I have many names

Michael White, as told to Ellen White, Adopt4Life

I have many names.

On January 11, 1961, the day I was born, I was given the name Michael White. A member of the Ktunaxa Nation from British Columbia, Canada, and grandson of a revered Medicine Man I was born into a family plagued by turmoil and sadness. Providing and caring for 8 children was an insurmountable task for my parents, and while I really remember nothing about that time I understand from the stories of others that my young life was filled with abuse and neglect.  

In 1963, I was given another name, Michael John Ratcliffe. My elder sister, who has since passed, told me of a day when a big black car came to our house. The big black car had been seen from time to time on our reserve, and it came to symbolize for so many families the "60s Scoop"—a practice that occurred in Canada at that time of taking, or "scooping up" Indigenous children from their families for placement in non-Indigenous foster homes or adoption.  

With that car came the police, a child welfare worker, and the local priest. My parents hid me in a small cupboard above our refrigerator, but I was ultimately found anyway. Any family who tried to stop their children from being taken risked arrest and imprisonment. There was nothing that my family—my parents, my grandparents, my sisters or brothers could do. I was taken from them all on that day and soon after became Michael John Ratcliffe—the eldest and first adopted child of an upper-middle-class white family of seven from Kimberly, British Columbia.  

I was an Indigenous child in a white family and world. I attended a public school where I was regularly beaten and bullied because I was different. When my adoptive mother would put me in the bath she'd often come in later to find me still sitting in the cooled water, scrubbing, and scrubbing. I thought that if I could rub off the colour of my skin I would be the same as everyone else and then I would fit in.  

My ticket to acceptance was my passion for hockey. With lightning-fast reflexes that no doubt came to me by way of my birth father, a sniper in Canada's military, I became a goaltender, winning four provincial trophies and a western championship. As a teenager, it also became my ticket out of the community I'd grown up in, as I travelled to Manitoba, Edmonton, Detroit, and other destinations. Eventually, as a young man, I was able to return to the place where I'd come from, reconnecting with my birth family and my community.

I have another name. A name that has never left me, a name that can never be taken. I am Unik Klawla, the Kutenai name for Last Grizzly. I was given this name when I was born into the Ktunaxa Nation. Today I am a Sacred Pipe Carrier, a cultural resource person for my community and a business owner. I am trained in suicide prevention, dealing with trauma, and as a first responder. I have taken the hard lessons that I have learned and I use them to help others, and this gives me peace. I have frequent contact with both my birth and adoptive families. I have walked, and continue to walk, the fence between two cultures.