CALLED HOME: Book Contributors - republished in 2025

CALLED HOME: Book Contributors:

We are honored that these adoptees (or relatives of adoptees) contributed to CALLED HOME:

Suzie Fedorko,

Andrea Hill,
Anecia O'Carroll (Tretikoff),   

Ben Ani Chosa,
Cynthia Lammers, 

Debby Poitras, 

Elizabeth Blake,
Evelyn Red Lodge,  

Gail Huggard,
Janell Black Owl,  

Jessup Fasthorse Neubert,
Janell Loos,   

Joan Kauppi,
Johnathan Brooks,  

Lawrence Sampson,
Leland Morrill,  

Lynn Grubb,
Kim Shuck (relative of adoptee),   

Mark Heiser,
Mary St. Martin,  

Meschelle Linjean,
Patrick Yeakey,  

Terry Niska,
Thomas Pierce,  

Samantha Franklin,
Alice Diver,    

Leland Morrill,
Patricia Busbee (editor),

Trace DeMeyer Hentz (editor),
Starla Bilyeu,   

Douglas LittleJohn,
Mitzi Lipscomb,
Karen Kaminawaish M.A., M.S.,
Thayla Barrett,   

Jesse Stonefield,
Karen Ann Jefferson,   

Levi EagleFeather,
Brit Reed,  

Catie Ransom,
Kim Dupre (relative of adoptee),   

Karla Mena,
Lisa Bos,
Drew Rutledge,
Michael Pintozzi,   

Marylyn Jean Chrismer,
Sheryl Lee Sinclair,  

Mary Thompson,
Amelia Cagle      

(Suzanne Zahrt Murphy (poet) and Judi Armbruster (poet) (not adoptees) 

 

I am rereading this anthology in 2025.  Each story is unique and so important.

Thank you for sharing your stories!

 

Now deceased:

Patrick Yeakey 

Karen Kaminawaish 

Cynthia Lammers

Not an adoptee: Karen Vigneault (who is thanked many times for her help)

 

LINK TO AMAZON: https://a.co/d/gFH7Rx9

 

SIXTIES SCOOP: Raised Jewish, Adoptee Sharing Story

Former Winnipegger of Métis ancestry, raised Jewish sharing her experience

By: John Longhurst |  Oct. 31, 2022 

 

Growing up as an adopted child in a Jewish family in Winnipeg, Lisa Wilder knew she was different. She just didn’t know why.

She found out when she was in her mid-20s.

She was of Métis ancestry.

SUPPLIED by Lisa Wilder

“I felt misaligned as a child,” said Wilder, 53, who was part of the ’60s Scoop.

It wasn’t the fault of her family or the Winnipeg Jewish community, she said.

“I had a good upbringing, and my adoption was presented in a positive manner by my parents,” she said. “I just felt something was off.”

Later in life, as Wilder learned more about her adoption, she discovered her mother was 17 when she was born. Shortly after, her mother was told Lisa would soon die. Hospital officials convinced her to sign papers to pay for the burial.

But the baby was not dying. Instead, she was put into a foster home where she was adopted by her new parents — who didn’t know she had been “scooped.”

Today Wilder, a mother of three who now lives in Calgary, is on a quest to learn more about her Indigenous roots and combine them with her Jewish life.

There are similarities between the two, she said, adding both groups “suffered a genocide.”

She also noted that Indigenous people, like Jews in Nazi Germany, were prevented from performing their ceremonies or celebrating their spirituality. They were also confined to reservations, like Jews were, for a time, confined to ghettos.

As she learns more about the Indigenous side of her heritage, she is looking for ways to amalgamate the two. At the same time, although she is of Métis ancestry, Wilder is careful not to call herself Indigenous.

“I’m not trying to pass myself off that way,” she said. “I have not led an Indigenous life. I grew up Jewish. Métis is my ancestry. I’m reaching out to Indigenous people for guidance. I want to learn more.”

Wilder spoke about her experience at a presentation called Uncovering my Métis Roots: A Jewish Woman’s Journey.

“I’m a bit terrified to share my story in the community I grew up in,” said Wilder, noting her adoptive parents, who were supportive of her search for her biological family, will be there.

Her hope in sharing her experience is to promote understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.

