Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is the author of a series of YA thrillers set in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula featuring Indigenous girls and young women whose lives intersect as they navigate a world that can be a dangerous place for Indigenous females. Firekeeper’s Daughter was published in 2021, followed by Warrior Girl Unearthed in 2023. Sisters in the Wind, which will be released next month, follows Lucy Smith, who struggles to survive the foster care system she is placed into at age 13 after her father’s untimely death. Daunis Fontaine and Jamie Johnson, who starred in Firekeeper’s Daughter, are major characters in this novel as well. Boulley spoke with PW about the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, her deep dives into legal briefs about the foster care system, and the importance of family to the Indigenous community.
What prompted you to write a novel about a Native girl in the foster care system who is denied the protections that the ICWA should have provided her?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 in favor of ICWA; they upheld a lower court decision [Haaland v. Brackeen] that recognized ICWA but there is still a sense of urgency. Just because the court ruled in favor of tribal sovereignty this time, they might not next time. The dissents from Justices Alito and Thomas basically left bread crumbs for the organizations that have a vested interest in wanting to dismantle tribal sovereignty. ICWA says that there can be no tribe without future members, and therefore the tribe has an inherent right, a sovereign right, to children who either are members or eligible for membership. So there’s urgency: we really need to get out there and inform people how important ICWA is, and that when it’s properly applied, there are better outcomes for children and teens who are in foster care.
Lucy is briefly mentioned in Firekeeper’s Daughter as Lily’s half-sister. I thought it would be interesting to take that comment about this other child who lives elsewhere, and [imagine] her life. What if she’s being raised by her non-Native dad? What if her dad passes and the social worker tells Lucy not to mention being Native, when there’s this whole family that would have welcomed her? What happens to Lucy in foster care is all too common.
How did you conduct your research? Did you talk to survivors of the foster care system? Did you read case histories?
Oh, my goodness, yes. I read every single amicus brief that was filed in Haaland v. Brackeen. There was a lot of great information from people in support of ICWA, including foster parents and Native attorneys explaining why it’s so important. But it also includes the amicus briefs that were filed against ICWA. I also read the 1974 Senate subcommittee hearings that led to the passage of ICWA in 1978. I’ve worked in tribal communities for my entire career before publishing. I’ve supervised the staff at tribal social services facilities. I’ve met foster parents and former foster kids. I did a lot of interviews with people I knew and I interviewed social services and court personnel. I always want to make sure that for anything that happens in my books, if someone says, “Oh, that would never happen,” I want to be able to say, “Oh, but actually it can. I can tell you the year and either the court case or the report in which this terrible thing actually happened.”
What did you want to convey by titling this novel Sisters in the Wind?
First, I wanted it to align with the titles of my two previous books. So, we have the element of fire, the element of earth, and with this book, the element of air or wind. And then [we have] the different roles of young women—daughter, girl, sister—and the idea of Lucy’s foster sisters coming through the chaos, with fire and ashes scattered to the wind. What happens to them—the ones who find their way home, as well as the ones who don’t? That to me was what this title evoked, this randomness and the aftermath of chaos.
What do you want Indigenous readers to take away from this novel? And, secondly, what do you want readers who are not Indigenous to take away?
For readers who are Indigenous, what I would want them to know, especially teen readers, is that they are part of a community. That cord is never severed completely, though it can be stretched. If they feel disconnected from their Native community, or perhaps they don’t know which community they’re from, I hope my books serve as kind of an entry to learning more about the community, how might they go about joining it. In Firekeeper’s Daughter, I talked about how a lot of people think a DNA test will find out what tribe they’re from. No, it will not. It does, however, establish paternity or familial links with people who are enrolled in tribes. And I want them to know that people in Native communities think about those lost ones.
For a non-Native reader, I want them to be outraged, because ICWA is the gold standard for family preservation. It should be followed in all foster care placements, of looking to immediate family and then to extended family, trying every effort, looking at under what circumstances children are removed from a family. I know for ICWA, there’s a lot of consideration given to a relationship with the mother, even if there were very good reasons for a child to be removed from the home; but there’s the potential to continue a relationship with the mother even through the foster care experience. So yes, I do want non-Native readers to know about ICWA and why it’s so important.
Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley. Holt, $19.99, Sept. 2 ISBN 978-1-2503-2853-3
