Word Carrier Trading Post

12/08/2022

Now available on our on-line store.
www.wordcarrier.com
A Child of the Indian Race: A Story of Return
By Sandy White Hawk.
An adoptee reconnects with the Lakota family and culture she was born into—and nurtures a new tradition that helps others to do the same.

In the 1950s, when Sandy White Hawk was a toddler, she was taken from her Lakota family on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her adoption papers identify her as “a child of the Indian race,” and her adoptive mother never let her forget it, telling her she was unwanted and shaming her for being “Indian.” White Hawk medicated her traumas with drugs and alcohol. At age twenty-eight, she gained sobriety and reconnected with her birth relatives. As she learned what it means to be Lakota, she also learned that thousands of Native adoptees shared her experience—left to navigate racial and cultural complexities as children, with no way to understand what was happening to them.

Mentored by a respected elder, White Hawk began to work with relatives who also had been separated by adoption and foster care, taken away from their families and communities. Fighting through her feelings of inadequacy, she accepted that she could use her voice to advocate. Ultimately, White Hawk founded the First Nations Repatriation Institute, an organization that addresses the post-adoption issues of Native American individuals, families, and communities.

White Hawk lectures and presents widely on the issues around adoption. She exposes the myth that adoption is a path to protecting "unwanted children" from "unfit mothers," offering a child a "better chance at life." Rather, adoption, particularly transracial adoption, is layered in complexities. “A Child of the Indian Race” is Sandy White Hawk's story, and it is the story of her life work: helping other adoptees and tribal communities to reconcile the enormous harms caused by widespread removals.

12/03/2021

Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.
by Nick Estes
Selected as 2022 One Book South Dakota. Congratulations Nick!
This book is in-stock! You can purchase on our line at
www.wordcarrier.com or in store.
About the book: How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming “Water is life”
In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

10/23/2021

10/15/2021

It is that time of the year again. We now have our Day of the Dead Altar up in one of our store front windows. The public is welcome to put items on the altar in remembrance of a loved one that has passed on. The exhibit will be up through November 2nd.
What is the Meaning of The Day of the Dead? The annual Mexican celebration, Día de Mu***os (Day of the Dead), is a time when families gather to honor and remember deceased loved ones. It is believed that the souls of the dead return to visit the living families in homes, businesses and cemeteries.

On Tuesday, November 2nd stop in for a cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate and sweet bread, 11am-5pm

02/05/2021

Check out our web-site for recently added books. "Girl in the Photograph, The True Story of A Native American Child Lost and Found in America", "The Dakota Sioux Experience at Flandreau and Pipestone Indian Schools", "Ancestor Approved, Intertribal Stories for Kids" by the author of Jingle Dancer, Cynthia Leitich Smith.
www.wordcarrier.com

01/29/2021

Just wanted to update customers. Due to the high demand for this book, the distributor will not have copies available to purchase until May 1st. I do have lots of copies of the book on back order right now . You are welcome to pre-order on my website. If you are a school and would like to order multiple copies, please email me to place your order.
[email protected]
www.wordcarrier.com

We Are Water Protectors Hardcover – Picture Book, March 17, 2020
by Carole Lindstrom (Author), Michaela Goade (Illustrator)

Winner oF the 2021 Caldecott Medal

Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption―a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade.

Water is the first medicine.
It affects and connects us all . . .

When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth
And poison her people’s water, one young water protector
Takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource.