Laptop Grants for At Risk Youth
This program provides free refurbished laptops to selected college bound foster care youth and other youth under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court system. This program is a partnership between City Youth Now www.cityyouthnow.org, Redemtech www.redemtech.com, TechConnect Digital Inclusion Initiative www.sfgov.org/digital_inclusion and Independent Living Skills Program www.sfhsa.org . This program is made possible through a generous grant from the John Burton Foundation and contributions from Microsoft Corporation.

City Youth Now is currently accepting grant applications through mid-August and will make approximately 50 grants. Applications must be submitted on behalf of the youth by a social worker, probation officer, CASA, attorney, or other adult authorized by the Juvenile Court to provide services to youth. City Youth Now is selecting the recipients with input from the Independent Living Services Program and Juvenile Justice. CYN does NOT accept requests directly from youth or their caregivers.

The youth will be required to attend a full day computer training workshop to receive their laptop.

For more information about the program, visit: http://www.cityyouthnow.org/laptop_computers.php

For the application form and eligibility requirements, visit http://www.cityyouthnow.org/forms.php

Thank you,
Emy Tseng

Project Director, Digital Inclusion Programs
Department of Telecommunications and Information Services
City and County of San Francisco
Emy.Tseng@sfgov.org
http://www.sfgov.org/digital_inclusion
415-581-4064

Whew! Summers here - grades are done. I’m in full writing mode for my dissertation. Things are moving forward here at A Birth Project. Just wanna check in on my bi-monthly update. Just a note, these bi-monthlys will only be happening while I’m trying to finish my writing. Then its back FULL steam ahead!

Here’s some updates.

Good article yesterday in the NYT’s. De-emphasis on Race in Adoption is Criticized.

Great quotes by Shannon and JaeRan. Whoo hoo!

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I just finished watching an amazing film, The Official Story (La Historia oficia) . Its a film from 1985 directed by Luis Puenzo. This film totally caught me off guard by the intricate ways the filmmaker brought the politics of Argentina’s military dictatorship of the 1970s to the forefront and focused on how children are always the one’s who pay for the crimes of war. I found this film SO connected to the ways in which I think the U.S. continues to wage war on its communities of color and then removes their children from them calling it in ‘the best interest of the child.’ There were so many amazing scenes about denial of family, secrecy and lies in adoption and how the labor of poor women’s bodies continues to be used to fulfill the monied populations desires. In other words, how rich folks get to take poor folks children in that same overused paternalistic way that has happened in all colonialist histories. netflix this people!

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I’m also in the process of developing a 6 week young black TRA men’s support group. I’m so tired of watching these young men reach adolescence and suddenly they become the site of all their parents fears. They are tall, black, becoming sexual, becoming young men, negotiating race and identity - and parents are now, suddenly afraid - are now concerned about ‘control’ and violence. Im gagging. I cant take it. So im developing a program for support. Any ideas or funding places?

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I’m presenting June 13th at the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in LA. If you are in the area, or know people in the area - please pass the info on! My presentation will focus on mixed-race organizations and the ways in which transracial adoptees have been embraced by these organizations. Its a good thing, but my presentation pushes us to critique the places where TRA’s issues diverge in very real and important ways from mixed race identity and argues that there are many moments where adoption issues change the way a mixed race identity is experienced. Come say hi!

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Of course the planning for the first ever AFAAD mini-gathering in Oakland the weekend of November 7-9, 2008 continues with a vengence! WooHoo! Please pass the word and contact me for details!

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Oh Lord - 90210 has returned… and has a black character. Um - a black ADOPTEE character. I’m already prepared for the worst storylines ever. (Sorry Tristan, Im not hatin on you, Im hatin on the show) The cracked out black mother or father coming out of the woodworks to soil a perfect white landscape, the inevitable search for roots or black identity that ends in destruction. What im most irritated by is the desire to have a black character that will of course, equate diversity, but the total unwillingness to have a black FAMILY. are you fucking kidding me? Talk about erasure hidden in liberal discourse. (vomit sounds here). I’ll be watching 90210. Be Careful.

One of the 50 zillion projects i have is working part time at Pact, an adoption alliance in Oakland, CA. I’m working as the Adoption Education Specialist, developing new and revising old adoption training and educational courses for professionals and pre & post adoptive parents. Its a complicated thing working at an adoption agency, particularly one that does any transracial adoptions, even if about 70% of the adoptions we do are same-race adoptions for children of color. Even with this statistic, most of the life-long educational support work we do is for white adoptive parents.

We’ve recently partnered with OFC (Our Family Coalition) in San Francisco and IPride/Fusion to develop a new training/ support group for queer adoptive parents focusing on transracial adoptions called Colors of our Families.

I just wanted to let you all know, its starting soon, pass this info on to folks in your community!!

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Colors of Our Families

A six-session peer support group for parents to talk about issues and strategies relevant to race, ethnicity, culture, adoption and parenting.

* Free Childcare will be provided by KidSpace of the SF LGBT Center.
* The Spring 2008 group is for parents of children between the ages of 0 to 5. For families with older children please let us know of your interest as we hope to offer future groups for other age ranges.

Dates
Saturdays 2-4 pm - May 3rd, 17th, 31st, June 14th, 28th and July 12th

Where
San Francisco LGBT Community Center
1800 Market Street, San Francisco 94102

Cost
The cost for 6 sessions is a suggested sliding scale of $90-$120 ($15-$20 per session).
No one turned away for lack of funds.

Questions or Interest in Future Groups
Please contact Martha Rynberg, group facilitator for questions specific to the group.

(i dont know why the freakin formatting on this isnt working!!)

proof of my christianity

comes snapped in two weathered polaroids

draped in my new crisp robe

waist immersed in lake water waves

a black as sin before shot a washed as white as snow

after shock

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a gold stamped certificate of baptism

calligraphy signed by the pastor

etched with Christ’s outstretched arms

calling “come unto me”

to all the little children of the world

red and yellow black and white

they are precious in his sight

and as long as I memorize my bible verses

recite on Sunday after services

I can claim both for my pass at the holy gates

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shamefaced at my rushed memorization

a virgin mary with hot cheeks

and furious forehead wrinkles

I stare past the teachers sanctified grimace

beg god to let me remember so my squirming will stop

and simultaneously curse him

for having 2^nd John write so many words down

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I will never make it past the pearly door

unless I have my papers cause

hidden in the folds of my black girl memory

are consecrated christian children who refuse

to touch me during playtime devout in their service of god

they rebuke satan’s hold over my black skin

converge on me with whiteness, with righteous love

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so St Peter at the entry to heaven

might catch fire burning out my eyes

may hear whispers of celestial vengeance unspoken

might note forgiveness nowhere in my heart

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but I got proof

I got papers

and we all know the documentation counts

and the spook at the door*

just needs an in

to start wreckin shop.

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* ”The Spook That Sat by the Door” is a 1973 film based on the book by Sam Greenlee about a Black CIA agent named Dan Freeman who after training in guerrilla warfare, clandestine operations and unarmed combat, uses what the CIA has taught him to train a street gang to utilize the tactics in an upcoming fictitious race war.

An update on the Chadian children from last October in that Zoe’s Ark debaucle.

  “Kidnapped Chadian kids reunited with their families”

ADRE, Chad (CNN) — Nearly 100 children at the center of an international scandal that left them stranded at an orphanage in remote eastern Chad returned home after nearly five months Friday, and were being reunited with their families.

Some of the children who were nearly abducted by a French charity, pictured in Abeche in November 2007.

 It was a six-hour bus ride from Abeche, in eastern Chad, to Adre, on the border with Sudan, where mothers and fathers gathered at the post office waiting for their children.

 During the ride, the bus broke down when its radiator burst.

 Those accompanying the children were concerned about rebels causing trouble along the way, but that concern turned out to be unfounded.

 The 97 children were taken from their homes in October by a then-obscure French charity, L’Arche de Zoe (Zoe’s Ark), which claimed they were orphans from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.

Read the Rest here. 

(in my best beavis n butthead voice…”CNN said kidnapped.. heheheheh”)

Check this brief article in the SF Chronicle examining the confusion between adoption and abduction.

 

How child traffickers are exploiting the poor and unsuspecting

Adoption reforms too late to reunite Kenyan mom, son

Katharine Houreld, Associated Press

(03-02) 04:00 PST Mombasa, Kenya –

The offer of a foreign education for her beloved youngest son seemed like a dream come true for Elizabeth Rioba. But the Kenyan mother says a family member tricked her into signing adoption papers, and now it’s been five years since she’s seen her boy.

