Pre-Thanksgiving march will memorialize Iowa’s lost children
Published in Indian Country Today in 2011. This article was funded in part by the George Polk Center for Investigative Reporting. For more on topics like this, see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle....
In the days
before Thanksgiving, mourners and protesters will participate in the Ninth Annual
Memorial March to Honor Our Lost Children. The pilgrimage takes walkers from South
Sioux City, Nebraska, over the Missouri river and into Sioux City, Iowa, where
Native children have for years been swept up by the child-welfare system and even
died in its custody. The route evokes the passage of Nebraska tribes, including
Poncas, Omahas, Santees and Winnebagos, who came to the city looking for jobs after
World War II, as did Sioux people from South Dakota and others.
“They
were seeking a better life,” said Frank LaMere, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and
executive director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, which is
organizing the march. “But it didn’t work out that way.” The consequences have
been devastating for the Native children of Sioux City, surrounding Woodbury
County and Iowa as a whole, according to LaMere, who is a national leader in
child-welfare and juvenile-justice issues. “If you’re a Native parent in this
county, you’re many times more likely to lose your kids than a white parent. In
recent years, three of our Native children—Hannah Thomas, Nathaniel Saunsoci-Mitchell and Larissa Starr-Red Owl—have died after being taken from their
families. We march to remember them and all the children who have been separated
from their families and communities.”
The
march has changed lives. Several years ago, an Internet image of the march
inspired a Native boy to stand his ground. “The child had acquiesced to
adoption into a white home after years of being told, ‘your people have
forgotten about you, your people are drunks and no-goods,’” said LaMere, who
was present at a final adjudication in the case. Then one day, the boy was
clicking around the Web and saw a photograph of the march. “He was shocked. He
told the court he’d been lied to. He said he saw hundreds of people looking for
their lost children. ‘They were marching for me,’ the boy said. ‘They were looking
for me.’ He balked at the adoption and was returned to his tribe.”
On
another occasion, an adoptive family watching a television segment on the march
happened to see a Native mother who’d lost her parental rights years before carrying
a baby picture they recognized. “All excited, the adoptive mother called me and
arranged to bring the child to be reunited with the birth mother,” recalled
LaMere.
Events
surrounding this year’s march—which is also supported other local groups,
including the Community Initiative for Native Children and Families, a
coalition of government agencies and nonprofits—begin November 22 with a prayer
gathering at 7 p.m. at the Marina Inn, in South Sioux City. The next morning,
November 23, at 9 a.m., the marchers progress, rain or shine, into Sioux City,
where they stop at the Woodbury County Courthouse and the Department of Human
Services. In both places, strangers decide the fate of Native people, according
to LaMere.
The
reception at each building is expected to be different than it was nine years
ago, when a sheriff tried to stop marchers from entering the
courthouse, said LaMere. This year, the group will be welcomed and will have an
opportunity to read a letter calling for a national investigation into non-compliance
with the Indian Child Welfare Act. “There are no grey areas in ICWA,” said
LaMere. “But racist judges, attorneys, guardians ad litem and more are feeding
the sytem, making money off our kids with their decisions.”
Two special
guests during the event will include Cade and Jace Courtright, 14-year-old
Rosebud Sioux twins who’ve just been reunited with their mother with the help
of LaMere and Four Directions program director, Judy Yellowbank, Winnebago
Tribe of Nebraska. Cade relies on a wheelchair, and Jace is blind, so LaMere
suggested the twins meet the march at the Four Directions Community Center
dinner that closes the event. However, the boys insisted on making the journey
with the other marchers. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to make that happen,” said
LaMere. “An elder once told us that the prayers of children are very powerful,
more powerful than those of adults. Those boys’ presence during this time is a
gift to us.”
Things are
changing in Woodbury County, he added. “When it comes to Native child-welfare
decisions, we have a place at the table now, along with the Department of Human
Services. They even support our parenting and leadership programs. We can hold
their feet to the fire on the issues, and no matter how heated the meetings
get, we come away from them knowing we are going to move forward together, as
collaborators. We in the Woodbury County Native community are winning the
battle to keep our families together, one family, one child at a time.”
Recently, LaMere
sat in on a meeting concerning an Omaha child. The judge announced that the
tribe had intervened, and the child was going home. “Everyone’s jaws dropped,
including mine. Hopefully, the good we see growing here will spread, and more
of our children nationwide will be going—and staying—home.”
Text c. Stephanie Woodard; photograph courtesy Four Directions.
Text c. Stephanie Woodard; photograph courtesy Four Directions.