Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption

by Susan Devan Harness

2019 High Plains Book Award (Creative Nonfiction and Indigenous Writer categories) 
2021 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado

In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her “real” parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born—except they hadn’t, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later. 

Harness’s search for answers revolved around her need to ascertain why she was the target of racist remarks and why she seemed always to be on the outside looking in. New questions followed her through college and into her twenties when she started her own family. Meeting her biological family in her early thirties generated even more questions. In her forties Harness decided to get serious about finding answers when, conducting oral histories, she talked with other transracial adoptees. In her fifties she realized that the concept of “home” she had attributed to the reservation existed only in her imagination.

Making sense of her family, the American Indian history of assimilation, and the very real—but culturally constructed—concept of race helped Harness answer the often puzzling questions of stereotypes, a sense of nonbelonging, the meaning of family, and the importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance. In the process Bitterroot also provides a deep and rich context in which to experience life.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Adoption, Indigenous, Native American, Biography, Adult

352 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2018

About the author

Susan Devan Harness is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, a cultural anthropologist, writer and speaker, and author of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption.

Bitterroot recently received the Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado for Best Creative Nonfiction by a Female Writer, as well as Best Indigenous Writer and Best Creative Nonfiction in the High Plains Book Awards. Bitterroot was also a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards.

Ms. Harness shared her expertise on the TEDxMileHigh stage with her presentation "Adopting a Child of a Different Race? Let's Talk..."

Ms. Harness's profession, as well as her experience as an American Indian transracial adoptee, gives her a unique perspective on the history of Native Americans in contemporary culture. In addition to her scholarly book "Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) she has written numerous articles about American Indian history and assimilation policies, and is a highly sought-after speaker., both nationally and internationally.

She has an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology and an M.A. in Creative Nonfiction, both from Colorado State University. She is also an affiliate in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at CSU.
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BITTERROOT: A SALISH MEMOIR OF TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION is available in hardback, paperback, e-book as well as the new audiobook version! Look for Biitterroot in Audible!

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's the truth: this is an important memoir. Susan Devan Harness’ story belongs solely to her and yet mirrors the harrowing journey of so many transracial adoptees across the United States and Canada.

Harness was honest, she did not hold back. If I’m to also be completely honest, there were some things said that did not sit well with me. I must acknowledge this is because I had the privilege of being raised Anishinaabeg by two parents who spoke fluent Anishinaabemowin.

I have lived my life as Anishinaabeg and only hid that part of myself around white society. I do not know what it’s like to not be accepted by my reservation and so reading certain portions, which I felt placed Indigenous people in a stereotypical light, made me angry at first and it was then I paused to think about where this might be coming from and why.

Internalized racism is just one small aspect of what can occur when a brown or black child is taken away from their culture and their community and placed within a white home. How do these children cope? As adults? Do they return to their homeland only to find they don’t belong? Do they forge ahead and try to forget? Where does that pain go? Often it sinks deeper as they walk between two worlds that will not accept them after surviving traumatic experiences in a violent system.

How does one apply statistics and facts to the traumatic lives of blood relations who have let them down? Where does that forgiveness reside? This memoir challenged me. It had me search deep within to think about how long the road to forgiveness and healing is, often never ending, and how far the repercussions of transracial adoption reach.

Even if we sometimes disagree we must respect someone's journey and put our own feelings aside and just listen. I am thankful that I read this and I strongly urge you to read this memoir as well and others like it.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Social memory is what ties all these perceptions together, allowing them to be regifted from one generation to the next. I was not responsible for not fitting in. Society holds that responsibility. I am able to breathe a sigh of relief to put down that burden."
I always find writing reviews of memoirs to be a bit difficult so this isn't a review, just a description and some thoughts.

Susan always knew she was adopted, it was never hidden from her and she was made acutely aware that her indigenous heritage was nothing to be proud of from an early age. Whether from her abusive and alcoholic father, her bipolar mother, or any number of people she was exposed to every day, she was made to feel she did not belong. When she finally gets reacquainted with her birth family as an adult it brings new aspects of not belonging and feeling truly in limbo. Susan lays everything out for us in beautiful and honest prose, we see her search for self and feel her yearning to belong. I loved getting to know about the different members of her birth family and am so glad she found them.

