TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects offers astounding
narratives that challenge views on adoption
After
generations of Native children were forcibly removed from their Tribes and
placed in residential boarding schools, children were also being placed in
closed adoptions with non-Indian families in North America.
Finding those children
became a mission for award-winning Native American journalist-adoptee Trace A.
DeMeyer who started research in 2004 which culminated in her memoir “One Small
Sacrifice” in 2010. DeMeyer was
introduced to Cherokee adoptee Patricia Cotter-Busbee, and the collaborated on
their new anthology, “TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.”
The book hits Amazon and Kindle in
September. (ISBN: 978-1479318285, Price: $19.95 (PAPERBACK), $6.99 (EBOOK).
“Readers will
be astonished since these narratives document a page of North American history
that few even know happened,” DeMeyer said. “Today tribal families hope to
reconnect with adoptees but we know closed adoptions were planned to assimilate
children, to erase their culture and end contact with their tribe. I started
this project in 2008 after my memoir, then adoptees wrote to me. When I met Patricia in 2010, she shared her
own amazing story and I knew she had to be part of this book.”
A recent MFA graduate
of Goddard in writing, Patricia Cotter-Busbee welcomed the chance to contribute
and help edit. “I could not resist helping with this important book. I felt
that this was the project I had been waiting for. I kept thinking where are all
these adult adoptees? I am an adoptee and know how badly I wanted to reconnect
with my first families. If 1/4 of
all Indian children were removed and placed in non-Indian adoptive homes, these
adoptees must be looking for help, trying to open records and find clues to
their identity. One study even found in sixteen states in 1969, 85 percent of the Indian children were placed in
non-Indian homes. This book will help lost adoptees reconnect.”
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| first edition is out of print |
“The history
of the Indian Adoption Projects is troubling since it was unofficially ethnic
cleansing by the US and Canadian governments, and this practice went on for years
without public knowledge, but I am happy to report it failed because we are
still here and still Indians; and this book explains how we adoptees did it,”
DeMeyer said.
DeMeyer and Busbee agreed that “TWO
WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects” is an important
contribution to American Indian history.
“Indigenous identity takes on a
whole new meaning in this anthology,” Busbee said, “both for the adoptee and
those who adopted them. Adoptees definitely
live in two worlds and we show you how.”
The book
covers the history of Indian child removals in North America, the adoption
projects, their impact on Indian Country and how it impacts the adoptee and
their families, Congressional
testimony, quotes, news and several narratives from adoptees in the US and
Canada in the 384-page anthology.
“Two Worlds is
really the first book to debunk the billion dollar adoption industry that operated
for years under the guise of caring for destitute Indigenous children,” DeMeyer
said. “Readers will be astonished
since very little is known or published on this history.”
DeMeyer lives
in western Massachusetts and Busbee lives in North Carolina.
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