The Long, Dark History of Family Separations漫长黑暗的家人分离史

黛比·内森 译/蔡亦昕

Most of us already know some of what Laura Briggs writes about in Taking Children. Most of us are aware that， for hundreds of years， African-American children were routinely and forcibly separated from their parents on auction blocks. And many know that in the 19th century， Native American children were removed from their fam-ilies and shipped to white-run boarding schools， where they were stripped of their Indigenous clothing， dressed as Westerners， forbidden to speak their native tongues， and kept from their parents for years.

If slave sales and boarding school seizures were the family separations described in Taking Children， the work would read like an A.P.1 high school textbook. But Briggs， a historian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst， also recounts outrages that are only a few decades old. Resurrecting this forgotten history， she demonstrates its continuity with the recent separation of migrant families.

For years in America， unmarried， pregnant white women had been disciplined by being hidden in “homes for unwed mothers” and pressured to relinquish their newborns for adoption. Cloistered and closeted， most of these white women remained invisible， even as unwed-mother homes and adoption agencies wanted nothing to do with pregnant black women. Unmarried African Americans mostly kept their babies， and the families were highly visible.

But as the civil rights movement reached its apex in the 1950s and early 1960s， white supremacists lashed back. Beginning in 1958， the Mississippi legislature started crafting legislation to discipline unwed mothers. One 1964 bill called for charging them with a felony， punishable by sterilization or three years in prison. The de facto targets were black women and their children.

The Mississippi bills did not pass. But other Southern states devised related punishments， using welfare as a tool of social engineering2. In 1957， at the height of Little Rock’s school desegregation fight3， Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus enacted a rule to remove fam-ilies headed by unwed mothers from the welfare rolls. During the same period， Florida ceased to recognize common-law marriages， redefining them as “illicit relationships” and “illegal cohabitation.” Florida and Tennessee defined households headed by unmarried mothers—again， disproportionately black women—as “unsuitable” and kicked the women and their kids off assistance.

Seven Southern states enacted laws along these lines. Briggs documents caseworkers telling mothers that if they wanted to stay on the rolls， they needed to relinquish their sons and daughters to foster care. One of those seven states was Louisiana. In 1960， after New Orleans faced a court decision requiring it to racially integrate city schools， Gov. Jimmie Davis and the legislature announced a “segregation package” of new laws to stop the desegregation order. Most were deemed illegal by the federal courts， but one that survived was a “suitable home” provision intended to prohibit 23，000 children from receiving welfare. Black New Orleans residents considered the rule a political punishment and turned it into a national and international issue. Black civil rights groups and white allies organized “Operation Feed the Babies” to collect food， clothing， and funds for the threatened families. Aid came from as far away as England.

The statute was overturned. But in 1961， the federal Department of Health， Education， and Welfare4 mandated that children could be removed from homes deemed “unsuitable”—including because of a mother’s extramarital sex and cohabitation—if the mom refused to “rehabilitate.” Not until 1968 did the Supreme Court forbid welfare bureaucrats from investigating poor parents’ sex lives. In the meantime， the foster care system swelled with black and brown children.

While compulsory boarding school attendance for Native American children was abolished in the 1930s， Briggs notes that it was quickly replaced： White welfare workers were soon coming on to reservations5 to evaluate children’s need for foster care. Particularly vulnerable to being taken were children whose mothers weren’t married or whose caretakers were extended family， such as grandmothers. （Grandparents were considered too old to raise children.） Again， foster care numbers burgeoned. By the 1970s in North Dakota， Native Americans constituted only 2 percent of the state’s population but half of the children in foster care.

Sustained activism by Native Ameri-cans resulted in the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act， which mandated that tribal governments， not white-dominated county welfare departments， decide whether Native children should stay with their families. But it’s not clear whether the situation improved. One federal study found that a third of Native children were still in out-of-home care in the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile， the separation of American children from their American parents continued with a vengeance6， mainly because of the drug war. This too fell more heavily on the poor， thanks in part to mandatory minimum sentences for possession of crack—a relatively affordable drug—compared to much lighter sentencing for crack’s monied-people cousin， powder cocaine. Black children entered foster care at an alarming pace as crack charges put their parents in prison. Incarceration rates for women tripled in the 1980s， and four out of five black women in jail or prison had children living with them when they were arrested. Today 10 million American kids， including one in nine black children， have a parent who has been locked up.

Briggs also decries the criminalization of pregnant women who test positive for illegal drugs or alcohol. Many of us remember the ’80s and ’90s press panic about “crack babies” with permanently destroyed brains. These babies’ abnormal symptoms turned out to be short-lived and mostly due to other conditions related to their mothers’ poverty. During the same period， fetal alcohol syndrome in newborns became a concern. It’s a medically valid one， although maternal drinking’s worst effects on babies are also tied to poverty. But rather than seeking to address the poverty， authorities arrest the pregnant mothers and take their older children. Native women are disproportionately prosecuted. Briggs notes that the most avid supporters of criminalizing women for mistreating their unborn fetuses are people who are trying to overturn Roe v. Wade7.

