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Reflections upon 34 years as a Juvenile Court Judge: William A. Thorne Jr.

Reflections Upon 34 Years As a Juvenile Court Judge

Publication Date:

November 05, 2013

I recently retired after serving for 34 years as a judge in both tribal and state courts. When I started as a juvenile court judge, I trusted that if I did my small part as a judge (basically accepting the recommendations of the professionals appearing in court before me), children would be well taken care of. I trusted that the “system” was doing right by the children it cared for. Since then, I have learned that system involvement is not the guarantee I believed it to be.

The focus of our juvenile system in the last couple of decades has been on safety as the paramount value and removal as the principal intervention. Along the way, we have created a system where many are substituting their own versions of “best interests” when deciding whether to send children home after being in the system. Almost twice as many children are now in care as when I began. And yet, we are seeing second-, third-, and even fourth-generation children in foster care. If removal was indeed solving the problem, we would not see a generational carryover. Upon reflection, I have concluded that this carryover is a direct result of not healing the children and families of origin that become involved in the juvenile system. While removal may well interrupt a pattern of abuse or neglect, it is not sufficient to ensure that the children have an opportunity to grow up in healthy families, which everyone agrees is best for children. Moving children from foster home to foster home or into institutional care does not provide them with the necessary modeling and long-term connections to launch them on positive trajectories.

While no one would want children to be harmed, the orphanages of Eastern Europe demonstrate that safety is not a sufficient standard. Instead, I would propose that if removal is necessary, that the creation of resilience for children be built into the service delivery plan. Studies have demonstrated that this one trait allows some children to survive the very worst sexual or physical abuse and come out seemingly whole. Research also makes clear that resilience is the product of multiple connections. Connections to people who genuinely care about the children turn out to be critical. And yet, too often when children are removed from families, there is little real effort to maintain or enhance children’s current relationships while in care. (It is even more uncommon to see efforts to create new relationships through natural connections to relatives not tied to placement options.)

If we know these connections are necessary, why do we not routinely ensure that they are in place? Perhaps for the same reason we ignore visitation evidence. The average parent gets one hour of visits per week with the children. We know from research that adding another hour of visits results in a tripling of successful reunification efforts, doing nothing additional in the case. Adding another hour triples success again. Going from one hour of visits to three hours of visits results in a nine-fold increase in successful reunification. And yet, the possibility of additional visits is often ignored. Similarly, the father’s family is often ignored when considering both connections and placement options, and caseworkers no longer have families as the center of their work, instead being focused on documenting compliance with standards.

All of these seem to reflect the prevailing approach that the system will find better (i.e., “best interests”) connections for these children. It is increasingly difficult to ignore the plethora of research demonstrating poor child well-being consideration outcomes that result for children in foster care—both short term and long term. Despite good intentions, children (and their families) are not being served well by child-serving institutions in our communities. We need to keep in mind the layman’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It is long past time for a different result—one without recurring generations of children landing in foster care, one without children in the care of the system having measurably poorer outcomes than children who manage to stay out of the system, and one without children aging out of care without the caring and enduring connections of families.

It is time to reimagine a system that intervenes in the lives of children and families in such a way as to bring healing, not separation; to bring improvements, not disadvantages and burdens; to bring an ally to families in trouble, not an adversary. Segments of the child-serving community have begun this work; we need to support that work. These children are our relatives, and we need to treat them as such. Hope is not a strategy—someday is not a plan.

William A. Thorne Jr. is a Pomo/Coast Miwok Indian from northern California enrolled with the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria. He graduated from the University of Santa Clara and Stanford Law School and practiced law for several years at Echo Hawk & Thorne, specializing in federal Indian law. He has served as a tribal judge in 11 states. After 14 years as a state trial judge, he was appointed in 2000 to the Utah Court of Appeals, where he served until retiring in 2013.

Thorne has served as board member of numerous nonprofits, and he continues to speak and teach around the country, chiefly on issues related to children, including child welfare reform efforts, disproportionality affecting minority children, and the Indian Child Welfare Act. He is the chair of Child Trends’ board of directors.

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Judicial Tribal History for Utqiagvik

NVB’s re-assumption of Exclusive Jurisdiction over child custody proceedings changed in 1999.   Mixed with being a PL280 State, this created a world in which the State vs. Village/Tribe share power UNLESS:

1.) The Tribe petitions to “re-assume” its Exclusive Jurisdiction” thus taking away State power over “Child Custody Proceedings”.

• This can be done under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) (25 U.S.C. §1918(a).

• THIS IS WHAT NATIVE VILLAGE OF BARROW DID IN 1999.

A little history on NVB Re-Assumption of Exclusive Jurisdiction over “Child Custody Proceedings”

• November 4, 1998 – Secretary of Interior posted notice that it received NVB’s Petition 63FR 59574
• July 6, 1999 – Secretary of Interior officially approved NVB’s Petition 64 FR 36391
• September 7, 1999 – Re-Assumption became effective over “Native Village of Barrow”
• September 10, 1999 – “INTERIM Memorandum of Agreement” between the NVB and Div. of Family and youth services (DFYS)
• November 17, 1999 – first amendment to the above MOA
• September 27, 2002 – “Tribal State Agreement” between NVB Social Services and the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services. (This agreement is between the two social services)

The INTERIM MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT of September 10, 1999 had an effective date of September 7, 1999. This was to exercise concurrent Jurisdiction BUT NVB may file a motion to re-assert Exclusive Jurisdiction at any time.

The Amendment above states that continued effectiveness of “Interim MOA was only until mid-February 2000. (Staff change after staff change within the Tribe only reads the MOA but never the big picture with the amendments and dates)

The Tribal State Agreement dated September 27, 2002 was only effective from November 1, 2002 to September 27, 2005. (again, like the MOA above, they do not read the dates.)

