How did you feel? Can you imagine this?

This is the last post for #NAAM, or National Adoption Awareness Month, and it's something I wrote a few years back:

How did you feel…

16Sep 2017 | By TAO

I’m trying something new.  New is scary for me, but, it’s something I thought of doing for a while on many different topics.  I decided to start with adoptee rights which means that there are two different questions for adoptees, and a third question for other voices.  Hopefully, hearing feelings of others may convince people to change their mind and support upcoming legislation.

1.  When you are denied the right to your factual original birth certificate, how does it make you feel?
2.  For those who’ve finally gained the right to the original birth certificate, tell me how it felt when you held your original birth certificate in your hands. 
3.  Other voices in adoption, how does it makes you feel knowing your child either has the right to their original birth certificate upon request, just like non-adopted do, or doesn’t have the same right.
(If you want to answer on Tao’s post, here is the link)

My Answer:

I will answer number one. I can answer number one.

When I was 22, I called Catholic Charities in Minnesota who said to me, “Sorry we can’t help you. All our adoption records are sealed.” They had my adoption file since 1956 and they had my name. They had me in their system somewhere – this church who had sold me into this adoption, and a life of lies and fake documents. These social workers/nuns/priests had my identity locked up in a drawer somewhere and they weren’t going to tell me anything? Exactly. (I felt very angry and very desperate. What could I do?)

Have you imagined what it would be like to not know your own family? How you might meet someone and wonder “could we be cousins or siblings?” I was 22. I had questions about my health, my medical history, and nothing to write on the doctor’s office forms. Can you imagine this? People who are not adopted, can you?

At age 22, I was hurt. I was. After calling them, I was so hurt. Actually devastated. And to make matters worse, my adoptive parents would never be helpful. (They probably had my adoption file hidden away – they never showed it to me or offered me any help.) At that point I was a college graduate and living on my own. This phone call to Catholic Charities was my decision and I didn’t need anyone’s permission to search for my own adoption records. AND I wasn’t sharing anything important about my search since my adoptive parents had very little contact with me.
WOW – I do recall how I felt anger. How in the world can I live this way? I might be dating my own brother! I might be working with a cousin or my own parent? Fuming hostile anger!

There was nowhere to put this anger. I didn’t have a counselor to guide me. I had no one. (Yet I never felt sorry for myself.)

Then finally I had an idea. Go to the courthouse. I did. The rest is in my memoir (in greater detail.)
I found out my name. I had my mother’s name. I had a physical description of my father and his age.
I was 22 and NAIVE so this adoption file was a thick legal file. I had no idea what I was reading but this court proceeding was about ME. I took notes. I kept two scraps of paper like they were my most important possession. (In 2010 I petitioned the state of Wisconsin where I was adopted and paid for my own adoption file, not the same thick file I read in the courthouse at age 22.)

I wanted and still want my REAL birth certificate. Many times, many letters I mailed to the state of Minnesota. I asked them for a copy of my original birth certificate (OBC). They always refuse. I talk to a judge friend and she made inquiries for me – nothing. I asked again last year and nothing.
A simple piece of paper – a copy of my own birth certificate – is not mine to have? Apparently not in Minnesota. If I lived in Alaska or Maine, I’d have it by now.

How do I feel about this, my fake birth certificate that lists two people as my biological parents when they are not? I am much older now… Now I feel this is an grave injustice, a human rights violation, a travesty. I didn’t agree to these conditions. I didn’t ask to be adopted. I DID find my biological family after I read my adoption file but I still want that simple piece of paper. I deserve it.

Anger is one thing. Feeling outrage is another.

I wrote a letter (in 2015) to the ACLU in Minnesota and asked for their help. I wanted their help to sue Catholic Charities for stealing my identity and holding my adoption file and identity hostage. (ACLU turned me down.)

This is war. I am still fighting.

(A few years back, a member of CUB (Concerned United Birthparents) sent me a file. It’s a copy of my original baptismal record from Catholic Charities in Minnesota. On a single piece of paper is my mothers name and my name Laura Jean Thrall crossed out and replaced with new parents and my new name.)

