Alianza of Colombian Adoptees
Hola Comunidad,
Today is an important day to stand in solidarity with our Indigenous communities and with Indigenous people who have experienced separation from their first families because of the boarding school system throughout the United States & Canada (click here to learn how this family-separation policy began).
National Day of Remembrance: USA
Today is the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding School Survivors. This day is observed each year on September 30 as a time to honor the children, survivors, families, and communities impacted by the Indian boarding school era. During this week, also known as Orange Shirt Week, communities across the US and Canada come together to acknowledge the lives of children who never returned home, honor the strength of survivors and descendants, and recognize the ongoing impacts of federal Indian boarding school policies on Indigenous communities and beyond (Boarding School Healing Coalition).
We want to provide resources for our comunidad as we acknowledge this National Day of Remembrance. ACÁ is a space where we can confidently acknowledge systemic harm and stand in solidarity with communities like ours who have experienced illicit separation from first families.
Resources:
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative: Investigative Report 1
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative: Investigative Report 2
Video: Historical Context of US Indian Boarding Schools
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: Canada
September 30th is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as well as Orange Shirt Day in the country now known as "Canada." Canada is a settler-colonial nation in which the federal government, in conjunction with various Christian churches, sponsored an Indian Residential School System that forcibly separated more than 150,000 Indigenous children from their families between 1830 and 1996. Many of these children never returned home.
In 2008, then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian federal government and all Canadians for the Indian Residential School System. In 2015, Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Committee released 94 Calls to Action to redress the harmful legacy of the Residential Schools. To date, only 14 of the 94 Calls to Action have been completed.
National Day of Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day recognize and honor all of those who endured Residential Schools and their descendants. Please watch a short video, linked below, by Phyliss Webstad, the Residential School Survivor who originated Orange Shirt Day. To learn more about Truth and Reconciliation, click on the links below from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Indigenous Watchdog.
Phyllis Webstad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuW4WbekhxY
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
https://nctr.ca/about/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada-calls-to-action/
Indigenous Watchdog
https://www.indigenouswatchdog.org/
In Solidarity,
The ACÁ Board of Directors
Let's continue to build and grow our community of global Colombian adoptees.
Join us this fall for a "Charla" — an open and informal conversation in community.
Our "Charlas" are designed to be online spaces for meaningful dialogue, and that's what we envision for this meetup. No matter where you are in the world, there are major cultural, social, environmental, and political changes occurring right before our eyes, so building and reinforcing community ties and networks is more important now than ever. We hope you can make it!
Upcoming dates and times:
Wednesdays - 7:30-9:00pm EST
September 23rd
October 7th
November 18th
December 16th
These events are for Colombian adoptees aged 18 and over only.
If you decide to join us, a Zoom link will be emailed to you one (1) hour before the event start time.
Click the red link to the left (below on mobile view) to register for our events.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
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“The word home is virtually impossible to translate into other tongues, we are told by classicist Bartlett Giamatti. It is not a concept, not a place, but a state of mind where self-definition starts. It is origins. We can see the search for Home as a universal quest, but for the adopted person it is also a literal one. It is a quest for the beginning of one’s narrative; for the lost mother; for unconditional love; for meaning; for the recovery of lost time; for a coherent sense of self; for security; for form and structure; for grounding and centering.”
Lifton, B. J. (1995). Journey of the adopted self: A quest for wholeness. BasicBooks. (pp. 127-128).
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Please contact us anytime to share your story, suggestions to improve the website or you have a question that we have not answered yet. Also we are always looking for volunteers to support our cause. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
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There is roughly one hour until we fight.