The Polish couple that adopted 4-year-old Abednego and renamed him Mikolaj says the procedure was fully legal, took six months and involved Polish diplomats who spoke with the birth parents. Rioba acknowledges she signed papers, but says she did not understand them.

Child protection experts say such tragic misunderstandings are common in a part of the world where adoption is a foreign concept. Criminals can exploit the gap between wealthy Westerners who genuinely want to help and poor Africans who want to do the best they can for their children. 

Read the rest here. 

AFAAD got some prop’s in the SF Chronicle this week! yay!  Reyhan Harmanci writes an alternative reading of the film Juno in her article, “Some not smiling over Juno’s sarcasm on China”.

San Rafael real estate agent Lo Mei Seh was shocked when she saw a theatrical trailer for the hit movie “Juno” in December. In one scene, the title character sarcastically tells the rich suburban couple hoping to adopt her unborn child, “You shoulda gone to China. You know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those T-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.”

[Hear readers' opinions on the "iPod scene."]

Seh, the mother of two adopted Chinese girls, noticed a young Asian girl sitting behind her getting noticeably upset and muttering, “That’s so mean and unfair.”

“I calmed myself down, saying these things are just going to happen, and as a parent I have to teach my children to be strong,” she says. But after that particular scene was shown on televised award shows like the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards, she became angry all over again.

Read the full article here.

 Quick update on the French “aid workers” who were caught last October trafficking children back to France and London to “host families” for 3K each. According to the Associated Press, 6 of the offenders were sentenced to 8 years in prison. Im glad about it - even if i argue they should have gotten life sentences, because thats the sentences the children would have had dammit - or at least 35 years - heh!   Read the full story here.

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and in other child trafficking news…  

MAPUTO (AFP) — The United Nations expressed concern about child trafficking in Mozambique on Thursday after police intercepted a lorry carrying 39 children near the border with Zimbabwe.

Police in Mozambique stopped the lorry carrying the children on Monday as they were about to be smuggled across the border, the interior ministry announced Wednesday.

“This incident calls attention to the serious problem of child trafficking and the urgent need for the adoption of legal instruments to enforce the protection of children against abuse and exploitation,” said the UN resident coordinator in Mozambique, Ndolamb Ngokwey, in a statement.   Not much detail, but the rest here. 

and in other news:

I changed my dissertation topic to transracial / international adoption and child trafficking. WOOO-SAH!

I’m still here readers! Ive just been caught up in ‘catching up’. I had a wonderful holiday. Visited the fam up in WA state, did some research on the birth father search, watch a lot of movies I hadnt seen and read a few books I’d been wanting to read. I’m currently finishing the cleaning up of my office after the end of the semester grading frenzy, trying to get it together before teaching begins again.

2008 is gonna be so full of work, fun and of course, more TRA love! I’m excited about all of the projects I’ve got goin - the planning of the first AFAAD mini-gathering, the research and writing on my first academic publication on adoption and human trafficking, more poetry publications, applications for artist residencies, trying to finish my play and of course -  most importantly finishing my dissertation.

I’ve been so thankful to have done this work in adoption for the past years. But my success at it has come at the expense of finishing my PhD. Ive got to get done.

soooooooooo . . .I promise I’ll be around and that ABP is going nowhere. I’m just in hiding for a bit, re-prioritizing and reshaping my writing time to put my diss first.

I promise I wanna talk about Juno!

Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora - AFAAD dinner.

Its time for another AFAAD Bay Area dinner! If you are an adult adoptee or foster alum from the Diaspora, we hope you will join us!  We had such a great time last time, this time we plan to chill a bit, then eat dinner and make a night of it! So, even if its just about getting together and being in one another’s space, I hope you roll through. For many of us - it will be the FIRST time we’ve been in a room with this many other black adoptees. Wow.

Please bring other adoptees and foster alum that you know!!

DINNER and Drink Details –

Friday December 7th
Drinks 7-8pm
Dinner and Chillin 8 - on
Oakland, CA (Restaurant Details to be announced over our email list)

PLEASE RSVP!!

To join AFAAD email list:
groups.yahoo.com/group/afaad