RELIGION & ADOPTION: ICWA with Dr. Courtney Lewis

In which Dr. Courtney Lewis shares her expertise and personal experience with the writing of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Dr. Lewis is Crandall Family Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and the Inaugural Director of the Native American Studies Initiative at Duke University, as well as an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

If you want to follow and boost more Native creators, Dr. Lewis recommends: Red House Project, IllumiNative, A Tribe Called Geek, Mocs and Comics, Indigenous Food Lab, NDN Girls Book Club, NDN Collective, and several more!

As always, check out keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more.

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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.

Episode Transcript

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:17):
This is keeping it 101, a killjoys,
Introduction to religionpodcast, which is part of the
amplify podcast network, we aregrateful to live teach and
record on the current ancestraland unceded lands of the Abenaki
and Wabanaki peoples, as well asthe lands of one federally
recognized native nation, theEastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, and seven NorthCarolina state recognized tribal
entities. Increasingly, though,native folks are pushing us to

(00:39):
forgo land acknowledgementsaltogether and focus on action
items. So let's start with landback. And as always, you can
find material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
website.

Megan Goodwin (00:49):
What's up? Nerds?
Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, ascholar of American religions,
race, gender and politics.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:55):
Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein
Furst, a historian of religion,Islam, race and racialization
and South Asia banter.

Megan Goodwin (01:02):
Ready go?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:04):
Yeah, we're in. We're I wanted to
start us off strong in thebanter, but you will notice that
I couldn't even write it becauseof the horrors, because of the
impending horrors,

Megan Goodwin (01:13):
very many horrors. So there were just too
many atrocities. So here we aredoing, doing some atrocity
recording. Hello, nerds. How areyou?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:26):
I mean, we're doing the atrocity
like I need to just we are notcommitting atrocities for the

Megan Goodwin (01:33):
record, violence, perhaps reporting on

Ilyse Morgenstein F (01:36):
atrocities, particularly around the baby
industry, the

Megan Goodwin (01:40):
baby trade the baby scoop era, yeah. Wowie.
Wowie. Okay, well, you knowwhat? Rather than trying to
pretend everything's fine, let'sjust get into it. It's fine
today, nerds, we are talkingabout child removal, child
theft, honestly, the IndianChild Welfare Act and native
communities. And as a specialtreat, we are joined later in

(02:02):
the episode by the director andfounder of the Duke Native
American Studies Initiative andenrolled member of the Cherokee
Nation cultural anthropologistexpert Dr Courtney Lewis. Dr
Lewis will help us situate theICWA in the broader context of
adoption Native American historyand experiences her own life and
lineage and, of course,religion,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:23):
yes, you will. Dr Lewis is a rock
star, like a for real, verifiedrock star, and her connections
to the Indian Child Welfare Act,which, frankly, a lot of folks
will abbreviate i, c, W, A,nerds, but other folks pronounce
as if it's a word like ICWA,back and forth between I-C-W-A

(02:43):
and ICWA [ick-wah], but bothmean the Indian Child Welfare
Act, and Dr Lewis is going tochat with us about it, which
feels like such a boon, and weare just so grateful that she's
like, literally lending us hervoice. But before we get
started, Goodwin, yes, I want tobe really clear with our
listeners, as we have been thisentire series, a lot of what we

(03:05):
have to say today about Nativechildren, adoption and religion
is going to sound and feelfrankly dystopic and harsh
extreme, because those are justThe facts of what we're doing,
except that this toxic sludgeis, is, realistically all of

(03:26):
those things it does. It feelsthat way, those it is. These are
harsh and extreme histories thatwe have to talk about. Yeah,
because this is also arepresentative way, a typical
way, that adoption and andreligion are related, absolutely
for Native Americans. Butfrankly, this system is not
limited just to NativeAmericans. So this is a example

(03:50):
within a toxic system.

Megan Goodwin (03:52):
Yeah, yeah, the whole system is bad. I we were
just talking about this. Ithought I knew how bad. And then
we did this little mini series,and I was like, Oh, I don't
actually fucking know anythingabout how bad this was. And I
thought it was really bad tostart. So that's been hopeful
and jarring and reallydepressing, but yeah, the extent

(04:16):
to which the United States ofAmerica has tried to just
straight up erase native peopleis so tied up in the way that it
is also straight up stolennative children. So I was, I was
really glad that Dr Lewis agreedto speak with us also. I just
think she's, she's neat. I loveher. So yeah, there, there's no

(04:36):
escaping how brutal and inhumanethe treatment of indigenous
peoples in what are now theAmericas slash Turtle Island has
been like, there's just

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (04:45):
that we can't pussyfoot, that there
is no avoiding it if we aregoing to be good historians,
scholars, citizens, neighborsand people with ethics, we have
to name it for what it is, andit is bottom of the barrel,
genocidal. By horror, violence,

Megan Goodwin (05:01):
just and the treatment of children, the
rendering of children asguardian less or parent less is
is no exception here. I just thethat said. We've been arguing
throughout the series thatadoption and religion and
religious freedom are allrelated, and we want you, dear
nerds, to hear us when we saythat the example of native
children and adoption slashchild trafficking is a perfect

(05:25):
example for us to delve into,because of its extremity and the
way it fully, whollyencapsulates the problem.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:31):
Yeah, look, a good case study
illustrates the problem reallywell, and so we're fortunate
that Dr Lewis is going to helpus contextualize and situate and
also make sense of the horrorsof this. Because, like, frankly,
Goodwin, what would keeping itone on one episode be without
horror

Megan Goodwin (05:50):
brand? We do. We need a better brand.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (05:55):
Keeping it one on one colon, horrors,
but in light of the horrors, Iwant to just start our nerds off
with some serious contentwarnings today, over and above
the ones we've done in thiswhole series. Because for many
of us, these are triggeringissues, which doesn't mean you
shouldn't listen. It just meansyou should be prepared to do so

(06:16):
if you choose to. Yeah, Dr Lewisand we, as well as we frame up
with Dr Lewis, has to say, we'lltalk about things like but not
limited to terrorism, genocide,Family and Child removal,
medical violence against women,violence against Native people,
and abuse as well as murder.
Yeah, listen carefully to whatDr Lewis has to teach us, of

(06:37):
course, and to how damaging thishistory is but also to your own
bodies as you respond to this,

Megan Goodwin (06:44):
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's intense. Take breaks to the
horrors. So Dr Lewis and I had areally great conversation. So I
want to prioritize that as themain like focus of this episode.

(07:06):
I

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (07:06):
totally agree this is super wise. What
we need to do then is to makesure our nerds are ready to
listen to this in depthconversation about religion,
adoption and native butespecially American Indian
histories. What

Megan Goodwin (07:18):
good teaching. I love that I love that we're
setting up our listeners tounderstand the historical
context and the broaderramifications of this amazing
just yeah, I'm still I've beenthinking about this conversation
that Courtney and I had for amonth now. It's just Yes, okay,
so historical context, broaderramifications, etc. Here goes.

