Abused woman turns to tribe for help

Mount Pleasant Morning Sun

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — Christina Keschick had been beaten, abused, and tormented, and went to the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s Behavioral Health and social services for help.

Last year, Keschick, 35, asked the Tribal Council for protection for herself and her eight children from the children’s father, reputed gang member Juan Garcia Romero.

Tribal Council banished Romero from Tribal lands for having a “disruptive” relationship with Keschick, who is a Tribal member.

“I’m a survivor of 12 years of abuse, and I went (to behavioral health and social services) to begin my healing process two years ago,” Keshick said. “I kinda got into what their cycle is.”

Keschick said her life with Romero was one of terror. She tearfully remembered, having to tell her children to “go in your rooms and hide.”

“I was living in a house in Blanchard,” Keschick said. “(Romero) started kicking me everywhere, and hitting my back and stomach, and he pulled me by the hair.
“(Romero) stabbed me.”

Keshick said that on Christmas Eve 2005, Romero had consumed two fifths of liquor and a case of beer.

“That day, my daughter was playing a joke, and did something to the water spout at the sink,” Keshick said. “I got sprayed and I laughed.

“I watched, and (Romero) got sprayed with water, and he was real mad.” Keschick said that Romero grabbed their 13"year"old daughter by the throat, and she started to turn purple.

“I punched him when I saw that,” Keschick said. “He kicked me in the face four times, and my children were too afraid to call the police.

“My nephew said, ‘I’ll call them, Auntie.’”

Keschick said she was ashamed to get medical attention because she felt ashamed of how she looked.

She said she never told her parents about her abuse, and she said that the reason she never left him was because he would ask her, “You still love your parents, right?”

Eventually, Romero was convicted of third"offense domestic violence in January 2006. He has completed his sentence for that charge, but remains on probation until 2012 for a felony conviction of attempted aggravated stalking.

Currently, Keschick carries a global"positioning device that she was told had to be on her at all times for protection from Romero. He has been ordered to stay at least 500 feet away from her, and he also wears a GPS tether.

But Keschick wonders if her device isn’t being used to monitor her. After all of that Keshick lived through she hoped that she and her children would be happy once they asked for help.

“Never would I have thought that the help I went for would damage us even more,” Keschick said. “I feel worse than when I was with Johnny.” Tribal social services workers won’t discuss the particulars of the case, citing privacy concerns. But social services experts, speaking in general terms, say children raised in an atmosphere of extreme abuse often need help in learning to adjust to family life based on love, not terror.

Keschick said that since she asked for help, she has not cared for her oldest son, “little Johnny,” in three years. He is currently in a licensed state facility for children.

She knows that the abuse has damaged her children, and she wants the opportunity to heal as a family.

Keschick participated in a program called Families First, which was completed in May 2007. She thought she was successful.

“The children are so fortunate to have such a caring and affectionate mother,” wrote Natalie Harpe"Moler, a Families First worker. “Please keep celebrating the good in your lives and strive to always stay a strong familial unit.”

But things took a turn for the worse in November. She spent the night in jail after being arrested for traffic tickets.

She said that she asked the arresting officer to notify her parents, but social services went to the Tribal gym and told her children that they were going to have a pizza party in a separate room.

“When my children asked for me,” Keschick said. “They were told that I was going to be there later.

“And they were taken away. My children were lied to, and they were scared.”

Keschick said that by the time her parents were notified the children were already placed. She went to Tribal Court and got her kids back. Then in February, the kids were taken away again. This time, she hasn’t been able to get them back.

“I was out with my family for the first time, in many years,” Keschick said. “We went to the bar, and there was a fight inside.

“I went in to get my sister.”

Keschick said that the next day, she was informed that someone saw her drinking and she was not supposed to.

According to the rules set forth by social services, Keschick said that she was not to drink in front of her children.

Her father, Elmer, asks, “What’s going on out here?”

“I think they’re trying to take her kids away for nothing,”

Elmer Keschick said. “It’s not right.”

She said her mother was caring for her children that night.

“I feel like history is repeating itself because I am a Native woman fighting to keep my kids, who are unjustly taken by white social workers,”

Keschick said. “There are a lot of Native women who are having their children taken away out here.”

A 1978 federal law, the National Indian Child Welfare Act, mandates that Tribes handle custody issues involving Native children. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribal Court and social services have jurisdiction in this case.

But social workers privately acknowledge that it is difficult to find Native foster parents, especially for the most troubled youth. They have little choice but to turn to the non"Native foster parents recruited by the Michigan Department of Human Services.

All of Keschick’s children are members of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, and she said that her children’s per capita income payments are being used to pay for their welfare.

“They are also making me pay child support for my children, but their father doesn’t have to pay anything,’ Keschick said. “He is not Native.”

Keschick said that she received notice from the Tribal family court specialist in mid"April, that she has third"party custody of her children, and is ordered to pay $2,271 per month for child support.

On the same document, it states that Romero is ordered to pay $44 per month for child support. Romero does not receive per capita payments from the Tribe. Keshick does.

She wants her children back. But after the most recent court hearing Friday, she is only allowed to have supervised visits with her children for three hours a week.

“(Social services) took one of my days away because they say I’ve got a bad attitude,” Keschick said. “The judge warned me to follow the rules, or I won’t be able to have visitation with my children.

Keshick’s mother, Patricia, said that she does not know “how things got so turned around.”

“They set up a safety program for her, and she’s the bad person now,” Patricia Keschick said. “(When she was with Romero) she wasn’t allowed out of the house.”

Christina Keschick said she will appear in Tribal Court in 30 days for re"evaluation.