On the other hand, seeing the devastation of generational trauma laid out so open and so raw will absolutely change you. Change your understanding of it for sure. Susan had not only lived it but chose to study the effects of transracial adoption and reintegration of Native American children. As she interviews other adoptees, we see she was not the exception but the rule. This is the legacy of colonization that started hundreds of years ago and will be felt generations from now as well with it still being perpetrated today!

Susan also includes short histories about different treaties, battles, and the Indian Child Welfare Act which were important to learn more about. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and with the 1st of March UK paperback release I hope more people choose to read it.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Devan Harness’ Bitterroot was the first An account of her childhood in a chaotic and abusive white family following her removal from her family and tribal community at 18 months, as well as her journey to piece together her history and her family of origin in adulthood, this book was less a journey of Devan Harness’ healing, and more of a journey into the vulnerability of abandonment and grief that these adoptions create for this children torn asunder from their entire being by colonial policies and extinguishment mandates. Devan Harness, a gentle and careful and patient soul, walked such a careful path in this book, seemingly never able to prioritize her own feelings with an alcoholic adoptive father, a mentally ill adoptive mother, a spouse who seemed to not really understand, and a birth family who she did not want to challenge and push away. And yet. She did arrive. She arrived in her pain, she arrived in her frustration with racism, with bureaucracy, with intergenerational trauma, and with what will be forever a wound in her life - I don’t think that a system this violent can provide an opportunity to fully remediate the trauma of it’s victims. Still, Devan Harness emerges as a powerful force of truth and of advocacy for herself and for other Indigenous children stolen and adopted out, and also becomes a voice for those who straddle the reality of situations that were unsafe for them to remain in and “solutions” that were at least as damaging as what came before that also displaced them from their essential ways of being and belonging. A heartbreaker. A soul toucher. An incredible memoir that dances more with the questions and the small connections than it does with easy answers or closure. Read it.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Devan Harness, born Vicky Charmain Rowan, is a member of the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes and was raised from age two by white parents in a predominantly white community in Montana. This memoir recounts her experience growing up visibly Native surrounded by white people and their racism, the abuse and neglect she suffered at the hands of her alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, and her experience trying and finally succeeding at connecting with her birth family. Though in large part her personal story, this book also discusses her research into transracial adoptee experiences, which became a focus of her academic study. ⁣⁣
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This is a really excellently put together book, Harness tells her story in a not quite chronological order that allows her to dive deep topically, unravelling complex dynamics of her transracial adoption experience, such as being visibly Native but raised white and unknowledgeable about her own culture, which leaves her feeling out of place everywhere. She thoughtfully delves into her fraught relationships with her parents, as well as with her large birth family. I was impressed with this book’s nuanced layers, as well as how she draws together a larger picture than simply her own.⁣⁣
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Her experience and the compiled stories of other transracially adopted Indigenous kids drives home a point Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott makes in her brilliant essay collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, about how the system in place privileges white neglect over Indigenous love. Harness encounters this mindset again and again from friends, and even heartbreakingly from her birth family, but it was hopeful to see her research and public speaking join with others trying to make changes in adoption policy. ⁣⁣
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This is a book that swept me up in Harness’s story, and taught me a lot along the way. Definitely recommend, especially to those who enjoy memoir or nonfiction more broadly. ⁣⁣

[slp]

a beautifully written exploration of how colonialism constructed oppression, inequality, and produce, and continues to impact native people, particularly those outplaced. I'm thrilled I will be voicing the audiobook.

[Erin || erins_library · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Tradition is what we do. Culture is who we are. Even though Ms. Harness wasn’t raised around us, she is very much a member of our culture, because we are a culture that has experienced assimilation with such negative consequences.”

I really appreciate Susan Devan Harness and how she bared her soul by sharing her story with us. The effects of Transracial adoptions on Indigenous people isn’t something I’m intimately involved with, so I am honored to have learned about her experiences. The feelings of isolation and not feeling like you belong would be so discouraging. And the internalized racism that came from her upbringing broke my heart. I’m also so proud of Harness for speaking up for other transracial adoptees. She’s given me a deeper understanding and sensitivity for those with similar experiences.

