Native American Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories - by Rita J Simon & Sarah Hernandez (Paperback)

About the Book

This study focuses on the lives of Native American transracial adoptees and their struggle to establish a healthy sense of cultural identity, while being raised in non-Native homes. The twenty participants in this study focus on what methods their adoptive parents used or, in ...

Book Synopsis

This study focuses on the lives of Native American transracial adoptees and their struggle to establish a healthy sense of cultural identity, while being raised in non-Native homes. The twenty participants in this study focus on what methods their adoptive parents used or, in some cases, did not use to help them establish their own sense of cultural identity. In the end, most participants agreed that adoptive parents can help their adoptive child establish a healthy sense of cultural identity by nurturing a connection between their child and their child's tribal community.

Review Quotes

Not since David Fanshel's Far from the Reservation has a study so thoroughly examined the effects of transracial adoption on Native American people. This study fills an important gap in the history of the transracial adoption of Native American children. It portrays, in wonderful detail, the struggles of twenty Native Americans between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-nine who were transracially adopted as children into non-Native American families (sixteen into white families). It illustrates the 'highs' and 'lows' of their experiences and concludes by candidly addressing the ambivalence felt by these individuals to transracial adoption.

Transcribed interviews allow the adoptees to powerfully and poignantly express the impact of their experiences, thus challenging readers to make their own meaning....The book is important because it tackles an ignored subject....Recommended. Two-star review.

About the Author

Rita James Simon is a professor at the School of Public Affairs at American University. Sarah Hernandez is a scholarship coordinator for the American Indian College Fund.