A case before a federal appeals court last week could upend an historic adoption law meant to combat centuries of brutal discrimination against American Indians and keep their children with families and tribal communities. For the first time, a few states have sued to overturn the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which Congress enacted in 1978 as an antidote to entrenched policies of uprooting Native children and assimilating them into mainstream white culture. Now, in a country roiled by debates over race and racial identity, there’s a chance the 41-year-old law could be overturned by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the country’s most conservative court. (The law applies to federally recognized tribes.)
“This is about attacking Indian law and Indian sovereignty,” said Chrissi Nimmo, deputy attorney general for the Cherokee Nation. “This is just the first step.” The Cherokee, Navajo, Oneida and Quinault Indian Nations, as well as the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, asked to be included as defendants in the lawsuit.
BREAKING NEWS: Court Fights Intensify Over Who Gets To Adopt Native American Children | HuffPost
Lost Birds and Lost Children Book Series
My readers know I am an adoptee and the author of a book series by and for Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects, 60s Scoop and ARENA in the US and Canada.
This latest attack on Indian Country is about land.
If you adopt and take children and erase their identity, isolated and unable to open their adoption, eventually there will be no more Indians (in their way – anywhere.)
The American Indian Adoptees blog has coverage : /https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/
Lara Trace Hentz 
Horrible possibility in a long history of such horrors. There’s increased potential for other rights-narrowing court decisions now that conservatives are stacking courts all the way from local to federal levels.
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It keep me up at night, Laura. It’s quite deliberate.
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It is the case that “conservative” had become a synonym for “moneyed interests” as this suit represents. It is also interesting it is filed in a court that is considered “conservative.” The deck just keeps getting stacked and re-stacked.
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Yup Ed. But we are smarter now. And we can put our minds together to not let it happen (again.)
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sweetly caring
for youth
and the future 🙂
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we must
continue
for the next generations 🙂
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Pleased to see the subject in the news at least. It was hidden away for far too long.
Good luck with your continuing struggle, Lara.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I think we have real problems with understanding what “identity” means…Maybe because ours relies so heavily on surrendering individuality to blind conformity. But as we root around in genealogy circles and DNA tests and are seeking to connect with our own ethnic origins and history, we really should know better.It really is not something that can be “taught” on paper (where everything becomes two dimensional)…It is simply not enough to be well-intentioned (as the Road to Hell teaches)…Taking a child to “save” it from a possible bad fate within a stereotyped and marginalized culture is no different than locking up a person who might commit a crime…And sealing off a child from their identity is a cruelty that cannot be healed after the fact. (Besides, if we really cared about that child’s indigenous future, then we would ALSO care to enable indigenous people to control their own futures in order to flourish. Period. Anybody else out there embarrassed about the hypocritical messaging?)
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When the courts don’t behave, sometimes you have no choice but to take the issue to the streets.
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Two adoptee friends went and protested outside Goldwater offices – they took photos – no one came out to talk to them. It’s not going to be easy.
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Interesting
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