In the article, “sharing one skin,” By Jeanette Armstrong is very educational for other people that aren’t Okanagan. I found out some different traits they use in their culture. Jeanette Armstrong knows alot about her culture and what the history and different traditions that were made how long ago, also that are still alive. I loved that she knows that her culture and tradition is always going to stay with her, no matter the situation she’s in. 

Memories and stories are connected to our land as described by B. Toastie in the article, “ How place names impact the way we see landscape” How we see landscape is based on our “culture”. People with no traditions it seems don’t take care of the land as much as people with traditions and cultures.

In this article the Author has shared his experiences with school during his days. He attended day school in the Pueblo of Cochiti. He also had shared the cons about the Day school that is located in the pueblo, he has mentioned that the smell of the classes were bad and also the lighting had caused his eyes to go bad. He had a lot of problems going to school in his days. 

There are different difficulties Native American children went through. The different boarding schools such as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Thomas Indian School, Douglas Friends Mission School, Haskell Indian Industrial Training School, and Santa Fe Indian School all had their different ways of punishing their children. Some of the children never even got to go back to their tribes and families because they unfortunately died due to malnutrition and them getting beat to death. 

Governor Lujan-Grisham has to prioritize the IFPA to protect the Native American families. The importance of the IFPA is to protect native children that are in the system to stay with families within the Pueblo. The Governors from the different Pueblos have also agreed to protect their children and to keep them within their Pueblos. 

Native American people are more likely to be in the foster system. Sadly Natives are more likely to rank at the bottom or near the bottom for every social, health, and economic indicators. the percentage of native American kids in the foster system is 44% and 9% in the child population. the trauma that the foster kids has will more likely to be intergenerational and will hopefully not carry onto their kids. 

A Former foster child is trying to help other Native American Children in foster care. He is using his experience being in the foster system and is now working with the Tulalip tribes. he is now helping support ICWA and is helping the social services provide different drives to help support the families. he created a group for foster children called "Beda?chelh" meaning our children. 

Neglect has been the big cause of the child removal in the state. The native American population took over the whole child population with a total of 74% of children being in the foster child system. Lawmakers and the legal experts were finally noticing that it was just going too fail since the native children's removals were still high. Before ICWA was passed Native children were forced to leave their homes and attend boarding schools. Hundred of children died at schools before the government or church run schools closed by 1960. By 1920, the researchers estimated that 83% of Native children, children young as 5 years old had been enrolled in one of the more than 500 boarding schools. 

It is very sad that children are having to be taken out of their homes and away from family. The social services in Anchorage, Alaska seem to be worst than what they were previously in. It's sad that the childrens mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing aren't being taken in consideration. The Alaskan Natives aren't even being put with natives, they are being put with non-natives. Therefore that is how their cultural identity gets lost because non natives families don't know anything about their culture. Reading about what the caseworkers were doing to these kids that already deal with all this trauma within the biological parents household. The kids have been in many homes they don't have a "stable" foster home. It was stated that these foster homes weren't the best for these children because they went back to dealing with a toxic household. The special needs children would also get put into an inappropriate restrictive environment. Which has caused more trauma with the special needs children. 

This article is really triggering to a younger audience. The article really opens your eyes about kids that are less fortunate to grow up in a stable household. Her trauma had affected her afterlife. She then had to go to a hotel that foster kids stay in when they don't have a placement. Later down the road she then got out of the hotel and lived but then ended up in the county jail.