Tag Archives: adoptive parents

Today, at the United Nations: Adopted People and First Families Speak Out on Trafficking, Corruption in Adoptions Around the World:

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Adoptees, and increasingly first/biological/original parents, are speaking out about the fraud, corruption, and deception that have occurred globally in international adoption.

Today, the United Nations’ Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) held a session on illegal intercountry adoptions. You can view the event here via United Nations media.

Look at the description of the Committee: “The CED and its Secretariat work daily to support victims, civil society organizations, National Human Rights Institutions and States to search for and locate disappeared persons, eradicate, punish and prevent this crime, and repair the damage suffered by the victims.”

What is the correlation of the Committee’s mission with adoption? Searching for and locating “disappeared persons”–adoptees and bio/first/original parents. Eradicating and punishing the crime of fraudulent and corrupt adoptions. Preventing the crime of illicit adoptions and/or child trafficking. Providing reparations to the victims—adoptees and bio/first/original parents.

The adoptees who spoke out at this UN event and who are speaking out in many other spaces are not teenagers: they are adults, with lived experience and, in some cases, also with extensive professional and academic credentials. Many of these folks are parents and grandparents themselves. They may have grown up in the US or France or Greece or elsewhere. They may have been born in Chile, China, Kenya, Venezuela, Mali, Haiti, or elsewhere.

In any case, as a global movement, they are united in calling for the overhaul and/or elimination of international adoption, for legal procedures allowing annulment of adoptions, for the creation of databases (including DNA) which provide full access to accurate records, and for the right to reparations, including from adoption agencies and governments that in essence sold children under the guise of adoption.

It is a perfect storm in adoption right now. Social media has allowed adoptees to connect with each other wherever they may live. Technology (translation apps, for example) and DNA testing have opened doors to allow identification of relatives, and of the truth. Adoptees who have traveled to their countries of origin have often found their histories are not what they and their adoptive parents had been led to believe. Birth/first parents, often marginalized economically and socially, are being contacted and are also speaking out.

In addition to watching the UN meeting on video, take a look at this report from Inter Country Adoptee Voices, a major force in organizing the UN events. “Victims of Illegal Intercountry Adoptions Speak Out” was prepared for today’s UN event, a one year anniversary of the 2022 presentation. From the report’s Introduction: “One year on from the UN working with some of us intercountry adoptees and many other experts around the world to publish their Joint Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoptions, we celebrate the allyship and support to share our messages as survivors and victims of illegal intercountry adoptions.”

The victim and survivor statements provided in the ICAV report “provide representation from the following countries: Adoptive countries (9): Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, USA; Birth countries (19): Chile, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Greece, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mali, Peru, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Venezuela, Vietnam.”

The ICAV report, like today’s United Nations event, is sobering. For some folks, the report and UN meeting may seem over-reactive, isolated, and unnecessary. They are not. They are the green leaves of seeds that have been germinating for too long, and are now rising robustly in many parts of the world.

Adoption Mosaic’s Program for “Seasoned Adoptive Parents”

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I consider myself a “seasoned” parent in that my kids are all in their 30’s and I have two grandchildren. Adoption remains part of all of our lives, an undercurrent of sorts.

Adoption Mosaic’s 6-week online program for Seasoned Adoptive Parents looks at why we parents chose to adopt, and what we have learned in the intervening years. “Seasoned parents” have children who are legal adults; the kids may even be in their 30’s or 40’s or older. As Adoption Mosaic’s director/founder Astrid Castro has written, “At Adoption Mosaic, we believe adoptees should not be solely responsible for educating and supporting their adoptive parents in becoming adoption-fluent…

Our hope in offering this course to adoptive parents of adult children is to help create stronger family bonds between adoptees and their parents.”

The curriculum for “Seasoned Parents” was developed by Astrid, the Director snd Founder of Adoption Mosaic and an adopted person from Colombia. I also helped develop the curriculum. Astrid and I have co-facilitated the first two “Seasoned Parents” programs. Jordan Davis, a Black transracial adoptee and current PhD candidate, will also be co-facilitating, which will be wonderful. We’ve been working together to make the curriculum even stronger.

