Almost Dead Indians: Book 5 Lost Children book series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact Only:

Liz Hill; liz@lizhillpr.com

 

Adoptee Activist and Author Trace Hentz Announces “THE COUNT 2024,” a New Project to Coincide with the Release of a New History Book “Almost Dead Indians”

GREENFIELD, Mass., Dec. 27, 2023 — Adoptee activist, award-winning journalist and author Trace Hentz, who created the American Indian Adoptees website in 2009, has announced a new project, “THE COUNT 2024.” It will coincide with the release of a new history book, “Almost Dead Indians,” Book 5 in the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects series.

When Hentz moved to Massachusetts in 2004 she began to tirelessly investigate numerous adoption programs, such as the Indian Adoption Projects and ARENA (The Adoption Resource Exchange of America). Both involved moving Native American babies and children across North America into adoptions with non-Native families.

After her 2009 memoir, “One Small Sacrifice” and a second edition, which followed in 2012,  Hentz met more adoptees and asked them to write their personal narratives, which resulted in three anthologies: “Two Worlds: Lost Children” (2012), “Called Home: The RoadMap,” (updated second edition, 2016), and “Stolen Generations: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop” (2016).  A poetry collection on the same topic, “In The Veins,” the fourth book in the series, was published in 2017.

“In these closed (sealed) adoptions, adoptees are unable to access the vital information they need to find their tribal families and communities,” Hentz said. “This new history book, “Almost Dead Indians,” with a lengthy chapter I wrote, titled “Disappeared,” which is about our history, ties in how these government-funded programs were run by churches and charities and were meant to erase children permanently from tribal rolls, making us dead Indians — almost.”

“Most people have heard how the governments of Canada and the United States ran residential boarding schools like the first U.S. school, which was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania,” Hentz said. “Today, tribes are finding unmarked graves at these schools. I realized after 20 years that we deserve to see the numbers on these various federal and state-run adoption programs. We need “THE COUNT 2024” of Native American and First Nations adoptees to solidify facts and see actual numbers of adoptees in these government-funded projects that crisscrossed the U.S. and Canada.”

“Neither government has been forthcoming and some academics who looked at available reports claim nearly 13,000 children were adopted in the U.S., some by force and some by gunpoint,” Hentz said. “In Canada, they have already settled a class action lawsuit with adoptees called the Sixties Scoop.”

Hentz recommends the new PBS series “Little Bird” to understand what happened in Canada also happened in the U.S.

“Before first grade, I knew I was adopted, that these people were not my birthparents,” Hentz said. “I wasn’t sure what happened but it took me a lifetime to open my adoption file and finally meet my relatives.” Hentz had a reunion in 1994 with her birthfather Earl Bland in Illinois when she was 38 years old. Since then, she has found her ancestry includes Shawnee and Anishinaabe.

Hentz got the idea of a count when she could not find reliable information. “I set up a new website: https://thecount2024.blogspot.com. Native American and First Nations adoptees simply fill out a comment form and I will send them a survey.” She hopes people will share this link and get the word out. “The COUNT” begins January 1, 2024.

Hentz’s new book, “Almost Dead Indians,” will be available soon at Bookshop and for sale on Amazon. Visit: www.blueindianbooks.com or https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com

 

About Blue Hand Books:

Blue Hand Books, based in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on Pocumtuckland, celebrated its 12th anniversary on November 11, 2023. To date, the collective has published 28 book titles. Founder and award-winning journalist Trace Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) embraced and adopted the idea to decolonize book publishing for other Indigenous writers with a collective that supports each writer, helping them to produce a paperback book, providing proofing and editing and allows them to keep 100% of their book royalties.  Blue Hand Books was created to be community and a collective for Indigenous authors.  For more information, contact: Blue Hand Books, Trace L. Hentz, Publisher, 25 Keegan Lane, Suite 8-C, Greenfield, MA 01301. 

# # #

Note to Editors Only: Photos are available. All photos provided courtesy Blue Hand Books.

