Grantee Story
Healing & Cultural Understanding
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At two years old, Samantha Yellow Wolf was placed with a foster family as her birth mother struggled with alcohol. Eventually adopted, Sam grew up in a white family in Littleton, attending an upscale suburban high school where she was one of the few Native American students. Often feeling out of place and alone, Sam dabbled with alcohol and drugs, and feared she would follow in her mother's footsteps. "It hurt to even mention my mom's name. I used to cry every time I talked about her."
Sam still looks at photos of her mom and worries about her; she wonders, too, about what happened to her four siblings. Over the years, she has struggled with a couple of therapists about the questions that haunted her: abandonment, substance abuse and identity.
Then, Sam found a Native American therapist through a program at the Denver Indian Family Resource Center that provides culturally-appropriate therapy for young American Indians. A new world opened up to Sam, who is Oglala Sioux.
"Sam knew she was Native American, but she didn't have a conceptualization that she's a member of a very large tribe," said Sidney Stone Brown, a child and family therapist who is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe. "She has a very rich heritage and culture from her birth family." Indeed, a feeling of belonging and hope began to wash over Sam as she learned about her roots.
Brown passed down native stories that Sam had missed growing up in a white world. She also explained why alcoholism is so pervasive in some native cultures, and Sam started to understand that a sense of loss has been passed from generation to generation. "I learned about the historical trauma that is still affecting us today and the roles that we play," she said. "My ancestors were stripped of their land and our whole lifestyle was taken away."
Now eager to earn her high school diploma, Sam dreams of working with animals and earning a zoology degree from Colorado State University. She also wants to spend time on her tribe's reservation in South Dakota and reconnect with her closest family members.