The Native Village of Barrow Tribal Court was established in 2001 (in line with the NVB Constitution) with governing Codes being ratified in 2002 by the Tribal Membership.    (There is protocol on adopting what becomes law in our Tribe.    There has to be ample notice to our Membership.   A Membership meeting happens and the subject needs to be discussed with them.    Membership needs to vote on the new law or amendment to the law)    If none of these happen, then it is not true.

In early 2000, a group from UCLA that works with the US Tribes came up to Barrow to work with our Tribe on creating Codes for Tribal Court and the NVB Administration.    It was a 2 to 3 year project. through an ANA grant.    We had a group of elders, staff and consultants to discuss from many drafts of the Codes.    One of the recommendations by UCLA Tribal Law Institute was to put wording in our codes to protect our membership from  administrations and individuals that do not understand Tribal Law, this was not added because we believed at that time that it would never happen with our people.    Well, it started happening in 2018 and 2019 and continues today.    There were multiple council people and staff that were sanctioned by the Tribal Court but those individuals never paid their fines but chose to remove judges.

During that time, the NVB Tribal Court was recognized by the Alaska Supreme Court, not the Superior Court but the highest Court in the State of Alaska and because of that, the people behind the NVB Administration and Tribal Council did not like that, they removed Judges and the Judges that were not removed by them resigned because of the wrong doings by the Tribal Executive and Legislative Branch.   This still continues today.

Today, we don’t know where the Tribe sits and it just seems like we are losing our Children left and right because our Tribe is not exercising our Exclusive Jurisdiction that our past Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branch fought so hard for.

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My Iñupiaq language suffered but…….

I have been thinking of my Iñupiaq language and a small bit of the history that I know of.

I grew up with Iñupiaq as the only language I knew before entering a classroom, a Bureau of Indian (BIA) Classroom at the age of 5.   Even though I did not understand the language spoken in a classroom, I would be brought to the school because it was deemed necessary to be there even though there was no understanding of the language to be taught.

I remember at the age of 5, I must have been scolded or punished for speaking my language and I know I was crying, grabbed my parka and started running home across the lagoon.    I was so young and I don’t think I remember being brought back to the school right away, others older than me that were send out at that young age did not have that privilege of running home when treated so bad and for a lot of them, that was the first time they experienced “domestic violence”.    We were a quiet class because of the fear of being punished for speaking the only language we knew.

I don’t remember much of that school year as a 5 year old, but I do remember another incident that happened the following school year.    As a child of nomadic parents, my parents would leave our wooden walls in late April or early May for spring camp and not returning until almost Thanksgiving, and this was the time of year we would be put in school.

My first grade year, I still could not understand English and being new to a classroom from a very loving home, that was the year I first encountered “domestic violence” as a first grader when the teacher, although did not hit me,  she raised her hand at me and made me flinch.   I was so scared that I started crying and could not stop.   I don’t know if I was brought home or picked up, that is not clear to me.   I do remember my mom telling my dad when he got home from work about the incident in my school.   My father did not act right away but he thought it through and went and talked with the principal (who was an older native man) instead of approaching the teacher, he talked with our principal the following day.   I don’t think my parents allowed me in school for a while but when I did go back, the teacher ignored me and I continued to witness “domestic violence” towards my classmates who were also so young when they spoke our language.

My 2nd grade year was so different from the previous year because the teacher was so patient and had an understanding of our non-English speaking class.    It made learning fun.    The beginning of our 3rd grade year, we had another teacher that was also patient with us learning English words but by mid-school year we had a change in teachers and it was not so nice.   We started going to school in fear again, fear of being punished for saying an Iñupiaq word because we did not know an English word for what we were saying.    This time we had a male teacher who had a wife in the lower grade classroom.   Well this man would go and get his wife to help discipline our class if we did not know English words and said Iñupiaq words.   More “domestic violence” learned in a classroom.

My 4th grade year, we had older man who also used “corporal” punishment like our previous teachers.  Being exposed to this type of “domestic violence” was probably getting normal for a lot of these young minds.   We wonder why domestic violence is in such high rates in our native cultures of Alaska and the Nation, it’s because of the actions we witnessed in our early years of education.   We never ever witnessed domestic violence in our culture until the Government got involved.

 

What is another word for Domestic Violence:  Corporal punishment – Corporal punishment encompasses all types of physical punishment, including spanking, slapping, pinching, pulling, twisting, and hitting with an object. It also may include forcing a child to consume unpleasant substances such as soap, hot sauce, or hot pepper.  Violence can be broadly divided into three broad categories – direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence.

 We used to duck as a young student when a teacher was throwing a large rubber eraser the size of a large stick of butter across the room towards another child.   We also witnessed our classmates being pulled by the ears or their hair out of their chairs to be placed in front of the classroom corner to be humiliated by the teacher.    We witnessed our classmates sticking their hands out, palm up being hit by the teacher with a wooden ruler with the sound of a whip on their small hands.   These are just some of them I witnessed personally and I have heard my classmates talk of more incidents.

My fifth grade year started out as the most terrible year of all of them, not because of the actions towards myself but to watch my classmates suffer under the hands of someone the parents entrusted to teach.    All the actions of that first teacher started on day one and continued until it drove one of our classmates to totally not coming to school.   That one day when our female classmate who was quiet and could not understand our teacher, was looking to us for help to understand him and tell him that she needed to go and use the restroom.   Instead, the teacher was outraged, grabbed the girl and picked her up by her shoulders, carried her over to our tall metal trashcan and shoved her in there where she peed her pants while the teacher left her in there for a long time while she was crying.   His throwing of objects such as large hard erasers, chalkboard erasers, books, rulers, pencils and other things were a normal occurrence with this teacher until that fateful day of our classmate who never returned to school.

They finally let that teacher go and it was a relief to be free of fear until we got to know our teacher replacement.    The new teacher was so patient with us and like our 2nd grade teacher, he made education fun without the violence.   That same teacher lived in Barrow with his family for many years and continued to teach in one of our villages and has close connection with that community to this day.

