FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New anthology sheds
new light on the STOLEN GENERATIONS
Greenfield,
Massachusetts [2016] -- Award-winning Native journalist Trace Hentz continues her
heart-rending efforts to peel away the malodorous layers of Native American
adoption with her newest book, Stolen Generations: Survivors of the Indian
Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop (Publisher Blue Hand Books).
“What is significant about this new book? Everything,” Hentz said. “Ten years ago there were no books on stolen
generations. Now we have more than one
generation who have experienced the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop. These survivors have bravely documented their
life experience in their own words in three anthologies (Two Worlds, Called
Home and now Stolen Generations) that I’ve compiled so far.”
Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) has worked
tirelessly since 2004 to shed light on the dark corners and secret crevices of
American Indian adoptions, and by extension, all adoptees.
“For me, that is all I hoped for,
prayed for,” Hentz said. An adoptee
herself, Hentz reunited with her own birth family over the past 20 years. Her late-father Earl was Shawnee-Tsalagi and Euro mix. “I had to do something, as a journalist and as
an adoptee to end the secrecy.”
When adoptees do start asking about their
birth parents they often run into a wall of silence. Hentz offers to help them
and often refers them to work with Librarian Karen Vigneault-MLIS, a member of the Iipay Nation of
Santa Ysabel in California, who can provide genealogy and research for no
charge.
In the case of a First Nations adoptee in
the US or Canada, being unable to trace a birth parent can deny that adoptee and
their child(ren) their rightful place on tribal rolls, their rights to ancestral
land, and may disqualify them from tribal benefits they qualify for and deserve.
Indian adoption is nothing new, nor has
the essential purpose changed.
It was long common policy to take Indian
children from their families and communities and to place them in non-Native
homes or send them to residential boarding schools. In fact three contributors in Stolen
Generations were the children of parents who had also been adopted out.
In 1978 tribes fought to get the Indian
Child Welfare Act approved by the federal government. ICWA’s intent is to keep Native children in
tribal communities.
However, even now, some in Congress seek
to overturn the ICWA.
“We are the pre-ICWA adoptees – before the
federal law was signed, preventing adoption to non-Indian parents, thereby lawfully
supporting kinship-care adoption so First Nations children remain in their community,”
Hentz explained.
Stolen Generations is an anthology, letting adoptees tell
their own stories, in their own words.
“For these adoptees and their adult children,
it takes real courage to think about the past and try to make sense of it,” Hentz
said. “Many of us thought we were the
only one. I know I did. Many of us felt very alone, isolated,
confused.”
The introduction to Stolen Generations
was written by Johnathan Brooks (Northern Cheyenne). Trace Hentz
(Shawnee-Cherokee mix) wrote the preface.
Among
the other contributors are author Patricia Busbee (Cherokee), Joseph Henning
(Cree), Leland Pacheco Kirk (Navajo), Susan Devan Harness (Confederated Salish
Kootenai Tribes), author Dana Lone Hill (Oglala Lakota), Rebecca Larsen
(Quinault Indian Nation), Nakuset
(Cree), and
Joshua Whitehead (Peguis First Nation Manitoba). (Read complete list of
contributors below)
“They told their story in their own way in
their own words,” Hentz said. “As you read this book, you will see Native
adoptees must overcome many barriers preventing them from uniting with their own
tribal families, to regain status as enrolled tribal citizens.
“It’s widespread (in Canada and the US)
and it's a growing issue,” she said. “With
sealed adoption records and the Bureau of Indian Affairs not actively helping,
adoptees might wait years to rejoin their tribes and reclaim sovereignty.”
Hentz will continue fighting for the many
generations affected by the various Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop,
supporting ICWA’s intent, using her blog American Indian Adoptees (www.splitfeathers.blogspot.com.)
“I just want to spare a future child the
pain and loss we felt,” Hentz said.
###
ISBN-13: 978-0692615560 (Blue Hand
Books)
Paperback $12.96
Kindle ebook $3.96
Stolen Generations: Survivors of the
Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop (Lost Children of the Indian Adoption
Projects Book 3)
An anthology of adoptees’ firsthand
accounts and historical background of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s
Scoop in North America
Contributors:
INTRO: Johnathan Brooks (Northern Cheyenne)
Preface: Trace Hentz (Shawnee-Cherokee mix)
Joseph Henning (Cree)
Leland Pacheco Kirk Morrill (Navajo)
Nakuset (Cree)
Debra Newman (Choctaw Cherokee)
Belinda Mastalski Smith (Oneida New York)
Janelle Black Owl (Mandan, Hidatasa, Turtle Mountain
Chippewa, Lakota)
Susan Devan Harness (Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes)
Dana LoneHill (Oglala Lakota)
Joy Meness (Iroquois)
Levi William EagleFeather Sr. (Sicangu Lakota)
Patricia Busbee (Cherokee)
Karl Mizenmayer (Minnesota Ojibwe)
Mitzi Lipscomb (Walpole Bkejwanong First Nations)
Rebecca Larsen (Quinault Indian Nation)
Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee)
Mary St. Martin (Koyukon Athabascan)
Joshua Whitehead (Peguis First Nation Manitoba)
COVER ARTIST: Terry Niska Watson (White Earth Ojibwe adoptee)
“This illustration I painted years ago when I was in a very
dark place in my life. This is a painting of a subject matter that has
always drawn my interest, that is the Native life and the beauty of tradition,
family and nature. As my sister, Elizabeth Blake, said about this
painting that still hangs on my wall, “the most interesting part is that the
face is not visible. That is how it is when you do not know your birth
family.”
###
Blue
Hand Books Collective is a small Native American-owned publishing company based
in western New England. Website:
www.bluehandbooks.org
BOOK PDF available for reviewers. For interviews with book contributors,
contact Trace.