(07:39):
We're going to give a briefoverview of how Native children
and their redistribution to nonnative families works, present
tense, because this isabsolutely ongoing. We have a
whole section of our book, whichis called religion is not done
with you, available in Novemberthrough Beacon Press. You can

(07:59):
pre order it now. We're also anaudiobook, very excited, but we
have a whole section of our bookthat talks about the Doctrine of
Discovery, as well as itsramifications on and for native
peoples. The very, very shortversion of this is that the
Catholic Church states, in nouncertain terms, that all native
peoples globally should beconverted, enslaved, more,

(08:20):
sexually assaulted, raped. Theirland should belong to the
Christians doing the saving. TheChristians are saved, and they
are doing the saving, theconverting, the enslaving and
the raping.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:32):
Yeah?
And nerd, that sounds like hypeharbor Lee, but it is not. It's
we have the documents, yeah, todemonstrate

Megan Goodwin (08:38):
it, yeah. No, they were real proud of all the
work that they were doing. So,yeah, it's great. It's great.
Yeah, it is not hyperbole atall. Yeah. Anyway, that late
1400 set of decrees sets upbolsters and authorizes the
white Christian supremacyinherent in European imperialism
later, imperialism is lessexplicitly about Christianity

(09:00):
and saving souls, though thatnever disappears. It just kind
of goes under the radar and moreabout civilizing. So you know
the story, nerds and I wouldhope that you know that this
means things like kill theIndian to save the man, which is
a literal quote from a literalschool head, literally removing
native children from theirfamilies, with the explicit goal

(09:21):
of stamping out and killingnative culture.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (09:25):
And to be clear, nerds, this is
genocide full stop, and it wasnot understood as anything else
at the time, even if thelanguage of genocide
historically comes later. Here'swhat I mean by that, the
architects of the residentialschool program, people like
Richard Henry Pratt, who livesfrom 1840 to 1924 this bro and

(09:47):
his ilk explicitly saw theremoval of children from their
homes and placement intoresidential schools like the one
he ran, the Carlisle IndianIndustrial School in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania. Know, as a way tofix native peoples make zero
mistakes. Goodwin nerds Make nomistake. He saw this as a way to

(10:09):
save Native Americans. He was atthe same time as he led this
school of genocidal abuse, arather prominent critic of
racial segregation in the UnitedStates, he truly thinks he's
doing good. His ideas were oftenseen as progressive, but the

(10:31):
pipeline of children out ofNative families and into these
residential, whiteing up schoolswas exported from Pennsylvania
across the country explicitly asa way to dislocate native
peoples from the land andtherefore colonize it, as well
as a way to de Indian, so tospeak, the people, which is in

(10:56):
turn, a murder of the claims Tothe land and the culture of the
land. So this is genocidal andit's Imperial, yeah, and I want
to be clear about the genocideof it all, because in
contemporary discourse, we arehaving a moral crisis about what
counts as a genocide, spoilers,when you eliminate an entire
population from their place andalso kill their children,

(11:18):
because maybe one day they'll beterrorists. That's genocide.
Gonna be a genocide for me, bro,per the 1948 un definitions of
genocide, the native removal andremoval of children from native
homes is also genocide. Yeah,let me quote for you, Megan,
because I wouldn't be ahistorian for that document,
that primary source quote, theConvention on the Prevention and

(11:39):
Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide. Article like double ie
recognizes quote, forciblytransferring children of the
group to another group. Endquote as a form of genocide that
was published by the UN in 1948as part of the Geneva
Conventions. So Goodwin, thatseems like it should be a mic

(12:00):
drop, but sadly, there is moreobviously actions in the 1800s
aren't informing the 1948 undefinition of genocide, that's
that's Nazi inspired, right,right, right, right. But I
specifically want to use thelanguage of genocide, because
when we talk about declaringparents unfit, when we talk
about removing children from ahome when we define abuse as

(12:23):
against the state, and quote,racially inferior people raising
racially inferior children. End,quote, I really hope it makes
clearer for our nerds that thehistory of adoption is
problematic at best, sinister,if we're being honest, and
genocidal at worst, yeah,

Megan Goodwin (12:45):
yeah,

Unknown (12:48):
yeah. Again,

Megan Goodwin (12:49):
I just keep coming back to I already thought
this was really bad, and itturns out it's just so very much
worse than I realized. Yeah. Sookay, to recap across what's now
the US and Canada, to saynothing of other settler
colonial contexts like NewZealand and Australia, native
children were removed from theirimmediate family, removed from
their extended family, removedfrom their communities, and

(13:11):
relocated into care homes,schools and programs with the
express written goal of removingand eradicating their
nativeness. Those children werethen often expressly
purposefully adopted out towhite families, as in, there
were laws and policies andfucking marketing campaigns
stating that white families werethe only fit parents, and

(13:32):
therefore these poor, sad nativechildren needed to be raised by
those good white, presumablyChristian families marketing
campaigns, puff pieces and goodhousekeeping about how allegedly
unwanted native children whoneeded nice Christian families
to show them God's love. Whathappens when you do a genocide,

(13:55):
when you erase wholegenerations? Well, one thing
about a genocide is it sure doesfree up some land, so yeah, all
of which is to say children areand were pawns in a set of
campaigns deliberately gearedtoward removing native
sovereignty, and a primary wayof doing that was through

(14:19):
adopting out trafficking nativechildren into white Christian
families full stop. Not goodhousekeeping. Motherfucker.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (14:27):
It came with pictures, of course,
I'm gonna link to it in the shownotes. It's really devastating.
Yes, it's really devastating.
And then it became a fad. Solike, we'll recommend a lot of
the books that I go to on this,but it became a fad, so that in
the 1950s and early 1960s a waythat specifically white families

(14:48):
in the Midwest and often Mormonfamilies, yes, like LDS
families, it was a badge of.
Good religion and goodcitizenry. Like, look at how
well I treat my neighbor tolike, have own rear a native

(15:13):
child and like good one. Look.
There's literally no talkingabout the last 150 200 years of
US history without also talkingabout its violence against
American Indians and nativepeoples among, like all other
non white, non Christians. Yeah,this is a racist nation like
this is just what it is, yeah.
But I want to be clear here thatour point is not our normal

(15:36):
imperialism ramp rant. It is tofocus on the ongoing use of
children and families as a wayto destroy a culture. Yeah, and
I need everyone to hear me thatthe white Christian saviorism
inherent in modern adoption,even the ones that are not like
a full Social Work raid on areservation the regular way that

(16:00):
we get people into adoptivesystems is the driving mechanism
through which native people findtheir families destroyed, their
bodies sterilized, and theirchildren literally purchased
out.