I hope this makes you understand a little better why our Iñupiaq language spiraled down because of violence that happened to our young speakers.   If my story angers you, you have not heard the stories of those that were sent out at a very young age of 5 years old to institutions outside of our region and sometimes out of our state/territory without any parental involvement to protect or speak for them for years.   The Federal Government came in the name of education by different contractors and divided families using different tools to do that paid by the Federal Government.

For nearly a century, between 1869 and 1960’s, the Federal Government implemented the Indian Boarding School Policy.  This policy authorized the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of American Indian and Alaska Native children, as young as five (5) years old, relocating them from their homes in communities to one of 367 Indian Boarding Schools across 30 States.

The Indian Boarding School policy was designed to assimilate American Indian and Alaska Native children into White American culture by stripping them of their cultural identities, often through physical, sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse and neglect.  Many of the children who were taken to boarding schools never returned to their communities. At the Carlisle Indian School alone, approximately 180 American Indian and Alaska Native children were buried.  Many of our Caucasian counterparts want us to “move on” because it’s “history” they say.   It is History that has caused a lot of damage in our people.

While attending Indian boarding schools, American Indian and Alaska Native children suffered additional psychological abuses as they were sent to white-owned homes and businesses for involuntary and unpaid manual labor work during the summers. Many children ran away and remained missing, or died of illnesses due to harsh living conditions, abuse, and/or substandard health care provided by the schools.

Parents of the children who were forcibly removed to the boarding schools were prohibited from visiting or engaging in correspondence with their children. Parental resistance to compliance with this harsh no-contact policy resulted in their incarceration or loss of access to basic provisions including food rations, clothing, or both.

United States Commission on Civil Rights reported that American Indian and Alaska Native communities continue to experience intergenerational trauma resulting from experiences in Indian Boarding Schools that divided cultural family structures, damaged indigenous identities, and inflicted chronic psychological ramifications on American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

When these young students came back home after being away for many years, they had been stripped of family and the unit they were once part of, it took years for them to get connected and try to learn their language and culture but a lot of them were not lucky.   Not only were they stripped of their language but also their families, culture and dignity.

Indigenous peoples have an internationally recognized human right to their language. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples proclaims that, “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their . . . languages.” Similar terms appear in many other international human rights treaties.

Our leaders and leaders of our corporations need to learn those treaties that still stand with the Federal Government and the indigenous people of the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

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Behind BIA Doors – by Fred John

Fred John

September 12, 2020 
BEHIND BIA DOORS… When we first came to boarding school.
When we first arrive in Wrangell They pick us up in town and took us to the boarding school.
When we came to the dorm all the old students came to the car and look at us through the window. The all look the same with shaved bald head, wearing the same kind of clothes and their face look so round and chubby. They keep calling us new meat. The Staff (matrons) took us to a place call the ‘Rumbus Room’. On the way to the room we were size up bumped and push by the older students. My older brothers Nelson and Ben bump and push them right back and they knew right away not to fool with them. Me…I was too scared for a 7 year old and didn’t know
what was this all about!
At the Rumbus room they shaved off our hair, put some powder on us for lice, strip us down naked and put us all in one huge shower. There were other students with us in the showers from all over Alaska. The showers were cold and I remember we used those old brown soap.
When the showers were turned off our privates were check and see if we were clean by both female and male staff members. We were issued uniform with our permanant number over the left pocket and under the neck color in back. I was 77. All our sears clothes were taken and burn at the big furnace down by the dock.
That number was our name those many years there!
I remember when the students first came from Anuktuvik Pass. It was awesome to see them with their Parka, caribou pants and mukluks. I remember how beautiful they look in their original clothes. Later looking into their history, I found out they just moved into a permanent settlement in this new village. They been living their entire life hunting and gathering until 1949 when the government made them settle in this village so the kids can go to boarding school. Before that they live in their original home like the Athabaskan use to live half under ground and above ground and followed the seasonal way of hunting and gathering.
The sad part is I saw them go through the shaving of the head. Showing( very embarrassing at the time because of the women staff watching… worst was when they pile up all the parkas, caribou pants, mukluk, an dried meat and fish and took it to the furnace to burn!
Later on I met some of them again and it was so good to hear them still speaking their original language. There were so many of them the can secretly talk with eac other in their language and it stayed with them!
We stayed for 2 years the first time. It was hard not to cry at night when the lights were turn off and hearing other kids sobbing in their beds and some older students trying to comfort them. Us younger ones didn’t know why we were there. Why we were beaten when we talk the only language we knew. Why the other students were so mean.
We didn’t knew that we were gonna be mean to other students the longer we were there. Before the first two years was up my langarage was taken and I was only number 77 almost forgetting my name. My two older brothers made sure I remember my name.
I still remember 77. It never left me.
I BET THOSE PRISONERS IN EUROPE NEVER FORGET THEIR NUMBER!
Fred John
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Residential School Murders – unpunished