It’s almost impossible to review a memoir, since it’s so personal to the author. But I will say this is an important story and I’m glad to have read it. Gunalchéesh to Jessie on IG @blackgirlreading for putting it on my radar when she hosted her buddy read on transracial adoption.

[Julayne Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Devan Harness' BITTERROOT is necessary reading in understanding transracial adoption, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and Native American history. Many aspects of Bitterroot resonated with me as a transracial adoptee and it was also an education in all the things about Native American History that I was never taught. It should be required reading for all adoption professionals as well as prospective adoptive parents and really all of America.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, a very interesting read of the author's search for her identify. Sometimes the narrative seemed to lack some organizational cohesion, but the author's emotional journey was clearly portrayed.

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an infant, Harness was adopted; as a teenager, she began searching for her roots and was told that her birth family was dead or deadbeat or both; as an adult, she finally began to uncover the truth.

After he adopted me from my fractured reservation family, I think he believed if he could raise me just right, I wouldn’t be Indian anymore. If I was white I would be free from prejudices, free from the hatred so entrenched in Montana culture. But in the American West, being Indian is what you are, not what you choose to be, especially if you look like one. (174)

Harness tells such a painful story here, one that so many people could have made less painful and yet...didn't. As she tells it, while her mother accepted Harness fully as her child, her father never really understood that he could not make Harness white by osmosis, or that his casual racism could cause so much harm. And although Montana had a specific sort of racism: no matter where, or with whom, Harness was raised, she was always going to be a non-white child (and then adult) in a racist society.

I wondered at times, reading this, if life would have been easier for Harness had she been raised somewhere other than Montana—New England, or California, where there isn't such immediate clash between white culture and reservations. But of course that would only bring in a whole host of new problems (further distance between child and birth culture, even fewer people around who shared facial features and skin tone and history, etc.), not to mention that it sounds like a very ineffective Band-Aid on the gaping wounds that white Americans have inflicted, and continue to inflect, on Native populations.

I’m tired. I’m tired of carrying this burden of nonbelonging. It’s not really mine to carry. It belongs to my birth family, who opted not to do what was required to keep us out of the system. It belongs to child-placement policy experts, who think removing children and erasing their past by erasing information about their birth family and then placing them in the midst of a society whose history promotes a barely veiled hatred toward indigenous people will produce healthy, happy, and stable children. It belongs to my adoptive father, who didn’t question the racism that surrounded me and didn’t protect me when it entered our home in his alcohol-driven tirades. It belongs to my tribe, who refused to offer “welcome home ceremonies” because, as one tribal member put it, we’ll muddy the waters by bringing our white wives or white husbands to the reservation. It belongs to American Indians who see us as people seeking our birthright because we are trying to get something for nothing: the free health care, cheap housing, a tribal job. We are not interested in those things. We are interested in knowing who we are, where we come from, and who we are related to. We want to learn and know our culture. We want the legitimacy that these same Indian people have been given. But that burden should be heavily carried by white America, who can now pretend that, because we are being raised in a white, middle-class family, everything will be okay. For many white Americans, history and its consequences have no meaning. But right now I alone am carrying this burden and the emotional landslide has begun. (234)

The numbers of Native children adopted out of reservations and birth families are staggering—by 1972, says Harness, almost a third of Native children had been taken and placed with non-Native families (227), which feels a great deal like a shitty modernisation of the (equally shitty and racist) policy of removing children to boarding schools meant to 'civilise' them (and train them to be good servants, basically). It's hard to look at Harness's upbringing and say that any one thing would have made a difference—she could have been kept with her biological family, but they too had a great deal of instability; she could have been placed with a more supportive adoptive family, but the surrounding culture would still be racist; more people could have told her the truth sooner, but there are always others who hold information that they don't want to share; and on and on it goes. No, the necessary changes are much broader: the US government upholding its promises and honouring its treaties; policies that work not just to keep children with their natural families but to support those families; investment in community resources and jobs that strengthen reservations...the list goes on.