Unknown (16:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Dr Lewis is an economist
first and foremost. So the partwhere she said that native
babies were the most dearlytraded commodity in the adoption
racket. Really. Woof, woof,yeah. Okay, well, I guess this

(16:36):
is as good a place as any towelcome Dr Courtney Lewis to the
podcast. But before we do, Iwant to highlight and just I can
scream about the data that DrLewis presents throughout our
conversation. Since, did yougloss over the horrors? Again?
My, my little adopter. Reno, thething is, I'm concerned that you

(16:57):
did. Actually. I'm concernedthat that was the like light
gloss on the horrors. Okay, allright, okay, okay. I can do
this. We can

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (17:07):
do this. Guides here, like we
gotta, we gotta be the sturdy

Unknown (17:12):
leaders. Okay, God, remember when I found out that
Lewis and Clark were nepotismhires, like they're Nepo babies.
I just America's not great, likeit's just not great. I don't
know if we've talked about thatbefore, but I feel like we
should maybe come back to it anyhoodle Courtney and I mostly
talked about mid 20th century totoday, ranging across programs
and policies related to theIndian Child Welfare Act and its

(17:34):
related laws and context. Shetaught me and I will never be
okay again. That upwards of twothirds, two thirds of native
children, all native children,were removed from native homes
during this period. So like tosay nothing of before the mid
20th century. By by the timelike my parents were going to

(17:57):
grade school, two thirds ofnative children were being
stolen from their families,yeah, and then farmed out to
white families, and again,largely white Christian
families. Around the same timethis program of relocation was
going on, upwards of a quarter,25% of native women and girls

(18:18):
were being sterilized, oftenwithout their overwhelming,
without their consent, and oftenwithout their knowledge, even
Yeah, so I can't map that math.
I can't I can't, it broke mybrain and my soul. But I know
that two thirds of nativechildren being removed from
their families, plus one quarterof native people able to have
babies being forcibly alteredagainst their will so that they

(18:42):
cannot have babies. Equalsgenocide that Yeah, and I know
that the baby trade is a majorpart of that termination
strategy.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (18:52):
Yeah, there's just no way around it.
Yeah. Goodwin, before weactually queue up. Dr Lewis, I
want to make sure that ourlisteners understand. ICWA, so
can we? Can we do? Like a briefdefinition of the ICWA?

Unknown (19:03):
Yes, yes, yes, yeah.
Okay. So ICWA, ICWA, IndianChild Welfare Act, is a US
federal law passed in 1978 Iwant to say that again, 1978
which is one me ago, the year ofmy birth, equals the year when
the United States of Americadecided to stop trying to
genocide native people actively,still, at least by baby trade,

(19:26):
yeah. Just, just well and theIndian when we get under the
Religious Freedom Act, but like,but yeah. So federal policy
until one me ago was you need tostop being so Indian, please,
and we will be taking all yourland. Thanks. Thanks. ICWA is a
response to anti native laws inthe mid 20th century that
allowed for child removal. TheIndian Child Welfare Act

(19:48):
essentially allows native peoplejurisdiction, sovereignty, one
might say, over the removal ofAmerican Indian children from
their families in custody fostercare and adoption cases. So.
Most important part about ICWAis that it gives tribal
governments exclusivejurisdiction over children who
reside on or who are domiciledon a reservation. It's important
that our nerds hear the wordgovernments hear Native people

(20:12):
have sovereignty. ICWA helpsprotect that sovereignty in a
similar way to how nation statescan set the terms for how
international adoptionfunctions. ICWA helps protect
that sovereignty in two ways.
First, it bars the US governmentfrom just coming onto native
lands and taking nativechildren, as they had been doing

(20:32):
for generations. But it alsoestablishes that Native nations
have the right to make decisionsabout how to raise their
children. So it's not justNative families are entitled to
these kids. First, it's thatNative nations get to determine
how Native children grow up andwho gets to care for them. Dr
Lewis gets into all of this, butthe TLDR of all of this is that

(20:53):
ICWA is a federal law thatstopped the hemorrhaging of
children from Native families,and especially native children
on reservations, again, as DrLewis is about to teach us, two
fucking thirds. Two thirds ofnative children were stolen from
Native families and nativenations. The Indian Child

(21:14):
Welfare Act was an attempt tostop the steal.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:16):
Yeah.
On that note, let's hear fromdirector and founder of the Duke
Native American StudiesInitiative, enrolled member of
Cherokee Nation, culturalanthropologist and expert, Dr
Courtney Lewis, about ICWA,religion, Native Americans,
adoption and, of course,horrors.

Megan Goodwin (21:48):
We are now recording for keeping it 101 at
killed rose, Introduction toreligion. Podcast. I'm here with
Dr Courtney Lewis, who is myfriend and is also a smart lady
and has personal andprofessional history with the
Indian Child Welfare Act. So DrLewis, thank you so much for
joining us. We're really excitedthat you're here, and if you

(22:10):
could just introduce yourself toour nerds.

Courtney Lewis (22:14):
Absolutely it is my pleasure to be here and test
distinguished company. I am abig fan. And thank you so much
for inviting me to talk withyou. So I'm Dr Courtney Lewis. I
am the Crandall family AssociateProfessor in the Department of
Cultural Anthropology at DukeUniversity. I'm also the

(22:37):
inaugural director for theNative American Studies
Initiative at Duke.

Megan Goodwin (22:41):
They are so fancy. This is very exciting.
There is no reason that ourlisteners would know this, but
you and I took a very cool classon theories of the undead
approximately 1 million yearsago, and we have been friends
for approximately 1 millionyears. And I am really excited,
because I think this is ourfirst like official professional
collaboration.

Courtney Lewis (23:02):
It is, it is for us. I do love that for us.

Megan Goodwin (23:07):
So hey, Dr Lewis, it is my understanding, which I
found out completely by accidentlast week, that you have both
personal and professionalhistory with the writing of the
ICWA. So what do you want totell us about that

Courtney Lewis (23:21):
I do. So the Indian Child Welfare Act is an
Act that was passed in 1978 andmy dad was one of the folks that
helped write this act. What?

Megan Goodwin (23:35):
How did that happen? I like, I still, my mind
is still so blown at the synergyof that, because I only by
accident, mentioned that we weredoing all of this adoption work.
So like, this is, this is anamazing story. Sorry. Go ahead,

Courtney Lewis (23:47):
it's just meant to be. It's meant to be. It's
for sure. And I think I shouldstart by saying in a fairly
crude way, to be clear,

Megan Goodwin (23:58):
that is our brand.

Courtney Lewis (24:00):
I love it in the US world of baby trafficking and
sales industry, American Indianbabies have and still fetch the
most money, and that'simportant. So this stealing and
selling of high worth babies isalso just about as American as
it gets. Right. It intersectsthese values of capitalism,

(24:23):
individualism with variousongoing genocidal effects. So to
understand the adoption, youalso have to understand what
else was happening at the timeof the Indian adoption project.

Megan Goodwin (24:35):
Yeah, yes, please and thank you. Hey, what was
happening in 1978 around I don'tknow indigenous sovereignty and
the American Indian Movement.
And also I don't know, like yourdad, what's up?

Unknown (24:50):
So at the time, just a very brief history. We're
moving, at that time from whatwas the termination era. So this
is the era when the federalgovernment was. Terminating the
governmental bodies of Nativenations in order to take their
land. And so as we're movingthrough that termination period
into self determination, we havethis Indian adoption project

(25:14):
come in in 1958 so this isreally straddling the line. It
officially ends in 67 but itslegacy continues, and this was a
project funded by a federalcontract from the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the USChildren's Bureau, administered
by the Child Welfare League ofAmerica. And just to sum up and

(25:36):
make this quick, basically theidea was to send social workers
onto reservations to declarefamilies incompetent or unsafe,
and then remove the babies andput them into the foster care
program, specifically with whitebabies. And again, this is under
the auspice of removing themfrom poverty. So between 69 and

(26:00):
74 nearly a third and someestimate almost as high as two
thirds, if we include urbanareas of all American Indian
children were removed. Jesusreservations at that time.

Megan Goodwin (26:12):
Sorry, but literally, Jesus, though, wow,
yes.

Unknown (26:16):
So this, obviously,

Megan Goodwin (26:19):
I'm sorry. I just like, Can you, can you just
that? Can we do the numbers onemore time? So like, somewhere
between 1/3 and two thirds ofnative children were being
removed from Native families andhouseholds. Exactly.

Unknown (26:33):
Those are the numbers.
That's bad.

Megan Goodwin (26:35):
Those numbers are bad. Sorry, sorry.

Unknown (26:39):
They're Always Worse than you think,

Megan Goodwin (26:41):
yeah, but, like, so much so that's most of the
chip that's like most of thechildren. Fuck okay, I'm
ignorant. Okay, great. Pleasecontinue to teach me

Unknown (26:55):
things. So of course, this is the point. Yeah, right.
This is the whole point. And Iwant to put a pause in that and
come back to what else was goingon at the time, because it's
very relevant. So this is what'shappening all across the
country, and at the time it wasbeing championed by the federal
government as this greatmovement forward in civil rights

(27:19):
American Indians. Witnesses.

Megan Goodwin (27:22):
Wait so native people are having their children
taking away for civil rights,correct?

Unknown (27:29):
Because we are helping the children out of poverty.
Okay? Now, let's note that thereason the children are in
poverty is because of thefederal government to begin
with, right? Remember, we'rejust coming off of yet another
termination era which has againimpoverished and taken land from
Native nations. So we hear thisa lot, right? You impoverish

(27:51):
people and then you use theimpoverishment to punish them,
yep, yep, yeah. So that's where,that's part of where we were

Megan Goodwin (28:00):
at that right?
Great, super, great country.

Courtney Lewis (28:04):
So obviously, we have a lot of American Indian
people coming together aboutthis. We have lawyers, we have
activists, we have professorslike my dad. Now, my dad had a
very specific and kind ofintimate involvement with this
because he was also the firstAmerican Indian to get a PhD in
Social Work, and he was workingon the ground at the time with

(28:30):
foster families and foster kids.
So I'll back up a little bit andkind of give you the context of
how controversial this act was,yeah, and the best way to
explain that is just by statingthat the first death threat I
received by white terrorists waswhen I was three years old.

Megan Goodwin (28:54):
So specifically, because your dad was doing this
work, correct?

Unknown (28:58):
So my dad told me, as I got older, that when he was
putting the act through Congressso it hadn't been passed yet, he
walked to his office one day atthe University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee, and he walked intohis office to find his assistant
in tears, just sobbing overthese letters that she was

(29:22):
sorting for him now, to give alittle bit more context, she was
a Holocaust survivor who hadfled with her family from Poland
so she had seen atrocities thatmost people will never even have
to imagine. She told my dad thathe had been receiving violent
death threats from people whoheld a stake in kidnapping

(29:44):
Indian children. But that wasn'tthe thing that terrified her, it
was that this particular batchof letters threatened me and my
older sister, who was 12 yearsold at the time, threatened our
lives by saying that they wouldcome and take his. Children just
like he was trying to do tothem, right? So these are

(30:04):
specifically white terrorists.

Megan Goodwin (30:06):
Yeah, they're very specifically white
terrorists who are claiming tolove children so much that they
are threatening the lives ofchildren, correct?

Unknown (30:16):
So at that time, my dad had always been an activist.
This was part of his journey andnow mine. He did not even look
at the letters. He quietly tookthem, he crumpled them up, he
threw them away without readingthem. So he knew that
terrorism's powers and terror soyes, he had met with leaders

(30:40):
such as Dr King, he knew thatthese were not idle threats, and
they were not

Megan Goodwin (30:46):
sorry. Can you, can we pause for a second in the
last Oh, yeah, my dad hung outwith Martin Luther King, sure,
but you know, I just did like Iknew your dad was a big deal,
but I don't think that I had agood idea of the scope of his
work or his legacy. So I amreally glad that we're, we're
getting to learn about thistoday. And also I feel like a

(31:06):
dumbass, because, wow, he fancyWell,

Unknown (31:09):
I mean, to be fair, my dad was a very humble person. He
did not write up hisexperiences. He didn't really
talk about his experiences. Hewould talk to me about these
experiences, but it wasn'tsomething that he talked about a
lot, and definitely notsomething that he published on,
just as kind of his personalityand his values, right? So not

(31:33):
many people do know about thisstuff, and yes, I am going to be
writing this stuff up at somepoint. Yeah. So you know his,
his whole thought process was,you do what you can to protect
you and your family, but alsowhile protecting all of the
Indian country's babies. And hewas never swayed. And to be

(31:54):
fair, I am still alive. Yeah?

