Daniel Becker '09's prize-winning essay on the benefits of the Indian Child Welfare Act has won him $5,000, a trip to a conference in Tucson, Ariz., and access to a network of environmental and Native American tribal policy professionals as one of 80 national Udall Scholarship recipients selected by the Morris K. Udall Foundation. Becker's essay lauded the effects of the act, which gave tribes jurisdiction over child custody proceedings and ended "the theft of Native babies" that had taken place across the U.S.
"The state would remove children from their families for little or no reason and schedule the custody hearing in Anchorage, effectively a world away," Becker's essay states, referring to the situation in Alaska prior to the Act. "When the parents couldn't make it to the hearing, the children would be placed in adoptive homes -- often outside Alaska and almost always with a non-Native family."
Becker's essay notes that it was an inhabitant of Akiak, Alaska, the Native community where Becker's family formerly lived, who first used the legislation to file for a return of custody.
The Udall Scholarship is awarded annually to students who "have demonstrated commitment to careers related to the environment" or Native American students who "have demonstrated commitment to careers related to tribal public policy" or "Native health care," according to the foundation's web site.
The Dartmouth College Committee on Graduate Fellowships nominated five or six Dartmouth students for the scholarship, Becker said. Student nominees each submitted an essay and three letters of recommendation to the foundation.
"Any of [the nominees] were as qualified as I was -- I'm not sure what the determining factor was," Becker said. "I didn't expect to have won this, especially out of that pool. I was very excited and a little curious as to exactly how I was chosen."
Becker said that the greatest benefit of the scholarship is that it ties him to the community of Udall scholars.
"Probably the main benefit is networking, building relationships with people working towards similar goals as I am," Becker said. "This will also give me freedom in resources to help me get there."
Becker plans to use the money to fund a research project on the history of his family, and hopes the scholarship will aid his application for a senior fellowship at Dartmouth. Becker will primarily use interviews with members of his mother's side of the family, which is from Aliak, to produce a work that is creative rather than ethnographical, he said.
Although Becker has not decided what he wants to do after graduating from Dartmouth, and is currently considering both law school and graduate schools for writing, he said that he is interested in improving life for the inhabitants of Aliak.
"Internal and external change is necessary before we can really start moving towards a place where Alaska Natives are more autonomous," Becker said. "We need to break away from a culture of capitalism, a culture of this idea that money can be a surrogate for sovereignty and healthy community. We need to understand that before we have the motivation to start fighting."
Becker credited several Dartmouth professors for his successful application, including Vera Palmer, visiting instructor of Native American studies, Darren Ranco, professor of Native American studies and environmental studies and Enrico Riley, a senior lecturer in the studio art department.