IN THE VEINS | Poetry in Indian Country

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Indigenous Native Poetry collection IN THE VEINS gives power to words

Greenfield, Massachusetts [2017]  --  “These poet’s words jumped off the page and made their way under my skin, into the chambers of my heart,”  said Editor Patricia Busbee (Cherokee) who has edited the new Native prose and poetry book, IN THE VEINS  (Vol. 4,  ISBN: 978-0692832646, Publisher: Blue Hand Books, Massachusetts). 

“It’s a transformative collection of poetry, truly Medicine for the Soul,” Busbee said, who has contributed poetry and prose to this collection and is Poetry Editor for Blue Hand Books.  “I thought about the iron infused blood that flows thru our veins and how our bones, blood and skeletal systems house our history, our stories and our ancestors.”

“Reading these poems I recognized how poetry affects all generations and how it bypasses our cautious minds and relates to us on an intimate soul level. Poetry is a vehicle that transports us from the outer world to the inner,” Busbee said.  Twenty-eight poets from across Turtle Island contributed, including First Nations poet David Groulx (Anishinabe Elliott Lake), Assiniboine playwright William Yellow Robe, Ojibwe scholar Dr. Carol A. Hand who wrote an introduction, North Carolina’s past Poet Laureate MariJo Moore (Cherokee), and many more.

“These poets come to us from across Turtle Island.  Some are very well-known, even famous, and many will be in the future,” Busbee said.  “Their poetry offers exquisite interpretation of life and story, personal perceptions, and their views on issues of historical trauma, land-taking, loss of identity and culture, and child theft/adoption projects in the name of Manifest Destiny in North America.” 

This highly-anticipated collection is part of a history-making book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.  This series includes TWO WORLDS (Vol. 1), CALLED HOME: The Road Map (Vol. 2), and STOLEN GENERATIONS: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop (Vol. 3).  IN THE VEINS (Vol. 4) will share part of its proceeds with Standing Rock Water Protectors.  All books were published by the Blue Hand Books in Massachusetts, a collective of Native American authors.

Blue Hand Books founder Trace Lara Hentz, Busbee’s friend and co-editor on the book series, has also contributed to this collection. “These word warriors take us with them to the outer reaches of Indian identity and history.  Reading could not be more powerful,”  Hentz said, adding that she recommends the entire book series and hopes to reach new readers, both Indian and non-Indian.  

“These poems do make clear that words do have power, word by word by word… With the current political climate, we need good thoughts as we all are standing with the Standing Rock Water Protectors to end the Black Snake and Dakota Access Pipe Line.” [www.bluehandbooks.org]

ABOUT THE EDITOR:

Patricia Busbee is a writer, author, editor, devotee of outsider art and poetry. She is also a soup maker and bread baker. She believes that nourishment is found not only in food but in stories. Patricia is a strong believer in blood memory. She can be found in her kitchen cooking for her family—both the living and the deceased or in her too small office that is over-run with geriatric cats and hand crafted altars, writing about family dynamics, multiculturalism, adoption, ancestry or whatever else is clamoring for her attention. Most likely she is scrolling thru her Twitter feed pretending to be busy. She enjoys adding poetry, proverbs, folklore, recipes and snippets of conversations to her work. Her heart's desire is to write a magical realism novel in 2017.  She is the co-editor of Two Worlds, Called Home: The RoadMap and editor of IN THE VEINS.  Her noir-fiction “Remedies” was published in 2013. Her website: singingthemoon.me

IN THE VEINS contributors and their poems:

Reflections about Veins by Dr. Carol A. Hand (Introduction)

Red by Tanajsia Slaughter

Dance of the Soul | Indian on the Milk-Box | Somewhere by Janelle Black Owl

Tante by Jen Edwards

She Speaks with Crows by Evelyn Red Lodge (Tipi Luta Win)

Go Child by Rez Chick

god’s river by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Residential School Orphans by David Groulx

After Sneaky | SENDING WORDS | Whiteness makes me more....by William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.

