Campbell Brown let me down.

Recently I had written about the custody case of Talon Larson. (Yesterday?) But I need to bring it up again for two reasons.

First was that I had run across a Newsweek article about Obama and the reaction to his multiracial background. It offered some good points about race and social identity.

But the main thing was what I'm seeing as a double-standard by CNN's Campbell Brown. The first thing I read about Talon Larson was a CNN commentary by Brown published on Tuesday. And then today I read another Brown commentary published on Wednesday that deals with a custody case where a Chinese girl was raised in the U.S. by an American couple for years before the final rulings sent her back to her biological parents in China. What struck me the most was that when discussing the difficult custody situation of the second story she wrote about how, "[Not] every story has a hero and a villain and that right and wrong are always easy to tell apart."

It is great that she realizes this, but I think she realized it a little too late. She seems more than willing to overlook some of the hurt caused to an American couple who raised the Chinese girl for over eight years due to what I assume are the more culturally legitimate seeming issues of non-mixed race, relations with a foreign country (on foreign soil), and the fact that the girl's biological mother is now raising her (as a single mother of three). Yet the day previously, she seemed to have no problem villainizing the Ojibwe Tribe for attempting to carry out its own cultural practices. The main difference? The Talon Larson case is more convoluted for reasons of race, the generally unrecognizable/unrecognized sovereign status of the Tribe, and the fact that the Tribe is acting in an effort to maintain its own cultural sustainability.

I still don't really know whether I would side with the Larsons or the Ojibwe Tribe as to who should have custody of Talon. But I do strongly disagree with the bias shown against the Tribe by Campbell Brown and others. They may not understand or agree with the Tribe's actions and reasoning, but they could certainly show a little more respect instead of implicitly stating that the best possible future for Talon Larson involves being raised in a white family. I'm a little saddened that the prospect of moving a six month-old infant into tribal foster care is such a monstrous prospect compared to the Chinese girl who found herself, at age eight, living with virtual strangers in a foreign country. Oh, and did I mention that she doesn't even speak Chinese?

(As a sidenote, I just read that the Larson's attorney was contacted by the tribe regarding an emergency hearing taking place tomorrow.)

Adoption and the ICWA

I just found out about the Talon Larson adoption controversy going on in Utah where a six month-old baby was ordered to be returned to tribal custody from the parents who had adopted him at birth. Most of the press coverage, both national and local, seems to favor the adoptive parents. Sounds like a difficult situation for all involved and I do feel badly for the adoptive parents. There is certainly a lot of anger right now towards the Ojibwe tribe because of their actions, but I don't share that view at all.

I'm 7/32 Native American and was adopted at birth 30 years ago by white parents. I've definitely had financial and social advantages compared to my half-siblings that were raised by my birth mother; but do they make up for the cultural loss? Hard to say. Although I've probably received a better education and more "stuff," I also dealt with a lot of emotional abuse/trauma from my adoptive parents (who I do consider to be my "real" parents since they raised me). This doesn't mean that all white adoptive parents are bad, or that mine were evil (everyone is human and I do love my parents). But it does mean that seemingly wholesome appearances can be deceiving and that there are also benefits for a child from being raised in his or her own culture. (Granted, Talon is half Mexican, 3/16 Ojibwe, and 5/16 white, which complicates matters further.)

I've been formally enrolled as a member of my tribe for ten years, but still feel separated by distance and mindset. I don't necessarily believe that my life would have been better overall had I been raised by my birth mother or my tribe, but I can say from experience that it has been a struggle to deal with my mixed-race ethnicity and mainstream American upbringing in figuring out my own identity. Even though I was raised knowing about my Karuk heritage, I still had no real connection to that culture. As a young adult it was confusing trying to reconcile the fact that I wasn't entirely white with societal implications that my caucasian background and upbringing were what made me socially acceptable and worthy of praise.

Even now, I face mixed responses from people regarding my legitimacy as a Native person; for instance I've had people tell me that I must "choose" between one or the other (white versus native). But the reality is much more complicated and I don't believe that any sort of "choice" is necessary. I'm not willing to act as a personal battlground in any sort of war between Euro-American and indigenous cultures.

For the Larsons, I feel sadness that their family has been broken. The legal implications of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in this case has created an unfortunate situation. But I don't believe that the Larson's emotional distress should overturn any of the legal protections that the ICWA affords.

I read the Larson's blog about the events and they were aware of the child's ethnicity before the birth. They also knew within a week (and before taking Talon home from the hospital) that the Ojibwe Tribe had requested they deliver the baby to them and intended to fight for custody. As heartbreaking as the situation is to have to give up a child after raising it from infancy for six months, they were aware that the situation might not turn out in their favor and still chose to take him home.

The Larson's and their attorneys raised some really good points about about the ICWA and the Ojibwe's claim to Talon based on his percentage of Indian blood. And yet, the Ojibwe Tribe is a sovereign nation and not always subject to the same laws, rules, and regulations as the rest of the United States. Whether one believes it is right or wrong, that is the legality of the situation.

In the Land of the Slot-Machine Song

Bryn and I took a brief trip up to the Tulalip Casino yesterday (we were bonding). Although they have the best buffet I've been to in the Pacific Northwest, we skipped it in favor of one of their less filling restaurants. I had a salmon burger, because haaaaay, I'm from a salmon tribe! Well, and I wanted one. And it came with authentic Native American french fries.

