SUBSCRIBE

Get new posts by email:

How to Use this Blog

CHANGES to format AGAIN - click older posts!
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.

PLEASE follow this website by clicking the button above or subscribe.

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... The ideas, news and thoughts posted are sourced… or written by the editor or contributors.

Blogger forced a change to our design so please SCROLL past the posts for lots more information.

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/ . THANK YOU MEGWETCH for reading

NEED HELP WITH AN ADOPTEE SEARCH? Have questions? Use comment form at the bottom of this website.

email: tracelara@pm.me

SEARCH

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Out of Darkness: 7 Part Series: Indigenous Solutions for Child Welfare


In This Series

news

ResidentialSchoolIndigenousWelfare.jpg

How Canada Created a Crisis in Indigenous Child Welfare

Part one of a series: from residential schools to the Sixties Scoop, governments set out to undermine Indigenous families.
By Katie Hyslop, 9 May 2018

news

AttawapiskatReserveHome.jpg

How Poverty and Underfunding Land Indigenous Kids in Care

Part two of a series: governments falling short in fixing Indigenous child welfare crisis, say critics.
By Katie Hyslop, 14 May 2018

news

AshleyBachIndigenousYouth.jpg

Lessons from Care: ‘If the Government Hadn’t Done All Those Terrible Things’

Part three in a series. Who better to ask for solutions than Indigenous youth who have been in government care. First up, Ashley Bach.
By Katie Hyslop, 16 May 2018

news

paul-martin-1.jpg

The Kelowna Accord, Racism and the Child Welfare Crisis

Part four in a series. Former PM Paul Martin says an opportunity was lost; Cindy Blackstock isn’t so sure.
By Katie Hyslop, 22 May 2018

news

katrine-conroy.jpg

Changes Coming — Slowly — to Indigenous Child Welfare in BC

Part five of a series. Now that governments are finally acknowledging the problem, here’s what is changing.
By Katie Hyslop, 24 May 2018

news

Jaye-Simpson-Smaller.jpg

Lessons from Care: ‘The Only Flaw in This System Is that Some of Us Survived’

Part six in a series. Jaye Simpson on lessons from a childhood in care.
By Katie Hyslop, 28 May 2018

news

jacquie-green-convocation-ring.jpg

Closing the Gap Between White Schools of Social Work and Indigenous Families

Part seven of a series. Indigenizing social work, one school at a time.
By Katie Hyslop, Today

 

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Keep Dancing: We are NOT Victims

THIS IS AN EARLIER POST from this blog
By Trace L Hentz (blog editor)

“I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile I keep dancing.” That is a line in the book “Bird by Bird” by Ann Lamott.  Her comical book offers instructions on writing and life and so far -- I’ve had good belly laughs. Yep, Ann made a funny book!
In part two, Ann was fighting herself over jealousy of another writer friend. She wrote, “Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic - jealousy especially so - but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime poisoned by it."

Poison is nothing to mess with.  I spoke with an adoptee friend last night and Levi is sure we adoptees need to create new ceremonies, even some just for us adoptees. I was nodding at every word Levi said.  A lifetime of isolation from what we know to be ours, our blood rights as Indigenous People, our language and culture and the healing offered by participating in ceremony, it was not ours growing up white and adopted and assimilated.

But we adoptees are not victims, Levi said. No, we are changed by adoption but not its victims.

I thought about ceremony, what ceremony I missed growing up, and what other Indian people probably took for granted growing up. That does make me jealous. I didn’t get to meet my grandmothers in flesh, only in dreams.
I am sad I do not how to make my own regalia. I see others dance at powwow and wish someone had time to teach me what I need to know.

I can think of a million things I’d like to know. When I met relatives in Illinois last year, I was over the moon happy.  My Harlow cousins filled many holes in my heart.
I am in reunion. Jealousy is not my poison.

For those not in reunion, their hearts ache.  We need to find a way to heal them.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

How Foster Care Has Stripped Native American Children of Their Own Cultures

“Some envision themselves as saviors, maintaining that Native children are better off growing up in white homes.”

Removal didn’t just happen through boarding schools. Native children were also taken from their families and communities and placed with non-Natives. Lost Bird was among the first. She was found as an infant under her mother’s frozen body after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when more than 150 unarmed Lakota were slaughtered by the U.S. Cavalry. She was adopted by Gen. Leonard Colby. Her life was difficult and marred with rejection and abuse: Her adoptive father was indifferent to her existence, and her adoptive mother attempted to raise her as white, but society would not accept her. No one could erase her desire to learn about her Lakota roots, either.
By the 1970s, research found that approximately 25% to 35% of all Native children in the U.S. were being placed in foster homes, adoptive homes, or institutions, and 85% of these children were being placed outside of their families and communities, even when fit and willing relatives were available to care for them. Research has shown that Native children in foster care who stayed connected to their culture did better, and those who weren’t were at greater risk for behavioral and mental health problems.

MUST READ: The Foster Care System Has Failed Native American Youth

Friday, May 11, 2018

Coming Up: Native America Calling: Tracy Rector



Tracy Rector's (Choctaw/Seminole) films have been seen by audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, ImagineNative, the Toronto International Film Festival, and PBS. Her latest work, Dawnland, follows Maine's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the removal of Native children from their homes. The other films she's worked on include Teachings of the Tree People, March Point, and Ch'aak' S'aagi. Rector describes herself as a mixed race urban Indian, filmmaker and activist. We'll talk with her about her passion for filmmaking, social justice and what is next for her career.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Native America Calling is joining ProPublica's Documenting Hate project, working to collect, analyze and report on crimes motivated by hate and bias. The project is building a database of tips for use by journalists, researchers and civil-rights organizations. If you're a victim or a witness to a hate crime, click here to fill out an online form. The information will be shared with partners in the Documenting Hate project, but no one else will see the information you share without your permission.

 
***
 
Native America Calling is a national call-in program that invites guests and listeners to join a dialogue about current events, music, arts, entertainment and culture.

The program is hosted by Tara Gatewood (Isleta Pueblo) and airs live each weekday from 1-2 pm Eastern.

Join the conversation by calling 1-800-996-2848. 
 
 
This blog will be on hiatus until June... email: laratrace@outlook.com

Happy Visitors!

They Took Us Away

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

SIXTIES SCOOP NEWS

Blog Archive

Most READ Posts

Bookshop

Canada's Residential Schools

The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups — in 2015 expressed regret for the “well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.

You are not alone

You are not alone

What our Nations are up against!

What our Nations are up against!

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.

Did you know?

Did you know?
lakota.cc/16I9p4D

WATCH THIS

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.

NEW MEMOIR

Original Birth Certificate Map in the USA

Why tribes do not recommend the DNA swab

Rebecca Tallbear entitled: “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe”, bearing out what I only inferred:

Detailed discussion of the Bering Strait theory and other scientific theories about the population of the modern-day Americas is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it should be noted that Indian people have expressed suspicion that DNA analysis is a tool that scientists will use to support theories about the origins of tribal people that contradict tribal oral histories and origin stories. Perhaps more important,the alternative origin stories of scientists are seen as intending to weaken tribal land and other legal claims (and even diminish a history of colonialism?) that are supported in U.S. federal and tribal law. As genetic evidence has already been used to resolve land conflicts in Asian and Eastern European countries, this is not an unfounded fear.

GOOGLE

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines. This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation. In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet. - https://desultoryheroics.com/2023/11/12/internet-censorship-everywhere-all-at-once

Google Followers