Betty Ann Adam and her three siblings didn鈥檛 have a chance to meet one another until adulthood.
Adopted as infants into separate families across North America, the three sisters and brother had been removed from their young Dene mother鈥檚 care in Saskatchewan during the 鈥楽ixties Scoop鈥� in Canada. Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben were among 20,000 indigenous children who were adopted into white families or lived in foster care after being taken from their families between 1955 and 1985.
鈥淎ll of us were disconnected from our mother and from each other,鈥� said Adam, a journalist at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Her mother, Mary Jane Adam, attended Holy Angels Indian Residential School in Fort Chipewyan, Alta. Betty Ann, the eldest of the siblings, eventually met her mother before she died at age 72.
Besides being separated from their mother, the siblings were raised without their language and without an understanding of their people.
Adam shared her story with filmmaker Tasha Hubbard, who was also scooped in the 1960s. Hubbard has created a documentary about their story, Birth of a Family, which screens Wednesday, June 28 at the K鈥檕moks Band Hall.
鈥淧eople are resilient and they do get on with their lives,鈥� Adam said. 鈥淭he government continues with policies that are harmful to indigenous people. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 hard for us to get over.鈥�
One such policy is the indigenous child removal system. In Saskatchewan, for instance, she said about 80 per cent of children in foster care are indigenous children. Another problem is on-reserve schools, which are funded at 60 cents on the dollar in Saskatchewan.
鈥淎nd they wonder why kids aren鈥檛 graduating,鈥� Adam said.
鈥淭he wrongs carry on to this day. Often children are taken because of effects of poverty in their families. If government wants to help indigenous people, they need to stop taking children away from their parents and start implementing policies that support families to stay together.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of family dysfunction which is carried over from generation after generation ever since the beginning of the Indian Residential Schools. Children were taken away from their parents, they were raised in institutional settings by white people who taught the children they were inferior to the whites, who taught the children that their parents were evil pagans. Prohibited the children from speaking their own languages. What does that do to the character and the self-esteem of any child? What kind of parents do they become? 鈥� Is it any wonder that there were problems with families?鈥�
She said Canadians need to demand governments to treat indigenous people with honour, instead of putting their own dollars and interests above the well-being of indigenous people.
Wednesday鈥檚 film is free of charge. The 7 p.m. screening is a National Film Board Indigenous programming initiative 鈥� called the Aabiziingwashi (Wide Awake) NFB Indigenous Cinema Tour 鈥� that shares stories by indigenous filmmakers.