The casino boasts a recently opened resort hotel. The pictures above are from A) the big hallway outside their meeting rooms for conventions and such, and B) the glamoxurious swimming pool area. The whole place is done well in that "new money" kind of way. And for a casino, it seems fitting. Lots of slick materials combined with abstract representation of water or trees to make it more "authentic" and of course there is the ubiquitous swarm of metal salmon swimming on the ceiling in the first picture I posted. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen some artist throw a few cutout metal salmon in a space and call it, "Pacific Northwest," I'd have my school loans paid off. Ugh. And I won't say anything about the swimming pool area except to say that since it was in a casino and there weren't any humans using the facilities, I kept expecting some white tigers to stroll in at any minute. I mean, it could be worse, but if I'm at a hotel I'd sort of not want to feel like I'm in an exhibit at the zoo while swimming in the pool.

The good news though? We put $40 into some slot machines and walked out with $72. At least we know when to stop, right? No matter, the Seattle Premium Outlets next door gobbled up our money anyhow. But now I have an umbrella and a decent winter scarf. And they were on sale! I love sales!!!

WTF Sobieski?

While searching for a movie to see with Snotty today, I ran across an item titled, "Native American Dreams for Sobieski" on IMDB. Curious, I clicked on it and discovered the following:

30 April 2008 5:13 AM, PDT From wenn.com

Eyes Wide Shut star Leelee Sobieski has a recurring dream in which she's a Native American woman.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed New Yorker insists the dream is so vivid she's often startled when she wakes up and realises she's not hunting in a canoe.

She says, "When I close my eyes and imagine what I look like, I'm completely different.
"I imagine myself as a Native American in a canoe with a papoose around my neck and sitting alongside my warrior husband, my long black hair gliding through the water, my bow and arrow poised to shoot us some dinner.

"(Then) I see my light hair and light eyes and it freaks me out, like, 'Where's my inner Native American? Who took my canoe?'"

...Uhhhhh. Okaaaaaaay. Note to self, if I ever become a public figure I will remember to keep my strange ramblings to myself so that they never appear in the press. Also, I will go easy on the eye shadow. Less is more.

I went to NUIHC and all I got was a travel mug.

Yeah, so I went to the two-day National Urban Indian Health Conference. It was at the Pan Pacific Hotel, which was pretty nice. Lots of textures going on in their meeting rooms as you can see from the above photos. The servers with embroidered satin vests on the first day were rather amusing too...

And while I did get a complimentary travel mug (with the Seattle Indian Health Board logo stamped on it) I also got something more. There were two tracks for attendees to decide between which workshops they wanted to attend: Public Health Strategies or Planning and Management. I went to all of the workshops in the second category and found myself gaining knowledge that had relevance far beyond the realm of Public Health. And I got to do it surrounded mainly by other Native people, which was really interesting. It didn't have a huge turnout, but the people that were there were passionate about providing health services to the American Indian community.

I did come away with statistics:

• For instance, 2% of the population in Washington State is American Indian, while 4.5% of the prison population is recorded as American Indian. The real figure for the prison population is probably higher based on how prisons record racial statistics.
• Over 60% of the Native American population in the U.S. lives in urban areas.
• Between 1954 and 1961, there were 109 tribes that had their federal recognition status legally terminated.

There's more, but I won't go into all the details. I also found out that technically I am a member of Generation X (born 1964-1980) instead of Generation Y (born 1980-1995), although there is some crossover of course.

What am I taking away from all of this? Well, for one thing, it was a good example of how by taking initiative, I am able to do more things. If I hadn't emailed the Associate Director about the possibility of volunteering, I wouldn't have been able to attend the conference. It also further cemented my belief that the American Indian community is in need of new leaders to further the work that is being done by our elders and better ways of communicating amongst separate Tribes and organizations.

I'm a big nerd.

This is how much of a nerd I am:

I ran across a thing online about the National Urban Indian Health Conference being held in Seattle this week and sponsored by the Seattle Indian Health Board. It sounded interesting to me and since I had the two days off, I figured I would see if they needed some volunteer help. That way, I could sit in on some of the lectures perhaps, and also help out. Well, it turned out that there were a few extra spaces available and the lady in charge told me that she would put my name on the list and I was welcome to attend on "scholarship" if I wanted.

So yeah. Instead of taking the next two days that I have off and going somewhere fun or hanging out in the sun, I'll be in a conference room at the Pan Pacific Hotel (at least it's at a nice hotel) listening to people talk about urban health issues for Native Americans. And I'm not unhappy about it in the least.

Cry Me a River

In regards to a conversation I had yesterday with Snotty and Adrian while we were roaming the Olympic Sculpture Park, one of the topics of conversation was the "crying Indian" commercial that played in the 1970's for the Keep America Beautiful campaign.

I remembered that the actor wasn't actually Native American at all, and had to go back and look up the info on him. He was "Iron Eyes" Cody but Wikipedia tells more of the story:

"Cody was born Espera de Corti, a son of Antonio de Corti and his wife Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. In some of his earliest acting credits Cody was listed as Tony de Corti. He would soon change his name and claim to be part Cherokee and part Cree.
In 1996, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported his Sicilian heritage, but Cody denied it at the time because he was "ashamed" of his Italian heritage. Cody and his wife Bertha adopted several children, all Native Americans."

Perhaps he actually was part Native American. But it sure doesn't sound like it. He died in 1999 at the age of 94.