"Native people disappear into dominant society through love, lies and ideology"

“In Canada, young Native people disappear into the dominant society through love, lies and ideology.”

Strong Women Stories- Shandra Spears

This article was very perplexing for me to read. There are some things that Shandra Spears addresses regarding adoption that I can and do agree with, but there is a problem with the reasoning surrounding her perspective on the whole experience. Throughout the entire essay she constantly breaks up the argument into two competing sides. I do not think that an experience as complex as adoption across cultural lines can be easily split down the middle.
She separates the ideology behind her life into two positions:
“One ideology states that colonization is a myth, that is no longer exists, that it wasn’t bad for indigenous people, and that it has had no lasting impact on our lives… the Native way of life is unrealistic, backward and has little value… any child would be grateful for the chance to be raised by loving, white, middle-class parents and have access to good health care, education and employment opportunities.
“another ideological position, is that I was robbed of a political, historical, spiritual, linguistic and cultural base which could have given me a great sense of self-esteem and strength… a large portion of Native people who ended up homeless, incarcerated, addicted or psychologically scarred were products of this ‘better life.’ I grew up within an ideology that said I did not exist, except as mascots or objects of desire.”
My questions regard what is not mentioned. Why does it have to be one or the other? I have a very good friend who was adopted following some very abusive and neglectful early years. I know that she is sometimes very torn between the two families, but she was saved from and robbed of her birth affiliations and culture; although she does not see the two as equal. She feels that there were elements of her ‘blackness’ that she was without growing up, but she understands why she was put up for adoption in the first place. She looks at her birth mother as a friend not a mother. However, she also had the good experience of having adoptive mom that not only loved her as her own, but encouraged her identity as a black woman. Her adoptive mom embraced her unique personality with patience and acceptance. I do not see Spears as having the same experience.
I know this situation is different because Spears was adopted at birth, and had an abusive adoptive family, and no knowledge of a birth family to compare the experience with.
Also, I can’t help but wonder how her experiences were contributed to by her personal approach. I don’t mean to be mean, but she seems a bit bi-polar. I know people who have endured experiences like hers and worse and they did not react so self-destructively (suicidal) and emotionally (multiple nervous breakdowns). They kept going and sought to rise above the turmoil. They took back their control by making conscious decisions regarding their welfare and surroundings. I am speaking of adult years fo course. As a child she did not have a lot of control in the situations she was in, and I can see how years of the trauma she experienced laid the foundation of self-destructive reactions to situations. Granted, my perspective is steeped in western culture and comes from a mother that values accountability above all else. She always said, “You cannot always control where you are or what happens to you, but you can always control how you choose to respond to things that are beyond your control.”
That said, I have to commend her determination to find her whole self. She pursued a whole new life as a young adult; one that she knew nothing about. To learn a new culture as an adult and then embrace it as your own is not easy. I know what it is like to be of one culture and another ethnicity, and try to fit into a new identity that contradicts the other. It is very internally and externally difficult to find the golden mean; especially when both cultures are pulling at you in opposite directions.
“I was angry at the loss of Native culture I had experienced as a child, and I was mourning the ‘white’ direction that I was rejecting as an adult. This choice connected me to my new community and identity, and separated me from everything I had ever known.”
After discussing this essay with my adopted friend, I can really see how difficult it would be for someone to move from one cultural identity to another. However, why does she have to abandon one in order to embrace the other? She says both conflict, and that when she is switching from one to another she gets headaches and has difficulty. Again, I can see this to an extent, but I think her difficulty has more to do with her hatred for her white identity than anything else. Would she feel as strongly about choosing one over the other if she’d had a non-dysfunctional experience growing up? Perhaps then, would she be able to embrace both and appreciate their differences? Or do the two contradict each other so much that she has to choose?
Throughout this essay I repeatedly am reminded of the golden mean. There doesn’t seem to be one present here. The ideologies presented here seem to move back and forth from one extreme to the other.
Although I do not see a lot of accountability here, I can see the strength and struggle in Spears’ journey. The recovery of her Indian identity has helped her build her inner strength.
“We are responsible for our own healing, and we are strong enough to achieve it… The colonizer can hurt us, but can only succeed if we change who we are.”