SCOTUS upholds the Indian Child Welfare Act
What an amazing day in history! The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a piece of legislation that the Brackeens, a white couple from Texas who felt ‘called’ to adopt American Indian children, fought to overturn. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA). They weren’t the only foster parents who have fallen prey to becoming […]
Guest Speaker – Bitterroot and the Issue of American Indian Transracial Adoption
I have the honor of being asked to speak for the Utah’s Annual ICWA Conference. I will be giving a virtual presentation. American Indian children who have been removed from their home and are being considered for placement in foster care or adoption require stability. The removal itself is traumatizing, with effects that last late […]
Presentation – Bitterroot
I will be giving a presentation of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption and talking about the writing of it, and why it was an important book to be out in the public space. Please join me at the LaVeta Library at 1:oo p.m. for a reading, conversation and questions.
U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether ICWA is unconstitutional. Why should you care?
In 2019, I was interviewed by Huffpost as part of an article that explores the question Who Should Be Allowed to Adopt American Indian Children? Great question as conservatives and religious communities attempt to remove the Indian Child Welfare Act from Legislation. Read the article; watch the mini–documentary, by journalists Jennifer Bendery,Isaac Himmelman, and Lena […]
Working Within the Religious Community for Child Placement reform and Social Justice
We never know where our paths will take us. We just know we are going on a direction, many times, we are being led. For me, it is deeper into the forest. Now, that forest isn’t scary, but it is relatively unexplored. That forest is American Indian child placement. I was in my 40s when […]
Is American Indian a ‘racial’ or ‘political’ identity?
Is American Indian a ‘racial’ or ‘political’ identity? It’s complicated. I’d just posted on FB how the conservative right (the Goldwater Institute) is attempting to upend the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) through its state-by-state litigation. There are two legal arguments, both funded by right-wing think-tanks, whose money can be traced to the […]
Essay published in High Country News – Adoption Didn’t Solve the “Indian Problem”
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, American Indian children were placed with white families at a phenomenal rate. By 1974, approximately 30% American Indian children were removed from their American Indian families and placed with non-Indian families. Neglect was cited most often, a vague term that was responsible for changing the lives of Indian children, […]
The Importance of ICWA – Bringing Our Children Home
The Indian Childwelfare Act of 1978 was established to stop the wholesale removal of American Indian kids from their families and communities. Prior to its legislation, Indian children were placed and hidden behind closed adoptions, with no way to find our way back to our families, our tribes. We were forced to live in a […]
A Re-post of my interview for Montana Public Radio’s In Other Words
This episode of In Other Words was originally aired on June 7, 2014. Interviewer Ann Szalda-Petree probed the issues that were brought to light in my study of American Indian transracial adoption. This type of child placement was an informal policy during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the outcomes for adoptees were, many times, […]