Today’s a good day for me to shut up and let First Nations people speak for themselves.

I will merely point out where I’ve written about these annual memorial marches before to provide some background and links to additional resources, let readers explore the news links for themselves, and then close with a few brief sentences.

• First Nations peoples continue to decry the ongoing stealing of their children for adoption (A post about last year’s march)

• First Nations peoples’ fight for their kids brought to the Iowa Commission on Native American Affairs (A post about some of the ongoing work between last year and this year)

Here are some articles about this year’s march.

• March to memorialize Native children lost in foster care.

Between 100 and 200 people will gather at the Marina Inn this morning for the eighth annual Memorial March to Honor Lost Children. The march remembers those children who have died or who have been lost in foster care in Siouxland.

“I don’t think it’s a leap to say that we’ve lost hundreds, even thousands of our children through the intervention of the child welfare system in the state of Iowa,” LaMere said. “We memorialize that loss and we remember those children.”

• Siouxland Natives March to Honor Lost Children
• 8th Annual Memorial March to Honor Lost Children (w/video)
• PHOTOS: Memorial March to Honor Lost Children
• Native Americans march to honor “lost children”

and the accompanying video segment:

The wildly disproportionate state confiscation of Native children must end.

The child placement provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) must not be ignored.

The cultural genocide continues. The “residential schools” may be closed now, but in far too many states, that ideology remains  just as close as the foster system.

That must change.