Still here 17 years later... #NAAM2021 #Adoptee

This post was written in 2014 - now UPDATED in 2021 for National Adoption Awareness Month (#NAAM2021)

By Trace L 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. I have always known adoptees. It's like some (╋) magic radar that we seem to find each other... (which has always been life-saving for me.)

When I first started writing the article GENERATION AFTER GENERATION WE ARE COMING HOME in 2004, finally written and published in 2005 by American Indian Community House in New York City then in News From Indian Country, it was like a door opened.  That door is still open and I am still learning (and blogging here and covering news). I am not in Higher Ed nor do I wish to be. 

I write for adoptees like me. I am not a leader of adoptees/Lost Birds/SplitFeathers. I am an adoptee, someone who gathers stories who happens to be trained as a journalist (aka blogger.)

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 17+ years of reading and writing on this topic. (And I'm 65 so it's a lived experience too.)

To me it doesn’t seem possible that those years went so fast – I didn't have any idea my skills would be put to use in this way. I am deeply humbled and deeply grateful to Great Spirit...Wakan Tanka.

Since I started American Indian Adoptees in late 2009, I met and know many bloggers on the topic of adoption (and many are good friends to me). We had hoped we’d made a strong and lasting impact by now.  

We all knew:

The adoptee voice was missing. 

Chapters of history were blank. The changes 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. That was the history few had ever documented...I had saved one article from Canada when I was working as a journalist at NFIC from 1996-1999. One!

 
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 10 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 still 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 rising infertility since the 1950s) 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? Sadly yes.

A happy ending in the media erases the very real structural realities of the adoption industrial complex, one that orchestrates the exchange of babies for money. - Alexa Strabuk

What hasn’t changed much since 2004 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 17+ years, blogs and books changed me beyond recognition!  

Many times I have 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 (in 2014) 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 has since passed.)  Powerful WRITING!

In Blogland,  when your topic is adoption, you can never be free of trolls, extremists, zealots, fundamentalists, missionaries, the blinkered and the closed-minded. - (adoptee) Elizabeth Von Hughes

The number of excellent powerful blogs by adoptees and first parents (and even some APs) exploded in the past 15 years but there are far fewer now.

Helping to writing and publish four books about the Indian Adoption Projects and Programs and contributing to books like ADOPTIONLAND certainly changed me. And the Vance twins are doing a new anthology on Adoptionland and I have contributed (in 2021).

Back in 2014, #FliptheScript in November was brand new and 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 1,600,000 million hits with 1800+ posts!  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 do hope they find this blog and reach out and contact me!

There are two things I hope to see for Lost Bird Adoptees: A class action lawsuit in the USA 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. 

(Canada is now doing this for the 60s Scoop adoptees.)

I never would have guessed my life would move in the direction it did. I want to thank those hundreds of adoptees and families who have inspired me so much over past 17+ years.

So what will the next 17 years be like? I don’t have a clue.

Remembering Von Hughes #adopteerights

Von and her daughter

Lost Daughters is sad to announce the passing of one of our long-time members, Von Coates. Von was one of Australia’s stolen babies during an era which mirrored that of the “Baby Scoop Era” in the United States (and worldwide). She was instrumental in the official apology issued by the WA government. She stood unapologetically by the wronged mothers as they refused to accept. She was a pioneer in establishing Post-Adoption support in WA. She was also a tireless advocate for bird populations of her homeland and for justice everywhere. She lived a long, fulfilling life. She will be missed.

ETA: Von’s family has asked for donations for a mental health fundraiser in Von’s honor: https://www.mycause.com.au/page/230210/memorial-to-elizabeth-ann-hughes

Her death on May 17, 2020 has been devastating to family, friends and the online community

  

By Trace Hentz, Blog Editor

Every adoptee I know wants to understand why we feel the way we do, and that we are not alone. Von Coates Hughes in Australia was one of my best teachers and she was an outspoken adoptee. She gave in-depth, easy-to-read insight and had the words when I would struggle with how to explain how I felt about being adopted.
Von had a blog on blogger (Once was Von) and someone reported it was not good so it was taken down. What the HELL??? Criticizing the adoption industry and propaganda was dangerous, we soon discovered - and Von and I discussed it via email.  She came to my defense many times. She would openly argue with first mothers/birthmothers and adoptive parents on Facebook - battling as if there was only one victim in the adoption game.
She made many comments on this blog and interviewed me for her blog. Von was also a contributor to LOST DAUGHTERS blog.

