Adoptee activist, award-winning journalist and author Trace L Hentz announced "THE COUNT 2024" to coincide with "Almost Dead Indians," Book 5 in the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects series.
"I am sorry we didn't know this sooner, this history. I guess the governments didn't want us to know," she says.
Since 2004 she tirelessly investigated numerous adoption programs, such as the Indian Adoption Projects and ARENA (The Adoption Resource Exchange of America). Both involved moving Native American babies and children across North America into adoptions with non-Native families.
Hentz asked Native adoptees to write their personal narratives in "Two Worlds: Lost Children" (2012), "Called Home: The RoadMap," and "Stolen Generations: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop" (2016). A poetry collection "In The Veins," the fourth book in the series, was published in 2017.
"This new history book, "Almost Dead Indians," with a lengthy chapter "Disappeared," is about our history, ties in how these government-funded programs were run by churches and charities and were meant to erase children permanently from tribal rolls, making us dead Indians - almost."
Hentz (Shawnee and Anishinaabe ancestry) got the idea of a count (of First Nations adoptees) when she could not find reliable information. "I set up a new website: https: //thecount2024.blogspot.com. Native American and First Nations adoptees simply fill out a comment form and I will send them a survey." The COUNT began January 1, 2024.

"ASTONISHING!"
EARLY REVIEW:
"ASTONISHING" ...To call Trace Hentz's new book, ALMOST DEAD INDIANS a catalyst for future change would be an understatement. It is a primary source-document within itself as well. And the information it provides shatters any Pollyanna view of the decades of abuse that have been implemented upon the "American Indian." The immense amount of documented information, words, videos, insights and observations is astonishing. The author focuses squarely upon the outrageous persecution of this population by use of a draconian overlordship meant to destroy the family and the culture of the Native American population in order to "assimilate" THEM into the "White-Man's-Mind-Set"! If you take in and study this kaleidoscope of information presented by the author, you'll be so much more aware of these many episodes of insidious persecution and will be better prepared to fill in a large breadth of U.S. History which has been neglected or deliberately passed over in our history. - Dan Stevenson III, historian, blogger

EARLY REVIEW:
I experience Almost Dead Indians as relatable with bold clear honesty, curiosity, self-and-other-love, and justified outrage. Again and again, I am blown by knowledge that comes alive with lived experiences and personality. As I read, a powerful storm blasts through my heart and mind - memories, truths, the appalling and repulsive treatment by entitled bullies upon subjugated children; children who survive become women and men. Whole communities are touched by this: grandparents, parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, cousins, all relatives and future generations in the massive, beyond-ugly, legalized genocidal adoptions. In reading this book, I am eviscerated. Yet this is a healing thing. As I stand above my guts laid out, I begin to become aware that not all of those guts are mine but some have been placed within me throughout my childhood; through brainwash surgeries, pedophile manipulations, neglect and the absence of affection and care. That I grew up thinking they were my guts, as I read, I am enlightened that some actually do not belong to me. I cry tears from deep in the well at awakening and reawakening awareness with gratitude that I know more and more that I am not alone - that I am a fellow "soul in progress". - Anecia Tretikoff, Alaska Alutiiq Sugpiaq, Lost Bird, poet