Negotiating Guilt, Activism/Performance and Family

This post is mostly for other adoptees doing activist / social justice work around adoption and race to encourage you. This post is also for adoptees (and anyone else) who don’t understand how I can say and do the things that I do either in my performance, scholarly or activist work, and who are constantly writing to me to say, “I’m black (or Asian or Latin American) and I DON’T feel the same way as you, I love my family and I’m grateful for my life and glad that I didn’t end up growing up in an orphanage.”

I’m writing this to encourage those of us who are constantly fighting with ourselves around the guilt and fear we sometimes carry when we do this kind of work.

I’m also writing this to ask any of you to consider why its important for you to keep sending me these emails to tell me that you love your parents, as if I don’t love mine. Im also asking you to consider why its important for you to keep telling everyone around you that you are grateful. What happens if for a few days out of the year you are sad? or angry? or feeling the loss of your other family? what . . . that’s not okay?

Let me say, for the record. I love my parents. I love the HELL outta my parents. I would not be able to do what I do with out my parents and without my aunt and uncle who provide me with emotional, financial and spiritual support. My family is the shit. You don’t know me, so don’t assume I can’t love my parents and also have a social consciousness. One does not preclude the other.

I am grateful. Even as I counter, resist and push back against the discourse of gratefulness in adoption, I am thankful, I am blessed that my family is my family. I like who I am. I like my life. and I resist and push back at the same time, I can be both, without shame.

So, what?

Me loving my parents and my larger family, doesn’t preclude me from critiquing their racism, (and the racism of their geographical and church community) and how their and their communities personal racism and white privilege is microcosm of larger systems of white supremacy around the globe. It doesn’t make me able to forget or excuse the completely messed up stuff that happened to me as a child, the white boys that fucked with me, the white girls who betrayed me, the complete isolation I felt in an all white community, or the fact that my parents and family and their community still just have no idea what its like to be black person (let alone a black adopted person) in the U.S.

My love for them helps me forgive, but it doesn’t make me forget, ignore, or deny. Not anymore.

Most of you know I have a show called, “Ungrateful Daughter”. It’s funny to me how people respond to this title, but just so you know, the show is not about ‘actual’ ungratefulness toward my parents. It’s a comment about the discourse of gratefulness in adoption as a whole. Duh. Buy a ticket. Come see the show.

As an activist and performer who writes and speaks regularly about my family in my work, like most writers who tread into this territory, I carry a ridiculous amount of guilt that I am hurting them while I am working through my own demons around this. I’m sure the things I’m saying make them feel guilty, or angry at me or maybe shocks them, sometime they didn’t even know. But they still love me, just like I love them. They still support me, just like I support them. Even if I don’t understand them and if they don’t understand me. That’s what family does. and I will kick your ass if you talk about my momma, my daddy or my brothers.

If I would have waited until everyone dies or not written anything at all – I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have been able to heal at all around anything!! and for me – more importantly – outside of just the me in all this — I wouldn’t be able to hear from people who are in so much pain that they want to commit suicide, and that they read my blog and knew they weren’t crazy, or that tell me when they see my story on stage, they cried because that they never have spoken these words to anyone about how they felt. I wouldn’t be able to sit with the adopted youth that I work with, and tell them I actually do know how they feel when they tell me they got pulled over right in front of their own house in their all white neighborhood.

Healing wounds sometimes causes pain. Sometimes truth has to be spoken in order for true communication and healing to begin. What keeps me doing what I am doing is other adoptees, who tell me that what I am doing keeps them sane.

Ya’ll keep me sane too, you – telling me your stories, telling me about your struggle to find your birth parents and their rejection or inability to accept you. Your pain around not hurting your aunt who raised you and wont talk about your birth mother. Your parents who have lied to you about what they know about your birth country and your birth circumstances because they are afraid that you will reject them. Your sibling who raped you. Your uncle who says ‘nigger’ like it doesn’t mean anything. Your teachers in school who treated you like crap. The gym teacher who told you – you were an ugly black girl, and no one would ever want you, but then felt you up one day after class. Your fear of telling your parents they can’t say “Oriental” because its racist and hurts people. Your fears of being written out of the will if you even hint of thinking about searching for your birth family. These stories keep me sane. I am not alone.

Ya’ll keep me sane. Because I still struggle, even today, after doing all the healing I have done around this, the purging from the past, the exorcising on stage with poetry and stories, the academic research; I still struggle this very moment with what it means to be living in an in-between space. This space that is a part fully loving and being loved by my family, but still acknowledging and accepting myself as partially and always separate from them, and a developing part of myself that includes my birth family, but still separate from them – so where does that really leave me?

I’ve been able to partially negotiate this by creating “family” on my own, in my own community and by recognizing family in my global community of adoptees.

and really, more importantly what happens if I don’t talk? What happens if we don’t fight back? If we stay silent?

Haitian Baby Lifts, that’s what.

and you know what I have to say about that.

Me on the Radio!

