A few years ago, I received an email request to help the daughter of an adoptee. She was writing a dissertation on forced assimilation practices from the boarding school movement to the current foster care system for Indigenous communities in the U.S. "And, for that, I am also writing segments about my own life," she told me.
I told her that her story is about ROADBLOCKS.
I wrote to her:
I cannot stop thinking about your work. I am trying to research missing children, especially from Carlisle. Some died, but how? Some were placed with farm families off school grounds. Then disappear into thin air.
What the governments did in establishing these residential schools was to create hostages - so their parents wouldn't make war.
Abusing a child is a criminal act but because it was a church school, they got a free pass? No charges?
Like slavery, they made examples and tortured and killed kids to scare the rest of the students... to make them literally insane and fear for their lives.
With adoption it was more permanent - families would be torn apart forever. Sealed files prevent reunion. Adoptees lose everything.
YOUR story is about your truth, how you are running into every roadblock to find your own tribal identity after his adoption. Most of the men adoptees tell me they never had a good relationship with a woman. They could never trust anyone.
This interior trauma follows an adoptee their entire life. Maybe it happened to your dad, too. Lots of medical terms exist: severe narcissistic trauma, PTSD, etc.
YOUR story is the roadblock. The printed one-sided oppressor history is bad which is also the goal of oppression.
If you tell your story of the roadblock, people will understand how the gov't wanted this to play out. Not only your dad but you are on the outside as well.
Tribal sovereignty - gone. Measuring blood - eventually there won't be any Indian left with enough blood. All the plan.
Family lore is not enough anymore... you have to be able to prove your direct connection to a tribe and have relatives who know you and accept you.
I opened my adoption despite all the roadblocks and was 38 when I finally met my birthfather. Am I enrolled? No. Why? I do not have a copy of my original birth certificate from Minnesota. I have met relatives on both sides.
Despite every roadblock, many many adoptees are finding their way home. I have two close friends who live on their rez and have met all their relatives. Long process but they did it.
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