A Child of the Indian Race: A Story of Return

by Sandy White Hawk, Gene Thin Elk (Foreword), Terry Cross (Introduction)

Sandy White Hawk was taken from her Lakota family on the Rosebud Reservation when she was a toddler. This story of her removal and return is also the story of her life work: helping other adoptees and tribal communities to reconcile the enormous harms that widespread removals have caused.

Genres: Native American, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir

232 pages, Paperback

Published December 6, 2022

About the author

Sandy White Hawk is a Sicangu Lakota adoptee from the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. She is the founder and director of First Nations Repatriation Institute, which offers resources for First Nations people impacted by foster care or adoption to return home, reconnect, and reclaim their identity. White Hawk is also the president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and elder-in-residence at the Indian Child Welfare Law Office in Minneapolis. She is the subject of several documentaries, including Blood Memory: A Story of Removal and Return

Reviews

[Jo Troxell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful! I have the privilege of working with Sandy right now at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and her story is so important. She is wonderful, and her book is full of all the crucial and lovely parts of her! I learned so much from reading this - a good book to start with if you’re unaware of the Native American adopting problem.

[Kate Vogl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of adoption, of reunion, of the attempted erasure of First Nations’ culture, of the way one woman found to bring healing to what had been ripped asunder.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Western adoption policy since the '40s has been a tragedy and this is the story of how the United States used non-relative adoption in Native communities to further its policy of genocide, told through the story of Sandy White Hawk, who was adopted by white missionaries at eighteen months. She never bonded with her abusive white mother and her white dad died when she was six. Her childhood was lonely and sad, and then she became a teenage hoodlum, and struggled with addiction, and had a bad marriage, got sober, and decided to find her people. Ms. White Hawk lays it all out but the meat of the book is her reunification with her Lakota family and her work reunifying other adoptees with their community and culture. Powwows and conferences are the places she describes while she's learning how to belong in a place she feels at home, but doesn't know how to act. She needs to learn a whole set of cultural norms as an adult; they feel right but the learning takes time. Sandy is welcomed in the Native community in Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Minnesota, and she honors the people who helped her and brought out the song for adoptees and birth families after her vision. My dad is a white Baby Scoop adoptee; and when Sandy says that adopted people's spouses struggle to understand the void left by adoption, I was like, "What are you doing inside my parents' marriage?" This book is not for white people but it is comprehensible to those of us who want to learn more about the scourge of Native kidnapping and adoption, and it leaves room for others to tell their stories. Highly recommend. Sorry I let it get overdue at the library.

[Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book on my to read list for a number of years now, but only realized it was available at my library (don't remember if I just missed it or if I had not checked). Can't remember how I found it, but unfortunately the topic that White Hawk discusses remains a timely one: as a toddler, she was taken from her home and family on the Rosebud Reservation and given to a white family.

And unfortunately, many of these stories follow a familiar pattern. Her mother was not dead (and even sat at the back of a church so she wouldn't be seen) but White Hawk grew up separated from her family, culture, heritage, language, etc. Her adoptive father died when she was still a child and her adoptive mother was abusive: physically, emotionally, sexually. They had a terrible relationship even into adulthood and White Hawk would carry the scars of being Lakota with her.

This carries on as White Hawk is a teenager and a delinquent, but luckily she still has some paperwork that indicates her family and origins, which she uses as an adult to reconnect with her family and community. The rest of the book discusses that journey, her discovery of her Lakota family, what it is like for her in the process of reconnecting, the scars (mental, emotional, physical) that she bears from her childhood.

Overall it is a very sad book, which is not unexpected. Family separation, abusive parent, a disconnect from who she is, the work it takes to find and reconnect with her Lakota family, etc. are a journey and it was also occasionally genuinely enraging to read.

As a memoir it was not a great read. The topic kept me interested, but I think a stronger editor could have really helped. White Hawk's story is very interesting to be sure, but I do think a stronger editing could have helped better organize the author's thoughts (for example, the book sometimes jumps back and forth in time which can be confusing). But it is of course an important one and I would recommend it if you are interested in stories like these.

But as mentioned, the topics are tough. While it is not graphic in nature, you can't avoid them (her removal from the Rosebud Reservation is why we have this book at all). But if you have triggers or are sensitive to these topics, you may need to take your time with the text or avoid it completely.

Borrowed from the library and that was best for me.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir tells the story of Sandy White Hawk, a woman my age. When she was 18 months old, she was adopted off the rosebud Reservation and moved with her white parents to a farm in Wisconsin. Things did not go well.

Gradually, as an adult, she finds her way back to her family on the Rosebud. She develops a ceremony to welcome back adoptees and foster children and to help them and the members of their families to heal.

Even with white parents who loved them, they needed to come home.

I wonder how much this pain and its accompanying pain is shared by others adopted out of their cultures??? Asian? South American? Russian??

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad, interesting, educational book written by a Native American who has been removed from parents and raised by adopted white parents. The mom abused her sexually, physically, and emotionally. She got involved later by visiting the reservation and meeting and connecting with family. She has done remarkable things to help heal these adults, and worked with the government. Become a leader in tribal communities. Very interesting story.

[Ruth Phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

Redundant

I could only get through 70% of this book, and I'm sorry I spent money on it. I was looking forward to reading this book, but as I kept reading, I began to wonder why it felt like I was going in circles. I'm sure Ms. White Hawk is an excellent writer, but she dropped the ball on this one. She was saying the same thing throughout the entire book, just changing the words up. "Talking in circles," gets very boring after

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important story that is necessary to be read and heard. It also shines a light on the history of First Nations people which is a history that must never be forgotten.
A powerful story which is at times heartbreaking but at the same time filled with hope, resilience and healing.

[Emily Goenner Munson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important

[Paola S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75⭐️ Sandy white hawk provides a powerful personal perspective of systematic family separation and how she utilized her trauma and grief to uplift and create a community for other lost children.