Megan Goodwin (31:59):
So good job.
What's up? You? Kind of

Unknown (32:06):
continuing on with this, with this thread of the
things that really spurred himon into this position, which was
very dangerous. Again, thesethreats are not idle. We we see
Malcolm X, we see Dr King. It'shappening at the time these
movements begin to start workingtogether. So to be American

(32:27):
Indian Movement, along withBlack Panthers, along with
broader civil rights movements,are all kind of coming together.
So I was always very close withmy dad. We have very similar
personalities, very similardispositions, for better or
worse. And when I was young, wewould walk to his office at UWM

(32:50):
together. I would stay with himwhile I worked and talk. So
that's all to say that this iswhat I grew up with. So I grew
up remembering pretty vividlyhim testifying in Congress. So I
was literally sitting next tohim for one of those, and it's
still a very fresh memory ofhearing a congressman. And even
at that time, I knew this was avery well intentioned thing, but

(33:16):
it was a bit of a racist praisethat to his race he was and I
watched my dad graciously acceptthat, right? So I it really
steered a path for me on how towork within these worlds. But it
was really after my parentsdivorce where I started learning

(33:38):
more about what was really goingon with my dad. So after the
divorce, I lived with him. I gotolder, and he got more
comfortable sharing with me themore disturbing stories of his
time in the field that led himto help write ICWA. And there
was one very defining moment inhis life as a social worker that

(34:00):
was the catalyst for all of hisfuture work. So he told me that
he was called in as many socialworkers were and are to check on
a report of child abuse at afoster home. When he arrived,
the Mormon foster family wasattempting to beat the brown out

(34:20):
of American Indian boy that theywere fostering. So this, this
young boy's heinous crime, intheir eyes, was that he had
taken the family car for a juryride around the block, which
went fine, and it was parkedback in the driveway.

Megan Goodwin (34:35):
Okay? So he did a good thing.

Unknown (34:38):
He did a kid thing. But in Mormon culture, at that time,
the darkness of someone's skincorresponded to their
sinfulness, and it's not

Megan Goodwin (34:50):
yet I like I I recently learned that Lamanite
still gets tossed around a lot,slash occasionally Lamanite
referring to people of color.
Other slash Also, apparentlystill gets used in like Mormon
bakeries to indicate that darkercookies, like the chocolate
cookies, get sold, not hashtag,not all Mormons. This doesn't
happen everywhere, but I wasreally shocked to hear that it's

(35:12):
still very much operatingcirculated, yeah, in Mormon
cultures, in some Mormoncultures, exactly.

Courtney Lewis (35:21):
And additionally, it's really
important to note that AmericanIndians were considered one of
their, quote, lost tribes ofIsrael. Yeah, yeah. So at the
time, it was literally their jobto take these children back into
the fold and whiten them intoheaven. Yes, right, yes. So my

(35:42):
dad looked at this young kid,he's beaten, he's bruised, he's
terrified, he's crying, and mydad immediately took the boy's
arm and left the house with him,and that's the moment where he
said, Never again. Yeah, notjust to that family's ability to
abuse native children, but toall of the abuse that these

(36:04):
kidnapped children were sentinto. Right? So that's when he
started the work of thinkingabout how to return all the
babies to their families andcommunities. His goal was every
single child that had beenstolen from every anguished
mother's arms, which is nothyperbole. I mean, social
workers had been, you know,tearing babies from their

(36:26):
mothers and families anddelivering them into abusive
white homes for years, decades.
Yeah.

Megan Goodwin (36:32):
And you, you had said too when we talked about
this before, thatoverwhelmingly, the native
children were being placed inwhite Christian households, and
especially Mormon households.
Yes,

Courtney Lewis (36:43):
absolutely. I mean, the Indian adoption
projects specified that thesechildren would be put into white
homes. Yeah, right. And Mormonswere, of course, the first to
step in line with this. And Iwant to pause just a minute
here, because while it's truethat, you know, these these

(37:04):
babies are being kidnapped andtaken forcefully from their
mothers, I don't want to furthera narrative that there are good
moms and families and bad momsand families on this kind of
stagnant binary. So it was notjust about parents. It's not
whether someone a good parent ora bad parent. That's really
aside the point of what ICWAit's about a nation, a

(37:28):
government of people, right? Sothe point of an outside adoption
is to ultimately destroy Nativenations and claim their land. So
it's always about land. If youever want to know what's going
on with natives in conflict?
It's going to be about the land.
Yeah, so ICWA, what that reallydid is reinforces the native

(37:49):
nation rights that any nationhas, which is to determine how
best to raise its children. Soif the parents are determined to
be incapable for any reason, thenative nation under ICWA seeks
out first the immediate familyfor fostering, then the extended
family, then the community tooffer support. So in that way,

(38:13):
native nations hold true togovernmental and community
values and responsibilities tocare for children and their
parents, because this is alsoabout caring for the family at
large, because we're keepingfamilies together. So under
ICWA, children are going to growup loved. They're going to grow
up knowing themselves. They'regoing to know that they are

(38:33):
worthy human beings, just asthey are, and they're going to
learn how to be caring communitymembers for their people. And
that's just what these group ofICWA creators and activists
enable.

Unknown (38:45):
So the idea, just to make sure that I'm hearing this
right, is rather than thinkingabout individual families as
like independent units thatdon't necessarily have ties to
broader communities or broadernations, ICWA helps make sure
that Native nations can continueto invest in their communities

(39:07):
and their futures, because theywill have futures because they
get to hold on to the kids, evenif they move in between
individual families, correct.

Courtney Lewis (39:16):
So ICWA is really honoring the fact that
for most native peoples, wethink in terms of broader
community. And these adoptionsare very much an individualistic
philosophy, right, which, again,is a core basis for American
values. So we're taking, you

Unknown (39:33):
mean, capitalism? What?
What?
That's shocking. Megan,shocking. I
know capitalism happening herewith children, children being
traded like commodities, thedevil. You sit, I just, I'm
still really stuck on nativebabies being the pricit, or like
the most valuable,oh yeah, they're the, they're

(39:54):
the pricit. That's, that's thecorrect so i. Great, I do too.
Oh,

Megan Goodwin (40:03):
I bet, I bet you.

Unknown (40:07):
So, yeah, ICWA is about child welfare, but it's also
about reinforcing thesovereignty of Native nations to
care for their citizens on themost basic level, which is to
care for their own children,which is something that had not
been honored before. And thisisn't anything new. Of course,

(40:27):
America's mythology is beingfunded on religious freedom, but
American Indians needed theirown Indian Religious Freedom
Act, which didn't come until theself determination era, right?
So this is not unusual. Let me

Megan Goodwin (40:39):
just check my history here, because this is
not my strongest suit, but Ibelieve, if I'm remembering
correctly, that the, oh, Iforget what the acronym is, but
the native Religious Freedom Actis also 1978 Yeah,

Unknown (40:52):
correct. And again, not an accident, because we have a
whole bunch of acts being passedat that time. So by the time we
get into 78 we're into the selfdetermination era. And this is
when we have the Indian CivilRights Act being passed, the
Indian Child Welfare Act, theIndian Religious Freedom Act,
all going through becausespecifically of the activism of

(41:17):
native folks, and that'sprofessionals and on the ground
activism,

Megan Goodwin (41:21):
right? Because we're only five years out from
the second Wounded Knee action,right at this point, it is not,
it is not just that the USsuddenly started feeling
benevolent toward native peopleafter trying to kill them for
like several centuries, therehad been a ton of legal
activism, but also like directaction to really insist on

(41:44):
native sovereignty.

