Through Yup'ik Eyes: An Adopted Son Explores the Landscape of Family

Colin Chisholm's Through Yup'ik Eyes is a truly remarkable and ground-breaking work.The subject of Mr. Chisholm's book is his mother, and his love and respect for her shine through on every single page of this hauntingly written book. The fact that he devoted several years to his quest to learn about his mother's past is itself a remarkable undertaking. What he produced as a result of his travels and studies is a compelling look at a woman who wanted desperately to go "home," but was unable to do so. What makes Through Yup'ik Eyes so truly inspiring is that Mr. Chisholm did in fact find a way to take his mother home. Through his efforts, she was posthumously reunited with her relatives after so many painful years of being away.We live in a changing world, and not the least of the changes are the new ways we are finding to define our identities. Mr. Chisholm succeeded in returning his mother to her beloved Alaska, but he also made a big stride in offering a definition of family. Rather than painting an entire group of people with one brush, what Mr. Chisholm offers is a deeply moving picture of one woman and her relationship to her son.

A humbling, chilling, sensitive, compassionate portrayal of a love toward a mother, and the search for the identity of a silent history, is truly extracted by the author about his experience as a child of a mother whom he wants strongly to understand.To create a story about a culture one only has glimpses of as one is growing up because of some silence or resistence that brought the parent to carry is, in and of itself, a very difficult task to bear. Colin Chisholm in blending reality and fiction into a heart-felt document, unfolds the silent stories of many children who, like his mother, were taken away during the tuberculosis and influenza epidemic that killed so many of the Yup'ik Eskimo people at the turn of the 2oth century. In one sense Colin's mother was fortunate to be able to live; whereas so many people such as my grandparents, were not -- who knew and possibly saw Mrs. Chisholm being taken away at such a tender age, never to be seen again. A sensitive topic written with respect about a culture the author only knows a little of is truly an honorable effort. I commend Mr. Chisholm in telling part of my Yup'ik history in a way that brings out the love, the struggles, and the determination to survive that Yup'ik people faced, and continue to face.How brave and honorable it is to learn that Colin is able to track down the side of his family he doesn't know, and in a culture that is seldom recognized or heard of. The yearning for meaning about family and the love for a mother whom Colin Chisholm pursued ends up in a stronger family relationship. Colin's mother would be so proud of a son that bravely conquered family ties.