Russ Letica

May31 at  11:44AM
1. Nine year old Vicky Stewart of the Tsimshian nation was killed at the United Church residential school in Edmonton on April 9, 1958 by school matron Ann Knizky, who hit Vicky over the head with a two by four. The RCMP refused to press charges against either Knizky or the United Church, and threatened Vicky`s family with imprisonment if they pursued the matter.
2. Margaret Sepass was raped and then beaten to death by an Anglican priest named John Warner on December 5, 1969, at St. Michael’s Indian school in Alert Bay, British Columbia. Margaret was nine years old. Her burial site is unknown and John Warner was never charged.
3. On January 5, 1938, Albert Gray was beaten to death by Reverend Alfred Caldwell of the United Church of Canada when Albert took a prune from a jar without permission. Albert was eleven years old. His body was buried in secret behind the Ahousat Indian school and Alfred Caldwell was never charged.
4. On December 24, 1946, the same Principal Caldwell kicked 14 year old Maisie Shaw to her death down a flight of stairs at the United Church`s Alberni residential school, as witnessed by Harriett Nahanee. The RCMP covered up the murder.
5. On April 3, 1964, Richard Thomas was sodomized and then strangled to death by Catholic priest Terence McNamara at the Kuper Island Indian school. Richard was buried in secret in an orchard south of the school, and Terence McNamara, who is still alive, was never charged.
6. Elaine Dick, age 6, was kicked to death by a nun in April of 1964 at the Squamish Indian school in Vancouver. The RCMP refused to press charges when requested by the victim`s family.
7. Daniel Kangetok, age 4, was infected with an untreatable virus as part of a Defense Research Board experimental program funded by the Canadian military. He was left to die at the Carcross Anglican residential school in the Yukon, in February of 1971.
8. David Sepass, age 8, was pushed down some stairs by a priest at the Kuper Island catholic school and left to die, early in 1958.
9. A newborn Cree baby was burned alive by a senior priest at the Catholic Muscowegan Indian school near Regina in May of 1944, as witnessed by Irene Favel. The priest was never charged.
10. Susan Ball, age 5, starved to death in a closet at the United Church Edmonton residential school during the winter term of 1959, after being confined there by a church matron for speaking her own language.
11. Pauline Frank, age 8, died from medical experimentation performed by Canadian army researchers at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital in March of 1972. Her body was buried in secret on the grounds of the hospital, which is still restricted military property.
12. Albert Baptiste, age 9, died from electric shocks from a cattle prod wielded by a catholic priest at the Mission residential school over Christmas in 1951.
13. Nancy Joe, age 14, died from involuntary drug testing by military doctors at the Nanaimo Indian hospital in the spring of 1967.
14. Lorraine white, teenager, was gang raped by United Church residential school staff and left to die, Port Alberni, summer of 1971.
15. Eighteen Mohawk children, all under the age of sixteen, were shot to death by Canadian soldiers outside Brantford, Ontario, in the summer of 1943, as witnessed by Rufus McNaughton. The children were buried in secret in a mass grave.
16. Johnny Bingo Dawson, an eyewitness to crimes in Anglican residential schools and a leader of protests against these criminal churches, died of injuries from a police beating after being threatened by them, in Vancouver on December 9, 2009. Official cause of death was alcohol poisoning, despite the absence of alcohol in his blood.
17. Ricky Lavallee, the eyewitness to Bingo’s beating by the Vancouver police, died of a blow to his chest in early January of 2011.
18. William Combes, an eyewitness to the abduction of ten children by Queen Elizabeth from Kamloops Indian school on October 10, 1964, was killed by a lethal injection at St. Paul’s catholic hospital in Vancouver on February 26, 2011.
19. Harriett Nahanee, the first eyewitness to a residential school murder to go public, died after mistreatment in a Vancouver jail, February, 2007.
20. Nora Bernard, the first aboriginal in Canada to sue the Catholic church for residential school crimes, was murdered in December of 2007 on the eve of Canada`s official spin doctoring of the residential school genocide.
… and more than 50,000 others, all of them children.
No-one has ever been charged or tried under Canadian law for any these killings. And the criminal government and churches responsible for this mass murder have been legally absolved of any responsibility for them under Canadian law.
Nothing has been healed. Nothing has been reconciled. Justice has been exterminated as completely as these innocent victims.
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My Iñupiaq language has suffered

I have been thinking of my Iñupiaq language and a small bit of the history that I know of and have experienced.

I grew up with Iñupiaq as the only language I knew before entering a classroom, a Bureau of Indian (BIA) Classroom at the age of 5.   Even though I did not understand the English language spoken in a classroom, I would be brought to the school because it was deemed necessary to be there even though there was no understanding of the English language to be taught.

I remember at the age of 5, I must have been scolded or punished for speaking my language and I know I was crying, grabbed my parka and started running home across the lagoon.    I was so young and I don’t think I remember being brought back to the school right away, others older than me that were send out at that young age did not have that privilege of running home when treated so bad and for a lot of them, that was the first time they experienced “domestic violence”.    We were a quiet class because of the fear of being punished for speaking the only language we knew.

I don’t remember much of that school year as a 5 year old, but I do remember another incident that happened the following school year.    As a child of nomadic parents, my parents would leave our wooden walls in late April or early May for spring camp and not returning until almost Thanksgiving, and this was the time of year we would be put in school.

My first grade year, I still could not understand English and being new to a classroom from a very loving home, that was the year I first encountered “domestic violence” as a first grader when the teacher, although did not hit me,  she raised her hand at me and made me flinch.   I was so scared that I started crying and could not stop.   I don’t know if I was brought home or picked up, that is not clear to me.   I do remember my mom telling my dad when he got home from work or trapping about the incident in my school.   My father did not act right away but he thought it through and went and talked with the principal (who was an older native man) instead of approaching the teacher, he talked with our principal the following day.   I don’t think my parents allowed me in school for a while but when I did go back, the teacher ignored me and I continued to witness “domestic violence” towards my classmates who were also so young  and punished when they spoke our language.

My 2nd grade year was so different from the previous year because the teacher was so patient and had an understanding of our non-English speaking class.    It made learning fun.    The beginning of our 3rd grade year, we had another teacher that was also patient with us learning English words but by mid-school year we had a change in teachers and it was not so nice.   We started going to school in fear again, fear of being punished for saying an Iñupiaq word because we did not know an English word for what we were saying.    This time we had a male teacher who had a wife in the lower grade classroom.   Well this man would go and get his wife to help discipline our class if we did not know English words and said Iñupiaq words.   More “domestic violence” learned in a classroom.

My 4th grade year, we had an older man who also used “corporal” punishment like our previous teachers.  Being exposed to this type of “domestic violence” was probably getting normal for a lot of these young minds.   And we wonder why domestic violence is in such high rates in our native cultures of Alaska and the Nation, it’s because of the actions we witnessed in our early years of education.   We never ever witnessed domestic violence in our culture until the Government got involved.

