Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Child of the Indian Race: A Story of Return

A Child of the Indian Race: A Story of Return

White Hawk, Sandy
Thin Elk, Gene
Cross, Terry

Paperback

Native American HistoryPregnancy & AdoptionRegional: Midwest

Publisher Price: $18.95

ISBN10: 1681342413
ISBN13: 9781681342412
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: Dec 6 2022
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
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.


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