You, Seeing Me See You | We Walk Our Way by Dr. Raeschelle Potter-Deimel

When a trickle… becomes a river…then a flood | find home | sum of our ancestors by Trace L. Hentz (Winyan Ohmanisa Waste LaKe)

River In The Blood | Women's Work by Terra Trevor

Open-Heart Breeze, Then Rock by Anecia Tretikoff (Alutiiq)

Everyone Needs Someone by MariJo Moore

The Shallow Place | The Red-Headed-Bastard At The Family Reunion | A Visual Prophesy by Patricia Busbee

Rebellious Child | With You | When I found Ophelia by Crystal Dawn Draffen

Untitled 1 | Untitled 2 | Memorial Service by Andi Hill

Mother of Nations | The Penance of Genocide | NO EUCHARIST FOR GENOCIDE by Dr. Dawn Karima

Final Score | Perfect Son | SplitFeathers by Drew RedBear Rutledge

Ties That Bind | Living Apart | Here I Lay by Samantha Franklin

Josie and Mickey 1928 by Suzannne Z. Murphy

Truth | Our People by Sharon Euleen Bankhead Lammers

Who's Face Do I Carry | My Story by Tara Dawn

Reserve by Lance Guilbault

Who granted you this power? By Karen Belanger

Anxiety Dreams by Jagade

Haiku by Elizabeth Miyu Blake

Come Home by Judi Armbruster

###

ISBN: 978-0692832646 (Blue Hand Books)

Paperback $9.99   Kindle ebook $3.96

IN THE VEINS: Poetry (Vol. 4)

###

Blue Hand Books Collective is a small Native American-owned publishing company based in western New England.  Website: www.bluehandbooks.org

 

Vine Deloria Jr. on Our Relationship to the Unseen

American Indian Adoptees: Stolen Generations (2014 video)

Wawahte: Stories of Residential School Survivors - FULL DOCUMENTARY

I was taken from my home and raised as a “nice Jewish girl,” but I’m Indian...

Sixties Scoop survivor finds sister, only to lose her again

Her story is in the book STOLEN GENERATIONS

Dark Cloud: 60s Scoop Survivor | Short Documentary

What does history tell us about adoption

By Trace Hentz (Blog Editor and adoptee)

The Dakota expression for child, wakan injan, can be translated as “they too are sacred,” according to Glenn Drapeau, Ihanktonwan Dakota and a member of the Elk Soldier Society on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

“To us, children are as pure as the holy, moving energy of the universe,” he says, “and we treat them that way.”

What does history tell us about adoption? Most telling is the timeline of adoption history: https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/timeline.html

Can you see the curve American Adoption took to become a profitable industry after seeing that timeline?  Do you notice how some states stepped in and made laws? Can you see the influence of the religions and their judgements of single parents? What role did poverty and racism play? Can you see how secrecy and laws protects the industry and the people who adopt?

Twenty years I've studied adoption in my own investigations and I think 20 years later... adoption is not about child care at all but has morphed into child trafficking, a response to an infertility epidemic, lawyers and judges, billions of dollars, propaganda and bad history.

Supply and demand requires: Where do you find an available baby for an infertile couple in America?

What was born of this curve in 20 years: there are camps. The two most common camps for adoptees are "be grateful" and "the activist."

Not everyone wants to hear adoptees in any camp. I simply cannot believe the adoption debate has gone on as long as it has.

If adoption hurts anyone, then it should be abolished. Period.

When you see how adoption was used against Native people, then it was a criminal act. (This was important to document in the four-part book series LOST CHILDREN OF THE INDIAN ADOPTION PROJECTS: see the books in the sidebar of this blog)

My adoptive parents were miserable people, very sick. I cannot begin to calculate the source of their behaviors but their infertility and religion resulted in my being adopted by them through Catholic Charities and then abused by both of them.

If there had been careful awareness by the adoption industry's social workers prior...maybe it would not have happened. But the social workers never returned.

Who would create a system for children that would not check on adopted children?

Child trafficking via adoption is profitable. That seems to be why it won't go away.

I'm not bitter because that was the system and how it was created. But when you see the harm, and the trauma and the lifelong issues for the child in a closed adoption, how does adoption exist in any form?

Caring for children who are true orphans, without any biological family is so rare, a community could step in and care for the orphan.  It would not require a bureaucracy to do that. The decision could be made by tribal leaders. If you are a member of a tribe, the entire tribe is your family. Kinship care always worked for children who had lost their parents.

I was not an orphan. I had two biological parents who were in their 20s. Relatives told me later they could have and would have raised me.

