by Johnny Rustywire
A few years ago I worked for a while as a tribal court advocate with Navajo Legal Aid in Window Rock. As an advocate you act as a representative of the people, the office handled divorces, custody issues, wills, probates, repossessions, criminal defense and a lot of different things people came in for.
There were a few of us and the caseload was heavy, sometimes as many as 40 cases per advocate. It got to the point that someone would come in and you would talk to them trying to figure who it was was and what they were there for, then going to the case file and seeing where everything was at. Often times when an advocate had two cases to go at the same time, one of us would pick up the folder and take off to the court house.
The court houses were in Chinle, Tuba City, Shiprock, Kayenta, Crownpoint, Ramah and Window Rock. Sometmes this would involve driving hours away, Tuba City was five hours from Window Rock, so it took all day to handle these matters.
On arriving at the court the advocate would meet the clients on the steps, shake hands and go from there. Sometimes you did not know them, or had just met them; others you were well acquainted with. There are alot of legal problems out there, so you always have a heavy caseload. It was the issue at the heart of the case that was important and so you worked with what was in the file and went from there..
Often times, the people represented have a want and feeling that there should be bitterness or dislike by the advocates toward the other parties. That in representing them there is support in their position to have nothing at all to do with the other opposing party, but there have been times it is not so, it is just a another case. A cup of coffee, a meal shared between litigators is common place, it is a file, an issue and for the court room. You win or lose or make some compromise and go on to the next one.
Justice, what is it? To a woman whose husband has left her and their children without support it is a desire to have the judge tell him he is a bad man, that he should have take better care of them and what he did was WRONG. That in the traditional way of doing things that he has broken promises and a home and is a serious matter. This is what our people would like to see.
But in the courts, the matter before a Judge of the Court is to just answer some basic questions, did he leave his wife, does she want a divoirce, are there grounds, and if there are; then it will be granted, then decisions on who gets the kids, and if not him, how much will he pay. The fact is very seldom will a judge call the man in front of him and tell him what his wife wants to hear. She waits to hear it but it does not come, so in a way it is less than what justice means to her.
Justice, it is a word, it means to be fair, impartial and to make things right, to restore one to where you were before, but it is not always so.
For a time my wife went to school in Provo, Utah and so I would go up there on the weekends. One on occasion I was with her and we happened to meet an old school friend of hers on the street, near downtown. She was a white woman, and had young Indian child with her, what was his name?
Standing on the sidewalk in Utah looking into the young eyes of this little Navajo boy, innocent and so young, a thought crossed my mind, maybe you are the one they talked about... maybe your life will be rent and torn and made the example.... The thought flew but lingered a minute as I looked into the smiling face of the new mother, a childhood friend not really known.
I remembers a few months earlier in Window Rock, I was standing by some lawters as they were having a discussion about Navajo family life, values and testing the waters of the Indian Child Welfare Act. This act was made to keep Indian children with their own people, as too many Indian children had been lost to tribes, and a part of this was that any adoptions of indian children could be reviewed by the tribe within a certain amount of time. Many of these cases involved Indian women or children away from the reservation where adoptons took place in state court and often times placed the Indian mother, parents and families at a disadvantage.
I heard these tribal lawyers and some advocates talking about the need for such a case, I agreed that it would be good to see that the Indian mothers, children and families have a say over their own. The law had to be tested, a case where an Indian mother had given up a child and possibly the requirements of the law were not fulfilled such as a review by the tribe before the adoption was complete.
During this time, a young Indian woman was having a child and thoughts of making a home with the Indian father were going through her mind. This was not the case, the father left to his home, to his reservation and left her alone. She ended up giving up the child in faraway Northern Utah and returned to the Navajo Reservation.
I stood there listening to the discussion between these Navajo litigators and thought about what would happen to the people caught up in such a case. The lawyers talked about a test case where the state and adoptive parents would be required to come to the court in Window Rock, under the jurisdiction of the Navajo Tribe to hear what justice would be imposed in these our courts.
The lawyers talked on about such a case based on circumstances that would allow such a challenge to take place, to bring a child home with the legelese, jargon and hopefully acclaim and notoriety as well for those involved. The die was cast and case had to be found.
I remembered Provo and him standing there, this little boy he had two names, one his mother gave him and the one his new parents had provided for him.. He stood maybe 2 1/2 feet tall. He was with his mother, who happened to be a childhood neighbor to my wife. They were eating at a place called Hawkins Drive Inn.
