An adoptee reconnects with the Lakota family and culture she was
born into— and nurtures a new tradition that helps others to do the
same.
In the 1950s, when
Sandy White Hawk was a toddler, she was taken from her Lakota family
on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her adoption
papers identify her as “a child of the Indian race,” and her
adoptive mother never let her forget it, telling her she was unwanted
and shaming her for being “Indian.” White Hawk medicated her
traumas with drugs and alcohol. At age twenty-eight, she gained
sobriety and reconnected with her birth relatives. As she learned
what it means to be Lakota, she also learned that thousands of Native
adoptees shared her experience—left to navigate racial and cultural
complexities as children, with no way to understand what was
happening to them.
Mentored by a
respected elder, White Hawk began to work with relatives who also had
been separated by adoption and foster care, taken away from their
families and communities. Fighting through her feelings of
inadequacy, she accepted that she could use her voice to advocate.
Ultimately, White Hawk founded the First Nations Repatriation
Institute, an organization that addresses the post-adoption issues of
Native American individuals, families, and communities.
White Hawk lectures
and presents widely on the issues around adoption. She exposes the
myth that adoption is a path to protecting "unwanted children"
from "unfit mothers," offering a child a "better
chance at life." Rather, adoption, particularly transracial
adoption, is layered in complexities. A Child of the Indian Race
is Sandy White Hawk's story, and it is the story of her life
work: helping other adoptees and tribal communities to reconcile the
enormous harms caused by widespread removals.