I’m fascinated by reunion stories. Primarily because adoptees in reunion are privy to the larger account of what creates orphans than the simple beneficient accounts we are told are the reasons. Having had the privilege to edit many adoptee reunion stories and interview many adoptees about their reunions, I am struck by the truths that […]
Author Archives: girl4708
As an older adoptee, who didn’t address her own adoptee issues, who wasn’t aware of adoptee community and whose grown children also did not benefit from that knowledge and support base, I am very cognizant of all the adoptees who are now raising children of their own. Most of these children of adoptees are bi-racial […]
A transracially, transnationally adoptive parent, upon reading my thoughts on the historical and social reasons we Korean adoptees were sent abroad for adoption, responded by telling me that in Australia (paraphrasing here) society has gone to hell because of single moms on welfare breeding feral children, and that maybe Korea just doesn’t want to follow […]
Knowing what you know now, what would you say to your six year old transracially adopted self? At twelve? At eighteen, etc?
Recently I’ve taken steps towards disengaging from the adoptee community. One person wryly told me my efforts were futile, and she told me being an [transracial] adoptee was like going to the Hotel California, “you can check out but you can never leave.” It made me think about how visibly not fitting in (or culturally […]
If yes, please explain what you think race and culture have had to do with it.
Well, actually if you’d heard we wouldn’t still be writing… BUT, I did think maybe our readers should know what proactive and positive people we are. So, awesome transracial adoptees who care enough to speak out against racial and cultural oppression, what do you support?
A parent recently asked this on one of my other projects. Personally, I’m all for domestic foster care. I think the question is really about where do the scales tip when balancing race with foster to adopt scenarios? I am a well-educated Caucasian parent of three young biological children. I would like to have one […]
We currently live in Portugal (we are US citizens) and have been researching adopting in Portugal. There are orphanages here and the children receive placement with Nationals first if there is availability. I came across your website and found it very different from the majority of the blogs/websites and the view point very interesting. We […]
Several months ago I was at a wedding and met some extended family for the first time and some I haven’t seen for many many years. I felt really silly referring to them as my “aunt” or “second cousin” or even “brother”. I mean, aren’t those titles really for the adopted child, to acclimate them […]
Speaking with another adoptee yesterday, half African American, half Korean, she noted how I was the only adoptee she’d ever spoken with who didn’t want to be white growing up. While it is true I felt white and was always zapped into place when the rest of the world reminded me that I was not, […]
Something Daniel said recently, as a comment on the post, “How white are you?” made me think: And then, sometimes, it is just really, really devastatingly difficult to live on this razor’s edge. Once again, leave it to Daniel to leave me haunted with his sublime and beautiful way of looking at our situation. I […]
Many adoptees who were adopted for charitable reasons discount barren-ness as being a valid motivation for adoption, as they feel that it puts too much pressure on the child to fill holes in their parents hearts and that no child can or should be asked to substitute for the first choice/dream child they can never […]
My grown children are part of the first generation of children born to the Korean adoptee diaspora, and as mixed-race children, they too have issues of race to deal with, yet without a tribe to identify with. I speak with other adoptees with young children and much of their own impetus for grappling with their […]
Sometimes I catch myself thinking/acting in a privileged or colonizer way and I’m appalled. I feel like I’m 99% white inside and the more I learn about the world, the more I regret that, despite all my opportunities. How white are you? Do you want to reduce that? Is that even possible? How much does […]