How would you feel?

What came after the Indian Adoption Projects? Adoption Resource Exchange of North America

Beginning in 1916, the U.S. Children's Bureau brought its baby-week campaign to thousands of cities, towns, and rural communities across the United States. The photograph above was taken during a baby-week celebration on an Indian reservation.

1958	Child Welfare League of America published Standards of Adoption Service (revised in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1988, 2000); Indian Adoption Project began.

The Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA), founded in 1966, was the immediate successor to the Indian Adoption Project. ARENA was the first national adoption resource exchange devoted to finding homes for hard-to-place children. It continued the practice of placing Native American children with white adoptive parents for a number of years in the early 1970s. (It's estimated some 20,000 children were removed from their First Nations families and sent to non-Native parents in the US.)

1966	The National Adoption Resource Exchange, later renamed the Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA), was established as an outgrowth of the Indian Adoption Project.

Quote: ARNOLD LYSLO, DIRECTOR, INDIAN ADOPTION PROJECT 12/1962

Indian children have certain rights which are theirs by birthright. That is, they have rights of tribal enrollment if they meet the requirements for enrollment set up by the tribe. As tribal members they have the right to share in all the assets of the tribe which are distributed on a per capita basis. The actual as well as anticipated benefits of an Indian child adopted through our Project are furnished by the Secretary of Interior. The Secretary of Interior, through the superintendent of the Indian agency where the child is enrolled, has the right to approve or disapprove of any plan made for the distribution of funds belonging to an Indian child.

Editor Note:  Even though Lyslo said we have rights, we are still taken from our tribes and placed in non-Indian families - which is part and parcel of a genocide program. And maybe those non-Indian parents adopted us for the money we could earn as tribal members...Poverty was often cited as the reason for removal - so who caused the poverty?? - we know the answer...

This post is about the government sanctioned Indian Adoption Project when adoptive parents were questioned over a period of years. It was a study. Who did they ask? Not the adoptee. But there were many projects and many churches who ran adoption programs... More than just this Indian Adoption Project... Trace

Canadian Prime Minister Residential Schools Apology: “Saying that We are Sorry today is not Enough”

Levi Rickert

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomes residential survivor Toby Obed to the stage after delivering an apology on behalf of the Government of Canada to former students of the Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Published November 25, 2017

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, LABRADOR - CANADA — On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized to former students of Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools before hundreds of residents of Happy Valley - Goose Bay, Labrador.

In his apology, Trudeau admits in residential schools that "many former students were sorely neglected, while others were subjected to tragic physical and sexual abuse."

Residential schools in Canada were counterpart to Indian boarding schools in the United States, where indigenous children were taken from the familial homes to places in schools to "Kill the Indian, save the man" concept that sought to strip Native people of their culture and "civilize" them.

Trudeau's apology in Labrador seeks to rectify former Prime Minister Stehpen Harper's failure to include the Innu, Inuit and NunatuKavut people of Newfoundland and Labrador in his 2008 apology. The Harper administration said the Native people there were not acknowledged then because the residential schools were already in operation prior to the Newfoundland and Labrador became part of Canada.

The full transcipt of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's apology can be read below:

“The treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools is a dark and shameful chapter in our country’s history. By acknowledging the past and educating Canadians about the experiences of Indigenous children in these schools, we can ensure that this history is never forgotten.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Moravian Mission and the International Grenfell Association established schools with dormitory residences for Indigenous children with the support of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Their stated purpose was to educate Innu, Inuit, and NunatuKavut children from the communities of Black Tickle, Cartwright, Davis Inlet, Goose Bay, Hebron, Hopedale, Makkovik, Nain, Northwest River, Nutak, Postville, Rigolet, Sheshatshiu and other parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. We now know, however, that Indigenous children in these schools were isolated from their communities, families, traditions and cultures. These residential schools were operated from 1949 until the last school closed in 1980, with the support of the Canadian government.

