Two Worlds (ePub)

TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects, is classified as an anthology by the co-editors Trace DeMeyer and Patricia Busbee. The published book, however, exceeds any and every expectation of this label. It not only offers an avalanche of information on the book's very pressing topic, but it includes a multitude of written testimonies showing the ills caused by decades of governmental enforcement of Indian Adoption Projects.

Trace DeMeyer Hentz, co-editor, journalist, and former editor of THE PEQUOT TIMES, successfully brought this issue forward in ONE SMALL SACRIFICE, published in 2010. It was a heart wrenching tell-all memoir of the author's own life. We followed the writer along her path of trying to find answers to a lifetime of questions. Now, adoptees DeMeyer and Busbee have succeeded, as co-editors, in bringing together a circle of like souls, "Lost Birds" who have spent their lives wondering if they would ever feel true warmth and belonging. "Lost Birds" of America and Canada have shared their despair with written contributions in excerpts of books, papers, poems and stories on the topic. One most jolting fact, found in the publication, casts a shadow on the persistent governmental use of Trans-racial Adoption. Tribal methods of taking care of their own children, kinship, have always been part of strong cultural traditions. It is all the more astonishing to read: "One quarter of all Indian children were removed from their families and placed in non-Indian adoptive and foster homes or orphanages, as part of the Indian Adoption Projects." Yes, there is great poverty clouding over many tribes which may, for those who support adoption, help condone the practice of taking Indian children away from tribal families to place them in a more economically adjusted environment. (By Dr. Raeschelle Potter-Deimel)