Indian Child Welfare Act – A Deep Dive into one of the US’s Most Interesting Pieces of Adoption Legislation

By Teesta Bhola-Shah

Hey everyone! I know it’s been a while since I last wrote an article, but I’ve been working on something really exciting that I wanted to share with you all.

A while back, I started MyAdoptionStories to talk about adoption from a personal perspective, especially because of my adopted brother. Early on, my research included learning about the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, which is a policy that sets standards for Native American adoption. When I started researching this act, I realized there was so much more to explore. That research turned into an 18-page paper I wrote called “Indian Child Welfare and Settler Colonialism: Adoption, Assimilation, and ICWA.” Writing it made me think much more deeply about adoption, identity, and the ways that laws and policies can affect whole communities. I wanted to share some of my findings, and I’ll link the whole paper if anyone is interested in reading it.

ICWA was passed in 1978 as a response to the massive removal of Native American children from their families. Before that, many Native kids were taken and placed in non-Native homes, sometimes thousands of miles away from their tribes, all under the guise of “helping” them. What I found in my research is that these removals were purposefully carried out to be a tool of cultural erasure. Adoption, along with earlier boarding schools, became a tool of assimilation. It broke up families and weakened tribes over generations.

ICWA made it illegal to keep doing this. The law requires states to notify tribes whenever an “Indian child” is involved in custody proceedings, and it sets placement preferences to keep children connected to family, community, and culture. For example, a child should go first to extended family, then to other tribal members, before being considered for placement in a non-Native home. ICWA recognizes that separating children from their culture is a form of harm, which is something previous adoption policies ignored. My research also showed that while implementation isn’t perfect and challenges remain, ICWA represents a real structural effort to reverse generations of harmful practices. It’s an acknowledgement of the mistakes the US government made and an effort to try and fix them.

Working on this paper made me think a lot about my own experience with adoption. My brother was affected by these laws too, and even though he ended up in a non-Native home, understanding ICWA helped me see how adoption is about belonging. Policies like ICWA remind us that adoption is closely connected to culture. It’s not a neutral act, and you have to have respect and caring for the heritage of the child you adopt.

If you’re interested in a deeper dive into the history, the research, and my findings, I’ll link my full paper here. I hope this summary helps explain why ICWA matters, not just legally, but for families and communities. Thanks for reading, and for sticking with me during my long posting break!