Re: First Nations/Aboriginal/Native children during the Sixties Scoop?

My first mom was not into her heritage at the time of my birth or adoption. She did not yet have her tribal card. Her grandfather was ashamed of being Native (as were alot natives at the time) and he encouraged his kids and grandkids to become a part of the "white world"

I am currently unable to get a card because my first mom is legally not related to me. I need to get a copy of my original birth certificate to do that. I was born in Florida and they are not so cooperative in giving out OBC's . Since I do not have the money to go to court and fight it, I don't get it.

I once date a guy who was full blood, Northern Cree and was born on a reservation. He and all of his brothers and sisters were removed from his parents and adopted to white families. This was in the late 60's. I don't know a lot of the details, but he seemed to think it was because he was Native. He did however have all rights in his tribe. (not sure how that came to be)

Good question Ferbs.

What people have to first understand, is that in Canada, years before teh scoop began, the attempt at cultural geneocide/assimilation begain with broken treaties and the Residential school system. By the time the sixties came around, much of our culture, our community and most importantly our parenting was lost. Then, only in 1960 were Aboriginal allowed to vote and became actual citizens, was the interest in "child welfare" there. In fact, some social workers really believed the children were going to be better off in white homes.

Ironically, back then First nation children were sent in droves overseas where we were considered "exotic" and fashionable to adopt.

I could go on, but assimilation of "white" (and by white I mean colonized) countries has never stopped, but now they stop conquoring and just get a baby from abroad and assimilate them into our new society.

both canada and australia learned from usa on this issue and others concerning indigenous people. usa had been taking native children to give to white families for decades before the 60s. it only stopped in 1973 after we fought long enough and got a law passed to prevent it called the indian child welfare act. (ICWA) which makes it illegal for anyone who is not native to adopt a native child.

this as been devastating to all of us as we have generations of stolen children. some find their way home and others don't. with few exceptions, every single stolen child i know was abused in some way by their adoptive non native family. one was beaten so severely he as hospitalized several times and only when almost dead did authorities take the rare step to "undo" the adoption and remove him from that home. most were made to feel "different". always an outsider..never quite as good as the biological children. many were resented which makes you wonder why they were adopted to begin with. the money? sick.

even the few i know who were adopted by good people are still searching for the truth. who was the mother who cried when they were taken? do they have siblings? did anyone think of them for years until the passed on? many never find out. they lose their culture and we lose them as well.

and saying a child of another culture can be taught by the adoptive family is a lie. especially for native children. our culture is not something learned from a book or a movie or even a museum. it is a lived culture that can only be passed down by those of us who still live it. its communal. if you are not in our community, you can not fully live it.

lets not forget these were and are deliberate attempts at genocide of the native people according to the geneva convention. and the fact that these countries refused to sign the UNs declaration of indigenous rights is proof that the agenda is alive and well even today.

It hasn't stopped. With child welfare policies changing in the 1990s to make "witnessing abuse" (i.e. seeing your mother beat up), "failure to protect" (mother unable to prevent dad from abusing the child because she will be killed if she tries), and poverty (inability, intentional or unintentional, to provide for the child) as being criteria for apprehending children, many more children are being taken from families rather than the mothers and children being provided with resources they need to stay together and escape abuse.

True scenario: Child is apprehended because of poverty, mother loses the ,meagre welfare from the gov't she gets to help her raise the child == with no money, she can't pay rent and loses her housing, she thus has no home and can't get the child back. In B.C. you get 90 days and then all your parental rights are terminated. Social services when they apprehend a child will phone the welfare office and tell them to stop making single-parent welfare payments. Happens over and over again, across Canada. That's why so many children are in foster care and being adopted.

It's now called the "Millenium Scoop" and it is not stopping.

it didn't really stop then either... my buddy Kimaliardjuk (we call him Tyler) was removed from his home in 1986 and placed with a white family in Ottawa. He was taken from Baffin Island, stripped of his language, heritage, beliefs. He was forced to become christian and wzs told everything he knew about his life before was now wrong.

I have freinds who are 1/4 native... just enough to get their status card. They abuse it so m uch... it's irritating. And then there's Tyler who is super upset by what has happened to him yet refuses to use the tax breaks he is given... Tyler is a good guy...

Tyler has a great relationship with his adoptive mother but he clearly longs for the family he lost... and has yet to see again. You are right, people do seem to not pay attention to that form of adoption but they should.

sucks that canada has such a dark history

They have been gods blessed little ones hence the baby component of it, the flower represented peace and LSD between different standard drugs of the time. Get extreme on LSD and supposedly the wild shifting colours deliver you an a drug triggered holiday. shows of the time used the term music in, activate and drop out. Its all approximately drugs! a good number of hippies have been into them.

There is a film Rabbit Proof Fence that deals with this issue in Australia ,very moving and sad but well worth watching.

Another adoptee in my family was taken from a reservation in the mid-'60's. She was given tribal membership when she turned 18.

Hell no I would not let anybody steal my kids, they would have to kill me first.