I've been talking much more about content and context than about the actual book and writing, so: personal story and broader picture play off each other here, and the book is more powerful for it. Micro- and macroaggressions in context, and years and years of history that whitewash will and should never be able to remove, no matter how hard people try.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartbreaking and important memoir about the author’s experience as a transracial adoptee, taken from her tribe and adopted by “nice white people.” She shares the racism, abuse and harm done to her while living in a society not her own, and the difficult task of trying to find her place in any community even after locating her birth family.

[Adena · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the premise of the book is incredibly interesting, the content of the book is slow and doesn’t focus as much on the transracial adoption component as what the subtitle would make you think. There are large chunks of her going into her graduate work instead of focusing on her search for identity or reconnecting with her birth family and learning about her Salish identity.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4 - A difficult read but an important part of the colonial story of cultural genocide, erasure and assimilation enacted upon Native people. Also brings some visibility and nuance to transracial adoption that is very much needed.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

We drive through dark forests, then stop and cool our feet in the frigid waters of the Jocko River, moving carefully on top of the colorful stones . . . Driving again, we gain elevation and go through acres of timber . . . I spot clumps of bear grass, with their ecru cones of densely packed flowers, my favorites, second only to the bitterroot. At this point peace begins to sift into my soul. I breathe easier, my shoulders relax, and a smile, unbidden, unfolds as we move silently through a landscape of mountain flowers, explosions of red, purple, white, and blue . . .

This is the Montana I love. The people I am learning to dislike and lose respect for don't exist here: people who hurt one another, who forget about one another, who fail to cherish the existence of one another, who destroy one another. They exist in the mileage behind us, and they'll exist in the mileage coming up, but right here, on top of the pass, among the bear grass and the lupine, there is no pain.

In her extraordinary memoir Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption, Susan Devan Harness writes eloquently about the isolation of being caught between two worlds, two cultures, two mindsets and the resulting feelings of alienation and estrangement she suffered for years as a result of her transracial adoption at the age of 18 months. Devan Harness's path is tortuous, beginning with the verbal abuse and humiliation she suffered at the hands of her white, adoptive father, weaving her way through her childhood in Billings, MT, trying to find comfort in the drugs she experimented with in college, and finally pursuing her lifetime dream of uniting with her biological family on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Nothing was easy. Even when she at last located her birth mother, siblings, half siblings and other family members at the age of thirty, she didn't find her "home" but rather met with the racism of reservation exclusion there too: Susan was too white to reclaim her native roots and not white enough to fit into the world in which she was raised. Tiptoeing through life searching for a place to belong became her sole motivation, a journey that came to an end in her sixties when she eventually found solace in the fact that she was not responsible for not fitting in, that this was not her burden to bear: "Society holds that responsibility." 4.5 stars

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this was so good. Intricately layered vignettes that criss-cross across the author's life as much as she criss-crosses the American West provide an intimate context to her life. Susan Devan Harness was adopted when she was 18-months old after being taken away from her negligent mother (and family, and life on the rez, and all that comes with that). She was adopted by a white couple, their only child. Both her birth family and her adoptive family were dysfunctional. She has faced a lifetime of never belonging--not within white society ("too dark"), and not within her Salish tribe ("too white") that she was able to gain access to after a heartbreaking search as an adult. She now advocates for open-ish adoptions--where children's parents may be replaced by adoptive parents, but their families (siblings, extended relatives) are not. This allows for the child to cultivate a sense of belonging and a better grounding for stability in their lives.

It is hard to express everything that is woven into this book: US Government treaties with Native Americans, child welfare policy, missing paperwork, photos, childhood memories, scenes from nature, mental health, mentally ill and aging parents, racism, relationships gone awry, etc etc. it is complex and not straightforward, but at no point did I get lost with too many details or lose track of where I was in Susan's life. It turns out that this book is part of a large series published by the University of Nebraska Press called American Indian Lives. I hope I will be able to read more from this series. I learned so many things I didn't know (I am ashamed I didn't know...) and besides being well written and interesting, this book is imbued with emotion.

