DENVER (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2018) An adoption of children out from the Native American families, which leads to their identity loss, as well as kidnapping of indigenous people are some of the major concerns for the tribes in the United States, Dennis Montoya of the Santee Dakota tribe, Sioux, who currently lives in Denver, told Sputnik on Sunday.
The Sioux comprise three major divisions based on three dialects - the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota. Lakota speakers are mainly in Pine Ridge in South Dakota, Dakota speakers are in Nebraska and Minnesota area, while Nakota speakers in South Dakota and in Canada, Montoya explained.
"The major difficulty, I think, is the Child Welfare Act. The local governments, the state governments, they come and they adopt our kids out to say so," Montoya said.
Montoya explained that some parents have problems like alcoholism, drug abuse, but instead of kids being kept within the family and the tribe, they adopt them out.
"They put them with other families, non-native families. Social services take the kids away and they adopt them out where they should be kept within the tribe, kept within the people, so they don't lose their ways," he added.
Montoya went on to say that this affects the tribal population.
"These kids grow up not knowing their native culture, their true culture. They grow up in a European or other different than their actual true culture, and they don't know it. When they grow up to be adults, their are missing something in their life. So they start researching and finding who their family was. When they start looking for their family, their family is like 'Where have you been, we've been looking for you this whole time, but we couldn't find you because adoption papers are sealed'," he stressed.
Alcoholism and drug abuse are also big problems across the Indian Territory nowadays, Montoya noted.
"We also have a major issue of indigenous women disappearing, and being murdered and taken. That's a huge problem right now across the country in South Dakota in my reservation, in Canada, in Montana. All these oil and gas companies they have these man camps, so the women disappear, the children disappear. They pass them around each other in these camps. The human trafficking. It's bad in Indian Country," he underlined.
Montoya, whose Indian name is Wambli Tokahe (First Eagle), also stressed that the tribe is making efforts to preserve its language and cultures.
He noted that the Sioux language is now curriculum at schools as it was disappearing, although there are some tribes that totally lost it as the elders are gone.
Montoya spoke on the margins of the 75th Annual Convention & Marketplace which is taking place in Colorado and is organized by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).
The US Federal government recognizes 567 Indian nations in 33 states, including 229 in Alaska. Native American tribes are further recognized by their respective state governments, according to the NCAI.
Established in 1944, the NCAI is the oldest and largest non-profit organization representing US native tribes and the interests of tribal governments and communities.
