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.

GUEST POST: Wiping the Tears: To us, You Belong

GUEST POST

Levi Eagle Feather Sr. is a contributor to this blog and the anthology LOST CHILDREN:
 

In the more modern traditions of my people, part of the process of overcoming is referred to as the "Wiping of Tears." There are other parts to it also because grieving is a process.  

I am grateful for many and too many men and women of my Nation and other Nations of indigenous people. To those who have persevered through all that has happened and continue to persevere through that which is still happening to destroy us today. Not only for persevering through that which is set out to destroy our people as a whole, but also for understanding and seeing that which happens and is set out to destroy each of us as individuals.     

           Yes, there are those who help wherever and whenever they can as much as they can with all they have been given. Endlessly and tirelessly and sometimes at the expense of their own health and comfort. It is called sacrificing for others. The most notable of these folk in my life have a history of this kind of service to our people. They are Richard Moves Camp, Rick Two Dogs, Elmer Running, Roy Stone, and Ray Owens, all descended of Lakota and Dakota healers and spiritual leaders and healers and leaders themselves.

          This same process (a microcosm of the larger) has been happening within the world of those who have undergone and survived adoption. Overcoming and "Wiping of Tears" has been and is happening. My journey began some four decades ago and continues today. While the overcoming is about finding belonging and becoming connected again it is also about understanding how you belong and interacting positively with those to whom you belong. This takes a lifetime because it is what living is about! 

         For American Indian adoptees at its core, at least for now, it starts with searching out and finding our roots. Sadly, and I say this with tenderness and gentleness and caring in my heart and mind. Some may not be able to find that part of the knowing and understanding of reconnection that they seek.  Be discouraged, but not too discouraged.  Feel helpless because you do need help, lots of it! Don't feel totally helpless though, because you belong. You belong to me and in many ways to every person who has ever had the misfortune to have undergone adoption and has experienced being disconnected from the source of their beginning and survived.

          Within this world, within this reality, our reality, there are many good, solid and strong folk too, though! Who are giving of themselves and of their lives in service to us. In pushing back against the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual pain and suffering that all too often comes with our situation and experiences. They have been put there of their own volition, yes, but also have spiritually answered a call for the sake of all. The most notable of folks whom I know in this situation, our situation, are Trace Hentz (DeMeyer), owner of this Blog and other assorted groundbreaking actions of leadership, Sandy White Hawk, a fellow Sicangu Lakota and a leader in Adoptee issues and actions from the St Paul MN area, Susan Devan Harness, a university teacher, writer, involved with a Gazillion Voices Magazine along with other assorted efforts of overcoming, and to Robert DesJarlait, writer, artist, spokesperson on Indian issues and as always involved and knowledgeable on ICWA and most things related to caring and raising children as an Annishnabe Ogicheedag. These folk are out there, active and leading in their own way.  To us, you belong.

          So, this much is true for me! I've seen this and experienced this on my journey according to the cultural understanding and perspective of my reality as my life unfolds. Of course it is a spiritual journey now and has been for some time now. No longer cruising along according to the hegemony and discourse of western thought. While it is still our world, my world it is now my interpretation of what is. In that vein of thought, I must confess western man is wacked out, has been all this time and we are the ones who remain sane. Staying within this world of sanity is my niche for now. I call it living through the reversing of the mind fuck!

          With that in mind let's take a break for now. Next time we'll take a look at who we are and what we are juxtaposed against what they (western interpreters) would have us believe we are. We'll start within the realm of the most severe symptom of adopteeism. The status or label of Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Till then, stay strong my relatives and remember “yes” you belong.  Mitakuye Oyasin!

GUEST POST: Reactive Attachment Disorder by Levi Eagle Feather

Levi Eagle Feather (Lakota)

"...We're the evidence of the crime. They can't deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren't." - John Trudell

This is the first in a series about Reactive Attachment Disorder 

By Levi EagleFeather

           

Reactive attachment disorder, what is it? Well... mine, is a sub-conscious and conscious reaction to the dark art [1] that has been practiced against my people, the Lakota, for the past two hundred years or more. The adoption experience is the specific part of that art which hit me.

          

Overall, everything has worked out quite well for it. In harmony with a multitude of other programs, projects, acts and policies our lives collectively have been totally altered and we now have to live with the confusion of that change. Needless to say, the affects of it all have been quite traumatic for a lot of people.

          

Many times, emotionally, mentally and spiritually we become lost and tired within the hubbub of it all. What else can we do but feel lost. As far as adoption goes the whole basic, being separated from the herd to which you belong thingy. Something which we all have experienced is pretty much the icing on the cake of it all. It not only disrupted our natural experience of familial roots and belonging which is the core of our birthright, but it screwed with everyone else's experience as well. It removed all of us at the same time from that first belonging which showed us and told us to whom and how it is that we belong. It's been very hard for me to square myself with that even to this day!

