266 Susan Kiyo Ito
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/266
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 the indomitable Susan Kiyo Ito. She has been writing, advocating, and leading in the adoptee community for decades, and we are all the richer for it. Susan's brand new memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, has just been released, and it is fantastic.
We talk about how Susan first discovered an adoptee memoir at her local library at age 13, and how that changed the trajectory of her life. We've got adoptee activism history, relatable reunion problems, and the power of sharing our adoptee experiences in community all throughout this [00:01:00] conversation.
Before we get started, I wanted to 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 Susan Kiyoh Ito. Welcome, Susan, to Adoptees On.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you so much, Haley. I am thrilled to be here.
Haley Radke: I respect you so much. You've been in the community for sorry, no, no age shaming here. We are thankful for our elders for years and years. And so I know lots of people know you, but would you start and share a little bit of your story with us, please?
Susan Kiyo Ito: Sure. And I, I love being an elder. I feel really good about it. So no shame. [00:02:00] So my story is that I am a biracial Japanese American adoptee. I was adopted by Japanese American parents at the age of around four months. I was born in New York state, and I was raised mostly in New Jersey. I searched for my birth mother when I was a college student and took me about a little bit less than a year to find her.
And since then, when it's a long time ago since then we've had a kind of up and down reunion and that kind of forms the basics of my book, of my memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere. That was a very brief story. I don't know how much, that was like the nutshell version. I don't know how much more detail you want me to go into, but if you would like me to expand on any part of [00:03:00] it, I'm more than happy to.
Haley Radke: I'm sure we'll get into all kinds of parts of it. Well, I know that you are a writer decades long. You're a professor, you teach people how to write, and you're a voracious reader. And I remember talking to you about something that you share in the book, reading The Search for Anna Fisher. And I'll admit, when I was reading your book, I was like was she old enough to read this book?
I was like, kind of fact checking you as I read, because I was like, how old would you have been to read something so formational? So, can you tell us a little bit about that book? How old were you when you found it? Because I know you weren't making stuff up.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Yes. Do you know that book, Haley?
Haley Radke: I haven't read it.
No. But believe me, I've been looking for a used copy because I want to read it.
Susan Kiyo Ito: It is an incredible collector's item. I think I found one on eBay or somewhere. So I actually do have a copy. It's incredible. [00:04:00] So The Search for Anna Fisher was published in 1972, I believe, 72 or 73, which would have made me 12 or 13 years old.
And I was obsessed with our town library. I lived in a little town in New Jersey. We had a very tiny municipal library and I remember going to the library and looking in the little card catalog and looking up adoption. What is it about adoption? What, what have people written about it?
And this was about the time when I had moved into the adult section of the library and I wasn't in the picture book section anymore. And I saw this book called The Search for Anna Fisher by Florence Fisher. So I went and looked it up, took it out and it blew my mind. I think it's one of the very first adoptee memoirs that was ever published.
And the thing that's amazing is, this was the early seventies is how [00:05:00] radical she was. She was all about, I need to know who I am. I need to know where I come from. I have the right to know. And it was kind of when I look back on it, reading it recently shocked at how so many things have not changed since the 1970s.
And, people were really, she was really wanting her original birth certificate and she went to her agency and asked for her records and she got the runaround just as I did, and a lot of things had not changed, but she was really determined to find her roots, and it really radicalized me.
I mean, a lot of people talk about quote unquote, coming out of the fog when they're in their adult years, in their thirties or forties or later, and I came out of the fog when I was 12 because and Florence Fisher pulled me out of that fog. It was like, yeah, it was like a bolt of lightning inside me.
[00:06:00] And at the end of the book it said, if you are an adoptee and you're interested in finding more about your roots, we have formed an organization called ALMA, the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association. I mean, super radical. And they had a P. O. box in New York. So I wrote to them immediately at the age of 12.
And they wrote back and said, sorry, you're too young. We'd love to help you but please contact us again when you're 18. And I did that. Literally, I turned 18. I'm like, oh, I'm old enough for ALMA now. And they wrote back to me and said, welcome. We'd love to meet you. And we're having a meeting in New York City. We have we meet every month. And I started going to meetings at the age of 18. And it was life changing. I mean, it changed everything for me.
Haley Radke: I mean, I alluded to this in our little intro there, but you literally have been going to these things since you were [00:07:00] 18-years-old. So you've seen all the things you've seen all the cycles, the new people coming new ideas that are the same old ideas.