“I hope I can move the needle of awareness a little bit, to make this a more peaceful and understanding world,” she said. “I’m no expert. I’m just a person with a story who wants a better world.”

To register for the event, which is presented by the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg — Women’s Philanthropy, call 204-477-7426 or visit their website.

‘60s Scoop survivor Leah Ballantyne grew up thinking she was the only one

 VIDEO

‘Growing up I kind of thought, why am I this lone person…”

Leah Ballantyne was just 11 days old when she was adopted out to a Scottish family in Winnipeg – by the time she was 13, she was already searching for her birth parents.

Riding the bus to school through Winnipeg’s downtown core, she would see Indigenous people and wondered if they were relatives.

“Growing up, I kind of thought, why am I this lone person and adopted into a family? Why didn’t my family want me and what were the circumstances? And as I learned that the ‘60s Scoop was actually a part of a process that started with reservations, and the Indian Act, and residential schools, and day schools,” she says on the latest episode of Face to Face.

“Then I realized that I was part of something that was a separation that was going on through government policy.”

The push to finally find out where she came from came after an event in Vancouver.

She says she was inspired by speeches by former Assembly of First Nations national chief Ovide Mercredi and Mohawk Council of Kahnawake grand chief Joe Tokwiro Norton

After, she went digging into her past.

Ballantyne’s birth mother had registered her for a status number at birth so she knew she was from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation. She wrote the chief at the time, the late Pascal Bighetty, asking for help.

Not long after, Ballantyne received a call from Bighetty, who, as it would turn out, was her uncle, telling her he knew who she was and to come home.

Advocating for her community

Ballantyne says the rally and reunification with her community, a “light went on” and she decided she would push for positive changes in law and policy by becoming a lawyer.

To this day, Ballantyne remains the only member of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation to become a lawyer. She is currently working with her nation on child welfare laws and bringing children home, whether they were part of the 60s Scoop, aged out of the care, or still in care.

Ballantyne is vocal about representation and believes those who falsely claim Indigenous identity, should face criminal charges.

“There is a couple of sections in the Criminal Code of Canada for identity and identity fraud and so Indigenous identity fraud is very much a charge that could be laid by any institution that has addressed this kind of issue and people that are claiming false Indigenous identity,” she says.

“And there is no statute of limitation on this type of identity fraud within the Criminal Code.”

KEEP READING

NEW BOOK: These are the Stories

 Sixties Scoop Survivor details failures of the Child Welfare System in new essay collection

January 20, 2022 In Anishinabek, News

NEYAASHIINIGMIING — Kegedonce Press proudly announces the release of These are the Stories: Memories of a 60s Scoop Survivor by author, editor and journalist Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith. This timely collection of auto-biographical essays addresses a topic that has gained increasing attention in Canadian news and cultural media; the historical and ongoing treatment of Indigenous children in Canada.

Miskonoodinkwe Smith relates her experiences in the child welfare system after she and her siblings were taken from her mother on Peguis First Nation. The stories describe the author’s failed adoption by a non-Indigenous family, her quest to find her birth mother, and address the lasting harm caused by the seizure of First Nations children from their homes and communities. While this is a story of the lamentable failures of the Canadian Child Welfare system, it is also one of hope, as Miskonoodinkwe Smith relates her journey towards home and healing.

Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, Chair for Truth and Reconciliation, Lakehead University writes:

“Christine’s story illuminates a pathway trod by far too many Indigenous children over the last 100 years. When Indian Residential Schools didn’t ‘kill the Indian in the child’, Child Welfare agencies stepped in to finish the job. There was light; however, in the darkness for Christine. Light that healed her brokenness through kindness, the connection of friends, and the reconstitution of a family. Lost and found, and lost again is a tragic summary of her experience of being scooped, to abandoned, to finding solace in the arms of a mother who died far too soon. Still, her strength shines through in her hope, her joy of storytelling, and her endearing ability to break open the hearts of those around her. She has a rare courage, and I’ve always admired her ability to show us all how it’s done, because this is a woman who truly understands how to ‘walk in beauty.’”

Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith is a Saulteaux woman from Peguis First Nation who currently lives in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Aboriginal Studies and received her Master’s in Education in Social Justice. Her first non-fiction story, Choosing the Path to Healing, appeared in the 2006 anthology, Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces. She has written for the Native Canadian, Anishinabek News, Windspeaker, First Nations House Magazine, New Tribe Magazine, Muskrat Magazine, and the Piker Press.

