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KFAI's Indian Uprising for May 8th
Guests are Sandra White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota), Executive Director, First Nations Orphan Association and colleagues. The mission of the Association is to unite Native American (First Nation and Aboriginal) adoptees, fostered individuals and their families with professionals, other adoptees, community spiritual leaders and traditional elders. As early as 1890, thousands of Indian children were forcibly removed from their Indian homes. Between the years 1941 and 1978 it is estimated that 35 percent of all Indian children were removed from homes and placed in orphanages, white foster homes and adopted into white families. "The time has come to heal the wound of this forced assimilationŠ," said White Hawk. An adoptee said, "I am 23 years old, adopted when I was six months. These past years I felt as though I had no real identify. Whites don¹t like me because I am Indian. Mexicans don't like me because I am Indian. The worse thing, though, is that I don't fit in with the Indians, either, because I was not raised in the culture and don't know the ways of the tribe." Another said, "Adoption causes such intense inner pain that you do anything just to get away from it. No one understands you, you are different, and there's no one to talk to. You withdraw into yourself, keep it all inside. That's how I got into trouble with alcohol. It was pain medicine."
o E-mail: radio@spottedeagle.org o KFAI voice message: 612-341-3144 Ext. 818 o Regular mail: KFAI Fresh Air Radio, Box 61, 1808 Riverside Avenue, Minneapolis MN 55454 KFAI Community Radio is a non-commercial non-profit community station operated by a full and part time staff with over 300 volunteers. |