All of that. But what I want to ask you is how does it feel now to think there's going to be an adoptee somewhere who picks up your memoir and that is going to be the first connection that they've had to feeling not alone and like they're not crazy and you're going to impact their adoptee consciousness.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Okay, you just about made me cry here. I had not thought about that specifically like that. And the thought of that is just kind of mind blowing. It feels very full circly to think about that. I will. share something happened recently, where, as a biracial Japanese American [00:08:00] adoptee adopted by Japanese parents, I have often felt as we said, the unicorn among unicorns.
And I have been taken in many ways, by other Asian American adoptees, Korean adoptees have been extremely welcoming and kind to me. Although our experiences are very different. I'm not an intercountry adoptee, but you know, they kind of feel this, I feel this kinship with them because they've been just really wonderful to me.
So if there's an Asian adoptee gathering, they'll include me sometimes. And it's, a Korean adoptee had written something on Facebook about a gathering that they had, and somebody had written a comment that said, it was really nice being with all of you, but as a half Japanese adoptee adopted by Japanese parents, I always feel so different, and I feel like I don't really fit in.
And the original poster was like, oh my goodness. Have you read Susan Ito? You've got to read Susan Ito's book. She's also half Japanese, [00:09:00] adopted by Japanese parents and it blew this person's mind. It blew my mind and we immediately connected and we've been you know, in communication, and that was like a little hint of that, it's like somebody who I have felt I have met maybe less than a handful of people like me adoptees like me in this exact same situation, and to find someone out there who was also feeling very isolated, very unique and alone, very unicorn ish.
It was it's it's It like made everything worth it or just so exciting to have that moment.
Haley Radke: I love it. It's like goosebumps, right? You're like, Oh my gosh, my people, like you really get it.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't had a chance to have a conversation with them, but I'm very eager to learn how our stories are similar and also different.
Because all of our stories are so unique, even if they have a lot of similarities. [00:10:00]
Haley Radke: So I think the last time we talked we were preparing for this class that you were teaching and got to lead around adoption narratives. And just like really tremendous opportunity for people to get invested and learn from you and so many voices.
And I'm curious now, over these decades of work and teaching a class like that, and of course you infuse a lot of adoption themes, I'm sure, into some of your writing classes. What are some things that have been impactful as you share about the truth of adoption with people who are not adopted and who may not have a connection to adoption.
Susan Kiyo Ito: That's an interesting question. I mean, I think just on the very basics of things like so many people who are not adopted [00:11:00] do not understand about closed records. And our inability to access our original birth certificates, people have no idea. And to me, that's one of the very first things I learned.
I learned that when I was 12. I learned that from Florence Fisher. And I think it's something that so many people take for granted. Of course, they have their birth certificate. Of course, they have their, they know their heritage or they can, their ancestry matches up with the people that they grew up with.
I think. And often I'll talk about non adopted privilege, some other people have had other words for it, these things that people really never think about, it's like breathing air, that things that they know, pieces of themselves that they have access to, that we don't have, and It's kind of stunning to understand that.
So I think that's one of the things, just all the ways in which, because I think [00:12:00] we're taught or, media and society tells us that, adoption is such a win thing. It's such a great thing. It's such a, it's such a gift. It's such a, all the things, right. And I think people are shocked that there are other things that there's loss and grief and all kinds of things that they never think about because if you were to look at me and my family, they're like, oh, but your parents are so great and they love you so much and you had such a wonderful family and all that, that a lot of those other things are really under the surface and not visible, and not things that people either know or understand.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I think we're always looking for these ways to tell our friends and family like actually, this has had an impact on me and finding those like safe first kind of topics. [00:13:00] I was Oh yeah, when you were started off with the OBCs, cause I'm like, I find lots of ways to somehow say I have a fake birth certificate.
Isn't that weird? Isn't it weird that adoptive parents can actually just in some states, choose where their adopted kid was born, supposedly Oh, you didn't know that? Oh, yes. I didn't know that. Huh. Yeah. There's a couple's, I don't know which states they are, but they can actually change the location of where you were born.
Wow. Talk about a fake document. It's so maddening, I can only laugh, right? Messy. Messy. So, speaking of adoption is messy. I have heard you express gratitude for your adoptive parents and the connection you were able to keep with your culture. And I heard you talk about going to a very Japanese church [00:14:00] on Sundays.