I was interviewed on Monday by Gus T Renegade from C.O.W.S. blogtalk radio. Well, maybe it was more me just talking my ass off, but I look forward to your comments. In this podcast interview, I talk a bit about my childhood, my own development of my black identity, the development of AFAAD, transracial adoption as a global phenomenon, the issue of adoption of children out of Haiti and its position in the history of white movement of children of color during times of war and disaster.

Here’s the link to the video sketch i was talking about around 35:40.

Please download the interview here, check it out and leave me comments and questions here.

and by the way, here’s another one I’ve done.. in case you wanna hear this too.

Me on NPR in 2007 after the Chad child trafficking scandal.

Haiti Statement by Adoptees of Color Roundtable

Please read and share this Statement on Haiti released by the Adoptees of Color Roundtable:

“This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and professional experience in adoption studies and activism. We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake, and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.”

“We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected, including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help. We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children. There is evidence of the production of documents stating that a child is “available for adoption” based on a legal “paper” and not literal orphaning as seen in recent cases of intercountry adoption of children from Malawi, Guatemala, South Korea and China. We bear testimony to the ways in which the intercountry adoption industry has profited from and reinforced neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, aid dependency, population control policies, unsustainable development, corruption, and child trafficking.”

“For more than fifty years “orphaned children” have been shipped from areas of war, natural disasters, and poverty to supposedly better lives in Europe and North America. Our adoptions from Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala and many other countries are no different from what is happening to the children of Haiti today. Like us, these “disaster orphans” will grow into adulthood and begin to grasp the magnitude of the abuse, fraud, negligence, suffering, and deprivation of human rights involved in their displacements.”

“We uphold that Haitian children have a right to a family and a history that is their own and that Haitians themselves have a right to determine what happens to their own children. We resist the racist, colonialist mentality that positions the Western nuclear family as superior to other conceptions of family, and we seek to challenge those who abuse the phrase “Every child deserves a family” to rethink how this phrase is used to justify the removal of children from Haiti for the fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Western and Northern desire for ownership of Haitian children directly contributes to the destruction of existing family and community structures in Haiti. This individualistic desire is supported by the historical and global anti-African sentiment which negates the validity of black mothers and fathers and condones the separation of black children from their families, cultures, and countries of origin.”

“As adoptees of color many of us have inherited a history of dubious adoptions. We are dismayed to hear that Haitian adoptions may be “fast-tracked” due to the massive destruction of buildings in Haiti that hold important records and documents. We oppose this plan and argue that the loss of records requires slowing down of the processes of adoption while important information is gathered and re-documented for these children. Removing children from Haiti without proper documentation and without proper reunification efforts is a violation of their basic human rights and leaves any family members who may be searching for them with no recourse. We insist on the absolute necessity of taking the time required to conduct a thorough search, and we support an expanded set of methods for creating these records, including recording oral histories.”

“We urge the international community to remember that the children in question have suffered the overwhelming trauma of the earthquake and separation from their loved ones. We have learned first-hand that adoption (domestic or intercountry) itself as a process forces children to negate their true feelings of grief, anger, pain or loss, and to assimilate to meet the desires and expectations of strangers. Immediate removal of traumatized children for adoption—including children whose adoptions were finalized prior to the quake— compounds their trauma, and denies their right to mourn and heal with the support of their community.”

“We affirm the spirit of Cultural Sovereignty, Sovereignty and Self-determination embodied as rights for all peoples to determine their own economic, social and cultural development included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Charter of the United Nations; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The mobilization of European and North American courts, legislative bodies, and social work practices to implement forced removal through intercountry adoption is a direct challenge to cultural sovereignty. We support the legal and policy application of cultural rights such as rights to language, rights to ways of being/religion, collective existence, and a representation of Haiti’s histories and existence using Haiti’s own terms.”

“We offer this statement in solidarity with the people of Haiti and with all those who are seeking ways to intentionally support the long-term sustainability and self-determination of the Haitian people. As adoptees of color we bear a unique understanding of the trauma, and the sense of loss and abandonment that are part of the adoptee experience, and we demand that our voices be heard. All adoptions from Haiti must be stopped and all efforts to help children be refocused on giving aid to organizations working toward family reunification and caring for children in their own communities. We urge you to join us in supporting Haitian children’s rights to life, survival, and development within their own families and communities.”

Please contact the Adoptees of Color Roundtable by leaving a comment on the statement page if you would like to endorse this statement, and keep checking back as the site will soon be expanded.

Haiti Family Preservation Discussion

A few updates for you as I wade through all the Haiti and adoption information.

1. From the ISS (International Social Service) website – Their statement on Intercountry Adoption during disaster re: Haiti

2. Family Preservation Advocacy’s list of alternatives to donate for direct support of children and families.

3. Bastard Nation’s statement on Haitian Adoptions and BabyLifts.

Haiti, Adoption and Same ol Story

I’m working on a longer post that will clarify my thoughts and my position on the rising number of Haitian children in need after the disaster in Haiti. AFAAD is also planning to release a statement soon.

