BACK UP BLOG

This blog is a backup for American Indian Adoptees blog
There might be some duplicate posts prior to 2020. I am trying to delete them when I find them. Sorry!

SURVEY FOR ALL FIRST NATIONS ADOPTEES

SURVEY FOR ALL FIRST NATIONS ADOPTEES
ADOPTEES - we are doing a COUNT

If you need support

Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ . MY EMAIL: tracelara@pm.me

Question and Answer with Trace

out of print


 

 NEWEST ANTHOLOGY: Stolen Generations (Vol. 3) was published in 2016


All books shown here are at Bookshop and Barnes & Noble, Amazon or ask your local library to get them! 

Signed Copies email: bluehandcollective@outlook.com

 



NEW IN DECEMBER 2017







out of print in 2018  (some used copies are available)




Trace contributed to this important work

my friend Lindy Whiton took this photo here in Massachusetts

I shared this story with the high school students on the Menominee rez giving a book talk:  

“The old story goes there was a farmer who found a wounded eagle and placed him in a chicken coop to recover. The eagle started to act like a chicken, he bobbed his head like a chicken, he ate like a chicken, and otherwise thought he was a chicken. Until one day an Indian came along and asked what the eagle was doing with the chickens. The farmer told him the story, and the Indian asked if he could remove the eagle. The Farmer gave his permission to do so. So the Indian took the eagle to the mountain and said, “You have to know who you are and what you stand for...” The eagle started to flex his wings. His keen eyesight started to return, and the strength in him started to come back. The eagle flew and  soared and everything came back to him, who he was and that he wasn’t a chicken.  He gained everything back he lost because of where he was  placed.”
 
I told the students Lost Birds like me are that eagle and every adoptee raised away from their tribe and traditions needs to return home.

👇

Q and A with journalist-adoptee Trace L Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) author of ONE SMALL SACRIFICE: A Memoir and the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects book series



Why did you write the memoir?

Trace: I'd never told my story of opening my adoption. A few friends knew details but not all of it. I got the idea for a book when I wrote an article in 2005 about Stolen Generations of North American Indian children placed for adoption with non-Indian parents. That article "Generation after Generation, We are Coming Home" was published in Talking Stick magazine in New York City and then in News from Indian Country in Wisconsin. It took me down a path I never expected.

What do you mean?

Trace: I was not aware of the various medical terms for adoptee issues such as severe narcissist injury or post-traumatic stress disorder or RAD.  There is new science called birth psychology so I read studies about adoptees in treatment for identity issues, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), depression and suicidal thoughts. Then I found statistics. An adoptee friend in Toronto told me to read Adoption: Unchartered Waters by Dr. David Kirschner, a book about adoptees who are notorious serial killers. Another chilling book I found was "The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller who Corrupted Adoption."  I soon realized the adoption industry doesn't disclose any of this to the media or to adoptive parents or to adoptees like me. So I wrote my memoir as an adoptee and wrote about the history and business of adoption as a journalist. I found more adoptees after my article was published, which really added to my understanding of the devastating impact of the Indian Adoption Projects.


How did you handle being an adoptee in a closed adoption?

Trace: I grieved my birthmother and birthfather but didn't know I was grieving until much later. Being adopted affected my self-esteem but no one had told me. Trauma and grief issues were like tentacles, affecting me even as an adult. I had difficulty feeling good or bad. I was hurt my birthparents abandoned me as a baby, so I didn't bounce back emotionally until I had counseling and after I found my birthfather. My emotional state recovered but it took many years. It's in the memoir, the sexual abuse by my adoptive father and my very dysfunctional childhood as an adoptee.

How did you recover?

Trace: First, I opened by sealed adoption file at age 22.  That healed me more anything, to know my name. Even though I never met my birthmother, I did meet my birthfather when I was almost 40. Our reunion is in the book.   Finding out why you are abandoned and put up for adoption, once you know the truth, it works like a miracle. I call it my cure. It felt like a dark cloudy fog lifted and I could feel again. Before I met Earl, my b-dad, I did co-counseling in Seattle where you tell your whole life story - all of it - with complete honesty, no holding back. Then it was like a powder keg exploded.  I started to see how being adopted had locked me up in illusions about who my birthparents were, so when I learned the truth about them, my heart did begin to heal. I was no longer a mystery. Even my health improved.

What about the Indian Adoption Projects?

Trace: There is congressional testimony and documented proof of various adoption programs in different states which lead to the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.  One was called the Indian Adoption Project and another was called ARENA. The idea in America and Canada was to assimilate Indians. If they took us and placed us with non-Indian parents, they assumed we'd forget we're Indians. But we don't forget.  I know my ancestors were in me, in my head, in my blood, talking to me when I was young.  Adoptees who are American Indian are called Lost Birds, Split Feathers, Lost Children, and Lost Ones. Of course most of us adapt and bond with our adoptive parents but as we grow up, our identity and name might still be locked up in a sealed file.  Adoptees told me we won't heal until we open our adoption and go full circle, which means we meet our tribal relatives. The adoption projects are acknowledged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America, and I include one apology in the book. My book is basically a memoir but it does include lots of history.

How long did it take to write?

Trace:  About 5 years. I chose the title "ONE SMALL SACRIFICE: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects then changed it to "A Memoir." Bookstores and libraries can order copies.

Who should read it?

Trace: Adoptees, definitely, and the families who adopted us. One birthmom is California told me she plans to read it with her son she placed in an open adoption. Those who have read my book do react strongly to the idea the American government condoned and conducted closed adoptions to erase our identity and sovereignty as Indian people. My hope is tribal leaders will read it so they understand Lost Birds are anxious to return to the circle, meet relatives, relearn language and attend ceremonies. In Canada they call their adoptee population "The Baby Scoop Generation" and "60s Scoop" and their reunions are called "repatriation to First Nations." There are no programs in America for adoptees to be repatriated or returned to their tribal nations as adults. With sealed adoption records in the majority of states, adoptees struggle to get answers. My book offers suggestions and places to write for help. I offer my help, too.

What's next?

Trace: Some adoptees are in reunion, some are not. Their stories needed to be told, too. It's my goal to shine a light on adoption secrecy and end the atrocity of closed adoptions affecting so many American Indians who are now adults. We do need to heal this and go full circle.
 
THE BLOGhttps://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/


[The anthology, CALLED HOME: BOOK 2: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects was published in June 2014.]
 

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