The Continued Destruction Of The Native American Indian: Part III
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 30th, 2011
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
The last of this series:
Native Survivors Of Foster Care Return Home
When Dwayne Stenstrom was 8 years old a state worker told him that he and his brother were going to a special camp for the summer. Instead, he spent 12 years in foster care.
Dwayne Stenstrom is a professor of American history. His office is lined with towers of obscure books and poetry on the walls. There’s even a copy of the Declaration of Independence in a binder.
In South Dakota, Children’s Home Society cares for hundreds of Native American children.
He teaches this document like many other professors, beginning with, “We hold these truths to be self evident.” But he stops on another phrase — “the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages.”
“What [is] significant to me,” Stenstrom says, “is the impact that it has on a lot of our Native American kids when it still regards Indians as merciless Indian savages.”
Stenstrom teaches at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He grew up in a white foster care home, married his wife 31 years ago and raised six children. He’s as passionate about history as he is his community.
Most social services departments would look at him and say he’s a success story.
“The problem,” Stenstrom says, “is that that’s a fallacy.”
He says he didn’t make a life for himself “until I came back to the reservation.”
Losing Native Traditions
The Indian Child Welfare Act says that except in the rarest of cases, Native American children who have to be removed from their homes must be placed with relatives, their tribes or other Native Americans. Yet 32 states are failing in some way to abide by the law, according to 2005 government audit. These children are also more likely to end up in foster care than other races, even in similar circumstances, according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
The result is generations of children growing up without a connection to their culture, traditions and tribes — as Stenstrom did.
He grew up on the Nebraska plains, on the Winnebago Reservation. He and his brother spent the summers outside on the prairie with their grandfather.
But when he was 8 years old, in the spring of 1968, a van pulled up outside his house. The driver, a woman, told him he and his brother were going away for the summer. Stenstrom recalls his grandfather looking worried.
“He told me never to forget where I come from and to embrace it,” Stenstrom remembers.
That was the last time he saw him.
Stenstrom spent the summer in several foster homes. One day the van took him to Ainsworth, Neb., to a house where an older couple lived. Their own children were grown and no longer living at home. There, he and his brother waited for fall so they could go home.
“I’m thinking when the summer’s over, the little van [is] going to come and get me,” Stenstrom says. “It still hasn’t come and got me. I’m still sitting there emotionally waiting for the little van to come. And I don’t expect it’s coming.”
Years later, he was told by a state worker that his mother drank too much. But he doesn’t recall any bad memories. He knows she loved him. When he closed his eyes, he could see it in her face.
He says he doesn’t understand why he wasn’t sent to live with one of his relatives. He had hundreds of them. Instead he was sent to a white foster home.
“I grew up in a teepee, for Pete’s sake,” he says. “This isn’t a cliche. Go to bed in a circular teepee tonight and wake up tomorrow morning with four walls. And when you open your eyes, you don’t recognize anybody in the room. And sit there for 12 years. Because that’s what I did.”
Sometimes he dreamed about Native American ceremonies. But when he woke up, the details were gone. For a while, he hoped his two older brothers would come get him. But they had both been drafted and sent to Vietnam.
“I’m sitting here feeling sorry for me because I lost my mom,” he says. “Imagine what she went through.”
Stenstrom liked his foster parents. He says they treated him well, but he does not refer to them as his own mother or father.
“I learned to appreciate that family,” he says. “I stayed with them until both of them passed away. When the mother passed, I went back to her funeral and one of her kids asked, ‘Why’s he here?’ “
After that, something snapped. And like more than half of children who leave foster care, he got in trouble with the law and drank too much.
“The only thing I had going for me was my memory,” he says. “I looked in four directions and there was nobody.”
That’s when he returned to the reservation, he says, to see what he had missed and find his identity. He says it saved him.
Finding Tiospaye
On the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, former foster care children walk into Juanita Sherick’s office every week. They want to be saved too. Sherick knows the feeling. She was taken from her parents when she was 9.
Sherick says like those who visit her, she lost her language and her sense of tiospaye — tribal family.
“A lot of times it’s real painful for me to think about it because my brother and I went through a lot,” she says. “I have never forgotten it. I think that’s why I work so hard in this job.”
Sherick is now the tribe’s social worker. The most difficult mornings are when young children are waiting at her door. They’re runaways from foster care.
Asked what she does with them, she says: “I don’t give them back to the state of South Dakota, that’s for damn sure.”
That feeling is common on South Dakota’s reservations. Officials from three separate tribes said they are actively hiding children from state caseworkers.
Sherick says she finds a relative to take them in — something she says the state should have done in the first place.
“They are so happy to see Grandma,” she says. “They just cry. It makes you cry. Those are the times it’s all worth it.”
