anne, i’m an avid reader of your writing and seeing this newsletter land in my inbox this morning is moving and so appreciated. i’m a transracial korean adoptee and have been grappling with much of the painful outcomes of that since my 20s (i’m now nearly 40).
it’s deeply heartening to finally see and hear adoptee’s stories, particularly transracial ones, coming to the surface more often in all kinds of media. for so long, there was nothing echoing back to me my own experience except tropes of the evil/problematic/unworthy/comical adopted child told in stories and movies (which i think is directly tied to the deification of adoptive parents).
so many people don’t understand the vast nuances and complexities that exist with adoption, and that misunderstanding often starts in the home and radiates out into society only to be reflected back to/internalized by adoptees. thank you for making space for this topic and angela’s work. ♥️
I’m South Asian/ Desi and my husband is biracial, identifying as Mexican-American/ Latino. We built our family through open adoption and our son is Black/ African-American. My husband is also adopted and this was a fact he learned in his 30s. As a family and as non-Black parents of a Black son, we are trying to learn our way forward, show up for our son in the ways he needs us to, and love one another in the most abundant way possible. It’s messy and complicated and I wouldn’t have it another way.
Many narratives of transracial adoption assume White families adopting children of color, and I believe that is more typical, but it doesn’t resonate for us. In this context, Angela’s voice is refreshing. I have to go back and read the interview again, more carefully. I just ordered the book as well.
AHP, thanks for all the work you do on this newsletter and for bringing the work of people like Angela into my world.
Thank you for this interview and for highlighting the book - I can't wait to read it!
I think it is really important to keep saying out loud that while adoption can be beautiful, ALL adoption starts with loss. ALL adoption starts with trauma. ALL adoption happens because someone's plans for their life and/or their children's lives went significantly awry. We have to create space for adoptees to process that and not put them in a position where they have to be emotional caretakers for their adoptive parents when they do.
My two adult stepsons are adopted and one of them has chosen to not want to learn anything about his biological family and to keep his closed adoption closed. The other knows his biological parents, his half-siblings, his history on that side. We are fully supportive of both of their choices because they have a right to explore that part of their identity as much as they want/need to .
Thank you for centering adoptee voices; as an adoptee, it is always both surprising and comforting to see our stories and our truth shared. Can't wait to read Angela's book.
As an (same-race, White) adoptee, I'm thrilled to see and read this interview today. At 39, I'm just at the beginning of my journey unpacking all of the implicit and explicit messages around adoption I received over the course of my life. It's hard and emotionally taxing. But centering adoptee voices in non-adoptee spaces brings me joy.
Wow, I did not expect to read this in the newsletter today. I'm a mixed race adoptee whose parents, Chinese dad and white mom, sought me out in order to match them (a decision I continue to have new, complex feelings about all the time). I've been following Angela's work for a few years, and like other adoptees in the comments, am both surprised and hopeful that these stories are making their way more and more into the mainstream.
A few months ago, I responded to a prompt on Twitter from an adoption justice organizer I respect, Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sánchez, who asked:
"Adopted and fostered people, displaced people, people separated from your families by the state and private industry:
What are some values you hold (for yourself, others, the world) based on your experiences?"
Similar to Angela's manifesto, my answer poured out of me:
* Paradox - multiple things are always true at once
* Unknowability - accepting and honoring that I won’t ever know or understand everything
* Inherent worthiness- every being is enough just as we are
* Self determination - we should be free to define our own identity/narrative/truth
Thank you for seeing us, Anne. And thank you Angela, for everything you do to educate people and create platforms and spaces for our (complex, contradictory, messy, and precious) feelings and stories.
So many complicated feelings! Not in opposition to anything that Angela is saying or writing. She's right on the money and I'm so glad that a conversation about the incredible complications of transracial adoption is happening these days. The complicated bit for me is having grown up as the only biological, totally unexpected child in a transracial adoption family decades before any of these conversations were happening. And my folks were as you describe-- well-intentioned, earnest, progressive white folks who truly believed that love could conquer everything. They also, having lived overseas in East Africa for nearly a decade, thought they had an understanding of race that they really didn't. I got unexpectedly born into the midst of what was basically a powder-keg as a symbol of everything my siblings weren't-- biologically related, white, female, treated like some kind of God-given miracle. How could I have not ended up a target? Which I was.
And for me, beyond the abuse, there was this weird experience, like growing up in a religion versus parents who were converts, with all the zeal that usually entails. They were so consumed with their ideas of what we were supposed to be as a family that they often willfully ignored who we actually were. I was left looking around going, Um... this whole situation is really fucked up. But I wasn't supposed to say anything because only a racist would question the legitimacy of this whole "save the world through love" army I'd been drafted into. And my parents, like most earnest, progressive white people, were very invested in the idea that we weren't racist, a premise that made my deep need to grapple honestly with both the underlying racism that infected my family and my own quite natural response to being abused and targeted painfully complex and isolating.