And maybe to your chagrin at the time, but all of those things that people that are normally interracially adopted, the common thing is for a child of color to go into a white family and be stripped of their connection to their heritage. And in a, I'm going to, I'm going to ascribe a racist action by the adoption agency.
They would not allow your parents to adopt a white baby and made them wait for 10 years for you. So, do you have thoughts on that? Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Susan Kiyo Ito: Oh yeah. It's it is, it's really complicated. And sometimes... I don't know whether to call myself a transracial adoptee because I didn't really exactly match my parents because I am biracial and [00:15:00] half white and sometimes I consider myself same race adoptee.
Or same culture adoptee because my birth mother was Japanese and so are my parents. And so sometimes I'll call myself three quarters or whatever. And, but to have that sense of continuity has meant everything to me. And not feeling many intercountry or transracial adoptees who were raised in a completely different family and community than the one they were born into, and how disconnected and painful that is.
I have witnessed so much of this in many of my friends and... Adoptees that I know that I read. And I don't know if it's a little bit of survivor's guilt of I didn't have to, I didn't have that. And I am grateful for myself that I didn't have that. And it makes me really conscious of the [00:16:00] pain that must be like to not have that.
I recently this summer traveled to Japan. And it was really profound for me. The last time I was there was probably almost 20 years ago. And it just wasn't as conscious in my mind then. But being there and feeling this deep connection, not only to the family that I grew up with, but knowing that it's that I wasn't just borrowing their culture because I grew up with them.
I wasn't just like in it because they were in it, that it actually is also a part of my birth culture as well. And it made me feel doubly, triply connected to it. And yes, this is where I came from on every level, and it was very emotional for me and very meaningful and made me feel even more, just even more connected and [00:17:00] appreciative that I had that.
And knowing that it's kind of a rare thing, even with quote unquote, same race adoptees, like an adoptive family might be Italian, but the birth family is, some other kind of European it there's there's a rupture there. It's like our family didn't go back to this country.
Our family is from another country. And I feel like, I was able to experience that and it, it means a lot to me. Although I, I don't think it was for my benefit that this happened. I think it was just, it was how it turned out and maybe some racism on the agency's part. And I don't know what, but for whatever reason, this was the outcome.
Haley Radke: Well, I, there's, some parts of your story. I'm like, okay. She always knew she was adopted. Good job, mom and dad.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Well, good job, mom and dad. But at the same time, it was like any other transracial adoption. Like they couldn't really [00:18:00] hide it from me. It was kind of obvious that I didn't quite match them.
I matched them sort of.
Haley Radke: I think you say somewhere that you always knew, so they'd obviously told you from a super young age.
Susan Kiyo Ito: They definitely told me. But the thing that I really appreciated about it is that they were super matter of fact about it. They weren't precious about it. They weren't like, you were chosen and you were this and you were that.
I mean, they were just like... Yep, you're half and half. We're not, you're different. It's okay. We adopted you. We couldn't have children and we went to the agency and we waited a long time and then you came. I mean, they were just like, there was no, I don't know, there was no either guilt or preciousness about it.
They're just very straightforward. And so not that it wasn't a big deal, but I felt like there wasn't a lot of baggage attached to it, which I think I've heard a lot from other people that it's wrapped up in a [00:19:00] lot of heavy stuff.
Haley Radke: Yeah, and I've I don't know, I've listened to a few conversations lately or and read a few things where people were kind of sharing it wasn't outright said, but I knew on the tone around it's not safe to talk about.
And, you wrote a letter to tell your parents you were searching and they're like, well, how can we help? Right? And some people, some adopted parents would get that and be like, Oh my God, all my greatest fears are being realized. And I'm so thankful that you had some complicit in your wild west search tactics.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Totally. Well, I love actually talking about this letter cause I was so nervous. I was away at college. So my parents were both born in New York City, and my mother grew up in Brooklyn, and so what I love doing a little imitation of her when she called me up after receiving the letter, and she's what took you so long?
We've been waiting years for this. [00:20:00] She was just so tough, and so New York in her response. And then they were like, so what do you need? Well, how can we help you? What do you need? And I was like, okay, and I actually did have things that I needed from the adoptee support group. They had a search consultant who had a number of steps that they were recommending that people do.
And, I did all those things. And, but it was just, it was kind of comical, their response. Cause I was so afraid, I was so afraid of how they were going to respond and it was laughable. And it was beautiful. It was laughable and beautiful because I think about it now. I get very emotional, but
Haley Radke: Well, I mentioned the wild west search tactics.
I don't want to spoil that. I want people to read it you got some good stories in there
Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah It's the things you have to do when you don't have the internet didn't exist yet. It was all just paper, telephones, [00:21:00] phone calls, lying, stealing. Yeah. Things like that.
Haley Radke: Oh, man. So good. Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, and, how do I put this you published an you edited A Ghost at Heart's Edge, which is an anthology, in 99, a long time ago.
I have poetry that you've written, I've I've seen you do readings the, like you've been writing and writing a long time, all these different pieces and all the way along and I think you mentioned to me at one point, you were like, oh yeah, I've got this memoir. I keep picking them, putting down and I don't know what I'm going to, it's like why now?
Why, when why are you ready now to share this story? Why not sooner? You had most of it written sooner. I feel like, I don't know. [00:22:00] What do you think, Susan?
Susan Kiyo Ito: This is a really hard question, but I think I got to a certain point. So I don't think this is a spoiler that eventually a few years ago, my adoptive mother died and then my first grandchild was born.
And I think those two events really made me feel like an arc had completed itself in some way. And before those two things happened, I really felt like this story could just go on forever. And it did, I mean, I had ended this book about 10 different times, this is the end. No, this is the, okay, like one more year, something else is going to happen.
And then life would go on. The story would change. And often it just felt like I was stopping it in some very random arbitrary place. And when I got to this point a couple years ago, I think I really felt like that's, this is it. I think I've said all there is to say about this. Of course there's always [00:23:00] more, but it felt like a real I wouldn't say literary because that's a little, that's a, it just felt like a real narrative arc had taken place.
And I felt ready to finish.
Haley Radke: Well, this is one of my favorite things about your story, is having the wisdom to go through all those things, have time to look back on them and process, and we're all the richer for the lessons that you've learned over these years.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, looking back on it, it seems like it's the only way it could have happened.
But if you would have told me this 30 years ago, I would have thrown a fit. I would have been like, there's no way I'm finishing this book when I'm in my 60s. That's torture. That's no, I would have, I mean, and I did [00:24:00] have a lot of tantrums when people suggested that the story was not over.
Some people suggested that I did not have enough distance, when they read parts of it along the years. Some people suggested that there was more stories still to come, and I was very resistant to this idea I did not like that idea, and, but that's the way it turned out, and now, of course, in retrospect I'm glad.
Haley Radke: Well, let's talk about this idea that the fact that adoption is a lifelong experience because you give us this window into reunion specifically with your birth mother and the ebbs and flows of that relationship makes it so real and visceral to so many of us, right? You're telling the highs, you're telling the lows yeah.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Well, I think for many stories, the meeting or [00:25:00] the search and the meeting is the end, it's the climax. It's the end of the book and then they lived happily ever after or whatever, or maybe then they, I don't know how they lived, but That's often the point that people are aiming towards will there be a reunion?
Will their searching end up in some way, et cetera, et cetera. And just the fact that is barely the beginning. And the rest of the story is really where the story lies.
Haley Radke: And that's where you start.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Right. And I think it echoes a lot of those I don't even know the names of it. Those like drama TV shows where, it ends with the reunion or with people meeting each other. And then that's the end of it. And then we don't get to see what happens after that, after the cameras go away or whatever, and yeah, and this is where the whole thing has been for me, has been, the, I think when I first started writing [00:26:00] my story, it was much more focused on that part, the before part, because that, that's got its own drama, right?
And that could have been a whole book, but really I'm glad that I waited. And then, I just kept going.
Haley Radke: Okay, so you've been through it, we already talked, there's ups and downs. Do you have advice for fellow adopted people who may have experienced similar things to you? We know lots of adoptees who have had to keep their identity is secret or their relationship with their birth parent is secret because the birth parent has not been open with the people around them and managing that as a person who would like to be announced as.
That can be like soul tearing in some way.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah, that's a really it's a really apt way of putting it. Soul tearing. Yes, I feel the tears in [00:27:00] my soul a lot. And I don't know if I have advice. I mean, I don't know what would I have told my younger self? I kind of feel like I had to go through it the way I went through it.
