318 Diego Vitelli, LMFT

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/318

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today I'm joined by Diego Vitelli, a Colombian adoptee and adoptee focus therapist. Diego shares his own adoption story with us, including what it's looked like for him to have been assigned an artificial date of birth.

We also talk about the accuracy of using terms like reunion. Or adoption trauma. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at adopteeson.com/newsletter. And if you do you will stay [00:01:00] up to date on all my adoptee related work. Diego and I wrap up the show with some recommended resources for you. And as always, links to everything we talk about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Diego Vitelli. Welcome, Diego.

Diego Vitelli: Thank you, Haley. So exciting to be here with you.

Haley Radke: I'm surprised it's taken me so long to get to you because we have lots of mutual connections. I see you in adoptee land doing all kinds of things, but first, would you mind starting and sharing some of your story with us?

Diego Vitelli: Yeah, absolutely. And just to even start at the beginning of like, why it's taken so long to get here which I've been thinking about this for a long time. I first came across your podcast Adoptees On when it was five to seven episodes in.

Haley Radke: [00:02:00] Seriously.

Diego Vitelli: And yes. And at the time I listened, obviously to the first five episodes and I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is, I don't even know how somebody is doing this. I, it was just something I really connected with and people's stories. And I of course kept listening and was listening for many years, and I have the propensity of when I find a new podcast, I have to start from the very beginning.

So I was very thankful to not be. Coming upon your podcast, a hundred, 200, 300, 500 episodes into it. But I did fall behind because I went off into getting my master's degree, which we'll talk about at some point. And so I got really behind by a couple years because I was deep into that. But I was committed to getting back into listening and even back then I was like, I really wanna be on this podcast, but I didn't feel like I was worthy ready, whatever the situation was at the time. [00:03:00] I said, I'll do this down the road. And then it became I'm not gonna be on the podcast if that opportunity comes until I've listened to all the episodes. So I spent many years catching up and I finally did catch up last November, which was odd timing that you reached out then to have me be here. So it's just really a cool thing at the end of the day that.

Haley Radke: I had no idea. I had no idea. And I was tracking you like you were. I have lists. Okay. Not to be creepy, it's just a thing, that's what podcast producers do. And so when it was time for our next round of invites, you were on the list. Wow. I had no idea. You listened from the beginning.

Diego Vitelli: Everyone,

Haley Radke: You know it's ten years year.

Diego Vitelli: It's unbelievable. I was thinking about this morning. I'm like, is it 9 10, 7? I can't remember. But yeah.

Haley Radke: On July 1st, 2026 will be my 10th anniversary birthday of the show.

Diego Vitelli: [00:04:00] Advance congratulations to you.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

Diego Vitelli: I know I've listened to a lot of those milestone podcasts and I can't even imagine what 10 years is gonna be like for you.

Haley Radke: Yeah, no, I'll start thinking of it right now. What's actually gonna be amazing. Okay, so I know you are actually coming to us we're recording while you're in Colombia, so those are your origins. You wanna share a little bit about that?

Diego Vitelli: Yes, sure. My origin story I've thought about this too, is like how many different ways have I shared this over the years in different platforms and spaces and whatever. And it really just the always been the basic elevator speech that I've had.

I was born here in Colombia in Medellín. My story, so to speak, is that I was supposedly found underneath a bridge in Medellín, and I was anywhere from 18 to 24 months old at that point in time, and taken into state custody by, through Colombian Child Protective Services. I went to a local hospital at that time, was [00:05:00] diagnosed with third degree malnutrition and was in their care for the next 18 to 24 months before I was adopted by a family out of Boston, an Irish Italian family, and I was four to five-ish years old.

And I always say. I was four to five ish, and I say today I am 50 ish years old because I don't know my actual birthday. I was given a birthday by the Colombian government of 1/1/76. And when I got to Boston within that first year, my parents were the first to petition the Massachusetts government to change my birthdate, and I was the first person to have that done and they changed my birthday from 1/1/76 to 7/10/75, which is what I quote unquote celebrated for the next. Since I've been there. And it's, that's a, that's another area to talk about birthdays and [00:06:00] trickiness and who knows their birthdays and who doesn't, and so on and so forth.

But anyways, I grew up in a prototypical kind of way in this family. I came with language, as I say, when I was four or five years old. And within nine months I had it eradicated. And I just grew up being in a, in this family and connected to 'em, and I grew up thinking I was Italian.

I, in many senses, people talk about like, how do you fit into your families? And in many senses, I guess I, that Italian ness blended in, and I never even thought about myself being Latino. There was markers and knowing in some ways, but I just lost it. That connection to it because it wasn't centered.

Or if it was always, usually through microaggressions and, racist remarks about Latinos. And I seem to have that lens thrown on me at certain points in time. So it was, yeah, I just it was [00:07:00] very disconnected to to my experience and grew up, just as I think a lot of us do trying to blend in and fit into our worlds.

And then I went out to Seattle to do my undergrad studies at Seattle University and ended up staying out there and had been there basically 32 years at this point in time. So Seattle's home Boston has a lot of roots for me, but it wasn't until I had gotten married and did the prototypical thing, marriage white picket fence, two kids, all that kind of stuff.

And I was, I found myself, just at moments connecting to my adoptee identity, but not really connecting to it. And it was a very long process for me to really come into that awareness. I did get divorced, and went through that process eventually repartnered with somebody else and was with them for 14 and a half years.

And it was through that relationship that I began to really open [00:08:00] up and peel back some of the layers of adoption and my adoptee identity. So that happened when I was basically around 35 years old. It started prior to that, but that's when it really came into focus and it really showed up and, the relationship part of that was the hard struggle.

And I, connected to the adoptee identity. I was also trying to connect with my bisexual identity. So there was sexuality identity that was coming into play at that point in time. And then obviously my cultural identity, that was also very complicated. And because I had. Been disconnected from it. So that's where things landed in the fast forward lane of coming into my own adoptee identity.

Haley Radke: Can I ask you about the relationship strain of it? What was it about you looking into, oh, adoption had a bigger impact than maybe I had thought that caused a strain [00:09:00] with your partner.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. I think, you know what the bigger center focus of it was that my ex-partner was also an adoptive mom to a daughter that was adopted from India. And my partner was half Indian and half Latvian. So bicultural herself and was raising this daughter, and it came into focus because of that and this understanding of oh, we have this thing that's happening. And she was young at the time and I was coming into my identity and there was a lot of, I think just this clashing of my own identity, how I was coming into it and what I was feeling was happening with her daughter at the same time.

And how do we bring awareness to people. To people at very different ages. And so I think that was a part of that, was the strain of that and myself, and not having done my own [00:10:00] work entirely at that point in time. To fully understand myself and trust in her and what she was doing as a parent in parenting, and also being very protective of an adoptee, a fellow adoptee as I was coming into my own awareness.

So I think it was just that, and I hadn't done the work and it obviously not only impacted this relationship, but it impacted my marriage and that individual as well. And I fully, really had to reconcile a lot of that through my process.

Haley Radke: Oh wow. Thank you for sharing that. Are you, I don't know. So you're coming into awareness and then are you like looking for outside supports? What were some of the things that you did to look further into this.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. It, I, and part of this is going back for me, when it really first started for me was when I was a freshman in high school.

And there was a moment a story that I tell [00:11:00] when I came out of a class. I think I was in English class at the time and I was walking down the hall and I had a very visceral reaction in my body of something happening, and I just could not understand what happened. It was knee buckling. Kind of experience. And I was a relatively healthy individual, just out of the blue. And all I could remember is as I was leaning against lockers is thinking, wow, like I feel like maybe my biological mother died is the only thing I could come to in that moment in time. And this is me not being connected to my adoptee identity other than knowing that I was adopted and all that kind of stuff.

And so I held that to myself for the rest of the day and did not know how to process it, did not know what to do with it. And I went home and I, it's, I don't know if it was that day or maybe at some point in time, but I had said to my adoptive mother, I think I really wanna try and find my biological family.

And at that [00:12:00] time what I heard back was, why would you wanna do that? What about us? What about everything we've given you? And so on and so forth. It's a very, that's a very shortened version of the conversation, but a lot of us know what that, that conversation is, and it was my introduction to the whole kind of grateful narrative.

And so I shut everything down as a result of that and really packed everything away. And then I had a very, the pull that we have as adoptees of wanting to search this. And of course this is me at 15 with a heavy identity development process and time. And so I, like I said, packed it away.

I had another experience of that later in college. Revisited the conversation again with my adoptive mother at the time and got very similar kind of response. And so it just became, again, something that was not okay to talk about and to explore . And that's, I think what contributed to a lot of, that part of me being buried.

And then it happened again when I had my [00:13:00] son or my ex-wife and I had our son. And we know when, those of us that do choose to have kids and move into that space usually has some sort of impact on our, adoptee identity as it did for me. And it opened that up and I again, approached it with her and had similar kind of language, but at the same time, she was more willing to start giving me information.

And the one thing I will always credit her for is that she kept everything, all the documents of everything that went through my adoption process. And I didn't have a lot, but I had all this paperwork, so I got that file and that was the beginning of me opening up and exploring, what that was like.

Yeah, it's just a it's a long process, but that was the beginning of how I started to now search and look into groups. And back in the day, I found a Yahoo Chat group of Colombian adoptees. And that was my first [00:14:00] introduction to it. And I opened up this chat and I started reading posts and I was just like, oh my goodness, what is all this?

And I was reading a lot of really painful things that adoptees were sharing and I couldn't connect to it, and I was like overwhelmed by it. And so I just filtered everything into a folder so I wouldn't have it in my inbox. And I said, oh, I'll read that later and check it out. And never did, of course. But then years later, I was in that same feeling of pull and wanted to connect and so I Facebook had come out at that point in time.

Looked for Colombian adoptees, found the Facebook group, and then I did the same thing. And I felt like nothing had changed with the community of who these people were. And of course, because I had blocked it off myself, it was too overwhelming. So I lurked for a number of years in that. And then it was one day that an individual, a male, and I, it's really important for me to identify that it was a male that had written a post and said, [00:15:00] Hey whoever you are, wherever you are in your journey, your, you know your story and if you feel hesitant to post here for whatever reasons, like it was very validating and also very welcome and said, please share your story. You deserve to have it shared, or something to that effect. And that was the beginning.

And I sat on that for maybe an hour or two and got enough of the gumption up for myself to make my first post in that group, and then I was off and running at that point in time. So I always credit Michael for being that individual that really launched me into it.

Haley Radke: Incredible. And so fast forward now you're an adoptee who is also a therapist. And one of the observations that you've made is this piece about generationally how our parents raised us, however, whatever decade we were adopted in, [00:16:00] and the safety in with which to have conversations or not. So you got the outright verbal, why would you wanna look for her? You have us and I got the, I was an eighties baby. I got the, of course we support you, but the face and the actions, none of those lined up. And so can you talk to us a little bit about that and your observations in that area?

Diego Vitelli: Yeah, that's two different experiences and yet very familiar experiences for many adoptees and I, yes I'm more of the older generation, so to speak. I came out of Colombia in 1979. And I, I think, the hard part that I have experienced is that our generation was raised with this expectation that we're just gonna be brought into families and [00:17:00] blended in and assimilation was the name of the game.

And so parents were not equipped to understand really what was happening at all in that situation. And you think about a generation before us, it was even more that, and I've been in spaces with older adoptees that it was really, they really struggle with trying to be coming into their adoptee identity now, even at this age because of the conditioning that was there for so many years.

And, when it comes to adoptees and getting to the point of wanting to explore their identity. There's a lot of work that's being done for years before we ever get to even naming it. I think that's an important part to remember in that, that when an adoptee finally gets the courage to actually come forward and say to their adoptive parents this is something I want to do.

This isn't the first time they've thought about it. They've been thinking about it for a long time, and they've been reading the room for a long time. [00:18:00] They have enough data in their mind, so to speak, to say, is this safe enough? Can I do this? And maybe even in some of those situations, they still know that it's not necessarily safe, but they feel overcome by the need to do it.

And maybe that comes from being in spaces. Maybe it's come from being online, searching and doing things, in their background by themselves. Like it's coming from some depth that says, okay, I cannot do this anymore. And I think this is very true. Of identity work and I, and this is an identity piece that we're talking about as adoptees, but I also use this in comparison with LGBTQ identities or in racial identities.

If you haven't been connected to your race, like it takes time for you to figure out, can I come forward? Figure somebody that's trying to come out, it takes a long time and they've been thinking about it for a long time. It's not [00:19:00] the first time and they've played the tape in their head over and over again. And I think adoptees are very similar in that path.

Haley Radke: I've heard from some people that they feel like the impact of adoptee voices on social media and podcasts and all of those things that we, that are readily accessible now to young people is causing them to come into consciousness much earlier than you or I ever had the chance to be. Is that your observation as well?

Diego Vitelli: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's really important to understand that there, there's a lot of us out there, that adoptees and there's a lot of us that are not at all connected to this. The voices that you and I see, because we're in the spaces a lot. Can very much feel like it's the louder volume of it. What we have to really understand is that it's actually a much smaller subset of [00:20:00] our population that is coming into that consciousness. And I have, I do see that, I see that with clients, even younger clients, this is the first time they've actually really begin to explore and use, recommend pages or, people to follow or resources or whatever.

And it is the first time that they are seeing it, and yet there are a subset of adoptees who are using social media to connect like I did, instead of saying adopt from Colombia Facebook group, there's like adoption and you can put that into Instagram or Snapchat or whatever, and you can get a whole ton of different things. So they are getting exposed to that more. And I think that, yeah, there's a larger group of that and I also don't think it's as big as we would like to think it is.

Haley Radke: No, certainly not. And I'm so grateful for the young people who are sharing their experiences and connecting with their [00:21:00] peers and like making it okay to do I think some of them probably have adoptive parents who took the right training and were a little more open than perhaps your adoptive parents were or mine. But again, I think that's a really small percentage.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Let's go back to this. Sorry I heard from another adoptee that she calls it her birth zone because it's it's a week or two off. She's not really sure on a date, but she, it was like she was so young that it was much more clear. And when you said you were found between 18 months and 24 months, like that's a wide window. Can you talk about your. Adoptive parents choosing to change your birthday. Have you ever thought about changing your birthday? That is wild to me.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. That part of the journey I [00:22:00] didn't do, I think it was, it began that about seven or eight years ago of really reconciling the fact that this birthday was just not mine. And I struggled for with it before that. The really ironic part of it all is that my daughter is actually born on July 10th. And so when she was born, she's now 19, but when she was born, initially I was still, not in my consciousness. And so it was a really amazing kind of cool experience to say, wow, your daughter's on your same day and this and that. And we had fun celebrating those birthdays for many of those early years.

Haley Radke: Did you, and then as I did, your adoptive parents chose that day for you? Like when did you know that day was specifically chosen?

Diego Vitelli: I don't know the specific date that I came into it. I just known that was something that had happened. I did get the story, full story of it, I think about eight, nine years ago from my adoptive [00:23:00] father.

Haley Radke: So you had many birthdays with your daughter shared on the, on July 10th.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Diego Vitelli: Yes. And as I came into, like I said, as I came into my own consciousness and as many of us do with birthdays, the complexities that show up there is that I just started not really enjoying the lead up to that day, and I would, I was having seasons.

My season would start around Mother's Day. And it would carry through June into Father's Day. And then, because my birthday was basically a couple weeks later, it would carry through until my birthday. And it was really rough. My, ex-partner would tell you all the time, like almost every single year I was in some sense, sabotaging this whole period window. And her birthday happened to be in the, towards the end of May, so she was a part of that experience too. And so I just was really struggling with it for so long. [00:24:00] And the part of us that, those of us who don't have our known birthdays, we're a small subset of people out there, but those of us that don't, and I'm not gonna hear to speak for everybody else, but it is incredibly complicated and hard.

And when you are around people that know their birthdays, that's a huge privilege that they have. And they don't understand that. And it's always hard to. I don't wanna be that person like, I don't know my birthday. But it is, it's a fact. And it's not something that just can be overlooked. And yet when you say it and mention it, people are they don't know what to do with that.

And it's understandable, right? Because they don't have that experience to know what it's like. And it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for me because I lost a lot of connection to my daughter throughout those years. And we have, struggled for many of her years through high school.

And a lot of that is because of my own process and my [00:25:00] experience of trying to figure this out and not having the right language or the right way to approach all this stuff and they're a product of it. We know this. You have kids. I know that. And those of us that do. If we haven't come into our consciousness before we have our kids, they're the ones actually having to carry the burdens of our trauma as well through that, and how do we help them as we're trying to help ourselves. It's really challenging.

Haley Radke: This is a very light version of this. I don't know what time I was born. I have a time, but I don't know if it was AM or PM and I have a Christmas ornament. You know where you like, that's your name and your birthday, whatever, and it had the time on it, but it's wrong. I knew that it's wrong, but I don't remember if it's AM or PM. And so I just had a friend ask me, oh, I want to do your I think it's called human design. I'm not sure this is what's coming to mind, but I might be incorrect. Do you, what's, what time are you born? You [00:26:00] like, need all these things. And so I was like, oh, I'm not sure. And she said, oh, I'll split the difference.

And in my head I'm like that's not accurate. And so how is it for you participating in these. Not being able to participate in these common cultural, is what's your horoscope or what, which year. Like all of those kind of thing. Yeah, it's insignificant, but it's a part of how we connect with other people. What's your sign, Diego?

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that question because that was on my mind too, is I thought you were going for astrological sign. Type of kind of identification because they often will ask you like, what day were you born? What time were you born? And it tells you how, I don't even know the language. That's how disconnected I am with,

Haley Radke: which planet and whatever is lined up. Yeah. Yes. I don't know. I'm not sure

Diego Vitelli: Jupiter coming into Mars and all this kind stuff. I have no idea. Can't even fathom it. And it's been hard yeah, because it is a that's a little cultural context that of the people get to bond and connect with about themselves and [00:27:00] figure those things out. And I, yeah it, at times it's like sandpaper to me. It just really rubs me really the wrong way. And at times I'm also curious because naturally we're curious like what would be my day. And I I had I know a tarot card reading many years ago, and I've done this a couple times and I'm very guarded with how much information I give because I think in many senses people can just take a little bit and can really run with something.

And I don't want that. It's not the. It's not the way to really know it, and it feels inauthentic to me, especially somebody that doesn't know their origins. But that in that one tarot card readings the individual kind of narrowed down, seemed to narrow down that they knew my birthday might be 11 two or two 11, like it was like going back and forth.

I'm like. Okay, if I ever do have the fortune of figuring out my actual [00:28:00] birthday, and if it lands on 11 two, then we will have a massive party. We're gonna have a massive party anyways. But that would be unbelievable if that is where it landed.

Haley Radke: Yeah,

Diego Vitelli: and people have told me, no, you're not. I think what is it? Is it? Scorpio or something like that for November. This is how bad I am.

Haley Radke: I don't know.

Diego Vitelli: Then no, you're not that. And then somebody and somebody, I'll say I'm a July 10th. Oh, you're a cancer. And I'm like, I don't know. Am I?

Haley Radke: I know you mentioned like it's pretty unusual to have this gap, but I appreciate you talking about it because I think it lends itself to understanding a little bit more about what adoptees experience, where we're like, we don't know who looks like us and like it's just like this, on shifting sand instead of like on rock and it's, that's just one other layer of your experience that I think can be extrapolated [00:29:00] to the rest of what it feels like to be adopted.

Diego Vitelli: Yes, absolutely.

Haley Radke: Can you talk to me about your feelings about the word reunion, and I've heard you talk about this before and listened to a couple of the podcast episodes you've been a guest on. We can link to those in the show notes for folks. And I was like, oh man, Diego's on to something. We gotta talk about this us.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. Thank you. This is something I am pretty passionate about. It's the one thing I've, I don't know, I don't know why I've latched on it. I think I'm one of the few that maybe speaks about it in this way. Or I don't know that I've heard of somebody else, but anyways, I, yeah. When it comes to the idea of language we are accustomed to hearing, when we decide we want to search for biological families, that the common language is search and reunion.

We're gonna go through the search and reunion process and [00:30:00] experience, and so on and so forth. And I, started thinking about that as from a clinical standpoint of working with clients and how hard that is for adoptees who go through that process, encounter the biological families. And then have in some senses, for lack of better words unsuccessful reunions or reunions that are short-lived, that it doesn't, you can't qualify that as a reunion to me, because it doesn't the, there's nothing intact to make that.

So I just really was playing this with this mentally at some point, and I was like, we've got to change that language. And I came to that conclusion of like, why can't we call it search and contact and let's start there. Let that be a starting point. And what will that do for an adoptee that's going through that process?

It can take a lot of weight off [00:31:00] of our shoulders as we're going through that. And because if we hear reunion, we expect that we're gonna have to, it's gotta be successful. That's the only outcome. And so if it's not that, then what happens to the adoptee? Like that from a mental health perspective is really hard and, can lead to really challenging experiences for many years afterwards.

If it's not, if it doesn't turn out the way you know that they hoped. So I was in that position wanting to help unburden that process for an adoptee and if we can, as an industry that gives us the language, has given us the language and told us what we should be, the words we should be using, and I, we've been in this space for a long time. We're adoptees that are trying to get our voices to be heard and for us to lead in that language. And so this is just one of those areas that I think we could really make a shift and help adoptees that are going through that process, not carry that [00:32:00] weight and see what happens with contact and work through that process and see where it goes.

Haley Radke: I also, I remember a long time ago thinking about the word reunion and then it's like, what do I call what I am in now? Is it reunification? Has it, are you fully back in? And so that, I agree like that language matters. I love that idea of contact because like frankly, some of us search and we just wanna know medical info and we're not expecting a reunion. Like contact with information provided back to us would be great. And that's all some people want. Sometimes that shifts.

Diego Vitelli: Absolutely. Yeah. And the adoptee needs to be given that space to to control their own narrative. And we'll talk about this later in terms of the resource that I wanna recommend and why it's so important, why that resource is to me, is so important because it gives language, again, really important language to the adoptee [00:33:00] to have more control in their process because a lot of it is put upon them to manage through everything that's there. They're having to manage themselves. They're having to manage what they're going to encounter, they're having to manage their adoptive family. That is a lot of stuff to, for an individual to have to carry and figure out. And just have their own experience through it, right?

Haley Radke: You hit your mid thirties and you have to start thinking about adoption and you have to, it impacts your relationship and all the things,

Diego Vitelli: just a few things.

Haley Radke: It's just on us, just a few things. The other thing it also comes down to a bit of language I think, that you wanted to talk about today was this idea of like adoption trauma and separation trauma and those things. And I think they're two different things. You talk about what [00:34:00] your beliefs are and let's go back and forth on this.

Diego Vitelli: Sure. Absolutely. Again, because we come into anything that we know about adoption comes from how the language is centered around us, which is usually by non-op people.

And you'll hear, and I certainly hear often, the adoptee has to go into counseling, into therapy. And more and more adoptees are doing it at younger ages. And it's yeah, have them go in to therapy because they have adoption trauma. And a lot of the books the professionals that use this language of adoption trauma.

