'Blood Memory,' film on Native American adoptions, screening at Ohio State Wednesday
“Blood Memory,” a documentary being screened at Ohio State University on Wednesday, examines Native American adoptions by non-native families. The topic is timely, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a case on the issue next month.
The film follows the work of Sandy White Hawk, the founder and director of the Minnesota-based First Nations Repatriation Institute, which reconnects adult American Indian adoptees with their biological relatives and tribes.
White Hawk and Ashley Landers, an assistant professor at Ohio State who researches Native American adoptions, will hold a discussion after the free public screening at OSU’s Fawcett Center, which begins at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Registration is required.
In a scene from “Blood Memory,” a group of adoptees return to their ancestral reservation for the Rosebud Fair and Wacipi (powwow). A woman named Marie Valerie recalls how her white adoptive mother would make her bathe with Clorox bleach.
She would “call me a dirty Indian,” she recalls.
Landers and White Hawk, who have collaborated on a number of survey studies, argue that while adoptees of all backgrounds are at risk of abuse, Native American adoptees face harm more often than their white peers.
Since 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act has limited off-reservation adoptions by establishing preferences for placement of American Indian children with extended family or other Native American families. However, in the upcoming Haaland v. Brackeen case, the Supreme Court could overturn the law if it decides that it racially discriminates against prospective adoptive parents who are white.
If you go
A free screening of the documentary "Blood Memory" will take place at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Ohio State University's Fawcett Center, 2400 Olentangy River Road. It will be followed by a discussion with Sandy White Hawk and Ashley Landers. Registration is required at bit.ly/3TKU65l.
Peter Gill writes for The Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America here:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: "Blood Memory," film on Native American adoptions, at OSU Wednesday
