By Trace L Hentz (blog editor and adoptee)
Yesterday I was talking to my husband about an adoptee who is in another country and needs help to find her family and tribe. Her (amended) (fake) birth certificate is from Utah.
Utah is a closed record state. BAD NEWS. But Utah has an adoption registry: and she can register online, which is new. https://adoptionregistry.utah.gov/ - Their website says: The Utah Adoption Registry is a voluntary, mutual consent registry that
helps adult adoptees born in Utah and their birth parents and blood
related siblings reunite with one another.
There is a form to fill out: Register Now
Of course there is a fee: Check or Money Order made out to 'Vital Records'. New registration: $25. Update to Match Search information: $10.
She was adopted in Utah but could be born somewhere else. She sent me a copy of her fake OBC (the original birth certificate, amended after adoption) and it lists her adoptive parents as her birth parents.
She told me in an email her adoption was private, which means lawyers were involved, I guess. Why? Paperwork.
I emailed back: Are
your adoptive parents still alive? I ask this because they have your
adoption papers (from the adoption hearing) that probably lists your
birth mother. (mine did) There had to be a hearing in order to produce
your fake birth certificate with the adopters names. This adoptee was born in 1981 but the birth certificate was issued in 2006. (Weird -- 25 years later?) Even if it was a
private adoption, lawyers and a judge had to create paperwork to
make the (fake) birth record.
Nothing on her birth certificate tells us where she was actually born, what hospital, what time, her weight and length, etc.
I had already sent her a list of tribes in Utah: Utes, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshone, and Navajo. There are eight federally recognized tribes.
What are her choices now? I suggested she use a search angel. https://www.searchangels.org/gettings-started
I also suggested that she do a DNA test to find a relative.
But the problem with DNA tests- some Native people DO NOT WANT to have their DNA and blood is some database. We know why. History is a horror show. The government created this barbaric practice of closed adoptions and fake papers. And they created the INDIAN ADOPTION PROJECTS: we do not know how many children were trafficked and given new fake identities to make them "white" and "American."
Canada claims about 20,000 were part of the 60s Scoop (their adoption trafficking project) but others say it was triple that number. The US has never released any numbers of children for all their Indian Adoption Projects or ARENA or an apology. It was thousands and thousands.
Until we reunite with our relatives, which many of us have done, Closed Adoption accomplished our erasure as sovereign citizens in our tribal nations.
I do think about what we need to do. Do we need a website for Native moms to list their children's date of birth and their names, to help her find them. That might not work since adoptees have little to no information. How can the adoptee know their real date of birth or where they were born? Adoptees are the most lied to, and denied the truth, and denied their paperwork. I can barely stomach this ongoing atrocity.
How can we match missing children to their parents and their tribes?
Do you see the mess this is? Do you realize this was created by a government to make it nearly impossible to find your tribe?
The clock is ticking. Parents age and pass. How long must we wait to see a change in the US?
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