After Stenstrom found his way home, he says he connected with the spirit of his grandfather and made peace with the years he spent in foster care. Eventually he even found his mother. She told him she had searched for him for years. He spent six months with her before she died of cancer.
“That was my mom,” he says. “That meant the world to me.”
‘They’ll Always Come Home’
Not too long ago a boy, about 6 years old, found his way to the pay phone at the minimart on the Cheyenne River reservation.
“He ran away from a foster home in Lemmon,” says Diane Garreau, the tribe’s social worker. “He was looking through the phone book because he had remembered names of his family.
“They try to come home,” she says. “They’ll always come home.They should have never left here.”
Garreau and dozens of other tribal officials say the only difference between running away and running home is whether or not you’re running in the direction you belong.
*********
Readers: These stories make my heart heavy. I can’t imagine what it must be like for these children to be taken away from their families…their tribes and brought to place to grow up in a life so foreign, so vastly different from what they once knew. These are just small children, thrown into a life with no culture to lean on, no traditions to remind them, no family to love them. No wonder so many of these children grow up feeling lost, break the laws and turn to alcohol. I can not believe that this is happening and continues to happen.
I am reposting the key findings because I find this to be horrific.
Key Findings Of This Investigation
* Each year, South Dakota removes an average of 700 Native American children from their homes. Indian children are less than 15 percent of state’s the child population, but make up more than half the children in foster care.
* Despite the Indian Child Welfare Act, which says Native American children must be placed with their family members, relatives, their tribes or other Native Americans, native children are more than twice as likely to be sent to foster care as children of other races, even in similar circumstances.
* Nearly 90 percent of Native American children sent to foster care in South Dakota are placed in non-native homes or group care.
* Less than 12 percent of Native American children in South Dakota foster care had been physically or sexually abused in their homes, below the national average. The state says parents have “neglected” their children, a subjective term. But tribe leaders tell NPR what social workers call neglect is often poverty; and sometimes native tradition.
* A close review of South Dakota’s budget shows that they receive almost $100 million a year to subsidize its foster care program.
If this is heartbreaking to you..if this pulls at your heart, I HOPE that it inspires you to do something. These are children that have every right to live a wonderful life with their biological families…to grow up knowing and experiencing life the way they were supposed to. I can’t tell you how disturbed I am reading this series, knowing that our country is supporting this horrific abuse to the native peoples of our country.
If you live in South Dakota, or really anywhere, and are reading this, I HOPE that you have learned something today that has horrified you and that you will make it known that you are not going to ignore this issue anymore…that you are going to help stop this before it is too late for these children. I have said before, that in light of all of our busy lives, find something that you are passionate about and spend an hour a week doing something to support that passion…something that helps others lives become better. I HOPE this is the thing that moves you.
Preeti: You’re welcome. I wish that I was posting better news. I wish the best for you and yours.
Social Butterfly: Love this idea.
Doug: This is appalling. It just shows us how little compassion people have for others when they are down. This behavior is really sickening, and those who participated should be fired.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 30th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Michelle, It is so difficult just to find your blog. Sometimes it exist and some times it doesn’t.
But if I get in let me say thank you for keeping out situation in the public view.
Kusma
October 30th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Hafa adai family and friends,
I’m glad to announce the launching of Guam’s newest media outletlate tonight (Guam time).
http://www.guamsportsnetwork.com is Guam’s latest and only media website totally dedicated to sports on Guam.
Click on, take a look and support local sports!
Whether you’re on Guam or living somewhere else, we hope our coverage makes you feel close to Guam.
Click and enjoy,
patrick
October 30th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
303
No. 303 of 365
Agree that JFK was one of our greatest presidents.
Suggest this was because he spent less than one term in office, so he never had time to meddle and “improve” things, as liberals are wont to do.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
HI Mischa, wow, kidnapping at its worst and sad stories all around.
Hi Al’a'mode, howzit? I’m doing great, life is on a very positive roll for me, so the mojo and my personal juju are back and better for the past years’ wear and tear. How’s it hanging with you? (I know the standard man answer is left : )
SB, great link, that’s going on the email circuit bc he makes a very good point, if enough people send them in a dialogue must begin, I’m on it, I just happen to have small wood shims handy, too, so thank you.
Doug, wish I could say I liked your link, I dislike the cavalier attitude that embodies, I don’t wish bad on anyone but a dose of their own meds might be on order, though empathy is not really a trait you can teach asses like that.
G’nite and let me be the first to say Happy Halloween, bwahahaha…: )
Luv, Zen Lill
October 31st, 2011 at 5:54 am
How to Cook the Perfect Burger
Jonathan Waxman
Hamburgers are among America’s favorite foods, but most people don’t know how to cook them so that they’re juicy on the inside with a great outer crust. Here’s how anyone can make the perfect burger…
Mind the meat: Use ground chuck that is 80% lean/20% fat. Beef that’s leaner than this makes a dry, less tasty burger.