[Neva Kay Gronert · Rating 3 out of 5]

At eighteen months, Vicki Charmaine Rowan was removed from her family home, and placed for adoption. The White couple who adopted her had no interest in teaching her about her culture, or encouraging any kind of interaction with Native communities in Montana--instead Vicki Charmaine, now Susan, was raised White. She never fit in.

Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Susan began attempting to connect with her birth family, and learn about her culture, attempting to determine her identity. This journey was long and frustrating, hampered by bureaucrats and the disinterest of her tribe as well.

This is a difficult story, and often I found it a difficult book to read due to the level of anguish the author has experienced. I couldn't always empathize, but I do sympathize with her struggles to belong. Somewhere.

3 stars

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was illuminating, heartbreaking, and hopeful. I bought it because I heard an interview with the author on Colorado Public Radio and I'm so glad I did. The author provides an honest and vulnerable account of being adopted by a white family out and how that affected her coming to terms with her Native American heritage.

I recommend this book if you're looking for something to challenge you, make you see things in a different way, if you're a history buff, or if you simply want to learn more about trans-racial adoption. It's very, very good.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir told from a Native adoptee’s perspective and her attempts to reunite her tribal, familial, and personal identities into some sense of cohesion. Losing one’s nuclear family as well as one’s culture is a tragedy not enough addressed in adoption discussions. However, I struggled with the amount of non sequiturs and event hopping that took place in the story, and found it somewhat chaotic to follow (although I’m sure accurately reflective of the author’s own experience). Would still recommend.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Susan Devan Harness was adopted from the Salish Kootenai tribe in the 1950s and raised by white parents. This is her story of coming to a deeper understanding of her identity and her families, birth and adoptive. She is so good at describing how it feels to understand and live White cultural norms, while looking Indian. And it is so painful. Good but hard reading, esp for White parents who have adopted trans-racially.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Gripping, spellbinding, and true.

[Terri Balside · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling, courageous, and raw in its honesty, this memoir pulls no punches as the author looks for answers and understanding as a transracial adoptee.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final chapters got lost in repetition for me but this memior about transracial adoption, racism against and within native communities and the search for belonging is an important one.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent insights for the reader, but too long and too much detail...becomes tedious.

[T.J. Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

If you want to read a powerful memoir that thoughtfully and poignantly explores the many complicated nuances of adoption, particularly transracial adoption, add "Bitterroot" to your TBR. I learned a lot from this book and really respect how Susan Devan Hartness tells her story with such honesty and openness and incredible empathy, even for those who hurt her the most.

Born Vicki Charmain to a Salish mother on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana in the late 1950s, Susan Devan Hartness was removed from her birth family at age 18 months and adopted by a white couple, before the Indian Child Welfare Act was implemented. Growing up, Susan experienced racism in many forms: from constant questions about her skin color, to cruel remarks about lazy, drunk Indians, to being followed around stores or told she wasn't good enough to participate in certain activities. Her adoptive father, a violent alcoholic, was sadly one of the perpetrators, and, while her mother seemed to respect Susan's heritage and want the best for her, she struggled with mental health issues that also placed a heavy burden on young Susan. As a young adult, Susan wanted to reconnect with her Salish community, but she found it difficult to get the information she needed to find her birth family. And even once she found them, the belonging she craved was not easy or a given. On the reservation, Susan was seen as white. In the white world, she was seen as Indian. She walked a tightrope between two cultures, two communities and had to go down a painful road of self-discovery to make a place for herself as an advocate and change-maker.

One of the most moving scenes to me was right at the beginning of the book when Susan visits her younger biological brother, Vern, who was raised on the reservation with their mother. He admits that he sometimes wished he had been taken away from the reservation like Susan; she wishes she had grown up where she felt like she belonged. It is so much more complicated than just a case of "the grass is always greener." There is trauma in living with poverty and instability, but there is also trauma inherent in foster care or adoption, in removing a child from those that look like them and speak like them and laugh like them. They are both adverse experiences that will profoundly impact the child.

