This week on Minnesota Native News, the latest on the tent camp in Minneapolis, an all-out effort to recruit more Native foster homes, and getting out the vote in Indian Country.
Transcript
Marie: This week on Minnesota Native News, the latest on the tent camp in Minneapolis, an all-out effort to recruit more Native foster homes, and getting out the vote in Indian Country.
This is Minnesota Native News. I’m Marie Rock.
Story #1: MUID meeting
Marie: A Community Council at the Minneapolis American Indian Center this week discussed the tent camp. Robert Lilligren of the Minneapolis Urban Indian Directors said the camp’s high visibility presents an opportunity to undo “business as usual.”
We need to have a different conversation with different voices and different outcomes. You guys have been saying this forever: ‘Let the community lead, let the community lead, you feel like there’s an opening?’ There is an opening and I feel like we’ll be more successful at getting more resources the more we can get community voices to the table.
Marie: We’ll have more about the encampment on next week’s Minnesota Native News.
Story #2 GOTV
Marie: Election day is Tuesday November 6. Minnesota will elect its first Native American lieutenant governor, either DFL-er Peggy Flanagan or Republican Donna Bergstrom. But across the country, some neighboring states are rewriting election law in ways that might lower the Native turnout.
(07) Obstacles are being put in front of us. They are doing everything they can to deny a right that is ours.
Marie: O.J Semans, Lakota from Rosebud, is co-executive director of Four Directions, an organization that aims to enhance Native impact in elections across the country.
(14)] the states are circling the wagons to protect whatever they think belongs specifically to them. Um, and our ancestors have always seen those circled wagons and has always found ways to either move around them or move through them.
Four Directions works with tribes to improve Native access to polling places, including on reservations in Minnesota. This year it is focusing on voter suppression in other states but it is also asking Native people to.. in their words: warrior up.
[15] every vote that you take as a native into that polling place empowers you. It empowers your people and empowers your tribe. So I would ask a Minnesota native to warrior up. Let's get that pen and let's mark that ballot.
Story #3 Foster Care
Marie: 2018 marks the 40th year of ICWA. The Indian Child Welfare Act recognized that Native children were being removed from their homes at disproportionate rates. ICWA says Native children who are removed must be placed with relatives if possible, or at least in Native homes. But, as Laurie Stern reports, the need for those homes is greater than ever.
Laurie tape
[are you here for the foster care event, ok if you could sign in …fade under…]
The foster family recruitment event at the American Indian Center in Minneapolis offered encouragement and information. Dinner was served and booths were staffed by foster care experts. Lucy Favorite is with American Indian Family and Children’s Services
LF: For foster care there's a daily rate that is paid and there is also an additional rate that is paid and that is assessed. And that assessment looks at the amount of parenting that you have to do for that child.
For instance, newborns or kids with special needs require extra care, for which families are reimbursed. But some families who’ve wanted to foster have been turned down or discouraged. So at this event lawyers answered questions about overcoming obstacles to fostering.
AMBI: What is the process if you have an eviction or unlawful detainer for getting that expunged?
Public interest attorneys explained that expungements… where an arrest is erased in the eyes of the law… are possible – sometimes at no cost – but that if someone in the household has a criminal conviction, especially for a violent offense, that could be a dealbreaker..
AMBI: next to them I have Mike Sennet, he’s been licensed since 1832…laughter]
Most of the evening belonged to the foster parent panel:
Sennet: I take a lot of older boys 13-18, and once they’re in that stable environment, with caregivers that are living, you just see them grow every day. That’s the biggest thing I get out of it.
Wilkerson: We only have for, you know, 72 hours. Some we have for six or seven months. It doesn't matter how long they're with us. If you can have some sort of positive impact on them. I mean why wouldn't you?
The panel answered many questions. There’s help getting kids to their appointments. Most foster kids probably shouldn’t babysit. The community is happy to help you find pow wows and drumming groups. And yes, fostering is rewarding in many ways.
I grew up in and out of foster, so I wanted to give back and that's one of the reasons why I chose to do it, to help the other children that are out there. Probably one of the most important things to me. Our kids are our future. If we don't give them a future, they don't have one.