But someone created a system that didn't allow that, and instead the adoption industry chose strangers to raise me.

I was born before the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978. I do not have my Original Birth Certificate.

I will never stop fighting for Native children. They deserve our protection.

Read my earlier post: What Being Adopted Cost Me.

Toni Morrison says that “facts can exist without human intelligence, but truth cannot.”


Trace is working on a new edition of her memoir in 2020.

Notice to readers

out of print

It was necessary to retire the first edition of Two Worlds. The new 2nd edition replaced it.
If you do have the first edition, it's now a collector item! Nice!
Also, Blue Hand Books has retired Trace's memoir One Small Sacrifice. It was her choice.
She may publish it eventually with updates.

The 2nd Edition is here:

Two Worlds: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects (Vol. 1) : SECOND EDITION (Volume 1) Dec 11, 2017

wind cave

This is Makȟá Oníya /Wóniya Wakȟáŋ, Wind Cave. It is where the Lakota Oyate (People) first emerged into this world. The water beneath it is said to be the 2nd purist on all of Ina Maka (Mother Earth). Pics by Bino Garcia. pic.twitter.com/yEfqFLe1Az

— Ruth H. Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) April 17, 2018

TWO WORLDS second edition!

For Immediate Release

Greenfield, Massachusetts (2017)

Tragic, true, heartbreaking, astonishing... those words have been used to describe the anthology Two Worlds, the first book to expose in first-person detail the adoption practices that have been going on for years under the guise of caring for destitute Indigenous children in North America.

What really happened and where are these Native children now? 

The new updated Second Edition of TWO WORLDS (Vol. 1), with narratives from Native American and First Nations adoptees, covers the history of Indian child removals in North America, the adoption projects, their impact on Indian Country, the 60s Scoop in Canada and how it impacts the adoptee and their families.

"This book changed history," say editor Trace Hentz. "There is no doubt in my mind the adoption projects were buried and hidden... we adoptees are the living proof."

The Lost Children Book Series includes: Two Worlds, Called Home: The Roadmap, Stolen Generations, and In The Veins: Poetry. The book series is an important contribution to American Indian history.

Trace Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) located other Native adult survivors of adoption and asked them to write a narrative for the first anthology. The adoptees share their unique experience of living in Two Worlds, surviving assimilation via adoption, opening sealed adoption records, and in most cases, a reunion with their tribal relatives. Indigenous identity and historical trauma takes on a whole new meaning in this adoption book series.

Since 2004, award winning journalist Hentz was writing her historical biography “One Small Sacrifice: A Memoir.” She was contacted by many adoptees after stories were published about her work. More adoptees were found after “One Small Sacrifice” had its own Facebook page and the American Indian Adoptees blog started in 2009. In 2011, Trace was introduced to Patricia Busbee and asked her to co-edit the first edition of Two Worlds.

As Hentz writes in the Preface, "The only way we change history is to write it ourselves." This book is a must read for all that want the truth, since very little is known or published on this history.

"I was asked to update this book by one adoptee contributor and I added a new narrative by Levi Eagle Feather, and more information on the 60s Scoop. Please tell your friends and other adoptees," Trace Hentz says. "One day in America, we Lost Children will have our day in court." 

Patricia Busbee is writing a new chapter on her adoptee reunion in the anthology CALLED Home in 2019.

For more information, to order copies, bulk orders, media etc:  www.bluehandbooks.org

Blue Hand Books Collective is a small Native American-owned publishing company based in western New England.

The first edition has been retired.

November 16 BOOK TALK

Called Home: The RoadMap

PLEASE USE BOOKSHOP (LINKS ON THIS BLOG) if you buy this book

 

Links to amazon Called Home: The Roadmap (Vol. 2): Lost Children on the Indian Adoption Projects Book Series (Lost Children of the Indian Adoption… Oct 17, 2016 by Patricia Busbee and Trace L Hentz  Paperback Kindle Edition

PRESS RELEASE: Stolen Generations

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.

###

BUY LINK

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

Media Contact: Trace Hentz, Greenfield, Massachusetts, phone: 413-772-6996, email: bluehandcollective@outlook.com

BOOK PDF available for reviewers.  For interviews with book contributors, contact Trace.