Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:05:06 GMT

I lied; I'm back again.

In many tribes (f not all), members over age 18 can relinquish their tribal memberships by submitting documents stating that they want to be removed from the enrollment records. Some tribes also allow adult relinquishers to relinquish their dependent children's tribal memberships, while others make no provision for relinquishment of tribal membership by anyone under age 18. Some tribes allow people whose parents took them off the enrollment records to reinstate themselves after they turn 18; others don't. It varies from nation to nation, which is another reason why ICWA is complicated. But there *are* provisions for those who want to legally sever their ties to a nation, after which it can't take long for everyone in the family tree to "get white".

Jo, can you speak more to this, if you're reading?

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Becca — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:58:14 GMT

I came across this link in another discussion about this baby's case. I am undecided about this particular case (I think the state the adoption took place in had too short a decision making period but that the mom, if she had really decided on it, should have been able to pick this couple as the adoptive parents... she didn't, so I guess it's irrelevant here).

However, I do have a very real problem with the ICWA because of other situations in which I feel it has been gravely misused in cases I don't think the original lawmakers ever intended. In previous news stories, as well as brought up as personal stories in discussions on baby Talon's story, I have seen the following real life stories that make me feel the ICWA has given the tribes too much power in the other direction:

A case where a part Native American woman dying of cancer chose Caucasian guardians in her will for her 75% Caucasian children. (Their father was not a factor, he was either dead or had completely deserted them, I do not remember). The kids loved the family she had picked and it enabled them to stay in their town/school/culture. After she died the tribe she came from used the ICWA to force her children to leave their town, school, and friends and live in a foreign culture on the reservation with distant relatives who had never been a part of their lives, in a culture their mom had chosen not to raise them in.

A woman who was enrolled in a tribe and had a baby with a full Caucasian man. She wanted to give the baby up for adoption to a white couple. Her tribe said the baby was not eligible for tribe membership because of his father's heritage. They still blocked the adoption even though they would never allow the child to be a part of their society as a full member.

And the most ridiculous one involving a woman whose parent had chosen when she was a child to enroll her in the Cherokee nation using their liberal enrollment policies where if your parent was a member, and their parent had been and so on, you could be enrolled regardless of your blood heritage. So she was 99% Caucasian as her last full Cherokee ancestor had lived after tribal records had begun, but many many years ago. She chose a couple to adopt her baby and would raise the child as she would (in mainstream American culture, as she had been raised by her parents, who had enrolled her only because of potential legal/financial benefits and not foreseen the ramifications). The Cherokee nation blocked her adoption petition and said they would only allow a Cherokee family to adopt the baby. She chose to raise the baby as a single mom so she could raise it as she wanted it raised. The child will not be exposed to any Native American culture, so why should the tribe have had the right to interfere?

I feel this law has some good points, because if a child must be removed from a Native American home, a Native foster home SHOULD be where they are placed but, in cases where the parents have left the Native culture, I do feel they should be able to legally sever their ties and choose to place the child's custody case in a regular court, because often these tribal enrollment decisions were made for them when they were children, and there is little they can do about if as adults they do not identify with that culture and don't want the legal ties and tribal control over their life and their children's lives, many times children whose genetics are overwhelmingly non-Indian.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

renee — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:31:11 GMT

I don't know the first thing about IWCA, but on first glance it seems that sovereign nations make these decisions all the time. Plenty of governments forbid international adoption, or suspend it when they feel that too many of their children are being adopted by foreigners. A mother in Cambodia, for example, can't just decide that she wants to send her baby to be raised by Angelina Jolie if her government doesn't participate in the Hague Convention on International Adoption. (I just picked Cambodia out of a hat--I have no idea if they allow international adoptions now or not, and in fact I think they probably do. But plenty of countries don't.)

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Jo — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:31:51 GMT

Lula has said it so well. Have no words to add beyond my own agreement. I hope the fact that IWCA rarely clashes with the parents choices in a private adoption offers some comfort to you on this. If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them to the best of my ability. (I have a couple of lawyers in the family, so I could even get you some legal stuff)

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:14:55 GMT

One more post, and then I'll go away. Probably.

Jeanne, you reference a post I made in the Comments section of your other article. Here is the entire statement.

"This is just the way it is under the law, which was needed in order to prevent further generations of disruption and cultural genocide. It may appear very flawed to many of us, but if we acknowledge the right of other sovereign nations to set parameters for adoption of their citizens, we have to see how the same rights apply here in the U.S. for Native American nations."