And I started thinking about that again and I was like, that doesn't seem and feel really accurate at the end of the day of what's really happening for the adoptee. So to me, what I felt was a big miss is that the industry and professionals were not talking about where the [00:35:00] core issue was. Where everything really begins.

And it, to me, it begins at separation trauma. At that separation that the trauma is induced through that experience. And for an adoptee that for our community, can range for anybody. It can be from minutes to hours to days, to years, like somebody like myself, right? And what's happening in between, through all that.

And what happens after that. But if we don't acknowledge that beginning and we jump to, oh, it's because he was adopted or really that, that to me is pathologizing the adoption part of it. Now, it's not to say that adoptees that have been adopted have, we know there's plenty of adoptees that have been adopted into adoptive families that have been abused in their adoption experience and that has to be honored and, recognized as [00:36:00] additional trauma, but it's an additional trauma. I shouldn't say, but, and it's an additional trauma. And if we're only focusing on that, or if we're only focusing on selective pieces, then we're missing that and an adoptee can do a lot of work through years and thinking, okay I was really abused by my adopters and went through this whole process, and I worked through all of that, but yet I can't seem to get over the hump of something.

To me it's pretty obvious because somebody didn't focus on the separation trauma part of it.

Haley Radke: A hundred percent agree, and that's like the core root is separation trauma and acknowledging adoption trauma with abusive families. I think of adoption trauma, and so there's separation trauma, and we have all these attachment issues and identity, all those things.

I've been thinking of adoption trauma now as the trauma of being put into a [00:37:00] family with strangers and having to pretend that's normal and I belong here and you have to fit in, and that everyone is like pretending like we're all like pretending like this is normal. And so when I think this is weird, I don't fit here, then I think I feel like, and I'm going to use like, I don't mean this in an ableist way, like I feel crazy, like I felt crazy. And so I think that forced integration is also a traumatic event.

Diego Vitelli: Absolutely. I, yeah I agree with that a hundred percent. Because it's the process. For lack of better words it's the gaslighting experience in full force. And you, and when you have some [00:38:00] sort of idea or concept that this doesn't feel right.

And you're being told no, everything's fine. You're the, you're, we love you, you fit in. You're just a one of us. Like all these kind of things.

Haley Radke: And in fact say thank you.

Diego Vitelli: And say thank you for it. Yes. It's so hard. It's and if you don't have the experience, you just don't understand it. But I, and again, I think there's enough other contexts, and this is a part of, for me as a therapist and one that does relationship therapy, that these things show up in other areas. That to me, it doesn't seem like it's a big ask for people to really reflect on what they're doing or what they're placing on top of an adoptee and not think about it some other context that they may be able to somewhat have a little empathy around it and not hold onto this idea that, no, we need to maintain this narrative so that we can feel [00:39:00] good about what we are doing and the choice that we made to go through this process of adoption. And I say not just the adopters in that situation, we're talking about society.

Society wants adoption to be successful because that's what they've pitched.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Diego Vitelli: And so if there's anything that's negative towards that or makes them challenge their thoughts and their original beliefs around that, what are they gonna do? The whole system falls apart.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Diego Vitelli: We know this about other systems.

Haley Radke: And I should say this is how I see that definition, but that's not how people use it. That's not what people mean when they say adoption trauma.

Diego Vitelli: Right? Yes.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Yeah. That is such a good point, okay. We're close to wrapping up, but can you tell us how you came to decide to become a therapist and work specifically within relationships and adoptees and all that, your focus?

Diego Vitelli: Sure. [00:40:00] Absolutely. Where it became clear for me was going back to that adopted from Colombia Facebook group. I spent a lot of time there. I found my community there. I found connections, I found people that I felt like just understood me and, these were spaces where adoptees were pouring out their hearts.

And it was the first kind of experience socially where you could do that and do this with people across, different states in the US but then it became globally across the world and all these kinds of things, and you're just like, what? What is going on here? And I, the thing that I saw in those groups is that how people were responding to people's stories or comments or whatever there was happening, started to become a little problematic.

And you would start to see adoptees, and we know this pretty well in our own spaces. They start going after [00:41:00] the original poster for whatever thought or view that they had and dismissing them or putting, inserting their own story inside the comments. And it just derailing what was there for the original person.

And I started recognizing that and I was always trying to be very conscious of making sure that I was responding to the person that was there and what their experience was. And it might add a little context of my own stuff as I connect with that in some way.

Anyways, I was doing this for a long time and I just was like I feel a pull to help. I want to be a part of this I want to do this on a different level because you can't just do, 140 character kind of response in something and really cover everything. And yet that's oftentimes what was happening in these chats.

And people were just missing each other and they weren't hearing each other. And it's like at the end of [00:42:00] the day, people want to be seen, heard, and validated for their experience. And I had bounced around in a lot of different jobs and industries and just was struggling and for whatever reason or my partner, I, I shouldn't say for whatever reason, my partner and I had been doing a lot of work, personal growth work.

She was phenomenal at doing personal growth work and had been doing it many years before me and had, brought me into that process. And I was starting to do that work myself. She would argue maybe that I wasn't doing enough of it, but I was beginning to do that. And then it just clicked for me.

I was like, this is what I want to do. And I started seeing, of course, other adoptees that were doing, being in these spaces and helping people. And I wasn't one to wanna be on, social media or out there and do all those kinds of things. I just wanted to be a part of it in some way.

And so this was the way that I found my way into doing that.

Haley Radke: Amazing. I heard you're taking clients, which is pretty stellar. We have [00:43:00] such a need for therapists who work with adoptees who get it, and I don't know, I've had so many therapists on the show, and then they all get booked up and there's and people complain to me. I'm sorry, I can't help that. I can't help that. I'm introducing you to amazing people. How can folks work with you if they would like to.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. You can refer them to my website, which is adopteefocusedtherapy.com. And yeah the thing that I'm really passionate about is, and I've obviously listened, like I said, to all your episodes and especially the healing series with fellow adoptee therapists.

And the one thing I noticed is, I don't know, I don't think. I could be called out now that you have had a male therapist.

Haley Radke: That's a good point. Where are they?

Diego Vitelli: And so that became like my passion is to be a male working in this space and [00:44:00] helping other male adoptees. And I think about Michael constantly because he was the one that helped motivate that and so I'm a voice that gets to be out there, a person that hopefully helps other males recognize that it's okay to step forward and talk about this. I was invited to do that. And this is my way, in a sense to pay it forward.

Haley Radke: I love that. Thank you. I believe you're the first. I cannot think God if there is another one. I'm very sorry. You're not coming to mind just now. But I think you're correct. Okay. I would love to hear what you're gonna recommend because in addition to recommending you, I have a different recommendation and so you go first today.

Diego Vitelli: Okay. Sounds good. Yes. My recommendation is In Reunion by Sara Docan-Morgan, and I mentioned, referenced this earlier and I'm really excited to talk about this. I'm really a huge fan of this [00:45:00] book. I read this last year when it first came out, and what it did was, it's just amazing. She is a Korean adoptee. She's writing about the Korean reunion experience, and she has a longitudinal study incorporated into this, and she has her own experience. It's so layered. Incredibly layered, and it's fascinating, absolutely fascinating to have read the book and how she constructed it and pulled it together and all the data that's there from these adoptees that have gone through this experience.

And I think, for me, anybody you know that is thinking about going into search and contact really ought to read this book first. And give themselves the opportunity to really understand some of these complexities. As all, the people that she's references and that share their stories, they're covering so much of the range of the experiences.

And I think we [00:46:00] need to have that, we need to have an understanding that this isn't just a very cut and dry process, and you're gonna go hire an investigator, find your person, your family immediately have a huge party and all these kinds of things. And everything's, rainbows and unicorns.

We know that, you know that, that's not that's not necessarily the case, but we don't understand where some of those hardships land and how they show up, what they show up in and so on and so forth. So this is just a really amazing I think it's a gift to our community.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Diego Vitelli: To, especially for us as international adoptees. We can layer it on as a Colombian adoptee. You can just layer that on for our culture. You can layer it on for any other culture. And for domestic adoptees, I would say the same thing. There's things you can really pull from this experience for the domestic adoptee as well. So just an incredible book.

Haley Radke: Yeah. I don't need to, but I totally second it. I've had Sara on, we talked about it and earlier in our conversation you were alluding to [00:47:00] this thing that Sara's named. So

Diego Vitelli: Yes.

Haley Radke: All of those, what am I trying to say? All of the parts of contact and travel planning and who reaches out first, and all of those burdens that come on us, she's named them the discursive burden that adoptees carry.

And again, having language for that is. So helpful. 'cause it can be like, oh yeah, that's another thing I have to do another. And I really appreciated that part. And I agree. I'm a domestic adoptee. I learned so much from this book. It's excellent. An excellent resource. Good call.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up the discussive burden because that was I wanted to revisit that as that was the thing that really opened things up for me when I read that, and it gave language of just how much weight we actually carry through this process and carry through our entire life as an adoptee. Up until that point, [00:48:00] there's a discursive burden that we carry within our own adoptive families that is there that we don't even know of.

But then when you go through the whole search process. And if you do have the contact, yes. It's on so many other additional layers that come on that, and how do we navigate how we talk about it and who do we talk to and all those kinds of things. Yeah. Read the book. It's amazing.

Haley Radke: The word I was looking for was it's invisible labor, so to have a name for that, it's so good.

Diego Vitelli: Yes.

Haley Radke: Okay, so mine's a little fluffy and I agreed it is. It's about me, and so just take it with a grain of salt. Diego. I started a new podcast with two of my friends and it's called Adoption Pop, and we are recapping TVs and movies and critiquing their adoption takes, and it's really fun and I get to swear on that one. I don't swear here, but if [00:49:00] listeners want a take on our view as adoptees on the consistent gaslighting the media has done to society about what adoption is really like. You can hear our excellent takedowns over at Adoption Pop, and I'm gonna recommend one episode. It's the episode where we rip into the Modern Family Pilot episode, which has every bad take you could imagine it's there. So I'm gonna link that in the show notes, but that's my like fun side gig that I'm doing now.

Diego Vitelli: I love that. And I did, I came across that as well. Because of course you were dropping this in your later episodes a year or so ago. I'm working on this other project. I don't know what, it's coming. I'll let you know. It wasn't this.

Haley Radke: No. This is just a new fun one. I'm still working on my other project that is [00:50:00] not as, I'm interviewing moms who've placed their children within the last five years.

Diego Vitelli: Oh.

Haley Radke: And I'm doing a narrative style audio documentary as a it's gonna be called On Adoption, and we're really talking about the impact adoption has on us as adoptees and on moms who've placed their babies. So Adoption Pop's much lighter than that. Yeah.

Diego Vitelli: Yeah, that sounds much lighter. And we, and I love that you're doing this with your friends because those of us that have been in, in these spaces with adoptees, we're having those podcasts all the time. Like we, we share these stories when we get to be in our community and we feel safe enough to open up and share these things.

I've been in those situations. I'm not a podcaster, so thank you for putting it out there and for giving us something to listen to and laugh and chuckle and roll our eyes about and yeah, and relate to a hundred percent.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Yes, my friend Sullivan Summer, who's a [00:51:00] cultural critic, and my friend Kristal Parke, who is a filmmaker. Because we're friends, I feel like we overshare a little bit too much there so you can have a taste of that. So you can find Adoption Pop, wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, Diego, where can we find you and connect with you to hear more about what you're doing in the future?

Diego Vitelli: If you're interested in working with me, my website, as I mentioned before adoptee focusedtherapy.com, and I am lightly on social media, although, because I am in Colombia here for six months, a little six month stint I'm sharing a bit about my journey there. Not a lot, but here and there different things. And the best place to catch me there is on my Instagram @Diego.Vitelli.

Haley Radke: Amazing. We'll have that linked in the show notes for folks. Thanks so much for being here, Diego, and what a delight to find out you're one of my OG listeners.

Diego Vitelli: Unbelievable. 10 years it's taken, and here we are. This has been really fantastic. I really [00:52:00] appreciate the opportunity to join you and be, on this side of it, and look forward to many more episodes that come from you and future guests.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

It never ceases to amaze and surprise me, the guests that I invite on the show who have been listening for years, and I had no idea. It's just such an honor to be in your ears in that way, and to be in community in that way, and even if I don't know you personally, I'm so thankful you're here listening to our stories.

Like truly, it means so much to me and I wanna thank you all and I said this like off the record to Diego, but I felt sad when someone thinks that they're not like [00:53:00] ready or, have it all together, whatever, to be on this show 'cause this show that anyone, any adopted person can share their show on adoptees on. It's just that I don't have capacity for like absolutely anyone to come on. We opened guest applications earlier I shouldn't say earlier this year, late in 2025. And we had, I think 40 some come in already. There's more coming in on a weekly basis. And we don't choose based on who has the most followers.

We have folks come on that wanna stay private. We have folks who have, do have a book. We have all kinds of folks we wanna share great stories, wisdom. Earned wisdom from anyone who wants to [00:54:00] connect with other adoptees and who feels that they have something to share that would really benefit fellow adoptees to not feel alone.

That's really at the heart of it. So I was thinking of Diego 10 years ago, we would've loved to hear his story and yeah, he personally felt like he wasn't ready. But I never want you to feel like you have to have it all together to come and be a guest on the show. That is certainly not the case, and if that's something you've wanted to do you can apply to be on the show. We are only able to take a limited number of people just because of the number of episodes we put out. And so if you go to adopteeson.com/application, we are still taking guest applications at this time for 2026 and 2027. So yeah. Shoot your shot. What have you got to lose?

We'd love to hear from you and [00:55:00] a big thank you sincerely to all the folks who've been brave enough to come on the show and tell their stories publicly as a service to our community here. Thank you so much for listening, friends, and remember, you can sign up for my newsletter, adopteeson.com/newsletter, and I would love to keep you up to date on what I'm doing.

Thanks for listening. Let's talk again soon.

317 Kailee Pedersen

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/317

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast for adoptees, discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is the multifaceted Kailee Pedersen, from software engineer to opera singer to novelist Kailee shares about being adopted from China, growing up in Nebraska, navigating racial isolation and the complexities of searching for family across borders and systems.

We also talk about her debut, Gothic horror novel Sacrificial Animals, how Family, legacy and Intergenerational Trauma show up on the page and her upcoming novel, the Minimalist, which [00:01:00] features adoptee characters. There is one brief mention of suicide in our conversation, so take care when listening. And before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adoptees on.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.

We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, everything we'll be talking about today will be on the website, adopteeon.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Kailee Pedersen. Welcome, Kailee.

Kailee Pedersen: Hi Haley. Thank you so much for having me. I've been really excited for this conversation.

Haley Radke: I am so stoked. I don't think you know this about me, Kailee, but I'm a bit of a horror nut, and so I am eager to talk about your book. But first, would you please share with us a bit of your story?

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, [00:02:00] so in brief, I was adopted from Nanjing, China at the age of 1-year-old in 1996. And I grew up in a smattering of different states, but I would mostly say I am a Nebraskan. That's where my family has lived since the turn of the century. And I spent my whole high school years there with my parents.

My dad, who was a professor at the University of Nebraska and my mom, who also is from Lincoln, and then also spending summers on my family farm that belongs to the paternal side of the family. So my dad's family out in Fremont, so we'll probably get into this when we talk about the book, but that farm life has had a huge influence on my writing.

So I grew up in Nebraska and then after Nebraska, I went to college at Columbia University where I studied classics, so Latin and ancient Greek. I developed a real love for languages, literature, anything ancient history related, and I also started to become more serious as a writer. I had always wanted to be a writer, maybe since the age of 13, but in college I started to really pursue sending [00:03:00] my poetry out. I had my first publication at the age of around 19, I think I was a sophomore. And then I also started to think about writing a novel. Being a college student, I was really busy with my friends and like classes and stuff. Nothing really ever came to totally being the book that was, it was gonna be.

So I ended up graduating from college back in 2017. I stayed in New York City and I've been living here ever since. I absolutely love the city. In the last couple years since, or right after graduating from college for a few years, I basically just tried to, get a job and pay rent and just live my life.

And I started in around 2018, about a year after graduating, thinking about writing a novel again. So at that time I had this idea for a book that would be set in Nebraska, my home state that would really draw on my background as a queer, bisexual Chinese American adoptee. I grew up with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, so a very mixed culturally and interfaith family.

My second [00:04:00] novel, which we can also talk about a little bit, does deal with more of the Jewish elements. But my first novel is more of a, I would say, family drama horror set on the farm. And yeah, in 2018 I really had no clue what I was doing. I lived basically in a box with three other people and I just started typing the story one day and I kept at it.

And in 2020, I lost my job. COVID was happening. I was really trapped inside. I actually quit the book about halfway through and I just was so down. I thought no one would read it. It's never gonna be published. Like no one would be interested in this. A couple months later, I started to realize that was a bad idea.

I should get back to the book. I did end up finishing it. I had a really long journey, which we can touch more on, but just to gloss over it quickly, managed to get an agent with my manuscript. Then my wonderful agent managed to get me a book deal. The book came out in 2024 in hardcover and it's called Sacrificial Animals with St. Martin's Press. Recently, just this past August in 2025, it came out in paperback. And I'm [00:05:00] really grateful for the readers and the success it's had. It was named Best of the Year by a lot of the different publications for horror. So like New York Times Vulture Paste, Esquire. It was one of the New York Public Libraries best books of 2024.

A finalist for the Otherwise Award for Authors Innovating on Gender and Speculative Fiction and a finalist for a Nebraska Book award. Won the Nebraska Book Award, but fiction honor. So it was in the mix there. So I was able to go back, actually recently to my hometown, talk to the kids at my high school and then accept my award.

That was all really wonderful and now I'm here. My next novel comes out August, 2026. It's called The Minimalist, and I'm currently working on my third, and when I'm not doing writing, I'm still at my day job. I work as a software engineer at Netflix and I do a lot of opera singing in my local area, so I perform and sing in operas.

So that's basically all about me. As much as I can condense it.

Haley Radke: How well-rounded of you, Kailee. Oh my goodness. Congratulations on the success of Sacrificial Animals. I'm not surprised. It's a [00:06:00] wonderful book. Can you take me back to growing up in Nebraska as a Chinese person? I'm guessing Nebraska is pretty white. And how was that for you?

Kailee Pedersen: It was pretty difficult at times. I was living in Lincoln most of the time, and Lincoln has gotten more diverse, I think, since I was there. But at the time, there weren't a lot of resources for queer people. There weren't a lot of, I just didn't feel a lot of community. There weren't that many Asian people at my school.

I really didn't see anyone that reflected my identity that much. In fact, a couple of the other Asian girls that I knew also were adopted. So that was like a very interesting situation where. Instead of there being in maybe in more organic Asian American community, we did, we do have Vietnamese folks who are from Nebraska and also Japanese American folks in Nebraska as well.

So there are Asian American communities, but I just, wasn't connected to them and. Most the other girls I knew in high school. Yeah, were like adopted too, but we also never really connected with each [00:07:00] other. So ultimately I ended up feeling really isolated racially, I think a lot of adoptees I got raised with kind of a well-meaning, but ultimately ineffective understanding of my racial identity.

Transracial adoptees specifically. I think that, a lot of adoptive parents who are a different race than their child, they mean well and I know that they. Love their child and want them to do well, but they just truly cannot understand what it's like to be a person of color.

And in that like gap of understanding, I think a lot gets missed and falls through. And that was very difficult for me to grow up and understand why frankly, some people in my family just don't seem to like me years later.

Haley Radke: Yikes. That's not. That not good?

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah. It's just one of those things where you start from this position of, I think ignorance and then you start to develop more of like a racial consciousness and then it's like a huge change and growing and learning about yourself.

But it also can be [00:08:00] very painful to unravel like the kind of colorblindness of the original position you found yourself in, which was like. You're a member of the family. Everyone's equal. We love you just as much as like a biological member of the family, but is that really true for everyone? I wouldn't quite say so.

Haley Radke: No, I totally agree. As a Chinese adoptee. Can you speak to, do you, first of all, do you know the impetus for your adoptive parents adopting from China specifically? And then, in recent years there's been a lot of change from the Chinese government and we had this time period where there was.

Over a hundred thousand Chinese adoptees coming to the US and abroad as well. But that has all changed. So can you speak to those things?

Kailee Pedersen: My understanding is that my parents were struggling to have biological children, like a lot of adoptive parents, and they sought to first adopt a child domestically, which didn't work out.[00:09:00]

Then I believe they were looking at another country, but ultimately settled on China due to the. I think expedience of the process on some level, and in that I'm sure there was a lot of essentially young female babies being exported from the country, and I was just one of the many in the nineties.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Have your views on what China did in that, have you explored that because there's been so much news, when China closed, essentially intercountry adoptee or intercountry adoption, those kinds of things. Did you explore that at all when some of the, those news stories were coming out?

Kailee Pedersen: I think it's hard for me to have a firm grasp on how I feel about China as like this faceless entity or country that I have never returned to. And in some sense, perhaps never will. And I know frankly that I'll not, I won't be buried there, which is a significant thing for me. So there's this sense that it's just this vague sending country or like place of origin for me that like exists almost in a fantasy outside of my [00:10:00] life.

I think for me, what I had to come more to terms with with was my attitude toward my birth parents. I spent a lot of time being very angry with them. I thought that they had abandoned me or that they didn't want me. And for me that was very challenging. But as I grew older and became of age where I could potentially have a child, I don't really want to, you start thinking about it sometimes I realized that most people, or 99% of people would not give up their child unless they were in a really desperate situation.

So I came to an understanding that perhaps it was out of their hands or a situation that was so bad that they had no other choice. We know now that like in some cases, the Chinese government would basically extort people or steal their babies, so it's possible I was human trafficked. So all these things really were flying around for me when more of the abuses of the industry were exposed.

And I was adopted through Holt International, which is one of the more controversial agencies, a very evangelical [00:11:00] Christian, and maybe not so ethical. So that has been a challenge for me. And then recently I learned the role of Madam Butterfly, which is an opera about a Japanese woman who dies by suicide.

And at the end of the opera, she is essentially emotionally coerced by her white former paramour, who was the father of her child, a American named Pinkerton, into giving him custody of their baby. So Pinkerton can take him back to America because Pinkerton has married a white woman. A real American wife and that she's not good enough for him.

But Butterfly has this whole aria at the end about how she, missed her baby and how she is sending him away to America because she truly thinks he'll have a better life there. And I think. By performing and singing that I somehow managed to connect with my understanding of my biological family, that maybe they were just in a really desperate situation like [00:12:00] Butterfly was, and that they had no choice.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that about that opera, that story. Did you ever want to search or know more, or was it more just. You have these feelings of anger that need to get resolved in some way 'cause that was unsettling to have lingering around.

Kailee Pedersen: I used to go back and forth. There were times where I was so angry. I was like they rejected me so I'll reject 'em. I like won't look for them at all kind of thing. As I got older, I started to feel like, I think I'm gonna regret it if I don't even try. So I have done like some stuff like DNA, uploading and getting in touch with the Nanchang Project. They've been helping me and I sent some of my documents to a police station in China.