And I, in some ways I'm still going through it. I would like to tell myself to be kind to yourself and treat yourself with dignity and I can't say, I mean, I don't think I could say to somebody else, if somebody won't treat you with dignity, then it's not worth it because I certainly didn't follow that advice.
I felt like the title of the book, I Would Meet You Anywhere. I would have done anything to have this relationship. And I did do anything in a lot of ways. And in a lot of circumstances, I think I would say it's very hard to have ambivalence in a relationship as I did. I don't know if it's you can really compare.
I don't know if it's easier to have outright [00:28:00] rejection. I don't know if that's easier. It's, you or if it's harder, to have that, but at least one has a sense of this is where I stand and I felt like for me it was like back and forth and back and forth and sometimes I was in good graces and sometimes I was not.
And, I had given, I had come to peace with this, the circumstances of my birth and being relinquished. I had come to peace with that and even though it was a loss and it was all those things, I think I understood it, given the context of those circumstances, what was much, much harder for me was being turned away from as an adult, when there was an established relationship, like there was a relationship, and then it went away. And then there was a relationship and then it went away. That was really hard. That was really hard. And I think much harder for me to cope with, then I understand [00:29:00] the circumstances, when I was a baby. I don't think that's advice at all. I mean, I think the only advice is surround yourself with people who can be with you in what you're going through.
Do you know people who will listen to you, people who will hold you or understand you or love you or see you and that your worth is not connected to however this relationship is going. I mean, I have to tell myself that every day, but I think, I mean, and literally, I call people up all the time, or I go to my husband, or just expressing how incredibly complicated and difficult it is, and to have people just be there and listen to me, they can't fix it, they can't change it, they can't do anything about it, except just really listen to me, they can't talk me out of it.
I think [00:30:00] that's the thing. A lot of people who love us try to talk us out of it. Look, you've got such a beautiful family, but look, you're so lucky. Look, you're doing work that you love. Look, it's oh, look, you've got a book public. You know what I mean? There's many things in my life that are absolutely.
Beautiful that I am really grateful for and it doesn't take away how complicated and painful a lot of parts of this are.
Haley Radke: It's something I completely related to in your book. I had a very brief reunion with my birth mother. It was not quite four months and I've never had any contact with her since I've reached out multiple times and just nothing and literally, if she found me I'd be like kay drop everything go like I like today, you know I feel that viscerally and there's just something we just want the connection. Yeah, I so related to that.
Susan Kiyo Ito: And when you know when for you, you wouldn't be [00:31:00] friends with somebody who treated you that way, and I wouldn't be friends with somebody who did or said things the way that, our relationship has been, but this is different, and you've got different feelings, as you said, very visceral about it, and you're willing to do things that you wouldn't in other circumstances, and I think that balance of self dignity and self love and really wanting something.
It's a hard one to, it's a hard one to straddle.
Haley Radke: One of the hardest parts to read was this part where you were working in a lab with mice. And I won't say more than that, really, about it, but the picture I got, and I wonder if this is what you were trying to create, was that, God, they're just never going to quit experimenting on this whole adoption thing as [00:32:00] adoptees, we're, like, trapped in this thing, and...
Susan Kiyo Ito: Haley, that is a completely unique response to that piece. I love that. I love that insight that you just said.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Because I had not thought of that consciously while I was writing it. I mean, I was basically like I had this really weird job at this same time that I was negotiating this very new relationship with her.
And it all came together in this confluence of madness. It was wild. But I think the thing that I so I don't think it's a spoiler to say that I worked in a laboratory that had mice. And I was the caregiver of the mice, the caretaker, caregiver, I don't know. And one of my jobs was like, tracking their genealogy, and keeping their little charts of who was parents of who and who.
And [00:33:00] it just kind of blew my mind that I was doing this for these mice. And I didn't even have it myself. Like I knew who the mouse nicest parents were, but I didn't know my own parents and I was dealing with, possibly having a meet up with my birth mother and possibly not. And it was just all these sensations were all.
Coming at me at the same time. It was something else. But I love that experimenting on adoptees and adoption. I love that.
Haley Radke: That adoption is this grand failed, experiment. I won't swear because it's clean on the show. But yeah.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Wow. I love I'm going to write that down because a lot of people have had a lot of visceral reactions to that piece.
And for different reasons, but I love that. I love that take on it.
Haley Radke: Well, we all are going to take something different from your story, right? Yes, okay. I [00:34:00] remember you sharing when your adoptive mom passed, and I'm really sorry for your loss. But one of the photos you shared was just her joy, expression of joy on her face at a basketball game.
