305 Maria Diemar and Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/305
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. We have two incredible adoptee activists with us today. Maria Diemar and Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, both adopted to Sweden, joined up to elevate adoptee causes in some very impactful ways. Maria is the subject of Lisa's latest graphic novel, The Excavated Earth, which exposes a horrific story of how thousands of Chilean babies were literally kidnapped and stolen to be sold for adoption to Sweden and many other countries.
You won't believe some of the shocking [00:01:00] details that Maria and Lisa share with us today. Lisa also shares a few thoughts with us on the recent findings of the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These ladies are amazing. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. 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 two guests to Adoptees On first, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, welcome back to the show.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Thank you. Hi. So nice to be here again.
Haley Radke: Oh, it was so good to see you, Lisa, and for the first time. So excited. Maria Diemar. Welcome Maria.
Maria Diemar: Hi. Thank you.
Haley Radke: I'm so excited to talk to you ladies. We're gonna start a little differently. I know I always ask about what your story is. How did you guys connect? [00:02:00] You were both adopted to Sweden from different countries, but how did this friendship bloom for you?
Maria Diemar: Yeah. Resources online about other cases, and I found Lisa's book Palimpsest and I read it and then I emailed Lisa and we started from there. Yeah,
Haley Radke: Palimpsest says, as an aside, such a gorgeous book. If you haven't read it, I mean you're missing out. So you emailed Lisa. And Lisa, did you know about the stolen Chilean children?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yes. Yeah. 'cause I, of course, as an activist, I followed the news closely about everything going on in the adoption world.
And I had heard about stolen children in, within Chile before the new, the big news broke about the international scandals. So I was following the news, and then when the news broke in Sweden was early 2018, I actually organized the first adoptee led [00:03:00] demonstration in solidarity with the Chilean adoptee to make the government act on the news, basically.
Yeah. So I was very upset in my corner. But yeah, I didn't know Maria Diemar at the time, but then you, Maria formed an organization for Chilean adoptees, and then we connected. So I was really happy to be asked to be involved and see what I could do to help you.
Haley Radke: Maria, if you're comfortable, would you mind sharing a little bit of your story? Because you didn't always know that you were stolen from the, your country of origin.
Maria Diemar: No, exactly. So I was born in 1975 in southern part of Chile, and I wa I always knew that I was 10 weeks when I came to Sweden and back then it was a, what do you call it? It was a dictatorship in Chile. And the future adoptive parents were asked not to travel to Chile to get the kids.
They were told [00:04:00] to stay in, in Sweden and that we, the kids were going to arrive to Sweden and they could pick us up at the airport. And it sounds so terrible when I say it, but yeah. That's like 1975. Yeah. So I came to my adopted parents in Stockholm, in Sweden where I grew up and with the story that my mom was poor and that she couldn't take care of a child.
And I think I was, they were always very open about the adoption and it was very obvious that I was adopted like Lisa and other people from other countries. It's very obvious that we are not like Swedish people back then. So they always talked about like my background, what they knew. And when I was 10, I think it wasn't until I was 10 I realized, or I understood like the documents that said that I had an older brother in Chile.
So [00:05:00] that's why when I started to think about I have to go back because my mom is there and my older brother is there, so I have to go there. So my life, I started focus on, I have to learn Spanish, I have to study about Chile, what is Chile? And it was like a very big thing for me to understand that as a 10 or 11-year-old.
And I always knew like I wanted to look for them, but I didn't know how. So it wasn't until I finished high school when I was 19, I started my search. And back then you had, as an adoptive person you had to contact the adoption agency that brought you to Sweden, and I can mention that in Sweden there was like one big, like it's the second largest adoption agency in the world.
They handle 30,000 cases of children from abroad, [00:06:00] and we had to contact them and pay them money to get information that they had received about us. So still today they have my birth certificate, for example. I don't have it, I have a copy, but we have to ask them for that information. So I did and I paid a little money and I had to wait and after one year they told me that they couldn't help me.
They told me that I had to go to Chile on, on, on my own and to search for my story over there. So of course I couldn't go directly because it's a long trip, a long journey, and it's cost a lot of money. So I studied and I worked extra, different jobs. And I traveled to Chile and I stayed there for almost three months because I wanted to learn the language better and to get to know my country.
And I decided also, okay, I will go to Southern Chile and look for my mom [00:07:00] and brother. And, but the thing was, in Chile I had all the information, like I had to go to the courthouse where the like where it was decided that I was going to have Swedish foster parents because I realized that I wasn't adopted in Chile.
I was a foster child that left Chile to Sweden, and I was adopted in Sweden when I was six months old. And I went to the court to get information about my background. I thought that they were going to receive me with open arms and give me the address to my mom, but they hold my information. Like the secretary that I was meeting up with, she hold my file and said that she couldn't show it to me because I was adopted. And then from there I started to go to the orphanage where they told me, the adoption agency told me that I had been at this orphanage. I went there, they told me I was born at a certain hospital. So I [00:08:00] went there and everywhere I went, like the door closed. I was welcome. They talked to me, but they said there is no, like no registers, there is no information, there is nothing.
So when I returned to Sweden after three months in Chile, I felt like I, I don't exist in Chile. It was so strange, but I was even more determined that I have to find my story. I have to find out, where is my mom and where is my brother and, but it took me seven years. And after seven years, I, by coincident got in contact with back then she was studying her last year to become journalist, a woman called Ana Maria Olivares.
And I mentioned her name because she became a friend. But back then in 2003, she helped me to locate my mom. And it took her like one week, not even one week, five [00:09:00] days, to find my mom and then her uncle that lives in the same area went to visit my mom and to tell about your daughter is looking for you.
So that was in 2003 and I received like a very long email from the man that went to visit to went to my mom's house and talked to her and he said like that he had met my mom. He also sent me a picture, but that she told him that she never gave me up for adoption. That I was taken from her. And back then it was, I had never heard about stolen children or children that had been like forceful, forcefully taken from their mothers in Chile.
