AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: What adoption cost me #NAAM2019

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Sunday, November 10, 2019

What adoption cost me #NAAM2019

Edie holding me in 1957

reblog from 2014

By Trace L Hentz

Someone asked me recently what had adoption cost me personally.

What a loaded question, I shot back in my email. I said I needed to think about it.
Obviously I didn't ask to be adopted!

This situation was thrust on me by a damaged 22-year-old small-town Wisconsin girl who loved Chicago night-clubs and partying too much. She didn't want me after my 28-year-old father (also a big drinker) kicked her out. He moved back to his Illinois farm-town and found a new wife. She went to an unwed mothers home in Minnesota and signed me away.

If my soul wanted a big test this lifetime, this was clearly the route to take. Finding out neither would ever look for me? That painful discovery cost me.

What kind of man would desert a woman carrying his child and who would tell a woman she cannot keep her own baby? Who made them this way? Belief systems, religions, social workers, neighbors, parents, judges, priests? Even your own family can be so damaged, it's risky to find them. There are times now I wish I had never looked but I had to know why I was adopted. Taking risks to find out the truth cost me years.

Being told by my natural mother to never contact her again? That rejection cost me.

I made all the moves, made all the calls, did all the travel and took all the risks to find both parents. I put myself out there to join a family who didn't even know I existed or cared that I did. That hurt cost me.
The adoption trade in babies was booming in the 1950s. In my opinion my adoptive parents were not carefully screened. Despite his raging alcoholism and their marital discord after two miscarriages, Catholic social workers still qualified them to be my parents. Very young I was sexually molested by my adoptive dad. That betrayal cost me.
I had to pretend for years I was alright when really I wasn't. I tried to live up to their expectations and be the baby they lost. That impossible situation cost me.

My adoptive parents didn't know adopting kids won't fix a marriage and might even make it worse! I had to suppress my shock and disappointment in them for too long. It took me years to get therapy and counseling that worked. This delay cost me.

My lack of trust and being able to love someone cost me a marriage.
Many years later I was shocked to learn my ancestry. My father, who had the Native blood, didn't intervene to keep me. How did that make me feel? Betrayed.

I had no idea what to think about being Shawnee/Cherokee since there was no one alive to reconnect me to my tribal culture. That cost me.
How can you measure cultural loss when there is no dollar amount or apology that can undo what happened? There is no way to get that back.
What did adoption cost me? Everything.
What did adoption give me? The strength to persevere.

No comments:

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Tweets #NAAM2019

#NationalAdoptionAwarenessMontj #NAAM2019 #AdopteeAwareness https://t.co/el4nv0S3Ep
— AdoptionNews (@AdoptionNandE) November 7, 2019

Foster Children Turned into Breeders? – CPS Seizes Half of All Babies Born to Teen Moms in Foster Care https://t.co/Jfl2VBkV7C
— AdoptionNews (@AdoptionNandE) November 5, 2019

#BeingAdoptedMeans losing my roots, losing my name, losing any purpose other than to be a prop in the world of my Adopted Mother’s neediness, and most painfully always being on the outside looking in -even in reunion. #adopteevoices #NAAM
— nan onest (@NanOnest) November 2, 2019

I went to dinner with my adoptive family...and just sat there as usual....talked about movies and TV shows because that is the only acceptable conversation from me. I mention about the concert I will be a part of and the book I will be publishing and they get attitudes. Fake fam.
— Corey (@CoreyQwin) November 2, 2019

Adoptees are Sin Eaters

We are expected to eat the sins of not only the bodies from which we came, but also the bodies that raised us.

We are expected to eat the sins of the society in which the bodies from which we came were raised and lived.

1/5
— Schrödinger's adopted jesus (@SnavelyBrent) September 19, 2019

Two Worlds anthology (Vol. 1)

“…sometimes shocking, often an emotional read…this book is for individuals interested in the culture and history of the Native American Indian, but also on the reading lists of universities offering ethnic/culture/Native studies.”

“Well-researched and obviously a subject close to the heart of the authors/compilers, I found the extent of what can only be described as ‘child-snatching’ from the Native Americans quite staggering. It’s not something I was aware of before…”

“The individual pieces are open and honest and give a good insight into the turmoil of dislocation from family and tribe… I think it does have value and a story to tell. I was affected by the stories I read, and amazed by the facts presented…. because it is saying something new, interesting and often astonishing.”

Review: 'Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption,' by Susan Devan Harness https://t.co/aF2s87Wn03
— TraceHentz (@StonePony33) December 19, 2018

Let that sink in. pic.twitter.com/Wku2L9hXPv
— Native Life (@_Native_Life) December 5, 2017

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was passed to address America's ugly history with child removals from Native American families. #DefendICWA #UpholdICWA @ChronicleSC https://t.co/hp0GNdIUVN
— NICWA (@NativeChildren) November 8, 2018

MMIWG

Good words

Priscilla Sharp

I agree with you on the caring of “orphans” – true orphans, not “paper orphans” as Kathryn Joyce describes in her book, The Child Catchers. The most important thing to remember, however, is that the orphan’s original identity and family connection and heritage must remain intact and available to him or her forever. This business of adoption – and I do mean the multi-billion-dollar, unregulated business of adoption – of wiping out the child’s original identity, falsifying birth records with the adopters’ names, altering facts such as place of birth, severing familial kinship, must stop … Immediately. And the outrageous injustices foisted upon adoptees and their families for the past 100 years must be addressed and righted. We are faced today with six to seven million people who were basically legally kidnapped, sold to the highest bidder, their identities falsified, and placed in a lifelong, imposed witness protection program for which there is no legal recourse. Then told by church officials, agency and government functionaries that they have no right to know who they are, to do genealogy or learn about important family medical history, or know the identity of or associate with blood relatives. This is how the Judeo-Christian society has interpreted “caring for orphans”, for it’s own selfish interests and greed. Starting with Georgia Tann, the woman charged with kidnapping and selling 5,000 children, most of whom were given to the rich and powerful who then colluded with her to “seal” adoptions and cover their nefarious activities (see, for example, Gov. Herbert Lehman, NY, 1935).

Link: http://adoptionvoicesmagazine.com/adoptee-view/dear-christian-who-is-praying-for-an-infant-to-adopt/