Unknown (41:46):
So one of the interesting things about the
Indian adoption project, andthen it's continuous, or it's
how it continued for at least adecade after that, was that at
the exact same time, there'salso the sterilization project
going on. So not only are wetaking babies from mothers, but

(42:10):
we're also sterilizingspecifically and of course, this
is going on with other brownfolks around the country. It's
going on with the blackcommunity, the Mexican
community, but for AmericanIndian, specifically in North

Megan Goodwin (42:27):
Carolina, where we both were absolutely sorry,
but

Unknown (42:32):
no, that's great.

Megan Goodwin (42:35):
So when we talk about horrors,

Unknown (42:38):
it is because they need to be said. So I actually, I
support that, okay, but

Megan Goodwin (42:43):
sorry, you were saying that the sterilization
and eugenics movements were alsodirectly and explicitly
targeting Native families andnative women at this time,
correct,

Unknown (42:54):
because under treaty obligations, we have created
something called the IHS IndianHealth Services. And so what the
federal government did wascompensate physicians for the
cost of sterilizations at IHSfacilities. We estimate that
over 12,000 native women withinjust a four year time span,

(43:17):
which is 72 through 76 weresterilized, and an estimated
total of 24% of all NativeAmerican women, including
minors, were sterilized at thattime. And the only reason why
bells were rung about this isbecause a Choctaw physician, Dr
Connie URI, noticed that therehave been four to 48

(43:40):
sterilizations performed just inthe month of July in 1974 Jesus
Christ, we started doing someresearch and found that mothers
were being told that they couldstill have babies after the
surgery. We had mothers going into give birth and were
sterilized without consent.
Yeah, we had young girls, theage of 12, being brought into

(44:04):
hospitals for various healthissues and coming out
sterilized. Actually it was theyoungest was 11, Jesus. So we,
and these are fullhysterectomies. And so some of
these, I should say this, wenteverything, everywhere, from
tubal ligations to fullhysterectomies at the time,
which were unnecessary. Soduring this moment, we are not

(44:26):
only stealing American Indianbabies, but we're telling the
mothers in the hospital, if youdo not get your tubes tied, we
will come and take your babies.
We will consider you an unfitmother if you have another
child. So, and this, of course,is not an auto threat, they are

(44:48):
going to come in and take thatchild. So,

Megan Goodwin (44:50):
just so I've got the math right again, if I'm
hearing you correctly. So at theheight of this, it's a full
quarter of native. Of women andgirls being sterilized. Well, up
to two thirds of native childrenare being removed from their
families. So it just again, Iknow the goal of genocide is
extinction, but that's thatseems I mean, horrible, but also

(45:17):
just really aggressive, like itis a very aggressive extinction
strategy. Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown (45:25):
And the fact that most people don't know that this
happened is part of thaterasure, yeah,

Megan Goodwin (45:31):
yeah. And like, I know about this from, like, WGS
stuff and just being in theworld, but like, again, I did
not have a good sense of thescope. I knew it was bad. I
truly did not imagine that itwas this bad and like, this is
the stuff that we know about,right? So it's probably worse
even than we know Cool,

Courtney Lewis (45:48):
cool. I think the the numbers, the higher end
numbers, are what we estimate asthe high end numbers. So yeah,
much like the numbers on theTrail of Tears that are
officially reported of deaths.
They do not include theconcentration camps before or
deaths afterwards. So when youstart adding up these, the

(46:09):
overall picture it it getspretty bleak. So you can see why
the all of this. Oh, and Ishould also mention that there's
the urban relocation programhappening where they take all of
the adults and relocate theminto urban areas, promising them
money and jobs and housing,which turns out to not be that
cool. So, so adults, children,women, so and a lot of the the

(46:35):
ones targeted for urbanrelocation for men. So, men,
women, children, all of them indifferent projects.
So this is obviously, you know,a big catalyst for what's going
on with the red power movementat the time and aim. So that's

(47:00):
kind of the history of what wasgoing on, although so since
then, there have been variousother initiatives. There are
loopholes in the Indian ChildWelfare Act. It was not written
to be comprehensive. It waswritten to be a stopgap measure
to just stop the bleeding out ofnative children. So there are

(47:24):
loopholes. There are issues. Upuntil my dad passed, he was
still following what was goingon with ICWA, still doing some
consulting, just in the backseat. But after he passed, there
were actual supreme courtchallenges, yeah,

Megan Goodwin (47:47):
and, like, fairly recently, right?

Unknown (47:50):
Yes, yes, definitely recently. So if you want me to,
I would love just kind ofbriefly go over those as well.
Yes, please tell me

Megan Goodwin (48:01):
more horrible things that are happening. I

Unknown (48:05):
can tell you so many

Megan Goodwin (48:08):
thing that I appreciate about you. I feel
like this is why we're friends.
You want horrors? I got whores.
Let's go

Unknown (48:17):
of horrors. So in 2016 so up until this point, up until
2016 we were in a policy eracalled forced federalism. And I
won't get too much into that,but one outcome of that, because
normally we have, and I'm goingto extraordinarily simplify this

(48:40):
kind of a pendulum of policy ofsupporting Native nation
policies in American Indianpeople to not as we go into 2016
we start a new termination era.
So this was, of course, with theturnover of administration,
yeah, that is now targeting toeliminate Native nations
sovereignty. And they haveseveral ways that they're doing

(49:03):
this, but one of these ways, andof course, I will just emphasize
again, the reason they want toterminate sovereignty is to
claim native resources, right?
This is the point. So one ofthese, all of the theft, again,
American values, cool, settlercolonialism at its finest. So

(49:29):
they begin in earnest, to starteliminating Native nations
sovereignty, and they are goingto use ICWA to do this. So ICWA
is going to become one of themechanisms that they can
challenge the notion, or Ishould say, the structure, of
American Indians as citizens ofa nation. So American Indians

(49:55):
are not a race. We are citizensof a nation which is not going.
Be taught in school very often.
It's not something that peopleconceptualize very well. So this
administration is going toinstead twist this notion and
racialize American Indians, sothey're going to declare them a
race of people. Now a race ofpeople does not govern

(50:17):
themselves, right? So if theycan flip the script to say, No,
American Indians are a race,then they can say, you cannot
govern yourselves, and you, ofcourse, cannot hold land as a
government. So this is also whythings like Port indianism is so

(50:38):
dangerous, because when we havethese outside definitions of
Indian by blood, instead ofrecognizing nationhood and
government, this opens the doorto termination, right? So during
this time, we have two casescome up, so we have the baby
girl case that comes up, andthis case comes at ICWA kind of

