We appreciate our readers and hope you appreciate our efforts, so we’d like to know who you are and allow you space to comment here.
Thank you for coming with open ears, hearts, and minds…
With fondest regards,
The whole team of transracial adoptee contributors to Transracialeyes
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I have been very inspired by your work, Daniel and this site.. I am co-authoring a book on so-called “Intercountry Adoption” in Canada and have been seeking sites and posts such as yours which look at this issue from a rights perspective (of the child and family/community of origin). The situation in Canada is likely the worst of receiving countries as the entire system is basically ignored by the state and is in violation of many of the Hague Convention requirements. I personally do not believe that “intercountry adoption” is ethical, however, Canada is far from abolishing such practices due to the adoptive family lobby which is heavily supported by charities and churches. The state will not acknowledge that the system here is a wild west of unregulated agencies who operate without accountability nor monitoring until there is a “crisis” such as bankruptcy. The Canadian federal government and most provinces do not even keep consistent, accurate statistics (if any at all) on how many children are being appropriated from abroad nor is there any regard or evaluation of outcomes for the children or birth families/communities. You were right when you noted that such discussions are too much for Canadians when you were cut-off by the Canada Adopts website. I generalize when I say that there is a distinct arrogant assumption here that a life in Canada is a privilege and far superior to a life elsewhere. Our political culture also allows for the dominance of the Western discourse on foreign adoption. To end on a positive note, since Canada has ceased the practice of adopting aboriginal children outside of their communities I have hope that policy makers may also start to look at the bigger picture which includes international adoption. My colleague and I hope to offer an alternative discourse to prompt the discussion in Canada. I will continue to visit your site and let you know if the situation here changes at all. Thank-you.
Please do keep us posted. Thanks for stopping by.
Kenna, I have never understood why the U.S. gets so much scrutiny while Canada seems to be made of Teflon, and why there is so little discussion about systemic flaws there, especially what happened to First Nations Peoples.
Best wishes with your book, and we here at Transracialeyes are excited that people are starting to listen to adoptees for a change/for change.
Daniel… Daniel…Daniel – you drove me to tears. I am a Muslim mom of 3 from Turkey, living in USA. One of 5 children, I was “given” to my uncle and his wife at the age of 13(as is the culture in some parts of Turkey) because they were not able to have their own child. I was not adopted, but sort of “lent” to my aunt and uncle.To this day, I am not able to forgive my parents for separating me from my family. my friends, my culture, my country. When I visit them, I have no connection to any of the memories they talk about. I am hurt and resentful.
How did I get to your site? well…I am a LoonWatch fanatic and I read your article/rebuttal on adoption in Islam. I am totally against adoption, and you expressed so well how I feel and felt all this time. No lie, this is the first time I really “heard” how an adoptee feels, how they are affeced by the process and how they are deprived of their true identity. It seems you not only came to terms with your situation, you returned to your country and now letting the world know that adoption is not what it is cracked up to be. Keep up the good work, May Allah bless you Always…and all the adoptees and orphans
Hatice
wa aleikum wa aleina as-salam.
I appreciate your kind words. I hope one day, God willing, to say that I have “come to terms” with the situation of trafficking children in this part of the world, including my own adoption. Until then I describe it as an abyss that doesn’t bottom out.
I wish I had some words of comfort for your own situation—I was not aware of this kind of familial transaction within the region. Inch’allah you will, too, find peace one day. Thanks again.
I read many of your postings because I have seen good and bad come from both international and foster to adopt. I am a white parent who adopted my biracial grandchild to keep her from the foster to adopt system. I belong to an interacial church, have friends from many cultures, and still worry about how she will process her losses and adoption as she forms her identity.
Thanks for keeping your grandchild connected to her identity, and thanks for acknowledging the very real challenges she will face.
Thank you so for this site. We are a transracial family, white parents, 2 adopted black children, 7 and 9. I’m “soaking it all up”. Thinking we had the insight before taking this path, I now realize we we’re clueless, including our agency. Our children, their needs, must come first, though, we also need to keep “sane” to move forward. Your posts, are giving me the knowledge to speak the truth, without fear of “how ‘they’ may take it”. I see the racism all around us. Please know, thru this site, we (as in us), are willing to make the changes needed and spread the word! You are making a difference, and we hear you!
This has been an eye-opener for me to find this blog and it’s content. Since 2004 I had done research about the topic of adoption and particularly the subject of the Indian Adoption Projects. My memoir “One Small Sacrifice” was published in 2010 (a second edition in 2012) and my new anthology “Two Worlds, Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects” will be published in September 2012. I’ve been following Daniel’s tweets. Thank you for this wide-range of information – I plan to read everything! (Lara Hentz is my blog; Trace A. DeMeyer is my adoptee name: read more at http://www.splitfeathers.blogspot.com)
Just found your site – and I’m so glad I did.
Thank you so much for sharing these dialogues on the web.
Is there a way to be notified when there’s a new blog posting? Just found you and want to stay connected.
Good work!
Signed,
Jersey-born Adoptee
Trying to bring down Chris Christie and all Adoptee Rights Obstructionists
Thanks Sara Sue! Us Jersey kids gotta hang tough! You can click on the “Follow” button (on top if you are signed in to WordPress, at the bottom otherwise) and all new posts will be forwarded to you.
No need to post this; just registering as per your policy. (Another) 38 year old KAD (Korean adoptee) finally starting hear journey toward identity, discovery and knowledge. Keep speaking out! Your courage is helping me find my own. Best, K.
Hi…just thought I would say hi…I am also a Korean adoptee. I have been working on my sense of identity etc. Best of luck!
To you as well! Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to chime in and reply on the site!
Hi Daniel, I stop by occasionally, as I enjoy your writings. Being a white adoptee of mixed ethnic blends by both adoption and by natural family, I am only now contemplating what it means to seek out the rumors. Is there lost Native American blood in me? Is there lost Jewish blood in me? And what does it mean to a white woman who is, by adoption, English, Polish, Italian? What does it mean to find out that by blood, my ancestors were German, Polish, French, Scottish, possibly Native and possibly Jewish? For my “people” have been in America so long that our ethnic backgrounds have blended. Traditions passed down, many lost, languages definitely lost. But physically, what does it mean? Spiritually, what does it mean? I’m beginning a new phase in my journey. My voyage is not the same as those adoptees separated from parents and siblings and homeland, yet, I feel a sense of loss for my ancestors’ true stories. My separation was here in a already diverse city. At one time, in the 80s, we counted over 100 separate ethnic cultures living within our city, so it was a celebration to me to be a part of it all. Now, I wonder how my ancestors made this city and how they made this country, for many of my ancestors have been here for 200 – 400 years. But the missing pieces make me think, there are stories I need to know. My Whiteness is just a cover. The ethnic groups blended in me had experienced life journeys. …Thanks for bringing these journeys, questions, and thoughts of adoption and culture to the top of discussions.
Thank you for your comment, it is much appreciated. I still wonder what it might have meant if my adoptive father had, in any way, embraced instead of rejected his Irish heritage in favor for the dominant mode of the country. But we can also witness the violence that such communities in turn each faced in books like The American Language, which has an entire chapter devoted to the slang and epithets used to denigrate non-Anglos in the new country. It almost seems preposterous to think of “white” people this way. But I agree that we all have a lot of research to do on our own histories, and that this would give us much in the way of common ground if not common cause.