Shana Ross, who was adopted as an infant in 1959 by a white family and raised as an only...
Shana Ross always felt a deep connection to the Earth. She says she knew how to ride a horse long before she ever rode one.Ross, who was adopted as an infant in 1959 by a white family and raised as an only child in a small conservative East Texas town, knew that she was different. She had darker skin and much higher cheekbones than anyone she knew.
They met for the first time in Stamford, just north of Abilene, where her birth mother had a large family. Balloons hung outside of the house so that Ross and her wife, Mary Beth Reuter, couldn't miss it."She grabbed my face with both hands. She was crying. Of course, I was crying, and she said, 'Oh, my little girl, I've waited for so long," Ross remembers.
In 2018, white couples in Texas and several other states who sought to adopt or foster Native American children sued, claiming the law discriminates against non-Native Americans. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Silversmith was 27 and working as maid for a wealthy white family in Fort Worth when she met Ross' father, a white soldier, at a Valentine's dance at a YMCA. The family told Silversmith she could continue to work, but only without her child.
Growing up in a rural East Texas, Ross was used to hearing racial slurs. She learned about Native Americans from John Wayne movies. Hollywood often depicted them as savages and uncivilized, an image that Ross struggled to understand. It's a travesty that bureaucratic chains can prevent a person from claiming their roots. But Ross' adoption, which crossed racial boundaries, is a lesson for prospective adoptive parents.
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