To move forward with reconciliation, we must understand the role of residential schools in our history. We must recognize the colonial way of thinking that fueled these practices. It’s important because it was there, in these residential schools, that many former students were sorely neglected, while others were subjected to tragic physical and sexual abuse. Many experienced a profound void at the loss of their languages and cultural practices, while others were not properly fed, clothed or housed. Ultimately, every single child was deprived of the love and care of their parents, families and communities.

Children who returned from traumatic experiences in these schools looked to their families and communities for support but, in many cases, found that their own practices, cultures and traditions had been eroded by colonialism. It was in this climate that some experienced individual and family dysfunction, leaving a legacy that took many forms. Afterwards, some experienced grief, poverty, family violence, substance abuse, family and community breakdown, and mental and physical health issues. Unfortunately, many of these intergenerational effects of colonialism on Indigenous people continue today.

On September 28, 2016, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador approved the negotiated settlement agreed to by the parties to provide compensation to those who attended the residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador and those who may have suffered abuse. The agreement also includes provisions for healing and commemoration activities identified by former students. This settlement was made possible because of the exceptional courage and strength of representative plaintiffs and other former students who came forward and spoke about their experiences. Sadly, not all are here with us today, having passed away without being able to hear this apology. We honour their spirits – and we cherish their memories.

We heard you when you said that the exclusion of Newfoundland and Labrador from Canada’s 2008 Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools and the absence of an apology recognizing your experiences have impeded healing and reconciliation. We acknowledge the hurt and pain this has caused you – and we assure former students that you have not been forgotten.

Today, I stand humbly before you, as Prime Minister of Canada, to offer a long overdue apology to former students of the five residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians. I also offer an apology to the families, loved ones and communities impacted by these schools for the painful and sometimes tragic legacy these schools left behind.

For all of you – we are sincerely sorry – pijâgingilagut – apu ushtutatat.

To the survivors who experienced the indignity of this abuse, neglect, hardship and discrimination by the individuals, institutions and system entrusted with your care, we are truly sorry for what you have endured.

We are sorry for the lack of understanding of Indigenous societies and cultures that led to Indigenous children being sent away from their homes, families and communities and placed into residential schools. We are sorry for the misguided belief that Indigenous children could only be properly provided for, cared for, or educated if they were separated from the influence of their families, traditions and cultures. This is a shameful part of Canada’s history – stemming from a legacy of colonialism, when Indigenous people were treated with a profound lack of equality and respect – a time in our country when we undervalued Indigenous cultures and traditions and it was wrongly believed Indigenous languages, spiritual beliefs and ways of life were inferior and irrelevant.

Saying that we are sorry today is not enough. It will not undo the harm that was done to you. It will not bring back the languages and traditions you lost. It will not take away the isolation and vulnerability you felt when separated from your families, communities and cultures. And it will not repair the hardships you endured in the years that followed as you struggled to recover from what you experienced in the schools and move forward with your lives.

But today we want to tell you that what happened in those five schools – at the Lockwood School in Cartwright, the Makkovik Boarding School, the Nain Boarding School, the St. Anthony Orphanage and Boarding School and the Yale School in Northwest River – is not a burden you have to carry alone anymore. It is my hope that today you can begin to heal – that you can finally put your inner child to rest. We share this burden with you by fully accepting our responsibilities – and our failings – as a government and as a country.

All Canadians possess the ability to learn from the past and shape the future. This is the path to reconciliation. This is the way to heal the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada. Today’s apology follows on the heels of a historic new approach to reconciliation between Canada and Indigenous peoples.

And this year, as we reflect on 150 years of Confederation across Canada, we have an opportunity to pause – to think about the future we want to create, that we must create, that we will create, together, in the coming decades and centuries.

We have an opportunity to rebuild our relationship, based on the recognition of your rights, respect, cooperation, partnership and trust. The Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools settlement is an example of reconciliation in action, a settlement with healing and commemoration at its core.

We understand that reconciliation between the Government of Canada and Indigenous peoples can be a difficult process and is ongoing – and we know it doesn’t happen overnight. But it is my hope that in apologizing today, acknowledging the past and asking for your forgiveness, that as a country, we will continue to advance the journey of reconciliation and healing together.