You're in support of American Indian nations retaining their sovereign status. I'm assuming you also don't believe the U.S. should go around forcing our cultural beliefs (out of which grow our laws) on other sovereign countries, including other countries whose definition of "family" may be inconsistent with the Nuclear Family model embraced by the majority of Americans. Though you obviously hold very dear your own cultural belief about maternal (parental?) autonomy in decision-making for dependent children, you probably don't believe the U.S. should subject other countries with equally valid and differing beliefs to policies that violate their own laws about family and child care. Right?

So why is ICWA so upsetting? Is it because ICWA applies here in the U.S., even though it only applies to Native Americans? Is it because you fear for your cousin's family? Is it because Jo's description of how her culture views family and children is such a departure from your own cultural belief about maternal autonomy?

It's not like people of Native American heritage can't decide of their own free will to assimilate into the majority American culture, cutting ties with their families and communities. That's what happened in my family, which is why we've been culturally white since my grandmother's generation. It's also not true that majority-culture American parents have total autonomy over their children. We don't live in a Libertarian utopia wherein federal law never intersects with parental preferences for child-rearing. There's lots of examples, from compulsory education (of which homeschooling is part) to the medical-ethics cases that are almost as popular in the media as the Adoption Gone Wrong Show.

Just so we're clear, I'm NOT disputing your right to believe that parents should be able to make decisions for their children without having to consult with the extended family. That's your belief, and you live in a country where that belief is the majority and therefore many laws are in place to protect that view in daily practice. I just don't understand why you're upset that sovereign Native Americans have been allowed to make different decisions based on their equally-valid beliefs about family, and worked hard to set laws in place to provide them with the same protections.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:36:21 GMT

The belief that no one other than the mother should make decisions for her child IS no more than a cultural belief. It is not a universal law like gravity.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Jo — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:32:19 GMT

Jeanne, I can tell you are still struggling with the cultural divide by your answer to Lula. The child does not belong to the mother. The child "belongs" to the tribe by law and by belief. Native American children raised outside their tribe struggle with much more than just regular adoption issues. Split feather syndrome is documented and I do not know one Native American adoptee who was adopted into another culture who is glad it happened. They lost much more than their parents, they lost everything. And for the record, ICWA rarely is brought into private adoptions, and is generally used for adoptions and foster care involving the state. In 99% of private adoptions, the parents do get to choose where their child will be.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:29:55 GMT

Jeanne, I challenge you to talk with Jo about that, as well as your cousin and her family. I'm pretty much at the end of my knowledge, so there's not much more that I can say as someone who belongs to the same culture as you (except I'm not Catholic).

You don't have to agree with me or Jo or anyone else. You can believe ICWA is totally wrong and that the way we've been raised to look at family is right, end of story. A lot of people feel that way. I'm not after changing your mind here - I'm after using the limited knowledge I have to point out that this case is only one more example of a long-running cultural conflict that has resulted in the *need* for laws like ICWA. You may never come to believe that a group should hold more power over an individual parent's decision to have her/his child adopted, and that's fine - unless you want to adopt a Native American child, in which case you're likely to be very disappointed and think ICWA is even more wrong-headed than you already do.

As to the example you cited, I don't see the Kitty Grunwald case as comparable because Hassidic Jews do not hold the same place in the federal legal system as Native Americans. I agree with you in that case, but not on the case of this illegal-adoption-in-progress or the value of ICWA. This is not because I'm a hypocrite, but because of the point I madde earlier: There is NO comparable legal or social relationship between the federal government and an American population. Hassidic Jews are descendents of a immigrant population without a legal status apart from other non-Indian Americans in the United States. There are rules that apply for Native Americans that don't apply for anyone else - there always have been, by documented treaty agreements, which have also almost always been broken.

When I say that I believe a lot of people want Native Americans to just assimiliate and disappear (and you, Jeanne, may or may not be one of those people - I didn't specify you, so there was no accusation directed at you), it's because of so much big and little crap that gets thrown around every day. It's because of the Chief Illini mascot and all the people who roll their eyes at Native Americans who want that mascot retired. It's about Disney's "Pocahontas". It's about people throwing up Outkast's blood quantum as justification for his stupid "Indian Dance" performance of "Hey Ya", which also provoked an outcry among Native Americans. It's about how many people think it's okay to use Indian ceremonial religious dress as a child's Halloween costume when most of those same people would understand if Catholics got upset if they saw little nuns and priests and Popes running around the neighborhood one night a year during Trick-or-Treat. It's about how I wouldn't have known any more about ICWA or Native American issues than you or 98% of the readers here if I hadn't lived in places where the Native poopulation was high enough to totally make visible the deep-seated contempt, fear, and racism that's daily directed at groups of people who have been the target of physical and cultural extermination every bit as much as European Jews have. Because they're still asserting their right to exist on their own terms, instead of becoming "safe" and accessible for people who find their spiritual traditions fascinating (even though special laws had to be made to protect Native Americans' right to practice their own religions) and their jewelry pretty.

