Aspects of Life – Thoughts and Conversations
We never know where our paths will take us. We just know we are going on a direction, many times, we are being led. For me, it is deeper into the forest. Now, that forest isn’t scary, but it is relatively unexplored. That forest is American Indian child placement. I was in my 40s when […]
I stared at the posts of two of my white friends on Facebook, and my heart dropped. Each post contained what seemed to include supportive at best, innocuous at worst illustrative photos, each began with the right words of racial awareness, both, about midway through, switched so delicately to mirror the structure of white supremacy. […]
When I first saw the name on the email, the name looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Phillip Barcio. It turns out that he wrote a fabulous review of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption for the Western Humanities Review! That’s why it sounded so familiar! The email was at the same time […]
Is American Indian a ‘racial’ or ‘political’ identity? It’s complicated. I’d just posted on FB how the conservative right (the Goldwater Institute) is attempting to upend the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) through its state-by-state litigation. There are two legal arguments, both funded by right-wing think-tanks, whose money can be traced to the […]
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, American Indian children were placed with white families at a phenomenal rate. By 1974, approximately 30% American Indian children were removed from their American Indian families and placed with non-Indian families. Neglect was cited most often, a vague term that was responsible for changing the lives of Indian children, […]
This episode of In Other Words was originally aired on June 7, 2014. Interviewer Ann Szalda-Petree probed the issues that were brought to light in my study of American Indian transracial adoption. This type of child placement was an informal policy during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the outcomes for adoptees were, many times, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]