Former students, families and communities that were impacted by the Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools continue to display incredible strength in the face of adversity. Your resilience and your perseverance are evident through your actions every day. By telling the story of Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools, we ensure that this history will never be forgotten. All Canadians have much to learn from this story and we hope to hear you tell your stories – in your own way and in your own words – as this healing and commemoration process unfolds.

While we cannot forget the history that created these residential schools, we must not allow it to define the future. We call on all Canadians to take part in the next chapter – a time when Indigenous and non-Indigenous people build the future we want together.”

November 24, 2017

On behalf of the Government of Canada
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau,
Prime Minister of Canada

"Healing" History: Native America

Kindness of Strangers

Welcome to 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days, hosted by Portrait of an Adoption. This series will feature guest posts by people with widely varying adoption experiences and perspectives.

By Suzanne Gilbert

excerpt:

...Years later I would learn that his son, my half-brother, applied to and attended Princeton University as a native American, drawing on our Cherokee paternal great grandmother having grown up on the reservation in Oklahoma. We are also of slight Iroquois descent.
Among other provisions, the ICWA returns to Indian adoptees access to their original birth certificates with their first parents’ names on them. Despite that, I was imperiously scolded by someone who answered the phone at the Indian Museum in Manhattan that I had no right to search because I, apparently as an infant, had “legally agreed to protect” my first mother’s confidentiality.
After that, another adoptee, adoption reform activist Barbara Cohen, put me in touch with the attorney who helped draft the ICWA. He in turn put me in touch with a tribal historian on the Iroquois reservation in upstate New York.

keep reading

On overcoming hardships

  

Dr. Don Bartlette (in pohoto) visited Minot State Nov. 1, to begin the Native American Cultural Celebration month. Bartlette spoke on the one person in his community who helped him overcome hardships through love, acceptance and compassion.

Bartlette, author of “Macaroni at Midnight,” spoke in his autobiography about his childhood being a Native American living off the reservation in poverty. Bartlette suffered from school and family violence, racism, child abuse and living in an environment of alcoholism.

He was able to overcome his disadvantages with the help of someone in his community who showed him unconditional love, acceptance and compassion to become a success in life.

“These events will provide opportunities to learn about our indigenous people, their lives and how they got to where they are today – successful,” Annette Mennem, MSU’s Native American Center director, said.

When asked why November, Mennem said that in the 1990s, then President George H. W. Bush declared the month of November the National American Indian Heritage month, which Minot State now calls the Native American Celebration.

“I celebrate daily being indigenous and being Ojibway or Anishnaabe (the original people),” Mennem said.

While November isn’t exactly symbolic to Native American culture, Mennem said the Ojibway call the month “gashkadino-giizis” or “Ice is Forming Moon.”  November is also a time where they say “Happy Harvest” and give thanks for blessings from Mother Earth, Sister and Brother Moon, and Father Sky.  These are Ojibway tradition and may differ for other tribes, according to Mennem.
Keep reading

Major grant to help reunify Native American families: Melanie Sage will study states’ compliance

Melanie Sage will study states’ compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act and develop materials to improve communication among all stakeholders

By Bert Gambini | November 14, 2017

Melanie Sage

“There are no measures to ensure the courts and child welfare systems abide by the law, which says that we should take extra steps to make sure indigenous children remain with their families because of a history of government interventions that have broken up Native families.”

Melanie Sage, assistant professor of social work, University at Buffalo in New York

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A University at Buffalo social work researcher will use a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to gather evidence and produce resources to improve the services state agencies offer to Native American families involved in child welfare cases.

The HHS’s Administration for Children and Families originally awarded the funding to Melanie Sage, an assistant professor in UB’s School of Social Work, when she was a faculty member at the University of North Dakota. She has received permission to formally transfer the grant to UB.

“This continues to be a close collaboration with University of North Dakota, but I’ll be supervising the project from UB,” she says.