Ask the butcher at the supermarket to grind the meat for you fresh. Your burger is doomed to be flavorless if you use old, tired ground beef.
Prepare patties: Use seven ounces of meat per burger — that’s a little less than a half-pound.
Slap the meat down onto a flat, cold surface (a cold plate will work), and quickly but gently form it into a patty approximately one-inch thick in the center with gently rounded edges.
Season both sides with freshly ground pepper and a dash of coarse salt. If you are not cooking the patties immediately, return them to the fridge (do not freeze).
Warning: Excessive kneading or squeezing packs the meat too tight, resulting in dry, tough burgers.
How to cook the burgers: If you’re cooking burgers in the kitchen, use a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet. Stainless steel is the second-best option.
Add a little bacon fat or olive oil to the skillet, and preheat the pan over a medium-to-medium-high flame for three to four minutes.
Using a spatula, gently slide the patties into the skillet, then just leave them alone. Do not touch them!
Moving the patties reduces their chances of developing that wonderful outer crust that the perfect burger requires.
After three to four minutes, use your spatula to flip the burgers.
Helpful: Check whether the pan appears dry before flipping the burgers to cook on the second side.
If so, add a very small amount of fat or oil — perhaps one-quarter teaspoon — to the spot where each flipped burger is about to be placed. Skip this step if you see fat in the pan already.
If you want a rare burger, cook for two minutes on the second side… for medium rare, cook three minutes… for medium, cook four to five minutes… and if you like your burgers well-done, six to seven minutes.
If you’re cooking outside on a grill, buy a cast-iron solid griddle insert for your barbecue grill instead of using a grate, then cook the burgers on this using the process described above.
This way, you’ll get that great outer crust that you can get only from a skillet or griddle.
This approach also prevents the burgers from sticking to the bars of the grill. If your grill has a lid, keep it open.
Topping and buns: If you’re going to add cheese, do so immediately after cooking the burgers on one side and flipping them.
I love Gruyère on a burger, and cheddar and Monterey jack are fine choices, too. Ideally, if you put cheese on a burger, you should put a metal cover over the burger until the cheese melts properly.
A cooking store might stock something specifically for this purpose, but even a metal loaf pan could do the trick.
Make sure that whatever you use does not seal the pan — your burger will wind up steamed, which won’t taste as good.
Great buns for hamburgers include potato rolls, kaiser rolls, soft baguettes and English muffins.
Buns can be toasted briefly on the skillet/griddle, then lightly buttered.
I like to skip the ketchup in favor of mayonnaise and slices of tomato. Add sliced Vidalia onions, too.
Personal interviewed Jonathan Waxman, chef and owner of Barbuto, a popular restaurant in New York City’s West Village.
Waxman’s legendary restaurant Jams first introduced California cuisine to New York in the 1980s, and famed chef Bobby Flay considers Waxman a mentor.
Waxman is author of A Great American Cook (Houghton Mifflin) and Italian, My Way (Simon & Schuster). http://www.BarbutoNYC.com
October 31st, 2011 at 6:04 am
Michelle, ask Howie why the sudden dumping of more that a foot of snow in my backyard. The talk is that it may have been caused by extraterrestrials.
Many are saying they heard a big boom just before the dump.
Yvone
October 31st, 2011 at 6:10 am
Doug,
I tried to get in to reply to your link. It was appalling. But it shows the mind set of those who are not suffering to those who are.
That is the reason the republican party is doing so well. The wannabes are expecting to be able to dis the down trodden when they are up there so they don’t want to spoil the fun by having regulation.
Sick but true.
Jessica
October 31st, 2011 at 6:16 am
Michelle, that was just one of a million stories of white america getting away with abusing an OTW. There day will come.
I can understand why aliens wouldn’t expose themselves to this planet while whites run it. Who would want to associate with creatures that pretend to be human so they can prey on them?
The first to do that the whites when they emerged from their caves. They brought with them weapons to take what the humans had been enjoying in valleys and jungles of sun.
Now the world is plagued with their “civilization” of capitalists ideas. Which really tells everyone to get rich at the expense of everyone else.
Sarah
October 31st, 2011 at 6:18 am
Love your link Social Butterfly. I will be sending any offers I get with as much junk in them as I can find. To include a profound note expressing my displeasure with their behavior.
Harriet
October 31st, 2011 at 6:21 am
Social Butterfly, wanna bet that soon the federal government will be backing a law preventing us from using those envelopes for anything except for what the banks intend you to put into them.
Remember how the utility companies got the Post Office from accepting envelope sans stamps to prevent customers from sending them payments without stamps.