And so I know you, you share about her in the book and, but that's the piece I remember. About your mom, said she loved basketball.
Susan Kiyo Ito: She was an incredible sports fanatic from the time I was, a child. And I had a boyfriend at one point who joked that he was going to get her a subscription to Sports Illustrated.
She, I don't think she actually had one, but she would have loved it. She would have loved it. She went to nickel. It was ladies night was a nickel at Yankee stadium. She was obsessed with the Yankees because, she grew up in New York. And so she would go for a nickel to the baseball games by herself.[00:35:00]
And cheer on the Yankees. And then when she moved out here, we would go to baseball games and then she started going to basketball games with my husband and they went for many years, he would take her three, four times a week and they would go see the Warriors and she was into it. That was her thing.
Haley Radke: I love when we have these like happy memories of someone and then our friends, our people can get connected in that way. And just how you talked about her and your husband are just like a special that stuck with me for sure. So, I already said, you've written all the things, you've done so many things you even had a one woman show at one point, The Ice Cream Gene, okay, tell us a little bit about that.
And where I wanted to go with that was, maybe you can't tell because, pull behind the curtain. We were talking before your book is released. [00:36:00] What is it going to feel like to have this story in the world, the exposure of some deep, things that are so important to you versus performing something like this on stage in front of a live audience where you could see their faces?
Susan Kiyo Ito: I have been thinking about this a lot, Haley, because so I started performing The Ice Cream Gene, I don't know, more than 10 years ago. It started actually because I was at an adoption camp for families with adopted children of color and another I was speaking or actually I was directing the camp and a woman named Lisa Marie Rollins came and did a solo performance called Ungrateful Daughter and it was her experience of being a transracial adoptee.
It blew my mind. And I ran up to her afterwards and I said, what are you doing? How did you learn to do this? And where can I sign up? And she said, Oh, I'm taking this solo performance workshop with W. Kamau Bell. And I was like I'm signing [00:37:00] up. And so I signed up immediately. I started studying with Kamau.
This is before he became totally famous in his own right, but he was teaching solo performance classes and it was amazing to embody my story. It was his method of solo performances. It's not just like storytelling or standup comedy or whatever. It's, you're embodying your story. So there's a lot of really physically living it and being in it.
And it was incredible for me to live the moment of meeting my birth mother. It's like the opening, it's the opening scene of the book. And it was also the opening scene of The Ice Cream Gene where I'm making my way from the elevator to the hotel room and I'm counting and looking at the door numbers and I'm counting the door numbers.
And then I get to the right door and then it's two minutes before, and it's like the audience is like waiting there for it to be the exact time I'm supposed to knock on the [00:38:00] door. And it was incredible. It was it like it gave me permission to tell the story in a very embodied way. That's all I can say.
But looking back on it, it was also in many ways, one would think it's like it's so exposed and it's so like out there you're on a stage and everyone's looking at you and all this. But It was very contained. I knew who was in the audience for the most part. I was like, I was at an adoption conference, or I was at a small theater in New York, or I was at family camp, or I was somewhere, there were, there's a lot of like small theaters in the Bay Area.
And I knew that's, those were the only people who were seeing this. It was like the people in the room and me. This book is like one, there's so much more story that was not in The Ice Cream Gene. It's a million times more. And I have no control over who's reading it and who's responding to it and what people are thinking or what people are saying, or it's, it feels like a [00:39:00] much more naked experience than getting up on a stage and doing it physically.
And I would have thought it would be the opposite. Oh, I'm just like, typing away, and it's very, it's just words on a page, I don't know, and this feels much more vulnerable than actually doing The Ice Cream Gene. I'm like, can I take it back? Can I do The Ice Cream Gene again? Because that actually feels like it was in some ways yeah, safer and more controlled. But it was also, it was a big moment for me to like actually claim the story in my voice and in my body. It was, it was different and very empowering.
Haley Radke: Do you think some things in you were moved, healed, processed through doing that helped you finish your memoir?
Susan Kiyo Ito: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I think it was a good step. When I published A Ghost at Heart's Edge, it's [00:40:00] got like 50... other writers in it. And I was very careful. So I have two pieces in it. One is a poem about Albert Einstein's daughter. And another is a short story set in Central America, which was inspired by some people that I knew there was nothing in it about me.
