contracts the state awarded without competitive bid.

The governor's office criticized the report and went on the defensive even before the series began airing last week, releasing a memo titled "Setting the Record Straight" that accused NPR's reporter of being unfair and biased. According to the memo, Children's Home Society has had contracts with the state since 1978, long before Daugaard became its chief operating officer in 2002.

While Walker commended the NPR report, she said the ACLU isn't out to attack the governor.

"It's not about the governor. It's about these kids," she said. "They deserve someone to check into this."

At the center of the conflict, she said, is a merging of state, federal and tribal jurisdiction that is difficult to navigate. The ACLU hopes the spotlight on the issue will prompt new legislation to make it easier for child-protective services workers to do their jobs.

On its website, NPR describes the three-part series as the culmination of a yearlong investigation.

"Some children are removed from their homes for legitimate reasons," the series' introduction reads. "But in South Dakota very few are taken because they've been physically or sexually abused. Most are taken under a far more subjective set of circumstances."

After the series began airing, two members of Congress _ U.S. Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and Dan Boren, D-Okla. _ sent a letter to the Interior Department of Indian Affairs calling for an investigation.

"If the information on the NPR article is accurate, it would appear that the state of South Dakota has failed not only to abide by the mandates of federal law but also failed its Indian children, their families and their tribes by violating the letter and spirit" of the Indian Child Welfare Act, the congressmen wrote to Larry Echo Hawk, Indian Affairs' assistant secretary.

The federal law was passed in 1978 to help ensure that Native American children weren't separated from their families and tribes through involuntary removal.

Gubernatorial aide Tony Venhuizen told the Rapid City Journal it was unfortunate that two members of Congress representing other states didn't contact South Dakota officials before seeking an investigation into allegations about the state.

"These congressmen based their letter on an NPR report that was deeply flawed," he said. "It's really too bad that they took this step without even asking the Department of Social Services or anyone in South Dakota for the facts."

Walker, the ACLU spokeswoman, said the NPR piece highlighted an important and overlooked issue affecting Native American families.

"I have much respect for the (Department of Social Services) workers. I have to imagine that meeting all of the requirements they have to meet can get tricky," she said. "I think that some statutory legislative could potentially ease some of the burden."

Source http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/aclu-to-probe-if-sd-breaks-child-protection-laws/article_2210024d-e8c1-5de7-a2d5-b2bcaacebf39.html