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 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.

Book Synopsis

Native American Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories presents twenty interviews with Native American adoptees raised in non-Native homes. Through the in-depth interviews they conduct with each participant, the authors explore complex questions of cultural identity formation.

The participants of the study represent a range of positive and negative experiences of transracial adoption. Regardless of their personal experiences, however, all twenty respondents indicate that they are supporters of the Indian Child Welfare Act and that they believe that Native children should be raised in Native households whenever possible. However, eighteen of the twenty respondents concede that non-Native families can raise Native children to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults. Through the interviews, Simon and Hernandez allow readers to better understand the different experiences of Native American adoptees.

Review Quotes

"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." --Choice Reviews

"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." --Howard Altstein, School of Social Work, University of Maryland

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.