268 Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/268

---

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 so excited to host critical adoption studies scholar, Dr. Kimberly McKee. She's the author of the impactful book, Disrupting Kinship, and her brand new release is Adoption Fantasies, the fetishization of Asian adoptees from girlhood to womanhood.

We talk about Kim's reunion with her family in Korea, where she's currently living with her young son, and what it's like parenting through reunification and reculturation. We talk about adoption in pop culture, and how preserving adoptee history and acknowledging the work of those who've come before us is vital to community building.

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

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Kimberly McKee, welcome Kim.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about being here today.

Haley Radke: I'm embarrassed. It's taken me seven years to get to you, Kim. I mean, you're prolific. I have read your writing. I have attended conferences and learned from you.

I'm just, I'm so excited that finally we get to connect in this way.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: You know, I've listened to so many of my friend colleagues on your show, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I really want to do this. And so I was just, I'm super happy we were able to get connected.

Haley Radke: Great. I'd love it if you would start and share a little of your story with us.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I Was adopted [00:02:00] from South Korea when I was five months old and I grew up in Western New York. Actually, if you're interested in reading about that journey, from my perspective, when I was about 15, I was, I believe I was like 17 when it was published. I have an essay in the volume, Yellow Girls the edited collection.

And so Yellow Girls was edited by Vicki Nam and it came out in 2001. So it just celebrated. It's 20 year history and in that I spend about two and a half pages reflecting on what it was like for me growing up in a primarily white community. And so that's just like one snippet about kind of my life. But I think currently I'm living in South Korea.

I've lived here before when I was studying language through a state department, critical language scholarship. Currently I'm a U. S. Fulbright Scholar at Sogong University for academic year [00:03:00] 2023-2024. And what's been a privilege for me this time, as I'm making Seoul my home, is that my young son is with me and he's a toddler, and so I'm thinking about parenting in different kinds of ways now that we're in Korea and one of the things I've spent a long time thinking about is how he is so articulate at telling me about his own adjustment being here, and I honestly, and I've probably said this somewhere else, too. It takes my breath away thinking about that in relation to international adoption.

I've read so many adoptees talking about how they would call out saying they want to go back and they want to go home and they were speaking Korean and everything else. And I think about my son who's here with me. And he knows he's safe and he knows he's loved and we speak English at home and all of those things.

And what that must have felt like for so many international adoptees. And so it gives me pause. And I [00:04:00] wonder if it gave anybody else pause who were adopting at that time. And here, but at that time, I'm thinking about folks who came over in the 1980s, like myself or earlier, and I can't help but just, it makes you think, right?

Haley Radke: Yeah, I think for any of us who have children, there's this very different thing for their legacy that we're trying to create. And now you as a Korean adoptee, you get to go to a country and it's this very physical thing. Like I'm literally changing locations and languages. And so there's an embodiment that is unusual and so amazing. Like it forces you to think about it.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: And it's so deeply layered. And I think that's something [00:05:00] I don't want to say people forget, but it's not just Oh, we're picking up and I'm spending a year in some other country. That's not the United States where we were living. This is a country that has so much meaning for so many of other adoptees from Korea, including myself. And so thinking about what navigating life is I'm not fluent in Korean. You know, I've studied Korean language, but so many adoptees, I know that unless I have dedicated time where I can do full immersion, my ability for language acquisition isn't going to be the same.

And you know, thinking about what that means to for us. And so this is an incredible opportunity. And I'm really excited to be here. But it also makes me think so much about adoption and return and what that means for so many of us, especially for those adoptees who maybe don't want to return, can't return.

And being able to do like I said before, is such a privilege.[00:06:00]

Haley Radke: I know you've been back before, and I heard you talk about being on a TV show for searching. Can you talk about that? Because I know probably a lot of Korean adoptees will be like, Oh yeah, we know about this, but a lot of the rest of us maybe don't.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Of course. My first time back to Korea was in 2007. And then, and that was for the International Korean Adoptee Association's gathering. I specifically went in 2007 because I'm a nerd and was really excited about the first international symposium on Korean adoption studies and I couldn't wait. That was the reason I was going.