         

While the boarding school process and the relocation process do basically the same thing that the adoption process does as far as removing one from the herd. The adoption process intentionally is a more permanent barrier between you and your roots. When it is all said and done the adoption process literally redirects completely the whole flow of your life and for everyone involved. Redirected it from the original stream that was familiar and which flowed naturally to one that is not only unfamiliar, but to which your original flow must now undergo a lot of shaping and altering. People sense and understand this is happening while it is happening. We sense it and feel it emotionally and we develop memories of it.

          

The Mayo clinic has attempted to define Reactive Attachment Disorder. Under diseases and conditions it says that: "Reactive attachment disorder is a rare but serious condition in which an infant or young child doesn't establish healthy attachments with parents or caregivers. Reactive attachment disorder may develop if the child's basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing aren't met and loving, caring, stable attachments with others are not established. " [2]

        

I think there are probably a lot of people like myself. That sub-consciously and even consciously realized as it was happening that they weren't experiencing emotional stability. Where ever it was that they got left. 

Knowing that belonging isn't there is easy to understand. It also is easy to understand why someone might be skeptical about wanting to have anything to do with who and what they are being redirected to. And it doesn't have anything to do with any wow factor or how cool something might be either. 

Naturally, situations like this will affect ones behavior. The Mayo clinic says that some of the signs and symptoms of someone experiencing a RAD condition may include:      

·       Withdrawal, fear, sadness or irritability that is not readily explained

·       Sad and listless appearance

·       Not seeking comfort or showing no response when comfort is given

·       Failure to smile

·       Watching others closely but not engaging in social interaction

·       Failing to ask for support or assistance

·       Failure to reach out when picked up

·       No interest in playing peekaboo or other interactive games [3]   

I was four when this all began for me. Since that time not much in my life has been acceptable to me. In a "feeling about it" kind of way. Something is always missing or just not quite right!

         

 The Mayo says that:

         To feel safe and develop trust, infants and young children need a stable, caring environment. Their basic emotional and physical needs must be consistently met. For instance, when a baby cries, his or her need for a meal or a diaper change must be met with a shared emotional exchange that may include eye contact, smiling and caressing.

A child whose needs are ignored or met with a lack of emotional response from caregivers does not come to expect care or comfort or form a stable attachment to caregivers.[4]

In my situation, whatever was to pass for loving and caring after I was removed from my family came from something else entirely different. Both, the attempts at affection and caring, were like gifts that were to be conditionally given based on performance, mine. Their conditions were based on and guided by the authoritarian principals of their church mostly and were backed up by what little understanding they had of my history along with what little they had of their own. This instead of any feeling that I belonged, or was truly wanted. And I knew this and lived with it every second of the eleven plus years I was there. People say that actions speak louder than words. Most of the time this is true, in this situation, my situation, it was.

          

Naturally, I reacted! From the original crying to whatever I brought with me that was me. Emotional, mental and or physical from that day forward was not acceptable and had to be shaped and molded. It goes from the first haircut to change the wild Indian, and on and on. There was a lot of punitive discipline along the way and not just corporal punishment but the good old fashioned psychological stuff.

          

As I grew older the corporal punishment thing in fact became sort of like part of a sick game we had to play. It physically hurt sure, at first. But as I grew older it seemed to hurt less and the fear I had of it morphed into something weird for me. It turned into more of "a bring it and fuck you" kind of thing. I remember I was around ten or eleven. Somewhere in there. And I was tied to the telephone pole in our yard with my pants around my ankles. My siblings all lined up in one of the flower beds against the house watching the old man beat me with a bullwhip. I don't remember clearly what it was all about or why I was there. Whether I deserved it or not. What I do remember was looking back over my shoulder and telling him "Fuck you, someday your going to get yours!" I'm sure that that beating hurt physically. It had to have. But what hurt me more hurt me inside. The embarrassment of being in front of my siblings probably the most.

          

So in my mind it was the psychological stuff which screwed with my wanting to belong the most. The blaming, shaming and shunning would work in time. Not like it was intended maybe, but it worked. It told me that I was unacceptable and that life for me and everything in it was unacceptable as well.  

         

In fairness, I'm sure that I was a fistful right from the beginning. I was a kid! What did I know about life and living. That doesn't account for what happened to me or how it happened, or make it right! In digging through and unraveling the negative effects all of this has had on me mentally and learning to understand and grow out of the emotional instability it instilled in me is part of that being right. I couldn't dream to wish this kind of right on even the best of my enemies! So throughout my experience I never got to any place in it where I felt comfortable enough inside to trust emotionally. Let alone want to belong! My belonging had ceased for all intents and purposes when I was taken and until my children were born I was alone even in a crowd. 

[Levi is a contributor to the new anthology CALLED HOME. His essay The Holocaust Self is one of the most profound in the book! ...Trace/Lara]