An anthropologist at the Fort Collins Museum in Colorado, Herness is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and herself became a trans-racial adoptee at age two. She investigates why so many Indians adopted into Euro-American families do not feel that they belong to either ethnic group. Her conclusion is that both groups are defined by boundaries that are relatively impermeable because they are constructed and maintained by issues of culture, class, and power. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)