Navajo Court Takes Up Baby Girl’s Fate : Indian Child Turned Over to Tribe for Decision in Custody Dispute

A 9-month-old Navajo Indian girl embroiled in an emotional custody dispute pitting her natural mother and would-be adoptive parents against tribal authorities was handed over to tribal representatives Thursday in an anguished confrontation at San Jose International Airport.

The child was then flown to Arizona where a Navajo tribal court will decide whether to let her remain with her natural mother and the white San Jose family that wishes to adopt her or place her with her Navajo grandparents on the reservation. The girl’s Navajo mother came to live with the San Jose couple two months before giving birth and has cooperated in their efforts to legally adopt the child.

The case is the most recent dispute to grow out of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which gives tribal courts exclusive jurisdiction over Indian adoption cases.

Hearing Within 10 Days

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge cited the law Monday in ruling that custody of the child must be decided by the Navajo Nation’s Tribal Department of Justice. A tribal court in Tuba City, Ariz., must hold a hearing within 10 days to decide custody.

The mother of the girl, 21-year-old Patricia Keetso of Logan, Utah, gave up the baby to Cheryl and Rick Pitts of San Jose when the girl was born. She said Thursday that she does not want the child separated from them.

“There’s a real bond there. She knows who mommy and daddy are,” Keetso said, referring to the Pittses.

Keetso met Rick Pitts, a general contractor, and Cheryl Pitts, a housewife, after she answered an advertisement placed by a San Jose adoption attorney in a Navajo tribal newspaper. “Pregnant? We’re willing to help you,” the ad read. Keetso was visiting the Navajo reservation at the time.

After contacting the lawyer who bought the ad, Keetso, then seven months pregnant, moved into the Pittses’ home and lived with them until she gave birth. Then she lived with Rick Pitts’ mother for three weeks before returning to Utah. The Pittses paid her $200 a month during the last two months of her pregnancy, plus all medical costs.

The Pittses, both 33 and the parents of an 8-year-old boy, Joshua, also assisted Keetso in giving birth. The baby, whom they named Allyssa, has lived with them since she was born.

Keetso, who is unmarried, told reporters she decided to give up her baby so she would be able to go on to college and not be faced with raising the girl in poverty on the reservation.

“I know what it’s like on the reservation,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I love my baby and want her to get something out of life. There’s absolutely nothing on the reservation. I just want the best for my baby.

“It tears my heart apart that the tribal people are trying to take my baby.”

Until this week, Keetso and the Pittses were collaborating in adoption proceedings that would have made Allyssa the Pittses’ child. However, the Navajo tribe intervened and Judge Leslie Nichols ruled in the tribe’s favor.

The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted to stem years of abuse of Indian adoptions, which resulted in as many as 35% of Indian children being separated from their families and their culture, often through adoption by white families.

Congress adopted the law after concluding that “the wholesale separation of Indian children from their families is perhaps the most tragic and destructive aspect of American Indian life today.”

Created Problems

But the act has also created problems for non-Indian couples seeking to adopt Indian children. In the best-publicized case, Dan and Patricia Carter of Spanish Fork, Utah, spent seven years battling the Navajo tribe in court before winning custody of their 10-year-old adopted Navajo son. The Pittses say they have been contacted and encouraged by the Carters.

The Pittses dropped their adoption effort after Nichols’ ruling and have agreed to back Keetso’s attempt to win custody of the child from the tribal court. They hope to be reunited with the girl afterward and may resume adoption proceedings at that time.

“The best thing for all concerned is for me to have the baby back so they’ll be able to see her,” Keetso told a reporter at the airport.

As previously agreed with tribal authorities, Keetso and the Pittses arrived at the airport at noon, when the child was to be turned over to her maternal grandmother and representatives of the Navajo Division of Social Welfare. They were accompanied by relatives and dozens of reporters.

At one point, the Pittses refused to surrender the child because it appeared they would not be permitted to fly to Arizona on the same plane with the girl and tribal authorities.

But Airport Police Chief Bob Elliott arranged for the Pittses to join the Navajo representatives on the 12:15 p.m. flight. After a moment of prayer, Rick Pitts, the baby in his arms and a throng of reporters on his heels, strode into a closed conference room to hand over the child.

A moment later, the conference room door opened again. Allyssa’s grandmother, Susie Keetso, came out holding the child, whom she had never seen before, and stared straight ahead as she walked out of the airport to the waiting plane.

Susie Keetso’s role in the dispute is not clear. Patricia Keetso said her mother was being pressured by Navajo authorities to cooperate in the case, but Linda Lach, an attorney for Patricia Keetso and the Pittses, said Susie Keetso had at one time said she wanted to raise Allyssa, who is referred to by the tribe as Baby K.

No date has been set for the tribal court hearing, said Karen Diakun, press secretary for the Navajos. Diakun was unable to confirm a report by the Pittses’ attorney that the Navajo group had taken Allyssa off the plane in Phoenix, rather than continuing on by air to Flagstaff, as the Pittses said they had agreed to do.