The Importance of ICWA – Bringing Our Children Home
The Indian Childwelfare Act of 1978 was established to stop the wholesale removal of American Indian kids from their families and communities. Prior to its legislation, Indian children were placed and hidden behind closed adoptions, with no way to find our way back to our families, our tribes. We were forced to live in a […]
My interview with Ryan Warner, of Colorado Public Radio’s “Colorado Matters” has been posted.
A live interview is far more difficult to carry off than a taped and edited interview. Questions are asked that may not be what was expected, so there are pauses and “ums” as words are searched for in a room filled with tons of information. Even so, listening to this podcast still makes my throat […]
Star Tribune Review of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption
Last month, Carter Meland, Ph.D., wrote a fabulous review for Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption, noting that there are many ways to be Native. Transracial adoption was one of them. This is an important point to make. Our families and communities have become fragmented due to the atrocities committed by the U.S. government […]
Indian Summer
Autumn is my favorite season. The chill in the air has once more arrived, almost without notice, taking me by surprise, as if I thought the dog days of August and early September would go on forever. But I have to admit, the surprise is a pleasant one; I can wear my sweaters, make butternut […]
Colonization and Adoption – A History
This first appeared in Gazillion Voices, November 2014, Issue 16 Recently, after giving a presentation on American Indian Transracial adoption, I was asked a question. “Where do you think you’d be now if you hadn’t been adopted?” Without pausing, the man who asked the question answered for me. “I bet you wouldn’t be giving presentations […]
Being Indian – A Memory
THE AMERICAN WEST is stunningly beautiful. Its images, quilted together, form a landscape that can be brought to mind with the aroma of pine that stings my nostrils, the feel of soil between my fingers, the sound of a waterfall or the taste of chokecherry jelly that Mom used to make in August. To me, everything […]