I'm not saying that's YOU, Jeanne. I don't know you. I know enough other people with these attitudes to be angry about it, though. And that's why I've educated myself some on issues like ICWA. Thanks for doing your part to bring the conversation to a wider audience.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

JeanneSager — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:14:03 GMT

Lula, you make a lot of good points. However, to assume that I "just wish Indians would assimilate and thereby disappear" is really against all that I've written. I am not against the sovereign nation status of the Native Americans; but I am against ANY CULTURE, ANY NATION stepping in to tell a mother what her choices should be. I wanted to take this story beyond that of Baby Talon.

For a parallel within America, let's look at the case of Gitty Grunwald, the Hasidic Jew who escaped the ultra-conservative Kiryas Joel with her daughter, only to have the little girl stolen back by the Satmars who literally kidnapped the child. The "courts" of the Hasidic community are holding power over the American courts in the custody case between the girl's Hasidic father and Gitty, the mother who has chosen to pursue a more secular approach to Judaism. nymag.com/.../48532 Putting this completely outside of the realm of the Native American culture, I still think that parents should have more power over the choices of where and how their children should be raised than the "government" (in this case the rebbes of the Satmar clan).

Lula, you challenged me, so I challenge you to look beyond the Native American issue to all governments that would step in to tell a parent who she/he can or cannot give their child to. That's what concerns me here; and the notion that what would not be tolerated by most parents here in America is treated as something appropriate because it's "cultural."

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Jo — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:40:06 GMT

It isn't just a nation, it is a family, a community. Lula did a great job, but I am going to add my two cents here, as a tribal member AND as someone who was raised culturally Native American.

Just as you struggle to get your mind around the idea that ICWA and what it means, I struggle with understanding how people live their lives so separate from others. Belonging and being a part of a community and family that is much larger than the one you call family. It isn't wrong, it is just different. Not only am I connected by the present, I am connected by the past and future family and community I belong to. To shame one is to shame all, to honor one is to honor all. Our traditions and beliefs are mirrored more deeply in Eastern religion and beliefs than in Western. To take a child from us, is not to just remove that child from their immediate family, but to remove generations. It is not something that should lightly be done, and yet the European people who have come do it as if this child has no meaning for the others in the community. It meant so much there were even federal laws passed to protect us from this great tragedy, and yet, people continue to question the law, and invalidate our beliefs. I appreciate your questions and hope even more deeply that you will begin to understand the heart of ICWA and why it exists.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:14:37 GMT

People have cried foul about ICWA ever since it was implemented. It's always been a controversial law, just like laws giving tribes rights to hunt and fish ceded lands and waters in ways that non-Indian can't. Now there are people who believe the tribal casino situations aren't fair because they don't equally benefit Indian and non-Indian communities alike. At root, I have to think all these controversies are tied up with many Euro-Americans' objections to tribal sovereignty - or if not objection, then ignorance and misunderstanding of. It's not like education around Indian affairs (past or present, let alone how the present grows out of the past) is a priority for any mainsteam school system.

There is no other situation here in the U.S. that offers a parallel to the relationship between indigneous nations and the broader national identity and law. I feel like lots of people still just wish Indians would assimilate and thereby disappear as real cultures and nations that exist both apart from and within the broader United States.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lori — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:52:17 GMT

I agree with many of your points, but the bottom line is that the ICWA does exist. When any party enters into an adoption plan they do not get to pick and chose which laws they follow.

If the adoptive family truly did fail to realize that the ICWA existed then we need to put full blame on the agency. Everyone seems to be crying foul about the law itself. The agency clearly knew about this law and chose to ignore it?

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:02:42 GMT

Wait... since ICWA only applies to adoptions and foster care, the answer to the above question is easy. No, your cousin's children's tribe will not mess with her parenting decisions just because she's white (which is what I'm hearing you say. Correct me if I'm wrong). The tribe will not in any way dispute her status as their mother, regardless of whether their father is alive or dead. What the tribe *would* dispute - i.e. where ICWA would apply - is if she wanted to place them for adoption outside of their extended biological and tribal family. There might need to be some tribal involvement if she's arranging guardianships for them or if she's unfit to the point that they need to be removed from her care, but that's beyond my knowledge level.