(51:03):
sideways. Most recently, we hadsomething that was much, much
more blatant in what it wastrying to do with ICWA, which is
Brackeen versus Holland, yeah.
And that case, the short andsweet of that case is that the
courts were to decide whetherthe Indian Child Welfare Act was

(51:27):
legal, because they wantAmerican Indians declared as a
race. If American Indians aredeclared as a race, then it is
racial prejudice to say thatCherokee nation should be able
to care for Cherokee children,right, instead of immediately

(51:48):
putting on the baby on the openmarket, right? Right? So that
was the point of Brad keenversus Holland was to completely
undermine the sovereignty ofNative nations. The baby girl
case, which is baby Veronica,was something a little bit
different involving whatultimately ended up being kind

(52:12):
of a financial terrorism ofpursuing court cases to such an
extent that they becamefinancially unfeasible for
individual American Indians tochallenge. Wow. And at the end
of that case, the capo biancos,who are the white family that

(52:33):
illegally adopted this child,did sue the Father. So again,
these are not idle threats,yeah. And when you're suing the
poorest people of this nation,yeah, millions and millions of
dollars, it is, it is a threat,absolutely. So these are the

(52:56):
kind of things that are stillgoing through today, that we're
still battling. I'm honestlyshocked that the Brackeen case
went the way that it did. Imean, yeah, it was pretty clear.
It was pretty clear that thecase was untenable legally, but
that stop 2016 on court beforefrom doing the same thing. Yeah,

(53:25):
so I think we were all hopeful,but also surprised that the case
went the way I did, the way itdid. But honestly this for
American Indians, this is notthe first time we face
termination, it's not the firsttime we face genocidal efforts,

(53:45):
right? And that's to say this iswhy I think that indigenous
people are probably the mostoptimistic people, right?
Because the fact that I existtoday is proof that my family
members in the past didn't justsurvive all of these attempts.
No

Megan Goodwin (54:04):
bitch, you are thriving. You are thriving. You
are moisturized. You are in yourlane. You're very, absolutely,

Unknown (54:10):
absolutely, and you know, why would I discount
everything that they were ableto accomplish with my pessimism?
Right? It's no like I the factthat I'm here is proof that they
went through things that Ihopefully will never have to
endure. It was amazing. So,yeah, yeah, I expect this to

(54:33):
come up. I expect to bechallenged. I expect to have
termination. I expect a left.

Megan Goodwin (54:39):
I expect this country trying to kill my
people. That's what they do.
Americans stay genociding, soit's

Unknown (54:47):
it's not going to be resolved in my lifetime. I don't
think, However, having saidthat, I have to give kudos to my
students, because as I see thestudent. Come up every year.
They amaze me more and moreevery year, and this is widely
students, but especially theNative students. They are so far

(55:12):
ahead of where I was at theirtime. They have so much more
knowledge. They have energy.
They have less skills, you know,and they really have the drive
to make this world into whatthey want, which is a caring,
safe place to live. And whoknows, I might not see this,

(55:35):
this beautiful world in mylifetime, but if they have their
way, I just might.

Megan Goodwin (55:43):
I would love that. I would love that for all
of us, I feel like a world inwhich native folks are surviving
and thriving, as a world inwhich all of us can survive and
thrive, that feels like maybe wefinally got our priorities
straight. I may agree. So may itbe. So

Unknown (55:58):
may it be so my

Megan Goodwin (56:00):
only other question, given that we are, you
know, a religion podcast, is,hey, what does this all have to
do with religion? Dr Lewis,

Unknown (56:09):
ooh, so yes, all of these programs are going to be
so from the boarding schools,which we're stealing children
through the Indian adoption act.
These are all being administeredby or privileging various
Christianities, right, varioussects of Christianities. Without
these kind of missionizingdrives, we would not have

(56:32):
boarding schools in the way thatwe had, which of course, ended
horrifically for Nativechildren, and we're still
finding mass graves ofchildren's bodies, but
Christianity is woven throughevery single one of these
projects in hand in hand withthe federal government. Yeah,

(56:53):
yeah,

Megan Goodwin (56:56):
no, that's that is one of the things that was
most striking to me when we werepulling the book together, was
looking at all the literaturearound not just the privling of
white Christianity, because weare a white Christian nation, so
that checks out. That's what wedo. That's that is how America

(57:16):
do. But also just the the spaceswhere we've got really great
work from like TISA Weiner,looking at claims for religious
freedom, protecting andpreserving native practices and
identities in the early 20thcentury, whereas claims and
arguments around religiousfreedom are not working to
protect Native land claimscurrently. Or looking at the one

(57:39):
that I got really stuck on forthe book, honestly is I am. I
know that Native men areincarcerated at the highest rate
of any racialized group inwhat's now the US, and they are
routinely denied access tothings that they should have
access to under religious landuse, and incarcerated

(57:59):
incarcerated persons act right,correct, but the fucking Q anon
shaman comes in and says, I needfor my religion. I have to be
able to eat organic, so you haveto get me a salad. Do you know
how hard it is to get a salad?
You know how hard it is to get asalad in prison? But like this
white dude threw on some hornsand called himself a shaman and
use protections that aresupposed to apply to minoritized

(58:21):
folks to like, claiming a pseudonative identity to be able to
get special treatment. And hedidn't have to sue. He just
said, I'm a showman. Give mesalad. And they were just like,
Oh, that. You deserve salad. Iguess we're gonna

Courtney Lewis (58:39):
do that. Yeah, we had to pass a whole act for
that. So just to recognize theIndian Religious Freedom Act
wasn't just about IndianReligious Freedom widely. It was
also because exactly what yousaid, we have prisoners that
could not attend religiousceremonies, they couldn't sweat,
they couldn't use Sage. No one'sgiving fire bundles to federal

(59:01):
prisoners, and a lot of themwere in federal prison at the
time. And just to add, AmericanIndians are also murdered at the
highest rate by police officers.
So when Black Lives Matter,movement happened, I think it
was really a shock to people howmuch the black community had
been impacted. Now up that forAmerican Indians, and that's why

(59:24):
we all have to work together forthis. Yeah, absolutely

Megan Goodwin (59:30):
and again. Why a land, a place, a world in which
native communities and nationsare thriving, is a world where
all of us are in a better place.
Yes, correct. Okay, this wasamazing. Thank you so much. We
hit I think everything that wewanted to make sure that we
covered for folks. Is thereanything else that you want to
say? Feel like people shouldknow. Anything else you want to

(59:52):
tell us about your dad, whoseems like an amazing human?