Kegedonce Press hosted an online book launch for These are the Stories on January 22 with moderator Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and introduction by Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux. Details on Facebook @60sScoopBookLaunch.

Kegedonce Press is a dedicated Indigenous publisher, based in Neyaashiinigmiing and Owen Sound, Ontario. It has been publishing books involving Indigenous peoples at all levels of production since 1993.

– 30 –

Media Contact:

Patricia Campbell
Kegedonce Press Marketing Assistant
519 377 1319
communications@kegedonce.com.

Photos, sample chapter and review copies available.

Career in journalism helps ’60s Scoop survivor reconnect with culture

 

As a child of the ’60s Scoop who was beginning to re-discover her birth family, Betty Ann Adam thought journalism was a good profession to pursue. Adam, who was raised in a non-Indigenous home, was looking to discover who she was as an Indigenous person and learn more about Indigenous people.

But, Adam didn’t just want to be the “Indigenous reporter” in the newsroom, despite being the only Indigenous person reporting for the Saskatoon Star Phoenix at the time.

“I felt a bit like they wanted to assign me to the Indigenous stories and I didn’t feel ready to do that at that point,” says Adam on the latest episode of Face to Face. “I hadn’t trained as a journalist. I had done some work and they saw some potential, so they gave me that opportunity.

“But, I didn’t feel comfortable doing Indigenous stories, exclusively, because I just felt at a disadvantage and I sometimes felt as though Indigenous people that I interviewed expected me to understand them, more than I did at that time.”

In 1989, Indigenous representation in newsrooms in Canada was pretty sparse says Adam who felt she didn’t have a lot of power to influence the way stories about Indigenous Peoples were being told.

Adam says she noticed things beginning to change following the criticism newsrooms received over coverage of the crimes of Saskatoon serial killer, John Crawford.

That criticism was documented in Warren Goulding’s 2001 book, Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada’s Indifference.

Adam worked at the Star Phoenix for three decades covering a range of issues.

Many big stories stick with her including the Neil Stonechild inquest, the Saskatchewan Treaty Land Entitlement framework agreement, the so-called Spiritwood Incident where two RCMP officers were shot and killed by Curtis Dagenais, and the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard.

Adam broke the story on the practice of coerced sterilization of Indigenous women without free and informed consent. The practice is now the focus of a class-action lawsuit.

Despite stepping away from the daily news grind, Adam has not slowed down. She has taken on the role of associate editor with Eagle Feather News.

Adam, who is a member of Fond Du Lac Denesuline First Nation, is also working on the latest season of Connie Walker’s podcast, Stolen.

Adam is also the chair of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Saskatchewan that recently released Everything is Connected, a documentary that highlights how intergenerational trauma and the separation of Indigenous children from their families are connected to the issue Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

“It starts with the residential schools and that was often leading to former students whose children got scooped. And then those same families would have people who were dying in this terrible scourge of MMIW. And we thought it was important for Canadians to understand that these things don’t happen in silos,” says Adam.

“All of the negative issues that face Indigenous people can be linked to government policy.”

Everything is Connected is not the first documentary Adam has worked on. Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard’s 2016 film, Birth of a Family documents Adam and her birth siblings, meeting together for the very first time.

“Birth of a Family was a great experience. When I see it, it’s like seeing the best ever family holiday album that you ever saw but it was our family being together for the first time. And in fact, this past Christmas, my sister Rose came to Saskatoon and it was the first Christmas in any of our lives where two of us at least ever got to be together for Christmas and she stayed through New Years.

“You know, Sixties Scoop people are surviving and thriving and we’re trying to find our way back to family and community. And there are stories of happiness, joy and hope too.”

“I’m no longer a lost child. My story matters. That’s what I’m taking home: I matter.”

 

Burden of proof

After the residential school in Nova Scotia closed in the late ‘60s, Debbie Paul was kidnapped by a nun and brought to a white family in the U.S. She always told people this, but was missing the evidence. Until now.

By Trina Roache Jan 4, 2022

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Standing at the site of the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, Debbie Paul clutches a black and white picture of herself taken when it shut down in June 1967.