Seriously, give your cousins a call and ask them! You can be such a great conduit resource for everyone here who's following these posts, having family members who are much more intimately involved with the issues than most of us do.

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lula — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:01:08 GMT

Jeanne, your beliefs on this matter are consistent with Euro-American cultural emphasis on the Holy Trinity of Mother-Father-Baby and on sole parental "ownership" of children. As you said above, this is not the way every culture views parent/child/family/community structures. ICWA comes out of a cultural view that children belong to their nation as well as to their parents, effectively as a national resource. That may seem bizarre or even unhealthy to you and to most of us who have been raised in the dominant Euro-American cultural mindset, but our feelings on the matter are irrelevant when it comes to the right of sovereign Indian nations to determine their own business. This includes how adoption of American Indian children will be conducted.

Cultural clash over everything from religion to resource utilization to the very definition of "family" has formed the basis of Indian-Anglo relations since Europeans first started colonizing what's become the United States. Historically, Euro-Americans have never dealt very gracefully with indigenous people saying "Thanks, but we have our own way of viewing or doing that. We don't like your ways as much as we like our own, and we don't need or welcome your cultural imposition". Not all Indian people agree with each other either about the relative benefits vs. disadvantages of assimiliation and selective taking-on of aspects of Euro-American culture. There has never in teh history of the United States been consensus on "the Indian Question", so I doubt the ever will. Yet the fact of legal self-determination remains!

Your question of "Why doesn't a fellow American citizen, a mother or a father who just so happens to have a baby with enough Native American blood to qualify as part of a tribe?" can be answered very easily. It's because tribal membership accords this individual and her children a different legal status in the United States than people like my husband (whose father was half Blackfeet) and myself (whose great-grandmother was either Cherokee or Seminole, depending on who you ask). Tribal membership is not purely about "blood quantum", which is a point many people seem to be misunderstanding. Each nation gets to determine for itself what is needed in order for a person to qualify as a tribal member, but in most cases there has to be a direct and documented link with a family member who is or was an enrolled member of the tribe from a given point onward. My husband's nation is not going to come and steal our children away in the night and make them live on the reserve in Montana (if we had any biological children, which we don't). Nor is mine going to take the kids away to Oklahoma. Because we aren't members. Because that legal-status tie was broken at least two generations ago for both of us. Because of the assimilation policies of the day, both political and personal. And so it goes.

The mother in question here is a tribal member. This gives her a legal status and makes her parenting decisions subject to the laws governing her status as a Native American. She went to her tribe of her own free will, asking them to help her undo what she determined to be the wrong decision for her child. Fortunately, there's a law in place that enabled her to do that. That she's struggling with drug addiction has nothing to do with the laws that apply in the case of her child's adoption (though one might question whether a woman who's taken drugs recently enough to have them show up in her child's blood test is should be deemed fit to sign adoption papers only 24 hours after the birth, rather than getting the appropriate social services involved right off the bat and waiting until her head's cleared). SHE probably thinks ICWA is a *great* law right now! And that's what matters - what Native Americans think of this law. What we think of it is an interesting intellectual exercise, but I don't believe it should be more than that.

ICWA is not about tribes wanting to broadly define who is Native American so they can go around taking children away from non-enrolled families based on blood quota, which is what I think some people here are afraid of. ICWA is about ensuring that tribes are handling their own citizens' adoptions instead of non-Indian people deciding what happens to their children. Euro-Americans can and have debated whether Indian nations should have any sovereign-status rights for centuries, but for now these laws still hold. And I, for one, am glad they do.

If Indian people want ICWA overturned or revamped, then they should get together and do that. I'm confident that they can eventually figure out what changes need to be made if there's inter-national determination that this law isn't serving their children's needs. The rest of us, though, should probably not assume that they need or welcome our assistance.

As to your concern over your cousin's children and her role as their mother under ICWA: You have the ability to ask your cousin and her husband directly how all this works simply by picking up the phone. I'm sure they could hook you up with a tribal social worker who could explain it all with relative ease. *I* would love it if you did that and then came back and wrote an article here so that everyone could learn from it. What do you say?

re: Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Lucy — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:53:26 GMT

I agree with you. Though I would think some compromise could have been made in these cases. Like the adoptive parents agreeing to bring him to meetings, classes, and cultural events throughout his life to educate him about his heritage.