Historical Development Of Indian Children Essay

American Indians underwent several different eras of federal policy, each one varying on where the government stands when dealing with American Indians. One era of federal policy in particular is referred to as the “Allotment and Assimilation Era”, characterized by the policies regarding allotment of land and the process adapting American Indian children to an Anglo-Saxon society. While both aspects of the Allotment and Assimilation Era had a tremendous effect on American Indians, forcibly enrolling American Indian children into boarding schools, in an effort to “civilise” them, not only had a greater impact on tribal communities at the time, but it also had the most significant lasting legacy.

Sherman Alexie, in “Indian Education” tells his experiences in school on the reservation. Some of his teachers did not treat him very good and did not try to understand him. In his ninth grade year he collapsed. A teacher assumed that he had been drinking just because he was Native American. The teacher said, “What’s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.” Sherman Alexie didn’t listen to the negatives in school. He persevered and became valedictorian of his school.

Do you think that your culture impacts your decisions more than your personal opinion does? Or maybe that your culture has nothing to do with your viewpoint? There is a lot of controversy on this topic. A person 's culture majorly affects how one views the world, however personal opinion, experiences also play a role. Personal experiences help to shape people into who they are today.

CT230 1.1 Explain the sequence and Rate of each aspect of development from Birth to 19 years of age

Zitkala-Sa’s autobiography informs her readers of the damaging and traumatizing effects of assimilation by utilizing her life experiences as a narrative, demonstrating how living under an oppressive and dominant culture was an internal struggle between society's expectations and her own cultural identity. Sa’s experience is especially unique considering her mixed heritage as well.

All things considered, we believe that ones culture may or may not inform the way he or she views others and the world around them. Some people do let their culture inform the way he or she views others and the world around them as shown in the story "An Indian Fathers Plea" by Robert Lake. Though many people do not let their culture inform the way he or she views others and the world around them as shown in the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker with Dee straying from how she was raised. Yet those are just a few people who do or don't let their culture inform them about the world or others. Everyone is different and people should understand that yes some people do use their culture for information about things, but many people this days

In the past year and a half with events like DPAL, Native American rights along with the rights of other minority groups in the United States haven’t been shown the same rights as Caucasians when it comes to civil liberty issues. In 1978 Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Under the ICWA tribes have significant input on whether the removal of children from them is necessary, “efforts must be made to support and rehabilitate a family before its child is placed into foster care or adopted.” (Ryznar, 2013). The ICWA also was enacted to examine how it “establishes standards for state-court child custody proceedings involving Indian children… “the consequences…of abusive child welfare practices that [separated] Indian children from their families and tribes through adoption or foster care placement, usually in non-Indian homes.” (Cornell University Law School). In 2009, a couple from South Carolina, Melanie and Matthew Capobianco, wanted to adopt a baby whose father (Dusten Brown) was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and mother Christina Maldonado of Hispanic background. Due to Brown being a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, and under the ICWA, a child that

Adoptive couple v. Baby Girl was a case that involved the biological parents of the baby girl in question. The biological mother Christy was Hispanic-Caucasian and, the father Mr. Brown, a member of a Cherokee Indian tribe. Congress had to step in due to the “ICWA” or the Indian Child Welfare Act that was passed in 1978 to prevent the illegal and harsh removal of Indian children from the tribes. This case was a huge battle in the Supreme Court between the biological father Dusten Brown and the adoptive parents of baby Veronica in September of 2011. This case caused uproar with people on both sides of the fence.

Parents wishing to adopt have challenged the adoption laws regarding American-Indian children. For many decades, people wanting to adopt African-American children from disturbing situations have been put through several issues. A law was passed called the “Indian child welfare act” to end what was then a common practice. The state claims they thought that American-Indian children were better off in homes with non-Indian parents. A handful of recent lawsuits say the federal law and similar legislation at state levels make it harder to find stable homes for children. they’ve had many cases fall apart, because parents adopting don’t want the children. Most adopting parents believe it's unfair to them if they can’t adopt American-Indian children.

This paper tries to explain Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers by examining the history of the Native American connection to many agricultural products would not have been produced without the knowledge that Indians gave. Weatherford further stipulates that it is through these advances in agriculture that the United States has remained a strong contender in the global market, that without the influences of the Native Americans on the early settlers those early immigrants to America would not have survived. Through his work, "Indian Givers: How Indians of the Americas Transformed the World", Weatherford brings an insight to a people that most

The American desire to culturally assimilate Native American people into establishing American customs went down in history during the 1700s. Famous author Zitkala-Sa, tells her brave experience of Americanization as a child through a series of stories in “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa, described her journey into an American missionary where they cleansed her of her identity. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Sa uses imagery in order to convey the cruel nature of early American cultural transformation among Indian individuals.

Chapter 3 of Cathleen Cahill’s book, Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933, titled “Members of an Amazonian Corps, White Women in the Indian Service”, argues that the Indian Service worked as a maternalist agency due to the high numbers of white women it employed. The Indian Service, later renamed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), had the most white women employees of any federal agency. Cahill writes, “... by 1925, for example, the Indian Service counted more than 1,000 women among its personnel, while the Children’s Bureau employed only 120 women and the Women’s Bureau a mere 45.” (page 65). The women hired by the Indian Services would be the ones implementing maternalistic assimilation policy across Indian Country in the early 20th century.

Childhood is usually understood as a set of experiences and behaviours, gained in the early stages of the human existence, considered as the preparation for the adult world. However, the history of childhood is a very complex topic and it has become a very influential area of study in recent years. In 1962, the ‘Centuries of Childhood’ by Philippe Ariés introduced the idea that childhood was a new creation developed in recent centuries and as a concept it was believed to be nonexistent before the seventeenth century. This concept means that there was no awareness of the process of childhood. In several studies of the medieval period, Ariés noticed that childhood was not acknowledged or even attempted to be portrayed during this period. For

There was a court case, Baby Girl v. Adoptive Couple, in which a child who was partially Cherokee Indian, because of her father, and Hispanic, because of her mother. The adoption of Baby Girl was a difficult one due to the fact that she has an ancestry of Cherokee Indian. Therefore, under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the adoption of Baby Girl seemed impossible because Biological Father had the right to have custody of his child, Baby Girl, if he chose to. So, the court greatly sees that by giving Baby Girl back to Biological Father would be in the child’s best interest under the ICWA, because there is the assumption that if she is with her Biological Father and her culture, she will not suffer any type of emotional distress. For

To start with an overview of social constructionism in very general terms leads to build understandings of child and childhood in a social world more explicitly. Notion of social construction is defined in diverse disciplines and instead of generating a description there are a number of thoughts. “It is sometimes called a movement, at other times a position, a theory, a theoretical orientation, an approach; psychologists remain unsure of its status (Stam 2001, p. 294)”. Vivien (1995, p. 10) points the origin of social constructionism stems from two to three hundred years ago in the period of enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism. By all means, Berger and Luckmann’ (1966) book The Social