So I didn't know what to think and I was thinking about it and I contacted the adoption agency and I asked them like, why is my mom telling me that I was taken from her? And they [00:10:00] told me, but, oh, don't think about that. That is common. Like the mothers, they do that, they don't want to feel guilty for having, leaving their babies up for adoption.
So no, it's nothing. And I had this feeling I didn't know, I didn't know that woman. I didn't know my mom, but still, this is what she told me through this man. And, but I thought, with time I will, learn the truth. But it took me 14 years before I could, with help of a third person that finally could tell me about like the context, like what happened in Chile.
This is, this was not, just one child or two children that were abducted it. It's thousands. So by, so in 2017 I could finally understand it, but from two th 2003 up to 2017, I had been to Chile several times. I [00:11:00] had met siblings, I had spent time in, in Chile, but still, I couldn't process this information because that wasn't what I have been, told.
Haley Radke: So you have this, the idea in your mind, right? That you're like she's saying you were taken, but
Maria Diemar: yeah.
Haley Radke: Not really. That's just what she's saying to. I don't know psychologically deal with losing you or something.
Maria Diemar: Yeah, but the thing is like growing up in Sweden, you believe so much in the system. You believe so much in like paperwork, like papers. They are the truth. And in the paper it's said that she gave me up for adoption.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: But it's also the, that's the story we are told, not just from our parents but from everywhere in Sweden. The narrative that we have been rescued and that our mothers gave us up is so prominent and so strong and at Adoptionscentrum that Maria mentions that adoption agency, they have so much power and they also, they own the [00:12:00] story of adoption.
So you know, you are up against so much and when you, because the thing that Maria tells about understanding what happened to her or being told what happened to her, it sounds very similar to what I went through when I discovered the truth about my adoption. And I started asking around and people just said that I was crazy because I was like maybe you are an exception and you write to the authorities and to the agencies and they tell you no, this is it's just what the mothers are saying because they feel guilty.
And they even said that on national television and they keep saying it today, even after everything that's been discovered. So of course you think you're one case or that you're crazy, but that's the thing now, when all these investigations are opening up and like with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Korea and lots of other commissions, and like for me, I discovered that I was a paper orphan and I had to Google it and I ended up with [00:13:00] no answers. No one knew about this. And now when you look at the term paper orphan. Everybody knows about it. It's become an established term.
Haley Radke: And just so people know what that means.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. Sorry. It's in my case, it's, I have known living parents, but I also have an official documents assessed that I have an unknown background. And I was, I'm an orphan in the true sense of the world. I have no parents, no living parents. I'm an orphan, but that's just a complete lie of falsification, which was needed to make me adoptable.
Haley Radke: Sure. So So it's like full societal gaslighting of all adopted people and both of you
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Have completely falsified paperwork to do with your adoptions.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And you're not the exception.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: That we grew up believing and our parents grew up believing it and the whole society. Yeah, supported that idea.
Maria Diemar: And I think also because [00:14:00] as an adopted person, you understand like when you finally find your family and you start a relationship, it's a lot of things going on and like to getting to know like siblings and it's a lot to deal with and it's easier to deal with the happy feelings.
Oh, I'm getting to know people like I'm related to, by blood and all of that. It was easier to focus on that than to focus on like the hard stuff. So like Lisa said, also with the papers, I never said that, but in my case. When I started to look through and when the journalist in Chile explained this to me that, but look at your birth certificate.
You have a Swedish name. So in Chile I'm registered as Ingegerd Maria Olsson Karlsson, and the same as Lisa. I don't have, I don't have parents. I was, only, I just existed one [00:15:00] day or the 18th of August, I suddenly existed in Chile with a Swedish name and in Chile now I know, but I didn't know back then in 2003, but I have always existed in Chile. Like I never left the country. So I have a, like my, like here you have the social security number or id, so I have a Chilean id. I can vote, I'm a citizen. I can just go to the consulate where I live and ask them to renew my passport or my, ID like my identification card.
So it's like I never left. Now I can see that, but who, no, no one could explain that to me back then. So we have more facts today and it's easier, I, when I can, there's this page in Chile where you can search, if you look at your birth certificate and the name you have on that paper, if you search for that on this page, you will have the information of an [00:16:00] address and you will have your number.
And it's insane if, but we didn't know that until, today or seven years ago. So it's a lot of, it's more accessible. Like you have more information accessible today through, internet and and also by people actually knowing about this. But back then, more than 20 years ago, it was very different. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay. I hope this isn't too in the weeds, but are you saying there was like two, I'm just gonna use Maria's, but two Maria documented, like there was a Maria that stayed and is a citizen, and then there's the falsified Swedish named Maria who left.
Maria Diemar: No.
Haley Radke: Is that what they did? Or There was, it was always just, you appeared as Swedish Maria, and that's, and there was no record of you leaving.
Maria Diemar: Exactly. [00:17:00] So the second so for me, for one group of people, we were registered with Swedish names, and I can also mention that I, in the court in Temuco where I was given Swedish foster parents in that court, they had. I don't know how many application from Swedish parents that were looking for children.
So what they did that they took, a couple from, papers from the court and they found children and they registered the children with the names that the Swedish parents wished their future child to be called. So I was registered with my Swedish name before the foster parents in Sweden knew I existed.
So I have read like my mom, my Swedish mom, her notes about me, and she learned about my existence one week after I was registered with her and her husband's [00:18:00] names. So that happens to some, and some some have two or three identities in Chile because I was stolen from my mom at birth, so she never saw me, she never hold me at the hospital.
I was carried away by a social assistant. But normally, like a mom in Chile, give birth to the child and she gets this note from the doctor or from the midwife that on this day, this mom, this woman gave birth to this child. And after a few weeks, the mother can walk with the child to the, what do you call it?
To the registers to register the child and then you make this birth certificate. But in my case, and for many others that were stolen, it was made this document would help or witnesses. So two men, they, signed a paper that I was this baby with a [00:19:00] Swedish name and they signed that paper, and then I suddenly existed in Chile, like someone without parents.
But now when I know about all this, I can see in the documents from the court that, that my mom is mentioned, her name is there, but in so she could decide to give me away and so I could be sent to Sweden. So there, they mentioned her name, but in my birth certificate she doesn't exist. So it's very convenient that she can exist in some documents and in others not. So in Chile they only decided that I, the court in Chile only decided that I can leave the country and that I can travel to foster parents in Sweden.
So I was never adopted in Chile. It happened in Sweden and they didn't send the papers back or something so we never left the country. So it's it, I [00:20:00] think they talk about 20,000 children and even more, but that they know of have left the country, but they don't know where all children are.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: It's so similar to Korea.
Haley Radke: That is like any normal person listening to that. It's gotta be like, that is bananas.
Maria Diemar: Yeah.
Haley Radke: It that, my gosh, you guys could see my face. I'm just getting madder and madder now okay.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: But that's the thing, when you start actually listing it like that, 'cause you're so used to, to talking about certain aspects of adoption, but when you actually start listing what really happened, it's absolutely insane. And it's so obviously criminal.
Haley Radke: Yes.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Because the Swedish adoption agency is still trying to pretend that it was all on Chile, that they can admit that maybe they were, the system wasn't great, but they had nothing to do with it. But the fact that Maria had a Swedish name in a birth certificate when she left before she even had [00:21:00] been assigned parents and adopted by them. It's a crazy gamble to begin with, but it's also, it's proof that Swedish people were there on location making these decisions 'cause she couldn't have gotten the Swedish name by a Chilean person. It's a very specific Swedish name too. I could say. It's quite traditional, so it's not just something you would pick up from a book, make up like, oh, this sounds Swedish.
It's a proper Swedish name. So it's proof that they were there, they were acting knowingly and they still tried to pretend oh no, this was all Chilean the Chilean responsibility.
Haley Radke: Colluding. Big time. Lisa, can we just talk a little bit about like most of our listeners probably are quite familiar with Korean adoptees because there's so many of you.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah.
Haley Radke: So can you just, but can you just do a little history on Korean adoption, like the reasons, and like some of this nonsense of course was happening there too, just because I want Maria to contrast that with what was happening in [00:22:00] Chile at the time. Like I'm talking about macro level reasons why Korean was exporting other babies.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: I do a super brief summary 'cause we can talk for a long time, but Korea had been through a devastating war between 50 and 53. So it left a lot of actual, real orphans and there were a lot of foreign aid workers and a lot of presence of foreign soldiers, mainly US soldiers who were there.
And they could see the plight of the children basically. And that's when people who were worried about these kids, what was gonna happen to them. And some had been were the result of relationships between US soldiers and Korean women. So I think it was we can say that it started with the US that there, there was a evangelical couple there called Harry and Bertha Holt, who started bringing real orphans over to the US and basically marketing them.
Look, we're [00:23:00] taking care of these poor children from Korea who are left orphaned. And you could also do the same thing. So it is, it's basically a campaign for parents to, or people who want to adopt a child to get their own Korean. And then it became so popular that's how the industry started.
But the real orphans run out quite quickly. It's just like in Chile that they started the demand was so high, so they had to find another way to produce orphans. And that's when coercion started and actual theft and kidnapping and the falsified paperwork. But on the Korean side, this was also an opportunity for them to rebuild the country.
I don't know if you've heard this description of Korea, but it's called the economical wonder because they rebuilt the country so quickly and became one of the richest countries in the world quite quickly, quite drastically. So you can compare to other countries that [00:24:00] were on the same level of poverty after the Korean War, and then how quickly they rose from that compared to other countries.
So we're in the similar situation, and my body is part of that, that they built their wealth on my body and possibly up to 250,000 other people. But the numbers vary. Just like in Chile, a lot of the adoptions were registered and they were dodgy and under the table. So the official figure is lower, it's lower than 200,000, but usually 200,000 people as a number that it's shared.
So through this, they got a lot of American dollars coming into the country, but they also saved lots and lots of money on social welfare. So they didn't need to build up a social welfare system for themselves 'cause they could just send us off. And just like in Chile, it was also, and after all the insanity that was going on, then there was a military dictatorship for [00:25:00] many years that ended in 87.
So it was a military rule quite a long time in Korea. The human rights abuse were prominent just like in Chile. And this is one thing that Maria and I keep coming back to when we talk about all this is that how can the adoption agencies convince themselves that adoptions in, in these insanely corrupt countries that are ruled by the military and are constantly committing crimes against humanity against their own population and particularly against poor people, how can they think that adoption can exist in like this ethical little bubble?
In these countries and convince them. I don't think that they actually truly believe that, but they managed to convince other people. That's how it works. That we know that these children, that everything, that's the whole system is perfectly ethical. And yeah, in line with laws and regulations, everything else is messed up.
Like I usually take this example [00:26:00] like with Chile, that Sweden were boycotting Chilean goods and also lots of refugees from Chile came into Sweden that we knew that they had been tortured. But babies perfectly fine. Yeah, it's crazy.
Haley Radke: You're saving the babies. You're saving all those poor babies.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah, but that,
Haley Radke: oh goodness,
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: that poor women were able to give consent. And I think that it's in your papers, Maria, it actually says that your mother wanted you to go to Sweden.
Maria Diemar: Yeah.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: It's yeah.
Haley Radke: They cooked up a great story. The other thing, like there were government workers in Korea, patrolling, like looking for babies like they had jobs to do just that. Oh my gosh.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. That's one of the things that's been revealed now, of course many years ago, but now it's become widespread knowledge is of course, that every, everyone was in on it. Like midwives, doctors, orphanages, adoption agencies, civil [00:27:00] servants, the police and government officials. There was child finders. Yeah. Like you just said. Yeah. Finding children.
Haley Radke: And everybody was getting tips along the way, like everybody was getting paid for something. So I know you two connected and you could commiserate on all of these similarities. Maria, can you tell us about the state of Chile in this time, where all these children were taken and what sort of led to that?