Paul was the last Mi’kmaw student to leave.

“This picture was taken to give to my mother and my mother never received it,” said Paul, who lives in the Sipekne’katik First Nation, just five kilometres away from the former residential school.

In the photo, she is 12 years old, wearing new shoes and a new watch, unaware her life was about to take an incredible turn. Rather than return Paul to her mother, a nun with the Sisters of Charity – Halifax took her without consent to live with a white family in the United States.

When Paul pushed for answers years later, her mother said she just never came home when the school closed. “She signed no papers for me to be adopted out or taken across the United States border,” said Paul.

Debbie Paul, age 12, outside the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School on the day it closed in June 1967. (Submitted by Debbie Paul)

After the residential school closed and the rest of the students left, that nun, Sister Mary Gilberta, kept Paul back at the institution. Paul says she told her to keep out of sight. Within days, they left for the airport.

Paul would spend the next year with Sister Gilberta’s brother, John Wentworth, and his wife, Mary, in Massachusetts.

“They took me without permission,” said Paul. “And all that family did was abuse me.”

Debbie Paul survived the residential school only to become part of the Sixties Scoop, the practice of adopting or fostering Indigenous kids to white families.

Canada signed a class-action settlement agreement in 2017 and within a year, survivors of the Sixties Scoop, like Paul, were able to apply for compensation.

“I think I deserve it, to live the end of my life,” said Paul, who is now 66. “Because I went through hell.”

But in March 2020, her claim was rejected. She wasn’t told why, but she has a strong suspicion. Collectiva, the administrator for the Sixties Scoop class action settlement, can access adoption and foster records, which for the most part are held by the provinces. But Sister Gilberta acted on her own, leaving no apparent paper trail.

KEEP READING

 

Sixties Scoop: More Than Sorry

My adoptive parents tried to erase my Indigenous identity. They failed.

 Kim Wheeler was adopted during the Sixties Scoop and fought to find her way back to her culture

My name is Kim Wheeler but some know me as Kim Ziervogel. Others will remember me as Kim Bell, and to a small group of people I will always be Ruby Linda Bruyere. But the name game doesn't stop there. Why would someone have so many different names? Are they all aliases? Are they hiding from their past? From the law?

In my case, it's none of these. I'm a Sixties Scoop survivor and those names were given to me through birth, adoption and two marriages.

Dark painful secrets

A lot of things go unsaid because I've handled my trauma so well, I think. I've been told often I am a well-adjusted human. It comes from how I was raised and all the dirty secrets I had to keep in my childhood. Victims of sexual abuse are great at keeping secrets. At least I was.

My adopted father turned out to be a pedophile. It's something even until last year, my oldest adopted sibling and I argued about. That is, until I went into graphic detail about the abuse inflicted on me and then she seemed to accept it was the right term. 

My adoptive mother was a different case. She was psychologically abusive. She wore me down until all I could be was a "yes" person to everyone I met. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I started to stand up for myself and began to say "no" to people. To this day, I still struggle with saying no, although some people wouldn't believe that. It's an internal process that unfolds in milliseconds.  

My brother, who is also First Nations, was adopted as well. Our adoptive parents would drive us down to Logan Ave. and Main Street in Winnipeg and point out the Indigenous people who were homeless or living marginally.

READ: My adoptive parents tried to erase my Indigenous identity. They failed. | CBC Radio

 MORE

• Separating children from parents: The Sixties Scoop in Canada

• Sold as salvation, Sixties Scoop placed children in abusive system

• Sixties Scoop survivors reflect on lives 'never to be the same'
• • Sixties Scoop settlement a rotten deal for survivors but a windfall for lawyers
  
  

Think about these quotes #NAAM2019

“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”

 -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

“Storytelling is an important aspect of Ojibwe culture. My ability to tell a good tale can be used as a tool for teaching and connecting. Even though I grew up outside of my Native community and culture, my stories helped me to become a part of the community that I had lost. Adoption is part of the contemporary tales that Native people need to tell…”

- Tamara Buffalo, published author-poet-visual artist

“Everyone has a right to knowledge about their lineage, genealogy and identity. And if they don’t, then it will lead to cases of incest...”

