{"id":2272,"date":"2018-11-08T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=2272"},"modified":"2018-11-08T09:36:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T15:36:46","slug":"why-the-indian-child-welfare-act-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2018\/11\/08\/why-the-indian-child-welfare-act-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Indian Child Welfare Act Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2274\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2274\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/losangelesdistrict\/6379418085\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2274\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2018\/11\/6379418085_8146bc441a_z-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2018\/11\/6379418085_8146bc441a_z-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2018\/11\/6379418085_8146bc441a_z-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2018\/11\/6379418085_8146bc441a_z.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo of a Seminole man holding his child at an American Indian Heritage Month celebration. Photo by Los Angeles District, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After years of debate, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) &#8212; which <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nicwa.org\/about-icwa\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sets minimum requirements<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for caseworkers handling state child custody proceedings involving Native children &#8212; was recently <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2018\/10\/10\/court-strikes-down-native-american-adoption-law-saying-it-discriminates-against-non-native-americans\/?utm_term=.c2c90b4ad226\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ruled unconstitutional<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by a Texas federal judge. The judge argued that ICWA violates constitutional rights to Equal Protection because it \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/10\/05\/federal-judge-texas-strikes-down-indian-child-welfare-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">elevates a child\u2019s race over their best interest<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d &#8212; despite the fact that Native children are actually <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">citizens <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of federally recognized tribes. Social science research helps us understand the historical context necessitating ICWA\u2019s creation, with respect to the problematic history of child removal from Native communities as shaped by racialized, gendered, and cultural ideas. <\/span><\/p>\n<h5>The ICWA was enacted in 1978, a time when Native children were being removed from their homes and placed in foster care at staggering numbers under the guise of protecting children. At that time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nicwa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Setting-the-Record-Straight-ICWA-Fact-Sheet.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">25-35%<\/span><\/a> of Native children were removed from their homes by state child welfare or by private adoption companies. And the majority (about 85%) of these children were placed outside of their families and communities, even when relatives were willing to take them. Today, despite the minimal protections offered by the ICWA, Minnesota places more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/state-pledges-400-000-to-shrink-number-of-indian-children-in-foster-care\/411330615\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Native children in foster care than any other state<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nicwa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Setting-the-Record-Straight-ICWA-Fact-Sheet.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, making up 20% of children in the system.<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lila J. George. 1997. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1300\/J285v05n03_04?casa_token=1ln34kYVcHkAAAAA:s5CqO5qrMYvoPsHOjJcdyLwfZxcHLetRr2bIZupnGjY9UCpoglJ899HHuX_naNaoo7VUaO5SBdhZDw\">Why the Need for the Indian Child Welfare Act<\/a>?\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Journal of Multicultural Social Work <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5(3): 165-175.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/history.unl.edu\/margaret-jacobs\">Margaret D. Jacobs<\/a>. 2014. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nebraskapress.unl.edu\/university-of-nebraska-press\/9780803255364\/\">A Generation Removed: The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous\u00a0Children in the Postwar World<\/a>. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">University of Nebraska Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>The ICWA\u2019s creation and implementation has not only been a response to child-removal through adoption, however. Even earlier, Native children were sent to government or Christian-run boarding schools where teachers forced children to abandon their distinct tribal cultures &#8212; they cut Native children\u2019s hair, did not allow them to speak their native languages or participate in cultural practices, and enforced strict discipline through corporal punishment. The boarding school era prevented generations of Native people from learning (and passing on) parenting tools. This separation of families, along with the disruption to Native cultural and spiritual practices, has been linked to symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, increased exposure to physical violence, and substance abuse in Native communities.