Maria Diemar: No, but this happened before the dictatorship. This happened earlier and it happened after. So in Chile you had the dictatorship between 1973 and 1990, I think they had the first Democratic elected president. But so children were stolen after also up to 2000 something. But like the peak was during the year of the dictatorship.
[00:28:00] And like you said, one thing that is very in Chile, they actually did an investigation in the Parliament. So they decided to have a group of politicians to investigate what had happened to all the children and why. And they concluded like it was because there was this big demand from abroad, money coming in into Chile and when it's about Sweden, we know because it's documented in Sweden that the adoption agency, they actually paid Chilean social workers, like monthly salary. Salary to, I don't know. To do what? So they were paid from Sweden, and if you are a social assistant in Chile, why are you supposed to get money from Sweden?
But they are very open about it because, I don't know, but they paid at least three, three social assistants. And in Sweden, we are [00:29:00] officially through this agency. We are 2,100 people around that number. And then you have maybe 200, 300 other people. They worked hard to get so many children to a small country as Sweden and also because the police in Chile, they have been investigating adoption like cases where children like me, where we have left the country and they have investigated cases, many cases, and they use my case like a kind of a pilot study quite early on back in, they started in 2018 the crime investigation regarding children that have left Chile started in February, 2018 and it's still going on.
And they concluded I think two, two years [00:30:00] ago that I was kidnapped, I was, I am a victim of a crime. And who did it, like who is responsible? They also concluded that, but the judge that they said was mostly like responsible for me ending up in Sweden she died in 2022, so there is no one to punish.
So it's a little bit frustrating. But they had two, two situations where they talked to her like this judge, and she was, and I have all the documentation in my file. It's 440 pages, the police investigation. And there she say that, oh, Sweden, they had monopoly on children until 1982. So the children from her court in southern Chile, all the children came only to Sweden, but she decided to open up [00:31:00] to other countries in 1982.
But that is, it is so insane when you read about it today and still people say that, no, maybe this didn't happen. And we have all of those, proof. But still, like Lisa said earlier, that in Sweden, when they talk about what happened in Chile and that Sweden was very involved, and they say, oh, but we don't know maybe this didn't happen. So we are like caught between two countries. But still it's, I don't know. It needs to, something needs to happen, but it's hard because it's two legal system. But still, if you know that this happened to so many, and that's one, one thing that we have been talking about, Lisa, that the amount of cases, the amount of mothers that are still looking for their, dead because many children were declared [00:32:00] dead so they could leave the country and, but they are looking for the children still today. And not only the judge that was responsible for, stolen children in southern Chile, the mothers, they're also dying.
And we have, we, yeah, we, so it's so important that not only to speed up the investigation to make people aware of it, but it is so hard to fight the system. It's so hard and yeah, we can talk about it and we want to talk about it, but still, how can we speed this up?
Haley Radke: So you said there is around 20,000 worldwide, right? Adopted out. Ish, I'm not quite sure of the number.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. So that so the thing is, and this happened so long ago, the police investigation in Chile, that is the number they use. So until they update it, it's the number I would use.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Maria Diemar: But it could be more.
Haley Radke: And so around [00:33:00] 10% of those went to Sweden or a little higher.
And so I know they went to other countries as well. Do you know of any other countries that had also their names on birth certificates or like lists of waiting parents?
Maria Diemar: So Switzerland, I know because they are mentioned in my documentation from the judge, but they, Italy, you have Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Australia, US, Mexico.
You have so many. I think they're talking about more than 20 countries where we ended up. But some people, so what happened with children that were stolen and adopted within Chile is that they were like the adoptive parents. They came to the hospital and they registered a stolen child as their own. And that is what happened with, also with children that left the [00:34:00] country.
So it's hard, they can't say a number. And also like we know, the thing is with Sweden, because we love documents, so in Sweden we, we at least have some false documents, but we can see patterns in the documentation, like the same hospitals or the same, doctors or the same social assistants. So we, so it has been easy to follow what happened to us and also because adoption agency, they have all, over 2000 people's records in, at their, archives in Sweden, in Stockholm.
But I know it's harder with other countries like the US they don't know how many, because it was private adoption, churches and not everyone even knows about that. They were adopted. Because yeah. So it's may maybe not as obvious as when you ended up in Sweden, so it is it's a mess. It's a [00:35:00] mess.
Haley Radke: One last comment on that and I wanna talk about how you guys, how, I mean your story is so compelling. Obviously Lisa wrote about it, so we were gonna get to that right away. Just the last comment on, so these were for majority, I'm assuming children of impoverished mothers. I think your mom can read and write, is that correct? I'm listening to that in another interview. So they were intentionally stealing from areas of poverty to, because those people couldn't fight back. They're trying to eradicate poverty in some way by taking away children. Can you say more about that?
Maria Diemar: No, but it's what they have concluded. We have an historian for example, in Southern Chile, Karen Alfaro.
She's been investigating this for years and she, what she has seen is like the target population poor single mothers of an indigenous background. [00:36:00] And yeah, I think in my mom is exactly, what she has concluded and that is, it is, I don't know, it's just so terrible. And you have, for us growing up in Sweden yeah, because of history.
People don't like to talk about race, like ethnicity or race. But many of us that ended up in Sweden, we ha have the same background as me, like partly or full like indigenous background and in Chile, the children that were adopted, they hadn't the same background, so they were whiter that the children that stayed in Chile.
So and so it is, that is something that I am laughing, but it's terrible. But that is what happened. So they could export indigenous children. It was easier to get people abroad to accept that even though my [00:37:00] parents and all the parents that adopted children through adoption, the adoption agency, Adoptionscentrum, they could, they filled out this chart like how brown could their future baby be? What age? So they filled out that, and I am a little darker than the wish my adoptive parents had, but yeah. And, but that is something because. Oh, I can mention, I really would like to mention this, that like for the Swedish cases, because we were very early on compared to other countries so the first child that were like exported from Chile, it was in 71, so it was very like early before the coup.
But then they have statistics that said that in 1974, 16 children, 16 children left Chile to be adopted in Sweden. The year I was born in 1975, we were 97 children that left Chile to be adopted in Sweden. [00:38:00] The year after in 1976 it was almost 200 children. So it's, so they had this kind of worked out, this process and speeding and more children and it's insane. But what I wanted to say in my case was there was so little information. I, okay, we had my mom's name and that she was poor and couldn't read or write, and she wanted me to be adopted in Sweden somehow. But it never, there were no information about my background that I'm indigenous. So that is something I understood eight years ago, because we have been taught in Sweden, don't talk about race, don't like, even though you have another color, it's oh, we are all the same, but still we have so much racism in Sweden.
So that is something I'm still processing that what does it mean to be indigenous? And it [00:39:00] feels like this puzzle of who I am is like ongoing forever and what is the next news for me? It's feels like it's always something. So yeah. So yeah, that was, that is my comment about that.
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Okay. So Lisa, you we're gonna go back to the beginning of our conversation. You and Maria Connect. You're an activist, you've got published Palimpsest with is, which is your amazing story, and you're this brilliant artist and you hear Maria's story and you're like.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah, after we met the, that meeting we were bringing up the idea about how can we preserve witness accounts and stories to make people listen to us.
'cause we are sharing them among each other, but we need to make other people listen. So we were talking back and forth about what we could do and we were talking about like exhibitions and collecting stories and publishing an anthology or [00:40:00] something. But I was a bit cynical about that. I remember 'cause I said that the only people who are gonna read an anthology with adoptee voices are adoptees and people who are already in the know.
And then during our conversations, that's when I realized how the incredible work that Maria had done and was still doing, that she had traveled many times to, I talk about you in third person now even though you sitting in front of me. Yeah. All the work. And because you were. The only one, one of the few speak Spanish as well.
You had access to information in a different way, and I just started admiring everything you were doing and suggested that, would it be okay if I write a book about you, if I make a comic about you, but by writing about you, I can also include other people's stories. Because I thought that, I noticed with Palimpsest that people were actually listening and not just people who were already involved in the issue.
So I thought that could be a [00:41:00] good way to get this story out. But then also, I'm a big admirer of course, of activist work and I feel that a lot of the reporting that had that was done through the media was focused solely on the sensational bits. And about reunions and they had their own agendas that didn't really fit what we wanted to communicate.
And you were like, oh, so you're gonna write about me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I said, I'm gonna do it. Great. It is gonna be great. And then I also want to add that we shouldn't go in too much on this 'cause we have very limited time, but you also have, of course have a younger brother who was also adopted and also stolen from another family.
So I thought it was insane that the stolen people ended up in the same adoptive family. And since then we've had even crazier things. But anyway, so I thought it, it could be quite interesting to put you next to each other [00:42:00] in the book. So I talked to your brother as well, so he, his story is also a big part of the book that I made in the end.
Maria Diemar: So like you said it like about me Yes. About my brother. Yes. But what was, what is incredible important is that you also tell the story about the mothers. So you tell you, you tell about families that where the children disappeared and it's so important because both for Korea and Chile, our parents are first parents are so far away.
So people can't, I don't know, feel what they feel or understand what has happened, what the crimes that were, committed against them. And a big part of that we worked together with representatives of Hijos y Madres del Silencio or Mothers and Childrens of Silence in Chile. And I also wanted to comment on that.
One of the people that are working in Chile with this [00:43:00] group is the journalist that helped me found my mom more than 20 years ago. So we have like really reconnected from 2017 and she has been, she and other people of course also from the organization, they have been very important to, for us to be able to do this. Yeah.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah so I mean we started working by, basically by talking a lot and I started structuring the story and quite early on I asked do you think that we can talk to some of the parents in Chile as particularly your brother's mother 'cause she had been talking a little bit, she was quite open about what happened to her, unlike your mother, for instance.
So we didn't want to intrude on her. So we asked her, and then that led to other, that we could talk to other mothers as well. So it was really incredible to be able to include their stories with their words, because I just need to add that there has [00:44:00] been some interviews with mothers, or they've been included in some media reporting, but it's very skewed and a lot of it is focused on how grateful they are to the adoptive parents.
And that is not the story at all. But that's how the Swedish and or other international journalists skewed the stories, like focusing on the poverty and almost making it a bit of a, almost like fetishized poverty like it so often is and this kind of white savior perspective, that they are so grateful that the child got to grow up healthily and being cared for by these beautiful adoptive parents.
So it was really interesting to be able to talk to the mothers 'cause they are not grateful at all. They are angry and they are grieving and they are traumatized and they want their children back. They want what was lost back of course. And they want justice. And I was lucky enough to get a grant to go to Chile, but unfortunately Covid happened. So in the end we had to do [00:45:00] it online.
Maria Diemar: But still. So I wanted to add that. So what is so important in all of this is that Lisa also speaks Spanish so to be able to talk to the mothers and the other people we talk to in Spanish, that is, that has been like such a advantage because we, when we've, when you follow other media or other, there's always people that have to, what do you say?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: They use an interpreter.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. Yeah. And you can hear that so much is missing.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah.
Maria Diemar: From, what the mothers or the families are saying. So I think this was so incredible. Incredibly great. What to Yeah. What we were able to do because of language. And so I also want to like really underline that. So like language and to let the mothers tell their stories that is.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. And I asked them before the, in, we started the interviews like, what is it that you want to convey with the space [00:46:00] that you get here? What is, what do you want me to communicate? So I told them of course, what the structure of the story was and that, yeah, it's focusing on Maria and her brother.
But what is it that you think is important to tell what you want now when you can choose 'cause I'm not going to change anything to fit my fit the book, so to speak. So they're almost like little portraits that are put in the story and then they pop up. But they, of course, they are about stolen children.
So we, we chose mothers who had lost their children through criminal activities. But yeah, that, that was really great. And the, to move forward a bit, 'cause I could talk about this forever, but it was published in Sweden, in Swedish, in 2022. And then yeah, earlier this year in January, I think it came out finally in Spanish.
And that was what we had worked for the entire time that it would be [00:47:00] published in Spanish. So when that happened, we decided to take the book, bring it back to Chile, to the mothers and where it all started. And it coincided with a big Congress as well, organized by Hijos y Madres del Silencio . So we knew, so we got invited to talk about the book there.
But then when we mentioned to people that are we coming to Chile, we're bringing the book, other people jumped on the bandwagon and we were invited to, or I was invited to four other events as well. And four of those you were also included 'cause we wanted to do a little book tour, share it between us. So I talked about the making of the book and how I worked on it, but we also thought it was really important that you got to tell your story and it was relevant of course, because that's the story that I tell in the book. So it was a really nice collaboration, I think. And it was so beautiful to, to be in Chile and to meet the mothers face to face. [00:48:00] And unfortunately we had a mishap with the actual book coming on time to Chile, but we could, we were still there in the flesh and saying, I could say thank you to them in person.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. Yeah. So the first event we did in Chile, the first day we arrived in, southern Chile, two of the moms were in, like in the audience, and we didn't know that. So it was so beautiful. And yeah, one of the mothers were, it's is my adoptive brother's mom. She was there, sitting and holding my hand while we were waiting to talk.
And then the other mom, she was there with her granddaughter and yeah, you wrote about her in the book, but we found so her son is a friend of mine, and by a coincidence, we found her back in 2019 and knocked on her door and, talked about her son and they got connected afterwards. So Lisa tells about that in the [00:49:00] book, but she was there and so I helped to interpretate.
Like the first meeting between her and her son online and the granddaughter was with her then, and it was so beautiful to meet them again. But it's also it's also a struggle because one thing that Patricia, my adopted brother's mom, what she said is we are so alone in this. Like we really need support.
We need really need, help with everything from, because what we have noticed for myself also, but you open a big trauma, you know the, you know when you find, if you're lucky enough to find your family or to find your child, you open this big trauma and it's impossible to explain to someone like what you're going through and even to understand it yourself, because I have been talking about my story now, but what I have done, I haven't [00:50:00] processed, like what happened to me for years and years.
What I have done is I have been traveling to Chile to talk to politicians. I've been in Sweden like we have been organizing, an organization been doing so much work, so to process that you are a victim of a crime. That I can't understand it until today that I was kidnapped as a baby because it's so insane.
And also to, I didn't know about it. Like I, I really think I knew, but I didn't know it the way a mom experiencing being separated from your baby. Or from your, child. So actually to hear the mothers talk about this, it is very important. And so I think again, the story that you tell their stories, Lisa, and that people listen to them, I think it's so important.[00:51:00]
And unfortunately yeah, they're not all here. They're already like dying. But some are here and Yeah important.
Haley Radke: In Chile. Are they believed?
Maria Diemar: Yeah, they are.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Maria Diemar: But the problem is the probably so now. They for years and years they weren't, but now they are in another way. I think it's a lot have changed and for me, for the first time this time in Chile, because I've been back and forward many times, but this time was the first time I felt that also the indigenous community, like the Mapuche community, that they also had realized that they have lost a generation, like so many children has been stolen.
And that wasn't the case like five years ago. So we have been working on telling and showing up like I am one of the babies that disappeared. So that is like have [00:52:00] been my work to just show like we are here. And that was very nice to feel like the indigenous community have understood or have seen us.
Or heard and heard us and also want to include us. So I think that is very important. Like little by little, but still it's so slow. Everything. Yeah.
Haley Radke: So I think most people are gonna be irritated when I say this, but Excavated Earth is in Swedish and got translated in Spanish. Hooray. It's not translated into English yet, and I'm assuming a lot, most of my listeners are English speakers.
So if you're a publisher and you wanna get this in English, we have a lineup of customers. When we did book club with Lisa, people were very irritated. They couldn't read her next book. So there's a great demand for it over here. So if you know of someone who can translate this into English and get it published in English, that would be amazing.
Can you guys talk about your [00:53:00] recommendations now because it's connected to this story? And Maria, you mentioned one of the organizations already that you wanted to talk about.
Maria Diemar: Yeah, because in, in Chile, like this scandal with stolen children, it already appeared back in 2014. So they knew about stolen children without the, within the country back then.
So it, several organization they, or networks, they started back then in 2014. And for us, like in, for me personally, like Hijos y Madres del Silencio they have, they are doing such a great job with mothers and like they are a community today. They meet up every week and they support each other. And like Lisa said, they do this, those big events like yearly where they invite everyone from the police [00:54:00] that, is investigating this and people from abroad, like author Lisa and like they do this, those big and important things both in like in the daily life of the mothers and the families, but also the big events. So I really, and they, okay, so they, what they do is that you can contact them through email or they haven't, we are going to share that information. So you, so this is just one organization, but I feel for them and they are very dear to me because they are doing such a like big, huge work. And so what they do they help, if you are in an adoptee, you need to speak, have someone around you that can help you with Spanish because they are mostly Spanish speaking, but you can search if you are looking for your family, you can contact them and they can help you, guide you how you search your family.
Same thing like from if there is a mom in Chile looking for the child, they [00:55:00] also inform, they have, they are on Instagram and on. Facebook. So they publish those squares, I think they're called busquedas so like search pictures, posters where you have information about the mom or vice versa about, and so they do that and they work with the investigation in Chile.
That is the people that are investigating the crimes and yeah. So that is a big, you can look for them, but it has a very long name.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: And also I just want to add that they do this for free.
Maria Diemar: Yeah,
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: it's a non-profit, voluntary based and completely free for adoptees and mothers to use 'cause they don't want to make money 'cause they feel that people have already made money out of us. So I just wanted to know that as well.
Maria Diemar: Yeah.
Haley Radke: That's a good note. We'll make sure to link to them on the, in the show notes. And as I did, I went and I clicked. You [00:56:00] can click translate on the website if you're in Google Chrome. And I looked through the pictures you were talking about on Facebook, Maria, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is, it's really heart wrenching. So good for them for doing that.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. And one, one important thing is if you are an adoptee and you feel like, oh, I don't really understand like my story, or I have questions there, you can always contact the investigation in Chile, the crime investigation. And I have noticed that people in the US, they are a little bit like careful about that because they ask you for information like, what was your name in your in your Chilean passport, and what is, what do you do for a living today? So they have the, this form so the police want you to fill out a form because they are very traditional and old fashioned in Chile.
So they have this form and [00:57:00] we are going also going to link. So in Sweden, the authorities, they have published the form, you can download it, fill out your information and email it to the police in Chile. So they also have a big database of mothers or family that are searching for the children. So they do not only investigate like the crimes, but they also have this big bank of people looking, searching.
And I also want to mention that you can always do like a DNA, you know those big American companies, you can do the those DNA tests, but also if you're part of the investigation, they want you to do this governmental like they have other DNA tests they want you to do. So I know, for example, they started with this after they started to investigate my case.
Today they say they want me to do the DNA test and [00:58:00] my mom in Chile just to make sure I have done one already during the commercial one. But for the crime investigation, they do it another one. So you have to go to the consulate where you live to do the tests.
Haley Radke: To make sure you weren't switched around or something.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. And also I guess for the legal, the legal terms. So that is something so we can also share where you can download that documents to fill out.
Haley Radke: Okay. So if you're a Chilean adoptee or if you know someone that was adopted from Chile, like you likely, you might not even know that this has all transpired. So it's, we wanna know the truth, right? Even if it's difficult. I hope that people engage with this. Thank you.
Maria Diemar: Yeah. And also like for the future, we are really trying to like both Hijos y Madres del Silencio as an organization and different adoptee, different groups of [00:59:00] adoptees in different countries. We are trying to get, like in Korea, like a recognition like this happened, and we want them to also actually start this preparation and, but we what we want for the future because maybe you as an adopted person, maybe you don't want to know because it's scary to, to learn the truth, but we also have the next generation, we also have our children. So in sometimes the children are the ones that are searching for the truth. So if we have this DNA bank, as in Argentina for example, if we have that, then we will make sure that those crimes, that what happened to us or that the future generation, that they will have something, a place to go to, to learn the truth.
So it's very important with a governmental DNA database and not only those, commercial ones. So yeah, it's a lot to, to work for. And you know [01:00:00] it, I know this will take years and I was connected to an adopted person from Chile in the US that is, he's building up this. What do you call it?
Like this group of lawyers and people working to fight for justice and they are making this case about suing the Chilean government or this Chilean, the state of Chile because they didn't look out for us as babies. So you have many different, like I said, groups and organization and what we work for. But yeah, there's a lot out there.
Haley Radke: Thank you, Maria. Okay. I'm just gonna do a quick aside with Lisa, because I know you have been working with the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Committee and also very exciting. Congratulations. You just reclaimed your Korean citizenship. I know [01:01:00] you've been living there for a little while.
Can you talk about those things 'cause there's some big things that have happened and as we're recording this, like it's gonna come out, in a month or so, but just as things are today if you have comments on that and why did you decide to reclaim your citizenship?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: If we start with the citizenship, I lived in New Zealand when I applied for it and we, my family and I had just been in Korea then, and I had been talking in a national assembly, the Korean Parliament, about what happened to me.
I had been involved in a big exhibition with adoptee only and it had transformed me in a way. And my kids fell in love with Korea completely and started this campaign about us moving there. So I thought that this could be a good time to try and see if I can restore my citizenship. So I started the process in New Zealand and they said that yeah, it could take half a year or a bit longer than that.
And it was an [01:02:00] insane process because I had to explain to them, 'cause they had no knowledge about adoption really, that a lot of my documents that you want to see are actually falsified, so you can't really trust what's in it, but hopefully we can work this out anyway. And then they told me that they recommended me not to move to Korea until this had been finalized.
But my kids were pushing and said we need to move to Korea now. So in the end, we decided to leave New Zealand and move to Korea before I got my citizenship. And it was lucky because I was granted it two years after the application. So it took a long time. And yeah, I did it partly because I thought that it would make things easy with a move.
But yeah, we moved before it was finalized, but also that symbolically and emotionally, it felt like an important step because activists had fought for adoptees to be able to do this because Korea doesn't actually allow doubles or dual citizenship. [01:03:00] Sweden does, but not Korea. So they have an exception for adoptees only.
Haley Radke: Oh.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. But the thing is, which is a little bit different, 'cause my kids have dual citizenship too, but not Korean. They Swedish and British, which means that they are, yeah, they are my kids, they have two citizenships, but they are one person. But me, I'm restoring my citizenship. So I am actually becoming Chung Wool-Rim again.
So now I'm both Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom. A Swede and Chung Wool-Rim , a Korean. So I have two identities, which is insane and it's probably gonna cause some sort of administrative chaos. But yeah, we'll see about that. But I've been asking around with other adoptees who had restored citizenship and yeah, it is a bit of a mess, but it's also working so yeah.
Haley Radke: But two identities, that's just that's really reclaiming your adoptee identity 'cause we're [01:04:00] all like split in some way, I'm sure inside.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah, it feels very, I don't know telling, but the beautiful thing is that I got to have a ceremony with other people too, who got a citizenship and I bought a beautiful handbook and I got a big nice Korean flag to wave around and yeah, it all felt very special.
But now I'm in this yeah, chaos with everything I need to do. I need to change a lot of things here. Yeah. So a lot of paperwork to fill out, which I absolutely hate it. I'm not looking forward to that, but
Haley Radke: what?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: It still feels incredible.
Haley Radke: I thought you were raised in Sweden. I was told you all love paperwork. No. Okay.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Oh yeah, that's true. I'm the exception.
Haley Radke: You're the exception. Yeah. Do you have comments on the findings of the commission? Any of the recent media reports on that?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Oh yeah, I, and I am gonna try and keep this short as well. So I just wanted to mention first that I was personally involved in making sure that 21 [01:05:00] Swedish cases were submitted to the commission in 22.