 

What is another word for Domestic Violence:  Corporal punishment – Corporal punishment encompasses all types of physical punishment, including spanking, slapping, pinching, pulling, twisting, and hitting with an object. It also may include forcing a child to consume unpleasant substances such as soap, hot sauce, or hot pepper.  Violence can be broadly divided into three broad categories – direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence.

 We used to flinch as a young student when a teacher was throwing a large rubber eraser the size of a large stick of butter across the room towards another child.   We also witnessed our classmates being pulled by the ears or their hair out of their chairs to be placed in front of the classroom corner to be humiliated by the teacher.    We witnessed our classmates sticking their hands out, palm up being hit by the teacher with a wooden ruler with the sound of a whip on their small hands.   These are just some of them I witnessed personally and I have heard my classmates talk of more incidents, some of them going home with bruises from their teachers.

My fifth grade year started out as the most terrible year of all of them, not because of the actions towards me but to watch my classmates suffer under the hands of someone the parents entrusted to teach.    All the actions and words of that first teacher started on day one and continued until it drove one of our classmates to totally not coming to school.   That one day when our female classmate who was quiet and could not understand our teacher, was looking to us for help to understand him and tell him that she needed to go and use the restroom.   Instead, the teacher was outraged, grabbed the girl and picked her up by her shoulders, carried her over to our tall metal trashcan and shoved her in there where she peed her pants while the teacher left her in there for a long time while she was crying.   His throwing of objects such as large hard erasers, chalkboard erasers, books, rulers, pencils and other things were a normal occurrence with this teacher until that fateful day of our classmate who never returned to school.   

They finally let that teacher go and it was a relief to be free of fear.   We got to know our teacher replacement and he was the total opposite of the person they let go.    The new teacher was so patient with us and like our 2nd grade teacher, he made education fun without the violence.   That same teacher lived in Barrow with his family for many years and continued to teach in one of our villages and has close connection with that community to this day.   Thank you Mr. Finley.

I hope this makes you understand a little better why our Iñupiaq language spiraled down because of violence that happened to our young speakers.   If my story angers you, you have not heard the stories of those that were sent out at a very young age of 5 years old to institutions outside of our region and sometimes out of our state/territory without any parental involvement to protect or speak for them for years.   The Federal Government came in the name of education by different  means and divided families using different tools to do that paid by the Federal Government.   They were sent to assimilate and destroy our languages and cultures.

For nearly a century, between 1869 and the 1960’s, the Federal Government implemented the Indian Boarding School Policy.  This policy authorized the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of American Indian and Alaska Native children, as young as five (5) years old, relocating them from their homes in communities to one of 367 Indian Boarding Schools across 30 States.

The Indian Boarding School policy was designed to assimilate American Indian and Alaska Native children into White American culture by stripping them of their cultural identities, often through physical, sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse and neglect.  Many of the children who were taken to boarding schools never returned to their communities.  At the Carlisle Indian School alone, approximately 180 American Indian and Alaska Native children were buried.  Many of our Caucasian counterparts want us to “move on” because it’s “history” they say.   It is History that has caused a lot of damage in our people and to our families. 

While attending Indian boarding schools, American Indian and Alaska Native children suffered additional psychological abuses as they were sent to white-owned homes and businesses for involuntary and unpaid manual labor work during the summers.  Many children ran away and remained missing, or died of illnesses due to harsh living conditions, abuse, and/or substandard health care provided by the schools.

Parents of the children who were forcibly removed to the boarding schools were prohibited from visiting or engaging in correspondence with their children. Parental resistance to compliance with this harsh no-contact policy resulted in their incarceration or loss of access to basic provisions including food rations, clothing, or both.

United States Commission on Civil Rights reported that American Indian and Alaska Native communities continue to experience intergenerational trauma resulting from experiences in Indian Boarding Schools that divided cultural family structures, damaged indigenous identities, and inflicted chronic psychological ramifications on American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

When these young students came back home after being away for many years, they had been stripped of family and the unit they were once part of.  It took years for them to get connected and try to learn their language and culture but a lot of them were not lucky, those that ran away and got lost.   Not only were they stripped of their language but also their families, culture and dignity.    

Indigenous peoples have an internationally recognized human right to their language. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples proclaims that, “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their . . . languages.” Similar terms appear in many other international human rights treaties.

Let us strengthen our language for those that never had the chance to return home.   Let us tell our stories so we don’t carry it alone.

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Why some people feel uneasy about the Vaccine – give them space

 

Chapter 12: The Iodine 131 Experiment in Alaska (georgetown.edu)

Chapter 12: The Iodine 131 Experiment in Alaska

In 1956 and 1957 the U.S. Air Force’s Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory conducted a study of the role of the thyroid gland in acclimatizating humans to cold, using iodine 131. Like the case of the Marshallese, this study is another instance in which research conducted on populations that were unfamiliar at the time with modern American medicine posed special ethical problems and was therefore of interest to the Advisory Committee. The study involved 200 administrations of I-131 to 120 subjects: 19 Caucasians, 84 Eskimos, and 17 Indians,[227]Charts appearing in the report indicate slightly different subject numbers with some subjects participating more than once. Animal studies had suggested the thyroid gland might play a crucial role in adaptation to extreme cold. This experiment was part of the laboratory’s larger research mission to examine ways of improving the operational capability of Air Force personnel in arctic regions. The results of the study were published in 1957 as an Air Force technical report by the principal investigator, Dr. Kaare Rodahl, M.D., a Norwegian scientist hired by the U.S. Air Force for his expertise–rare at the time–in arctic medicine.[228] Many observational studies of Alaska Natives were carried out by a variety of researchers in the 1950s and 1960s; most of these did not administer radiation to the natives, but only measured what had already accumulated in their bodies from fallout.[229] The thyroid study discussed here, however, differed in that it actively administered radionuclides to natives, raising more direct questions of consent, risk, and subject selection. The Alaskan I-131 experiment also offered subjects no prospect of medical benefit.

