Conservative lawyers engineered this case to help white families take Native children away from their tribes.
The reality—as I learned when I returned as an adult to my adoption agency to obtain “non-identifying” information from my adoption file—was that my birth mother had told the agency that my paternal heritage was American Indian. However, this information was withheld from my adoptive parents.
“Erasing Indian ancestry was standard social work policy back then,” the social worker explained to me as she paused from reading my file to look me in the eye. “It was thought better. But,” the social worker continued, “since the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, we don’t hide indigenous heritage anymore.”I felt numb. My mother was friends with someone on the board of trustees of this nonprofit when I was placed, so it seemed they would be getting a premium baby.
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