They Took Us Away

They Took Us Away
click image to see more and read more

it's free

click

How to Use this Blog

BOOZHOO! We've amassed tons of information and important history on this blog since 2010. If you have a keyword, use the search box below. Also check out the reference section above. If you have a question or need help searching, use the contact form at the bottom of the blog.



We want you to use BOOKSHOP! (the editor will earn a small amount of money or commission. (we thank you) (that is our disclaimer statement)

This is a blog. It is not a peer-reviewed journal, not a sponsored publication... WE DO NOT HAVE ADS or earn MONEY from this website. The ideas, news and thoughts posted are sourced… or written by the editor or contributors.

EMAIL ME: tracelara@pm.me (outlook email is gone) WOW!!! THREE MILLION VISITORS!

SEARCH

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

60s Scoop adoptees find 'some kind of belonging' at national gathering

Taken from their families as children, aboriginal adoptees find hard road to reconnect with culture

By Waubgeshig Rice, CBC News 
Leslie Parlane (left) and Colleen Cardinal are part of a group of aboriginal adoptees who are organizing a national gathering this weekend.
Leslie Parlane (left) and Colleen Cardinal are part of a group of aboriginal adoptees who are organizing a national gathering this weekend. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)
When Colleen Cardinal and Lesley Parlane met in Ottawa a year ago, they bonded right away as adoptees reconnecting with their aboriginal roots. It’s been a long, often difficult journey for both women.
“I didn’t even know that I was indigenous until I was a teenager,” says Cardinal, now 41. Originally from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, she was adopted by a non-indigenous family when she was two, and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
“I didn't even know what it meant to be indigenous because of the stereotypes and stigma towards indigenous people, that I would say my adoptive family perpetuated,” she said, “that we were drunks and bums and stuff like that. So I grew up with this really negative image of what Indians were.”
From the 1960s up until the 1980s, Canadian child welfare authorities apprehended an estimated 20,000 aboriginal children and placed them in non-aboriginal homes. Many consider the '60s Scoop an extension of residential schools, which aimed to "take the Indian out of the child."
Cardinal didn’t reconnect with her birth parents and older sisters until she was 16. It’s a breach that Parlane is painfully familiar with. She’s originally from Standing Buffalo Dakota First Nation in Saskatchewan. She was adopted when she was four, and after a stint in Alberta, spent most of her childhood in Toronto.
“It's one thing to be adopted,” says Parlane, 36. “But it's another thing to not know your language and your culture. And that has had the biggest impact on my life.”

Finding 'some kind of belonging'

Cardinal and Parlane are part of a group of indigenous adoptees who meet regularly in Ottawa. Last year, they decided to organize a national gathering for other adoptees like them.
This weekend, nearly 100 people from across the country and as far away as New Zealand will be in Ottawa for the Bigiwen Indigenous Adoptee Gathering. They’ll participate in workshops, network and, most importantly, make new friends.
“Adoptees are looking for some kind of belonging, some kind of place to talk about their stories and share their stories with others,” says Cardinal.
'It may seem like it's easy to just integrate back into your biological family … but if you go back to it without your songs, your ceremonies, and your language, it's really hard to reintegrate.'— Colleen Cardinal
For many adoptees, returning to their roots after being raised away from their communities is hard.
“It may seem like it's easy to just integrate back into your biological family," she says. “But if you've been raised a certain way, and you go back to it without your songs, your ceremonies, and your language, it's really hard to reintegrate.”
But with a growing support network, both Cardinal and Parlane believe it’s becoming easier to share experiences and return to birthplaces. Parlane spent the summer with some of her birth family back in Saskatchewan.
“I made a connection with my mom's side of the family, and I recently went powwow dancing for the very first time this past summer,” she says. “It was amazing, because for me that was … all these years of not having a connection to my culture, the doorway just suddenly opened through my aunt.”
By sharing their own stories, they hope to open the door for other adoptees.

Related Stories

External Links


No comments:

Post a Comment

Please: Share your reaction, your thoughts, and your opinions. Be passionate, be unapologetic. Offensive remarks will not be published. We are getting more and more spam. Comments will be monitored.
Use the comment form at the bottom of this website which is private and sent direct to Trace.


Happy Visitors!

Blog Archive

Featured Post

Theft of Tribal Lands

This ascendancy and its accompanying tragedy were exposed in a report written in 1924 by Lakota activist Zitkala-Sa, a.k.a. Gertrude Simmon...


Wilfred Buck Tells The Story Of Mista Muskwa

WRITTEN BY HUMANS!

WRITTEN BY HUMANS!

Most READ Posts

Bookshop

You are not alone

You are not alone

To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

Diane Tells His Name


click photo

60s Scoop Survivors Legal Support

GO HERE: https://www.gluckstein.com/sixties-scoop-survivors

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie

ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.


click THE COUNT 2024 for the ADOPTEE SURVEY

NEW MEMOIR

Original Birth Certificate Map in the USA

Google Followers


back up blog (click)