Natasha an Alaskan Native adopted into a non native family shares her recovery journey.

Without great sorrows, you don’t have great joys.

Learn from the past and be in the present.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline #988 or 1-800-273-8255

You can call us and leave a voicemail 501-613-8915

The Practice of Native American Boarding Schools and Adoption

The history of adoption and Native American boarding schools is a tough one, deeply intertwined with attempts to assimilate Native children into white culture, often at the cost of their own identity and heritage. This all kicked off in the late 19th century with the establishment of Native boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879. These schools were built on the idea of “Kill the Indian, save the man,” with a mission to transform Native kids into what was seen as “civilized” by European-American standards. They banned students from speaking their languages, wearing traditional clothes, or practicing their customs, pushing them instead to adopt English and learn trades that fit into mainstream American society.

These boarding schools were, frankly, brutal. Many kids were taken from their families against their will, subjected to harsh discipline, poor living conditions, and even physical and emotional abuse. With the goal of erasing Native culture, children were forced to reject their heritage, and it led to a deep sense of cultural dislocation that still impacts families today. While this system peaked in the early 1900s, it persisted well into the 1960s.

In the mid-20th century, this approach continued through government programs that encouraged Native American adoption by white families. The Indian Adoption Project of the 1950s to the 1970s led to many Native kids being adopted out, often without proper consent or understanding from their families. This effort to remove Native children from their cultural backgrounds and place them with non-Native families has led to generations of Native people growing up disconnected from their roots, sometimes called a “Lost Generation.”

After years of activism and resistance from Native communities, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed in 1978. The ICWA pushed back on these forced assimilation efforts, aiming to keep Native kids within Native communities whenever possible. Today, there’s a lot of work being done by boarding school survivors, adoptees, and their descendants to reconnect with their culture, share their stories, and heal the historical trauma created by these policies.

For more information visit https://boardingschoolhealing.org/list/ and https://www.pbs.org/articles/native-american-history-documentaries-about-residential-schools-and-forced-adoptions

Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS | Subscribe to the Podcast Feed

Thought to Consider . . .

“We alcoholics are undisciplined. So, we let God discipline us . . .”
A.A. is not something you join, it’s a way of life.
Working with alcoholics in committees is like trying to herd cats.
Without unity, the heart of A.A. would cease to beat; . . .
Isolation is a darkroom where we develop negatives.

AACRONYMS

EG O = Easing God Out
A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change
H A L T = Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

“We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: ‘Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’ Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.”

Discipline

“Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles . . . Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.”

Each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of honesty.
My Higher Power created me for a purpose in life. I ask him to accept my honest efforts to continue on my journey in the spiritual way of life. I call on Him for strength to know and seek His will.

Comradeship in Peril

“We A.A.’s are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck, when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of sharing in a common peril – relapse into alcoholism – continues to be an important element in the powerful cement which binds us of A.A. together.”

Principles

“Experience shows that few alcoholics will long stay away from a group just because they don’t like the way it is run. Most return and adjust themselves to whatever conditions they must. Some go to a different group, or form a new one. In other words, once an alcoholic fully realizes that he cannot get well alone, he will somehow find a way to get well and stay well in the company of others.”

“Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.”

“We who have traveled a path through agnosticism or atheism beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that, whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a rational idea of what life is all about. Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices, when we might have seen that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we should have sought for ourselves.”

Dianne