We are more than adoptees

Mary Youngblood

Brule, Paul Laroche

Star Nayea

Eric Schweig

Paul DeMain

Chris Eyre

 

Baby Veronica

Famous Lost Birds/Adoptees

Star Nayea, raised in Detroit, Michigan, has often been described as the “little lady with a big voice,” who launched her career in Austin, Texas, then moved to New York City. In New York, several years ago, Star fully developed her unique contemporary edge of bluesy rock with hints of folk and traditional Native American vocals. Star, possibly Ojibwe-Potowatomi, adopted by a white family as an infant, is seeking her own birth family. Star currently lives with her son in Seattle.

Brulé, aka Paul LaRoche, has a unique story to tell. Along with the amazing music, theatrics, and traditional dance troupe, Paul tells the story of how he came to realize his Native American heritage after nearly 38 years of separation from his biological family, who resides on the Lower Brule Sioux Indian Reservation in central South Dakota. Paul, adopted at birth off the reservation, discovered his Lakota heritage in 1993 after the death of both adoptive parents. He was reunited on Thanksgiving Day 1993 with a brother, sister, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. The discovery of his true heritage has greatly affected Paul’s life and those around him.

Chris Eyre was born in 1969 on the Warm Spring reservation in Oregon. He grew up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, adopted by a non-Native family. “I’m Cheyenne and Arapahoe. I went to school in Portland, Oregon. I pursued an associate’s degree in television, in directing; I earned my bachelor’s degree in media arts at the University of Arizona, and my master’s at New York University in filmmaking.” Chris Eyre attempts to display portraits of contemporary Native Americans as individuals who are plagued by problems common to all people, but who react within the confines of their own particular circumstances. He founded Riverhead Entertainment, a production company that for several years produced commercials, films, and documentaries.

Paul DeMain is a member of the Oneida (Wisconsin) and Ojibwe tribes, and was raised by a non-Native family in Wausau, Wisconsin. “I grew up with some compassionate liberals who never tried to hide my identity and encouraged me to inquire about it,” DeMain says. In the early 1970s, he made contact with the Oneida tribe, where he is enrolled. He has met his biological family. In 1986 he launched News from Indian Country, an independent newspaper that covers tribal politics, legal issues in Native and US courts, reservation crime, education and Indian art, with a circulation of 7,000 readers worldwide.

Eric Schweig was born to an Inuit mother and a Chippewa-Dene father in Inuvik, the Northwest Territories. At six months, he was adopted by a German-Canadian family. During his childhood in Inuvik, Bermuda and Toronto, he was systematically and physically abused by his adoptive parents then he ran away from home when he was 16, and became a laborer on construction sites. In 1987 he was “discovered” while walking down a Toronto street and cast in the movie The Shaman's Source. At least 16 films followed, most notably as Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans. During this time period he endured a “roller coaster of alcohol, drugs, violence, failed relationships, despair and confusion” [Schweig said] due to the abuse and racism and ethnic identity deprivation of his childhood. In 1996 he began to regain his cultural identity and is now primarily a carver, especially Inuit spirit masks, living on Vancouver Island, and he continues to act in films. He is a passionate opponent of the adoption of Aboriginal Native People by Europeans. Eric’s Adoption Speech: http://www.mohicanpress.com/mo05005.html

Mary Youngblood, Chugach Aleut/Seminole, is a Grammy award winning flutist, who was adopted and raised by a non-Native couple. Mary opened her adoption at age 26.

We are survivors!
We are actors, musicians, directors, athletes, comedians and so much more

A search for missing Native children at Carlisle Indian Industrial School who died on 'Outings' in Pa.

David Nepley (left), the Byberry Friends clerk, looks over a record of those buried in the Byberry Friends Burial Ground in Northeast Philadelphia. Among those buried is Gertrude Spotted Tail.

Ephriam Alexander came from Yup’ik village of Kanulik on the Nushagak River and Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska, but died in Lititz, PA.  He is buried in the historic section of Lititz Moravian Congregation Cemetery known as “God’s Acre.”

While the setting is quite bucolic on one side, the other side of the grave of Gertrude Spotted Tail faces the back of nearby homes by the Byberry Friends Burial Ground in Northeast Philadelphia. Gertude was one of the daughters of Chief Spotted Tail of the Brule Sioux. She died while a Carlisle student visiting the Bender family in Bucks County. Gertrude and an unknown American Indian girl are buried side-by-side but no one knows which grave is which. A blank marker was placed there to mark the spot several years ago.

"People are awakening to the reality of what happened, the human-rights violations, the civil-rights violations," said Christine Diindiisi McCleave, executive officer of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, known as NABS. "We want to know the truth." One expert estimates that the number of missing children could top 10,000. And the initial investigation leads straight to Pennsylvania.

All the children missing or buried in Pennsylvania are believed to be connected to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the nation's first federal off-reservation boarding school, founded in 1879 by former cavalry officer Richard Henry Pratt. Carlisle — now the campus of the Army War College — was built to solve "the Indian problem" by forcing native children to become ersatz white people, erasing their names, languages, religions, and family ties.

READ: A search for native children who died on 'Outings' in Pa.

Read More on the Story:
A century after deaths, Native American kids to return home (The Associated Press June 14, 2018)
Lost remains may be found at Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery disinterment (The Carlisle Sentinel June 13, 2018)
Remains of Northern Arapaho boy will be returned to Wyoming after a century in boarding school graveyard (The Casper Star-Tribune June 11, 2018)
Disinterment of four Carlisle Indian School students begins soon (PennLive June 11, 2018)
An Opinion:
Editorial: Little Plume's long journey home may help close a controversial chapter in America's history (PennLive June 11, 2018) Federal Register Notice:
Notice of Intended Disinterment (May 21, 2018)