The dominant narrative in Western society is that adoption is a wonderful thing, an unalloyed good. "Bitterroot" carefully and painfully exposes the complications that undercut that viewpoint. And yet Harness is so diplomatic and empathetic that the reader can almost understand her adoptive father (well, maybe not him so much), her birth mother, the tribal elders who don't immediately welcome her, all the different players that made her search for self more or less difficult. Her writing is full of grace and wisdom and respect for others, while also being a powerful voice for change and connection. I certainly admire the work she has done to bring the stories of transracial Native American adoptees to the light.

I highly recommend "Bitterroot" to anyone who is involved in the adoption triad (a must-read!) and to anyone who likes hard, emotional, beautifully-written memoirs that make you think.

[Lyra Montoya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harness' memoir was a rather tough read to get through. So many of the chapters detail the various forms of hurt she experienced from people around her, and some of her experiences and recollections were rather local to me and my memories as I read it. The dislocation she describes in the first half of the book was quite familiar to me, while the latter half detailing her methods and attempts to locate herself and identity was bittersweet with how frequently her attempts came to an impasse when she came to face beaurocracy.

I particularly liked the nonlinearity in time as she recounts parts of her life. The chapters do generally proceed towards the present, but there are moments where she moves between years in relation to particular narrative elements, as well as several journeys into memory even as she is approaching the neighborhood of the present towards the end of the book.

One of the more difficult aspects of reading Harness' memoir is seeing her struggle to decide her sentimentality towards people in her life. There are numerous people she can't seem to hate despite having no shortage or reasons to, and a confusion and disorienting affect emerges from the conflicting senses of love and empathy with the well justified animosity and distance she has with these people in her life.

The specific events that Harness focuses on were interesting. There are multiple events that are only mentioned in passing and are not given much attention, despite how important I imagine they may have seemed at the time. Said passing mentions of these unprioritized events in the memoir subtley reiterate the sense of solitude and dislocation that Harness is grappling with through the entirety of thr writing.

There were aspects that were particularly interesting to me where aspects of the fictive were incorporated. The one time encounter with coyote and the non verifiability of that encounter from anyone else around her I find a particularly effective use of the medium. Similarly, many of the dialogues were curious to me in that I found myself wondering how much of the conversarions with Albert and Vernon were fabulated and generated in the writing process, and how much was archived in a more reified form such as an interview or voice memo, though there is still a separate space for said fabulation in the process of accessing said memories. Harness said rather little about her writing process for this memoir within the pages of the memoir itself outside of one of the final chapters but I particularly enjoyed the elements of the fictive and fabulation.

I don't read many memoirs, though I imagine this one was particularly melancholic. I definitely enjoyed reading this but don't know that I would read it again.

[Aisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Bitteroot as part of a three book buddy reads discussion on transracial adoption, prior to this I had little to no knowledge of this book’s existence and several people struggled to source the book. The difficulty of access becomes one of the myriad of ways people are shut out of engaging with Native history and literature, and as a consequence the opportunity to understand and critique systems and structures put in place which continue to fracture Native families.

At 18 months old, Susan and two of her siblings are removed from their mother’s care and Susan is adopted by a white family.

Her adoptive family raise her in an alcoholic, racist, abusive environment. Susan’s adoptive mother is a buffer against her alcoholic dad but her own mental illness further places additional pressures on Susan’s home and well being growing up.

As an adult, Susan struggles caught being two worlds. The wounds of being adopted and growing up in such a violent anti Indian environment are massive, the loss of connection to her culture and her birth family, all to great to heal fully.

It’s a painful read. The history and the depth of information in this memoir show the amount of work Susan has done to repair so much damage done to her by the system and the impact this has made on her life, career choices, husband and children.

And still there’s more work to be done.

So much harm has been done to the Indigenous community and the after effects are astounding.

Adoption specific, the statistics of incidence of emotional, physical and sexual abuse are proof that there’s something seriously wrong with a system that allows these to occur so frequently.

