Adoption reopens Indians’ wounds

Debate doesn’t end with ‘ Veronica’ ruling

CALERA, Okla.— Whena 4- year- old Cherokee girlwas reunited with her adoptive parentsMonday night, it potentially signaled the conclusion of a custody battle that entangled governors from two states and worked its way up to the U. S. Supreme Court.

But for many Native Americans, the questions raised over tribal adoptions, heritageandchildwelfare remain unresolved.

“BabyVeronica,” as the girl isknown, wasaninfantwhen her birth mother, who is not NativeAmerican, gaveherup for adoption to a white couple, Matt andMelanie Capobianco, in South Carolina. Two years later, the childwas removed from their home when her biological father mounted a legal challenge.

The father, who is part Cherokee, based his suit on a 35- year- old law governing Native American adoptions, drawing support fromNative American activists and setting off a prolonged custody fight.

Since then, Veronica’s plight has refocused attentiononapractice— oncegovernmentsanctioned but now condemned— of placingNative American children with families outside their culture. Somewhowere adopted this way decades ago, such as Anecia O’Carroll, 51, said they have never fully recovered fromthe experience.

“It is a tremendouswound of loss — culturally, spiritually,” O’Carroll said of growing up outside her tribe.

In 1978, in response toNative American protests, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which established that itwas best to keep Native American children with their families or, short of that, within their tribe to preserve their culture.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the law did not apply in Veronica’s case, in part because her birth parents were not married and because her biological father, Dusten Brown, never had custody.

But Brown refused to hand over Veronica, and the girl remained with the CherokeeNation inOklahomauntil yet another courtweighed in and she was placed back with the Capobiancos.

By the time the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, more than a quarter of all American Indian children were being placed in out- of- home care — eight times the rate of non- Indian children— and about 85 percent of them went to nonIndian homes, according to a 1976 study by the Association onAmericanIndian Affairs, a nonprofit that advocates for Native Americans.

“Itwas all under the guise of, youknow, they’re doing us a favor,” said Adrian Grey Buffalo, 55, a South Dakota Sioux who said his mother had been tricked into giving him up.

The ChildWelfare League of America eventually apologized for its role in the mass adoptions.