 

This study is the subject of a review by a committee of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. The IOM/NRC committee was mandated by legislation passed by Congress in 1993 and began operation in June 1994, including an on-site investigation of the experiments.[230]

To the extent possible, the IOM/NRC committee has provided the Advisory Committee with information but, in accordance with its own procedures, has kept its own deliberations confidential. The IOM/NRC report was not available to the Advisory Committee, as it had not been completed by the time the Committee had concluded its deliberations. We did not conduct our own on-site investigation of the Alaskan experiments. Instead, we have relied on published materials (primarily Rodahl’s 1957 report on the study, “Thyroid Activity in Man Exposed to Cold”) and those observations presented to the Committee in testimony by representatives of the IOM/NRC committee, as well as by representatives of the Inupiat villages of the North Slope of Alaska where the research was conducted. More detailed study may always, of course, lead to different factual conclusions. The Advisory Committee was concerned with understanding the experiments well enough to develop general remedial principles to be applied to more detailed factual findings completed by others.

According to Dr. Chester Pierce of Harvard Medical School, chair of the IOM/NRC committee, in 1994 Dr. Rodahl recalled that the base commander at the Artic Aero-medical Laboratory approved the study, and headquarters in Washington knew of the experiment.[231] Participants in the study were asked to swallow a capsule containing a tracer dose of radioiodine. Measurements were then made of thyroid activity, using a scintillation counter, and samples taken of blood, urine, and saliva.[232] The study’s overall conclusion was that “the thyroid does not play any significant role in human acclimatization to the arctic environment when the cold stress is no greater than what is normally encountered by soldiers engaged in usual arctic service or by Alaskan Eskimos or Indians in the course of their normal life or activities.”[233] One minor consequence of the experiment was to have the noniodized salt in the local stores replaced with iodized salt. Follow-up, Dr. Rodahl told the IOM/NRC Committee, was left to the Alaska Native Service, which was already aware of a goiter problem in these communities.[234] Alaska natives testifying in 1994 before the IOM/NRC committee could not recall any follow-up visits by physicians, according to Dr. Pierce.[235]

Risk

The Advisory Committee did not undertake a detailed dose reconstruction or assessment of the scientific quality of the research, since these tasks were already being undertaken by the IOM/NRC committee. The actual capsules of iodine 131 were prepared in continental U.S. laboratories. As was common at the time, the principal investigator, Dr. Rodahl, took a one-week course on the proper handling and administration to humans of iodine 131.[236] He then instructed the other physicians who would be working in the field. Doses were officially reported to range from 9 to 65 microcuries of iodine 131, with most being approximately 50 microcuries. The doses below 50 microcuries were due to the natural reduction in the radioactivity of the ready-made capsules during the long trip to remote regions.[237] (To compensate for the low doses, longer scanning times were used in the field, but in the 1957 report these results were judged to be unreliable.)[238] According to Dr. Pierce, Dr. Rodahl stated in 1994 that the dosage was standard at the time for tracer studies. This was the dose he had been taught in his training course; the dosage was approved by the AEC.[239]

In terms of dosage and risk, the experiment was not significantly different from tracer studies conducted in the continental United States with two exceptions. First, some subjects were used more than once; several Alaska Native subjects reported they received as many as three doses.[240] Second, the subjects included women who were pregnant or lactating. Dr. Pierce reported that testimony at the IOM/NRC hearings in Alaska indicated that at least one subject may have been pregnant at the time; technical reports, he said, state that two female subjects may have been lactating at the time.[241] Although the AEC discouraged the nontherapeutic use of radioisotopes in pregnant women, such research was sometimes conducted. What sets the Alaska experiment apart from other studies conducted on pregnant and lactating women is that this experiment was not investigating a research question about an aspect of pregnancy or lactation.

As discussed in detail in chapter 6, from its mid-1940s inception the AEC’s radioisotope distribution program required prior review of “human uses” of radioisotopes to ensure that risks were minimized and safety precautions were followed. (In 1952 the Air Force issued a rule that required prior review for experiments, but the rule was limited to research conducted at Air Force medical facilities.[242]) As discussed in chapter 6, in 1949 the AEC’s Human Use Subcommittee expressly discouraged the use of radioisotopes for research with children or pregnant women.

Disclosure and Consent

This experiment offered no prospect of medical benefit to subjects. If the subjects in this experiment did not understand and agree to this instrumental use of their bodies, then they were used as mere means to the ends of the investigators and the Air Force. It was at this time conventional for investigators to obtain the consent of “normal” (healthy) subjects or “volunteers” in nontherapeutic research. This tradition was particularly strong in the military services (see part I). It was also recognized by the AEC at least by February 1956 when the AEC’s radioisotopes distribution program explicitly stated that where normal subjects are to be used they must be “volunteers to whom the intent of the study and the effects of radiation have been outlined.”[243]

The Committee is not aware of any documents from the time of the experiment that bear on what, if anything, the subjects were told and whether consent was obtained. There are also no documents bearing on whether the Air Force provided the researchers with guidelines on the use of human subjects or requirements for obtaining consent. However, documents available to the Committee indicate that the radioisotopes used by the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory and Dr. Rodahl were obtained by the Air Force under license from the AEC.[244] The AEC’s provision for healthy volunteers, as just quoted, was included in the AEC’s publicly available materials and presumably should have been known to–and abided by–those conducting government research programs involving AEC provided radioisotopes.[245]

The only available evidence comes from personal recollections of the principal investigator and a few of the former subjects. Dr. Rodahl recalled in 1994 that he obtained white volunteers through their military commanders and Indian and Eskimo volunteers through the village elders.[246] When a military volunteer came before him, he explained, in the subject’s native tongue (English), the purpose of the study and what a subject would do and gave the person the opportunity to decline to participate.[247] When visiting the villages, the physicians could not communicate directly in the native language. They would find an English-speaking village elder and explain the purpose of the study. The elder would then find people to serve as subjects. What communication occurred between the village elder and the prospective subjects is not known. According to members of the IOM/NRC committee, Dr. Rodahl recalled that, although all potential subjects were given the opportunity not to participate, all of the Indians and Eskimos who reported did participate in the experiment.[248]