-Lord David Alton quoted after married adoptee twins were granted annulment in Great Britain (January 2008)

“We, as adoptees and birth mother’s, have become so conditioned to keep quiet and take the living in shame as just a part of our life that we don’t unite. As if we are not allowed to unite. The fear and stigma is so incredibly strong, it is all controlling. I truly don’t think adoptees realize this.”

- 73Adoptee Blog: Chynna Girl, November 14, 2008 [www.blogger.com/comment]

🔺I saved these quotes I used in my memoir One Small Sacrifice - they speak volumes and as you can see they are from 2008 and earlier... Trace 

in the next few posts you will learn more about complex PTSD like this:

Can you hear me now?

"With life's depradations, perpetrated against the vulnerable, the Great Mystery is raising an amazing group of whom I coin 'Warrior Survivors'. As the chief of the Turtle Island Warrior Society, and advocate for Sky, Earth and All In Between, I also stand with these Survivor Warriors in what in all reality is a battle against the crimes of abuse perpetrated by those whom we are supposed to trust. In my journeys, I met such a warrior. Her name is Annie O'Sullivan; an extraordinary human being, with Sacred Fire which burns in her. Annie tells her story eloquently, bringing readers, or listeners, to a place and time beyond one's own realities. She takes us successfully out of the comfort zone, and into a world of such cruel reality as to make it virtually experiential. Yet, through the truth of her ordeals, this Warrior Survivor shines with strength, power and hope - not just for herself - but for all who have been through literal hell on Earth. It is a great honor to know Annie, and I know that through her story, you will come to know - and honor her - too." —Chief David Little Eagle, The Turtle Island Warrior Society

Adoptee Annie O’Sullivan was born in the New England area. Growing up in a military family she travelled much of the US with her family as they followed her father’s military career. Soon after graduating from high school she left to serve in the USMC. While on active duty she married had two children attained the rank of Sergeant and ultimately entered therapy. In the end Annie would log ten years of counseling, private, group and hospitalization. 

WARNING: Graphic Testimony on Abuse

Interview

Reclaiming Native Truth: A Project to Dispel America’s Myths and Misconceptions

New First Nations Report Looks at Shifting Narratives around Native People

By Rob Meiksins |

June 29, 2018; Indian Country Today
The stories mass media tells about Native Americans tend to be inaccurate, if any stories are told at all. New, old, and emerging sources present narratives that are both conflicting and inaccurate. We are shown images of people who are impoverished and people who have become rich from casinos; the noble warrior and the savage warrior. Last week, a report was released by a project that has set out to identify, understand, and strategize to dispel these images.

As reported by Indian Country Today, First Nations Development Institute and Echo Hawk Consulting released a report that shares research conducted with support from the Kellogg Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and others. “Reclaiming Native Truth: A Project to Dispel America’s Myths and Misconceptions” looks at how Native Americans are perceived and some ways to change and improve the accuracy of those perceptions.

In its coverage of the report, Indian Country Today highlights four takeaways:

• Discrimination: Only 34 percent of Americans believe that Native Americans face discrimination. On the other hand, images of wealth from Indian gaming and free hand-outs by the federal government fuel bias.
• Narratives: According to the research, few people have experience with Native Americans, but instead accept negative images others present. Oddly, these negative perceptions rise with proximity to Native communities. Only 56 percent of those living near Native communities feel that the federal government should do more to help, compared to 64 percent of those who live further away.
• Invisibility: Many consider Native Americans part of a “romanticized past.” Their invisibility in almost all aspects of US society worsens this.
• Desire for Complete History: People are aware that they do not know enough about Native American culture and history, and most (78 percent) want to learn more.

The report stresses how important it is for Native Americans to reclaim the narrative and change it to more accurately reflect the truth. For those who are ready to change the dominant narrative, there are two guides that accompany the research report: One for Native peoples and their organizations, and another for engaged allies.
The latter guide presents a framework for allies to tell stories and explore issues using four specific elements: values, history, visibility, and a call to action. It shares some example stories structured in that fashion.