Unknown (59:58):
I mean, I don't think it's a secret that my. My dad is
the best dad in the world. Sothere's there's that okay, but I
would also encourage people touplift Native Voices in any way
they can, and that can be assimple as just opening up your
Insta account and startfollowing these groups. We have

(01:00:20):
accounts that recommend moviesand books. We have accounts that
teach you about differentaspects of native culture that
are appropriate for publicconsumption. Awesome. We have
activist accounts, right? So goout there and really amplify
these voices, because that wouldhelp. Again, we're 1% of the

(01:00:41):
population, so for us, alliesreally make the difference. All

Megan Goodwin (01:00:47):
right, and I'm hearing you say that amplifying
Native Voices is a good way toto support and be in solidarity
with native peoples in a waythat like buying a random sage
bundle from fucking Sephora,perhaps is not

Unknown (01:01:03):
please. Please do not buy and use Sage it has become
endangered, so please leave thatto the native folks. We really
appreciate having our religionaccessible.

Megan Goodwin (01:01:13):
Yeah, well, that seems like a good note to end
on, but maybe you will be kindenough to share some of your
favorite Instagram accounts withme, and I will put them in the
show notes so that we can directfolks to people doing cool
stuff.

Unknown (01:01:27):
Absolutely,

Megan Goodwin (01:01:39):
we want to give Dr Lewis, the final word on the
Indian Child Welfare Act andnative sovereignty, as she has
taught me, I want to say wa doto her for sharing her family
history and her people's historyand her hard won academic
expertise on all of theseissues. So with that,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:01:59):
don't pack up yet. Nerds, you've got
homework. I'm gonna put a bunchof stuff in the show notes
that's accessible. There's a lotdone. Frankly, there was a
moment, particularly when thehorrors and abuse of the
Canadian residential schools andthe uncovering of hundreds of
abused and dead children'sbodies and unmarked graves were

(01:02:22):
uncovered just a few years ago,and so there was a spate of
information publicly accessible.
So I'll put those in the shownotes, but here are the ones
that I want to highlight.
There's a really great IndianChild Welfare Act timeline
that's accessible through NativeAmerican Council of legal

(01:02:43):
institutes. There's a reallyshort Vox documentary called how
the US stole 1000s of NativeAmerican children that is
accessible, short and verypainful to watch. One of my
favorite books about adoptionperiod is actually a book about
Native American adoption. It'sdawn Peterson's book, which is
titled Indians in the family,adoption and the politics of

(01:03:05):
antebellum expansion. So she'sLincoln imperialism and
adoption. Right from the jump,there's a great article, great.
It's an overstatement. It'sabout child abuse, but it's an
article that's really greatabout a team of people led by
Ashley landers, and it's calledabuse after abuse, the recurrent
maltreatment of American Indianchildren in foster care and

(01:03:27):
adoption. That's from just acouple years ago. And then
there's a really great overviewof how adoption and Native
Americans sort of fit intosocial work, and that's by
Deborah thibo and MichaelSpencer, and it's called the
Indian adoption project and theprofession of Social

Megan Goodwin (01:03:43):
Work. Courtney's book, Dr Lewis's book, is not
about adoption, but it isabsolutely about Native
sovereignty, and specificallyabout Native economic
sovereignty. It is entitled,sovereign entrepreneurs,
Cherokee small business owners,and the making of economic
sovereignty came out through UNCin 2019 I also was incredibly
lucky and honored to get to goout to the boundary in Western

(01:04:04):
Carolina and meet Dr Lewis'scommunity. And I just, I don't
want to sound any I'm the thingthat I want to say is that her
work is so so grounded in herpeople. And not that that's in
any way surprising, but it'sjust as an academic, and
particularly as an academic who,as you know, Dr Morgenstein,

(01:04:26):
first, I don't like to talk toliving people. I just like to
look at what they say, so I cancopy and paste and then do my
like discourse analysis. So itwas so striking to watch
Courtney be both a member ofthis community, and also, just
like, such a thoughtful scholarof this community. So like, I
can't recognize like I just Ican't recommend this book

(01:04:47):
enough. I also want to encourageyou all to check out our article
on bio politics and US healthcare practices as they relate to
Native people. It is called frybread wars, and it's brilliant.
Also. So should you findyourself out on the boundary? I
was lucky enough to try Nikki'sfry bread out there, and I am
told it's the best one. So youshould all go check out Nikki's
fry bread. It was delicious. Twoother books that I want to

(01:05:11):
recommend relative to this, andparticularly about race and
residential schools. The firstone is Dr Denise lagimodyers
book called stringing rosaries,the history the unforgivable and
the healing of Northern PlainsAmerican Indian boarding school
survivors. It is, as you wouldexpect, a really challenging

(01:05:32):
read, but it is an importantone, and then the other one is
not specifically about Nativepeoples, but I do think provides
important context to what DrLewis was telling us about white
Christian nationalism, whiteChristian families and the
adoption of native children, andthat is max Perry Mueller's race
and the making of the Mormonpeople. So the way that

(01:05:54):
Christianity functions to makewhiteness, and thinking about
the way that Christianity is amode of whiteness construction
that happens through thestealing of non white children
and the attempt to whiten them,I think, is a worthwhile goal
here so And

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (01:06:12):
finally, as Dr Lewis pointed out, there
are a ton of ways to supportnative folk, and one of the ways
that she suggested was to followtheir Insta accounts. So nerds
go check out our show notes.
We've got loads and loads ofaccounts for you to follow, and
if you follow us on Insta, wewill also have those available
on our page.

Megan Goodwin (01:06:33):
Yeah, Courtney hooked us up. I'm gonna include
some of the links on the actualpodcast page as well, so you can
just click through and followthese amazing native scholars
and artists and communitymembers and learn more about
what they're up to, because it'sdope, awesome.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:06:50):
Well, you can find us on all of the
social media. You can subscribeto our newsletter, find our
website at keeping it one, oh,one.com. Pre order our book.
Religion is not done with you,and with that, peace out nerds
and do

Megan Goodwin (01:07:04):
your homework, it's on the syllabus. You

Reservation Dogs (01:07:23):
and this, everybody, this is, this is
supposed to be a protest. Weneed people to protest and then
piss off and agitate. Oh, yeah,yeah. Whose idea was this stupid
name change? Anyway, ours topNazis. Nazi hilarious. I ain't
nothing funny about this honky,no, but Nazi, really? Nazi, you

(01:07:47):
know, if you think about it, weactually share a lot of common
ground. Historically, sharingground hasn't been your strong
suit. No one had a problem untilyouse came to town. That's it.
The hard right coming to a townnear you. Yeah, we didn't come
here to counter protest. Ain'tnothing peaceful gonna happen
today. Hey, we don't practiceviolence. We do. We don't
practice violence, but we areprepared for it. All right?

(01:08:10):
Scotum Students,