It wasn't necessarily for the other components of the gathering, but really for the research symposium, which as a side now, I will say it's been an incredible privilege to be part of the co-organizing committee for that since goodness 2016. And so it's been really delightful. So I also was back in [00:07:00] 2010 and then in 2011 and 2010 was for the Aika gathering as well.

And in 2011 I was here studying Korean. And then 2013 I was back for the gathering. Same with 2016. But I had the privilege by virtue of the work that I do in the academy, being able to come back to Korea for a conference almost every year since 2013. Obviously with a pause for Covid. And so that's been lovely. In 2011 I was not on one of those formal search shows. Let me be clear. In 2011, I was living in Jeonju and my seonsaengnim. She knew I was adopted. There was another adoptee also in the program and we were on local or regional TV. Where I sat down with a reporter and shared part of my story and that aired on kind of like the local regional news.

It was not fruitful for me. And so that was really the last time that I contemplated searching. [00:08:00] And so I had previously queried my agency and I came through Eastern Child Welfare Society and I wrote to them, I think in 2007, maybe in 2010 again, and it was always, you know, in relation to me coming to Korea.

Cause that usually is what sparks it. And I think what people forget, and, you know, I'm sure, you know this, I'm sure many of your listeners, but for non adoptees, or maybe adoptees who have thought about searching, but really haven't, it takes up a lot of emotional energy and it does things to you, to your body that I think you're not aware of in terms of the kinds of stress or the anxiety that and how that manifests itself because there's so many unknowns. Personally, I knew that I was okay if I searched and they found my birth parents and they did not want to meet, and I attribute that in part to really understanding kind of the reasons why a birth parent may not be able to meet you, especially for birth mothers, if their family, their [00:09:00] current families don't know that they relinquished.

And I know that's really complicated and what I'm saying may be very unpopular to some people, but I was never trying to ruin somebody's life and by ruin, I don't mean oh, because I'm a terrible person or you're a terrible person or anything like that, but rather, I think a lot about the trauma of adoption and the fact that I'm not the only person inhabiting that trauma.

I'm not the only person who lived with those decisions that obviously affected birth mothers, maybe birth fathers, other biological relatives, maybe siblings, et cetera. And you know, I think sometimes we can be very inward in terms of thinking about adoption is only about me, but rather there's so many other people involved and their own experiences.

And so I really wanted to make space and honor that. By the time I was on that show in the summer of 2011, I had really made my peace that I probably would not be reunited. I kind of assumed that was a dead end because I mean, once you [00:10:00] go on TV there's only so many things you could do. And this was really before DNA testing kind of was really being used, I think, in, in the way it is now.

I mean, it's been over a decade. I was fortunate that my birth mother actually reached out to my agency in 2013. This was spurred after she saw my birth father again at their high school reunion. And so that is how we kind of made contact, uh, the agency. And I don't know, I think if you traffic and dark it out, the humor, the agency emailed me and was like, we have some news for you, but is this your right email address?

So it's it was one of those moments. I was like, yes, this is the right email address. Tell me the news. Could you just, could you lead with the news? I mean, I understand maybe why not, but it was just very odd. And that's how we connected. And so in December of 2013, so close to 10 years ago, I flew to Korea.

It was right after [00:11:00] I submitted my grades. When I was a postdoc at Grinnell College in Iowa, I submitted the grades for the semester, and then I flew to Korea to meet them in person. I was really fortunate to be able to do that. I know that's not possible for so many people and I recognize that privilege, but I really wanted to kind of, I think, pull the bandaid off and just do it.

And then it was kind of a whirlwind experience. And then I came home and the day after we drove out to see my family for the holidays. So it's just kind of a lot. And so being on the show with another adopted person as well. It was, I think. It's always hard sometimes to talk about your adoption story, and it's always difficult because you never know what the outcome would be to get back to your original question.

