AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: Bibliography (updated)

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Bibliography (updated)

HISTORY (2024)

Indian Adoption Project

Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967) Harness, Susan. Edwin Mellen Press, NY. 2009 (Highly recommend this!)

Bilchik, S. (2001, April 24). [Keynote address]. Speech presented at the 19th Annual Protecting our Children Conference, Anchorage, AK. (posted on this blog)

Child Welfare League of America. (1960, April). Indian Adoption Project. New York: Author.

Demer, L. (2001, May). Native receive apology for 1950s racial adoptions. Pathways Practice Digest, 1-2.

Lyslo, A. (1962, December). Suggested criteria to evaluate families to adopt American Indian children through Indian Adoption Project. New York: Child Welfare League of America.

Lyslo, A. (1964). The Indian Adoption Project: An appeal to catholic agencies to participate. Catholic Charities Review, 48(5), 12-16.

Lyslo, A. (1967, March). 1966 year end summary of the Indian Adoption Project. New York: Child Welfare League of America.

Lyslo, A. (1967). Adoptive placement of Indian children. Catholic Charities Review, 51(2), 23-25.

Lyslo, A. (1968, April). The Indian Adoption Project – 1958 through 1967: Report of its accomplishments, evaluation and recommendations for adoption services to Indian children. New York: Child Welfare League of America.

Hentz, Trace L, Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects book series [www.bluehandbooks.org]

Outcomes for Transracially Adoption Native American Children

Bagley, C., Young, Y. (1979). The identity, adjustment and achievement of transracially adopted children: A review and empirical report. In G. K. Verman and C. Bagley (Eds.), Race, education and identity (pp. 192-219). New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Berlin, I. N. (1978). Anglo adoptions of Native Americans: Repercussions in adolescence. American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 17(2), 387-388.

Brooks, D.; Barth, R. P. (1999). Adult transracial and inracial adoptees: Effect of race, gender, adoptive family structure, and placement history on adjustment outcomes. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 69(1), 87-99.

Fanshel, D. (1972). Far from the reservation: The transracial adoption of American Indian children. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. (posted on this blog)

Green, B. E., Sack, W. H., Pambrum, A. (1981). A review of child psychiatric epidemiology with special reference to American Indian and Alaska Native children. White Cloud Journal, 2(2), 22-36).

Green, H. J. (1983). Risks and attitudes associated with extra-cultural placement of American Indian children: A critical review. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 22(1), 63-67.

Knapp, J. (2002, March). My adoption meant personal loss, but I don’t look for blame. Pathways Practice Digest, 1-2.

Kowal, L. A., Schilling, K. M. (1985). Adoption through the eyes of adult adoptees. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55(3), 354-362.

Locust, Carol (2000, October). Split Feathers: Adult American Indians who were placed in non-Indian families as children. Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies Journal, 44(3), 11-16. (posted on this blog)

Magagnini, S. (1997, June 5). Indian adoptees go in search of roots. The Sacramento Bee, p. A20.

Massatti, R. R., Vonk, E. M., Gregorie, T. K. (2004). Reliability and validity of the transracial adoption parenting scale. Research on Social Work Practice, 14(1), 43-50.

McDonald, T. P., Propp, J. R, Murphy, K. C. (2001). The post-adoption experience: Child, parent, and family predictors of family adjustment to adoption. Child Welfare, 80(1), 71-94.

Melmer, D. (2004, February 18). ‘Split Feather’ syndrome addressed at S.D. committee hearing. Indian Country Today. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1077116698&print=yes

Rathbun, C., McLaughlin, H., Bennett, C., & Garland, J. A. (1965). Later adjustment of children following radical separation from family and culture. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 35, 604-609.

Robin, R. W., Rasmussen, J. K., Gonzalez-Santin, E. (1999). Impact of childhood out-of-home placement on a southwestern American Indian tribe. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 2(1/2), 69-89.

Rosene, L. R. (1985). A follow-up study of Indian children adopted by white families. Dissertation Abstracts International.

Rosenthal, R. A. (1981). Triple jeopardy: Family stresses and subsequent divorce following the adoption of racially and ethnically mixed children. Journal of Divorce, 4(4), 43-54.

Ryant, J. C. (1984). Some issues in the adoption of Native children. In P. Sachdev (Ed.), Adoption: Current issues and trends (pp. 169-180). Toronto: Butterworth & Co. Ltd.

Schmidt, B. W. (2001, March). Adopted Indians seek roots. Pathways Practice Digest, 1,10 -11.

Sharma, A. R., McGue, M. K., Benson, P. L. (1996). The emotional and behavioral adjustment of United States adopted adolescents: Part I. An overview. Children and Youth Services Review, 18, 83-100.