As principal investigator of the five-year project, she says the goal of her team’s work is to increase how well states comply with the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), legislation enacted in 1978 that set federal guidelines for child custody proceedings involving Native American children.

“This law [ICWA] has been around for nearly 40 years and it isn’t upheld well,” says Sage, one of the few social workers in the country studying ICWA implementation and compliance.

“There are no measures to ensure the courts and child welfare systems abide by the law, which says that we should take extra steps to make sure indigenous children remain with their families because of a history of government interventions that have broken up Native families.”

ICWA is a controversial law that private adoption attorneys have challenged, arguing that the legislation is race-based. But Sage clarifies that it’s a child’s membership in a tribal nation that determines protection in ICWA cases, similar to procedures used when U.S. families adopt children from countries.

But unlike working relationships with other countries, a history of mistrust and the strain of poor communication weakens dealings between social service agencies and tribal governments.

“It’s states and court systems that have not done well in this area,” says Sage. “We’ve identified many of the roadblocks to successful implementation of ICWA, things like child welfare workers who don’t understand what must be done on a case in order to abide by the law. Or courts that don’t know who to notify within tribes to help reunify families.”

When Sage originally moved to North Dakota it was clear that one of the state’s top child welfare concerns was that Native American children represented 40 percent of the children in foster care, while comprising only 10 percent of the population.

Those alarming statistics led the North Dakota Supreme Court to issue a call for proposals to help the justices understand what might be responsible for the disproportionality and the associated poor compliance with ICWA.

That experience improving internal court processes, a three-year undertaking from 2011 to 2014, is the foundation for the current grant. But the previous North Dakota research involved a single system, in this instance, the court’s interest in how it might be falling short of its own requirements.

When federal funding became available, Sage saw the chance to work toward full ICWA compliance by pulling many parties together and taking an interdisciplinary approach to improving communication between systems.

“We have Tribal government partners; Tribal social service partners; state-level child welfare partners; and partners in North Dakota at the child welfare training center,” says Sage. “We’re all working to try to improve relationships among those entities because we recognize that policy and practice fall apart because people are not talking to one another about what they’re doing.”
A curriculum to better educate case workers is ready for testing in North Dakota and is will be shared with other states by the end of next year, according to Sage.

Bert Gambini
News Content Manager
Arts and Humanities, Economics, Social Sciences, Social Work
Tel: 716-645-5334
gambini@buffalo.edu

10 years already? How has my adoption perception changed? Did we flip the script? #NAAM2017

POSTED in 2014 - UPDATED in 2021 for National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM)

Trace (adoptee) and her Ojibwe friend Desi in high school

By Trace Hentz (formerly DeMeyer)

If you had asked me in 2004 what I had planned for myself, I would have not said “writing” about adoption and child trafficking. I had just left my editor’s job at the Pequot Times in Connecticut in August and by September I was married, my second time. How life changed so dramatically for me is documented in my memoir in much greater detail.

First off, I am not a leader of adoptees/Lost Birds/SplitFeathers. I am an adoptee, a storyteller who happens to be a journalist.

Second, I do help adoptees (Native and non-Native) connect with one another. There are plenty of adoptees with leadership skills, like my friend Levi EagleFeather and Sandy WhiteHawk, both are Lakota. If adoptees need ceremony, they are the people to approach. I am a bridge and can help you reach them.

Third, I am an adoptee myself so I know what I went through. And I write about it in great detail but that doesn't make me an expert. I do feel like I have an advanced degree in adoption after 10+ years of reading and writing on this topic.

Now it doesn’t seem possible that 10 13 years zoomed by so fast – it’s like a time tornado hit.  I didn't have any idea my skills would be put to use in this way. I am humbled and deeply grateful to Wakan Tanka.

Since I started American Indian Adoptees, now I know many bloggers on adoption (and many are good friends to me). We had hoped we’d made a strong and lasting impact by now.  We knew:

The adoptee voice was missing. 

Chapters of history were blank. The change I worked for: giving voice to adoptees and writing that chapter, and I did what I could. There are four books in the Lost Children Book Series. A new second edition of TWO WORLDS is coming out soon - updated!

