In the first and second segments of this five-part interview, Little Bear shares with Kakoli Mitra a part of his journey to find his Native American identity. Bear recounts that he was taken from his mother by Catholic Charities just 10 days after he was born in the early 1960s, because the policy of the United States at the time was to put the “excess” children of parents of non-European descent into the foster (adoption) system. He talks about how he was moved around and between foster parents and group homes (orphanages), mostly (violently) discouraged from asking questions about his identity. Both sets of his foster parents told him he was “Caucasian,” the designation for being of European origin. It was finally when he ended up in prison in the San Francisco Bay Area (California, United States) in his 20s that he was taken under the wing of fellow Native incarcerated men, some of whom uncovered his birth origins and revealed to him that he was Mexican and Native, not knowing of what nation.
Little Bear: Finding and Walking the Red Road (1 of 5)
Little Bear shares how, in the foster system, he was told he was “white” and forbidden from asking questions about his identity, which was first revealed to him in prison, where being in a sweat lodge transformed his life.
Other parts of this series
Little Bear (he) is a chef, community leader, and Native American Elder, who, for several decades, has been combining his passion for cooking and care to feed the marginalized, poor, and unhoused and build community resilience through compassion.
Indigenous Central America, Indigenous North America | Taíno
United States
Curyj
First Resilience