I haven't done anything more advanced like hiring a searcher or anything. My DNA test. I'm not always sure how accurate these are indicated that I'm at least around 50% a Chinese minority called the Dai people. So that [00:13:00] also makes me wonder how effective or easy would be to search for someone who's not even part of the Han Majority in China.

If that's true of my background or are they even still in the country? A lot of the Dai people live at kind of the border of China and Vietnam, which makes sense 'cause I was found in a city that is only about a hundred miles north of the Vietnam border. So I would say yes, I am looking, but I also have accepted if it doesn't ever happen and there's no reunion. I think for me it's just more important to look for myself.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Last and we'll pivot promise. Is there. Something about going back there that I understand as a queer person, that also could be scary knowing the circumstances of the country and their viewpoints. Is that a barrier for you?

Kailee Pedersen: I don't think so much the queer element. I mean there are queer people who live in China now, and I'm not trying to downplay the oppression they [00:14:00] face, but I wouldn't necessarily feel like my life would be in danger as it might be in some countries. I think for me, the biggest thing about going back is just it costs a lot of money, frankly, and I just don't know what I would do there. Honestly. I would really wanna go back with some idea of what I wanted to achieve while there, rather than spending all the money to fly out there and get a hotel and everything. So since I don't really have a clear idea of what I'd wanna do, I think it could be a disappointing experience for me. So I would just rather figure things out where we are now.

Haley Radke: Thanks. You're saying the real things and these things are all barriers, especially for inter-country adoptees. And so I'm a domestic adoptee, and that comes with privileges of search looks different and all of those things.

Thank you for saying those things out loud. There are so many different barriers. I love that you talked about wanting to write since you were 13 and you made it happen, Kailee, [00:15:00] that's amazing. Like getting an agent and a book like out in the world, more than one is just like really tremendous.

Can you talk about writing. I know you write in different genres and poetry and you have a, you were journaling as a youngster. There's like a bunch of different forms of writing that you do. Do you ever write to process feelings as well? Is that something that you do?

Kailee Pedersen: When I was younger and in college, I published several creative nonfiction like lyric essays is the term basically like a memoir, but maybe with some poetry interwoven in or a little bit more artistic or free flowing than what you might expect from say like a pretty standard memoir.

And in a shorter format as well about my adoption or about my experiences being adopted. So there was some of that during that period, which I think was much more full of turmoil than my current state. I still do a lot of [00:16:00] poetry and some of my poems and my recent chapbook passed around, which came out in March of 2025 do deal with adoption, even obliquely. So there is some of that there, but a lot of them also deal with sexuality, queerness desire the body. So I wouldn't say I only write to process emotions, but they do just come through. It's really important for me that my work be as honest and raw and authentic as possible while still being an artistically beautiful work, I don't like to write works that I wrote, for profit or something. I really try to take risks, and also I need them to come from deeply within myself. Otherwise, how am I gonna survive the two to four year writing process where you're just struggling and typing if I don't truly care about the work?

So those all come through, I think in my work, they're all very real and true to me. And I would just say that I think that people respond to that, that they see that these are extremely real and intense emotions that I may be channeling, although [00:17:00] they don't always come through in a one-to-one way, where like the Asian female character behaves or is like me all the time.

It's more that they're scattered amongst the characters or the stories are still fictional, but they speak to the emotional truths within ourselves.

Haley Radke: Okay. I've been waiting to say this to you. In preparation for this interview, I did listen to a bunch of different conversations you've had which really focus in on horror and the book and the literary of it all. And I heard a man tell you that you wrote male characters. And I actually laughed out loud 'cause it was so funny, right? 'cause we, there's this critique that men get for writing women and like they can't do it. And so I was like, oh, this is funny that somebody said this out loud.

Flipping it. Can you talk about how it feels to write the male characters, but also like how it [00:18:00] feels as an adoptee or as a, an Asian American or woman or queer person, like how it feels to be written about in such a tropey way often, and how you're upending that with your work.

Kailee Pedersen: To answer the first question, I just try to treat all my characters with a lot of empathy and to really try to understand them on a deep psychological level, even if they are the type of person I would never be friends with, or if I find their behavior, their morality repulsive.

I think it's important not to demonize 'em. It's similar to the strategy I take when I have to do an opera role. A lot of opera characters I play are from like the 1800s. Or even earlier and they behave or act in ways that I think are nuts or modern people find really weird.

But I can't be standing over here being like that's wrong. I wouldn't do it. Like I have to portray the character as authentically as possible. So I have to try to find some avenue into their psyche. So when it comes to understanding across gender, I [00:19:00] just try to be empathetic and open to experiences I've heard of from my male friends or that I've observed personally, dynamics between men.

I think the power of observation and empathy is really important in writing because even if you write a character who's exactly like you, which I don't really know why you would do that, because I think one of the, part of the fun of fiction is. Putting on some other life and exploring that, you still have to put them through some sort of fictional event.

So it's things you haven't experienced. So you still have to imagine, even if it's not a gender, race or identity-based thing, you might have to imagine what it's like to be a plumber, a computer programmer, like some other occupation even. So for me, it's just a part of that exercise of like understanding for example, for the main character like Nick, who is he? What does he think about all the time? Why is he so obsessed with, X, Y, and Z? What are his hangups and fears and how does he feel in his body? How does he move through the day? What parts of his past maybe influence him as an adult? What can he not get rid of? What does he dream [00:20:00] about? What does he fear have nightmares about? These are just things that I think about. And eventually the character just comes together over the process of writing. And I think I feel more able to put them into this world and have them interact with these other characters.

And then in the, to your other question about being written about in ways that are maybe like negative or questionable or stereotyping. I just try to avoid media that does that. I don't really have the energy to engage with that stuff or really even critique or push back against it because I feel like that stuff is just gonna continue to be out there.

The magical orphan thing that happens in so many fantasy works and stuff, it's so prevalent. It just, when that happens, I usually just try to decide if I'm gonna get over it and move through it. If the rest of the work is worth it or if it's this is like too off putting for me. It's more that I think in my work I want to express something real and interesting and true to my own values and concerns in life.

And hopefully through that people can find some [00:21:00] form of representation that's authentic to them, even though a representation is such a heavy term and so loaded at times. But especially with this novel. And then with my second novel, I really tried to also dig around into. My own self and maybe find things that weren't so flattering even, and then just try to bring them out in the book, even if it wasn't something that people always feel comfortable talking about.

So you find like a lot of self-hatred. You find depression, you might find scenes in which characters are not kind to each other, and those are all impulses and I think feelings that maybe people have, but suppress. But I wanna bring that to the surface.

Haley Radke: I think you write really well and one thing I'm super excited that in the Minimalist your book that's coming out in August, 2026, you have an adoptee character.

And so whenever I see that in the world, an adoptee written by an adoptee, I'm so stoked 'cause I'm so sick of people using us as a lazy method of pushing [00:22:00] story forward. Oh. Your parents are missing, so you would do this. Like it just, no. So thank you. Like I love that. There's own voices and I know there's complexities with that too.

But adoptees, writing adoptee characters is just, I don't know, there's something extra special about it for me. 'cause I'm an adoptee and I cheer on adoptee authored work especially. So anyway, I'm glad that'll be out in the world soon.

Kailee Pedersen: I think it was very interesting for me to try to write from an adoptee perspective in the Minimalist, I actually, there are two adoptee characters and I,

I really wanted them to have very different takes on adoption and even come into conflict. One character chooses to search while the other character is actually extremely rude and dismissive about it. So I wanted to depict some of those tensions that can come up in the community itself as well, beyond just there's adoption and then there's adoption trauma, which is of course present in the narrative, but also this kind of multifaceted, like these two [00:23:00] characters, even though they were even at one point in a romantic relationship together they don't agree or don't have the same attitudes about their own adoption.

Haley Radke: Stoked. Stoked to read it. Okay, let's talk about Sacrificial Animals a little bit and you're telling the story of this family and there's two brothers and their dad's super abusive and I don't know if you wanna give us like a little overview of it, but I found it very interesting as a

adopted person reading it and this idea of family legacy. And who is your legacy when you think about it and, you talk about your family farm and it's your adopted family's lineage, right? And so that you're grafted into, and so can you set up like the premise of the book a little for us and then just this idea of family legacy.

Kailee Pedersen: [00:24:00] Yeah, of course. Sacrificial Animals is a Midwestern Gothic novel set on a thousand acre farm in rural Nebraska called Stags Crossing, which is owned by Carlisle Morrow, who is the single father of two boys, Joshua the eldest, and his clear favorite. And Nicholas, the younger brother and his father's not favorite.

Nick is the primary POV character, and we follow him from. In alternating chapters, starting with his childhood, then his adulthood all the way from like age 13, 14, to a man in his forties. So in his childhood, Nick undergoes let's say, a queer awakening. He starts to understand his sexuality a bit more and deals with the legacy of his abusive father.

And also at one point his father and Nick catch a fox on their farm that is eating the chickens. They aren't able to kill the fox, but they do find the foxes den and kill its baby foxes inside. So that is a sort of crime against nature that haunts the family throughout the novel. Now as an adult, Nick is in his forties.

His father calls him. They've been semi estranged [00:25:00] for a while now. And his father says that he's dying of cancer and wants Nick and his brother to come back to the farm to reconcile. This is unusual because prior to this, Joshua, the eldest boy, the most handsome man you know, in Nebraska for miles, the golden Child was disown for marrying an Asian woman named Amelia.

So Nick, Amelia, and Joshua are also back to the farm with Carlisle who is dying. And let's just say family tensions start to simmer. Dark secrets and the impact of certain actions from the past begin to emerge. And Nick gets entangled in something a lot darker and deeper than he expected.

Haley Radke: And how is it writing about family legacy? As an adopted person because we have multiple sets of ancestors, however you wanna look at it.

Kailee Pedersen: It's interesting because in the novel itself, the idea of [00:26:00] patrimony and legacy is repeatedly brought up yet interrogated. So rather than, let's say in the uncritical sense of a legacy where. Blood descent or legal descent dictates one's life or there is some kind of heritage or lineage that must be passed down. There is this question of how helpful is this? Because Carlisle is obsessed with his lineage to the point where he forbids his son from marrying interracially because she's gonna pollute the bloodline. So there's this idea that maybe patrimony inheritance isn't something so great.

And there's also the ways in which the brothers constantly have conflicts over this farm, which is massive and but also an albatross around their neck. It's not really something they really want to inherit, but they also seem to, to wanna inherit. They go back and forth. There's the way in which the farm is a site of trauma and of abuse for them, but also something they desperately want, just like their father's love.

And I think also there's a significant theme of the ways in which. Just because you're members of a family, and in this case between men, the ways in which [00:27:00] fathers, pass trauma to their sons, and the ways in which they may love their sons. I think this is a very core part of Carlisle's tragic character, that he truly loves his children, but he's so warped by his own upbringing and how his own father treated him, that his only way to interact with them is violence and cruelty. And as an old man, he calls them back and is like confused why they hate and fear him.

Haley Radke: There's so many good themes. Can you tell us why gothic, why horror? And talk a little bit about that. Because like I love it so much.

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah. I love the gothic genre too. I also love horror, although I'm all over the place.

I got a really late ADHD diagnosis and I think that explains why I wanna try a lot of different genres. My second novel is more of like a psychological drama with like dark, intense energy. If you've seen like Tar or maybe The Piano Teacher, it has those vibes of like classical music, but like psychological disintegration.

So I'm [00:28:00] still in that horror adjacent space. The third, which I'm currently working on, is a very bloody and brutal Western. So maybe not traditional horror, but still like in that space of emotional intensity. Violence, legacy, family. Again, these themes that constantly crop up in my work. So I would just say for me, horror wasn't something I went in thinking I would write in the sense that I sat down and was like, this is gonna be a horror novel.

I, I honestly, I am so embarrassed when people ask about my process. 'cause I literally just type stuff. I don't really have outlines or anything. I'm like, yolo for and it's yeah I really wish I was more organized and that I had more of a plan because I think I would write a lot faster and not get stuck so much.

But I just let the book be whatever it is. In this case it came out horry, literary, a mishmash of genres. And then with my second novel, I actually think trying to make it horror got me stuck at one point, I really added a lot of supernatural elements that I later ended up deleting and completely removing 'cause it didn't feel right for the book.

And I think I felt almost pressured to continue to [00:29:00] write for when I, what I really needed to do was to just let go and let the book be freaky on its own and its own kind of thing. So it wasn't really a conscious choice. It was just, I think as someone who, and maybe this is because of the CPTSD or the intense emotions from.

Mental illness, which is my experiences, I tend to gravitate toward very intense genres and subjects, and a lot of those genres and subjects tend to lean towards more of the dark side of literature.

Haley Radke: I'm curious, what drew you to studying the classics and remind me of the languages, 'cause Latin and ancient Greek, right?

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, I studied those in my undergrad.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Can you tell us about the draw of that 'cause that feels unusual and the draw to opera. Did you have any of that in childhood?

Kailee Pedersen: The Latin, ancient Greek not really. I did always love Greek mythology. So my first year at college, the first week of every [00:30:00] year you can, or every semester you can just enroll in classes, and then if you drop in the first week, you don't get charged for them.

So it's like a free for all where people just try to go to classes and see if they like them. And I thought at the time I was gonna major in English or something like that. And I also knew that English needed a language requirement, right? So I saw on the schedule that ancient Greek was available.

I thought that just sounded pretty cool. I was like, I'll just go to the first class and see what happens. Worst case, I hate it, drop out. And I met with this really wonderful teacher. She no longer teaches at Columbia. She is at a collegiate school teaching Greek and Latin there, and they're very lucky to have her Collomia Charles.

She was my freshman year Greek teacher, and she just helped me really fall in love with the language. So I feel very lucky over the years to have been supported by instructors and teachers who supported me as a writer, as an artist, et cetera. So I really just accidentally fell in a hole and then just never got out, and that was my major.

And I also felt it was good because it's a smaller department than the [00:31:00] English department. I felt like maybe I could get a little bit more personalized meetings with professors and just generally, I liked the community and I just wanted to stay. And a lot of my favorite authors are pretty heavily influenced by things like biblical sources or ancient Greek or Latin or Roman texts. So being able to read those in the original is really rewarding and fulfilling. In terms of opera also is a similar just accident thing. I did a lot of theater, like spoken theater, what we call straight plays with no singing.

I had no singing voice. I was very bad and I was like, oh, I need to get better at singing so I can audition for some musicals. So I started to take singing lessons and my teacher got me into opera and then I just stuck with opera instead of going to musicals ever. So I also fell into a pit and just never got out.

Haley Radke: I wonder if you've thought about this before. This idea for adopted people, especially when you're younger or you don't have your answers, any of those kinds of things. [00:32:00] And this idea of myth making, right? Like building, Betty Jean Lifton called it the ghost kingdom and then falling in love with like Greek mythology or like the in ancient mythologies. And do you ever think about how those intersect or do they for you.

Kailee Pedersen: Maybe a little bit. I think that there is something there about myth and timelessness that is really attractive to me. The ability to connect yourself to a heritage or history when you don't really have one or your heritage is what a heritage of thorn history of ash, right?

There's nothing there but brambles. So for me to be able to connect with that. And then also because of the Jewishness, there are some Jewish texts that are in ancient Greek that have been really interesting to read and learn about. I also think back to one of my earliest publications was an essay about Greek myth that I connected to my adoption, specifically the myth of Iphigenia.

I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but. Okay, so a kind of wishbone moment, I guess we'll talk about ancient Greek myth a little bit. [00:33:00] Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon, one of the generals in a war, and Agamemnon has made Artemis really angry, or it was Apollo, I can't totally remember. I think it was Artemis.

And as a result, his ships, which he needs to sail to go to battle are stuck in the harbor, and it's literally, the city is called Olis and there is a Greek epithet literally meaning ship delaying. Like they're like literally stuck in the city. And he finds out that if he sacrifices his daughter,  Iphigenia, his ships will sail.

And depending on the myth, he either actually goes through with it or at the very last minute she is replaced by a doe at the altar. So he actually ends up sacrificing the doe instead. It's one of those where there's like a lot of variance, but this myth of the daughter being sacrificed or killed to achieve something, I guess was resonating for me in that moment. And that was what I included in my essay about my adoption.

Haley Radke: Whoa. That's deep. That's deep. That's like Abraham and Isaac.

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, there's a lot of [00:34:00] patrisside filicide themes that I think are from ancient texts, but also in my work. I mean there's like the Oresteia in which Elektra and Orestes kill Klytämnestra which is also an opera.

So these are themes that just resonate across so many different artistic legacies throughout history.

Haley Radke: I hope you just keep writing Kailee, because you've got a lot to tell us. Can you talk more about opera? And to me it's like it's voice reclamation. I don't wanna admit this. I'm going to, I didn't know opera was like un mic'ed.

Like I knew that, but I didn't, I didn't really know. And so this strength of voice is so impactful to think about and. I don't know. There's something about when we are relinquished for adoption at a really young age [00:35:00] and we have no way to communicate except for crying and as an adult to reclaim our voices in some way.

Is important and to talk about adoption, however you feel about adoption, whatever that is. I don't know. Maybe it's not that deep. I feel like it is. Can you talk about opera? And you said you didn't even know how to sing and so you learn how to sing and then it's not just that it's opera, like what is that for you?

Kailee Pedersen: You get years and years of training I was really bad for a really long time and I'm still improving. So it's not something where you're like, okay, two years in, you're like, great. But I, yeah I think it's really powerful to be able to produce certain sounds without a microphone. I think it's interesting because opera itself is really not, there are things that have changed, but you can sing pieces from the 1700s, so you might, you're partaking in a classical music tradition that has lasted a very long time.

I think for me, the draw of opera maybe isn't so [00:36:00] much reclaiming my voice or exerting control over my body, although those are certainly all things that I do when I perform. But I really like to play and to escape myself through like a fantasy of the imagination. So embodying another character, conveying some kind of meaning or emotion to the audience.

I really like that. I also really enjoy introducing people who have never gone to an opera before, to operas or to classical music. I just really love sharing music with people. I think that's really great and I like to try to get the next generation interested in classical music as well because I think it's important to continue to try to keep it alive.

And I like to perform queer and Jewish composers, especially because I really connect with their work. So those are all things that I think about and in my novel, there's a lot of my second novel, there is a lot of opera discussion because the main character is a classical composer, so there is a huge amount of the ways in which that intersects with her life.

And some readings of opera, like I mentioned, the Madama Butterfly reading of like adoption into that [00:37:00] opera. And then for me, also another opera that is almost never performed. It's called La Juive, it's a French Grand Opera by Fromental Halévy. It's, yeah, it's almost never performed 'cause it's super long and you need like a huge cast I think, and also like fancy backdrops and stuff.

And most people don't have that. But it's also not really performed, but it was in its day very popular. It was like a blockbuster film equivalent and it literally means the Jewess kind of a really outdated term for a Jewish woman and it's about this Jewish Goldsmith, Eléazar who finds a baby that's been not really abandoned, but is in like the burned out house, like in a town, and he rescues this baby and adopts her and named her Rachel.

But he never tells Rachel that she's adopted. And it turns out that Rachel's biological father is the cardinal de Brogni. Who is currently persecuting the Jews. So he has raised this girl who is a Christian by birth as his Jewish daughter, and [00:38:00] it's a soap opera. It ends horribly, tragically. And as an opera, a lot of people die.

I'm not totally sure if it's like a really liberating work or anything. And it's certainly not, modern in terms of our sensibilities about Jewishness, heritage, women, anything like that. But it is a really interesting work, I think, to think about. In terms of what they were trying to convey at that time in the 1800s and to think about it from my lens now.

Haley Radke: What do you feel like when you're performing in front of a audience?

Kailee Pedersen: I used to really struggle with stage fright. I think I have mostly gotten over that. So now I'm mostly excited just to sing and perform. I hope people get something outta the performance. I hope they enjoy what they hear and that if they are not opera fans already, it inspires 'em to look up more about opera and maybe explore the genre a bit.

I don't think opera is for everybody. I understand that people just don't like it, but I also think a lot of people just have never heard it. And I think more people could get into it if they knew the vast span of styles and music you could find with an opera. [00:39:00]

Haley Radke: You know my bio dad got super into opera in the last few years and he always goes to the Met when they stream it at movie theaters here.

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah.

Haley Radke: He goes every month. He loves it. Okay. Last thing, slightly personal before we do recommended resources. You mentioned in high school there these other adoptees, but that you didn't necessarily connect with them. How have you connected into the adoptee community in the last number of years?

Kailee Pedersen: I would say I have some friends from a Facebook group I used to be in. I now try to mostly stay off social media with the exception of promotional or like author related usage, just because it's really harmful to my mental health to be constantly online and doom scrolling. I really value that connection.

I have also been lucky enough to connect with some other adoptee authors like Lee Herrick, so they've been very kind to welcome me. [00:40:00] That's happened. Keeping in touch. I'm honestly a little bit of an introvert and the homebody, so I'm always happy to hear from folks. But I do admit I'm shy sometimes or like I get nervous reaching out, so I do sometimes wish I like knew more people.

Haley Radke: I was just in New York and there was some adoptee events and then I was like, oh, you live there. I didn't know. Otherwise I would've invited you to come.

Kailee Pedersen: Oh, thanks.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Okay. I loved Sacrificial Animals so much You're grasp of language is so amazing. It is so like visceral and evocative. And the prose is just like unmatched.

I the never ending dread that's just like going and the payoff, like we couldn't spoil anything in this conversation 'cause it just ruins it. No spoilers. The payoff and the, it's so good. Kailee. Well done. Loved it. Loved it. And [00:41:00] really looking forward to reading your chap book and the Minimalist that's coming out this year.

So well done. I'm so excited for people to get to know your work and read and I don't know, we might have to do a book club with you for the Minimalists since there's so much adoption in it.

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, I would love that. I am really excited to put adoptee work that is, as you say, own voices out into the world.

That's really drawn from being a queer Asian woman, but also the novel deals a lot with the identity of Jewishness and some of the complications that can come with that, especially in the world of classical music specifically, which is so dear and close to my heart, but also so complicated and so difficult sometimes to be an artist in. And while my next, after that doesn't totally deal with themes of adoption, I hope to revisit that at some point. I think I'm the type of person where it was so emotionally intense for me, to write a book that was so focused on the emotional impact of adoption that [00:42:00] I needed for my next book to be a bit of a break. You never know. I definitely would like to come back to that. For sure.

Haley Radke: So you went western.

Kailee Pedersen: Historical fiction yeah. Definitely still seeing those themes of family racial prejudice. It's about a Chinese American family in the frontier from 1860 to 1910, and like an intergenerational three generations of a Chinese American family type of like drama slash western type thing going on.

And then, yeah, I guess we'll see what the future holds maybe. Thinking maybe sci-fi and maybe like some cosmic horror, but like TBD, guess what I'm still on my day job, so unfortunately I'm writing quite slow. But, maybe one day I can take a little bit of a break or something.

Haley Radke: I feel like sacrificial animals sold. The fact they released it in paperback, who knows? You might get to be an author and part-time opera singer. That'd be pretty sweet.

Kailee Pedersen: That would be amazing. Yeah. If anybody wants to adapt it to film, call me.

Haley Radke: A Sacrificial Animals would be amazing. I was thinking about that. I was like, this would be a great movie. [00:43:00] Okay. What did you wanna recommend to us, Kailee?

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, so I've got here with me, Jane Jeong Trenka is the Language of Blood. It is a memoir published by Graywolf Press, about Trenka's experience as a transracial Korean American adoptee. I specifically recommended it because this was one of my first experiences reading a work that I felt reflected my experiences as an Asian woman in a white family.

Trenka also grew up in the Midwest, I believe in, I wanna say Minnesota, and I just found her writing to be extremely authentic and engaging. It's also interesting because it's not just a memoir that's like prose from the internal voice. She also interweaves a lot of different narrative strategies, like letters, even fictionalized scripts.

So there's a quality of collage to it or genre experimentation that I found really engaging. And I believe this might be, I don't wanna say it's the very first 'cause I have to look it up, but it might be one of the very early [00:44:00] adoption specific memoirs for transracial Asian Americans. I think it was one of the very few that was available when I was looking for one at the time.

Haley Radke: Yes. It's definitely one of the earliest I, yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned it. We haven't talked about it on the show for a long time. Thank you. Okay. Where can folks follow along, connect with you online and get notified of new work that you have in the world?

Kailee Pedersen: My main hub is my author website, kaileepedersen.com.

You can find links to all of my social media there. I would say I'm most active on probably my Instagram and sometimes my Blue Sky. But mostly Instagram if you wanna see pictures of the new book and things like that, or just see posts about my travels or fun things I'm doing with opera, I use it as both an author posting hub and also sometimes just posting about my hobbies.

And then, yeah, I definitely welcome, folks, if they are adopted and wanna reach out and say hi or have enjoyed my work, feel free to drop a dm. I'm sometimes not always super online due to the whole, taking [00:45:00] a detox occasionally, but I always try to get back to folks.

Haley Radke: I love that your and your covers are so good.

Kailee Pedersen: I, yeah. All credit to Olga Grlic at St. Martin's Press for the Sacrificial Animals cover. And then Rob Grom did the design for the Minimalist. They both did really amazing jobs.

Haley Radke: And what about Pastorale 'cause that is beautiful too.

Kailee Pedersen: Oh yeah. That is Rory. Oh gosh. I'm forgetting their last name. I think it was Rory Sparks.

They did that for Burnside Review Press.

Haley Radke: Beautiful. They're all beautiful. Thank you so much. It was so nice to get to know you a little better today. Thanks for sharing with us.

Kailee Pedersen: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Haley Radke: I love finding new authors. I was so excited. To read Kailee's first book and I'm so anticipating her next. I hope you enjoy reading fellow adoptee authored work as much as I do. We have some great book clubs for you this year. [00:46:00] If you wanna join us over on Patreon, we've got lots of stuff happening over there and I would love to have you join us. That is the way this show keeps existing in the world with your monthly partnership.

So you can go to adopteeson.com/community to find out more, and I'd love to have you join us for some of our zoom calls. We also do this awesome Ask an Adoptee Therapist event every month, which is so amazing and I'm so proud of it. It is the best of both worlds. It's full Adoptees On vibes. All the therapists are tremendous, and I don't know if you ever liked advice shows as much as I did. But it's all of that all put together, so you should check that out. We have all the live events listed on our calendar on the website, so you can check that out there. adopteeson.com, [00:47:00] and there's a link in the menu bar to our calendar. Okay, friend, thank you so much for listening and let's talk again soon.

316 Jennifer Lauck

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/316

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today we are honored to have with us New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lauck, whose memoirs have shaped how so many understand the adoptee experience. Her landmark book, Blackbird is celebrating its 25th anniversary edition this year.

In our conversation, we talk about Jennifer's childhood, how she first met Nancy Verrier, and her synchronicities in her reunion with her birth mother, Catherine Diane. We mention abuse at multiple times during this conversation, including sexual abuse. So please take care when [00:01:00] listening. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.

We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Jennifer Lauck. Welcome Jennifer.

Jennifer Lauck: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Haley Radke: Your work has been out in the world for years and years. You're an accomplished memoirist. So I know some folks will definitely know parts of your story, but I was wondering if you would share for folks who are new to you, a little bit of your story with us.

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah. As you said, it could fill many books in our pre-conversation, so let's just get it down to the cliff notes.

So I'm gonna look at this from the perspective of my biological mother. My birth [00:02:00] mother, she got pregnant with me in 1962 in Reno, Nevada, and she was with a guy named Bill who was my dad. And they were quite in love apparently. And had this little problem. I think she was a junior in high school at the time, and her father, or her father was dead. But her mother and her older, much older siblings did not approve of Bill. He was a little rough. He came from the wrong side of town and they were considered a respectable family. So they shunned him out and they locked Diane down and initially they were gonna send her to a a girl's home in San Francisco, but she pretty much on bended knee begged her mother not to send her to this girl's home for women who were pregnant.

But it was decided absolutely that she would give the baby up. So my grandmother brought her back home and let her live with her older sister, and pretty much from the moment the pregnancy was [00:03:00] revealed when she was starting to show she was in isolation in my aunt's house. And teachers would come in and bring her lessons. And she was confined to a room, horribly shamed. Of course, this is the worst possible thing. And her boyfriend snuck, snuck to the window a couple of times and they were trying to figure out a way to get away. It didn't work out. And eventually, I think through, I don't believe the family was Catholic, but they worked through Catholic Charities and a doctor named Noah Smernoff, who coordinated the adoption.

And they arranged it directly with a family in Carson City, Nevada. So Diane's living in Reno and then they found this family in Carson City. Bud and Janet were their names and they were looking for a child. And the doctor was the lynch, the hinge between this situation. I think that Catholic Charities really relied on his [00:04:00] recommendation and he made a very high recommendation for the adoption. And I believe my aunt and my grandmother met my adoptive parents who are, very attractive, successful people. My father, a CPA who ran his own firm, my mother was very beautiful. Jackie Kennedy, look, I think that they, that mattered to the people that Diane's, Diane's family appearances mattered.

And so I eventually was born and the adoption arranged, and she's was a, had a very difficult labor, so I was sucked out of there with forceps. And this machine disfigured my head, and so then I never, that was it. She was whisked away and I never saw her again. And a year later she married my dad and they went on to have my brother.

So they continue with their life and she said, what about our first child? And he told her we'll just make more babies. It's [00:05:00] fine. And so the other little part of that story, which I think is really interesting, which should come up, is that while she was in isolation, she started to read novels a lot.

And one thing that she did was name me after the plantation in Gone with the Wind. So she always called me Tara and or Tara, I think it was. She was saying after that plantation. And so she would talk to me and she would say how sorry she was, I guess this is what she told me in reunion. And so as for me. I stayed in the hospital for three days. I don't know why they took so long to come get me. I had heard various stories that they needed to go buy the baby supplies. They didn't know exactly when I was coming. Somebody else said there was a bowling match and my adoptive parents needed to finish that no matter what it was like three days in the hospital. And apparently I was that baby who just wouldn't stop crying. And [00:06:00] so based on the medical records that I was able to find, there was some kind of barbiturate or something given to me to keep me from crying. And when I was brought home with Bud and Janet in Carson City, I don't think I stopped crying for a year.

And their response to that, and I did this thing called the stiff arming, like I would just not let them hold me or comfort me. And at that point. I earned the reputation of being the crier and the one that is a pain, and they would just put me in the back room until I cried it out. They were silence oriented people if we just treat her with the silent treatment, she'll stop.

And I did. Of course, the problem with my adoptive parents, and this was right away, is that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer once she had her first child. My older, their natural child, Brian, she had been diagnosed with a tumor in her [00:07:00] spine. It was 21 inches long. And so she had, they told her she wasn't going to survive this tumor after she had my brother.

This is like four years prior to I, my coming into the home. But then it turned out to be benign and she was a down winder. In Idaho of the Nevada test site. So she was probably a victim of, these releases, these massive releases of nuclear fallout. And so she had grown this bizarre tumor in her spine. They cut it out and she sewed her up and she lived, but now she wanted another child and they told her it'll kill you. And so the campaign began, let's adopt. And my father was really good friends with the doctor who facilitated the adoption. He did his accounting. And in fact, the doctor owed my father a good deal of money.

And so my father said, I'll wipe that out if you put this at the top of the list. So he [00:08:00] also made a high recommendation for this family. And they put on a good show. My mom is a very beautiful woman. She could dress up and make it look good. And apparently that's what happened. And when I was, when Diane was pregnant with me, my mom and dad, my adoptive parents put on a good show, but when I got there, she was dying and it was not good.

She was always in bed. She was hallucinating, she was on all sorts of different medications. The tumor was growing back because part of it was captured in the nerve bundle of her spine. So she was eventually crippled by it, had multiple surgeries and my job at my earliest memory was to take care of her.

They had an older son. He got to go to school and he got to have friends, but my job was to really attend to her, and I did. This is what we do. We, this is what's required and she's my mother and this is what I need to do. So I pretty much was in a panic most of my [00:09:00] childhood. What can I do to help this dying woman?

And if I didn't do well taking care of her, my father would come home from his job as a CPA and he would put me in these ice cold showers. All this is the result of years of therapy, Haley. So it's very concise. I could tell you all this very concise information because I've been in and out of therapy for years and this makes a lot of sense because I developed a really profound terror of water and a terror of men, and they were Catholics. So I also had a terror of God. So if this is the way God is through these men, and this is how Catholics are, maybe this is not so great. My mother did die when I was seven years old and the year prior to the adoptive mother dying, I had been told multiple times, I actually was called the adoptive daughter, but adoption and that word didn't really fit in my brain as a child.

It was just too big for me to [00:10:00] grasp. And so when I was about six, my mother, very sick. She had just overdosed from seconal and valium. She was such a sick woman. And my brother was the one who told me, look, you're not one of us. Why are you so uptight about mom being sick? And I was like this is my job and I'm gonna get thrown in a shower.

And he's you're not even one of us. Who cares? And I was, he said, you've heard everybody say it a thousand times. What's wrong with you? Are you retarded? Apologies for that word, but that's the word they used back then. Adopted. You're adopted. Everybody said it. What's wrong with you?

And I what does that mean? And he said your parents threw you away in the trash. This was like, okay, I can comprehend this at six. So I raced into the house that I was living in at that time. I locked him out and I called my dad on the phone and I was like, okay, what's the deal? Brian says that my parents threw me in the trash, that I'm not your, I'm not one of you guys.

And then he explained it to me. Yeah you were adopted. No, you weren't thrown in the [00:11:00] trash. And I was very relieved actually, because being in that house with those people who were quite frankly, crazy, and the way that they treated me was stunning. I was like, just get me a bag and a plane ticket or a train ticket or even a bus ticket, I don't care. Just get me outta here because you people are nuts. And I'm so grateful not a drop of your blood runs through my body. And now with all the love in my heart, but I was just so grateful this wasn't going to be who I would become. And even at six, I can't believe I fathomed that, but I did. And then she died.

And so that then there was this kind of big chaos because my mother died when I was seven. My father immediately started to connect with another woman who I suspect he was seeing in the final year of my mother's life and her illness. And he left the Catholic church and became a [00:12:00] Scientologist. And now he's married to this new woman with three of her own kids. And my brother and I are wrapped into this world. And then he died like 18 months later. And in between that on top of everything else, my mother dies when I'm eight and my father dies when I'm almost 10. And in the Scientology 18 months, I'm involved in this really weird cult. And one of the things that happened was that I was sent to a summer camp as part of this group.

And a man, a young man, I think he was about 19, picked me apart. I think people like us who've been through a lot of trauma and abuse are pretty easy to spot by predators. And he basically put a fence around me so the other kids would leave me alone, including my brother, and began to sexually abuse me for it turned out, I think about six [00:13:00] weeks. Two weeks into this, my father came to visit us at the camp, and I told him, I am many things, but quiet is not one of them. And I told him, this is what's happening. This man is asking me to take off my clothes. And of course I'm crying because it's devastating. In this family you're not allowed to cry, and apparently you're not allowed to tell the truth either. He said he didn't believe me and he left me there for another month to go through that. And I would call that probably the most profound betrayal by a man that I've ever experienced. And that would lead to a whole life of deeply confusing relationships with men.

And so eventually he died. I was raised by an aunt and uncle on that side of the Lauck side of the family. I was adopted again and called by a new name of which I didn't really want, and I feel like I just crawled my way through my [00:14:00] adolescence, made my way out as fast as I could, got on my own. And this was when I was finally on my own age, 19 and I was living in my own apartment. And a woman who lived next door to me about the same age as me, her name was Patty, and she was adopted. And I was like, wow, that's crazy 'cause we sensed that with one another. We would sit and talk on the stoop and two single girls in the city, trying to figure our lives out. And we were both in college. And she told me she was adopted and she had just learned and that she was gonna search. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. Really. And she did. And she found her mother and father, they had married and they were always looking for her. There was apparently some system where you sent a letter and the letters were matched up.

And so she found her. And so I was like, wow, that's amazing. Maybe I should do that. And I did, but there was no letter waiting for me, and I pushed and pushed. [00:15:00] I didn't understand at the time that I was adopted through Catholic Charities. I thought it was through the state of Nevada based on the records that I had access to and because she really wasn't looking for me or there was no letter in the state file, which I took to believe she's not looking for me, or maybe she's dead.

I just forgot it. It was just a door closed. The natural child of my adoptive parents, his name was Brian, he ended his life when I was 19 and he was 23. So that was the end of my adoptive family in many ways. And my launch into the world where I became an investigative reporter working in TV news, and eventually, after years and years, a creative writer and I decided before I would have my own children, I would try to figure out my past in order not to inflict my children with the kind of sorrows that I was carrying deep in my heart, while also passing as a normal, very highly functional, appearing, highly functional [00:16:00] person who drank every night and had giant explosions of fury and sorrow, behind the scenes.

As soon as the door was closed, I'd melt down. But in the world I seemed very highly functional. And so then I was working on Blackbird and Blackbird started to get this momentum and I wrote this book and then I wrote Still Waters, and then I wrote, Show Me The Way. And it was in the midst of all this big Blackbird success in 2000.

And I did have a child at this point. I was pregnant with my second that I got a call from this adoption association and they were like. We love your book, we'd love for you to be our keynote speaker. We'll pay you $3,000. And I was like, I don't know anything about adoption. I don't think I would be a very good speaker.

And they're like, no, we really want you. We love you. We've all read your book. And I just did it for the money. I just like, okay, I guess I didn't know anything about adoption. Zero. So I [00:17:00] researched the group, I prepped a speech, I didn't even know what I said. And I was just dropped in, I think it was a CUB organization or it was one of these birth mother organizations, and it was just like being dropped into a whole universe I didn't even know existed.

They were all birth moms. They demand justice.How have, why haven't you searched yet? They asked me, why haven't you found your mother yet? I'm like, dude, back up, man. I didn't even know it was a deal. They're just outraged and they're ready to search and they all wanna take me home with them. I'm freaking out.

They were just the [00:18:00] injustice was what they were addressing. And I understand it completely now.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Jennifer Lauck: But at the time I was just like, again, I have just landed on planet birth mom and I just absolutely have no idea what to make of you people. And they are demanding I find my birth mother. So I gave the speech and it was fine.

And at the end I was signing books and I was just ready to get on the plane and get the heck out of there because the pressure was so intense from them, make this wrong for all of us. And I don't think that's really my job. So this woman who was very controversial and they were already dissing her there, came up to me during their signing.

Her name was Nancy Verrier, and she is a birth, not a birth mom. She's a, an adoptive mom. And she gave me this book she had just written, it was a couple years earlier, called The Primal Wound. And I remember a lot of the birth moms going sh don't read that. Don't look at that. Don't talk to her. Nancy seemed like a very reasonable person and her book, very [00:19:00] reasonable.

She admitted something I've never heard another person say up to that point, which was, I feel differently about my adoptive child than I did about the child I gave birth to. And it took a lot of guts for her to say that. And I feel the same way. I have children, I've given birth to them, and you put a different baby in my arms. I know the difference how I feel. It might not be popular, people might not like that idea, but it's biologically true, at least in my own experience. And so Nancy felt like a really safe island. And she and I worked together, we did therapy together, and she started pointing to decisions I was making in my life and the ways that I felt about myself as potentially part of the adoption wound and that yes, it would be very good for me to find my birth mother and really push hard, but in my own timeframe, which I so appreciated.

She wasn't bossing me around. And so I hired a search angel, that's what they were called at that time. [00:20:00] And she helped me get some non-identifying information that was available through Catholic Charities. It turned out, and then it was just very surreal how fast it happened. It was just like all these doors flew open and I was fast on my way back and I got phone numbers and background information.

I discovered, everything about my family and I started making calls. And the reunion process began. I found my sister first. I talked to my sister first because my mother didn't pick up the phone. She heard I was coming I think she had seen me on some kind of group chat because a bunch of women at a high school put me on a group chat saying if anybody has put up a child for adoption in 1963, this young woman is looking and here's this picture of me.

And I think my mom saw that and immediately darted under the bed. And so I talked to her daughter who was my half-sister, and she's [00:21:00] oh my goodness. Now I finally understand my mom. All her life, something has been off. And I sent photographs and we talked and she said, look, she married your dad and then they divorced.

Your dad just died a couple years ago, but you have a full brother. I'm gonna make sure she talks to you. And then, we eventually did get together. I wrote about this in Found it was a hot mess. My mother was a total mess. She had never told anybody in the family other than my grandmother and my, her older siblings, nobody in her world knew.

And my father was dead. They had divorced right after my brother was born, apparently. Yeah, it was crazy. And the last thing I think I'll just say about this is when I started the reunion, one thing that broke my heart, probably the most, was that at the same time she was pregnant with me. Her brother, who was older than her, by 10 years, they [00:22:00] couldn't have a child.

And so they adopted a child from Germany at the exact same time. So I was given away to a family in Carson City, and they brought a child from Germany into their family. They would've rather had that than their own blood. It was shocking to me. Devastating in many ways.

Haley Radke: When you were in reunion with your mother, did you ultimately tell her the painful, traumatic things that happened to you in childhood?

Jennifer Lauck: Oh yeah. She read Blackbird.

Haley Radke: And what was her response to that?

Jennifer Lauck: Total devastation. She said, I was told that you would have a better life.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Jennifer Lauck: I was told that I was doing the right thing, that a child 16, 17-year-old girl could not possibly raise you in the ways you deserved. She [00:23:00] said, honestly, you would've been better being in a dumpster than in that family. I'm stunned by what you had gone through. I'm stunned. You're even sitting here and that you're capable of talking to me. I'm, she was heartbroken. And I believed her. I believed that was true.

Haley Radke: Yeah. I can, I could see, being in the room at a CUB conference and having read that book, many of those women don't know what happened to their children, and they were told the same things that your mom was, forget about this close the door. The shame of especially the girls that got sent to maternity homes, incredible. And your child's gonna have better parents than you could have ever done. And so your story like encapsulate this no, it's a different life. You don't know what you're gonna get.

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah. It was intense. I was really struck, actually, we were lucky because Nancy [00:24:00] coached me all the way through the reunion. One she said, don't ever feel guilty for basically bulldozing her life. She goes, you have every right to do that. It's empowering for you to reclaim your right to ancestry.

I did feel bad. I just totally blew in there like a storm. But she said, don't feel bad. And she goes, and don't take anything personal because they're gonna have their own baggage, their own problems, their own emotional reactions. Don't take any of it personal. Just get as close to your mom as long for as long as you can.

And the reason is that they all the bonding. That's been waiting for your, in your brain has been put on pause since the moment you two were separated and your biology will snap into action and you will absorb sensually all that you need. And none of it has to do with the way she thinks or the stuff that comes out of her mouth except the sound of her voice.

And I thought that was such great advice that she was giving me, because my mom did have a lot of psychological problems [00:25:00] and she was emotionally undone. She hadn't done any personal work, so I just sat really close to her. If you see any pictures of us, I'm always really close to her and I'm just absorbing her.

And I endured the reunion process for a really long time in order to get as much of that as possible. And Nancy even coached me to have her hold me and let me hear her heartbeat. And I think Diane thought that was really weird, but she did it and it was very dear, actually. It was very sweet to just have hear her heart close to my ear and to feel it, against my cheek and to smell her and be with her, even though I'm this grown woman. I'm like 40 and she's in her sixties. But it was one of the most beautiful edifying human moments. And the other thing that happened with Diane is that she would tell me, I remember times feeling absolutely certain that you were in danger and horrible peril. [00:26:00] And all of those times were corresponding with the worst suffering I went through the rape, the abuse at that summer camp, the time I was homeless right after my dad died and I was in LA stranded until my family came and scooped us up, I was, that was stunning to me how deeply she felt her connection to me. And I was so grateful to hear that because honestly, when you go through those things, you think you're utterly alone.

Haley Radke: The other thing that you talk about throughout are these like synchronicities and you mentioned her wanting to name you Tara, and there's like birthdays that line up and like different dates and things and it's easy for outsiders to talk about how coincidental those things are, but for us it's my god, anything that can tie these stories together is helpful and healing in some [00:27:00] way. What's your connection to the synchronicities and why did you feel to share them?

Jennifer Lauck: I think that they're very important. They're little breadcrumbs along the way, and I think that there is a higher moral truth about being human and the biological connection to mother is so profound and so holy in a way that, I think you call it God or you call it the universe or whatever, but it organizes itself around that truth. That is a central relationship that is vital to our functioning. No other mammal gives up their child. No other mammal that we know about facilitates these kinds of crazy financial arrangements and justifies it in these, rationalizes it in these ways.

So when you're working in a system that is so heady and so logic-based synchronicities, the arrangement of the greater elements of the universe become [00:28:00] little portals of truth that help map reality taking place all the time. And quite interestingly about the Tara thing, which is why I planted that little seed, and I'm really glad you asked, is in the years between my finally, getting, making the reunion experience happen. I was, I left Catholicism and I became a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner. And Tibetan Buddhism was very big in the United States, as many people had gone in the sixties to India and these various countries, and brought back these traditions to the United States.

So Buddhism was really infusing the United States. The Dalai Lama was a big deal, especially after the Chinese occupied Tibet. So there was this kind of big movement. So I was really into the Tibetan Buddhist movement, and I was doing all of the meditation practices that my teachers were handing to me.

And my very first one, the one that got it all started was [00:29:00] Tara. It was called the Green Tara Practice. And when you enter in a tradition like Tibetan Buddhism, your entry practice is your identity practice. So I did mantra to Tara for years, and so when my mother said she named me Tara, I was just like, I always knew. I always knew at this subtle level you could call it a coincidence and that's fine, but for me it was like, no, that's my identity. My name is Tara Wright. My mother is Catherine Plummer. My father is William Wright. That is who I am. And that matters. I was listening to the podcast you did with Lynn, and she was like, she renounced her adoption and she renamed herself. And I was like, whoa, that's bold. I don't know that I would do that. I've often wanted to be called Tara Wright, but another part of me is you've already [00:30:00] established, your career and everything is Jennifer Lauck so you might as well stick with it.