Out of necessity, Von moved her blog to wordpress. Below: this was her first post in 2012.

It’s Just A Stage I’m Going Through!

This entry was posted on February 29, 2012, in adoption, Uncategorized and tagged adoption. 6 Comments

I’m a cat person, a Greyhound person, a goose person – well, let’s just say an animal person or an ‘everything that lives and moves person’ and then some. I love fossils, rocks, gemstones, crystals, mushrooms, toadstools, lichens and all the non-green plants. Yes, I even love spiders and have a large Huntsman named Mathilda living in close proximity. Freaky!  It’s not normal in the eyes of some, but then I’ve got adoption to thank for that. My beloved maternal aGrandfather was the same. He loved and was fascinated by everything that moved, didn’t move, lived or had lived. He was born in Victorian times, so was also a collector, kept a pair of chimpanzees and a Cassowary in the garden.
Every Summer he camped out with his geologist mates from the city museum so that they could collect fossils and set up the collection which is still on show today, still neatly labelled with the source, which reminds me of him every time I visit!  I have photos of those times, taken long before I was born, when my amother was a child raised to a life of respect for living creatures and a love of the area I took my family to live in decades and decades later, long after she had died.
Continuity happens in families, whether they are biological families or adoptive families. Adoptees if they are lucky enough to experience reunion can connect with the bits they wish to, not the bits they don’t. Sometimes, just sometimes, we have choices others do not. Does it make up for not having a choice about losing our mothers, the trauma of adoption?  Of course not, nothing ever does. It can’t even be viewed as compensation; often too complicated or fraught for that, but at least it is choice of a sort. Mainly of the “I choose not to take any more of your shit” variety or “I choose not to go to this funeral” or take on a poisonous sister-in-law who hates our guts for being born and then turning up late to the party. At least we can choose not to let these people and situations abuse us, make us victims and categorise us.
In four lifetimes I’ve seen a lot of that!  Each part of my life as been so very different, it feels as if I have had four lifetimes so far, with another yet to come; not completely coinciding with Brodzinsky’s five stages of the adopted life, but fairly close, with some overlaps. I have no anger about my adoption, I don’t hate anyone, although I believe some of them could have behaved much, much better. I’m not bitter. I refuse to let anyone define my life, what it has been, what it is now and what it will be. I do not believe adoption is ethical or the best we humans can do for children and families, for those living in the poverty others created, manipulated or unsupported for the gains of others. I will not ever allow a group of damaged mothers to define what adoption is to me or stand by while they tell other adoptees what adoption is or is not for adult adoptees. Not in a million years. That is abusive, unacceptable and these days very ill-advised.
Adoption and the adoption industry needs to clean up it’s act, get real and begin to be about finding the very best families for the children who have to become adoptees because their parents cannot, should not or will not raise them. It needs to stop being about baby selling, commodification of human lives and filling orders, greed, profit and lies. Easy?? It could be with the right commitment, intentions and goals and a true belief that is is about the best interests of children and not adults.

Go read her blog - from the beginning. Von made us smart. I will miss her so much. My heart is broken.

This is the bio on Lost Daughters:
Von --Life &Wisdom Columnist
Von is an Australian adoptee of the forced adoption era and has lived the adopted life for 66 years. She is known by her family and dearest friends as someone who takes no prisoners and has a horror of bigotry and injustice.She is a strong believer in the rights of children, the power of love and the medicinal powers of chocolate. She speaks her truth and often describes herself as an adoptee who is 'out, proud and loud". She had the benefit of Yorkshire genes for direct speaking and Somerset genes for perseverance. The Grandmother in her avatar she never knew but has taken as a role model and an inspiration. She is still waiting to be told she is not the oldest blogger on adoption in the blogosphere. Von blogs regularly at her personal blog The Life of Von.

She was also known as Elizabeth Ann Hughes. 

QUOTE
For adoptees, the right to know, the belief in the fundamental human right of knowing who we are, where we came from and who our people are, keeps many of us moving forward, steadily, sometimes haltingly, sometimes fearfully and in trepidation and sometimes with confidence and always with the knowledge that we are right to want the truth, to clear away the lies and to hold liars and abusers accountable.  Adult adoptees won’t be going away any time soon, nor will they be keeping quiet or allowing gains to be lost. We have everything to gain – we already lost everything when we lost our mothers,our identity, our history and our names. 

Another post about Von