Changing adoption? I had that dream myself.  I am not sure we can actually gauge or measure how worldviews of adoption have changed. States still have adoption files sealed tight. Are they hiding something? Are they afraid of a massive uprising of adoptees? (There are an estimated 7 million of us, maybe more!) Are they afraid we'll find out adoption agencies and churches were trafficking in children? For a profit?

The governments of Canada and America have much to fear.

Other changes? If books on Amazon are an indication, adoptee memoirs are now climbing the ranks over all the propaganda books about how to adopt a baby.

If the statistics on adoption are any indication, the number of babies adopted by Americans are dropping each and every year. There is definitely a demand for infants (primarily because of infertility) but there is still a short supply of newborn flesh to adopt.  (I do believe the adoption traffickers are constantly reinventing new ways to grab a fresh supply of infants. Think of what new poor countries or communities they will invade as the demand increases!! Propaganda will change.)

Will there be more adoptees coming? If Indian Country is still poor, poverty-stricken and a Third World, YES!

What hasn’t changed are adoption laws, sealed adoption files or the old archaic views of promised secrecy and confidentiality for first mothers.

Haven’t we moved past shaming women for unwed pregnancies? Yes, but not enough, apparently.  Lawmakers are still being wined and dined by adoption agency lobbyists so I don’t expect to see much change in the laws – but I hope I am wrong.

What I’d hoped would change faster is the perception of adoption, that it’s not as great and wonderful for adoptees as the public was made to believe.  (In fact, vocal adoptees have changed everything in that regard.) As much as I’ve read in these past 10+ years, blogs and books changed me beyond recognition!  Many times I emailed legislators (like in New Jersey and Illinois) and offered my memoir (as a free book) hoping they would see the light and change existing adoption laws. Maybe it helped?

The big question: Open Adoption--when adoption is necessary--is also an indication that times are changing! But we have a long way to go…This is a quote I saved about open adoption:

…ignored by the adoption agencies is the reality of “open adoption.” Only 22 of fifty states in America recognize open adoption agreements, but failure of the adoptive parents to comply with the agreement is not legally enforceable by the surrendering mother.  (It is failing from many accounts I have read.)

There are many excellent writers making profound statements too.

A quote by adoptee-author-blogger Elle Cuardaigh: 

And adoption certainly is “worked.” When supply of newborns decreased in the 1970s, the adoption industry had to put a new spin on relinquishment  to stay in business. Since women could not be so easily shamed by single motherhood, they changed tactics. Potential suppliers (pregnant women) are now encouraged to “make an adoption plan.” She reads the “Dear Birthmother” letters and interviews hopeful adoptive parents. She is provided with medical care and possibly even housing.  She is promised this is her choice, and that she can have ongoing contact with her child in an open adoption. It would seem she has all the power, but she is being systematically conditioned to accept her role, her place. She doesn’t want to hurt the baby’s “real parents,” feels indebted to them, emotionally invested. She is soon convinced they are better than she is. She becomes “their birthmother.” It almost guarantees relinquishment.  READ Elle’s blog and new book THE TANGLED RED THREAD.  Or visit: http://ellecuardaigh.com

Read any and all posts at THE LIFE OF VON. (Von is now on hiatus)


Powerful WRITING!


The number of excellent powerful blogs and books and articles by adoptees and first parents (and even some APs) exploded in the past 10 years. In 2017, that is fading - far fewer than three years ago.

Helping to writing and publish four books about the Indian Adoption Projects and Programs and contributing to books like ADOPTIONLAND certainly changed me.

In 2014, #FliptheScript in November really moved people - tweets and comments were flying everywhere, some good, some not so good. Discussion is still needed and the people who need to hear adoptees out are the ones we don't reach that well: ADOPTIVE PARENTS. They have their own fog to lift.

Last but not least: I am happily shocked this blog AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES reached over 285,000 700,000 hits! If that is any indication, times really are a changin’.  Thanks to all the people who comment and read and subscribe!

There are thousands of Lost Children/Adoptees who are Native American. They are still out there. I hope they find this blog!