Haley Radke: But you were adopted a second time and renamed, and you did go back to your original adoptive

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah, I was retitled Jenny Leatherwood yuck. Yeah. So I actually did go back to my original name. Cause I didn't wanna be adopted that second time.

Haley Radke: There's this really profound scene where you're in the courtroom and the judge is asking you this, that are you consenting to this of your free will? And you're like, I don't even wanna ask like it, when I think about, I'm gonna go off just slightly to the side to get to this point. When I think about parents that post their children online and they ask for their consent, and kids are like, yeah, sure, that's fine. It's not really true consent because kids have no idea what can happen when their images are online forever. And, whatever that can go with. And asking at how old were you at the time? 11? [00:31:00] Or were you

Jennifer Lauck: 11?

Haley Radke: Yeah, 11.

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah. And think about all the abuse that came prior to that, right?

Haley Radke: Sure.

Jennifer Lauck: I'm not capable of crossing the street, let alone making a decision.

Haley Radke: Consent. Your adoption, you don't even know what that means. You don't even know if you're going to, where are you gonna sleep with these people? Which bedroom is

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah.

Haley Radke: It's egregious the pressures we put on children in that sort of, anyway. That's totally fine.

Jennifer Lauck: No, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. You look back at it, you're like, wow, that was a hot mess. That's one of the reasons I didn't really stay in the adoption community for very long, because I did do some adoptee conferences and I did meet with some adoptee groups, but I found that it was a really tough community for me to maintain my own sanity.

Plus I have my children and I didn't wanna always have my life always be about whatever my wound was. I wanted my life to be about [00:32:00] growing them into fine young men and women, so I was always striking, trying to strike this balance between, okay, these are my stories and this is my involvement in them, and then this is your life and you're the subject of your lives, not the object of my life.

And that's always what I was, I think, 'cause I lost so much perhaps that I wanted to give them everything I didn't have, which was these freedoms to be and enjoy their lives and be happy individuals, not be stripped of identity at every turn or hurt. I was always building fences around my kids, just getting them where they needed to be.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Jennifer Lauck: So I didn't really come back. I just, I couldn't, and my reunion with my mom it went its course it only went so far. It turned out I think she was bipolar. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but there was some kind of serious problem there. And her son, my brother, my full brother and I discussed it and he was quite concerned about her.

And as was her daughter, my half sister. And they were wrapped up in their [00:33:00] lives and they had built a world and it was awkward for me to be in their lives and that we just couldn't figure out a way to make it work. I tried. We tried. I think we took, we all should get an A for a valiant effort. But eventually I think it was best that I just ease out of their world and continue on mine and, I don't know what's happened to her. I don't know what's happened to them. I obviously pray for them often and think of them many times. I'm so grateful she had me and didn't abort me. I'm really at the point of total gratitude for my life and what I'm capable of doing with it. I don't, I also have a deep faith in God now and I, most of the healing I've done a lot of therapy obviously a lot of dream analysis was very helpful to me. I've done neurofeedback, which has to do with trauma in the brain from complex PTSD, but I kept going back to Catholicism has really [00:34:00] helped me because God is really worthy of arguing with, he'll wrestle with you. He wants to, he wants your truth. He wants to work with you. He doesn't want this homogenized relationship. That's what I've found, and so through my reading of scripture and wrestling with God about some of these huge questions I've come to a realization that he knitted me in my mother's womb, and he understood what I was capable of bearing, and he didn't want these things to happen to me.

But God's draws straight with crooked lines. And so I feel honored in a weird way, especially after what happened with Blackbird and the success and all the people I'm able to talk to over the course of my life, that he's entrusted me with my experiences and that I can in some way offer a hand when it's appropriate and do my best, to do my best in every situation, because I'm okay. I'm here. No, it's not [00:35:00] great. No, it's not been perfect. Yes, I'm saddened often, I struggle just like anybody else, but I do feel at peace with it all.

Haley Radke: I did not suffer the level of abuses that you've shared with us, but I connect you on many points of your story, more so than a lot of adoptees, in fact, that I've interviewed. And I too have this strength. I don't know where it comes from. I'm also from a Christian background and still attend church regularly. And I think about adoption and how, like this was not the plan, but this is where I ended up and now what am I gonna do about it? And so I have lived in adoptee community for the last decade and a little more, if you count all my Twitter chats back in the day.

And I feel like it is my [00:36:00] position here to change things in the future so that we don't have, kids going to the next available in line. You have a line in here and found any baby would've done it wasn't personal. Whoever was at the top of the list, whoever. And some of those things are still happening today.

Jennifer Lauck: It's a form of slavery. It's absolutely wrong.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Lauck: What they're doing is wrong.

Haley Radke: Yes. And it's still happening today. And so this passion I have for advocacy is so big. And I do feel like it's a calling in some way.

Jennifer Lauck: Yeah. It's your vocation. You were called to do this.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Lauck: And that's, I just, I'm so respectful of what you're doing and anyone who decides to stay in this space, because just like any space, I work with writers. Writers carry their own stuff, and, I'm in a community and the people in my community all carry stuff. My kids, they carry stuff, but it feels like I can manage it. [00:37:00] Whereas the adoptee community, at least when I was in there, it was just a big throbbing wound. And the people that I talked to were like man, I don't even know how to put my own mask on, let alone help you put yours on. So I didn't think that I could really be very effective in that community for a very long time until I was well enough to even be having this conversation with you. I think I said, when you originally reached out, I was like, no, I don't wanna talk to anybody about adoption, because I was in my mind, right?

Back in those days. But I've come so far, and then I listened to your podcast and what you were doing, and I really had deep respect for you and your obvious commitment and the people who are talking I just couldn't believe the range of people that are sharing stories and the stories are all saying the same things.

And there's so much strength in the community that I didn't have an exposure to back then.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Jennifer Lauck: And so I, I'm in, I'm edified by that and I really am cheering you on.

Haley Radke: Thank you. [00:38:00] I think first, I totally see what you are explaining. One of my passions is to help direct people to the resources and supports that they need to be functioning humans and, heal those wounds to the level that is possible.

And so they can either, go back to their quote unquote, real life and be the good, whatever it is, parent, partner, in the workforce, all those things. Or if you've done the work and you wanna be an advocacy, like great, we need people who are high functioning and healthy and have supports in place to do the work or make you know that's not sustainable.

I have a question for you on, writing memoir and [00:39:00] using stories from our past and people see things differently and I feel that adopted people are often not believed when we're recounting our history, especially when there's other people in the family who, you can live under the same roof and experience different parents.

I, I don't know if you've heard this lately, but people will say the youngest child did have different parents be than the oldest because the parents are that many years older and that much more experienced, and those kinds of things, right? So you can have these different accountings.

I know that you had a little bit of pushback on some of your stories in your writing, and I think you dealt with it so well, but can you comment on that? For us not to be believed, it's like our story, that's the only thing we've been given, like that's all we have.

Jennifer Lauck: Right? I think that a lot of people, when they think about writing, they [00:40:00] immediately think about publication. And they think about fallout, and I'm here to say, thinking about publication and fallout from other people when you've just decided to start writing is similar to holding a baby in your arms and imagining what they're going to do when they are 45. It's impossible. If you desire, if you feel compelled to write about your life, close the door, call up as vivid of images as you can, the first vivid memory you have, and then sit down and write it in hand or on a typewriter or whatever.

On a word processor. Print it out, stick it in an envelope, and then come to it another day. Another vivid memory. Write it. That's between you and the idea. This is such an American thing, I think, and maybe a Euro thing. It's like it's all about outcomes. It's all about will this become something?

It's you becoming. And so when you write, you are [00:41:00] basically writing love letters to yourself, to God even you could write letters to God. Here I was, Saint Augustine, the first memoirist in many ways. We can go back to Marcus Aelius in meditations. He certainly did a lot of personal writing.

I don't think it was intended that way, but great thinkers have always been writing about their lives. Without the intention, it would become anything. And Saint Augustine, he just wrote to God. The color purple, I think, is a series of letters. Dear God, whatever, however you wanna do it, even dear mom or just dear my former self, just sit down and write and have this conversation with yourself.

And again, the vivid images are very important because when we have a vivid memory and we write about it, it increases the vividness of memory. And it can really be very empowering and it helps to overcome the, you don't have a right to say something different than our collective agreement. It starts to break [00:42:00] that.

And until we live in a society that doesn't give us this freedom to write and to be alone with our thoughts and a page of paper and a pen do it, if you're called, if you're called, and again, it's a beautiful thing. You never have to do anything with it, but it's starting to open doors within you, open your mind, open doors in your heart, starting to uncover a layer of truth that you deserve and that is your inheritance.

Like you said, without our story, what are we are our stories and we have the right to tell them even if they diametrically disagree with anybody around us. Just keep it to yourself. If you've got those kind of people in your lives, don't talk about it. It's none of their business like your journal, right?

It's nobody's business. What's in your journal. That pressure is very real. Anyone who reads memoir knows that it's coming through the filter of the writer. You're not paying attention to story at all. If you think this, I'm not a, I never claimed it was a reported accurate event. [00:43:00] It's a memoir.

It's creative writing, and writers have creative license. Now, there's an argument within the writing community about the spectrum of truth and memoir. Some are purists and they believe, unless you can prove every single thing that you put in your memoir, you should call it fiction. Then there are other people over here who are like, anything goes, and that's James Fray who said he was in prison when he wasn't even in jail, and Oprah gave him a spanking on her show and it was all horrible. And then there's this middle ground, and this is where I like to stand, which is do your best. Have a pact with the reader if you're going to take your story into the realm of the world and say, I'm doing my best. My brother remembered this, or my father remembered this, and others would say this or that, that's fine. But that's for a final product. Not in the early stages of writing. I'm not, I would never tell anybody not to write about their lives. In fact, the opposite. I think everybody should write about their lives if they're called to do it. It's tremendously transformative. [00:44:00] And secondarily, if you decide to get it out there in the world, that becomes another conversation.

And you deal with that when you get there. When I talk to people about writing memoir, I'm like, yeah it's a weird world and the internet makes it weirder and empowers people to do strange things. And now we have social media with, Twitter, and people feel like they can just vomit all over you and. I just say, go gently into that dark night, but don't ever let it make you afraid to tell your story again, you're at the infancy. Just grab a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. And then later if you feel like I've got something here, and go get a good teacher, and have them help you.

Someone who would advise you. And then if you do want a publication, gird your loins, because I can't tell you what's gonna happen.

Haley Radke: Who knows? You went quite on quite a ride with yours, your work.

Jennifer Lauck: Blackbird was just, I never intended Blackbird to get out there. I was married to a guy who wanted me to make some money, so I was like, okay.

[00:45:00] So I'd never written a memoir. I just, I was a reporter, a television reporter A news reporter. So I was like, all right I'll bang this out, and turned out to be this incredible story. And then I sold it because I wanted to get him off my back. Here's some money I was, I had that abandonment issue oh, if I'm not performing, I'm gonna get abandoned.

And then I gave him all this money and then he's now you don't need me anymore. So that revealed like a deeper problem within the marriage, he and I are actually really good friends, but the marriage didn't survive that kind of, pendulum swinging. And I didn't intend black, I didn't intend to be a writer.

I didn't intend to write about my life. I didn't intend to be successful. I think God just dropped it on me. It's been really wild. Because people felt through Blackbird that they could start telling me, like you said, can I tell you my story? And I'm like, yeah, tell me. Let me help you write that.

And ever since I've been a teacher, helping people write, having good boundaries, so I'm not all up in there personal business. [00:46:00] Let them have dignity. I think people all need dignity and respect and resources and let them make their own choices because just like God made you and made me, God's made all of us, and we're all on, on path.

We're all on purpose and we need to be whole to do that to serve others, but we have to be well versed, right? And so writing has been a huge resource for me to grow my life and to grow into myself and to give back at the same time. I've published four memoirs and I've got my fifth I'm working on right now.

Haley Radke: So exciting. So I know you have your flight school, you have teaching programs. We are gonna link to those for folks in the show notes. And you're recommending to us writing and you've talked about that, but I'm gonna do mine and my recommended resource. So we've referenced Blackbird the most frequently in, in our conversation.

And for folks that haven't read it, [00:47:00] you know you're telling the story from Jenny childhood, Jenny's eyes and it's really, it's incredible. I know why it's had such success and I love that you read the audio, so I have the hard copy but I also listened to you read it. It was wonderful to hear in your voice 'cause voices are so important to me.

But for adoptees, your book Found. Is, it was really meaningful to me, and you recount all of these things that we certainly, many of us will connect with. Talking about being chosen to be a nurse, for your first adoptive mother as a, very young child who, no one should be asked to do those things.

You talked about your connection with Nancy Verrier in here as well, and I was like, whoa, that's, I didn't know that you shared that here, but that was really amazing [00:48:00] and your reunion time with your mom and these connections, how you're reaching for connection and like desperate for it and those things. I think it can be so relatable even when it is awkward and uncomfortable and those things.

That's why I'm so pleased that you shared those things with us earlier. I think it'll be really helpful for people to read that. So yeah, that's Found. And Jennifer, where can we find you and follow along with you and your writing and your future work?

Jennifer Lauck: Thank you so much, Haley. As a writer, when you're working on these books, you're doing your very best at the time.

But now I've had 25 years of experience of writing. Being a creative writing teacher, I'm like, oh, I could have done this or I could have done that. I could have changed this. I could have changed that. Found was really a book that I threw out in a very fast way. As a kind of buoy [00:49:00] for the responses or for the requests I was getting from the adoption community.

So I was like, okay, here, I'll just write this book and make a statement about adoption from my perspective, but I'm gonna go through that door and go back to my healing process, so to speak, and raising my kids. So I'm really happy to hear that Found is so moving. It's very different than anything I've ever written before or after, but I really felt it was very important to recontextualize everything I understood about my life through the filter of adoption. And as I'm working on my fifth memoir right now, I can't believe how much that adoption is bubbling up and especially in relationship to, there's a character in Found named Rick, and that was actually a very dysfunctional, actually predatory relationship I was in the midst of, and I didn't understand how he worked his way into my life at the same time [00:50:00] I was finding my mom and how vulnerable I was during my adoption reunion process. And I think if there's one thing I would tell to people, man, go gently into that dark night of finding your birth parents because it's hard. Take your time. I know you've waited your whole life and you just wanna run.

But remember how vulnerable you are. Remember you're being reduced all the way back to your infancy and make good decisions. Surround yourself with good resources, people who can help care for you while you go through that. I would say that my reunion and all of that impacted me for at least a decade in a profoundly bad way, right?

Because I went too fast, I expected too much, and I wasn't paying as close of attention as I needed to. Though Nancy did a great job holding me, I still, I threw myself over way too many cliffs. Okay, so that wasn't your question, but that's the primary thing I would say to any adoptee I ever [00:51:00] talk to, man, go slow.

And it's the same advice I would give about writing. If you're interested in writing and you find yourself called to be a writer. You don't need me. Go get a book called On Writing or Writing About Your Life by Williams Zinsser, and I'll give you both those books, Haley, so you can put them on your site.

Williams Zinsser is a really remarkable man who gives people permission to write about their life. And I've just recently found him and I love his books. I think I'm gonna build a program around this because I love what he has to say so much. What I do at Blackbird and through Flight School. Flight School is my substack and that's how people access my, like my billboard on the internet, right?

So that's the way people access me on the internet through Flight School, Blackbird and Flight School, they feed one another and it is a literary program, so it's for the writer who knows they're interested in not just becoming a, a good writer, but a great writer and they wanna to get published.

So I take you from idea [00:52:00] to publication, and this is a whole other thing. Never ever think, oh, I'm not good enough to write. You are good enough to write, start now. If you find down the line you want to become a great writer, then come find me on Flight School and I'll send you those links. Flight School is a great introductory handshake and it shows me if you're serious or not.

There are ways in the start page to get going, and if the writer is showing up on Flight School, commenting and getting involved in the community and sharing work, great. We'll start talking. Otherwise they can come to me and start taking classes, and I have a whole year long basics foundation program where I vet people because, relationship needs to be built in any situation, but especially when you're writing about your life or even all, even novels, everyone's writing about their life.

They don't think that they're writing about their lives, but they are, they're always writing about their lives. So I wanna make sure [00:53:00] I'm the right teacher for you, and I take a year of very careful interaction with you to make sure I'm the right teacher for you and that you will be a good fit in our community.

Because I'm working with, about 40 writers a week who are with me from anywhere from three to seven years, 10 years working on their project 'cause writing is a long term art form. It takes a long time to be a great writer. And so I wanna make sure we're in the right place. And if you're not, then I'm gonna recommend you to other people who I know are really good.

And so that's what Blackbird is all about. And again, I'm helping people towards publication and crossing that finish line, which has a lot of little moving pieces.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Yes. Wow. I commend you because that 10 years, oh, I'm working on a big podcasting project right now, and if you told me it was gonna take 10 years to do it, I'd be like, no. I don't know.

Jennifer Lauck: Haley. I've been working on a novel for 22, my first novel. I can't [00:54:00] seem to crack the, I finally have cracked the novel code and it's taken me 22 years. No. That's why you go to these book readings and people are like, yes, this took me, all of my twenties and thirties to write this book.

And you're like, how? When you read books, you think I read the book in nine hours. How could it possibly take you nine years?

Haley Radke: Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Lauck: Because to write a really beautiful book, you have to work really hard. You have to know yourself really well, and you have to understand the human condition in a very big way. In order to build those worlds in a way that the reader can access. And yeah, my job is to help, you write a beautiful book.

Haley Radke: And so dear listener, you know that you can trust when I've recommended Jennifer's books. They're great.

Jennifer Lauck: Oh, that's very dear. And I'm gonna say thank you to that. Thank you for affirming me.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much for sharing with us today.

Jennifer Lauck: Oh, it's just been a pleasure. Thank you.

Haley Radke: It's always happens that I feel like I've [00:55:00] gotten to the end of any possible back listed, adoptee, authored work, and a new friend. Will tell me about some book in my collection I've missed, and Jennifer is just that for me. I had a new adoptee friend tell me about Jennifer's writing classes and how much she enjoyed them and have I read Jennifer's books?

I was like, no, I haven't. And so when I got to read them Blackbird and Found in particular, I was so moved and like truly just had a really amazing experience reading both of them. I was like, I'm excited to read her other two. They're already in my collection and I'm ready. When you find an author that you just really connect with and it's just like a real pleasure to read their work. This is totally the case for me with Jennifer's work. So I'm so glad I got to introduce her hopefully to some of you and perhaps some of you already knew of her [00:56:00] and that's lovely. It's 2026 already and we are planning out our 2026, 2027 calendar here at Adoptees On, and you may have seen in the fall, late fall, I opened up guest applications for the first time in many years, and I don't even know how many have come in already. It's a lot. It's a lot to sort through. But over the next year you will hear from, I'm sure returning guests yes. But new voices folks who are new to me. Hopefully I can introduce you to some more adoptees doing amazing things in this world and folks that are starting out on their journey of exploring what adoption has meant in their own lives.

And we're gonna have a real range of all of those different voices [00:57:00] in the coming years. And I'm also busy working on my other projects, including On Adoption. And I would love your support if you want to hear more about On Adoption. You can go to Adoptees for Family Preservation adopteesffp.org and see how you can help support that project and bring it to life.

And thank you so much for being here and for listening to adoptee voices. It's so important to me, and I'm glad it's important to you too. Thanks for listening and we'll talk again soon.

315 Alé Cardinalle, MSW

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/315

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is Alé Cardinalle, an adoptee advocate who has taught millions of people on TikTok about the complexities of adoption. We talk about what reunion is like when it's international and everyone speaks a different language.

One of my very favorite things about Alé is how much she loves her adoptive parents. She will say loudly how she has had a privileged love filled life, and even with all of those positives, adoption is still a trauma and has [00:01:00] deeply impacted her. We also talk about pregnancy loss and how Alé experiences make her uniquely suited to talk with empathy to hopeful adoptive parents.

Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Alé. Hi  Alé.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Hi, Haley.

Haley Radke: You're TikTok famous. For those of my listeners who don't know who you are, would you mind sharing a little of your story with us?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Sure. I am an [00:02:00] international adoptee. I was adopted from Brazil and I had what I like to call a completely closed adoption, and it was closed even from myself. And I also refer to myself as a medium discovery adoptee because I wasn't quite an I was not an adult yet. So long story short, I was raised in New Jersey with three other sisters. And I have an older sister who has cerebral palsy and she is wheelchair bound. And we heard a lot about her birth story because her disability is a result of a birth injury.

And then my younger sisters are IVF babies, and in the late eighties, early nineties, they were conceived and born through IVF. And so that was, a really cool new thing. It's still very cool, but a very new, hot new thing and so we heard about their birth stories all the time. [00:03:00] And I was about 11 or 12 years old. I had some information. I had to travel with a green card, so I knew I was born in another country. I didn't have an American passport. I had a Brazilian passport and I had to travel with a green card and. Anyway, I started to put pieces of the puzzle together and I figured it out that I was adopted.

And so I approached my mom about it and she said yes, you are adopted. And I think like a lot of other adoptees, we didn't wanna hurt anybody's feelings. And my parents made me aware that this was not something that they wanted to talk about, that I was their daughter. End of story. They wanted me, they loved me, and that's it.

And so I did not feel comfortable or welcome to bring it, even use the word adopted really. And in my early adolescence, teenage years, early adulthood, I [00:04:00] had pretty severe mental health issues. I had major depressive disorder and really significant issues and I wound up in treatment and it was not until I was 22 years old in a treatment center where a therapist was like, we have to talk about adoption. We can't do this anymore. It's not working. And we had a big family therapy session. The treatment center that I was in, my family had to, my parents had to fly down there, and for the first time in my entire life, we had a candid conversation about adoption, and it was really emotional. My dad cried. He's like this masculine, Italian American guy, and it was not something that I was used to seeing him cry, and I won't say everything was perfect and we had an open dialogue [00:05:00] about adoption after that, but it cracked things wide open and was a pathway for a lot more openness to happen. That was great.

And then I wound up staying, I was in Florida then I wound up going to college in Miami. So I lived down there still, and I was home for, I don't know, something. And I needed my high school diploma to apply for, I don't know, something. I don't remember what, but I'm like looking through old papers and I find my adoption documents that I had, and I, Haley, you can't see her right now, but she's nodding it just like a canonical adoptee event where we just find something that's really sick to get to our stories. It happens all the time.

Haley Radke: If we're lucky enough. Yeah. Yeah. And you are gonna steal these items.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Exactly. So I, like I said, I was home and I stowed them away. I hid them in my little [00:06:00] carry on and I brought them back to Miami with me. And in that pile was my biological mother's name that I had never seen before. How old she was, who her lawyer was. Which again, another thing that really significant for a lot of adoptees in closed adoptions is like any little morsel of information, is like the whole world. And yeah, so I got onto Facebook and I started looking through, and it's not an uncommon name, it's like John Smith here, so I looked at maybe a hundred people with this name and I was like, one of them could be her. And then life happened and I was like, I'm gonna put this on the shelf. I can't deal with this right now. And I did admit to them that I had the paperwork and my mom was like, it's fine. I just need it back because you're gonna lose them, which is fair if you know me.

And [00:07:00] yeah. So then years and years go by and I to, to my inner child shock my parents really helped facilitate reunion logistically financially. My, my adoptive mom came with me and we went to Brazil all together where I did meet my biological mom, who I initially found actually did find her on Facebook eventually. Long story short, there too, and that is a, my story in a nutshell.

Haley Radke: I've never heard anyone say medium discovery adoptee, and I'm stuck on that. I love that. That's a good one.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. And so in your reunion, I'm making an assumption here your birth mother likely spoke Portuguese, but did she also speak English?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: No.

Haley Radke: No.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Not at all. She, so I [00:08:00] was in reunion in 2016 and it was all Google translate and our messages back and forth were on Facebook Messenger and I was copying, pasting everything into Google Translate. And then when we got to Brazil, we were all speaking like into the phone and it worked out great. And I was like, by the end of the week I was like, do I speak Portugese? Yeah. But the language barrier definitely has affected reunion, I would say long term. It, it just another layer of obstacle, and in the beginning, and I can only speak to my own reunion, but I can imagine that it's like this for a lot of adoptees in the beginning, it's really for lack of a better word, that I can think of right now, like really hot and heavy.

Like you're really talking to each other all the time. You're really in communication. It's new and exciting. You're discovering [00:09:00] each other. It's dating, for the, finding your people, your person. And then for me, real life, we're on different continents, we speak different languages, we have different cultures and we're still in contact. But I guess in 2016, I wouldn't think that this is where we would be at now, but it's also okay for right now.

Haley Radke: Do you find that it's more difficult to go to deeper questions than or do you not even wonder the deeper things and you put those to the side, like things that you might wanna have conversations about in person.

It's pretty awkward to be like, okay, I am gonna just, lemme just quick, let me put this in my phone. And then, yeah. And then for translation purposes, that's, feels like those are harder.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah, it's a great question and I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before, but yeah, absolutely. [00:10:00] And it's not even just a language, it's a communication style too. It's the way that my biological family expresses themselves is very foreign to me. It's a lot more flowery and just turns of phrases that we wouldn't use and so just even if we were speaking the same language, that part is just like culturally very different and yeah, absolutely. It's really hard to ask these questions.

It's hard to ask these questions from just like the distance. Sometimes you wanna have these really hard conversations, like close to each other. And so it's interesting that you asked that because there was a huge question that I wanted to ask for years, and that was, did she ever hold me? I didn't know. And I just didn't ask and I didn't ask while I was there [00:11:00] in Brazil and I haven't been since 2016, the year of 2016, I went twice that year and then I haven't been back since. And so I just messaged her and I got the answer she did. So it was me and her alone in the hospital for three days. And I never knew that it was just me and her and she was nursing. I didn't know that. Again, like it's like those little pieces of the puzzle that are just like mind blowing, especially now as a mother who did nurse my baby in the hospital too, and like what that, and then to leave without your baby, so yes, absolutely. You're, the answer to that question is yes. It makes it a lot more difficult. And again, I don't have any other reference point to how it feels for any other adoptee. I only know my own story. I've heard a lot of other stories, but yeah, for me, the culture and the language and the lifestyle, all of that is [00:12:00] an, I don't know if obstacle is even the right word, but it's definitely a challenge in having a relationship that feels really easy and authentic to navigate on that level, like speaking the same language, having a shared culture and like shared reference points in life. We just don't have that. And it definitely affects reunion.

Haley Radke: The international barrier, the financial aspects of being able to travel the time using vacation time, your a mom to young ones.

There's so many barriers that people don't realize. Us domestics who are in reunion don't necessarily have, I mean of course people live far away too, but it's an extra layer of complexity and so if she was able to, is she able to travel to the United States from Brazil or is that tricky?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Extremely tricky for a [00:13:00] couple of reasons. One, under the current presidency, you need a visa to travel from Brazil to the United States. That's not easy to get. It used to be pretty easy if you have family, and I am very privileged if you could use that word. I do have a copy of my original birth certificate, which would help in this situation had it been not the current presidency that we're under now, it doesn't matter.

The fact that we're family is irrelevant in helping get a visa as far as I understand. But also to your point, financially and even being, for them to be able to apply for a visa the consulate is not very close.

Haley Radke: Oh, you have to go with somewhere?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Like I'm used to like filling out an internet form for something. I never even thought of that. Wow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: No, so you have to go to the consulate, which is like hours and hours [00:14:00] away. So it's not very easy. What had been our plan that never came to fruition was for me to go down there and help them with the whole process, but it just never happened, and that was something I wanted for a long time, and I still do, but a lot of things get put on the shelf.

Haley Radke: When you're a mom to young babies. Your priorities shift pretty quickly.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Let's talk about your professional life. I know you have your master's in social work, and we've often talked here about how little education about actually adoptees, adoption, moms in crisis that social workers even get in their training.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Can you speak to why you decided to take that and what was your experience now looking back as an adoptee on that training?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah, so the reason that I got into social work was [00:15:00] I was a teacher initially, and I was working with international students as an ESL teacher, and what was being asked to me as a teacher was ridiculous and impossible and I was disgusted by the whole thing. But what I was really good at and what I did really love was building a relationship with my students. And I wanted to leave the, classroom portion behind. And anyway, that's why I decided to get my master's in social work. And it was becoming slowly apparent to me at the time that I was having issues and they were correlated with the fact that I was adopted.

And so it was, not outta the fog by any chance because I was still the problem in my mind. And that if I could fix me and what happened to me, then I would be okay. So I'm in social work school. And I am taking [00:16:00] a elective mind you child development class? No. Attachment is attachment class. And we had to pick a topic pertaining to attachment and write a paper about it.

And I, because this is so stupid now, but I was all in at the time. My paper was if you adopt a child and practice attachment parenting, the attachment parenting style, they won't have adoption trauma. That was.

Haley Radke: Oh. Are you sending out copies of that?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: I sent them to hell and oh my God, which like. By the way, attachment parenting as a style to like the, it's been busted by itself with children that are not adopted. So anyway, that's besides the point.

Haley Radke: You know what? [00:17:00] Just bless our past hearts. Like just, that's all.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: She was so sweet. So sweet.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Anyway, I pitched this, my teacher, I didn't know that is an adoptive parent. She pulls me aside, she gives me a pile of books. She goes, I want you to have these. You can keep them go slow. Can you guess what book is on the top?

Haley Radke: Did she know? Did you know? Did she know you were adopted?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: After I pitched my paper? Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: But not before.

Haley Radke: I'm gonna imagine it's The Primal Wound.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yep. So she gave me The Primal Wound.

Haley Radke: At least she said go slow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah. She gave me The Primal Wound. I did not, in fact go slow. I had a emotionally violent reaction. I was a puddle [00:18:00] and I had, I really didn't. It was a summer course. The rest of the summer. I struggled the whole rest of that summer and I really took it out on my mom, my adoptive mom, and I really credit her and honestly, I think this is the one thing that allows us to have the amazing relationship that we have today. I was so hurt, traumatized, re-traumatized by what I was reading. I had a full blown tantrum. I still am taken aback, by my own behavior, I was awful to her. And basically like, how could you do this? How did you not know? And it was 1988 and why didn't you know this? Why didn't you read this book? And the way that she responded to [00:19:00] me was so compassionate and soft and mothering that it really, as awful as I felt about my behavior, I think that I, it had to go down that way for us to be where we are today, if that story made sense. But yeah I had a really, I guess I was really triggered is a oversimplification of what happened there.

Haley Radke: And so how old were you when this happened? Reading The Primal Wound.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Okay. So I'm in grad school. I was probably like 28, 29.

Haley Radke: And so earlier you had talked about being in residential treatment for some mental health issues. I don't know how much you're comfortable sharing about that, we talk about how adoptees are overrepresented in those kinds of environments. And I know you've shared about this a little bit in, in some other conversations that people can listen to, a couple [00:20:00] other interviews you've done. But looking back with the, this new knowledge of like primal wound things like were you able to have compassion for yourself for those struggles that you had as a teenager and in your young twenties?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: How did that reframe things for you?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: I have wonderful parents. I have wonderful sisters. They're my best friends. We're very close. I grew up very privileged. Anything I could ever want or need or ask for, dream of, I led a pretty privileged life and I struggled so much. I struggled so much from so young.

I started therapy when I was eight years old, and the whole time I was really aware that I was having a different experience than the people around me. And sometimes [00:21:00] I'd see awful things going on in the world that, were not even possible in my own world. And I was like, how can you be so unhappy?

Why is everything so hard for you? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? And when I had this frame of reference that other adoptees were struggling, like I was struggling, that maternal separation is trauma and that what happened to me affected me, affected my development, this layer of shame and blame that I was putting on myself was pretty instantly lifted.

And I was able to say nothing was ever wrong with you. Something happened to you and the way that you're reacting may and reacted made all the sense in the [00:22:00] world.

Haley Radke: What did you do once you finished The Primal Wound?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: I never finished The Primal Wound.

Haley Radke: Wait, you stopped at some point you are like, I get it.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. I think, honestly, it's been so long, but there was a point where I was just like, I can't, the tone of the book, not the tone, but I guess the subject matter I don't know, something shifts and I was like, all right, this is, I gotta go. It was terrible. Okay. So it was really validating, but I was also really angry, which explains how I treated my mom. But how was this allowed to happen? And not only how was this allowed to happen, how was all this allowed to happen? And I'm in therapy at eight years old, I'm in second grade and in a therapist and we're not talking about the fact that I'm adopted. [00:23:00] Which, listen, I had every right to be angry. I might have been, it might've been a little misplaced and, yeah. Yeah. But yes, I did never finish it and I still have never finished it. And honestly, I don't, I know that's a controversial book still.

Haley Radke: Yeah. We talked about it, my God, we must have mentioned it every single episode for the first few seasons because it was of this show because like it was the thing that we had access to and we knew, and now there's so many other things.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: That we talk about and that are adoptee authored and adoptee, critical adoption scholars and so much more work to pull from

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: That I know about.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah. It's not something that I recommend. Not that I don't recommend it, but if I'm making a recommendation, it wouldn't be that.

Haley Radke: It's [00:24:00] not the, it's not my top 10 anymore.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Right.

Haley Radke: Okay. So we've got the great reshifting of Alé's mind. And you're still in your master's program.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Looking back, what was the adoption stuff you learned about? That professor sounds like a unicorn in the fact that she even had that book.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah, she was, and I have to give her a lot of credit 'cause I don't think I would be in, who knows what would've happened but I am happy that I met her and that she reacted to me the way that she did. It was I'm gonna hold your hand while I tell you this. Yeah. Nothing, Haley. Nothing. Nothing. Which is wild. Nearly nothing. Which is very interesting because we know how many social workers will go on to work with children and work with children in child welfare.

And many, and some of my classmates did go on to [00:25:00] work in adoption, like for adoption agencies. You know what's interesting, the, so I'm in New Jersey. I did my, I went to NYU, but I did my second year internship at Rutgers Counseling Center. It was a very prestigious internship because that counseling center, their model was, copied through all the big 10 schools where we're looking at them to see how they were running their counseling center.

And it was amazing and I learned so much. And that was so the social work trainees and the PsyD trainees would have like professional developments together. We had one, one session on adoption, and that was the only thing that spoke directly to adoption and the adoption industry and the adoptee experience. And it wasn't through my school, it was through an internship that [00:26:00] I had, and it was an hour.

Haley Radke: Wow. Wow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Nothing. And social work continues to perpetuate the harm that it has perpetuated within adoption and child welfare as it always has. I graduated in 2019, so since, at least since then, I think it's possible things are starting to shift. You'll have to ask somebody that's newer out of school. But yeah, it was abysmal and awful in that regard.

Haley Radke: Aside from schooling then, what were some things that you like took in to learn more about adoptee stuff?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Okay. So I read the Primal read most of The Primal Wound and I found adoptee Twitter at that time.

Haley Radke: That was my [00:27:00] in too.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah. So it was around like 20, probably around 2018 I was Aléthatgirl on Twitter, I think that was my name. And yeah. And I was meeting lots of adoptees that were having similar experience and we were on this little community, which like, now I can't even remember really how Twitter worked, but it was a part of my life and a connection with other people that I didn't have before.

And you and your show. I was in grad school, I was still teaching, I had an internship. They were all over, like different parts of different states. And I was in the car constantly. I listened, I feel like I finished all the podcast. And so I was like eating your show up. And it was something that I was, and still do recommend [00:28:00] to people who were like where can I learn more about this?

And it was you and I don't know if you, I haven't heard the name in years, but there was an adoptee name Blake.

Haley Radke: Oh.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: And they had a YouTube show called Not Your Orphan. Yeah. And I learned so much on Blake's show. I don't know what ever happened to Blake, but

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: It was you, it was Twitter and it was Blake.

Haley Radke: Wow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: And yeah, and then I watched a lot of documentaries too. There, there was a quite a few Korean adoptees that made documentaries. I wish I could remember the name. We can maybe tag it in the show notes. A lot of them are, if you have the library, the what, whatever the app that you get with your library card, a lot of them are on there. But there's a Korean adoptee who has a production company and she made two really great [00:29:00] documentaries. And then we're here years and years later. But that's where it all began.

Haley Radke: Wow, that's so amazing. So when I was researching you for our interview, I went back literally to the beginning of your TikTok, which dang girl, that's a long scroll.

Just saying. And and I was like, wait, she mentioned my show at some point.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: In the feed. So I didn't know you listened when I invited you on, so that's pretty cool. So let's go to TikTok. And you started, you weren't starting TikTok as an adoptee, but all of a sudden your feed switches and you're this badass adoptee advocate. So we gotta talk about all that. So what got you on TikTok?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: What got anyone on TikTok was the pandemic and lockdown.

Haley Radke: Oh.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Okay. What happened was, I was, after I graduated, my like niche moved away from children [00:30:00] because that's what life does. One door opens another, and my area where I was honing in on was anxiety and I, the plan was to go and graduate and become a therapist, but I graduated and then we were in the pandemic and it was impossible to get a job. And so I was, anyway, long story short, I had a little online coaching business where I helped people basically learn relaxation techniques and self-compassion techniques. And so I went to TikTok to advertise that business basically. And I was getting away from the adoption stuff it's a lot. I don't have to tell you, you've also made a career about it. It's not easy to talk about it and be immersed in it all the time. And when I was on Twitter, I was still very much in the thick of discovering what this meant for me and still really moving through all the parts. So basically it was too much. I didn't wanna do it anymore, [00:31:00] and I stepped away. Anyway, I'm on TikTok, minding my own business, and there's an adoptive parent. It was a kinship adoption, I'll never forget it. And this adoptive parent is oversharing and they seem like such a nice, person that probably has the same politics like I do.

And I'm like if I just tell them, they're gonna course correct so I send these, this guy I think is gonna be a super nice guy, and I'm like, hey, I'm adopted and I just wanna let you know that the information that you're talking about, I think the 6-year-old in your life, that's not really, that's their information to share when they want to.

And this kinship adoptive parent says to me they told me that they wanted to, they consented to sharing this information, and they blocked me.

Haley Radke: Oh my.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: And I was talking about this, my sweet little heart. I was [00:32:00] like, what? How did this, this doesn't make any sense to me, and so I made a video. I never said who I was talking about it, but I made, it was the video where I plugged your show. I was like, listen, this is not what I do here. It's not what I'm here to do, but please don't overshare your adoptees information. It's very triggering and it's not your information to share. I was a little bit emotional. I sat in front of the camera and boom. It's the first video I start to get that anyone sees. And there was a few adoptees that there was at that time on TikTok only a, like a count of maybe two hands, the amount of people that were doing adoption content. And they were like fluent and they were like, oh they were like, thank you for saying what you're saying.

And they, I don't know, they just scooped me up. And then I started talking about it more and I got, sucked back into adoption world and I [00:33:00] was in a different place than I had been, the first time that I entered, I think my purpose really found me. And the more I talked, the more people were plenty were not listening and not picking up what I was putting down, but a lot of people, but lots of people were. And so it has been a wild ride. And when I started on TikTok, I was single. I was living at my parents' house and now I'm married, I have a house. It's two kids later. It's been about five or six years.

Haley Radke: Wow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: That's incredible. I, you've made so much content and you have a patience and grace for people that I have a hard time summoning up if we're being, candid with each other, which I'm sure draws people to you. One of the parts of your story was a [00:34:00] ectopic pregnancy loss, struggling with that. And you share very openly about miscarriage and of course there's this intersectionality with people who are dealing with infertility and trying to conceive. And so just this compassionate way you speak to people about that I found very powerful. Do you have any stories about connecting with people that perhaps were pursuing adoption because of infertility and you sharing those experiences, like how that sort of intersected?

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Sure. Wow. This is such a cool question 'cause it has a really cool answer. So I do have a lot of compassion because I know what it feels like to wanna be a parent more than anything in the world. For that to, I could cry just thinking about it, but. For wanting your baby, for [00:35:00] wanting, to motherhood more than anything in the world, to feel like that is your purpose and to have to even grapple with the thought that might not become reality.

It is something that I do have the utmost compassion for. And like you said, I did have an ectopic pregnancy and I wrote about, I don't, I have one, one thing that I've written on substack and it's about my ectopic and I know what it's like to leave a hospital with no baby, right? I had the surgery for my ectopic in the labor and delivery unit and I recovered in the mother baby unit and I was wheeled outta the hospital with, I wouldn't have had a baby anyway it was very early on, but I just I wanted my baby so badly and we stru really struggled. We [00:36:00] tried for six months, but the first cycle we tried, I was like sobbing when we didn't get pregnant, like the first month. It was hard. It was hard. And it was like the sixth time, the sixth cycle. And I did get pregnant and it was a bi corneal ectopic, which means the embryo was in between my fallopian tube and my uterus.

And so the surgery was, they had to remove the fallopian tube and part of my uterus. And they told me it wouldn't affect my fertility. And I was like you're lying to me. How could it not? Which they weren't lying. It didn't. And I have two beautiful boys that I was able to conceive the old fashioned way, but I do have a lot of, I do have a lot of compassion and listen, I work in mental health. I am a social worker, but I also think, I don't have to tell you that this is a topic that brings up a lot of emotions that people are very dug into their [00:37:00] feeling. And I don't think that we make change or change hearts without building a rapport in a relationship.

And so I do get snarky, I do get frustrated, but I try to choose my words and how I deliver my message with a lot of intention in the way that people can like, know and trust me and maybe be open to something that they haven't heard before. I definitely roll my eyes and I definitely get annoyed and, I've gotten emotional, but I really try to build relationships and be nice to people who may not even be very nice to me.

Haley Radke: And do you have someone that, that you.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Oh yes. Wait, I forgot the best part. Okay. So there was this woman, this cute lady, and she was doing a series on TikTok, doing TikTok dances until she can afford adoption or [00:38:00] IVF. And so I listen, by this time I knew that sliding into dms, I was, people weren't gonna be like, oh my gosh, thank you for telling me this. I am completely forever changed.

Haley Radke: Thank you for your unsolicited input correcting me.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: But this woman, she was, and because I was nice to her, there was, a lot of other people in this space, and I'm not trying to police anyone's tone, but sometimes you do catch more flies with honey. And I was really nice to her. And I shared with her, I also wanted to be pregnant more than anything in the world. And if I could've danced to make that happen I absolutely would have I guess I did dance to make that happen, but it was a different kind of dance.

And I recommended her some books. And she and she bought them, and I recommended probably your [00:39:00] podcast, I can't remember, but I was recommending it to everyone and she made a video, which she thanked me, and she said she wasn't gonna do that anymore. And then she disappeared from TikTok, Haley, and she just came back and she's pregnant.

Haley Radke: Wow.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Like weeks ago. And that's why I'm like, how did she even know to ask me this? But yeah she's pregnant, so she, I guess she danced her way to IVF yeah. Yeah. Isn't, that a cool story.

Haley Radke: That's amazing. That's totally cool.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: So I think we have time before we do recommended resources. I'm curious because I've seen you talk about, you think there is a shift in people listening to adoptees, especially on TikTok. I agree. I've seen a lot of comments on your videos and some other adoptee TikTok videos about. People like actually listening. What a concept. What are some things that [00:40:00] you find when you share and TikTok is mostly short form content still. That's what gets traction there.

While we're recording this that's what gets traction is the short things. What are some things that you're sharing that you're finding people are really listening to and, I do, I'm sure I have people that listen that are active on socials sharing adoptee things, adoptee advocates.

But also we have people here who just wanna be able to explain things to their friends and family, so their friends and family stop saying stupid bleep to them. Oh my gosh, I can't, I don't swear on this show. Whoops. You can bleep me for the first time.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: I think a big thing is to talk about this as a women's issue, as a reproductive justice issue. And I think a big thing that makes people go, huh, is when we talk about other countries [00:41:00] that have more social, I don't even know if socialists is the right word, but where the governments care about the people and there's things like, socialized healthcare, universal healthcare, maternity and paternity leave, these cuckoo concepts, affordable childcare, that there's maybe less than a hundred adoptions in those countries domestic adoptions in those countries a year.

And that if we had access to those things, that women would unlikely relinquish their children. And that it is an act of choicelessness or an act that comes out of choicelessness rather than empowered choice. I think that really speaks to people and it's honestly not an easy question to answer because something that I get almost on every video is I hear what you're saying, but what's the alternative?

And I actually have that [00:42:00] answer like pre-populated, it's just pre-written, which helps immensely. If there's any TikToker listening or anyone who works on social media, that gets a question. I really put it in your keyboard shortcuts. It will save you so much emotional labor.

And there really is no good answer to that. It's something that I get almost every single day. It's I hear what you're saying, but what's the alternative? I'm trying to think what else that people really resonate with. Anytime I talk about a celebrity and we just talked about Jennifer Aniston had said on the Armchair Expert podcast that she wouldn't want to adopt because she wanted a baby with her own DNA and that video did really well.

And it's almost like people understood that adoption isn't a cure for infertility. So it was like a good springboard to have that conversation. And I think what I've been leaning into now is how adoption really is [00:43:00] interwoven with, right wing conservative ideology. And when we think about making adoption, we think about it from, still, from an adoptive parent's perspective, right?

How do we make it easier for a diverse, couples to adopt or single people, or gay couples, or whatever their identity might be. But the question is how can we prevent adoptions? How do we reframe adoption? Because we have it so normalized that adoption in this country is a service for adults, I've been saying like it's a service to source newborns, and that's not normal. That's not a thing in other places. And I had a little series called Alé Ruins Adoption, and I'm like doing a rebirth of that right now, that it's like, adoption is bad. Is that too woke? That's my new one. Because the new snarky comment I get, it's oh, you're that adoption is bad [00:44:00] now. That's too woke for me. Or you're like you're the friend that's too woke. I don't know, there's like a Rolodex of viral comments that people make and that's a new one.

So now my new thing is adoption is bad is that too woke, which has been a pretty good hook so far. And I think what's hard about TikTok is like, because of the short form content format and people are just scrolling and a lot of times they've never seen you before. So it's like adoption 101, like over and over and over and over again.