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cla.umn.edu\/about\/directory\/profile\/child011\">Brenda J. Child<\/a>. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nebraskapress.unl.edu\/university-of-nebraska-press\/9780803214804\/\">Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940<\/a>. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">University of Nebraska Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.tulane.edu\/bio\/catherine-burnette\">Catherine Burnette<\/a>. 2015. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/abs\/10.1086\/683336\">Historical Oppression and Intimate Partner Violence Experienced by Indigenous Women in the United States: Understanding Connections<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social Service Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 89(3): 531-563. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>The removal of Native children is also couched in deep-set racialized, gendered, and cultural notions of family, specifically the white middle class ideal of the nuclear family, characterized by two married parents and children. Conversely, non-Native supporters of these adoption practices often relied on stereotypes of Native women as sexualized, unmarried, and thus unfit, which pathologized Native families as neglectful. They have also argued that each child\u2019s best interests should be considered on an individual basis, rathering than acknowledging what tribes see as the importance of culture and identity, tribal rights, and belonging. In other words, supporters of Native adoption saw \u201cdisadvantaged\u201d Native children that needed to be \u201crescued\u201d by individual acts of goodwill (from white, middle class Americans).<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/history.unl.edu\/margaret-jacobs\">Margaret D. Jacobs<\/a>. 2013. &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.5250\/amerindiquar.37.1-2.0136\">Remembering the \u2018Forgotten Child\u2019: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Indian Quarterly <\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coloradocollege.edu\/academics\/dept\/raceethnicitymigration\/people\/profile.html?person=mckay_dwanna_lynn\">Dwanna Robertson<\/a>. 2015. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.5250\/amerindiquar.39.2.0113\">Invisibility in the Color-Blind Era: Examining Legitimized Racism Against Indigenous Peoples<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Indian Quarterly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 39(2): 113-153. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/academics.pnw.edu\/humanities-education-social-sciences\/member\/kathryn-sweeney\/\">Kathryn A. Sweeney<\/a> and Rachel L. Pollack. 2017. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/00380253.2017.1331717?casa_token=xGliq_lt1OYAAAAA:Vby3d_6Degp4YkC0VUL0uM6_zltildcmZ2IC8V5xbG-G-06e4Sj7_FirqtyDSvdCYM4bPW_n_UhqJw\">Colorblind Individualism, Color Consciousness, and the Indian Child Welfare Act: Representations of Adoptee Best Interest in Newspaper Coverage of the Baby Veronica Case<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Sociological Quarterly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 58(4): 701-720.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what will legal reconsideration of the Indian Child Welfare Act bring? Many tribes fear that the Texas ruling sets a dangerous precedent that could dismantle the federal laws put in place to correct historical injustices like the boarding school system. Other tribal leaders see the ruling as an attempt to destroy their right to political and cultural survival through their children, while simultaneously compromising efforts to heal from the wrongdoings inflicted upon tribal communities. In the context of the current political division over the treatment of immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, such concerns warrant serious attention. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After years of debate, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) &#8212; which sets minimum requirements for caseworkers handling state child custody proceedings involving Native children &#8212; was recently ruled unconstitutional by a Texas federal judge. The judge argued that ICWA violates constitutional rights to Equal Protection because it \u201celevates a child\u2019s race over their best [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,15,55,33,13,85,14],"tags":[1298,110469,110439,102637,38547,38543,17228,70,110476,110475,21369,110472,38545,1075,355,38544,110470,110471,4049,38541,321,565,21640,38546,96127,38542,4225,82,20430,3534,17580,110478,110479,110477,133],"class_list":["post-2272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-culture","category-gender","category-health","category-inequality","category-politics","category-race","tag-adoption","tag-american-indian","tag-boarding-school","tag-caring-labor","tag-crime","tag-culture","tag-emotional-labor","tag-family","tag-forced-child-removal","tag-forced-removal","tag-foster-care","tag-foster-system","tag-gender","tag-genocide","tag-government","tag-health","tag-icwa","tag-indian-child-welfare-act","tag-indigenous","tag-inequality","tag-law","tag-mental-health","tag-native-american","tag-politics","tag-ptsd","tag-race","tag-racial-inequality","tag-racism","tag-sovereignty","tag-state","tag-substance-abuse","tag-tribal-nation","tag-tribal-sovereignty","tag-tribe","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2272"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions\/2279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}