And I think for me, like I said, I knew the odds of something happening was probably going to be slim. And so I think about if it wasn't for her, for my birth mother, seeing my birth father at their high school reunion, [00:12:00] I probably would not be in reunion and you know what that means. And I think, too, now that I'm in reunion, I see the way relinquishment had a long standing effect on my birth mom, and that's why even now I am trying to be very mindful about how I tell my reunion story specifically thinking about what parts that I share that I feel like I can share without breaking the trust in the relationship I'm forging with her, my birth father, my siblings, their families.

Haley Radke: So are you still in contact with him?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yes. We were very fortunate. We, my son and I spent Chuseok, which is colloquially known as Korean Thanksgiving with my birth with my Oma and my younger siblings. And so that was, it was a privilege and incredible and strange, not like in a bad way or strange and it was just different because I think I'd read this and this is [00:13:00] where I sound like.

You know, an academic or somebody who studies adoption. I'd read so many things about people spending their holidays with their families, their birth families, if they were in reunion. And so like in my head, I had this, I didn't even know I had this idealized version of what it should be based on what you read.

And then I was experiencing it and I was like, oh, it's not the same. That's okay. This just feels just different and that's when I was like, oh, because I went in with all these preconceived notions and assumptions about what this should be like based on reading about other people. And we know that's not how life is.

And so I had to really step out of that situation and reflect on that because that's not fair.

Are you able to be present in a moment like that? Are you looking at your child and being like, getting this experience that I might have had at your age if I hadn't been adopted. I mean, that's whoa.

Yes and no. I think at times, you know, as [00:14:00] he starts to speak more Korean and it's the intonation of some of the words when he calls me Oma and it's a particular kind of pitch. And my husband and I, who, and he's, my husband's also adopted. We're talking about how that it warms our souls inside, right?

Like it makes us feel good in a way that I don't think either one of us imagined. And my husband was adopted when he was older. So he remembers living in Korea. And so I think us having this opportunity and watching our son it's kind of crazy and awesome. And yeah, it's just I wish everybody who was transnationally adopted, or just adopted in general, could be able to kind of have those moments.

I saw on Instagram, because I'm on Instagram a lot, people talk about those, I think, as glimmers, right? Those really warm and fuzzy moments. I was scrolling, so I cannot attribute that to anybody. But anyways, it was one of those moments where I was like, oh, it is exciting to see. But I think it's exciting to, for anybody [00:15:00] who may identify as an immigrant or who has experienced displacement. So I don't think it's just unique to adoptees. I think being able to sort of see somebody having opportunities that you wish you had when you were a child, it's amazing.

Haley Radke: That is like such a neat experience. I'm as you were sharing it, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy for you.

You know, there's something about those moments that has to be healing for us somewhere deep down in there. I don't know if you think that way, too, but I don't know. It's the wounds that we carry from separation is just it feels like this never ending pit for me. So anything I can do to fill in a little bit at a time, just important.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I think for me, I've always been cautious of discussing or labeling adoptees as melancholic and [00:16:00] in part because there's always this assumption that we're in constant search of something that's missing as if adoption isn't trauma or adoption doesn't involve malfeasance and fabrication. And all the things, these things that we know to be true, but because it's supposed to be this good, happy feeling, then I think when you map melancholia onto that, it creates kind of a pathologized adoptee subject instead of that's devoid of nuance or context.

And so something that I've been sitting with and thinking through and starting to write about a little bit is to really thinking about the melancholia or the haunting or The Korean word Han to talk about sort of loss and sorrow and unnamed grief about what it means to be living with that grief, a palpable grief that for me, I finally could name. In relation to sitting at dinner this was about a month ago with my appa, with my Korean father and my son [00:17:00] and myself and my appa really doesn't speak English. My Korean, I mean, I can care, I can order food. I can give him. Get directions, but I can't, you know what I can't do. I can't have that sustained deep conversation. And for me, it's recognizing those losses and warning, even though I am in reunion, because there is. There is a grief there and it's palpable and you can feel it on both sides and, you know, I'll say, gwaenchanh-ayo like, it's okay when my appa tells me something and I kind of look at him and I smile oh, gosh, this is, yeah. And, you know, we rely on either siblings to translate kind of thing, or we use translation like apps like Papago or Google Translate because they have conversation features and stuff.