It was like, I want to write about adoption. I want to publish about adoption. It's very important for me to get adoption stories out there. But I didn't want to put any of my own story out there. So that was like 1999, very protected, but still wanting to have a voice in the world. And then, few short pieces, and then The Ice Cream Gene.
And then that led to this. And this is like the biggest reveal that I can imagine. Somebody just a friend of mine, or actually a colleague of mine just read it and they were like, Oh my God, I just read your book. And I'm like, yes. And they're like, it's so personal. And I think they were shocked because they probably didn't know 95 percent of what was in the book.
We worked [00:41:00] together, and having somebody that knows me on a professional level, see all these incredibly intimate details of my life. I think it was stunning for them. And then they were like, are you sure you want me to read this? I'm like, yes, anybody can read it.
But it also is I don't know, it's can I actually put some blackouts, like in certain areas of my life? You people don't read it. You don't read it. You don't read it. You all that I don't, you can read it. But unfortunately, you don't have that control. So I just have to, I said to somebody recently.
I have to put on my big girl pants and take responsibility that I did this. I wrote the story, I put it out there, and now whatever is coming, I have to take, whatever the consequences are, good consequences, hard consequences I have to deal with it, personal consequences, and I have to just remind myself that [00:42:00] nobody put a gun to my head and made me write this book or publish it.
Nobody made me do it. I have chosen to do it. And it's very scary, but it was my choice.
Haley Radke: Well, we will be all the better for it. As I said at the beginning, you're one of the elders in our community. And I look up to you and I have seen the investment you've made in all the people that have come after you and what I find so amazing and I feel so grateful for is that you've had to move your venue for your book launch party because so many people want to come and celebrate you.
And that might feel hard for you to accept. I don't know. But I'm celebrating that for you because you're so well loved and deserve to be [00:43:00] celebrated. So.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you, Haley. Yeah, it's a little, it's a little wild. There's officially going to be probably almost double the number of people at my book launch than were at my wedding and my wedding was like the biggest deal ever.
You know what I mean? I just felt like I couldn't handle anything bigger than that. And my daughter's wedding, it was like they were like major productions, granted, there's not all this aspects, but you know, I'm going to have food and we're going to have entertainment and we're going to have all kinds of things.
Yeah, it's a little overwhelming, but it's also great. And I think of all those people literally over decades, I would go out to dinner with my husband and we'd meet another couple to be. How's your book coming? This was maybe 15 or 20 years ago. And I'd be like, it's coming. It's coming. And I was so embarrassed, humiliated it's not coming at all.
Or I'm just writing the fifth draft of it. And it's a novel now. And it's a memoir [00:44:00] now. And it's short stories now. It changed form so many times. And then people just stopped asking. And I think a lot of people just didn't believe it was ever going to happen, including me.
Haley Radke: Well, I Would Meet You Anywhere is so amazing.
I genuinely loved it. I couldn't believe I was so lucky to read it early. And I'm so excited for our community to have it. It's just like this tremendous, to me, it's this is a love letter to adoptees. It's see, I've gone through these things. You can do it too. I've gone through these hard things. You can do it too. And I just, there's some very tender personal parts. There's some very funny parts. I mean, yikes. Wild West. We'll just, I'll keep going back to that. You'll know it when you read it, that's for sure. It's just so good and I know it's going to [00:45:00] reach outside the adoption community because it's just so well written and you can just tell this is your accumulation of wisdom and love and story and yeah, it's just so beautiful, Susan. Like well done. Well done you.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you so much, Haley. It was such an honor to have you read it. It made me so happy. I was really excited to have you as a reader.
Haley Radke: Aw, that's so kind. What do you want to recommend to us?
Susan Kiyo Ito: This is a really hard question, but I decided to, and I know that you said you can only recommend one thing.
And so I did, I'm doing a little cheat here. I am going to recommend Angela Tucker, my, wonderful, amazing adoptee, activist, author, friend. Angela has two resources. One of them is her newly released book, You Should Be Grateful. And that book, how many adoptees have heard this [00:46:00] throughout their lives, right?
You should be grateful, you should be grateful, you're so lucky, all these things. And Angela really addresses this head on, includes not only her own experience as a transracial adoptee, but the voices of many others, and takes on the institution of transracial adoption, and it's really brilliant and really moving.