It’s coming.
Karen
October 31st, 2011 at 6:23 am
Yeah, main dude, there are people who make a living off the misery of others and then there are lawyers who make a living off of making others miserable.
Thanks for that Link.
Larry
October 31st, 2011 at 6:27 am
My question exactly Yvone. But I was going to ask Howie directly.
Howie, what’s up with the sudden dumping of all that snow. The meteorologist I talked to said it was highly suspicious the amount, time and way it came down so unexpectedly.
Chad
October 31st, 2011 at 6:33 am
TIRED OF LIBERALS LYING ABOUT HOW THE SOUTH TREATED ITS SLAVES?
Part of Regnery Publishing’s hugely popular Politically Incorrect Guide™ series, The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Civil War is a joyful myth-busting rebel yell that shatters today’s Leftist and demeaning stereotypes about the South and the Civil War —
and shows why, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, “America and the whole world is crying out for the spirit of the Old South.”
Here, H.W. Crocker III profiles eminent — and colorful — military generals including the noble Lee, the controversial Sherman, the indefatigable Grant, the legendary Stonewall Jackson, and the notorious Nathan Bedford Forrest.
He also includes thought-provoking chapters such as “The Civil War in Sixteen Battles You Should Know” and the most devastatingly politically incorrect chapter of all, “What if the South Had Won.”
Along the way, he reveals a huge number of little-known truths, including why Robert E. Lee had a higher regard for African-Americans than Lincoln did;
how, if there had been no Civil War, the South would have abolished slavery peaceably (as every other country in the Western Hemisphere did in the Nineteenth century); and how the Confederate States of America might have helped the Allies win World War I sooner.
What today’s PC professors refuse to teach about the Civil War:
Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee: Why they believed, and sincerely hoped, that slavery would fade away naturally
The widespread belief among leading Northern abolitionists that the Constitution was “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell”
The Emancipation Proclamation: It didn’t free a single slave — and caused draft riots in the North
How the Federals waged a war against Southern civilians — destroying their crops, their cities, and their homes
The real Robert E. Lee: He considered slavery a political and moral evil and opposed secession — and after the war, a New York newspaper thought he should run for president!
Nathan Bedford Forrest: though allegedly a commander of the Ku Klux Klan, he wanted more free blacks — and Chinese — in the South
How both Grant and Lincoln thought the Mexican War was morally wrong, but had no qualms waging a far bloodier war to deny the South its independence
This is the Politically Incorrect Guide™ that every Civil War buff and Southern partisan — and everyone who is tired of liberal self-hatred that vilifies America’s greatest heroes — will have to have on his bookshelf.
And now, for a limited time, we are making The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Civil War available to you absolutely FREE — just for trying Human Events.
Civil War buffs, southern partisans, and everyone who is tired of liberals vilifying America’s greatest heroes — must have this book on their bookshelf. It shatters and exposes the truth about the South, slavery, and states’ rights.
Get your guide to the Civil War now — it’s FREE for a limited time!
October 31st, 2011 at 6:37 am
I would expect the TAO to object to the agreement reached that we could bring a small tropical storm to Guam to hinder all the reconnaissance flights by the US military in the area.
It is non combative and they can’t shoot the weather. We would like a more developed dialogue other than “NO” by the TAO.
uk7
October 31st, 2011 at 6:53 am
Most of white america feel they can do whatever they want to the OTW because they have the numbers. The smaller the unit that comprise a particular OTW group, the greater the chance that the abuse will horrific.
Hence, they feel that no whites in power will object to their treatment of the Indians in their states. That’s what they mean by STATE’S POWER.
Paula
October 31st, 2011 at 6:58 am
Michelle:
You are so pretty. I often wish I had you beauty, brains and brassiness. You have taken the negative connotations insecure men have given to concept of brassiness and made it a Woman-Up must.
My woman’s group that meets twice monthly, always starts off with minutes of Michelle’ latest Brassy Moment.
Thanks for setting the bar so high.
Lisa
October 31st, 2011 at 7:00 am
Every day I wonder where my two little brothers were kidnapped to.
That was 23 years ago.
Bina
October 31st, 2011 at 9:07 am
Hi Michelle: How are you? About the kidnapping of Native American children and putting them in foster homes for financial and political gain. This practice is horrifying and sickening. This has to be stopped ASAP.
The phrase “the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages” needs to be taken out of the Declaration of Independence as well. Ratified or amended, or however they change such documents, this phrase should be removed. The white men with their manifest destiny are the savages here, ya think? I cannot understand why people are so cruel, other than for greed.
Any suggestions as to what I could do to help? S. Florida has a few Native American tribes. The Seminole and Miccosukee, do you think it is likely that the same thing is happening here?
Thanks,
Al