In this course, we talk about adoption in a historical context, and about some of the current big issues, especially as adopted adults are speaking out more. We talk about adoption as an industry, about the role of race, about the concepts of gratitude and anger and adoption fog. We work on ways to talk about these things with our children, and with other folks. And we do this with compassion and openness, meeting people where they are, hoping to create community and growth.

This fall will be the third time we have offered this program at Adoption Mosaic. The parents who have taken the class adopted their children from the US and internationally; many were transracial adoptive families. Some parents were estranged from their children, and hoped to find a way back to . Some were asked by their children to take the course. Some wanted to better understand the realities of adoption today, far from the time they had attended their adoption agency’s classes.

If you are an adoptee who thinks their adoptive parents might learn from the course, and you are uncertain what to say to them, feel free to schedule a free consultation with Astrid.

Learn more about the Astrid and Adoption Mosaic team here.

“Seasoned Adoptive Parents” will be offered online for 6 Wednesdays starting October 11 through November 18, from 4pm to 5:30pm Pacific time.

Please join us! Please also share the word about this “Seasoned Adoptive Parents” class!

Adoptees Holding the Mic, Literally and Otherwise: Adoption Mosaic at Heritage Camp

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It may be overdue, but there is no doubt that the views and voices of adult adoptees are increasingly being heard—including the challenging ones.

I recently presented at the COFFEE Ethiopian Heritage Camp that takes place near Mount Hood in Oregon. The weather was beautiful, and the energy from the kids—biking, skateboarding, swimming, playing basketball, walking around in chatty groups—was wonderful and palpable.

For some of the kids, it’s one of few times where they are surrounded by other adoptees and by other Ethiopians.

For the parents, mostly white couples, it’s a chance to visit with friends and also to learn from the workshops presented by Adoption Mosaic.

In fact, the parents got to hear from an Adoption Mosaic panel of adult adoptees from Ethiopia, Colombia, and the U.S. All had been transracially adopted by white parents.

All the adoptees had different experiences growing up, of course. For some, their adoptive parents had been unaware of racial identity and adoption trauma issues, though they were loving. Some parents did a lot of work on racial equity, and still fell short sometimes. Some parents were unaware, uncaring, unreachable.

Adoption Mosaic founder Astrid Castro, adopted with her sister from Colombia, brought other staff with her as well, adoptees from Korea, India, and China: incredible mentors and sources of wisdom for all the camp attendees.

And that said, it is not the responsibility nor burden of any adoptee to educate adoptive parents. The emotional labor can be intense.

At a general session with the adoptive parents, the adoptees literally held the microphone, and the adoptive parents, while they could ask questions, could not hold the mic.

I found that a powerful metaphor, a reflection of the past when only adoptive parents held the mic, and adoptees and first/birth parents were an afterthought at best. We still, in the adoption community, need to work on centering the voices and lived experiences of adopted people and of first/birth parents.

That said, I am also a believer of inclusion, and really everyone should have the physical mic at in-person meetings so that everyone can hear equitably. Questions from adoptive parents were repeated by adopted people with the mic, so that was helpful. The symbolism, though, of who holds the microphone (at a conference, at a policy meeting, at a hearing, etc.) was valuable.

At the same session, Astrid noted the wealth of information available from the Adoption Mosaic staff, and also asked if the adoptive parents looked at #adopteetwitter or adoptees on TikTok. There are some wonderful, challenging, wise adoptees posting videos and sharing their truths.

Here’s a link to an article about Adoptee TikTok titled “Adoptees Are Using an Unexpected Platform to Shed Light on the Downsides of Adoption.”

We adoptive parents need to do the work of learning about adoption whether our kids are 8 or 46.

In fact, that phrase “do the work” permeated the time at camp with the adoptive parents.

I’d say that “do the work” for us adoptive parents is to be willing to listen and take in a variety of views about adoption; to dig deeply into anti-racism work; to learn about the role of money in adoption; to educate ourselves about grief, loss, depression, and confusion in adoption; to recognize that even if our kids aren’t talking about adoption they may be thinking about it (and absorbing all kinds of messages about it from friends, the community, the Internet); and to recognize the both/and of adoption (adoptees can love their adoptive parents and also want to see adoption abolished, for example).

