This Land, season 2 (coming August 23rd)

This Land

Crooked Media

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2021

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

ALM – as referred to in court documents – is a Navajo and Cherokee toddler. When he was a baby, a white couple from the suburbs of Dallas wanted to adopt him, but a federal law said they couldn’t. So they sued. Today, the lawsuit doesn’t just impact the future of one child, or even the future of one law. It threatens the entire legal structure defending Native American rights. In season 2 of This Land, host Rebecca Nagle investigates how the far right is using Native children to quietly dismantle American Indian tribes. Tune in beginning August 23rd.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The day that the social worker came and got me drove into the driveway and I was
0:06.7	totalling around and she just simply got out of the car, scooped me up and put me in the car.
0:13.6	40 years ago, Congress passed a law to stop the systemic removal of native children from their
0:20.4	families and tribes. The Indian Child Welfare Act. But recently, a small group of people started
0:28.3	saying it was a bad law. In the last decade, it's been challenged more times than the Affordable
0:34.8	Care Act. Shockwaves are going through the Native American community and that's after a federal
0:39.7	judge calls landmark legislation involving Native American adoption illegal. For the past four
0:46.0	years, I've been following one case that's now sitting on the steps of the Supreme Court.
0:52.2	How did this small step towards addressing generations of family separation become a target?
1:00.0	We put a team together and spent a year investigating. We talked to case workers, lawyers,
1:06.5	background sources, family members, over 100 people. We submitted 64-year requests,
1:12.9	read over 10,000 pages of court documents. Every time I thought I got to the bottom of it,
1:18.5	the bottom just got lower. This case is a front for a bigger legal challenge,
1:25.7	mounted by various conservative groups that are upset about all sorts of federal rules and regulations,
1:31.6	ranging from abortion rights to same-sex marriage, civil rights laws. There is ultimately an
1:39.9	oil and gas angle here. If Indian country is not afraid, it should be because this is the new
1:45.9	frontier of trying to take away everything that it means to build up an independent nation.
1:53.2	And we uncovered how a string of custody battles over Native children became a federal lawsuit
1:59.9	threatening everything from tribal sovereignty to civil rights. It's not about kids. It was never
2:05.6	about kids. I'm Rebecca Nagel, Gohine Dalaton, Jaleca Yetni Gela, citizen of Cherokee Nation.
2:13.3	Last season on this land, I had a story to share with you. This season, I have a story to uncover.
2:20.8	Coming soon from Cricket Media, this land season 2, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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