She also has an organization called the Adoptee Mentoring Society. And I think this is a resource that is so important because adoptees need mentors at all times of their journey, at all stages of their journey, whether they're adults, young adults, teenagers, seniors. Adoptees need mentors. And so, Angela has worked at training mentors to be there for other adoptees, mentoring adoptees.
And I just think it's a tremendous resource and value for the community.
Haley Radke: You shared a little bit, just briefly, about leading PACT camp for many years. Do you have a thought [00:47:00] about the impact that can have for a young adopted person to have a fellow adoptee walking alongside?
Susan Kiyo Ito: Oh, for sure. Well, PACT Camp is a family camp for adoptive families with children of color, so many of them are transracial families and some of them are same race or parents of color with children of color of another culture or race.
So many children are raised in isolation, racial isolation, and they don't see families that look like theirs. And so when they enter camp for the first time, and there's like hundreds of families, I mean hundreds of people there, and they see families that mirror theirs, the look on their face is like shock and awe and joy, and they're mentored by many foster alum or adoptee counselors who are their mentors and who are there with them so they can see young [00:48:00] adults who mirror their experiences and it is so meaningful and at the same time I mean they're having fun they're having the time of their lives and the adoptive parents are learning what it means to adopt children of color, and they're getting really important lessons themselves about race and adoption, about openness, about all kinds of things, how to navigate how to help their children navigate through the world when their children have experiences that are very different from their own.
So I think it's invaluable, and I was very proud to be a part of it for the many years that I was.
Haley Radke: Well, thank you. We thank you for your decades of investment in the adoptee community in so many different ways. And please tell us where we can get your book and where we can connect with you online.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you. You can order my book anywhere books are sold. I, of [00:49:00] course, encourage people to go to their local independent bookstore or bookshop.org online. You can also go to your library. I really encourage people to ask their libraries to stock it that way you can read it for free if you want to. And I think I, it's really great having it in libraries.
I'm a big fan of libraries. So that's where you can get it bookstores or libraries and I think there's also going to be an audio book it's not quite there yet, but I think by the time you hear this, there will be an audio book on Audible. Yeah, and then my website is www.thesusanito.com, and then there will be a page with all of my events. Many are online, and many of them will be in person.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Come celebrate with Susan. Yes,
Susan Kiyo Ito: See me in person. I would be like so tickled to have anybody come up to me and say, I heard you on Adoptees On and here I am. That would [00:50:00] just make us so thrilled. Me too. And we can take a selfie and send it to Haley.
Haley Radke: Please do. Oh, that would just be a delight. I can't wait for people to start reading your book. And we're going to ask you for book club next year. So I hope that that's yes. Okay. I got a yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Can't wait to read it with y'all. Thank you so much, Susan. It has just been a delight.
Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you Haley. I, this has been such an honor and I've been looking forward to it and I feel so happy to be here with you.
Haley Radke: Thank you.
I know we have talked about this before on the podcast. But if you're new here or maybe haven't listened to everything, there's so many episodes. I think it's really important [00:51:00] for us to acknowledge the people who have been doing this work ahead of us. Susan and I were talking about The Search for Anna Fisher and how groundbreaking that book was by Florence Fisher.
And since we recorded this episode, time shifting it's going live. Today for you, but since we recorded it, Florence Fisher actually just passed away. And so I want to send out my condolences to those who were impacted by her loss. And we think of the immeasurable impact that her memoir had.
And her work for fellow adoptees and the other forerunners in adoptee activism, it is just so important that we recognize those folks. And I hope we [00:52:00] can highlight more of them here. And we are doing some great work as a community as a whole right now, really getting voices out there and we didn't invent it.
I think it's really sweet. Some of the really young TikTokers think that they started something and really, there was a lot of people paving the way for us a long time ago. And no shame to those folks, because believe me, I was thinking the same thing 10 years ago when I was talking about adoptee stuff on Twitter as if, we were some of the first people talking about it.
So. Thank you to our foremothers and fathers. I don't know, in adoptee activism, and a big thank you to Florence Fisher. Thank you for [00:53:00] listening to adoptee voices. If you think this show is important and want it to keep existing, please join us on Patreon, which is at adopteeon.com/community, and you can find out all the benefits of joining and supporting the show. And, that helps produce this podcast. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist but you do get lots of great benefits like our adoptees only book club and the ask an adoptee therapist events and some other community gatherings. We would love to have you at and I'd love to meet you there. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday
