Remembering Wounded Knee: âI know our fight was worth itâ
Ponca elder Dwain Camp: âWe elders must pass on knowledge gained and time is not on our sideâ
Author:
From left to right, attorney Bill Kunsler, Carter Camp and Dwain Camp (Courtesy image)
Ponca elder Dwain Camp: âWe elders must pass on knowledge gained and time is not on our sideâ
Dwain Camp Ponca elder
Wounded Knee, South Dakota was the site in 1890 of a massacre killing nearly 300 Native women and children by the United States military forces. Not a battle as it has often been called but a well-documented mass murder of unarmed civilians.
State Indian Child Welfare Act Heads To House Floor
NM House Democrats News:
SANTA FE New legislation codifying and expanding protections for Native American children in New Mexico’s child welfare system unanimously passed the House Health and Human Services Committee Friday, and will now head to the House Floor for a full vote.
Sponsored by Rep. Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque), House Bill 209 enacts the State Indian Child Welfare Act (SICWA), creating a New Mexico version of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
This guarantees, and even expands upon, the Act’s protections in New Mexico no matter what happens at the federal level.
211 pages
Review by Nina Knight
“To the missing Native women and all who grieve them.” The preceding dedication is how readers will begin
In the Night of Memory by Linda LeGarde Grover and once they begin, they will not be able to put this heart-wrenching story down. Told from multiple points of view of the Gallette family, this story encompasses numerous voices of Native women across generations and the pain they have endured and continue to endure. Grover does such a superb job detailing the historical and current issues facing tribal communities that this book will soon be a primary text for Native American/Indigenous literature around the world.
February 8, 2021
A bill to keep Native children within their tribe or pueblo when the state separates them from their parents passed the House State Government and Indian Affairs Committee unanimously on Monday.
Sponsored by state Rep. Georgene Louis, D-Albuquerque and of the Acoma Pueblo, HB 209 has overwhelming support from various organizations and Tribal and pueblo governments in the state.
If it becomes law, the bill would codify the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which was passed in the 1970s but is poorly enforced, according to experts. The bill would guide the state Children, Youth and Families Department to notify tribes and pueblos when a child removal occurs and to work with the Tribal community to place a Native child with extended family or friends or foster families within their own sovereign nation.