There are two things I hope to see for Lost Bird Adoptees: A class action lawsuit in the US on behalf of those children who were taken from their tribes because of the gov't programs (IAP and ARENA) and admitting PUBLICLY it happened with a declaration of this FACT.

I never would have guessed my life would move in the direction it did. I want to thank those brave bloggers and hundreds of adoptees who have inspired me so much over past 10+ years.


So what will the next 10 years be like? I don’t have a clue.

60s Scoop: Sharing their stories #NAAM

Shaun Ladue

Shaun Ladue calls himself the “survivor of a horrific childhood.” Adopted into a white family at the age of 3, Ladue, 48, says he endured abuse while growing up in Watson Lake, Yukon. So, at 14, Ladue left and never went back. He later became the first child in care in the Yukon to graduate high school and go on to university. And despite grappling with mental health issues for more than a decade, he’s “put all that behind” him and has reconnected with members of his biological family.
Looking back, Ladue recalls hearing the wind blowing in his backyard as a child — a unique, comforting sound he’s never heard anywhere else. “I now think on that wind, my ancestors were speaking to me, and they were giving me the strength to survive day-by-day abuse and ridicule,” Ladue says.
====================================================================

For three decades across Canada, thousands of aboriginal children were taken from their homes and adopted.

By: Lauren Pelley | TorontoStar

KEMPTVILLE — The scent of tobacco and sage fills the air as members of Canada’s aboriginal communities gather around a fire on the shores of the Rideau River.

Each takes a turn fanning medicinal smoke towards their bodies in a cleansing smudging ritual. Then, one by one, the 40 or so attendees of this Indigenous Adoptee Gathering introduce themselves to the group. Some are from Ontario, others from Manitoba or the Yukon. Some are Cree, others Métis or Ojibway.

Most are members of a stolen generation.

Beginning in the mid-1960s — and for several decades after — thousands of indigenous children across Canada were removed from their homes and typically placed with white middle-class families in Canada and abroad.

Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System, dubbed it the Sixties Scoop.

 

Here is the link to the 60s Scoop story, photos, profiles and video in the Toronto Star HERE

History of Indian Boarding Schools

This is Scooped




Lost Daughters: Cricket (Secret Child of a Sixties Supermodel) by Susan Fedorko

BOOK REVIEW Lost Daughters: Cricket (Secret Child of a Sixties Supermodel) by Susan Fedorko

Suzie learns, much to her amazement, that she is the daughter of the first Native American 1960’s supermodel, Cathee Dahmen. I can only imagine the shock and surprise this revelation would bring in mid-life.

Susan is a an everyday hero to other adoptees, but also to anyone who has ever wondered about where they came from and had the courage to open the door to find out.


You can order Susan’s book here.

Suzie also contributed her story in the anthology TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects, with an update in the next anthology CALLED HOME: The RoadMap.

The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown

This is so important. Adoptees do numb their feelings and some have emotional difficulty. Trauma is like that.

Please seek help if you find yourself numbing and shutting down.

The Evolution of Birth Certificates #OBC

It's November Adoption Awareness Month. Some call it Be-Wareness Month.

Adoptees are expressing the same concerns about descendants being able to connect the dots when researching their ancestry. Because two birth certificates exist in adoption, there’s no guarantee that the factual one would be released & therefore “searchable” by descendants. This has led many adoptees in the U.S. legally change their names to reflect biological relationships.
Here is a 2015 post about the Evolution of Birth Certificates.

You're on Indigenous Land

For more than five hundred years, Native communities across the Americas have demonstrated resilience and resistance in the face of violent efforts to separate them from their land, culture, and each other. They remain at the forefront of movements to protect Mother Earth and the life it sustains. Today, corporate greed and federal policy push agendas to extract wealth from the earth, degrading sacred land in blatant disregard of treaty rights. Acknowledgment is a critical public intervention, a necessary step toward honoring Native communities and enacting the much larger project of decolonization and reconciliation. Join us in adopting, calling for, and spreading this practice. 
TAKE THE PLEDGE HERE