And I don't think there's been a lot of, at least that I've come across. About that kind of living grief, and this is in part two, I think, because there's so few of us in reunion, and so reunion is kind of seen as an end point, even though I don't think [00:18:00] it's an end point. It's just a, it's just one marker in one's adoption journey, if that happens, and so then it's living in reunion and you'd ask me am I still in contact because we know that doesn't happen all the time. And so I'm very mindful of that as well, because I know when you do start raising these kinds of questions about reunion, it can be also incredibly painful for those who have not, who've had less success.

Or for those who, for whatever reason, have decided that's not the route they want to take. I think that, for me, I'm really hoping that we can have complex and nuanced conversations, where we can hold everything in tension with one another, to recognize that there's not one path forward, but rather we have to be able to have complexity at a time when I think just not just talking about adoption, but just thinking about what's happening in the world right now, where context [00:19:00] gets to be lost.

People want something that's very black or white. There's no room for gray. And, you know, that feeling of grief and loss. We have to be able to do many things, and we have to be able to recognize how complex reunion can be. And I really hope that as I think through this and start writing about it more, that people want to be, want to have that conversation with me.

Haley Radke: I think even as you mentioned, we don't always think about the emotional labor just with searching that space that takes up. I mean, being in reunion, I'm in 12 years, you're in 10. That's just a chunk of space that we're always giving whether or not we're really focused on it or it's running in the background. It's the process of reunification into a family takes more labor than we probably know.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: So I know you'll ask me at the end of your show, but I just real quick wanted to mention because we're talking [00:20:00] about reunion. Sara Docan- Morgan has a book coming out called In Reunion and she's looking at Korean transnational adoptees and I was privileged enough to read an early copy of it and it's a wonderful book.

But she discusses that labor and she names that labor and it's really incredible and moving because it's something that's so often I think those of us who are in reunion can acknowledge, but it's having these kinds of conversations like the two of us are having right now, we don't necessarily hear from unless it's kind of not necessarily whispered in like real corners, but like where we're talking to each other inside conversations or we're DMing one another, but it's not necessarily shared openly because I think for adoptees, we also hold space for, like I said before, other adoptees and their experiences and what that looks like too.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. Definitely. I want to shift and talk about your work because you are a [00:21:00] critical adoption scholar.

This is a quote from your book, Adoption Fantasies. I'm just going to read one line to you because I was like, how did you figure out a way to watch some TV shows and movies and add it into your work life? That's pretty cool. So I figured that out too, by the way, I turned toward popular cultural artifacts to critically engage how adoption is packaged, commodified and sold as a social good.

And I will talk, I'll recommend your book later to spoiler alert. There's your two spoiler alerts, but I'm, I love how you go through several examples in popular culture and talk about how adoptees are represented. I was earlier this year, I did a two part episode on Patreon about how Friends deals with the adoption storyline, [00:22:00] because I was thinking about what were the messages I was getting in those formative, you know, teen, young, adult years about adoption. And, yikes. Do you remember from when you were a kid, any TV shows or things you were watching then that had an impact on you?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yes, and I'm not sure what kind of impact. So I think a lot about the fact that Losing Isaiah used to be on cable television a lot. It would be on Lifetime. Kind of. Not necessarily on a loop, but you would see it. I mean, this is back when you could watch the like Breakfast Club and all those kind of movies also on TV a lot. So I think about Losing Isaiah. I think about those made for TV movies. So do you remember Switched at Birth about the oh, gosh, maybe I butchered the title to of the movie where these families to calm the wrong infant.

So it's not necessarily adoption, but like the idea of being raised or separated at birth or [00:23:00] something like that, right? Being raised by different families. I think a lot about. It was a book and then it was turned into a movie The Face in the Milk Carton. So again, it's a lot about stolen children.