But that's okay. I think repetition is really important actually. And I have gotten opportunities like this one to talk more in depth and take it to, and sometimes I even say you guys, this is a 500 level class. If you're not ready for that, like you can scroll. But yeah, and I also try to understand too because think about where I was as an adopted person, hashtag like grateful hashtag adoption rocks not too long ago.

So I understand [00:45:00] completely how people got where they are, and I invite them to expand their minds. And I and I think when you speak to people with respect, this is a intense conversation to have and people have big feelings about it. And, people have adoptees these in their life that they love very much and they wouldn't have them in their life if it wasn't for adoption.

And I think people get defensive about that, and I try to be really understanding. But what I like to tell people is this is what I do. I am a TikToker who speaks to truth to the adoption bleep, and you don't curse on your show. But I bleep talk about adoption all day and my mom listened, and if she could sit with it, how can you dear listener? And it's funny because I had a opportunity to be on another podcast that just dropped last week and my aunt text me and she was [00:46:00] like. I'm so proud of you and it's so fascinating to hear this part of you. In my family, we're allowed to talk about the fact that I'm adopted now, but it doesn't come up like all that much.

So it's weird, right? It's it's like compartmentalized. So what I like to say to people is, even if you're uncomfortable with what I'm saying, for you to consider it, it's only in service of the adoptee in your life if you can have this perspective to even open up the conversation to say, hey, if you ever feel any of this, or you have complicated feelings about your adoption, like I'm a safe person to bring that to, right?

Because that's not the case for a lot of adoptees. So that's one thing about my particular family dynamic that I think people could really benefit modeling themselves after. It's not always easy, it's not always comfortable, but if you create a space for the adoptee in your life to [00:47:00] express anything that, that they may feel about adoption and you're not gonna push back and you're gonna sit with that, that can, like I said, only be in service of your relationship with that adoptee.

And what I also like to take from my story and let people know is that even when you have really nice parents who could provide you with any resource under the sun, including send you to inpatient treatment, when you're really struggling, it doesn't save you from adoption, trauma. Having nice parents who love you doesn't save you from adoption trauma, adoptees still struggle because something happened to us. I heard another TikToker say, adoption isn't natural. And it really jarred me actually, believe it or not, but I was like, whoa. And I had to sit with it. And it's even uncomfortable for me to hear that actually. But it's not even in the best of [00:48:00] circumstances where everyone's really nice and respects each other, or you have a really, open adoption.

The more that I'm in community with people, I'm realizing that there's no best practice here. There's no way to do this right. Because it is not the natural order of things. And so we can do our best to reduce harm and be trauma informed. But what, and I'm sure you would agree, what we would like to see for this world is less people being adopted and more families being preserved.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: And so that's, the first prong of what I do is if we could keep families together. And we have, the TikTok community has absolutely helped keep families together. But I also want to be a resource for adoptive families too, to be of service for the adoptee in [00:49:00] their life.

And I think because of my own experience and my own family dynamics and my professional background I'm able to hold the space for adoptive parents who are willing to have uncomfortable conversations.

Haley Radke: I absolutely wanna recommend your TikTok. I've learned a lot from you of how you explain things in a really concise way, and you were giving some examples of things just now for us about, what actually sways people.

But I've seen you talk on many different topics about adoption that I've seen in the comments. People are like, oh, I never thought about that. And it might not be that one video that changes their mind, but you're planting all the seeds and you can tell that these folks are gonna be on our team fairly soon.

So I really appreciate that. So I hope that we, especially if you're trying to communicate some of these same things that we've been talking about on this show for a long time, you can learn [00:50:00] from Alé on, on her TikToks and you can share those with your friends too. And you're just mentioning this, but let's talk about a little bit more. You work with adoptive parents, like if they need coaching and how to support their adoptees, and like you do that.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Something that I offer is sessions that I like consulting sessions with adoptive parents. Whether you wanna work with me through, something big for several sessions, or there's something specific that you just need an adoptee perspective on whether the adoptee in your life is still a child and you want support in being an adoption competent, which I'm not sure if we like that word, but if you want to increase your adoption competency and build a home that is safe again for your child to express anything, and that [00:51:00] you're able to sit and be present in that moment, I could help you take care of your feelings after the fact, but I wanna help you build a home and a family culture where the adoptee your life feels free and honest and encouraged to express anything and everything. And I wanna help you navigate that. And also if the adoptee in your life is an adult, I'm still here to support you because in our different phases of life, different things are coming up and that is a service that I am happy to provide.

And it sometimes surprises some people when they follow my TikTok. And I speak out against the adoption industry and I still understand that people are adopted and came to adoption in lots of different ways. And no matter where you are in your journey of unpacking some of this stuff, that we were all indoctrinated [00:52:00] to think about adoption. I'm here to support you through that.

Haley Radke: As I said in my email to you, I'm so glad you're doing that 'cause I'm not gonna do it. And I'm glad there's people like you with the patience and I'm sure you'll be nice about it, which I just can't be.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay we, we also need to hear what you wanna recommend to us.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yes. Okay. So I sent this into your email too because I hope everyone knows about it. And if you don't, I'm happy to break the news to you. We were talking about updated resources right before we really only had The Primal Wound, but now we have a book called Relinquished, written by Dr. Gretchen Sisson, who is a sociologist who has a background in reproductive issues.

And in her book Relinquished, she follows birth moms for sometimes over 10 years. And while [00:53:00] she's sharing their stories in her book Relinquished, she's sharing lots and lots of research and information gathered from surveys and learning from birth moms about their experiences with adoption, the adoption industry, how they felt about adoption before, during and after the process. And it has blown my advocacy wide open and I have a way to speak about things that I didn't have a way to speak about them before. And also, as someone who is not a first parent and has never relinquished, I have, it has been a powerful resource, concise right there.

And I don't think that any reasonable person can read that book and not have [00:54:00] a perspective shift. So if you're looking for a new way to frame adoption or talk about it, you can definitely check me out as highly recommended. But I also really recommend Relinquished and anyone doing this type of work or talking about this subject, I feel like it is required reading.

We don't have anything quite like it. It's reminds me a bit of The Girls Who Went Away about the baby scoop era, but really brought into right now, modern time, our time. It's happening right now and yeah, I can't recommend it enough. And it's also on audio book, if that is your, if that is your thing, just, get it in your brain any way you can.

Haley Radke: I, we love Gretchen's book. We did a book club with her and yeah, totally agree. I love that I can go to it and [00:55:00] find the proof for the stat that we reference like 45 waiting couples for every,

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: yeah.

Haley Radke: Infant.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: I have So many pictures like of the book in my camera roll. Yeah.

Haley Radke: That's right. Yes.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Yeah.

Haley Radke: She's a gem and I appreciate her so much. Okay, Alé, where can folks follow you on TikTok and your website? Give us your details there.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: You can find me on TikTok @ wildheartcollective_ and my website where you can learn more about what I offer and links to other interviews and whatnot that I've done you can find on wildheartcollective.us.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I loved getting to know you better today.

Alé Cardinalle, MSW: Thank you. I really appreciate, this is really a full circle moment for me and I like I've been telling, my family, I'm like, I have a big podcast tonight. [00:56:00] I have a big one and so I'm really like, I'm really souped that I got to do this and talk to you and I really can't believe after, running in these circles for all this time.

This is the really the first time we've gotten to sit down and talk to each other, but I am sure. We're gonna keep running into each other and I hope on purpose.

Haley Radke: Yes, agreed.

I feel like over the last few years I've interviewed a number of people who I had no idea, had any kind of connection to Adoptees On as listeners. And so it makes me so thrilled that this show could have an impact in people's lives who then decide to go on and become public adoptee advocates.

When I think about the ripples fan, [00:57:00] that's pretty exciting. And what an encouragement to hear from Alé that she sees people's minds being changed, and I do too. And there's so much work left to do. Believe me, if I ever stick my head out of my little adoptee, land bubble people be loving adoption and they still are lining up to buy those new babies.

So we have a lot of work to do. I am working on my new podcast, which will hopefully combat this rainbows and sunshine narrative, and we really need your support. If you go to adopteesffp.org, you can follow along there to keep up to date with what I'm working on the new show that is [00:58:00] called On Adoption and we would love to keep you in the loop and we will be keeping you updated throughout this year as I'm continue to work on that project.

Thank you so much to Alé the other TikTok adoptee advocates, and the other folks doing great work out there to spread awareness about the impacts adoption has had specifically on us as adopted people. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again very soon.

314 Nik Chang Hoon

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/314

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is memoirist and poet Nik Chang Hoon. Nik shares his journey of identity and language reclamation, including returning to Korea and reuniting with his birth mother in secret. We also talk about estrangement, healing and his powerful writing that invites us to look deeper at the pain and resilience of finding one's place between families and cultures.

Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps [00:01:00] support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. And we wrap up with some recommended resources. As always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Nik Chang Hoon and welcome Nik.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yay. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be on your show, Haley. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm so glad we finally get to meet, my husband's name is Nick. So we're you already have bonus points.

Nik Chang Hoon: We're on the right path already.

Haley Radke: That's right.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Can you start, would you mind sharing some of your story with us?

Nik Chang Hoon: My name is Nik Chang Hoon. My given adoptive full name would be Nicholas Chang Hoon Nadeau, and like many adoptees from Korea, I grew up in Minnesota. So Minnesota historically is home to the highest concentration of adopted Koreans in the world.

And so I grew up with a plethora of korean [00:02:00] adoptee culture camps. A lot of different, yeah, just avenues for exploring myself as an adoptee, which I find looking back, I'm really fortunate. I think not many of us are able to say that we have a community like that. If you can hear my dog barking, I apologize.

We probably have a delivery. And I also feel like most things related to adoption, I think it's like a contradiction. It's not like I wake up every single morning over my yogurtand blueberries and think, I'm adopted. I wonder what that means for me today. But it also means that adoption still permeates my life in very concrete ways.

I think it permeated, my friendships, my romantic relationships, certainly my career path and the choices I made along the way. And so what I like to say is, adoption is something that doesn't define me, but certainly describes and accounts for quite a bit of my life experience. So I'm happy to chat more about all of those things about living in [00:03:00] Korea, about understanding myself both as an adoptee, and a Korean and now a husband.

Haley Radke: There's so many places we can go, but I wanna press pause.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah. I just gave you like a gajillion places to go.

Haley Radke: You did. You did I think Land of Gazillion Adoptees was originally Koreans in Minnesota. Yes.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yes.

Haley Radke: Korean adoptees.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yep. Kevin Vollmers and many others who contributed. Yes, they're amazing.

Haley Radke: Tell me, do you know why. Why were there so many?

Nik Chang Hoon: I happen to have a non-official, a non-academic explanation for that, but I would like to shout out Dr. Kim Park Nelson, who's based here in Minnesota and is one of the pioneers of Korean adoption studies, and actually teaches an entire course on this that we're privileged to be able to register for here in Minnesota.

So I'll give a amateur's version, and I typically say, there are three main factors. One actually is a single person. She colloquially went by the name of Mrs. [00:04:00] Han, and she single-handedly following the Korean War, began to form relationships in Korea. And essentially build from scratch a form early form of Korean adoption.

So obviously the first wave of adoptees out of Korea, like almost anywhere else in the world where adoption occurs is from civil war or some other form of military conflict. And so Mrs. Han played a big role in building out those early years of what we now have as a formal adoption system.

Minnesota also historically, has been a more progressive state with a lot of social welfare systems in place, and also quite, quite a Christian community. I'd say, I myself grew up Catholic. There's, I would say, plenty of Lutherans around as well, and especially in that first and maybe second wave, a kind of a Christian destination. While that didn't describe my experience, was certainly sometimes a stated preference among relinquishing parents. And [00:05:00] also Minnesota has a pretty strong relationship historically following the Korean War with Seoul National University and other institutions that were actively trying to build their own higher education system following the war.

And beyond just social services and social welfare. Minnesota did have a kind of an outsized role in, those early years and decades following the war. And I think the most important part is to understand that, adoption, like any other system that involves transactions is inherently complex.

I happen to be of the perspective that intercountry or international adoption should be abolished. But that's not the position that I started at, and in fact many before me were, I think, instrumental in laying the foundation for those arguments. And so I'm both humbled and embarrassed to say that it took me actually quite a long time to reach that perspective.

And I think, regardless of one's views on adoption itself, I like to [00:06:00] say that it's okay and actually helpful to think about adoption. Like we think about where our steak comes from or how the cotton in our t-shirt, where that came from. These are things that almost journalistically and historically we can trace to very identifiable reasons.

Haley Radke: I think the more we research the behind the scenes of things, the more abolitionist often we become.

Nik Chang Hoon: Almost certainly is the case. At least it was for me and still is.

Haley Radke: Yes. Okay. Thank you for that little interlude of teaching time for us. Can we go back? Did you go to school with any fellow Korean adoptees?

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah, so I grew up in kind of the outer ring suburbs of St. Paul where my community was almost exclusively white. I like to say that I, a mile north of me were dairy farms and a mile south of me were a strip malls. So that's the outer edge of where I grew up. I went to a school system called [00:07:00] White Bear Lake.

The running joke growing up is that it was nicknamed White Boy Lake 'cause there were so many white boys. And I happened to have a lot of Korean adoptee friends through Camp Choson, which was a, and still is a summer camp for adopted Koreans. But also through school. I, one of my closest friends still, Laura, is a friend I've known for a long time.

The librarian at my high school was an adoptive, is an adoptive parent to someone who essentially single-handedly created and still runs a traditional Korean dance studio here called JangMi. And so there's just so many connections that you make almost accidentally being here in the Twin Cities where it is actually somewhat normal to be surrounded or at least exposed to other adoptees, especially Korean adoptees, not necessarily as much with Latin American or Russian or Chinese adoptees.

So yeah, the short answer is I had some adoptee friends, but [00:08:00] certainly not, the majority, the vast majority were yeah just white friends that I grew up playing hockey with and hanging out with, playing football in the backyard, things like that.

Haley Radke: I guess if someone forced me to say something positive about great numbers of Korean adoptees leaving Korea and to go into your area, you had some peers that you could identify with and build community with.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yes.

Haley Radke: That's great. Okay. When did you first decide you wanted to go back to Korea, was that something that you always wanted to do? Did you think about it as a child? Tell us about that.

Nik Chang Hoon: Growing up my parents were really open about my origins. I also was in possession of certain documents that were, revelatory of just basic facts about my birth family [00:09:00] and the circumstances around my relinquishment.

Haley Radke: Wait what papers did you have? Like, when did you get them?

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah, so as long as I can remember my parents kept a kinda like a box or I think a file with a few things. So one was basically a series of forms that included testimony from my birth father at the time of my relinquishment around the late spring, early summer of 1988.

And that information actually had my birth mother's name in Korean as well as my birth father's, their ages their locations. It didn't have any contact information, but even just to have, the legitimate legal name of one's, birth parents or relatives from one's first family is definitely a privilege.

It's something that most adoptees do not have. And at the same time, there was certainly a lot left out. I wasn't really able to gather my birth mother's perspective [00:10:00] from those documents, it was only based on testimony from my birth father. Later I found out it was because he was the one to, for lack of a better phrase, hand me over.

My birth mother was actually outside, which she shared with me several years later. I also knew and had some home video. So they're somewhere in our files and boxes still is a VHS tape with some footage of me not surprisingly to those who know me, I was a little crabby, I was a maybe a eight or 10 month old needed to eat perhaps, but I was throwing a temper tantrum right on home video.

This was supposed to be the video that essentially helps adoptive parents see what a wonderful, well-behaved child they will be receiving. And so we had footage like that. What we didn't have was circumstances beyond just my birth father's brief account. I didn't know, certainly didn't have addresses, and I, overall didn't have a whole lot of desire to do a birth family search consciously, at least [00:11:00] growing up, it wasn't something that dominated my thoughts. I think the first moment when at least going to Korea or learning Korean as a language really dawned on me, was when I was home from college really early on. So probably during a holiday break, my first year of college, this would've been 2005, and I recall there was a package of photo paper. At least still back then, we had some technology to print photos at home. It was still quite primitive. But we had a photo printer and it was an HP. Hewlett Packard brand and the paper was blue, or the packaging rather, it was a blue kind of foil bag to seal that photo paper in and on the back of that bag were instructions.

I'm not sure why photo paper requires instructions, but these were instructions in all kinds of different languages. And in the middle of that package, I knew that one of the languages was Korean. It was couched [00:12:00] between two others, perhaps, or maybe it was the one on the top or the bottom. I knew there were three Asian languages.

One was Chinese, one was Korean, one was Japanese. I knew that. I just didn't know which one was Korean. And while I didn't have a name for that feeling at the time, I now know that the name for that feeling is called shame. So I felt a really deep sense of shame and this just to give further context was during a time when I was aspiring to be a Spanish language professor, I was essentially enrolled as an undergraduate in really advanced Spanish grammar.

I literally had a grammar textbook coming home that took you through basically the nuances of all the things that you might want to know to become a teacher of the Spanish language. And I remember thinking to myself, why am I going so far in my study of Spanish when I can't even recognize the alphabet of my own birth country's language, my language of origin, and so that, period of [00:13:00] time going back to college was when I sought out the only other Korean adoptee I knew his name was Brian.

And I specifically remember, we, he was kind enough to invite me into his room, and we had a long conversation where I related a lot of what I just related to you. And at the end of it it felt almost like the matrix, if you've seen the first matrix film when Neo visits the Oracle and the Oracle essentially tells Neo that he's already made a decision and he is just here in this room with the Oracle to understand the decision he's already made. That's the best way I can describe what I felt like in that conversation where I knew what I had to do and what I had to do seemed really dramatic and epic at the time, which was to cancel this trip to Costa Rica that I had planned that summer to immerse myself in Spanish.

And with that money and more that I took out in additional student loans, I enrolled in a 10 week intensive course. Korean language immersion course at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis, which was [00:14:00] by coincidence the first summer that they were offering this kind of summer intensive program.

So for that whole summer, this was July through August, 2006, I learned Korean at the U of M met someone named Martha Vickery and Steve Wunrow who run a Korean American newspaper basically they're white adopted parents themselves, but they've long published an amazing newspaper called Korean Quarterly.

So I interned for them as a staff writer, and they also just so happened to found a Korean traditional percussion group. So in, in that summer, I did those three things and that changed my life, there was no looking back after that.

Haley Radke: The documents that you had as a child, were those all translated into English? Was it a combo like you, could you go back and look at it?

Nik Chang Hoon: Sure, yeah. Most of what I have is transcribed, Romanized for names, and so there certainly were Korean characters so Hangul was appearing, but a lot of that information was transcribed into English. [00:15:00] Later, maybe 2007, I believe I returned to Korea to search for my files at my adoption agency based in Seoul, and I was bracing myself for new or additional information and actually the documents were the exact same in my file. And so I again had quite a privileged experience of, being in possession since early childhood of the exact same documents in the same form that I later found were in my file. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Wow. I had goosebumps while you were talking about this language reclamation. Really. That's amazing. Okay, so you learned Korean, but in Minnesota.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yep.

Haley Radke: And then when did you go back to Korea?

Nik Chang Hoon: My first trip back to Korea was actually through korean Quarterly. Steve and Martha sent me essentially on a journalistic mission to cover what essentially was a global adoption summit [00:16:00] that the Korean government was hosting.

They were doing this mostly for national image reasons, but there was a certain degree of substance to it. There were folks across all kinds of disciplines, social workers, other journalists, other adoptees and scholars who were invited to this kinda week long conference. And I was able to go, essentially as a journalist, but also as a participant, both at once.

It was like not reality. They put us up in the Ritz-Carlton in Kangnam. I distinctly remember the first morning I got there. I landed at four in the morning. Not only had I never been to Korea or Seoul, I had never been to a large city at that point in my life. And so I was trying to get to the Coex Mall. I wanted to see this huge mall that I'd heard about with a huge aquarium. And I walked down the hill from the Ritz Carlton to the intersection where I believe there was a subway station, but I didn't know what a subway station looked like. I assumed I had to go down some stairs, but I spent a good hour [00:17:00] circling that intersection in the heat of summer.

And getting lost. So another feeling of shame. Another episode of shame, part two. I finally pulled aside a Korean, an Ahjussi uncle kind of guy, showed him the business card of the Ritz Carlton, and asked him in really clumsy Korean where he if he knew where it was and he just looked up and lo and behold, if you just thought to look up, you would see a ginormous golden lion perched atop a sparkling white building.

And that was the Ritz-Carlton. So I promptly thanked him, bowed awkwardly, and. And went back. And so that was the start of my week. We did a lot of conversations about adoption. I believe we went jet skiing once. It was the oddest thing. And the president of Korea at the time gave essentially an address by video conference, essentially apologizing for Korea, having let so many adopted infants go. And that's when I was first introduced to the concept of Korea as a [00:18:00] motherland. And I wrote extensively about that as an undergraduate and have thought about that ever since.

Haley Radke: This is slightly related, like we'll go back to your story, but I guess I found a piece from Korean Quarterly at some point you were writing about this, so this seems like a little bit after in 2011, where you write about Korean unwed mothers pushing for a stigma free society.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yes.

Haley Radke: And I'm curious, can, if you can just speak to that and you're talking about your personal feeling of shame and societally, Korean, Korea had that for anyone who had a baby out of wedlock and now can, and then can you speak to, do you know what it's like now all these many years later?

Nik Chang Hoon: So first of all, I would say a couple of things. First and foremost when we think about the adoption triad. So for our listeners, that means adoptees as one corner of the [00:19:00] triangle, our biological parents and relatives as another, and then adoptive family as the third, dominant media narratives around adoption almost exclusively focus on just two of those corners of the triangle.

And if birth parents and especially biological mothers are left out, usually it's because number one, there's not a whole lot of access to, locating them and speaking with them. But number two, just everyone else in the triad, they're often objectified. They're either framed as these salvific figures that did a beautiful thing and otherwise live in destitute poverty, or they're just not really part of the picture.

And so when I lived in Korea from 2009 to 2011. Right after college, I was on a Fulbright grant teaching English my first year, and then working in the Fulbright office My second year I, in my spare time, especially when I was able to live in Seoul, I would volunteer as a reporter, so I, for Korean Quarterly, so I would go to various events that were sponsored [00:20:00] by a nonprofit called KUMFA, the Korean Unwed Mothers and Families Association, I believe is the long form of their name. And Dr. Richard Boas was the founder and someone that I interviewed for a story at that time around just what Korean unwed mothers often go through. And so the Korean term for unwed mother is mihonmo. And mihonmo in Korea undergo still a lot of social stigma.

It is really difficult and often dangerous, extremely risky to reveal that you've once had a child out of wedlock. And even now, 15, 20 years later, it's still something my own birth mother will not share. And so I'm still a secret from my half siblings and much of her immediate family as a result.

