I don't know anything about the Lamanite program except what I have read here. American Indians placed with white Utah families in order to become white and delitesome. Hmmm. I hope that someone with extensive knowledge (firsthand would be great) can expose this as part of the racism outcry.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any (printed) documentation about this program; we know how 'unreliable' verbal history is, don't we? Maybe Google is your Friend, let us know.
Where is theSam!!! these days? It's been long enough, but I think he is serving in the armed forces some where? You want stories from a "lamanite" from the placement program, theSam's the man. Possibly in the archives?
I don't have extensive knowledge, but my parents took part in the placement program.
They had a boy from the crow nation that came to live with them. He got along well with the kids in the family, but wasn't real fond of our parents. Because of that, he fit right in.
He decided he was going to put the whole turning white promise to the test. We took a piece of white paper and blended colors on it until we came as close as possible to his skin color. We taped it up on the bathroom wall so he could compare it to his skin every day.
He decided he would be as good as he could. He went to church, helped around the house, and was polite to my parents. He really did try to be good. He had difficulty reading, but read the BoM every day.
We had horses, so he was outside almost everyday riding and working with the horses. He kept getting darker and darker. We kept adding color comparison swatches to the chart.
By the time he left to go back home, he was about 7 shades darker. He was laughing about it. He said he knew that was the dumbest thing anyone ever said about an indian. He said that proved to him the church wasn't true.
He wrote a letter to the prophet, and enclosed his color chart. He asked the prophet to stop lying to the Indians. He said they didn't mind the color they were anyway. He thought he would look strange if he turned white. He never heard back.
So, I know of at least 1 person that didn't turn white. He put it to the test, and the test failed.
Sorry to say I can't one-up Mia's great story. But our family had an Navajo indian placement kid when we lived in Colorado in the 1970s. He wasn't with us the entire school year. He started out with another family in the ward, but he didn't get along with their son, so he came to live with us instead after Christmas. That's about all I can remember - I was only 7 at the time.
But there was in incident we still give my Mom a hard time over. Whenever we were rambunctious and getting out of control she'd tell us we were acting like a bunch of wild indians. Once the indian placement kid was living with us she'd just get confused: "You kids are all acting like a bunch of wild ... uh ... uh ... wild kids!"
My favorite part is when the state of Utah refused to use the federal funds they were given to build schools on reservations. They preferred ripping the kids away from their families and sending them to white and delightsome homes instead.
Google it as 'lds indian placement program' for more.
I remember in the 1970s there was a girl in our ward who was native american and in the so called "laminite program". After one over zealous sunday school lesson several of the kids were talking about how she did appear to be getting lighter skinned. I told my parents about this and remember feeling very bad inside about this. I never thought she looked lighter skinned.
I lived with my grandparents most of the time from '69 on. We had two boys staying at our house, one Navajo and one Zuni. One stole stuff all the time and wasn't invited back, the other stayed on through high school. He taught me how to do a headstand, and was an amazing artist. I don't ever remember hearing about the "white and delightsome" thing, but I never paid attention to church stuff anyway, I hated it.
Oh yeah, there was a boarding school just for "indian" kids, I used to go over there and jump on the trampoline they had there. I wonder now what that was all about...
To my shame, I recall as a missionary helping reps from the church (usually seminary teachers off for the summer trying to make a few extra bucks) locate and enroll Navajo children for the placement program. They couldn’t have even started to find their way around with out us.
Then a couple of months later being present as parents with tears in their eyes were placing their crying children on a bus bound for Zion. I was surprise and disturbed at the number of young children who didn’t really understand why they had to go live with some strange family for the next nine months of the year. Try and explain that to a 9 year old. What good reason that they might understand could you give? Imagine putting your 2nd grader on a bus not just for the day, but for the school year.
That may have possibly been the first time I recall thinking something wasn’t right here…..
Being both NDN and White, and the white side being Mediterranean Jewish, I knew about the placement program. There were things that the parents of kids were told would be done for the kids, that they couldn't get on the Rez, and the old guilt for what a kid couldn't be provided by the parents often was used to push parents into signing over the kid for placement by the LDS reps. When I went to Israel as a teenager, (this was in the '70's) folks there spoke of scamming some christian church for US green cards and a university education. Apparently, the LDS church was promising young Jewish men who would convert, a paid for 4 year degree program at BYU, housing, an allowance and a job with all the assistance necessary to obtain a green card and US citizenship. Israel is a harsh place,and hard if you are poor, and many young men took this deal. Quite a number of them (after having taken full advantage of the benefit package) then declared that they had converted due to the duress of being poor...and the Rabbis accepted this, and allowed their sojourn as LDS to not be held against them for marriage and other Jewish law issues...I don't think the LDS got their money's worth out of that little campaign, and I know it was quietly shut down after a couple of years...what one might call: "Preying for converts", a number of these sorts of programs have been used overseas, as well as here. It is part of the M.O. of that church.
When I was a kid there were quite a few placement kids in our stake. Many of them went to high school with me and remember how hard some of them struggled both academically and socially. BUT THE WORST EXPERIENCE was the day the bus came to the stake center with all the placement kids and the FIRST thing that happened was that they were shepherded right off the bus into a room for "lice check".
We were standing around in the "cultural hall" (aka basketball chapel" and were told why it was taking so long. I will never forget the look of mortification on our "guests".
The kids who had their long hair cut to conform with mormon standards were not just mortified...they were furious.
But we were definately the exception rather than the rule.
The only reason my parents finally decided to take a student was because this particular boy had been with another family in the ward who had to move and he wanted to come back to the ward. He was my age, I think we were about 16. Everyone liked him and he stayed with us a year and didn't come back for his senior year in high school.
But most people in our ward who had "lamanite" students from the program with them had bad experiences. Very few did it two years in a row, which may be why some of the kids caused a lot of trouble. They were with a different family every year. Yes, I remember the lice check which freaked out a family I knew who was getting a younger boy.
But it was back in the day when the American Indian was the true Lamanite of the BOM and we had to fulfill the promise of the BOM. Most people saw it as something that had to be done to usher in the last days. I know that AIM was very much against it and believed they should be in their homes. As far as I know TSCC did very little to try to meet them where they were and help them with their true needs. We were supposed to de-indian-ify them. My "lamanite brother" would call his real brother who was with another family in a city several hours away and they'd be talking in Navajo on the phone and I can remember my dad yelling at him telling him to speak English. I doubt if there are more than a handful of those kids who were in the program who are active mormons now.
Yeah I grew up with many Lamanite foster brothers and sisters because of that program.
Every Fall, we would go pick up our indian. It sucked ass!
Those Lamanites taught me everything nasty that I know today.
Great parenting on the part of my parents. My mom would get so pissed off at those kids because they really didn't want to do anything except watch TV.
Seems as if that program has been swept under the rug.
It sucked for us also, never really feeling like you belong in the family you were placed with, never feeling comfortable even to use the phone to call someone. Most of all we were isolated from the other Placement students for me it was my other brother and sisters. When I first came on placement they had 2 socials, one was a picnic the first part of year and then Lagoon Day in May. May be there were more but I did not know about them, then in jr high I remember the youth conference that was held in Feb or March but that was it.But the worst part was leaving your parents not knowing if they would be ok, even though my parents were good parents and they did not drink , I still worried abt them and then just making the adjustment back, because I was shy it was hard for me the first week or so. I was on the program in the 70's and My sister and I knew that when we turned 8 this was what we were going to do but only stayed on the program until high school and By then I could say I want to say home and thats what I did because I could not make the that separation of going back and making the readjustment. I still get a liitle sad in the fall , I do not for sure if thats the reason or really why I do because I did have amazing foster parents and did well in school. But Iam still active in the church. All the previous comments were negative against the students we were not all bad and just wanted to watch TV.
Far be it from me to ever defend the mormon church but this is one thing that for me was a net positive and my navajo brother and sister have said - recently - it was the same for them.
I know it's not PC but hear me out.
The distances between anything on the rez are FAR. Going to school there usually is not a quick bus ride. I don't know about now but back then many resorted to going to a boarding school. The native students who did this were already separated from mom and dad.
Substance abuse and domestic violence are issues in our society, and the native people are not immune. Going to a safer family environment for any child, native or not, has got to be an improvement.
There were people literally starving on the reservation. Infant mortality was high. They had been forgotten. My navajo sister related to me how their family had to kill their beloved horse for food, just to keep from starving.
I could go on about the lessons I learned, like how native americans live in the same century we do, they speak English AND a second language, that just because I come from the dominant culture doesn't make my way "right", that priviledge and education doesn't make me "better", etc. It was rough many times. Our ways clashed a lot. But I was changed by the experience and am glad that they were and still are a part of my life!
Mormons could have helped the needy without insisting they marry men with multiple wives.
Mormons also could have helped children on reservations without ripping them from their families and forcing them to be Mormons.
It's gratifying to know that this program was a success in your example. That doesn't mean it was helpful to all or most who were forced to participate.
Is that both you and "Former Placement Student" are telling the unvarnished truth, and you both have your stories.
/insert one of my tired old speeches about black-and-white thinking
I am hoping TheSam will see this thread and comment before it's closed (and like Cheryl, I didn't see it was an old thread, but no matter). He is articulate to a degree that leaves many of us wordsmsiths in awe...
What troubles me about the LDS Church and the "Lamanite Placement Program" is we see the same recurring pattern of suppression of authentic history, and my view is this works against LDS members developing a "mature view" of the world.
That said, the issue of Native American's rights and culture is an ongoing and problematic one. I don't think racist LDS views--which they still deny emphatically--are helpful at all.
I was on a "Lamanite" mission in Canada. One day we got a phone call telling us to make sure a certain kid got on the placement program bus the next day. He and his parents were having second thoughts. So we went to their home, cajoled him and the mother a little and drove them to the gathering point. They totally broke down when they saw the tearful goodbyes of the others. The boy (about 9 years old) refused to get out of the car. We begged and cajoled some more, but I didn't have the necessary lack of heart to force the boy. So I took them home. I got an angry call the next day from some local @sshole. "Sorry," I said when he stopped yelling, "I let them exercise their free agency."
On a lighter note (pun not intended), my uncle and his family took in a student every year for about 5 years. One year, the gave the Navajo boy that was currently with them a real live rifle, a .22 as I recall. When he opened it, he got all excited, and said, "Now I can go out an shoot Hopi's!!!"
That would be great if that was it. But, his biological brother was also in the area, and he was invited over so that they could share Christmas together. Wen he arrived, he saw the opened rifle, and said, "Great. Now we can go out and shoot Hopi's"