The young couple was adopting him and he was their child. He was Navajo, from somewhere off the the Navajo Reservation. I thought about how such a child came to be here in this place in Utah.
Months later going I was going into the court room for a hearing at Window Rock, I could see there was a small faint looking Navajo woman making her way slowly down the steps from the court room upstairs. She looked so sad and at the bottom there were some reporters wanting to talk to her. An older woman, maybe her mother was with her.
There were others there, some secretaries, staff, visitors and strangers. Someone was heard to say she should just let them take the boy, he is already theirs. She did not look at the crowd, held her head down and slowly went outside. The group there was saying she was the mother of the boy, This family I had seen on the sidewalk in Utah was coming down the stairs, with this little Navajo boy. They came down and were silent but smiling. They looked a little worried with all the Indians watching them, wondering if they were friendly or hostile. The Navajo people there clapped for them, it was heard the child was better off.
Going up stairs I turned and could see the couple talking to the news reporters and made an announcement that they had won and the child was theirs. He would be going home with them. They left the building and drove off with their lawyer.
The paperwork was dropped off and on going to the parking lot, there was a car, an older one with the mother still sitting there with a far off look in her eyes. She did not look happy and as Navajo woman don't get emotional she was not crying. This was the same woman with the child I had seen months earlier.
Later the mother when she returned to her home over toward Crownpoint way, left her family at the house and walked far off as if she were herding sheep but there were none. She sat there in the open, alone and cried her heart out for this child; this one naturally born to her and now gone. She had waited to be alone and found the time hard, she cried for a long time and then returned to the house silent, quiet and without tears.
The woman had gone to court to take back her son, to raise him, retrieving him from a mistake done while young and far from home. After hearing the talk, and the words of lawyers talking about traditional vs. anglo values, family life, opportunites and all the things lawyers say in times like this. She spoke up and said she wanted to put an end to it all and said "they can have him...".
This young man had heard much in the way of the lack of many things on the Navajo Reservation, the poor life, poor education system, the lack of good health care and the strangeness of living in a remote area. After all there was no Hawkins Drive Inn or mall there. They were all glad to hear it, those there and those waiting outside.
The people there and the child did not know then that sometimes a mother's love is greater than anything and sometimes it is greater than her own needs, wants and hopes. She gave him away that day and left to hear whispered taunts, disdainful looks and lost hope from those outside. Standing not too far off, I watched as all this happened.
As time as gone I wonder about a Navajo mother standing alone on a hill away from home crying over a decision to live a lifetime without a child. I think it is a pain that does not go away. What is the price of love, of nuturing. A thought about the wisdom of Solomon comes to mind and so it goes that the well of a mother's love is so deep that to draw out of it leaves it empty for her and so this was the case.
Life goes on, careers of lawyers move ahead. Reflection on those young men from days as tribal lawyers, protection of sovereignty, jurisdictions, power in the use of the law can make some drunk without a taste of whiskey, it is not so evil but rudimentary in the process of rights, privileges and carving out a career. It is as if sculpturing real life carvings out of peoples' lives in this case one child.
It is not done with malice or ignorance, it is the just the process of law that must be applied with all it's force, meaning and defining issues to resolve future like cases. It goes on.
In meeting the letter of the law, the meaning is lost or justice takes a back seat to everything; the law and justice stand far apart, sometimes leaving a gulf as deep as the Grand Canyon and that is how it is. So it went with this young man, his mother and the adopted parents, bringing in lawyers, social workers, the Navajo Nation, the State of Utah, and many others who stand by and watch the workings of the courts and mystery of how just a little bit of wording, actions taken and things written will affect life forever.
His name comes to mind and I wonder how his life will be and that of his mother, and the adoptive family who have gone through the stately halls of justice so that life wlll go on for him and others who should follow him.
This story is an old one but not really, it makes one wonder how the lives of those involved played out. These thoughts came to mind. I do not mean to condemn lawyers or the justice system, it is the best we have at present. In September at the Four Corners U.S. Attorneys Conference on Indian lands, Peterson Zah speaking to the U.S. Attorneys from the the states bordering Navajoland, the county attorneys, tribal judges from different tribes, prosecutors and child workers meeting in Flagstaff stated that the two party adversarial system is a result of English law and that maybe the traditional way of presenting a case to trusted elders might offer an alternative to such things. It sounds like an idea that needs to come to fruition. Anyway this is what I am thinking.
