PORT ANGELES — A two-part presentation focused on the documentary “Dawnland” and the Indian Child Welfare Act will be hosted at Peninsula College on several days this week, with the first Zoom screening on Tuesday.
The one-hour documentary will be screened Tuesday through Friday. On Thursday will be a discussion about the film and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) involving tribal court staff from six area tribes.
The 2018 documentary “Dawnland” follows the first government-sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States.
For over two years, Native and non-Native commissioners traveled across Maine gathering testimony and bearing witness to the impacts of the state’s child welfare practices on families in Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribal communities. Collectively, these tribes make up the Wabanaki people.
The film highlights the stories of Native American children who were systemically removed from their homes and placed with white families by U.S. agencies. As recently as the 1970s, one in four Native children was living in non-Native foster care, adoptive homes or boarding schools, according to Peninsula College organizers.
The aim was to erase their cultural identities, organizers said.
“Many children experienced devastating emotional and physical harm,” they said in a press release.
Zoom screenings are at pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/82065028538 with meeting ID: 820 6502 8538.
Screening times are:
• Tuesday, noon.
• Wednesday, 7 p.m.
• Thursday, 10:30 a.m.
• Friday, 7 p.m.
On Thursday at 12:35 p.m. will be a face-to-face discussion between Brandon Mack, the family court commissioner for Clallam County, and tribal court staff of the six tribes the college most directly serves: Hoh, Quileute, Makah, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam and Lower Elwha Klallam.
The discussion will be in the Little Theatre on the college’s Port Angeles campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd. It also will be on Zoom at pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/82308557946. The meeting ID is 823 0855 7946.
“This will be an opportunity to reflect on the film but more importantly to learn about the work to support children in our community,” organizers said.
The screenings and discussion are sponsored by Peninsula College’s Magic of Cinema, Studium Generale, and ʔaʔk̓ʷustəƞáwt̓xʷ House of Learning, Peninsula College Longhouse.
The film and discussion precede the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of Haaland v. Brackeen. This case — which consolidates cases from Louisiana, Texas and Indiana, as well as individual families — asks if the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act discriminates on the basis of race. The federal law establishes minimum standards for the removal of Native children from their extended families and gives tribes jurisdiction over their members. Several tribes have filed briefs in the case.
Oral arguments before the court are scheduled Nov. 9.