Here is an example from the report, stressing the importance of upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act:

• All children deserve to be raised by loving families in supportive communities, surrounded by the culture and heritage they know best. In Native cultures, family is defined very broadly. Everyone plays an active role in raising a child and is ready to help in times of crisis. (Values)
• But when the U.S. child welfare system was created, it was biased against raising a child in this way—as a community. As a result, the US government removed Native children from their families—not because of abuse or neglect, but because of this communal way of being. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed in 1978 to prevent Native American children from being unjustly taken away and adopted outside their culture. (History)
• Today, however, ICWA is not consistently respected. (Visibility)
• We need to uphold and improve the law to make sure we are doing what is best for Native children. (Call to action)

Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today and author of the article, says that a master narrative is important because it sets the overall tone—it “tells each of us what’s right, what’s fair, and how we all fit into a larger story.” But he also states that Native people must not simply consume the story, they must tell it and make sure it is based on Native truths. The call to action for allies is to make sure we do what we can to raise the visibility of those truths.—Rob Meiksins

Attacking #ICWA: Goldwater, RadioLab's bias is blaring #BabyVeronica

By Trace L Hentz  (adoptee, author and activist)

Remember this photo? In the big world out there, few people even knew about the Indian Child Welfare Act until Baby Veronica was adopted out... Then headlines were screaming for months. Indian Country responded and fought back using the federal law but even that wasn't enough to allow a Cherokee father to keep and raise his own daughter.

I have wanted to say something about the RadioLab program/podcast about Baby Veronica and the Supreme Court Case. This was a few years ago and rebroadcast a few days ago.

More Perfect presents: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
I spoke with the interviewer. He didn't use one word of my story in his RadioLab report. I have no clue why not. I did give him names of other adoptees he could speak to... He spoke to many many people and quoted them but not one adoptee!  I recall I told him I was Baby Veronica just 50 years later.  My dad would have raised me. There was no Indian Child Welfare Act when I was adopted by strangers. I was traumatized. I was not going to stop looking for my family, even if my records were sealed in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I was one of thousands who lost their family connections and tribal connections. I didn't want Veronica to go through what I did.  Our culture matters and adoption steals years of our lives.

These Goldwater and RadioLab people didn't and don't want to hear me, or adoptees (young or old). They simply don't. Their bias is blaring. (It's been drilled into their minds how adoption is always good and saving poor kids.)

I wrote an essay in 2013 about this case and submitted it to the Atlantic editors but they didn't publish it. WHY? I didn't get a reason but it's clear...they don't consider Indians and adoptees interesting enough or news-worthy, let alone a federal law concerning Indians.

Finally (with utter frustration) I sent it to Indian Country Today Media in New York. They published it.

I’m a “lost bird," one of thousands of Native children adopted-out of tribal communities from the late 1950s to late 1960s as part of a federal program called the Indian Adoption Projects. The Project came after the decades long boarding school era when government and missionary schools aimed to “kill the Indian to save the child.”

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/12/baby-veronica-case-david-vs-goliath

 

Is that fair reporting and analysis if "THEY" (the mainstream radio, TV, newspaper media) don't consider WHY there is an ICWA?  Have they considered Baby V will grow up and not be a child anymore and imagine her loss of family and culture?  Who better to ask than an adoptee who has lived through it?

Why are they ignoring the ADOPTEE STORY in this story?

In San Diego a few weeks ago, Diane Tells His Name, Leland Kirk, Karen Vigneault, Tom Lidot (Tribal Star) and I had breakfast and we discussed this. (We were together, presenting at the California State ICWA Conference on June 7, 2016.)

"...There is an ICWA because of us, all the American Indian Adoptees, Lost Birds, Stolen Children, 60s Scoop, and Indian Adoption Project adoptees. WE are the reason there is a law. We are still called the Stolen Generations. We are the second phase of atrocities committed against Indian People before during and after the boarding schools. (WE were supposed to permanently disappear in closed adoptions with sealed records, living "happily ever after" with our white parents.) There is a federal law ICWA because of us, because adoption trafficking in Native babies and children was clearly genocide. With ICWA, there will be many less adoptees... We get that; in Indian Country we know this."

.@Sherman_Alexie We thought you should know ur quote opens this viciously anti-ICWA article by Goldwater https://t.co/mVKJhMAZYm #DefendICWA

— NICWA (@NativeChildren) June 20, 2016

“And finally this, when the sun was falling down so beautiful we didn’t have time to give it a name, she held the child born of white mother and red father and said, ‘Both sides of this baby are beautiful.’”