Dr. Rodahl also reported that he did not use the term radiation in his explanation to the English-speaking village elders who then communicated with others in the villages. Interviews in 1994 by the IOM/NRC committee indicated that there is no word for radiation in the native languages. One Alaska Native subject, interviewed by the IOM/NRC committee in 1994, recalled that at the time he worked in a hospital, spoke English, and did know about “radiation.” He could not recall any use of the term in the study.[249] In at least one village–Arctic Village–there were no English speakers. Subjects from this village testified in 1994 to the IOM/NRC that they thought they were taking a substance that would improve their own health and that they would not have participated in the study if they had known it required them to take a radioactive tracer.[250]

These accounts raise difficult ethical questions about authorization and consent, questions made the more difficult by an incomplete historical record. It is, for example, unclear whether the village elders were employed solely as translators who were asked to transmit individual requests for permission to potential subjects, or whether Dr. Rodahl was responding to the perceived authority of the village elder who then “volunteered” members of his community. Thus we do not know what the individual subjects were told or whether their individual permission was sought. Today we continue to debate whether, when human research is conducted in cultures where tribal or family leaders have considerable authority over members of their communities, it is ever appropriate to substitute the permission of these leaders for first-person consent.[251]

Even if the procedure used for securing authorization through the tribal leaders was appropriate, the available evidence suggests that the leaders may not have understood, and thus were not in a position to communicate to the subjects, that the experiment was nontherapeutic, that it had a military purpose, or that it involved exposure to low doses of radiation. The ethical difficulties posed by the language barrier were exacerbated by a significant cultural barrier. The Indian and Eskimo villages had little exposure to modern medicine. One village–Point Lay–is described in Rodahl’s 1957 report as “relatively little affected” by the modern world.[252] There is a strong likelihood that there was no appreciation for the difference between treatment of a patient and research unrelated to any illness of the subject.

The danger of exploitation was further heightened by the trusting relationship that developed between the native Alaskans and the field researchers. In part, this trust was the customary welcome given to visitors; in part it was due to the desire for medical care. In at least one village, harsh conditions may have increased the need for outside assistance. Rodahl’s report states that Point Lay had suffered from semistarvation the previous year.[253] Dr. Pierce testified to the Advisory Committee that “in the mid-1950s, doctor visits to native villages were quite scarce.” Dr. Rodahl said when his plane landed, the villagers would come running to meet him and the other physicians who came with him, and the villagers would immediately want their ailments treated. He said the physicians treated them because they were medical men. He also said “the natives trusted them, and they trusted the natives.”[254] Testimony before the IOM/NRC committee included the recollection of one participant that he had been paid $10 for the study; in other testimony it appears some subjects may have believed there was an implicit quid pro quo, trading medical treatment for participation.[255] The testimony suggests that at least some subjects understood that part of what was being done to them was not medical care.

Subject Selection

The selection of Alaskan Indians and Eskimos as subjects for this research was not arbitrary. In order to better understand acclimatization and human performance under conditions of extreme cold, it was reasonable and potentially important to study people who lived under such conditions. At the same time, however, the population chosen was not one familiar with modern medicine, but rather a population for whom the treatments of modern physicians were a strange but valued innovation, and the research activities of modern medicine were totally unknown. As a consequence, the potential for misunderstanding and exploitation was significant. The Committee does not know whether there were at the time other populations also acclimated to cold weather who were better positioned than Alaskan Indians or Eskimos to be genuine volunteers for this nontherapeutic experiment. There has been no evidence that any attempt was made to explain the military purpose of the study to the Indians or Eskimos. Thus, in general, there was no oversight–or even knowledge–of how the village elders recruited participants and explained the nature of the experiment.

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So, if you start putting people down about not getting the Covid vaccine, please respect their decision because they might have lost someone close to them because of a “study” from people they trusted like the Government.

 

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Tribes in PL280 States (like Alaska) – An Educational post

All of this post are citations from “Understanding Jurisdiction – PL280 Resource Guide by Tortes & Pierce (Thank you Alex & Cindy).   (My interpretations in laymen terms will  be noted and my opinions at the end)

“Public Law 83-280 is very difficult to understand without knowing the context of when & why it was written.   In other words, to understand PL280, one needs to know its “legislative history“.   (background of the law)

PL280 has been used and abused for years.   It has frustrated and confused many a law enforcement officer and baffled even the most seasoned of judges.   IF there is one area of that has been all over the place.   It would be in the area of Indian law.   If you have ever used the expression.   “it’s as clear as mud,”   when commenting about Indian Legislation, you are actually in good company.

One U.S. Supreme Court Justice, when reaching a decision about a case involving Indians, put it this way:

“Federal Indian Policy is, to say the least, schizophrenic.    And this confusion continues to infuse federal Indian law and our cases.”  US Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas – 2004 United States vs. Lara

Tribal Sovereignty dates back to time immemorial.  It is an inherent sovereignty and was not given to the Tribes by any government.

There are at least 370 treaties that were made with tribes.

“The discovery of this continent of North America by the Europeans….was held, occupied, and possessed in full sovereignty by various tribes or nations of Indians, who were sovereigns of their respective portions of the territory….who neither acknowledged nor owed any allegiance or obedience to any European sovereign or state whatsoever.”   Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. McIntosh, 21 US 543, 545 (1823)

“If you have ever studied Government & Law, you should know the written history of what they want you to know.   Just because you did not read it or studied it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”   panikpak

The sad portrayal of life in some areas of the western frontier was also referred to by the US Supreme Court in the case of US vs. Kagama 1886.   The court in this case recognized the “local ill feeling” of the non-Indians toward  the Indians.   It was explained that hte federal government had a duty to protect the Indians due to the fact that “the people of hte States” where the Indians live “are often their deadliest enemies”

The Key ;point in this:   Federal protection of Indians against non-indian abuse became necessary and therefore a responsibility that fell under Federal Exclusive Jurisdiction.