Haley Radke: I remember that book series. I read it so much. I was obsessed with it. It was, there was three books. And I think in the second book, she goes back to live with her original family and how disruptive this is. Oh, wow. You really got something in my, I've got a whole section of my brain lit up.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: But I think about those moments, because I think for me, at least there was this, I don't want to say obsession, but there was this interest about what that looked like and what that felt like in society at that time.

Okay. And. You know, I know you've had Shannon Gibney on, right? So like Shannon's memoir, The Girl I Am, I Was, and Never Will Be gets to some of that's similar but obviously different because it's adoption themed. And then I think too about other representations, you know, in Adoption Fantasies, I discuss [00:24:00] Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and Soon-Yi Previn, and I think about kind of what I knew growing up and then what I've learned, obviously working on the book to think about S oon-Yi I, for me, in terms of where else there was adoption, it would oftentimes appear oddly and shows, right? It was always strange in TV, but a lot of times it was always packaged as we adopted you for a better life. Shouldn't you be happy? Yay. Or, oh gosh wasn't, it was like Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood in that horror movie, like The Good Son or something where like Macaulay Culkin was like adopted.

I'm not the, I don't look at horror film because I will freely admit. Horror films freak me out. I like, I'll watch them, but they're not my jam.

Haley Radke: I'll watch them for you. That's my fave.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I just, I can't do it. I like, I need all the lights on and I'm gonna still jump. I'll cover my eyes.

Anyways. so It's either there is this positive experience or, oh gosh, [00:25:00] this adoptee is so damaged. Look at how incredibly messed up they are. Look how, you know, it's pathological. And you know, I remember those kinds of things, but a lot of the time it was about when I think about pop culture, it was more about how other people understood Asian Americans and Asian people and thinking about the racism that I experienced, some of which I share in the book as well.

And so that's what I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Haley Radke: Going back to Woody Allen, I think another thing we don't really spend a lot of time talking about, but I think we should be highlighting more, is I think adoptees are at higher risk of sexual violence and incest from either their immediate adoptive families or their extended family because you're not biologically [00:26:00] related. Do you have thoughts on that?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Oh, goodness. I will first say that is not in my area of expertise. So my work looking and applying the lens of incest to really understand, uh, Soon-Yi Previn, Woody Allen, and Mia Farrow comes from a particular lens of thinking about power and privilege and the operationalization of that power in father or paternal like figure daughter relationships.

And so I am not trained in social work or psychology to make sort of specific assessments around kind of the number of cases of abuse, trauma, et cetera, rather what I'm hoping to do by shining a light on what happened and kind of how the 1992 scandal and fallout really reverberated in society is to have us have that conversation to think about when people believe these families are good families because they've allegedly been screened and vetted, except for we know that's [00:27:00] not the case.

We know of adoptees who have shared their painful experiences. With sexual and physical violence and emotional abuse. So we're all too aware. I think when you look at how society reacted to Soon-Yi and how even Mia Farrow reacted to her own daughter, it becomes very evident the way adoption clouds people's understandings of sexual abuse.

And frames their understanding of how we will protect some kinds of girlhood over others in some childhoods over others. I think that when you look at. How Woody Allen supporters, you know, really justify that Soon-Yi was never really adopted by him and, you know, stuff like that. It raises questions about what does it mean then if somebody's long term boyfriend sexually abuses someone's child?

It [00:28:00] doesn't make it any less, it's not a lesser form of violence or like a different kind of violence, right? At the point in which you're splitting hairs like that we really have to have a different kind of conversation because you are, you so far missed what's actually happening. And so I'm hoping that folks who are survivors of abuse, when they get to that particular chapter, they see, or they can recognize, and if they can't, I will accept that feedback as well. But what I'm really trying to do is provide space for talking about why isn't it? Why don't we see that happening here? You know, how does the Asian adopted woman's, girl's body become subsumed under racialized and gendered stereotypes of Asian women's sexuality? And what's at stake there when we see the limits of adoptive kinship.

