334 Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/334
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it, either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today I'm joined by Dr. Tanya Kaanta, the owner and director of the Ties Program, which guides adoptees and their loved ones on heritage journeys to their birth countries. Tanya shares her experience of a health crisis that left her unable to speak or walk.
We also discuss how she made room for adoption grief in her 40s and how heritage travel can offer opportunities to explore our identities and connect with other adoptees. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at [00:01:00] adopteeson.com/newsletter.
We wrap up with some recommended resources for you, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Tanya Kaanta, Dr. Tanya Kaanta. Welcome, Tanya.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Thank you so much for having me, Haley.
Haley Radke: I'm so glad we finally get to meet. I would love it if you would share a little of your story with us.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. So I was adopted in 1975. I arrived through JFK actually in December of 1975 and grew up in Connecticut. My parents had three biological sons, so I was the youngest one. But I was actually the second child they adopted. So the first child that they adopted passed away through Holt, and then they went back to Holt and said, "We want a healthy baby."
She was from Vietnam with Operation Babylift, and so then they got me instead, [00:02:00] which is very, also very interesting 'cause they wanted a healthy baby and they actually, I found out two years ago that I was the size of a toddler when I came through because the file was switched, so it's not me, so my file is somebody else.
So that has been really interesting.
Haley Radke: Okay, I just wanna clarify. So you were already a replacement baby for- ... the first baby they adopted that died. And then they were gonna send another baby, but they sent- ... you instead, so you're- ... twice replaced.
Wow.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. Yeah. It's from an academic perspective, it's really fascinating. If you think about it from a little child person perspective, it's a little sad.
Haley Radke: It is.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: So then what do you know about yourself that's true?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: I know my height when I came- to the United [00:03:00] States. And I know this because I requested my FOIA, which is the Freedom of Information Act, so all their information when you immigrate to the United States.
And it's so bizarre because the Tokyo Embassy signed off on my weight, on my height and weight. It makes no sense at all. And so that's all I know. And I know I was twice the size of a six-month-old baby, that, they were supposed to get. And they told my parents, "Oh baby, Korean babies who are really healthy are just really big."
And so they believed that. But I've also found out that I had rickets from malnutrition, but my parents didn't know because they thought I was developmentally normal 'cause I wasn't walking. But turns out it's because I had rickets 'cause I was older. I was probably about three, two or three when I was adopted though.
Yeah so that's all I know. And I know that the baby is not me, and there's actually two photos of babies in the file that are different, but that [00:04:00] baby in the file does not match me. That baby's too small. Way, way too small for the toddler that arrived at JFK. That's all I know.
Haley Radke: Wow. So you grew up with three older siblings that were- biological to your adoptive parents.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: So yeah. And I was, I grew up a tomboy, obviously,'cause I was always playing sports and everything like that. And then, I went to college at Ithaca College. I was actually a music major. And then I ended that when I was a sophomore and ended up going into African studies and cultural studies.
So then when, once I graduated, I went to Colorado State University for my master's, and that's when I actually started doing work on adoption. So I was doing student affairs, and I did research on development of transracial and inter-country adoptees and their university experience. 'Cause a lot of the research at the time, so this was like the 1997, so a lot of [00:05:00] research at that time was children or parents' perspectives.
So I ended up doing my thesis on that. And then- worked for a couple years, but then came back, got a Ph.D., and then did my dissertation where I was in sociology, and then did my dissertation work on inter-country adoptee identity formation and emotion work advocacy and agency. And also wanted to really study adult voices, 'cause again, there weren't a lot of adult voices at the time.
I think I remember I found one or two studies that had Myers study. It's from like 1999, I think, or 1998, or Palmer. The, they're, like, almost 30 years old now.
And so I really wanted to do adult voices. It wasn't necessarily that I needed to do Korean, but the Korean diaspora were so much older, so that's why it made sense to do adult adoptees for Korean adult adoptee voices.
So I went to Korea [00:06:00] and I lived there... first I lived there in '99, but then when I went back and I was doing my dissertation work, I lived there for the summer and then interviewed folks who were returning to Korea. Either they had lived there long term or they were just coming for their first time to visit.
And then I also interviewed folks back in the United States who had not traveled to Korea at all and, or had no wish to. And then out of that came an identity formation model that everyone told me that I was supposed to publish back in the early, the mid 2000s, like 2000. But I just wasn't ready at my, on my own journey.
It was very emotional. Very- ... it was a lot. So I ended up going more into academia space and I would do stuff on the side with adoption, but I kinda left the academia space. So I was at the same time as Kim Park Nelson and Hollee McGinnis and doing all of the research back then.
I met Kim Park Nelson in Korea when, we were doing research and stuff, and Tobias Hubinette. That was the cohort. And then I was like, "I can't, I gotta I'm not in a [00:07:00] good mental space to do this." So I kinda became more adjacent. And so I would talk at, I would be invited every once in a while to talk in a classroom.
I taught sociology and social psychology classes, and then I did evaluation research. So I was still at the university doing stuff. Yeah, and then got married, had two kids, yada, yada. And then to about 2016, so I had been having- all of these issues since I was about 19, 20 years old, and I would try to...
I'd go to the doctors and they would be like, "You're sick. Your blood work's not good, but we don't know what you have." And finally, it came out that I actually had chronic Lyme disease, which makes sense 'cause I grew up in Connecticut. And then, so I started getting treatment for that, but then I also ended up developing an autoimmune brain disease.
That's the autoimmune encephalomyopathy, and it just took me out and really a lot of that stemmed from it, [00:08:00] which makes a lot of sense now. You've heard of ACEs and the study with the CDC and Kaiser.
It ended up I was wheelchair bound and I lost my speech and my ability to walk and talk, and my IQ dropped, so I lost all my memory. And but once I was starting to get healed again and I was looking at the correlation between trauma and then chronic illness, and it's such a huge correlation.
And then, Hollee McGinnis did this huge study that I keep... I'm like, "Hollee, you have to publish this. This is so good." She's got all this data. But it made a lot of sense, and when I was coming out of the... once they figured out the brain disease stuff, I did a really intensive adoption outpatient therapy program with my husband, actually.
It was two weeks three to four hours a day, solely focused on healing from attachment, abandonment, and all that stuff. Yeah, because of that link, and I was looking at that list and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I could check off every single one of those on the [00:09:00] ACEs list."
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: And I remember the psychologist that we worked with, he was like duh.
Of course your immune system shut down. So that was, like, one of the things that I really wanted to emphasize, is that we hold so mu- especially women, right? 'Cause the instances of chronic illness is so much higher in women. This is not to say it doesn't happen to men, it does, but especially women, we just hold everything in so much and I just wanna...
I was, like, one of those people who was a perfectionist. I could do everything on my own. I wouldn't take any help. And I, and it was almost like this disease was like, "Huh, too bad. You're not gonna be able to do anything at all. You're gonna have to accept help."
Haley Radke: It's like our bodies are screaming at us until they're like I guess you're gonna have to listen now." I'm so grateful you're sharing this, Tanya, because I think it is something that we don't talk about enough. And it's not something to be afraid of, I would say. It's just stop [00:10:00] stuffing your stuff down.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yes.
Haley Radke: That's what's unhealthy.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yes. That's what I wanna get out there. I know we all have... life is nutso for people. We all have stuff, just stuff, but we don't have to do it alone. I had such an amazing support with my husband and his family and, my kids were younger, they were 9 and 12 at the time, but it really forced me to stop and then accept help. And then once I was able to actually start functioning again, I was like, "What am I doing?"
That was also another weird thing, side note. My brain changed and I went into spreadsheets, and I worked for three years for a CFO of a company doing spreadsheets. It was very strange. When people have strokes and they come back, and all of a sudden they have this random ability.
That's totally what happened to me. But then I was, like, working for three years and... So this was like [00:11:00] 2019 to 2022, and I was like, "What do I wanna do with my life?" I had this really crazy experience since 2017 and healing, and now I'm in a good place. I had to have monthly infusions. I had all that stuff. And I'm like, I don't have to do stuff that makes me bummed out and depressed every day. Or it's not fulfilling,
Haley Radke: yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: It doesn't fulfill my heart. So that's what so that's what happened with Ties. That's how I ended up going to Ties.
I had worked for them in 2019 as an adoption specialist on one of their trips to Kazakhstan. And so in 2022, I resigned from that other job, which they actually ended up filling my job with two people and a part-time consulting firm. So-
Haley Radke: Your, your brain really was working overtime.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: It was really like, yeah. Oh, and I can't do it now, don't ask me to do spreadsheets now. So then I was like, "I wanna do something heart-centered." And so I called up the Ties program. I said, "Do you have a program manager position open or anything?" They said, "Actually, we do for [00:12:00] Kazakhstan," which is the country I went to.
And then they approached me. They're like, "We would really like to retire. We really want this to go to an adoptee. We think that's very important." And, my background is in adoptee identity and all that stuff. And then, my partner's background, his is all business. He was a businessman.
So it was like a... We're like, "Okay." So that was three years ago, 2023. Yeah, so here we are. And then also, I do wanna talk about the Ties Foundation.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna get to the Ties program, and we can talk about that. It's travel. It's heritage travel for adopted people.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yes.
Haley Radke: But how did you find some an inpatient, how did you find somewhere to go that was adoption competent when you were, like- At your wit's end.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: So it was two parts. I actually had to get... They wouldn't actually take me until I could communicate better '
Haley Radke: Cause you lost all your speech.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: I lost all my [00:13:00] speech. And so what happened was my Lyme doctor in Denver, he recommend... He's like, "This is not Lyme disease. All the stuff, that I would do to help with anything neural Lyme, this is not it. This is something else." And, 'cause he tried everything. And he's some- a specialist that people come from all over the country to see. And so he said, "There's a doctor in Manhattan. I think you should go see her. She's a neurologist also, and she knows Lyme." So my husband flew me out. I was in a wheelchair at this point, 'cause I had 24/7 vertigo from March until September, and it just never stopped.
It was just constant spinning. I had to be in a wheelchair. I couldn't walk. So he flew me out, and she knew exactly what I had. She knew all the tests to do. She clearly is connected to people, 'cause she called up Columbia University. They have this specific PET scan that only they have and one other hospital out west.
And she's like, "No..." And I'm not [00:14:00] gonna do the accent, 'cause it's terrible. I can't do it, but she's German. And she's like, "No, I, she can't do it two weeks from now. She's only here till Friday. Yes, tomorrow is great. 1:00, perfect." And they, so like they got me in, I had a spinal tap. I had to get 20 vials of blood taken.
I they just ... I had an EKG, an EEG, like all this stuff was done. And she's like, "Ah, this is what you have, and this is how we treat it." I had to get IVIG, which is, they call it like liquid gold 'cause it's so expensive. It's basically healthy people's immune systems, the immunoglobulin from healthy people.
And so they put it into a solution, and then they give it to you intravenously. So I was getting that. I was having infusions twice a month for 12 hours a day each day. But it ga- it brought me back to functioning. Like by, let's see, I had my first infusion end of August. By September I was walking with a cane, and then starting speech pathology and [00:15:00] also physical therapy and occupational therapy.
By October I was walking without a cane, but learning how to actually walk properly, 'cause I would just drag my feet. I didn't know how to walk. And then I had, was learning how to get out of bed properly so I didn't injure myself. Just things like that. And then by December, I'm really excited, by December I was learning to drive again, 'cause that was like a big thing.
That was really exciting for me. My memory had not come back by that point, so I still had my short-term memory, and by the end of 2017, really until like 2022, 2023, I didn't have a short-term memory. So I had to write everything down. I was always on my phone. If someone said something, I would have to write myself a note or send myself an email or write 'cause I would totally forget it.
So really it was my Lyme doctor, and then my husband, and they did some research, and my mother-in-law, and they're like, "This is who you need to go see." We got in, we called in March, and we got in June 'Cause there was a wait [00:16:00] list. 'Cause people come from all over the world to see her. And I'm very lucky that I have a partner who would, who can support me and do that, and fly me to Manhattan, 'cause there's a lot of people that don't have that financial ability. So I was very grateful for that. Yeah, so that's how that happened. And then the adoption one just happened to be the therapist that we were using for my son, he was also an adoption specialist, and he told me about this program that they do.
And I did it, and it was amazing, once I was in a place where I could do, I could function, yeah. And they just happened to be where I was, living in Colorado.
Haley Radke: So you don't take anything for granted anymore, do you?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: I do not. I do not. Which is why I was like, I wanna do something heart-centered now, because literally the first prognosis they gave me and the first diagnosis that I got from the doctors in Colorado was chronic traumatic [00:17:00] encephalomyopathy, and that prognosis is death.
So it's what football players get, and boxers, and... 'Cause I had eight concussions over the years, that's why. So the Lyme disease, it was complicated by Lyme disease 'cause the Lyme went to my brain, because my brain was the most vulnerable from all the concussions, and that was just really a lot from, I was in sports and everything. And then my immune system started attacking my brain, and so that's what.
Haley Radke: When you think about the things that you processed regarding your adoption it sounds like you had to go pretty deep pretty fast. What are some of the, the biggest lessons that you learned about yourself, and self-acceptance and those kinds of things during that time?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: I had been in therapy since high school. It was interesting. But I didn't really do a lot of the adoption stuff until later. I was working on other stuff. And I think it's [00:18:00] funny, because I was always prided myself and, "Oh, I love therapy, and I've done so much work on myself," and yada, yada.
But not a lot on the adoption stuff. And it wasn't really, until I was in my 40s that I was able to really go deep and really look at the piece of grief, and allowing myself to grieve for- birth family that I didn't know, and that was really hard. I think I was really, I don't know, a bit surprised that it would be that emotional and deep for me.
And also I felt like, 'cause essentially one of the things I did was I had the opportunity to go back in time, but not really, but to say what I would hope, what I would love to say at the time that I was separated, and what that meant and that grief that we carry in our bodies, [00:19:00] and that was really deep.
And then there was some other stuff with my adoptive family that I also went deep into that, 'cause my first adoptive mother had passed away, so I hadn't... She passed away when I was seven, so I didn't have a lot of opportunity to talk to her either about stuff and clearly, 'cause she wasn't there.
But I remember after the session and you work up to it, that one particular session, I was just sobbing and sobbing, and my husband, he was also, he never cries. This is one of the probably five times in his life he's crying. And after that, I was like, "Oh. Oh my gosh, I feel amazing. Like, why didn't I do this 20, 30 years ago?" It was like this huge weight was lifted, 'cause, because I'd been carrying this one pathway message over and over, and then I finally reenacted this I have a voice. I can say something or I... You know what I mean?
Even though it was imaginary in the [00:20:00] past, but my body felt it, and it was, like, I literally like they say, that weight on your shoulder, I literally felt like a weight was removed from my shoulders. And then I remember my husband, 'cause he's not adopted, he was like, "Oh, my God." He's like, "I never wanna do that again." 'Cause it was so intense. Obviously he would, he, we continued on the sessions and stuff, but it was so intense. But I felt great after that. So I think it's just being brave. I had to be brave to go there, and I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that's okay to do that at a younger age, even though it's scary.
It was really scary. That's totally why.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: For me. Yeah.
Haley Radke: I think it's that way for so many of us. We can't... I always say this, I don't know how factually accurate it is, but I feel like our brain only lets us open those doors, like, when we're ready to. It's like a protective [00:21:00] mechanism, and you only open so many at a time. So to have a deep dive where it's pretty intense for in a short time period like you had, that's- quite the cleaning out. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I know you had a difficult upbringing there. Your parents divorced pretty early, your adoptive mom died when you were only seven, and then you went to your dad.
I understand that part of your story, and I could see how those are things that you might think about first.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And often we avoid the really early, just the reason we were placed, 'cause that's hard to think about.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: And and I think about that. There's... Now that I m- the academic side of me likes to dive deep into academic stuff, because I can.
All this research that's coming out about what happens when you separate the mother and the child in those first thousand days of life, which is, like, when, until [00:22:00] you're three pretty much, right? And how that's not supposed to happen, and then what happens physiologically, biologically in our brains, in our bodies, in our cells.
We hold onto that trauma. And then obviously it manifests in all these other different ways, right? Which if you're not an adoption-aware therapist, then, you might just say, "Oh, it's just because you have ADHD."
Haley Radke: Classic. One of the other things we've talked about on this show before, and I'm really excited to talk to you about it 'cause you're a literal expert in it-
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Oh.
Haley Radke: Is identity exploration through travel, and going back to your home country, or in other ways. I know you, you do a bunch of different things, but can you tell us a little bit more about that with the Ties program?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. So the thing I love about the Ties program, and there's a lot of different types of heritage travel.
There's, motherland tours, which are just adoptee [00:23:00] only, and then we do heritage tour- travel. There are also heritage travel which is just, someone who wants to go back, y- you know, their grandfather came over from, I don't know, Israel, and they wanna go back to Israel to see, what that was like, but they were born in the United States and they're not adopted.
So there's that type of heritage travel also. But for adoptees, the way we do it is- we encourage folks to bring a loved one that they feel safe with because so much of what goes on when we go back to our birth country, it's hard to explain to people who are not there. And traveling with someone who can be supportive for you and you can trust is, we feel, it's, it just makes it so that when you come, when you do re-entry back to United States or back to Canada or wherever, you have someone who was there who had experienced stuff with you.
And then our program, we like to do, we do facilitate discussion groups, and so we [00:24:00] separate the adoptees from the loved ones because we also feel like that's too much for them to hold space for one another when they're trying to process all of this emotional stuff. So we intentionally separate.
And then depending on if there's... now we're seeing a lot more partners and parents, so we'll separate those two because they're a very different dynamic. But the thing with going back to birth country that I feel like can be very healing, even if... 'Cause a lot of people think it's just about birth search and meeting birth family, and it's not.
It's not. 'Cause you think about our bodies, even our digestive system, knows the food 'cause that's the DNA that was passed down to us, right? So this is stuff in our cells. But being able to actually go back to the country and then maybe to areas that are important, there's a lot of emotion that can be processed.
And I think also a lot of adoptees from overseas and at [00:25:00] least this came out in my research, and then I've read it in other research too, there's this almost like a, a denial or an anger or a fear or a misrepresentation of their birth country, that it's this bad place or this bad thing or it's so poor and that's why I had to be adopted.
All the savior narratives and everything. And so a lot of people are embarrassed to be from that country growing up. 'Cause when we grow up, especially in our teen years, and we wanna be like everybody else. And to know we're kinda diff- there's something different. And it's a natural thing and during that time to be like, "I'm just gonna ignore it. I'm just gonna ignore it."
Haley Radke: Is there some kind of term for that? I know we talk about internalized racism, especially for adoptees of color who are raised in white families- ... and are, you know- sometimes expect to see a white person in the mirror when they look in the mirror-
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yes ...
Haley Radke: because everyone around them is white.
[00:26:00] Is there some terminology for that? This fear of your home country or...?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: So there could be and forgive me if I don't know it off the top of my head. What we do see is there, depending on which models you look at, and then there's also the adoptee consciousness model, which is different than an identity model.
But like, in the identity model that I had created, that I'm actually finally now going to submit for publication, so that's happening this month, I'm submitting it for pub- finally after many years. But we call it denial and avoidance, but not in a negative way. It's not to pathologize denial and avoidance.
It's what we were talking about earlier, about how our brains are just, sometimes it does that to protect ourselves. And we do things sometimes because that's where we need to be. And I, so I, that is one of the four phases that I see that adoptees just go in and out of throughout their whole life.
It's not a linear process. And so what we saw with that in my model and a lot of other models of [00:27:00] identity, it's always a a denial or an avoidance or that stage or phase is typically what they would call it. Just like a, "I'm gonna avoid this. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm gonna pretend it's not there."
Or maybe just consciously I'm not even thinking about it. So that's typically in those models where that would be. Even in the adoptee consciousness model, it starts with that whole denial and then you come out of the fog. And then for the consciousness piece, there's different pieces that you go through.
Haley Radke: The touchstones, yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: The touchstones.
Haley Radke: That, Yeah ... makes a lot of sense to me- ... that there could be this "You sent me away," right? So it makes sense to me.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: There's a, yeah, 'cause there's a lot of things of, I was sent away. The country didn't keep- my family didn't keep me. The country didn't keep me.
I was sent to this country. And I've actually two of the adoptees I interviewed back in the day, in the early 2000s, [00:28:00] were adopted again in the United States. Just more trauma, more and more. And then trying to fit in. We all ... nobody wants to be different, right? When we're we come into that phase.
I'm not a psychologist, so I don't actually ... I know there's a phase in our pre-adolescence and our adolescence that we come into and we don't wanna be different. We wanna be like everybody else. And then being from another country sets us apart. For those of us who are racially different, that sets us apart.
Nationality, we can't claim the country as our own because we weren't born here. Obviously we can but from the outside perspective, even adoptees I've talked to who are from Russia or Ukraine or Kazakhstan who are white presenting, they're ethnically white, Slavic, people tell them, "Oh, you're not a real American."
So it's ... And okay, if nobody wants to recognize that part of us and that's bad, I'm not gonna recognize it too, because it's bad. It represents the bad, this negative energy [00:29:00] or this negative or grief or this story of, ... So then going back to the country is also in a way of confronting some of that grief and confronting a country that actually profited from us.
And that's a whole nother thing but it is truth. And that's really hard for people, especially when they go back to, a country and they're like, "It's really advanced. It's not a really poor place," or when they find out, "Oh, what I was told is not actually accurate," and then they go back and they realize, "My birth country is beautiful. I don't have to be ashamed to be from there anymore." And that is also very healing, that piece of being able to be like, "Wow, I can ... I'm from this amazing country and with all this culture, and I can be proud of this." And we see that with every country. It's not just country-specific. And so that's why we feel like it's so healing.
And again, 'cause not everybody can meet birth family, so it's not necessarily of course, that can be a huge component of [00:30:00] it, for sure. And that also can be very painful, too, when people do searches and then birth family doesn't wanna meet, or they meet and it's not a good interaction. But then I also hear people say, "But I now I know," 'cause that's another thing. We don't always have that foundation of our history. So being able to have that is also very healing.
Haley Radke: I love that you have supports available for the adopted person- ... when they're on a trip like this, because- I can imagine it would be very life-changing. And who do you process it with?
So- ... not just having your loved one there, but you have, you served as an expert on a trip and you have that available. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah, so when I did Kazakhstan, I loved that because there were four of us on the trip. One was a [00:31:00] psychologist and worked with the parents and she, that's her job, is working with adoptive parents, and she runs an adoption center in Wisconsin.
And then two of us were adoptees from another country. One, she wasn't in the adoption realm or field for her career, and she's a little bit younger, so it was... And then I was a little bit older. I was in my 40s at the time. So it was nice for all of them to get one-on-one experiences or opportunities to have conversation, to process things one-on-one, and then also in group settings, and then with other adoptees.
Because oh, this is another thing that I think is really cool about doing this type of group travel, is because there's this whole thing about belonging. Like, where do I belong? Especially for intercountry adoptees, there's that added layer of nationality. There can be a layer of race or not, depends on who's adopting whom.
But there's always that question of, okay, so for example, for me, [00:32:00] I'm not really Asian because I didn't grow up with Asian parents, but I'm not white, clearly, 'cause when people look at me they see an Asian person. And I don't know a lot about Korean. Growing up I didn't know any Korean. And I couldn't claim that I was an American, actually 'cause I didn't have citizenship for a while, but that's another story.
But culturally I'm American. I didn't grow up culturally in Korea. And then there's the whole family piece, and then I don't know if you get this on a lot or you did when you were younger, but, "Oh do you wanna find your real family?" Or, "What about your real family?" And I'm like who, what constitutes a real family then?
Is it a family that I don't know, or is it the family that is raising me? What... So there's all these foundational identity groups that we belong to normally, like most people take for granted, and adoptees, especially intercountry adoptees, and then interracial or transracial, [00:33:00] transnational adoptees, that foundation is not solid 'cause people are always questioning you're not really this, you're not really that. You're not..." But then when you go on a trip like this with other families and people who are like you, you belong. No one is ever going to take that away, and that's a very powerful thing that people, I think, don't really understand until they actually do it and they're, and it's like I am in a group of other, with other adoptees, and we get it, intercountry adoptees.
We don't have to explain anything to anyone. And it's the first time of being in a group- where no one's questioning your belonging and your membership to that group. Same with the parents. Parents like, " is that really your kid? Oh, so that's not your real kid." And so then the parents also get that support with other parents who are, like, in this constellation that they [00:34:00] belong also.
They're not the weird one with the kid that's not really their kid, but of course it's their kid. So that's what I think is so beautiful, and then you can have that one-on-one connection all the time so that people would always come up to me and be like, "Hey, can I just talk to you about this?" As they're going through stuff, they can process with us.
Which is really important. And then they can process in a big group, and then they can process in small group.
Haley Radke: What are you seeing trend-wise, like the demographics of people doing this travel? And you mentioned earlier oh, and now we're seeing more partners going along versus- ... adoptive parents I'm guessing.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. Inter-country adoption has really slowed down over the past 15, 20 years. Back in 2004, I think it was, like, 200,000 or 180,000 a year or something like that to the United States, and now it is 1,000. It's gonna be lower maybe two... Don't quote me on those numbers. I can [00:35:00] actually look it up and get the actual number, but it's very-
Haley Radke: It's definitely reduced. Yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: It's definitely reduced. The owners before me, and I'm sure the adoption agencies that do these types of trips, and then there's other private organizations that do heritage travel, they would see a lot of parents bringing their children. But now, as adoptees age, we're actually seeing a lot of adoptees go solo or go with their partners, or even now bring their adult children, which I think is really cool.
Haley Radke: I love that. Oh my gosh. That's the other thing we really don't talk about, is how it severs the next generation- ... also from their- right full history. Oh, I love that okay. And literally ages. Do... Are you seeing 20-somethings coming along, 50-somethings, like the whole-
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah
Haley Radke: gamut?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: The whole gamut, yep. So one of the [00:36:00] barriers, though, is cost. It's expensive. It's expensive to travel internationally, and then it's expensive to have adoption-aware staff going with you also. So that's a little different that we do, that other ones may or may not do, is that we'll fly staff people who are a- adoption specialists to the country as well and do that, so that they always have someone there in case something comes up, but some really just wanna do it solo. Oh, the money. The money is a big issue. It's expensive. There are some programs that are getting funding from the government. Like in Korea, there's one that gets funding from corporations and I think from the government. But then you're beholden to what they also want to show you on their trip.
And me, I was like, okay, now we have an administration that's not friendly to immigrants. We are immigrants. And it's expensive. So how do we help make this more accessible? So actually my [00:37:00] husband and I, we started this nonprofit 501[c][3] called The Ties Foundation. It's completely separate from us, but the whole goal is to provide post-adoption support services for adoptees.
So there's three buckets. One is they can do a heritage travel program. They can come with us. They can go with another organization that's doing something. I was just talking to a friend of mine who is doing a grassroots one in Peru set for next September in 2027. So that would qualify. They could use that grant money to go for that.
The second bucket is mental health. It's $1,000 grants for mental health. They wanna go see someone, but they don't take insurance, or they don't have insurance, so that would help cover that. And then the other one is community connection, so maybe going to a conference or helping to pay for that, those types of things.
And that's totally separate, so if Ties were to go away, the foundation would still be there. And so now we have an executive director. We got the 501[c][3] status, and they're fundraising right now, which [00:38:00] is really exciting. But then, The Ties Program, we just continue to do the travel and then we also like to do free webinars and informational webinars online.
We do a free connect and chat and talk time that anyone can call in from. And actually we had on one of them recently we had, she was a, a domestic adoptee. Mom was Korean adoptee. Birth mom was a Korean adoptee. And she was adopted then in the United States. And then she actually went to Korea to learn about her Korean background and so that was a really cool perspective to have in this connect and chat.
And so yeah, and those are led by different people, so like sometimes I'll lead the connect and chats, but for adoptees, and then the parents, have their own.
Haley Radke: I also wanted to mention this. I was gonna do this when we do [00:39:00] recommended resources, but- ... I saw that you also have a seminar for partners of adoptees.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. And we do it once a year now. We've only done it one time, and it was very successful, 'cause now our as we're getting more adoptees who are aging and the partners were asking, "How do we support our partner?" And so yeah, we put together a partners one.
Haley Radke: I think that's really important, honestly, because- You mentioned earlier the adoptee consciousness model and, the lingo coming out of the fog. I think for some of us when we do that and we're married, it's like your partner is not married to the same person anymore.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: No.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: So true.
Haley Radke: Yeah. So getting them- ... a little support. Sure.
Put it on the list.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Totally.
Haley Radke: What's the best outcome you've seen, if you can think of one story of someone going on Heritage?
Oh my gosh, yes okay, [00:40:00] 2023, I was staffing Guatemala. This is before we took over Ties. And there was an adoptee who did not wanna come. Parents made them come. Almost an adult, young adult. Young adult. And when we got there, would not interact with anyone, would not say hello, was not part of the welcome circle by their choice.
And then the next day, we did... So we don't do the typical touristy stuff, we try to find things that are meaningful for adoptees. And so one of them was we visited an organization that provides services for after-school care to keep kids off the street and you can stay there, you can go to this after-school program all the way through until you graduate high school.
So we went there, and they did this... it wasn't really performative. It sounds, it's gonna [00:41:00] sound performative, but it was not. It, the little kids... first, the older kids were playing the marimba, which is the national instrument for Guatemala. And then the younger ones were coming in from different provinces of Guatemala in the traditional dress, so people could see this was my traditional dress from this province that I was from.
And then they just had everybody dancing with them, so just grab the adoptees, and they were all dancing together. And it was just really beautiful 'cause it went from all these people, even the ones who would talk, really getting involved, wanting to learn more, wanting to try on the traditional dress of their province.
And dancing with the kids. They were all just mingling together, and that really provided a huge shift for a lot of people. And then, as we kept going and doing other things, we worked with an [00:42:00] organization that is permanent homes for children without... for whatever reason, they can't be in their home.
They're not necessarily orphaned. So that was really meaningful. They did some service and built beds for children and elderly so they're not sleeping on the floor. Just things like that. And this one adoptee who would not talk to anyone at all, by the end of when we were doing farewell dinner, this adoptee was one of the very first people to speak, and just came out and said, "This was so powerful and healing for me to come here, to meet other adoptees, to know I was not alone to be with other peop- and to be proud.
And this was the best thing my parents could have done for me." And they didn't wanna be there at all. It was, like, this huge transformation, and it was just, oh my gosh we're all sobbing, [00:43:00] because this is not a unique story. It was just all this like, "I don't wanna be here. This is stupid. This is dumb. I don't, like, why would I wanna go to this country? It's..." But, why would, why... I remember saying that. Why would I wanna go to Korea? And then having that experience, me connecting with other adoptees a similar age, and having that support, realizing we're not alone. It doesn't have to be solo. It doesn't have to be lonely.
And then seeing how beautiful their birth country was and, yeah, it was just a total night and day. And it was... I was like, "Oh, this is why we do this work." That's just... And there's so many stories. Like mother, son. There's another one in Kazakhstan. Mother, son were not talking at all.
They did not talk for a year, and I don't know how she got her son to go on this trip. I do not know. But it really mended and healed a lot of the relationship. Yeah. Just things like that, right? [00:44:00] 'Cause it also gives-
You gotta beware 'cause some of those people that go on those trips uproot their whole life and move back and-
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Oh, they do. Yeah, some do ...
Haley Radke: restart lives there. It's true. It's wild.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: I can't even explain the impact it's had on so many adoptees I've spoken to. So-
... don't be scared ... it's probably something exciting that you could do. I love that you guys started the Ties Foundation. Congratulations. That's a big deal. We will make sure to link to that in the show notes.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yes.
Haley Radke: And of course, I'll recommend that folks check out The Ties Program, especially this Partners of Adoptees seminar. I see it's gonna start in 2027.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah, it'll be in the spring.
Haley Radke: Yeah, your website has all kinds of resources. You talk about all the tours that are available, and it's not just Korea.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: No.
Haley Radke: You're worldwide.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Korea China, Kazakhstan, Guatemala [00:45:00] Paraguay. Yeah, we do a, a bunch of different countries. And for Korea and China do have two. One's all ages, and one is adult. And then Korea actually next year... so this fall, I'm actually leaving for an 21-plus and loved ones group, but then next year will be 50-plus, so kinda that first wave. But you can bring your adult child-
Haley Radke: Yeah ...
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: or your partner. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Amazing. What do you wanna recommend for us today, Tanya?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Okay, I would love to recommend, and I feel like this has been recommended before, but I'm just gonna say it again because it's such a great resource, is iamadoptee.org. It's a great resource for support and mental health. And we have resources on our website of different organizations that people can look at or join or, explore either online or what have you.
And then also we do have a, a directory for adoption-aware therapists, but we have not vetted it, so that's the only [00:46:00] thing. We haven't vetted the whole list. And that is on our website. But I Am Adoptee, that's their whole thing, is providing support for mental health and wellness, and I just love it, so I would do definitely that.
And then also the Ties Foundation because it is really just grants for adoptees for all the support. And Ian Forber-Pratt is the executive director now, and he's an intercountry adoptee from India. He was in the anti-trafficking space for, like- over 10 years. And so he's just doing an amazing job, and our goal is to have an evergreen fund so that the money is just in perpetuity.
We don't have to worry about doing a ton of fundraising. We can put some money in a spot where there's an endowment. And so he's already gotten almost $200,000 in the last two weeks. 'Cause it's, there's just a lot that's not there.
Haley Radke: There's a huge need.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: There's a huge need.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Amazing.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah. That's the other [00:47:00] one, the TIES Foundation, and I believe that they're going to start opening grants early next year.
Haley Radke: Okay. Early 2027. amazing.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much for sharing that. Where can folks connect with you online?
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Okay. I am terrible at social media, but they can connect with me on Facebook or Instagram.
They can also connect with me through the TIES Program, so the TIES program has a handle on Instagram and Facebook as well, and also they can just email the TIES Program. They can email me, tanya@thetiesprogram.com. I'm really-
Haley Radke: Okay, perfect ...
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: really super open.
Haley Radke: We will link all of those things in the show notes.
Thanks for sharing a bit of your story with us, and I really enjoyed hearing your life reclamation story. Wow you've been through it, and you really did the work. Wow.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Incredible.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: I don't know if you saw on the Korean American [00:48:00] Story that, when I told you about my daughter coming in when I was really sick and I couldn't really talk, and it was at my worst, and nobody knew what I had at that point.
And I was like, I made peace. I was ready to go. I was in so much pain, and she literally came in right after I said to myself, "I'm good. I'm good. I am at peace." She came in, she crawled up next to me, and she started crying, and then she got up and she wiped her tears, and she said, "I hate crying. Mom, I hate, I don't know why I'm crying." And then she left. And I was like, oh, okay. I have to keep fighting.
Haley Radke: You did it. Yes, we will, we'll link to that. To your story there as well. And just so you know, your dissertation's still available online.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: It is. Oh, and I have a chapter coming out in Hollee McGinnis' book, edited book, on inter-country adoption next year.
Haley Radke: Oh, cool. Congrats.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: And then hopefully I'll get this article submitted, and it'll be published by 2027.
Haley Radke: Amazing. When [00:49:00] it's published, let me know and we'll add that to the show notes for your episode. Thank you so much.
Tanya Kaanta, Ph.D.: Thank you so much, Haley.
Haley Radke: Even though I was born in Canada, my maternal side is very Scottish. I'm actually a first-generation Canadian on that side, and I really have always wanted to go to Scotland doing some kind of heritage travel to figure out where my maternal grandparents grew up and their extended family, and it's totally, a bucket list item for me.
So I love hearing other adoptees talk about travel and how important it is for them and how meaningful and impactful, and I just, I love this idea of having support with you on a journey like that. I don't have the experience of being [00:50:00] transnationally adopted, so I know it would be ever so much more meaningful and challenging.
And so I'm really glad that something like the Ties Program exists. I'm excited to share about it with you. And it's getting so close. The new podcast On Adoption will be out. If you're listening to this when it releases, the show will be out momentarily, so make sure you're checking for my new podcast On Adoption wherever you listen to podcasts.
Would love your support over there with a rating or review, and please share it with your friends. Thank you for listening to adoptee voices over here on Adoptees On, and let's talk again soon.
