‘Don’t think for a minute that my experience was unique. The state was allowed to remove children who were considered to be in danger and the social services acted with complete immunity. There were even cases of children being taken from school, snatched on the way to class. You or I would call it kidnap, but they believed they were saving us. Oh, and since the state received a thousand dollars in federal funds for every child taken into custody, it was a nice little earner too.

‘I suppose I was fortunate. Some of those children suffered terrible abuse, but I was adopted by a couple from California, Harry and Lisbeth Williams. They wanted only the best for me and I was brought up in a caring and supportive household in Pomona, to the east of Los Angeles. My adoptive father worked for a large casting agency in Hollywood and therein lies the answer to your question, Mr Hawthorne. Our table talk was often about feature films and actors and it was hardly surprising that before I was even in my teens, I should have decided to join the profession. In a way, my entire life was a performance. I was playing the part of the all-American boy, even though I experienced almost daily reminders that this was far from the case.’

‘You suffered racism?’

‘In high school, the other children made jokes about me being Lakota. They called me “Chief”. They would make tomahawk gestures … that sort of thing. I had to get used to being stopped quite unnecessarily by the police and there was an occasion when I was accused, falsely, of shoplifting. Later on, when I started work as an actor, I found I was treading a thin line between being stereotyped and being excluded. How many Indigenous actors can you actually name? Only one has ever won an Academy Award.fn1 I’m not complaining! I consider myself in many ways to be very fortunate. But that is how it is.’

‘Have you ever gone back to Rosebud?’ I asked. ‘Did you find your birth parents?’

Jordan frowned. ‘No. My ethnicity has never been an issue for me. I’m very disconnected from my tribe. Jayne, my wife, was born in Huddersfield. I have two children with British passports. And in all this, I have had to consider the feelings of my adoptive parents. It may be that they felt a residue of guilt when they considered what they had done. When I was fifteen, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was designed to prevent any further adoptions such as mine – not, incidentally, that it succeeded. They never said as much, but I could tell that they were unhappy about my looking back, searching for my roots, as it were. They discouraged me from visiting the Rosebud Reservation. I have never been there. There are some who might criticise me for this, but I owe Harry and Lisbeth a great deal. Despite the distance between us, we are still very close. They’re elderly now … both in their late eighties. I have honoured them by trying to be what they want me to be, even if that is not entirely what I am.’