The second season of the great podcast This Land does an incredibly enlightening season on ICWA and the implications of it and the adopting out of Natives kids. Highly recommend!
I just finished an amazing book - We Were Once a Family by Roxana Asgarian. It examines the case 5 or so years ago where two white women in a same sex partnership adopted 6 children (2 sets of black/ biracial siblings) with a tragic ending. The book really highlights how we center and celebrate the story of adopters while vilifying the biological families-- as well as the systematic factors that create barriers for BIPOC families. Really worth reading.
This was fascinating, informative, moving and, at times, troubling too. It helped me see ways I was especially struck by the fault line between “fitting in” and “belonging.” The latter is a wonderful thing but I think it’s far more rare than we think.
This is an incredible essay and the comments and courageous ways people are sharing their story show it. One thing I wonder is how useful labels are when furthering the discussion. I see many American thinkers breaking down their experiences and people into labels. Putting so much onus on these labels regarding our sense of self is especially dangerous with identity politics. When these labels mix with politics, it becomes much more challenging to engage in a discussion because every attack on one of your opinions feels like an attack on your sense of self. Plus, whether it be wealthy racists on the right or those using intersectionality and critical theory on the left, labels do more to divide and conquer than to unite (whether that be intentional or not). But I might be very wrong. Do you think these labels are helpful when discussion adoption? Will the continuation of labeling help to create a world where people will “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?”
Angela's Instagram has really challenged me and opened my eyes as someone who grew up evangelical with all of its ideas about adoption. So happy to see her work featured here.
I really loved this piece & helps untangle a very complex and nuanced topic- thanks for introducing us to Angela and her work.
I love the idea of the Sondersphere as well and it put a word/definition to something I think about a lot.
Also the difference between fitting in and belonging is ver poignant.
Final note- The podcast Offshore, season 3, did a great series on transracial adoptions from the Marshal Islands which was really interesting and thought provoking. Definitely worth listening to.
American culture really needs to grasp that two things that technically can’t co-exist can both be true. Wishing you got to grow up with your birth family and loving your adoptive family deeply seems similar to other truths society has a hard time with. Like widows/widowers can and do sometimes wish that their spouse hadn’t died AND love a current spouse. Our culture has a weird obsession with binary choices about things that just can’t be reduced to that.
anne, i’m an avid reader of your writing and seeing this newsletter land in my inbox this morning is moving and so appreciated. i’m a transracial korean adoptee and have been grappling with much of the painful outcomes of that since my 20s (i’m now nearly 40).
it’s deeply heartening to finally see and hear adoptee’s stories, particularly transracial ones, coming to the surface more often in all kinds of media. for so long, there was nothing echoing back to me my own experience except tropes of the evil/problematic/unworthy/comical adopted child told in stories and movies (which i think is directly tied to the deification of adoptive parents).
so many people don’t understand the vast nuances and complexities that exist with adoption, and that misunderstanding often starts in the home and radiates out into society only to be reflected back to/internalized by adoptees. thank you for making space for this topic and angela’s work. ♥️
I’m South Asian/ Desi and my husband is biracial, identifying as Mexican-American/ Latino. We built our family through open adoption and our son is Black/ African-American. My husband is also adopted and this was a fact he learned in his 30s. As a family and as non-Black parents of a Black son, we are trying to learn our way forward, show up for our son in the ways he needs us to, and love one another in the most abundant way possible. It’s messy and complicated and I wouldn’t have it another way.
Many narratives of transracial adoption assume White families adopting children of color, and I believe that is more typical, but it doesn’t resonate for us. In this context, Angela’s voice is refreshing. I have to go back and read the interview again, more carefully. I just ordered the book as well.
AHP, thanks for all the work you do on this newsletter and for bringing the work of people like Angela into my world.
Thank you for this interview and for highlighting the book - I can't wait to read it!
I think it is really important to keep saying out loud that while adoption can be beautiful, ALL adoption starts with loss. ALL adoption starts with trauma. ALL adoption happens because someone's plans for their life and/or their children's lives went significantly awry. We have to create space for adoptees to process that and not put them in a position where they have to be emotional caretakers for their adoptive parents when they do.
My two adult stepsons are adopted and one of them has chosen to not want to learn anything about his biological family and to keep his closed adoption closed. The other knows his biological parents, his half-siblings, his history on that side. We are fully supportive of both of their choices because they have a right to explore that part of their identity as much as they want/need to .
Thank you for centering adoptee voices; as an adoptee, it is always both surprising and comforting to see our stories and our truth shared. Can't wait to read Angela's book.
As an (same-race, White) adoptee, I'm thrilled to see and read this interview today. At 39, I'm just at the beginning of my journey unpacking all of the implicit and explicit messages around adoption I received over the course of my life. It's hard and emotionally taxing. But centering adoptee voices in non-adoptee spaces brings me joy.