—Sherman Alexie

The ICWA Penalty Box: In Defense of Equal Protection for Indian Children By Timothy Sandefur (Goldwater Institute) used this quote.

First Nations Adoptee launches own search for roots

Sheila Pelletier in her home in Regina on Friday. She is an adoptee who was part of what is now known as the 60s Scoop. (TROY FLEECE / Regina Leader-Post)

By Kerry Benjoe, Leader-Post March 23, 2015

After years of rejection, a self-professed loner’s life changed after a single phone call.

Two weeks ago, Sheila Pelletier composed the most important Facebook post of her life:

“My (birth) name is Sheila Jean Marie Halkett ... I was born in 1982 in Prince Albert. I am from Montreal Lake First Nation ... Possible birth date of mother was April 21, 1948. Please share if you might have any information. Please call me ... Sheila. Thank you.”

It was a bold move but after three decades she was ready to find out the truth about her First Nation family.

“I didn’t think I would get a response so fast,” said Pelletier, who is still in shock.

She had been told by government agencies it would take about three years to get any information about her birth family.

Hours after her post, her phone rang and a man asked for her by name.

“I said, ‘This is Sheila,’ ” she said. “He said, ‘I am Howard Halkett. I’m your uncle. We’ve been looking for you.’ ”

Pelletier says she is part of what has become known as the 60s Scoop.

“In Saskatchewan, we had the Adopt an Indian or Metis program that was started in the late 1960s,” said Tara Turner, assistant professor for the School of Indigenous Social Work at the First Nations University of Canada.

As part of the program, aboriginal children were taken from their birth families and adopted out to non-aboriginal families.

“It was just a re-imagining of the residential school system,” said Turner.
She said isolating aboriginal children from their culture is not healthy because it impacts their ability to understand themselves.

“It’s really difficult for people to navigate identity when it’s been removed from them,” said Turner. “Then finding your way later in life, reconnecting with family or community. That’s not necessarily straight-forward or easy for people.”
Pelletier, who was raised on a farm in Theodore, initially had no idea her Ukrainian father and British mother were not her biological parents — until she started school.

Pelletier’s earliest memories are not pleasant.

“I was called, ‘Squaw and dirty indian,’ ” she said. “I didn’t know what those words meant.”

Pelletier told her parents and it was then she was told about her adoption.

Being the only aboriginal person in the area was far from easy and although her parents did try to defend her — often that only made things worse.

“Even if I had a bad day, I would say I had a good day.” said Pelletier.

After elementary school, she attended high school in Yorkton and although there were other aboriginal students in Yorkton, they rejected her because they thought she was “too-white.”

It was a lonely life.

“I learned to keep to myself,” said Pelletier. “I am still like that. I don’t like people.

She has begun to rethink that attitude.

To hear there were people looking for her and wanting to meet her has been overwhelming.

“I just want to go there and meet them and give them a hug,” said Pelletier.

Prior to speaking with her uncle, all she knew about her birth family was from her adoption records.

When Pelletier turned 18, her mother gave her the papers.

“I’m surprised I never lost them,” she said.

For the past 14 years, she has read and reread the information, but they never provided her any answers.

Pelletier has discovered that she is the youngest of nine — four brothers and four sisters.

However, it is not all happy news.

Her mother Hilda Bird passed away in 2006.

“I didn’t know how to feel about that, you know?” said Pelleter before the emotion took over. “I didn’t know her.”

She has also lost one sister and one brother.

Pelletier does not want to waste any more time and plans to make a family trip this summer, which includes a visit to her mother’s gravesite.

Although she has a good relationship with her adopted parents, she feels relieved to finally connect with her First Nation family.

Pelletier said it was also a relief to finally tell her own children about her past and is looking forward to sharing a new future with them, one with even more family.

She also hopes her story will encourage other adoptees to reach out and find their family before it’s too late. 

Third Mom: Honor adoptees by honoring their privacy

Little Trace, age 3

Third Mom: Honor adoptees by honoring their privacy: There has been a lot of talk this week in my online circles around a post by a popular adoptive parent blogger about her kids... Holidays should not be about schedules and stuff, they should be, as author Terra Trevor so beautifully says, about love.


I add my two cents on adoptee privacy HERE...and it started a firestorm of comments! Trace