And this was another, a Swedish case too. But me and my network, the Swedish Korean Adoptees Network, we are representing 21 of these. And it's been quite a process and a long time just waiting for things to happen. And now, as you might know, there's been a bit of a political chaos in Korea because of the impeachment of the sitting president and the impeachment of the president that replaced him.
So we are gonna have a, an election in June, so I get to vote. Very soon, which is also incredible. So the current TSC, which is, we can just loosely call it TSC two because it was relaunched in 21, I think it could be 2020, I could be wrong. Started in 2005 and then ended in 2010 and then relaunched again.
So [01:06:00] 311 cases out of 367 submitted in total remained to be investigated. So we were very worried because the final report was gonna come in May. We were very worried about what they were gonna do with the remaining cases. So a lot of the media now is saying that they're closing, but it's rather that they are putting it on hold.
So our cases, the 311 remaining is said that they are unresolved, not closed, they're unresolved until further notice. So what we are hoping for and what we think will happen is that the TSC three will open with a new government and our cases will continue to be investigated. And we are also hoping and working for that they will be able to, that other adoptees will be able to submit their cases now so that the 367 cases will be joined by new cases.
Because a lot of people have [01:07:00] asked, can we submit our case too, can we submit? And it's been closed for new cases, so hopefully this will actually lead to something better. A new fresh government and more room to work with our cases, the ones that already have been submitted, but also the acceptance of new cases.
Haley Radke: Amazing. Thank you for that information and if we ever hear that there's opening for more cases or things that like, we're following along with those news and we'll let you know and we'll keep people up to date on that. Thank you so much, Maria and Lisa. What an honor to hear your story maria and I love this friendship of you built.
What I wanna recommend folks check out is you guys have a podcast together and I hope you start recording more episodes. I know podcasting is a lot of work, but you're a delight together. I love hearing your voices. It's called Lifting the Adoption Fog and listening to it, I was like, oh man, these are my kind of girls because you sorry to call you girls, women because you're so [01:08:00] passionate about adoptees, you're activists, organizers, like you're getting stuff done. Like people will love hearing you talk about adoptee issues. And so I hope folks go and check that out. Where can we connect with you online and follow and hopefully hear news that we're gonna see an English copy of Excavating Earth?
Why can I have such a horrible saying that Excavating Earth, what is it in Swedish?
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Den uppgrävda jorden which is even more tricky to say than Den uppgrävda jorden.
Haley Radke: Okay, and then in Spanish.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Tierra Excavada.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Which is the literal translation so that's beautiful that they kept it. Yeah.
Haley Radke: All right. Amazing. Okay, so Maria, where can we connect with you and follow online?
Maria Diemar: Yeah, so I have an Instagram account and connected to a Facebook account. I own my story, Maria Dimer. I think it said, I hope you link it.
Haley Radke: I will link it and yes, that's what it's called.
Maria Diemar: It's such a long [01:09:00] name. Yeah, and Lisa and I, we have the podcast, we have the Instagram for that too. We are more frequently, we record more frequently in Swedish, and that is Den Talande Tystnaden, but yeah, like you said, we have the Lifting the Adoption Fog, so yeah, that's.
Haley Radke: We can link to your Swedish podcast.
Maria Diemar: Yeah, thank you.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah, it's a bit more active.
Haley Radke: And I'm sure we have some Swedish listeners.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. And you can also find me on Instagram on Chung Wool-Rim. And it's good if you share the link 'cause no one knows how to spell that.
Haley Radke: I, yeah, one of these days I'll get it right when I pronounce it. What a delight. Thank you so much. You both thank you for your work for adoptees, truly. And I am so glad that you're both in this world working. We're all working alongside each other.
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Maria Diemar: Yeah, thank you.
Haley Radke: Sometimes people ask me like, [01:10:00] why I keep podcasting? Oh, you just talk about the same things adoptees we should just get over it by now. When you hear a story like this, okay, where at a minimum 20,000 babies we're kidnapped and stolen and sold to other countries, like how can you not become radicalized in some way?
Literally how in one thing. We didn't get it, we didn't get into it in this interview 'cause two people, there's so many things I wanna get into. The story is fascinating. I wanted to ask them like so many more questions, but like we, we already went over time. Like you, I'm sure you get it. But we didn't get into this except for after I was saying to them how [01:11:00] Maria in this interview says the skin color shading right determines whether or not they could possibly find places for these children. And the racism of it all, I reminded them, I was like the United States that the babies that are available for international adoption from the United States are almost all black babies. If you think these things still aren't happening today you're just not paying attention. Like this isn't just like some old story of, oh, this happened back in the day. These things are still happening in current day countries. Like now this is happening all over. I know what's happening in the United States. Perhaps not children being literally kidnapped, but might as well be with [01:12:00] the amount of coercion that's happening from adoption agencies. And that's my opinion anyway. I hope you follow along with Lisa and Maria, there's so many amazing adoptee activists, like bringing these stories to light. Like we can't forget these, this history because we're repeating it and we just can't be doing that. Like we can't be stealing babies from women just 'cause they're poor, like babies are not a commodity, right?
Like I'm laughing 'cause it's so egregious and just I, there's no words for it. It's shocking, it's horrifying. And if you look at the practices of things that are [01:13:00] happening today, we're just calling it something different. And we're still stealing babies from poor mothers who don't have supports. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I appreciate you listening. I know some of these things are so hard to listen to. It's, it is, it's very hard. And to think of the impacts it has had on those, say 20,000 plus adoptees from Chile, and many of them likely don't even know that they were stolen. And like you and me, perhaps have this idea like Maria did.
Oh, like your mom gave you away when in truth, in Maria's experience, she was forcibly taken. So things to think about. Thank you for being here. Thank you for [01:14:00] listening to adoptee voices. If you want Adoptee design to continue to exist in this world, please consider joining us on Patreon. It's adopteeson.com/community, and we do our best to help support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.
We would love to have your support over there. Thanks for listening. Let's talk again soon.