Wow, I did not expect to read this in the newsletter today. I'm a mixed race adoptee whose parents, Chinese dad and white mom, sought me out in order to match them (a decision I continue to have new, complex feelings about all the time). I've been following Angela's work for a few years, and like other adoptees in the comments, am both surprised and hopeful that these stories are making their way more and more into the mainstream.
A few months ago, I responded to a prompt on Twitter from an adoption justice organizer I respect, Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sánchez, who asked:
"Adopted and fostered people, displaced people, people separated from your families by the state and private industry:
What are some values you hold (for yourself, others, the world) based on your experiences?"
Similar to Angela's manifesto, my answer poured out of me:
* Paradox - multiple things are always true at once
* Unknowability - accepting and honoring that I won’t ever know or understand everything
* Inherent worthiness- every being is enough just as we are
* Self determination - we should be free to define our own identity/narrative/truth
Thank you for seeing us, Anne. And thank you Angela, for everything you do to educate people and create platforms and spaces for our (complex, contradictory, messy, and precious) feelings and stories.
So many complicated feelings! Not in opposition to anything that Angela is saying or writing. She's right on the money and I'm so glad that a conversation about the incredible complications of transracial adoption is happening these days. The complicated bit for me is having grown up as the only biological, totally unexpected child in a transracial adoption family decades before any of these conversations were happening. And my folks were as you describe-- well-intentioned, earnest, progressive white folks who truly believed that love could conquer everything. They also, having lived overseas in East Africa for nearly a decade, thought they had an understanding of race that they really didn't. I got unexpectedly born into the midst of what was basically a powder-keg as a symbol of everything my siblings weren't-- biologically related, white, female, treated like some kind of God-given miracle. How could I have not ended up a target? Which I was.
And for me, beyond the abuse, there was this weird experience, like growing up in a religion versus parents who were converts, with all the zeal that usually entails. They were so consumed with their ideas of what we were supposed to be as a family that they often willfully ignored who we actually were. I was left looking around going, Um... this whole situation is really fucked up. But I wasn't supposed to say anything because only a racist would question the legitimacy of this whole "save the world through love" army I'd been drafted into. And my parents, like most earnest, progressive white people, were very invested in the idea that we weren't racist, a premise that made my deep need to grapple honestly with both the underlying racism that infected my family and my own quite natural response to being abused and targeted painfully complex and isolating.
The concept of the soundersphere feels like a huge gift.
Angela is also featured in this wonderful recent article from the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/10/living-in-adoptions-emotional-aftermath
The second season of the great podcast This Land does an incredibly enlightening season on ICWA and the implications of it and the adopting out of Natives kids. Highly recommend!
I just finished an amazing book - We Were Once a Family by Roxana Asgarian. It examines the case 5 or so years ago where two white women in a same sex partnership adopted 6 children (2 sets of black/ biracial siblings) with a tragic ending. The book really highlights how we center and celebrate the story of adopters while vilifying the biological families-- as well as the systematic factors that create barriers for BIPOC families. Really worth reading.
This was fascinating, informative, moving and, at times, troubling too. It helped me see ways I was especially struck by the fault line between “fitting in” and “belonging.” The latter is a wonderful thing but I think it’s far more rare than we think.
This is an incredible essay and the comments and courageous ways people are sharing their story show it. One thing I wonder is how useful labels are when furthering the discussion. I see many American thinkers breaking down their experiences and people into labels. Putting so much onus on these labels regarding our sense of self is especially dangerous with identity politics. When these labels mix with politics, it becomes much more challenging to engage in a discussion because every attack on one of your opinions feels like an attack on your sense of self. Plus, whether it be wealthy racists on the right or those using intersectionality and critical theory on the left, labels do more to divide and conquer than to unite (whether that be intentional or not). But I might be very wrong. Do you think these labels are helpful when discussion adoption? Will the continuation of labeling help to create a world where people will “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?”
Angela's Instagram has really challenged me and opened my eyes as someone who grew up evangelical with all of its ideas about adoption. So happy to see her work featured here.
I really loved this piece & helps untangle a very complex and nuanced topic- thanks for introducing us to Angela and her work.
I love the idea of the Sondersphere as well and it put a word/definition to something I think about a lot.
Also the difference between fitting in and belonging is ver poignant.
Final note- The podcast Offshore, season 3, did a great series on transracial adoptions from the Marshal Islands which was really interesting and thought provoking. Definitely worth listening to.
American culture really needs to grasp that two things that technically can’t co-exist can both be true. Wishing you got to grow up with your birth family and loving your adoptive family deeply seems similar to other truths society has a hard time with. Like widows/widowers can and do sometimes wish that their spouse hadn’t died AND love a current spouse. Our culture has a weird obsession with binary choices about things that just can’t be reduced to that.