Overall, I have to say, what’s happening for me is that the rhetoric of United States is reflective of the rhetoric they spouted during “Operation Baby Lift” in the Vietnam War. Its troubling and frightening, and its the same old story about the colonialist paternalism that appears whenever the US thinks they understand what a country and black people need better than the country knows themselves.

I continue to ask. Why is removal the only answer? I want to issue a direct challenge to the ‘good intentioned’, monied, Christian, white folks who are lusting after the “new crop” of Haitian disaster orphans.
Can you please, sit an rethink, can you TRY to re-imagine the discourse of ‘orphan’, ’savior’ and ‘adoption’? Can you think of alternatives that can address the immediate and dire needs of these children besides removing them from their country & culture. What about utilizing your adoption fee to rebuilding infrastructure of the country? or one town? or support existing organizations IN the country that support keeping families & communities together? Removal is not always the answer!

My colleague and adoptee activist, Outlandish – has written a post that reflects my deep feelings about the language of ownership that is already being thrown around, that is a language of potential adoptive parents who are only concerned with their desire to have a child, and not with the trauma of separation and loss.

“Whites Make Pact With God, Expedite Haitian Adoptions”

—————
Organizations I know and have checked out to donate to:

Haiti Soliel and
Partners in Health

another video explaining Operation Babylift.

I’m still here, I promise

Its been a minute since I’ve posted something and I know I’ve been neglecting this blog. So just checkin in, sayin whats up. I hope you all are doing well.

Few things:

Susan over at ReadingWritingLiving is writing some great stuff around the new show, Find My Family on ABC. Personally, I’ve been too afraid to watch it, but am getting together with a group of adoptees in Jan to watch it together.

Other news: AFAAD is collaborating with AKASF on an adult adoptee group for adoptees of color. Its a multi-session based group that will focus on deepening our group discussions of race, identity, adoption and healing and self care. Please, tell any adult adoptee of color that you know! Have them email me afaadinfo(at) gmail (dot) com .

The 2009 AFAAD Gathering went off without a hitch. You can read all about it over at the AFAAD Blog where there will be photos and video and writing about it posted very soon!

I’m well, trying to finish up this dissertation and also importantly, trying to begin to start writing again and finishing my play about transracial adoption, Ungrateful Daughter. I know a few of you have seen pieces of it already, but its my goal by May 2010 to have it complete and ready to put back up on the stage. hell yeah!

Happy Holidaze!

New Donaldson Institute Study of Korean Adoptees

New Study from the Donaldson Institute is here.

Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity

By RON NIXON
Published: November 8, 2009
New York Times

“As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.

When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.

Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.

“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”

It was not until she was in her 30s that she began to explore her Korean heritage. One night, after going out to celebrate with her husband at the time, she says she broke down and began crying uncontrollably.

“I remember sitting there thinking, where is my mother? Why did she leave me? Why couldn’t she struggle to keep me?” she said. “That was the beginning of my journey to find out who I am.”

The experiences of Ms. Young are common among adopted children from Korea, according to one of the largest studies of transracial adoptions, which is to be released on Monday. The report, which focuses on the first generation of children adopted from South Korea, found that 78 percent of those who responded had considered themselves to be white or had wanted to be white when they were children. Sixty percent indicated their racial identity had become important by the time they were in middle school, and, as adults, nearly 61 percent said they had traveled to Korea both to learn more about the culture and to find their birth parents.

Like Ms. Young most Korean adoptees were raised in predominantly white neighborhoods and saw few, if any, people who looked like them. The report also found that the children were teased and experienced racial discrimination, often from teachers. And only a minority of the respondents said they felt welcomed by members of their own ethnic group.

As a result, many of them have had trouble coming to terms with their racial and ethnic identities.”

READ THE REST HERE

AFAAD Board Members on BlogTalk Radio!

Check out AFAAD board members Connie Galambos Malloy, Lisa D. Walker and ME on Wandaspicks.com blogtalk radio RIGHT NOW!! http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Wandas-Picks

Cambodian Assembly debates adoptions

New law will fill legal void on foreign adoptions and help fight child trafficking.

Friday, 23 October 2009 Meas Sokchea from The Phnom Penh Post

A new draft law, part of which was passed today, will mean tougher regulations for adoptive parents.

THE National Assembly has begun approving a draft law tightening restrictions on the adoption of Cambodian children by foreign parents, responding to fears the previous lack of a regulatory framework allowed for the exploitation and trafficking of children.

“This law is an important part of the Royal Government’s enforcement policy on intercountry adoption and a means of serving children’s interests by finding them good families,” states a declaration appended to the draft law, presented in an Assembly session on Thursday.

Around half of the law’s 58 articles were approved by the parliament with little debate.

Read the Rest Here

My First Frittata

My FIRST frittata!!

without parmesan on top, fresh out the oven. Red potato, mushroom, onion, garlic, red chili, red bell, eggs and rosemary. (salt, pepper, cayenne & thyme)

with parmesan on top. yum.