Published - October 21, 2016
Boarding schools were not the end of the attempt to take the Native American child from their culture. From 1958 - 1967, the Indian Adoption Project placed Native American children with non-Native American families to be raised as their own. The article states that in some cases, it may have continued in the 1970's. These children were pulled from reservations and counted.
How many thousands from mixed cultural backgrounds who were not born on a reservation went, and continue, uncounted?
Only a few years ago, a case of a child of mixed parentage was adopted by a couple, only to have the Native American father contest the adoption after the young girl had been living with her adoptive non-Native family a few years.
In Crosswinds, Terra, is herself one such adult child. When her mother died, she had no knowledge of who her mother was, and she was never officially adopted, so had no way of knowing who she was. Or even that she had a tribal ancestry. Though, she was led to study tribal lifestyles across the globe.
Works Cited:
Indian Adoption Project. The Adoption History Project.
http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/IAP.html . Date Accessed: September 2, 2016.
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