At age two Georgina Sappier-Richardson was removed from her home and Passamaquoddy community in downeast Maine by child protection services. She would never see her parents again. Terror and abuse followed over 16 years in four different foster homes.

Dear Georgina follows this Passamaquoddy elder from Motahkomikuk as she tries to fill in the blurry outlines of her identity. Now a grandmother Georgina is still attempting to re-integrate herself into the community she barely knew. She remembers, “When I was 30 years old and I went back to the reservation this Indian lady told me, ‘You look exactly like your mother as a young person.’ So that made me feel special, made me feel real.” This propels Georgina’s lifelong mission to find herself.

Despite her gregarious personality and infectious laugh, Georgina still struggles with the trauma from her youth and finds herself stuck straddling two different worlds. In the end, Georgina returns to her foster community in northern Maine, determined to reclaim some fragment of her lost childhood. She makes an incredible discovery, but will it help heal decades old wounds?

Dear Georgina is a follow-up to the Emmy® award-winning Dawnland (2018), in which Georgina told a portion of her harrowing story of surviving foster care. Georgina is just one of many thousands of Indigenous children with similar stories. 

Note: Adult situations