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There’s been a bit of a discussion on my blog about race and about Native 
American children brought into foster care. Who can adopt these children?
In one of the many parenting classes I took, I met a Caucasian family who had several foster and adopted children. One of the children in this family was a Native American Indian – part Cherokee. The child was placed in foster care at birth and the family was trying to adopt the child. When we met these foster parents, the child was two years old and the process was going through the courts.
First, the Cherokee Nation was involved from the start. Was there a way for this child to be returned to the tribal culture?. Was there a relative or another Cherokee who would like to adopt this boy?
It is my understanding that the tribes get involved almost immediately if a native Child gets taken into custody.
Here is what Dr. G found on adoption.com and posted as part of her comment on my post about racism:
“…In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (PL 95-608) became law, seeking to prevent the unwarranted removal of Indian children; ensure that, when they must be removed, they are placed in homes that reflect their culture; and preserve tribes. Although it is unevenly followed and enforced, it has solidified the power Indian families and tribes have over the placement of their children…”
For me that is the difference. If you know and understand UPFRONT that this child will be taken and returned to their race and culture to be adopted- I find this to be more acceptable. What I find a tough pill to swallow is when a foster family of any race has a chlid with the understanding they may be able to adopt but then the child is taken away because of race.
In our county, and I think other places in the west, the Indian Child Welfare Act is followed and enforced when possible.
By the way; the couple did get to adopt the Cherokee child after almost three years.
Am I missing something? What do you think?
P.S. I belive that to qualify as a Native American Indian Child, the child must be at least 1/8 Indian.
Please comment below or to fostadoptblog@adoptionmail.com
And just for fun, here is a bio about a famous Native American (possible foster adoption) Taken from Adoption.com
Campbell, Ben Nighthorse
1933-Native American politician, sportsman, and artist
Campbell is part Portuguese, Northern Cheyenne (and has been inducted into their council of chiefs) and possibly also Apache and Pueblo, a rancher and horse trainer, jewellery designer, judo champion and politician.His birth mother was Portuguese and his birth father Native American, of several tribes, including Northern Cheyenne.
He has been US judo champion three times, won the Pan-American Games gold medal for judo in 1963 and captained the US judo team at the 1964 Olympics; he has also written a judo training manual. He entered the Colorado state legislature in 1982, the US House of Representatives in 1987 and the US Senate in 1992; he is the only Native American currently (1998) in Congress.
His adoption or fostered status is unsure. He appears on several lists of famous adoptees, but other sources do not confirm this. Vance Opperman said on 14 April 1997, (reported in http://www.amexp.org/publications/adoption/adoption1.htm): “The senator speaks personally and very movingly of his experience with his foster family and credits them with much, if not all, of his success.” Another source, http://bioc09.uthscsa.edu/natnet/archive/nl/9308/0284.html, states: “Campbell … was raised in a Catholic orphanage.” The article in Current Biography Yearbook states that his mother had TB and his father was an alcoholic, and the strain of working and raising the family was too much for her. She placed the children (Ben and his older sister) in an orphanage in Sacramento in 1939. During the 1940s she reclaimed them. His own official biography for the US Senate does not mention anything relevant about his childhood.
The National Adoption Information Clearinghouse lists him as an adoptive parent, but I have not found any independent confirmation of this.
