Ghosts

Me in my store Zoolooz in Portland, Oregon (1990) – yes that is a blow up shark!

By Lara Trace (called Lala by her sister in Austria)

Am I the only one?

 

Every. SINGLE. DAY…  I feel like I’m overreacting to an insane horror flick.  YEEGADS, what the hell is going on in this world?  It’s like a very very very bad movie, between X RATED and profane.  If I turn on the TV I end up swearing like a sailor.  (I do get fined $$ when I swear.) Don’t hand me that TV remote. I’ll end up watching Ancient Aliens as a marathon again.

(We had a freak meteor shower on May 17 and I still have insomnia.)

The photo is me when I had a store in Portland in the late 80s.  Yes, I liked and sold crazy shit. Yes, that is a blow up shark, dinosaur and cactus. I am eccentric. I still like crazy shit, though I don’t have those blowups anymore.

OH, the new book STOLEN GENERATIONS is out and it’s doing well.  I did a radio interview (see link below)

Something I’m working on… I am doing a talk in San Diego in a few weeks with other adoptees.

Here are some basics:

If the Native population was just 2 million and one quarter of all children were removed before the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, then (on-paper) 80,000+ children were removed from their families during the early to mid-1900s. If the population was 3 million, then over 100,000 were removed and so on…

I did pretend to be someone – and live a lie – because I’m adopted.  Ask any adoptee who has Native American ancestry.  If you are not told, you’re just another dead Indian, at least on record or on tribal rolls.

America is like that.  Adoptees, of all skin colors in the United States, are now estimated to number between six and ten million.  They’d prefer every one of us to live as an American citizen as if none other were as good or as important.  America forgets it’s very new by all standards; it just acts like its old.

Indian Country is ancient.  Our cells are identical to those of our ancestors of 30,000 years ago.  Indian kids who are adopted and raised outside Indian country eventually get it – more or less.  We get that less Indians around is best.  We get that America didn’t respect us or our culture.  We get that America tamed us, stole our land, and revised our history.  We get that more Americans prefer us tucked away somewhere.  They’ll teach us their version of our story.  We get that it’s wrong, but it’s America (or Canada).  It’s been this way a long time.

(Thirty+ years ago I opened my adoption.  Having to start this story somewhere, I started with a chronology, first the steps, opening my adoption, how I handled it, good, bad, etc.  It seemed to take forever.  What I encountered – besides shock – was me, barely alive, what I’d call living dead.  Let me explain.  I started to see that I was usually caught up in other people’s lives just to avoid living my own.  Under layers of denial, I conveniently forgot what I didn’t like to remember.  I had stopped caring about the past but it had me, all of me.)

No one is exactly sure how many Indian children were taken, but thousands are gone, probably living on the fringe as an urban Indian. That is how I see myself.

[Adrian who is my brother sent me this:  One can never tame that which is genetically wild and free….. Like the WolfDogs I love and raise,they adapt to me out of love and pack mentality….,But they will always be Wolves and if not respected as such, will turn back to that which they are genetically,born to be……………We are like The Wolves.]

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And here’s what is happening up north – my 60s Scoop brothers and sisters are leading the way… (top photo of Solidarity Rally)

via Open Letter to Prime Minister Trudeau Call for Action for ‘60s Scoop Adoptees | Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare

The history of the United States and its treatment of American Indians is very similar to Canada’s history in that there was a “necessity”, from the Federal Government’s standpoint, to deal with Indian Tribes for treaties to keep the “Peace” and to gain “Dominion” over Indian lands so that the Federal Government could carry out the theory/doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”. Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/05/22/non-status-indians-us-part-2-daniels-v-canadacrown

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My recent interview with Native Solidarity:  https://soundcloud.com/user-633130202/trace-hentz-interview

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Leland and I will be giving a talk in San Diego. He gave Stolen Generations to a Hopi Federal Judge in Boston recently. He’s a great guy and Navajo adoptee- actor-jewelry designer!

Hey, your blogs are wonderful, by the way.  I’ve been reading you all like I’m holding onto you for dear life.

I will be back… as in writing again mid-June. I’m here in spirit.  Like a ghost.

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