Haley Radke: I know this is going to be like, this is like a [00:29:00] giant question because your whole book covers it, but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the word fetishization and you talk about it from the start. So infants as babies, commodities, and then growing up into I think you call it oriental fantasies, plus a combination of anti Asian racism and all of that.

Like it's, this is like a huge subject, huge question that all you're covering. So I know it's unfair, but I'm curious if you can describe that a little bit for us. So we can kind of go along with your premise here.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: The book looks at both of fantasies of white adoption and Asian American fantasies of adoption.

And when I think about The fetishization of adoptees. I look at how as other scholars have demonstrated. So here I'm thinking about the work of Andrea [00:30:00] Louie or Sarah Darrow, Heather Jacobson and Christine Ward Gailey when they've talked to adoptive parents of Chinese children. I mean, these parents sometimes describe their children as China dolls, porcelain dolls.

You see that in the work of Soojin Pate and Suzy Woo when they describe the earliest Korean war orphans and how they were the girls and how specifically Soojin Pate's work and transformed into adoptable commodities and how the labor of these young girls was used to support morale of military troops in South Korea. I think a lot about how Asian adoptees in particular, and here I'm thinking about East Asian adoptees who came over from South Korea and China, but I'm also thinking about the packaging of kind of Vietnamese war orphans and what that looked like. It was under the banner of saving these, again, doll like being, and they were [00:31:00] fetishized as being readily available blank slates where you could raise them like your very own.

So we have to think about how legacies of assimilation also shaped that. Because if you could not obtain a healthy white infant, adopting from Asia was kind of seen as the next best thing. You see, you know, if you're interested in the racialized marketplace of U. S. adoption, at least. And I apologize for being so U. S. centric to your listeners, because I know they come from all over, and you're in Canada. Elizabeth Raleigh's book, Selling Transracial Adoption, does a good job of kind of articulating the assortive marketplace of children. And so when we think about fetishization, though, in adulthood, I'm very much aware of how gender notions of Asian womanhood have penetrated and circulated the U.S. public imaginary, as well as the global Western imaginary for some time. So thinking about how other scholars have [00:32:00] also said this too, right? So when we think about some of the earliest anti Asian exclusion laws in the U. S., It really does position Asian women, specifically Chinese women, along the lines of sex work and what that looks like, out of fears of Asian women as sex workers.

We see this with legacies of US militarism and militarism abroad. And so you have those fantasies coupled with a lack of understanding of what that means to be Asian American in the US, Canada as well. To really get that we are full people. We're autonomous subjects, like everybody else who, you know, negotiate the world.

But when, you know, there's assumptions about you being passive, submissive, sexually available, easy to please, and see how long standing these stereotypes have been, and then recognize the fact that so many white adoptive parents. If they knew of these assumptions, didn't want to recognize and recognize [00:33:00] how those fantasies and fetishes map onto our bodies and how they actually may be complicit in some of those things as well.

I think I answered your question. I may have meandered a little bit.

Haley Radke: No, I think that was great. It's hard to touch on all the things when you're like I wrote a whole book to answer that. One thing I really appreciate, this is a little bit of an aside, but you're so good at pointing us back to where ideas originate from and who said.

You know, so and so said this, and I know some academics do this, but not all. And I've never observed anyone do it in as generous a way as you do. Why is that so important to you?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I'm indebted, I think, a lot to Black feminism and thinking about the citational practices of Black feminists. But just thinking about how citing matters, citations matter, recognizing that, you didn't just invent sliced bread.

[00:34:00] Is hugely important and it's not about necessarily being humble, but it's recognizing those genealogies and so being able to trace a conversation and to understand how a field developed this isn't to dismiss somebody who's like coming into adoption studies to be like, Oh, no, but it's rather okay, so if you want to have these conversations, who are you engaging with?

So how are you, if you're having a conversation about Korean adoption studies, you know, how are you engaging the work of Tobias Hübinette, Kim Park Nelson, Lene Myong, Rich Lee, Oh Myo Kim, Adam Kim, you know, there's so many folks out there who've done this work. You know, I've mentioned Soojin Pate, Susie Woo, thinking about the work of Kelly Condit-Shrestha and others, right?