Read this book with compassion, there’s hurt, there’s pain but there’s also victory in the people who keep fighting and making their voices heard

[Katya Cengel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bitteroot is a book that asks a lot of its readers – and that is a good thing. If you want a simple solution, then look elsewhere. If you want to challenge yourself to see transracial adoption in all its complexity, then let this book be your guide. Harness does not have an answer, she has a story, her own, and as it unfolds you learn to see things how she does. The view is not always pleasant. As a Native American woman adopted by a white couple as a child, Harness struggles not just with the issue of identity but also with her father’s alcoholism, racism and abuse and her mother’s mental illness. Later, when Harness reconnects with members of her birth family and tribe, she experiences not so much joy as loss. And yet it is in loss that she also finds opportunity. Sometimes, she writes, “I think that is what funerals are for – a¬ reconnection of all those lost parts of us, as family”.

Harness struggles with her outsider status, both in the white world and on the reservation. But it is this outsider position that allows her to see things more clearly and raise the questions we need to hear. Harness challenges the assumption made by others that her Indian experience is somehow less valid because she did not grow up on a reservation. She doesn’t just tell readers what it feels like to be caught between worlds, she shows it. From the first, just by knocking on the door – such a white thing to do, she reminds readers and herself – Harness reveals her dilemma. We feel her struggle and pain as if we are experiencing it ourselves. She says things that aren’t always easy to hear, but that is why her words are so important. A truly timely and relevant book that everyone should read.

[earthshattering · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You think too much about being Indian", her uncle tells her. She says he has the luxury of knowing who he is. Towards the end of the book, she becomes increasingly bitter about all of the stereotypes that have hurt her so much, and apply them as a blanket stereotype to Natives. It seems she has internalized many of these prejudices and can't see the situation with fresh eyes. This is what might prevent her from being who she wants to be? Her refusal to accept that her history and identity are already known, because it is with her? It is not in court-sealed documents, you don't need any of that to tell you who you are. It is an internal landscape. Her adoption seems to define her life, and yet the reader knows that she lives in a sphere of modest wealth, security, and privilege. She talks about being hurt by not knowing the appropriate cultural interactions, when acceptance may get her farther. All of that said, her powers of observation are amazing. Her description of her time with her mother is painful to read; painful because of its accuracy and depth of feeling. She is a gifted writer.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the mid-1960’s two year old Victoria Charmaine was removed from her Salish family and adopted by a white couple. She was renamed Susan.

Her white father held many of the typical racial stereotypes against Indians “Goddam-crazy-drunken-warwhoops”.

Her mother loved her dearly but fought mental illness.

Neither wanted their daughter to search for her birth family. They wanted her to grow up completely assimilated into a white world. They told her that her family had all been killed in a car crash.

But Susan’s very face and color made her a target of anti-Indian racism and she never felt accepted by the white community.

Nor was she accepted by her Indian relatives when she searched and finally found them. They saw her mannerisms, speech, body language and cultural norms as white and foreign.

She was an ‘apple’ – red on the outside, white on the inside; caught between two cultures and accepted by neither.

[Kate Schwarz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful book about a tangled, challenging life. The author was born into a large American Indian (Salish) family; three of the six children were put up for adoption, the author at 18 months. She was adopted by a white family and raised with little attention given to her roots, except through cruel negative stereotyping by her adoptive father and some classmates through her entire academic career. Not surprisingly, she develops a dual consciousness and desire to find out more about her American Indian identity, past, and family. The journey that is inspired from that curiosity is what she writes about in her thoughtful, well-written memoir. She helped me better understand how complicated it is being a native person in this modern American world, with local and federal government failures and broken promises surrounding every move, and her story is further complicated because of her transracial adoption. Really worth reading.

[Marci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with this book! It is an epic story stradling two centuries, taking place over 50+ years. I felt I was in the passenger seat of Susan Devan Harness' arduous journey, traveling right along side her from page one to the last line. Her memoir not only recounts the complex and sometimes harrowing events of her life as an adoptee, she sets it against the backdrop of the destructive legacy of Anglo-American western expansionism and its impact on Native American political, cultural, and social struggles. The author expertly fleshes out the intersections of racism, public policy, and adoption practices while using her own story as exhibit A. She also touches on broader, more universal adoptee themes, not just those experiences by transracial indigenous adoptees. This book is a must-read for those working in the field of adoption, social services, and also individuals wanting to learn more about Native American adoption practices in America, or adoption in general.