There was a New York Times story, I think in 2009 or 2010 that really dove into this issue for the first time in, in detail. And one of the subjects of that piece was almost instantly she was a [00:21:00] hairdresser and she almost instantly overnight lost a large portion of her clients who refused to, get their hair cut from her. And so there are material and familial consequences due to a lot of things. But one of them is just this constant focus on image and continuity of bloodline. I think it's more complicated than just chalking it up to quote unquote neo-Confucianism. But I also think there is, a valid argument to be had that, this kind of thing really happens when you have a post-war country, whether it's Korea or Guatemala or anywhere else, out of which adoption springs, those who stand to lose the most, almost always are the birth families. And I think we, we need to talk about that a lot more than we do.

Haley Radke: I can't believe there's no movement. That is so sad.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah. I mean it's, I think it's growing as a conversation and certainly over the last five to 10 years there's been more scholarship around the state of, biological families. But it's certainly still [00:22:00] a burgeoning field and I wish we'd talk about it more.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Okay. We can't gloss over this. You met your mother. Tell us.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah, so in 2009, during my first year in Korea through a Fulbright grant was when I first decided to pursue a search formally, and so I filled out some forms. I think I paid a fee of $200, which I negotiated down 'cause I was a pretty poor college student and like most experiences I've had, again, one of deep privilege.

I located my birth mother in three months. So at the time that I received the email. Sharing news from my adoption agency, which is how I searched that they'd found her. I was at a friend's homestay family's apartment in Seoul watching the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games that February, and I just started searching in November of 2009.

So literally within 90 days I received an [00:23:00] email, and a couple months later that April, I met my mother. And my eldest maternal uncle, at a halfway point between Seoul and where they lived in Daegu. And I write about that experience. I have an essay in the Texas Review from the summer that kind of expands on what that felt like.

But I think there, there are two things I'll say. One is it's a really surreal experience to meet someone who looks like you for the first time. In fact, my mother, when she first saw me, I thought there was gonna be some hugs, some tears, like Good Morning America. What actually happened was she stiff armed me like a NFL running back, and I remember just the impact of her hand on my shoulder. It was like a, it was like, ooh, and she wasn't trying to create distance. She actually wanted more time to look at my face. And the first thing she said, to me and to herself was that I looked a lot like my father was her, was what she said in Korean you look exactly like your father.

And that was [00:24:00] how it started. So we had an interpreter that first day. And for the subsequent months afterward, while I was still living in Korea, we would meet probably once every few months. Each time was incredibly awkward. She'd wanna hold my hand in public. There was a time where we slept in a love motel, which essentially is what it sounds like.

It's a grimy, cheap hotel with Kleenex boxes, with sketchy phone numbers on them. And, that's where we could afford to spend the night sometimes. And so we would and there were just a lot of moments where it felt like. And still to this day sometimes feels like she's a stranger who happens to be my mother.

And then there are some times where we hang out where she feels like she's absolutely my mother. Usually if she's nagging me on needing to go to grad school or find a job or get married. And those things that are more normal to hear from a parent. Those are when it definitely felt like, okay, this is my mom.

Haley Radke: So I heard you describing this. This time of sleeping in the hotel with her?

Nik Chang Hoon: [00:25:00] Yes.

Haley Radke: And just for listeners who aren't familiar it's cultural to sleep with your parents for a long time. Yeah.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah. So in Korea, I can't account for how it is these days, but I would say, traditionally it's a lot more common than, for example, in the United States to share a bed with your parents, especially, as a kid.

But even, growing up, as a teen, it's also really common to be in the same household as your parents until you're married. Partially for cultural reasons, but honestly mostly for economic reasons, because housing in Korea is so expensive and there was a time in Daegu where my mom and I made plans essentially to sleep in a motel, and I had prepared for several weeks a monologue in Korean that I had revised and rehearsed that basically said something to the effect of I really appreciate that you want to, sleep in the same bed with me, but in the United States, that's actually a strange thing to do, and I don't really feel [00:26:00] comfortable. And would you be okay if we slept separately? So I had this whole thing planned out. It was like a thirty speech.

I remember we were walking toward the motel and my mother started crying and her, she held my hand really closely and I said, mom, why are you crying? And she goes, I've been waiting more than 20 years for this. And I asked 20, 20 years. For what? And she, she said to sleep in the same bed with my own son.

If you can just imagine me like metaphorically ripping up that monologue, throwing it in the trash, that's what I had to do. And what ended up happening was we were in bed together. She rolled over on top of me and was just sobbing, just completely, just weeping uncontrollably.

And it was really hot in that room and we didn't have the window open. There was no AC unit or at least it wasn't on. And so that was my out, I was like, Hey, it's actually really hot in here. I'm sweaty. Is it okay if we kinda just sleep on this side and you sleep on that side of the bed and she understood.

But that, I think when I think back on that [00:27:00] experience now for that and many other reasons, I think those early years especially I like to say that it almost felt like having an affair with my own mother because whenever we met in secret. We deleted any of the photos that we took together, or at least made sure we had a system in place. So her own two children and her husband, who is not my birth father. Would not find out. And it literally had that feeling, concretely of almost having an affair with my own mom. And I think as normal as that was to me, when I look back on it now, especially, it. It does hit hard when I think about what that meant.

Haley Radke: Yeah. It's Katrina Palmer's book, an Affair with My Mother. Same.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yep. Yeah. It's a very universal feeling, I think for those who've reunited.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Nik Chang Hoon: In secret.

Haley Radke: Nik. Is it to this day that your other half siblings and her husband, they don't know about you?

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah, so in 2016 I moved back briefly to Korea that summer and I spent that whole summer on a campaign to try to [00:28:00] persuade my birth mother to allow me to meet my two half siblings. I have a half brother and a half sister, and it was not a successful attempt. I was told at that time. That her idea was to wait until they turned 30, which seemed pretty arbitrary to me. But, what could I do? But also, even, now with her position being the same I don't know if I was given the opportunity that I would go through with it, if only because it would put her in quite a bit of risk within her family and potentially outside of it.

Yeah, we, I still meet her in secret. My wife and I both go to see her, but we, my mom will always have an alibi. She'll always share that she's going out to see friends or that she is meeting her brother, my uncle or something like that. There was a brief time where on KakaoTalk, which is a Korean Messenger app, I did have my birth father's cell phone number and his Kakao profile appeared, and so there, and I assume that might have been a two-way street. And so there are very valid reasons for I think both my birth mother and I to [00:29:00] be cautious. But at the same time I've had my own arc with this. I feel like I deserve the choice and understanding the risks. I still I think would wanna meet them even more than my birth father, at least once. And I've seen pictures of them. I know what my siblings look like. We are similar in appearance. Certainly I would never be able to pretend that I was like an English tutor or something, which is an idea I floated once my mother laughed and just said, that wouldn't work. We, we looked too much alike.

Haley Radke: I'm sorry.

Nik Chang Hoon: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Haley Radke: I know you're not alone in that. It's just so painful. That's so painful. Yeah,

Nik Chang Hoon: I agree. And I think the, the difficult part, bringing the conversation here to either my own adoptive parents or to adoptive parents in general is, it's really, I think, difficult for many adoptive parents to sit with that discomfort either because that might lead to feelings of guilt or complicity or bewilderment or confusion.

But [00:30:00] also just because, international adoption is this really strange, destructive thing where infants are children are commodified. And in that process, a lot of things happen at once. And one of those things that happens is, we become objectified. We're often the family completion solution, right?

Often many adoptees including myself were adopted due to the infertility of their adoptive parents. So we were a, yeah, a solution for completing one's family and I think it's accurate to say, and I often say that Korean adoption or any kind of any form of adoption, domestic or international, is inherently the splintering of one family in order to complete another.

And I think that second half, that completion side is so often talked about as this joyous event worthy of celebration and, memorializing each year. And I think also it's true that we should think about it and memorialize on a regular basis, [00:31:00] the first part, 'cause you can't have the second without the first.

And for me and my family, my birth mother actually tried to take me back. So she felt almost immediate remorse, saved up as much money as she could over a period of several weeks and return to what I call in my creative writing the giving place. And she was told that she the cash she had brought was not enough to cover the room and board that I had incurred.

She's not the only one to attempt this. One of the biological mothers who's interviewed in that New York Times story I mentioned from I think 2010, she was successful in reclaiming her son and to this day calls that her son's second birthday. And so there are many situations like this that are not cases of bad apples or exceptionally atrocious circumstances. This is just how adoption works, and I think it's both okay and healthy and necessary to talk about that.

Haley Radke: So our first interaction was at [00:32:00] a workshop that you were a part of at the Adoptee Literary Festival in 2025.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yes.

Haley Radke: And it was called Writing Into the Void and the topic was writing about estrangement.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yes.

Haley Radke: Are you comfortable sharing a little bit about that for your

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah, sure.

Haley Radke: Personal story?

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah. Thank you for asking. Sure. Yeah, for me, about a couple years ago, a little more, I had reached a point with my parents here in Minnesota that I needed some space both to process how I felt a lot about our family dynamics, but also because I was increasingly feeling this disconnect between the reality of my experience and feelings around my adoption and my own life and theirs.

And I think this is really common when you have adoptees adopted into white families who typically don't have a lot of exposure to the country of origin of their children. My parents, in their case, didn't go to Korea. They wouldn't have been [00:33:00] able to afford to had they been required, but there wasn't this home visit required.

So they didn't, make the trip. But even if they had visited Korea for a week or two before my adoption, it's still felt like to them I just came outta nowhere and this is pre 9/11 when I arrived. So I literally just arrived at the gate at Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. There was a whole party. I have it on home video, and that's how it starts. And I think the part about, this whole other country and having a birth mother who is a real person and still is alive and knows who I am, I just felt there, there wasn't that sense that they understood or perceived that as as a reality. And to some extent I hadn't asked for it. I hadn't communicated that I really wanted that from them, but I also felt like I didn't necessarily I didn't want them to feel guilty. And I also didn't want, like many adoptees, we wrestle with this a lot. I didn't wanna seem ungrateful and so I had to wrestle with my own feelings and what was negotiable and what was not. And so I [00:34:00] took some time off essentially in communicating with them, with a few exceptions in between. And, during that time, which was, I think, the most difficult of my life, I think a couple of things happened. First, it just allowed me the space to, to reflect a bit more.

Certainly many conversations with my therapist whom I've been seeing for many years, an adoptee therapist, someone who really understands firsthand what it's like. And I also felt that I needed to develop my own set of expectations around what I wanted from my parents here, and also maybe what I didn't need from them. And so when we talk about radical acceptance, sometimes that's a phrase that gets floated around a lot. But I think in my case, I really did need to reach a point of acceptance that felt like it's not, at times, maybe unfair at times, maybe not something I wanted to do, but this past spring, I think we organically found a path back into communicating with each other.

We [00:35:00] now are able to just have meals together and talk. And I think what is clear to me now is, sometimes as adoptees it's really hard to untangle what is inherently tangled or to un mesh, what is truly a really enmeshed experience where we're supposed to somehow be of service or of help or of joy to so many people at once. And sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to not need to do that.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. Can we go to a happier note?

Nik Chang Hoon: No, sure.

Haley Radke: I wanted to hear about how you met your wife.

Nik Chang Hoon: Oh man. This is such, the best part, I think about the last seven years and some change has been meeting my wife. Her name is Hyein her Korean name is Hyein. She goes by Theresa in English. So I sometimes have to explain, I'm not married to two different people. But her English name is Theresa, Korean name is Hyein. And we met in 2018 and at that [00:36:00] time. We were both temporarily attending this Korean Catholic church here in the Twin Cities.

And I probably sacregligiously joke that we treated church like Tinder and just deleted the app afterward because we met, we really, we took a walk of about, I think we walked like a full 5K around a lake and, I understood that she was someone I probably was never to meet again. I don't think I would be able to find someone who had a heart like hers with values that we shared so closely, and someone who was Korean. I had previously been in a relationship among others where I felt that something was missing, and I think I had to give myself permission over about a decade to understand that. Maybe having a partner who in some way was Korean, but not necessarily an adoptee but not necessarily Korean American. All of those things I was sorting out. And she did check some of those boxes, but she wasn't just a series of check marks, she was a person. And at first I, I think [00:37:00] I idealized, frankly what it would be like to date a Korean, she grew up in Minnesota, but spent most of her life kind of flipping back and forth between suburban Minneapolis and Seoul, outside Seoul. And, first I thought of course we're gonna talk in Korean all the time. And in reality I was super insecure about my Korean and we just spoke better in English. And so there were a lot of things that I learned about myself through her. And also we really, I think, made a cute couple and I enjoyed being with her. The first year was nuts 'cause we made the the decision to spend some vacation time together. So within six months of dating her, I flew to Korea with her, stayed with her grandma and her mom, and met her whole family.

And all my Asian friends back home were just like, Nik, that's like a big deal. And I was like. Nah. And they're like no. That's a huge deal. And then we both got back from that trip and we were like, wow, that was actually a big deal. And we got married in 2021. We had a COVID wedding overlooking a lake here in Minneapolis [00:38:00] about 10 minutes from our house.

And currently we live just outside Minneapolis in a kind of in a first ring suburb with our. Golden Doodle Penny, who may have made an auditory guest appearance once in a while.

Haley Radke: She absolutely made appearance. I love the name Penny. Listen that I, that's what I wanted to name my first dog.

Nik Chang Hoon: We're trying to maybe do a second dog named Nikel or quarter something.

Haley Radke: Aw, that's so cute.

Nik Chang Hoon: One is enough for now.

Haley Radke: Cute. That's so cute. Okay. Congratulations. Can I ask you an intrusive question?

Nik Chang Hoon: Oh, intrusive. Go. As intrusive as it gets.

Haley Radke: I know a lot of adoptees who are people of color adopted into white families.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Often end up with white partners.

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Did you feel some kind of way, like you weren't quote unquote, like good enough to be with her? Like you weren't Korean enough, you weren't like, did you have to process through any of that.

Nik Chang Hoon: [00:39:00] I love talking about this. This is not intrusive at all. I think it's.

Haley Radke: I'm sorry. It is intrusive and I, thanks for sharing.

Nik Chang Hoon: I think it's really important to talk about relationships in intersection with adoption and cultural identity. So for me, I had dated across the whole spectrum of culture identity.

I had dated white people. I had been in relationships with other Asians that weren't Korean, but Hmong or Southeast Asian tried immediately before my wife tried dating a Korean adoptee that turned out to be disastrous. And I think the most, I think pivotal decision I made from a dating standpoint was when I realized that dating a Korean and potentially marrying a Korean was important to me and my white friends, many of them did not understand that they thought either that I was being racist or that I was misguided and oversimplifying, you know what, why would that matter? Is the question I would often get. And my Korean adoptee friends were just, they understood immediately. They're like, yep. We've [00:40:00] had so much stolen from us and we're not, I would say I wasn't just someone that stayed around. I did study Korean extensively. I lived in Korea. I thought I was gonna be there forever at one point and so I think it was important to me that I at least try to date a Korean. And so I distinctly remember I was with Hyein in her living room at the time, at her apartment in Minneapolis, and she was watching a Korean variety show and I just got extremely emotional and insecure and I was like, I'm so sorry, but could I actually ask you to turn on the English subtitles? And until that point, I had taken so much pride in not needing them or having Korean subtitles 'cause my Korean is decent enough, but I, she was laughing at things that I wasn't understanding and she was really apologetic and I was like no this isn't about like you doing anything wrong. This is more just about me needing to get over my own pride and insecurity that even after, I took out more than $10,000 in student loans to learn in Korean. I didn't need the [00:41:00] credits. I just wanted to do it. I lived in Korea. I studied, even while living in Korea. I studied so hard and to ask for English subtitles was something that took a lot of humility for me. And I think that was a breakthrough moment where we both realized we could be vulnerable with each other. And where I also realized over time that, look, she lives here too, in, Minnesota. She's not necessarily aware of the exact trend that's going on right now in Korea. If you blink, the trends change in Korea, even if you live there.

So over time, I think it also helped that I understood that we were both in this together, meaning that we both felt estranged from our own country of origin, and sometimes we needed to go back to recharge and fill our cup and our information bank with all the things that are, in vogue at that moment. 'Cause otherwise you're just gonna feel outdated every single time, which is inevitable. But we try.

Haley Radke: And imagine getting to my age, we're only, I think we're only a few years apart. And [00:42:00] when you have if you ever choose to have children, my teenagers remind me that I am. I have, I say teenagers. I have one teenager and they remind me how uncool and how I don't get it.

Nik Chang Hoon: I feel like that's their job. I feel like they're not doing their job, and they, if they don't do that, but they don't make it easy.

Haley Radke: And as someone who's chronically online to keep up.

Nik Chang Hoon: I'm now known for my dad jokes.

Haley Radke: All right.

Nik Chang Hoon: And that's, I've reached radical acceptance about that.

Haley Radke: I love that. Okay, let's pivot. I. Oh my goodness. As transparent as Nik is, has been with us in this interview. Your writing is so much more.

Nik Chang Hoon: Oh, thank you.

Haley Radke: And in particular, I love this piece you have out in the Kenyon Review, Emotionally Self-aware, Adoptive Parents Contract for Services. It's so brilliant. I love it so much.

Nik Chang Hoon: Thank you. Thank you.

Haley Radke: I've read it like 10 times now. It's [00:43:00] so good. I don't know. I know you're, you have poetry, you have essays, you have a bunch of different pieces. But this one in particular I think will really speak to adoptees and we'll link to it in the show notes. But yeah I don't know what's a good part that, do you wanna describe it to us perhaps?

Nik Chang Hoon: Yeah. So this piece is written as a legal contract and the kind of premise is that one party, the adoptee, is basically trying to strike up an agreement with their adoptive parents to do things like engage together in family therapy to understand that discussions around adoption may involve things like privilege, whether it's white privilege, I say Catholic guilt privilege, small town Minnesotan, passive aggressively, self aware of it, like privilege, and there's all kinds of tongue in cheek references, but I think the piece is written as a lyric or a hermit crab [00:44:00] essay, which means it takes on a sort of a non-traditional container and the container would be a legal contract.

And the context of this piece is that two summers ago I was attending my first ever writing conference a writing workshop. So it was the Kenyon Review Adult Residential Writers Workshop that occurs twice a summer in Gambier, Ohio at Kenyon College, and the prompt was write a lyric essay that takes on an unexpected form. And at Kenyon the way it works is you generate writing from a topic that morning and 24 hours later, back in workshop, you're sharing the piece that you wrote over the last day. And so it's really intense. It's generative, intense, lovely, and all those things at once. So I wrote this piece at a moment of deep, I think, grief and frustration within the estrangement that I had initiated with my adoptive parents. And this was essentially what spilled out, and so the piece is satirical. It is meant to be humorous, [00:45:00] but when I, anytime I read it, whether it's to myself or out loud, I mostly what I feel is sadness. And so I wrote that piece as part of that workshop. I read it out loud a couple nights later with the help of a lot of folks cheering me on, and I did not know it at the time, but the editor of the Kenyon Review, Nicole Terez Dutton, was in the audience and after my delivery approached my writing instructor Rajiv Mohabir, and asked him to ask me to submit it, which was itself just a ridiculous thing to happen, like I would never have expected that. And so I submitted it that September, and just as I touched down in Los Angeles this past March to attend AWP, which is a writer's conference that occurs every year, I received an email that said it had been accepted and it just came out in the mail a few weeks ago. So it's this surreal thing now, where to see something you wrote, on your laptop in this polished dorm room at Kenyon College is now. In the Kenyon Review, and I have no idea what that means. I still [00:46:00] am in disbelief anytime I think about it.

Haley Radke: It's a real thing in the world. I love it. The other thing that.

Nik Chang Hoon: It's a real thing.

Haley Radke: The other thing I'll link to the piece that won the Annie Dillard Prize in 2024 is Abandoned Supposings A Letter to My Non Father's Silence. So for folks who are sad that we didn't talk too much about your father today, they can read that in Nik, what did you wanna recommend to us?

Nik Chang Hoon: Oh there's so much that I could recommend, but I think more than anything else I've been thinking about as someone who writes memoir, what it is about the genre of memoir or just that container of memoir that can best reflect the adoption experience and so as someone who's painstakingly trying to write a memoir. I have the fortune and privilege of learning from the pros, and one of those pros is Shannon Gibney who lives right here in Minneapolis who wrote a speculative memoir that won the Michael L. Printz Award and has been out for almost two years now.

It will be two [00:47:00] years this coming January three, actually this coming January, 2026. So it's called The Girl I Am Was I Never Will Be A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption. And what I think is really helpful and instructive about the way Shannon writes, both in general and specifically in this memoir is that as adoptees we, our lives are inherently speculative. Actually, Alice Stephens, another adoptee writer, just spoke at AWP in a, in an adoptee panel in March, and she said something just earth shattering to me, which is that adoption itself is a fiction. And I think what Shannon's memoir teaches is how speculation sometimes is the only option adoptees have.

Whether we're transracial adoptees born in Korea, like me or someone who was adopted domestically and is able to speak to that experience like Shannon, in both cases or in all cases, all adoptees I think by [00:48:00] definition, wonder, speculate, and imagine. Sometimes it's because that's what we're asked to do, but often it's because we have no other choice.

And so I think the most real non-fiction approach is to writing about one's adoption experience often involve the imagination. And so what I think is fun artistically about writing into the adoption experience, even though it does involve a lot of hardship and tears, is that you can play around a lot with form. You can play around with the meaning of reality and what reality is and I think most, if not all adoptees would agree that adoption is inherently an exercise in entertaining the multiverse. It's entertaining the multiple ways that we might have ended up the multiple selves we might or could have been and that I think is what Shannon does so well and so that is my recommendation. The Girl I Am Was and Never Will Be.

Haley Radke: Love it. [00:49:00] We did a book club with Shannon in deep dive. Yes. So good. Love. That's a great one. Thanks for bringing it back up to us. I can't wait for your memoir to be out in the world. Nik, where can we follow along with you online to be informed of all your upcoming writerly projects?

Nik Chang Hoon: Thank you for asking. You can follow me on Instagram @nikchanghoon. That's N-I-K-C-H-A-N-G-H-O-O-N or my website nikchanghoon.com. And I think, more than anything else, I'm just grateful and just so fortunate to be in conversation with you and so many other adoptees who are I think, doing the thing that we all need to do, which is speak to our experiences and center our voices. So thank you for producing this amazing podcast. I think it's one of the most essential things we can do as adoptees is to have conversations like this.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I agree. What a delight to get to talk to you today. Thank you, Nik.

Nik Chang Hoon: Thank you, [00:50:00] Haley.

Haley Radke: I love hearing about the projects people are working on, and I'm so looking forward to getting to read Nik's memoir when it is out in the world. I'm also working on a project you may have heard about it. I am working on is working title's called On Adoption, and it's going to be a brand new investigative podcast where I have been interviewing multiple mothers who have relinquished their children for adoption, and we are talking about the impact it's had on them. We are talking about the impact adoption has had on adult adoptees, and we are really going to tell the full story of adoption. If this sounds interesting to you, if you would like to support it, you can go to onadoption.net [00:51:00] for more information and we'll also have links in the show notes for how you can be a part of this project.

Thank you so much for listening. We are going to be back in January with brand new episodes. I hope you have a lovely winter break and we will talk to you very soon.