Silverman, A. R., Feigleman, W. (1990). Adjustment in interracial adoptees: An overview. In D. K. Brodzinsky and m. D. Schechter, (Eds.), The psychology of adoption (pp. 187-200). New York: Oxford University Press.

Topper, M. D. (1979). Mormon placement: The effects of missionary foster families on Navajo adolescents. Ethos: The Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, 7(2), 162-160.

Verrier, N. M. (1993). The primal wound: Understanding the adopted child. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press, Inc.

Westermeyer, J. (1979). The Apple Syndrome in Minnesota: A complication of racial-ethnic discontinuity. Journal of Operational Psychiatry, 10(2), 134-140.

White Hawk, S. (2001, May). An honor song and pow wow for returning lost birds. Pathways Practice Digest, 4-5.

Tribal Child Welfare – General

Association on American Indian Affairs. (1974a, Winter). The destruction of Indian families. Indian Family Defense, 1, 1-2.

Association on American Indian Affairs. (1974b, Winter). Senate probes child welfare crisis. Indian Family Defense, 2, 1-6.

Bagley, C. (1985). Child abuse by the child welfare system. Journal of Child Care, 2(3), 63-69.

Blanchard, E. L.; Barsch, R. L. (1980). What is best for tribal children? A response to Fischler. SocialWork, 25, 350-357.

Byler, W. (1977, Summer). Removing children: The destruction of American Indian families. Civil Rights Digest, 9(4), 19-27. (Byler testimony on this blog.)

George, L. (1997). Why the need for the Indian Child Welfare Act? Journal of Multicultural Social Work, 5(3/4), 165-175.

Hogan, P. T., Siu, S. F. (1988). Minority children and the child welfare system: An historical perspective. Social Work 33(6), 493-498.

Horejsi, C. C., Heavy Runner, B. (1992). Reactions by Native American parents to child protection agencies: Cultural and community factors. Child Welfare, 71(4), 329-342.

Johnson, T. R. (Ed.). (1991). The Indian Child Welfare Act the next ten years: Indian homes for Indian children. Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, University of California.

Jones, D. M. (1969). Child welfare problems in an Alaskan Native village. Social Service Review, 43, 297-309.

Kunesh, P. (1996). Transcending frontiers: Indian child welfare in the United States [Electronic version]. Boston College Third World Law Journal, 16(17), 17-34.

McMahon, A., Gullerud, E. N. (1995). Native American agencies for Native American children: Fulfilling the promise of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Journal of Sociology Social Welfare, 22(1), 87-98.

Shore, J. H. (1978, Summer). Destruction of Indian families – beyond the best interests of Indian children. White Cloud Journal, 1 (2), 13-16.

First Nations Adoption

Bagley, C. (1991). Adoption of Native children in Canada: A policy analysis and a research report. In H. Alstein and R. J. Simon (Eds.), Intercountry adoption: A multinational perspective (pp. 56-79). New York: Praeger Publishers.

Fournier, S. Crey, E. (1997). Stolen from our embrace: The abduction of First Nations children and the restoration of Aboriginal communities. Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, Ltd.

Johnston, P. (1983). Native children and the child welfare system. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company.

Lipman, M. (1984). Adoption in Canada: Two decades in review. In P. Sachdev (Ed.), Adoption: Current issues and trends, (pp. 30-42). Toronto: Butterworth & Co. Ltd.

Morse, B. (1984). Native Indian and Metis children in Canada: Victims of the child welfare system. In G.

K. Verma and C. Bagley (Eds.), Race relations and cultural differences (pp. 259-277). New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Swift, S. (1999). One of those kids: AFN and other try to restore faded tribal ties for Canada’s Native adoptees. American Indian Report, 15(10), 22-24.

Ward, M. (1984). The adoption of Native Canadian children. Cobalt, Ontario: Highway Book Shop.

[suggestions from https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/reading.html]

Sherman Alexie, Indian Killer (New York: Warner Books, 1996).

Robert Benson, ed., Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001).

Joan Heifetz Hollinger, “Beyond the Best Interests of the Tribe: The Indian Child Welfare Act and the Adoption of Indian Children,” University of Detroit Law Review 66 (1989):451-501.

Marilyn Irvin Holt, Indian Orphanages (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001).

Sondra Jones, “'Redeeming' the Indian: The Enslavement of Indian Children in New Mexico and Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 67 (1999):220-241.

Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs in Heaven (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993).

Arnold Lyslo, “Adoptive Placement of American Indian Children With Non-Indian Families,” in Readings in Adoption, ed. I. Evelyn Smith (New York: Philosophical Library, 1963), 231-236.

Steven Unger, ed., The Destruction of American Indian Families (New York: Association on American Indian Affairs, 1977).

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.