大多数美国人对劳拉·布里格斯在《骨肉分离》一书中讲述的事情并非一无所知。我们大多知道，数百年来，非洲裔儿童经常被推上拍卖台被迫与父母分离。也有不少人知道，在19世纪，印第安原住民儿童被带离自己的家，送进白人开办的寄宿学校。他们在校不能穿原住民服饰，必须打扮得像个西方人，也不能说自己的母语，并且好几年见不到父母。

如果这本书讲述的骨肉分离只是奴隶买卖和寄宿学校管控，那么它读起来就会像一本高中先修课程教科书。但布里格斯，这位供职于马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的历史学家，在书中也记述了仅仅发生于几十年前的那些暴行。她揭开了这段尘封的历史，揭示出近年对移民家庭采取的“分离”政策是它的延续。

在美国，未婚先孕的白人女性多年来一直被秘密送至“未婚妈妈之家”接受训诫，并且不得不将自己刚刚诞下的孩子交给收养机构。大多数白人未婚妈妈与世隔绝、闭门不出，没人知道她们的存在。而未婚妈妈之家和收养机构对黑人孕妇却不闻不问，因而非洲裔未婚妈妈大多能留下自己的孩子，这类家庭十分引人注目。

然而，在20世纪50年代和60年代初，随着民权运动达到高潮，白人至上主义者展开猛烈报复。自1958年始，密西西比州议会着手制定法律以惩戒未婚母亲。1964年的一项法案要求对她们处以重罪，予以绝育或3年监禁的惩罚。这一法案针对的实际上是黑人妇女和她们的孩子。

虽然密西西比州的法案未被通过，但其他南部各州还是将福利救济作为社会工程的手段，制定了相关惩罚措施。1957年，在小石城学校反种族隔离斗争最为激烈的关头，阿肯色州州长奥瓦尔·福伯斯颁布了一项规定，将户主为未婚母亲的家庭从救济名单中除名。与之同一时期，佛罗里达州不再承认事实婚姻，将其重新定义为“非法关系”和“非法同居”。佛罗里达州和田纳西州将未婚母亲（也绝大多数是黑人妇女）为户主的家庭划定为“不合标准”，不再为这些妇女及其子女提供援助。

美国南部有7个州颁布了类似的法律。布里格斯记录了当时的情况：一些社会工作者告诉这些未婚妈妈，如果她们想继续留在救济名单上，就得将子女寄养。路易斯安那州就是其中之一。1960年，联邦法院向新奥尔良市下达命令，要求推进市立学校的种族融合。之后，路易斯安那州州长吉米·戴维斯和州议会为了阻止这项命令，宣布了一系列新的种族隔离法令。这些法令中的大多数被联邦法院裁定为非法，但其中一项“合适家庭令”却保留下来。此法令意图将2.3万名儿童排除在救济对象之外。在新奥尔良的黑人居民看来，这条法令是一种政治性惩罚，他们将其上升为一个全国性乃至国际性的问题。黑人民权组织与他们的白人盟友发起了“养育婴儿行动”，为受到威胁的家庭募集食物、衣物和资金。连远在英国的人们也伸来了援助之手。

“合适家庭令”最终被撤销。但在1961年，联邦卫生、教育和福利部下令，如果母亲拒绝“改造”，就会把她的孩子从这个“不合适”（被认定为“不合适”的原因包括母亲有婚外性行为和同居行为）的家庭中带走。直到1968年，最高法院才禁止福利部门的官员调查贫困父母的性生活。在此期间，寄养系统中充斥着黑色和棕色皮肤的儿童。

尽管原住民儿童入读寄宿学校的强制规定于20世纪30年代被废止，但布里格斯指出，立刻就有另一项举措取而代之：从事福利救济工作的白人很快来到保留地，评估儿童的寄养需求。那些母亲未婚或是由祖母等大家庭的亲属照料的孩子特别容易被带走。（祖父母被认为年龄太大，无力抚养孩子。）寄养儿童的人数再次激增。时至20世纪70年代，在北达科他州，美洲原住民仅占该州人口的2%，寄养机构里原住民儿童却占了一半。

原住民的持续抗争换来了1978年《印第安儿童福利法》的颁布。该法规定，有权决定原住民儿童是否应该与家人同住的是部落政府，而非白人主导的地方福利部門。但情况是否有所改善，我们并不清楚。一项联邦调查发现，20世纪80年代中期，1/3的原住民儿童仍旧与家庭分离，接受外人照料。

与此同时，美国儿童与父母的分离主要因为禁毒斗争的开展而愈演愈烈。穷人家庭再次受到更大打击，这部分归因于持有“快克”可卡因（一种相对廉价的毒品）所获强制性最低刑罚比持有粉状可卡因（成分与“快克”类似，但价格更高）要重得多。由于父母因“快克”获罪入狱，送去寄养的黑人儿童人数以惊人的速度增长。20世纪80年代，女性监禁率上升了两倍，而狱中4/5的黑人女性在被捕之际和孩子一起生活。现如今，父母中有一位正在狱中服刑的美国儿童多达1000万，黑人儿童中有1/9属于此类。

布里格斯还谴责了对毒品或酒精检测呈阳性的孕妇定罪的做法。我们中的许多人还记得，20世纪80年代和90年代，关于“毒品婴儿”大脑永久性损伤的新闻一度引起恐慌。这些婴儿的异常症状事实上是短期的，而且主要归咎于母亲的贫困所引起的其他问题。同一时期，新生儿患胎儿酒精综合征也引起了社会关注。这在医学上得到了确证，但母亲饮酒对婴儿最坏的影响也与贫困有关。然而，当局没有设法解决贫困问题，反倒逮捕怀孕的母亲并带走她们已经出生的孩子。原住民女性被起诉的比例格外高。布里格斯指出，最热衷于支持给“虐待”腹中胎儿的女性定罪的人，正是那些试图为“罗诉韦德案”翻案的人。

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者）