Introduction

 

I began this assignment with wanting to learn more about the Indian Adoption Project. The project ran from  the 1940’s to the late 1970’s with the sole purpose of removing American Indian children from their homes, communities and cultures and placing them in white Christian society. There were many other “projects” like it which were funded through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and resulted in the removal of thousands of Indian children.

 

My mother is one such child. She was born in 1960 to an unwed, twenty-two year old Santa Clara woman. For fear of anger from her mother, my biological grandmother ran from Kha'p'oo Owinge – Valley of the Wild Roses in the Tewa language – reservation located just outside of Espanola, New Mexico to Santa Fe where she found the “help” of a case worker who assisted in placing her with a house mother who would take care of her during her pregnancy. Knowing that she did not have the means to raise a child, she had decided that adoption was the best option in her circumstances.

 

Around her eighth month of pregnancy, my grandmother had changed her mind. The house mother whom she had been living with offered to help her take care of the baby while she worked and went to school an she would eventually take it home to her family after she had made something of herself. My mom was born on June 14th, 1960 and was given the name Juliann. The case worker informed the hospital staff that my grandmother was a danger to the baby and they would not allow her to see her. She duped my grandmother into signing away her parental rights and agreeing to the adoption by informing her that if she signed the papers they would expire in thirty days and she would be allowed to see her child. This was a lie.

 

My mom stayed in a group home until she was six months old and was adopted by my grandparents, a white Christian couple, for a $25 fee. My mom grew up always knowing that she was adopted. My grandparents tried to introduce her to her culture and made visits to the reservation but she’s lived her whole life with an identity crisis, never really feeling like she knew who she was or where she belonged.

 

In researching this subject, I found that the adoption projects were only one very small piece in a long history of assimilation attempts by the United States of America. “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” is a quote from Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian School, and sums up nicely the attitude toward assimilation. In all of its attempts through history, the purpose was to colonize and americanize Indians. From the Indian Removal Act, which saw the loss of hundreds of thousands of American Indian lives, to what is happening in the South Dakota foster system today, it has all been an attempt to wipe out Indians as a whole.

 

There have also been warriors and activists throughout history fighting to maintain the Native American way of life. From Tecumseh who rallied his Shawnee people to fight against the United States in the war of 1812 to Suzan Harjo who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2014. Her work includes regaining millions of acres of tribal lands lost and fighting to lessen the effects and indifference of acculturation and many, many other notable causes. They are among us today, fighting.

 

American Indians are still strong, are still here and many are still living traditionally though not always in comfort. The Pine Ridge Reservation, home to 30,000 Oglala Lakota people is the poorest place in the Nation. It claims 3,469 square miles of which only 84,000 acres are suitable for agriculture. The median annual income of those living in Pine Ridge is $3,500. Pine Ridge is best known for the Wounded Knee Massacre where an estimated 300 people were murdered by the 7th Calvary in 1890. Some say this was in retribution for the killing of General Custer in Custer’s last stand. After this, the few remaining Oglala Lakota were moved from their traditional lands on the Pine Ridge reservation. Their sacred Black Hills were later destroyed to build the Mt. Rushmore monument.

 

To understand the significance of these events and reasoning behind activism, there has to be at least a small understanding of Native American culture. It’s vast and is wildly different between even bands within the same tribe. There are 566 individual sovereign Indian Nations within the borders of the United States today. Within this project, you will find information about assimilation, activism and culture.

 

Taŋyáŋ yahípi