Adoption Mosaic offers classes for adoptive parents, including one I co-facilitate, called “Seasoned Parents.” The 6-week online class is for adoptive parents whose kids are now in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, or even older. Back when we “seasoned” adoptive parents adopted our children, the preparation process was limited at best. From the Adoption Mosaic website: “When people adopt, they are oftentimes told that love would be enough. Your kids are now adults with their own thoughts and feelings about adoption; unfortunately, love alone is not enough for you to engage in tough conversations about adoption with your adult adoptees. In the class, we reflect on why we chose adoption, and what we have learned over decades of raising children. We dig into the challenges of talking about adoption as an industry, as well as about gratitude, anger, adoption fog, search, reunion, and race. And we practice talking about these adoption issues with our adult children and with others, in ways that are clear, respectful, and helpful. 

Often adult adoptees ask their parents to take this class, including adoptees who are estranged from their parents.

Kudos to the folks who organized the camp (it’s a lot of work), and who attended the camp. Gratitude to the Adoption Mosaic crew for sharing their years of lived experience and professional work in adoption.

May we all keep learning not in isolation but in community.

“Lions Roaring Far From Home” Update

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While our primary goal with our groundbreaking book “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology By Ethiopian Adoptees” is to get the book to as many Ethiopian adoptees as possible, we are also reaching out to the larger Ethiopian and Ethiopian diasporic community.

Frew Tibebu, who arrived in the US from Ethiopia as a refugee from the Derg via Djibouti in 1980, is now a successful realtor and social entrepreneur in California. Here’s what Frew had to say about our book:

“As someone who was a frequent attendee of Ethiopian Adoption Camp at Scotts Valley. California, in the mid 2000’s, I thought I knew enough about Ethiopian adoptive families and Ethiopian adoptees.

After reading Lions Roaring Far From Home, I realized how little I knew about the diverse experiences of the Ethiopian adoptees.

I consider this anthology by Ethiopian adoptees to be an enlightening, ambitious undertaking, a missing voice to the Ethiopian transnational adoption and to the Ethiopian diaspora experience in general.”

Thank you, Frew, for your kind words, for your leadership as president of the Ethiopian Diaspora Stories Project, and for your decades of work helping Ethiopian children via Ethiopia Reads.

In addition to getting the book to Ethiopian adoptees and the greater Ethiopian community, we also want to get Lions Roaring to other adoptees. Our writers were raised in six different countries: Ethiopian adoption is global. There are some unique differences for Ethiopian adoptees, and some overlap with the experiences of other adopted people.

Book cover with painting of Ethiopian woman standing proudly next to a roaring lion
Cover art by Nahosenay Negussie

We also want adoptive parents to read the book. For those folks who live in isolation from Ethiopian adoptees, the book is an opportunity to hear from 32 Ethiopian adoptee writers, with a variety of perspectives.

We have heard about adoptive parents reading the essays along with their children, then talking about them together. There are some great conversation-starters in the book.

We love to see the book being read by folks with no connection to Ethiopia or adoption: everyone can learn a lot from the amazing writers, who range in age from young children to adults in their 50’s and older.

In less than two weeks, we will be presenting at two Ethiopian heritage camps, one in Oregon and one in the Washington, DC, area. We are working on additional outreach in a variety of places and groups. Thank you for purchasing and reading the book, and for sharing info about the book.

At the KAAN Conference This Weekend

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I am attending the annual conference of KAAN, the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network, in Chicago this weekend June 30-July 2. I am looking forward to it for several reasons.

One is that I will be presenting a workshop with my colleagues at Adoption Mosaic. The workshop is directed toward adoptees and adoptive parents, and is titled “Educating Your Adoptive Parents: Not Your Burden.” We have found that many adoptees, when they are adults in their 20’s, 30’s 40’s, and even older, would love for their adoptive parents to learn more about adoption—about the role of trauma, racism, identity, search reunion, and more. That education, though, should not be the burden of the adopted person—it should be the adoptive parents’ responsibility to learn and gain more understanding.

Another reason I am looking forward to the conference is that I will be bringing “Lions Roaring Far from Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees” to sell and to talk about at the conference. As a co-editor, I appreciate this opportunity. KAAN has worked on reaching out to other adoption communities, and I look forward to bringing the book there.

I am also looking forward to meeting up with folks I know and haven’t seen for years, and also to meeting folks who I “know” via Facebook or otherwise, folks who I feel as though I know but have not yet met in person.

And, of course, I look forward to listening and learning from the wisdom that will be shared there.

The Shameful Reality of America’s Deportation of Adoptees

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Yes, the United States of America has welcomed thousands of children for international adoption. Americans love the stories of the orphans rescued, lives saved, futures secured.

The United States of America is also fine with deporting international adoptees, dumping them back to countries where they don’t speak the language and have no job, family, or friends.

Some talking points about deported international adoptees:

  • They entered the USA legally with the paperwork, oversight, and approval of the sending country and the United States.
  • They were legally adopted by at least one U.S. citizen; often both parents were U.S. citizens. Many were adopted by U.S. military officers or veterans.
  • They were over 18 years old when the Child Citizenship Act (CCA) of 2000 was passed, which granted citizenship only to adoptees 18 and younger. International adoption began in the US in the 1940’s and 50’s; thousands of adoptees who were adopted in the decades before the CCA were excluded from acquiring automatic citizenship.
  • The responsibility for citizenship is with the adoptive parents, not with the minor child being adopted. Adoption agencies share some responsibility for ensuring that the children they have placed acquire citizenship, even if the agency is not legally required to do so.

Why didn’t the parents get citizenship for their adopted children? There are many possible reasons. They didn’t know they were supposed to do so. They thought citizenship was automatic. They filed the papers but not correctly. The U.S. government made errors on the paperwork. The parents were estranged from their children, or abusive toward their children, and decided not to follow through with citizenship.

Why don’t the adoptees just file for citizenship as adults? If (and it’s a big If) they know they are not citizens, and they are over 18, they can file for naturalization. It is a lengthy, expensive process, and many adoptees do not have the documents required to file. The parents might have lost, thrown out, or misplaced the documents. The parents may have died, and no one knows where the documents are. The parents may refuse to give the documents to the adoptee.

Why would an adoptee get deported? Adoptees who cannot prove citizenship can be deported if they commit a crime. The type of crime can be relatively minor or a serious felony; that determination often depends on state law. It’s a felony for non-citizens to vote in elections (even if they don’t know they are not citizens). Adoptees have been subject to deportation for writing bad checks, burglary, firearms possession, marijuana possession, and so on.

If they commit a crime, shouldn’t they be punished? Of course. If an adoptee commits a crime and is convicted, they should serve their time—just like any American, like any family member.

They should not though then be deported. Deportation of a legally adopted person should not be allowed by the United States. It is unethical, inconsistent with the values of “family,” and is a slap in the face of the adoption community.

Do adoptees subject to deportation get legal representation? Yes. That’s a basic tenet of our judicial system. The reality is that many adoptees are inadequately represented, because knowledge of adoption law and of immigration law are not always part of an attorney’s expertise, including public defenders. Some adoptees, after serving their sentence, are then detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for long periods of time without a trial. Some give up. Some have great difficulty hiring and paying for an attorney who can actually represent them effectively. Some get terrible advice from their lawyers, who may not have any familiarity with the adoption laws in place at the time the adoptee entered the country (in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, etc.). Some are detained for months far from family. Some give up hope.

Once deported, it can be near impossible for an adoptee to find an attorney who will take a case pro bono. Most adoptees have great difficulty finding legal work once deported: they don’t speak the language, they don’t know the culture, they have trouble getting legal permits.

Once deported, the adoptees, welcomed as cute children at the airport with balloons and happy smiles, receive no help or support from the US government, including at the US Embassy. They have to depend on family and friends back home, and on strangers in the country.

Once deported, they cannot receive Social Security, even if they earned it for years, nor Medicare nor Medicaid. Many older deported adoptees have serious medical issues for which getting treatment is difficult.

Many deported adoptees go into deep depression, experience tremendous loneliness, and feel forgotten by the country they love and grew up in. Many feel forgotten by family and friends, and many are correct about that.

Why doesn’t Congress help them?

Strong anti-immigrant views have been pervasive in our U.S. Congress for decades. International adoptees, fairly or unfairly, enter the U.S. as immigrants, with all the legally required paperwork. I would argue that adoptees, as children being adopted by US citizens, should be considered separately. This is admittedly a controversial position in the immigration community and in Congress.

Why has Congress has failed to pass an Adoptee Citizenship Act that would grant citizenship to adoptees not included under the 2000 CCA?

Congress has failed to do this for years, since 2015 at least. Beyond the sweeping anti-immigrant feelings, here are some reasons:

  • Some Members of Congress don’t consider adoptees to be real members of a family, and thus may feel it’s no big deal to deport them.
  • Some Members of Congress don’t recognize or don’t care that international adoptees did not have agency in being brought to this country, nor in their acquisition of citizenship, despite being adopted with all the required paperwork and government approval.
  • Some Members of Congress are afraid of a slippery slope of “illegal immigrants” being allowed to remain in the US.
  • Some Members of Congress have no sense of ethics, nor an understanding of adoption.
  • Some Members of Congress feel if someone has committed a crime, then deportation is what they deserve, regardless of how they arrived in the US.

I struggle with this question, to be honest. I’d love to hear someone explain it to me in a way that shows honor and decency on the part of our Congress.

That said, I am grateful to those in Congress who have sponsored adoptee citizenship legislation, and who recognize it as fair and appropriate. I wish there were more of them with the courage and patriotism to do so.

The Loneliness of Deported Adoptees

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A favor: please keep in mind the many deported adoptees who are alone in a country with which they have little connection. They were adopted by U.S. citizens and raised in America, the place they call home.

They didn’t get U.S. citizenship, due to their adoptive parents not completing the process, or to bureaucratic snafus, or to some other reason beyond their control: they were children when they were adopted into what was supposed to be a “forever family.”

Some adoptees have been shocked to find out, as adults, that they could not prove they were American citizens. While citizenship was granted to international adoptees 18 and younger in 2000, there are estimated thousands who are now in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and older who may not even know they aren’t legal citizens.

And some have been deported, to countries where they don’t know anyone, don’t know the language, are unable to get work, and get little help from anyone.

They are lonely. Some of the older ones have serious health issues, like gout and diabetes, with little access to medications or medical care. They are not eligible for Social Security (regardless of how much they paid into it) or Medicare. They don’t speak the language, and they often have difficulty fitting in or finding a community.

Keep them in your heart, would you? Many feel forgotten. They left their original countries as little children, brought to America and (we hope) an adoptive family that loved them and kept them safe. Some deported adoptees married and have children they haven’t seen for years, and possibly never will again. I know one adoptee who has never met his own grandchildren. Some haven’t seen their siblings or parents or friends for decades, and every day can be very hard.

International adoptees should NOT be subject to deportation. It was not their fault that they did not get citizenship as children, when they were brought legally here to the U.S. (It is very hard for them to gain citizenship once they are adults.)

It’s their loneliness that haunts me, and keeps me advocating for legislation that will allow them to come home.

Meanwhile, please do not forget them.

Australia Calls for More Research on Suicide and Adoption

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An important report, “Intercountry Adoption and Suicide in Australia: A Scoping Review,” has been released by the Australian Department of Social Services.

While it focuses on Australia, the report has great relevance to other countries, both sending and receiving. More research is needed, and there is enough research globally (especially from Europe and the US) that action is needed as well.

Please share this report with adoption agencies, adoption organizations, therapists, and anyone with a connection to the adoption community. We need both more research and more prevention strategies.

Recommendations from the report from authors Ryan Gustafsson and Patricia Fronek include the following:

  • Increased collection of data on adoptee suicide.
  • A question on connection to adoption in all health care settings (i.e., “Are you affected by adoption?”)
  • A question about connection to adoption in practitioner interviews following suicide.
  • Increased identification of risk and prevention strategies in the intercountry adopteee community.
  • Development of practice guidelines (for therapists, counselors, health care practitioners) including adoptee experiences to inform interventions for at-risk adoptees.
  • Increased awareness in adoption communities, in schools, and for therapists and health care practitioners, about suicide and intercountry adoptees.

Adoptees Connected with the Report

Among the adoptees who contributed to the research cited in the report are the following: Amanda Baden, Tobias Hübinette, Hollee McGinnis, Gina Samuels, Lina Vanegas, Indigo Willing, Soorien Zeldenrust, Dong-Mi Engels, and Inter Country Adoptee Voices (ICAV).

The art in the report was created by three Australian adoptee artists: Gabby Malpas, Ebony Hickey, and Jonas Haid.

© Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Social Services) 2022

Here are a few takeaways from the report.

“Unknowns”

“Barriers to communication about the adoption experience and the disconnect between how an adoptee is expected to feel and how they actually feel are commonly reported experiences. Living with a set of ‘unknowns’ can be particularly challenging during significant life events such as searching for first family or visiting country of origin, medical diagnoses, childbirth, or loss of family members. Moreover, these challenges are not necessarily resolved when an adoptee is able to reconnect with their first families.”

Impact of Racism

“In addition, experiences of racism, discrimination, and microaggressions have been documented in studies on transracial adoptee experiences (Fronek & Briggs, 2018; Hübinette & Tigervall, 2009). The isolating impacts of racism can be exacerbated if adoptive families are dismissive of adoptees’ experiences and can lead to ‘topic avoidance’ around issues of race within adoptive familial contexts (Chang, Feldman, & Easley, 2017; Docan-Morgan, 2010; Samuels, 2009). Racism, including everyday racism, functions to intensify difference and is a common experience for many adoptees in Australia as well as internationally (Walton, 2012).”

Studies on Suicide Risk and Adoptees

“Von Borczyskowski et al. (2011) compared outcomes for adoptees and non-adoptees born between 1946 and 1968, and found adoptees had higher rates of suicide, 8.5 compared to 5.2 per 1000 men and 3.9 compared to 2.0 per 1000 women. Although the researchers point to heritable risk factors, they also suggest that adoption itself may lead to increased suicide risk. In their investigation of the link between school grades, parental education, and suicide among Swedish birth cohorts born between 1972 and 1981, Björkenstam et al. (2011) found the suicide rate for adoptees was more than twice that of non-adoptees and a correlation was found between low school grades and suicide risk.”

“Elevated risks of death by suicide”

“The meta-analysis conducted by Campo-Arias, Egurrola-Pedraza and Herazo (2020) found that intercountry adoptees carried twice the risk for suicide attempts. The studies conducted in Nordic countries and Minnesota found elevated risks of death by suicide and non-fatal attempts up to four and five times greater for intercountry adoptees than other sections of the population…

It has been suggested that intercountry adoptees’ experiences of racialisation, racial isolation and discrimination lead in some cases to severe crises of identity and that adolescent adoptees can face additional difficulties regarding belonging and identity due to having to navigate multiple identities.”

“Systemic and everyday racism; Racial isolation, discrimination, and bullying“

“Hübinette (2012) contended that systemic and everyday racism, and the distinct bodily and affective impacts of transracial placements, must form part of analyses of intercountry adoptees’ heightened vulnerability and high suicide rates. Similarly, Schwekendiek (2019) described how the racial isolation, discrimination and bullying experienced by Korean adoptees contributes to social maladjustment.”

Recommendations for Health Care Practitioners

“Graham (2014, p.21) suggested including the question “are you affected by adoption?” in all healthcare intake settings nationwide, including crisis helpline services, as well as increasing awareness among practitioners of adoptee suicide risks. Similarly, Baden et al. (2016) recommended developing and implementing training programs for all clinical practitioners to ensure adoption-competent approaches to service provision and the need to develop evidence-based practices to intervene with adoptees at risk. Importantly, they recommended that instruments be validated, and interventions developed with intercountry adoptees, first parents and adoptive parents. The need for identifying, implementing, and evaluating post adoption support services is recommended (Gair, 2015; Fronek & Briggs, 2018). This is particularly important given adoptees identify that practitioners with limited knowledge of adoption is problematic when they seek help (Fronek & Briggs, 2018).”

“Lions Roaring” Anthology at Conference of Black German Research and History Association

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Kassaye Berhanu-MacDonald and I will be speaking tomorrow about “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology By Ethiopian Adoptees,” at the free online conference of the Black German Research and History Association (BGHRA). Kassaye and I are two of three co-editors of “Lions Roaring;” Aselefech Evans is also an editor.

The “Lions Roaring” panel will take place at 4:45pm est tomorrow Thursday February 23. Please register here to get the Zoom link for the free online conference.

The themes of the BGHRA conference is “Art as Resistance,” and I encourage you to attend as many workshops and keynotes as you can. Kassaye and I are thrilled to have been asked to talk about the book, its origins, its intent, and its powerful stories.

Several of our writers, all Ethiopian adoptees, are also Europeans, raised and/or living in Sweden, France, and the Netherlands. There are, of course, many Ethiopian adoptees in Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe.

Our writers also were raised and/or now live in the US, Australia, Canada, and Ethiopia.

We appreciate BGHRA inviting us to talk about the book, about the lived experiences of Ethiopian adoptees raised around the globe, and about how the anthology itself is an act of resistance.

And we look forward to a lively conversation tomorrow. Join us!

An Adoptive Parents’ Guide to “Lions Roaring Far From Home”

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We have been thrilled and honored by the response to our new book, “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees.” It has been selling well, and is at the top of Amazon Hot New Releases in Adoption.

Our hope is that the primary readers will be Ethiopian and other adoptees, especially international and transracial adoptees. From the book’s Introduction: “We want to draw attention to the particularities of being a Black adoptee from Africa, placed with white families.”

We also are hopeful that adoptive parents will read the book, especially parents of Ethiopian adoptees, and also of other international, transracial adoptees.

Front cover of the book: Painting by Ethiopian artist Nahosenay Negussie of an Ethiopian woman standing proudly next to a roaring lion.
Image description: The front cover of “Lions Roaring” book, a painting of an Ethiopian woman next to a roaring lion.

Of course, we are hopeful that the Ethiopian community, including the diaspora, will read the book, as well as family members of adoptees, along with therapists, adoption agency staff, adoption-related organizations, social workers, undergrad and graduate students, book clubs, anyone interested in reading a great collection of powerful essays. If you know Oprah, Angelina, or Marcus, feel free to share the book with them, and please connect the editors with them also. You can reach the editors and writers at the book’s website: lionsroaringbook.com.

Here are a few questions that adoptive parents have asked me about the book.

Is it a positive or negative view of adoption?

It is a “real” view of adoption. Each of the 33 writers has a different perspective as they speak their truths. The book shows the range of attitudes and experiences. It also shows a range of views based on ages, since the writers are 8 to over 50 years old. Some essays note the adoptees’ Christian faith, and call adoption a blessing. There is discussion in the book of suicide and abuse. Some essays recall experiences in Ethiopia prior to being adopted. Some writers talk about painful childhood events in Ethiopia and in their adoptive country. Some talk about ways they are giving back to Ethiopia. There is mention of optimism, love of family, and resilience. Some essays are matter of fact; some are deeply emotional.

I urge adoptive parents of children of all ages to read the book. You can then talk with your children about it, in an age-appropriate way, whether they are 6 or 38 years old. It could open up a lot of new conversations.

Is the book child-friendly?

It is not meant for young children. The book reflects a wide range of lived experiences: good, bad, sad, encouraging, hopeful, angry, grief-filled, all of it. Whatever your child’s age, they might have had or will have some of the feelings in the book.

Are there essays by adoptees adopted as infants, or who have very little information about their families of origin?

Yes. The writers were adopted at a variety of ages, some with and some without their siblings. One co-editor was adopted as an infant to Canada, and the other was adopted at 6 years old with her twin sister to the US. A Swedish adoptee, adopted at one year old and now in his 50’s, wrote an essay about his DNA search and some unexpected connections. Most of the writers have little information about their Ethiopian families regardless of age at adoption; some have strong memories. Some have searched, some have reunited. Many have not done either, for a variety of reasons.

Here are some questions I haven’t been asked by adoptive parents.

Will I be uncomfortable or unsettled if I read this book?

At times, probably. If you are not an adopted person, you may well be startled or saddened by some of the insights that the writers offer. Some of the essays may affirm your views on adoption. Some may rattle them. That’s a good thing.

Can I just give the book to my teenage or adult son/daughter/child, without actually reading it myself?

Yes. And don’t do that. We adoptive parents must keep doing our work to understand what our kids are going through, to do so with open hearts and open eyes, and to learn how ideas and attitudes can change over time.

Can I give this book to friends, my non-adopted children, other adoptive parents, my Ethiopian friends, my adoption agency, my therapist, my children’s therapist, my parents, my siblings? What about folks with no close connection to adoption?

Yes! Please share the book and information about it with those who are tightly connected to adoption, those who have the rainbows-and-unicorns view, those who might be able to bring about changes in adoption policy: everyone. Thank you for doing this.

And again, thank you to every one of our writers, and to all those who have supported the book.