*There is also a set of Enclave laws, we will save that for another time.

“Congress shall…have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with Indian Tribes.”  US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3

Cited from:   Understanding Jurisdiction on Tribal Lands in PL280  by:  Alex Tortes and Cindy Pierce

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The rest of this is post is from myself, Panikpak and gives me more questions to our leaders in the Arctic.

So, if our rights as “Indians” “a sovereign nation apart from the Federal Government” are protected by the Federal Government, why have they not protected us from their own government?    The Department of the Interior is charged with:

Dept. of Interior…….. honors the Nation’s trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities to help them prosper.

The U.S. Department of the Interior uses sound science to manage and sustain America’s lands, water, wildlife, and energy resources, honors our nation’s responsibilities to tribal nations, and advocates for America’s island communities.

The Federal Government has a “Trust Responsibility”:  The federal Indian trust responsibility is a legal obligation under which the United States “has charged itself with moral obligations of the highest responsibility and trust” toward Indian tribes (Seminole Nation v. United States, 1942).

Did you know that there was a Barrow Reindeer herd?   The herders at that time had a 99 year lease with the BIA/Department of Interior for reindeer grazing from Point Hope to Demarcation and it just expired not too long ago.    Well, if there was already a lease by the Barrow reindeer herders, why did the State of Alaska sell leases in the Prudhoe area at the time there were active leases?

The whole Arctic Slope as recognized by our Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (the same boundaries as the North Slope).    Why has a state government taken our land from under our feet and taking our resources, the very birth place of our ancestors, ceremonial grounds, subsistence areas,  and burial grounds of our forefathers?

IF, we can unite as people, as entities and really work for the betterment of the people we serve, we would and could  take care of those financial shortfalls to get running water, proper utility programs to those communities that need it.

I understand there are laws, but laws have changed, they have been amended (except for God’s laws, because they are not ours to change).   That is why we elect lawmakers, boards (who make decisions for their people) to make decisions for the betterment of those that elected them, not for themselves.

Why does the State of Alaska still have control over our NPRA Impact Funds?   We have a capable North Slope Leadership that can fight to change that.    We don’t need a big brother (State of Alaska), our region is over 40 years old, I think it’s time to take control.   Let’s work together to make it happen.   If this generation doesn’t do it, the next will.   Let’s not wait too long.

I remember when exploration was growing and I was already working as a translator.    An elder had asked a question at one of their meetings on how much impact and encroachment there would be on their property of their youth, subsistence areas, burial grounds of their families, would there be protection?     This has always been on my mind & heart because this elder was crying when she asked this question, and the industry responded that they would not even leave a footprint.    You ever fly on a clear day from Prudhoe to Barrow?   Tell me you don’t see any pipelines, roads, oil rigs or smoke for miles on end.     We have not done enough to protect for our grandparents, and not protecting what was left for us to protect for our grandchildren.

Should we secede?   This has been a topic for the past 20 years but no one has moved forward with it.    I have heard that there are other regions willing to partner to help secede.    Most of the revenue from the oilfields would help what is now “bush Alaska” and not just south of the PYK line, it would not just be 5% of the revenue of what is taken from our land.

 

 

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NVB Judicial Code bits and pieces

In early 2000, I was tasked with a few other people to start drafting a Judicial Code for our Tribe with the help of the UCLA Tribal Law Institute.   This project took a few years but that University was very instrumental with the help of Pat, Addy and a few others who became friends.

Since time immemorial , the Inupiat people have resolved disputes and conflicts, maintained peace in their communities, and administered justice through the use of customary law, and traditional practices and processes.  In order to affirm our sovereign powers of self-government and self-determination, to preserve, protect and build upon our unique and distinctive culture and traditions, we the members of the Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government.

The purpose of the Code is to establish a judicial system for the resolution of disputes in order to:  Provide for the fair, efficient and culturally appropriate administration of justice whereby conflicts are resolved consistent with tribal traditions and customs; Exercise Jurisdiction over all matters to ensure that the sovereignty of the NVB Tribe is recognized and to protect the welfare of tribal members and; Provide all affected persons with a fair, prompt, and impartial hearing so as to afford all persons who appear before NVB Tribal Court all rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the NVB Tribe.

The Tribal Court of hte NVB Tribe has the inherent jurisdiction of a federally recognized tribal government as may be further specified in its constitution, this chapter, its other laws, and any amendments to the same.  The Tribal Court may also exercise any jurisdiction delegated to the Tribe by any state or federal law or agency.  The Tribal Court’s inherent jurisdiction includes, but is not limited to the following subjects arising within the Tribe’s territory.

  1.  Disputes between two or more members of, or persons eligible for membership in the tribe.
  2. disputes arising out of consensual relationship either between a non-member and the tribe or between a non-member and a member of, or person eligible for membership, in the tribe.
  3.   Domestic relations
  4. Matters involving members whose conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, economic security, or health or welfare of the tribe as may now or hereafter be defined by a statute, resolution, or ordinance of the Tribe, and
  5. Violation of any criminal law of the Tribe by a member, person eligible for membership or other Native American.

There is so much more that our Tribal Members should know….educate yourselves on your laws, your rights on the Codes.

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What is happening in our Tribe?

Native Village of Barrow has not been really stable for a few years now after our long time Executive Director stepped down.

The tribe went through multiple Executive Directors since 2017; as well as Tribal Council members.   In less then a year, the council has had multiple council members step down or pushed out.

As a member of the NVB Tribe, the membership should ask for a special membership meeting before our tribe is in dire straits.

At this time, the Tribe does not have an Executive Director and I don’t think they are hiring one until the two council seats are filled.

I do know that you have to reside in Barrow to be on the council and the same requirement probably falls on the Executive Director position.   The Constitution and Bylaws of the Tribe also states that the President is the Executive Director unless…..

Tribal members, I urge you to read the Constitution and Bylaws of the NVB and make informed decisions on your tribe.   I also urge you to read your Tribal Codes and Ordinances.