There's so many people that. We need to be able to sort of see how, again, if you're looking at race and ethnic identity, who are you talking to, who are you in conversation with, whose ideas are you departing from or [00:35:00] building on, if you're thinking about transracial adoptions within the U. S., and understanding adoption as violence are you engaging Kit Myers and his concept of violence of love, and those sorts of things, because that, that matters.

And it matters because it demonstrates that you recognize that, again, you know, you are part of a community. And I think about how generous my colleagues were when I was a master's student in 2006, 2007 finishing up my master's thesis with the London School of Economics about the gendered reasons why Korea still participates in inter country adoption.

You know, I remember reaching out to them and then making time to talk with me. So Kathleen Bergquist, Kim Park Nelson, Eleana Kim, Tobias meeting Lene Myong and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, thinking about how these folks really brought me into a community where I am now situated and what that looks like and thinking about friendships that have developed over time [00:36:00] with these scholars, some adopted, some not adopted doing the work.

And so I'm very attentive to that. I also, and it's funny because, you know, you bring it up here, but this came up when I was in at, symposium back in March that Kelly, Rich and Catherine Nguyen organized. It was a Harvard Radcliffe Symposium up in Cambridge. And I remember one of my friend colleagues, she was like, Kim always sort of does this.

And it's because it's so important to me. And I can't say it enough. Being able to say who or where you're getting ideas from and attributing them. It just, it matters. We don't want to engage in that kind of, I just don't want to engage in bad scholarly practice. This is something I really encourage because it matters. And I don't know.

Haley Radke: Can I say? I've had it modeled to me when talking about adoptee activism, right? I'll be interviewing somebody and then they'll be like so and so [00:37:00] did this first and so did that right? And now I find myself doing that too. I mean, usually younger adoptees as well, and I think it's important too, and I just, I really respect how you do that, and like I said, I think it's in a really generous way, and so yeah, good modeling.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: No, thanks, and I think it, I think a lot about sort of activism too, because, you know, the way social media has transformed those conversations, but I think about kind of the group now. I sound like an old person in the early days of the Internet. I think about how different how adoptees were coming together kind of a decade ago, more than a decade ago.

What was that looking like? How did those folks push a conversation to enable us to have the conversations we're currently having and why that's significant? We have to understand those genealogies because if we don't, you're just going to assume, oh, we're doing it better or they did it wrong. And that's not the case.

We also have to [00:38:00] recognize the material conditions in which people were doing that work to really understand perhaps why did they stop at X even if they were still talking about some of the other issues, too?

Haley Radke: I know this isn't technically your field of study but I really feel like in both of your books that I've read so Disrupting Kinship and Adoption Fantasies you're also playing the part of historian because you are referencing all of these things again showing my age that I feel are, you know, current events, quote unquote, in the adoptee community in the recent history, recent past.

How do you say that? And so you're preserving those things for future generations as well. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, big hearts on that. I don't know.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: No, thank you. Also, it just reminds us that I don't think we're old. And then there's those moments where I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah, you, yes. It feels, you know, 20, 2015 wasn't yesterday, right? Or like [00:39:00] 2002 wasn't five years ago. And you're like, oh, time. It happens.

Haley Radke: You have a toddler to keep you young. I have a kid who's a couple years away from the learner's permit and I'm like, Whoa, you know?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: And it's funny you say that. So my step kids are older. One graduated college already. The other one is in college and I remember when, you know, when they get to be the same age as the students that I'm teaching or the students that I'm teaching are their age. I don't know. One of the two. It's always Oh gosh, wow. You are a grown up.

Haley Radke: It just happens, right? It's in a blink. I really want to recommend your books to everyone. I'm sure lots of people have already read Disrupting Kinship. I love your unpacking of your term adoptee killjoy, which, I don't know, maybe you can talk a little bit about that to us.

And, but we're talking about Adoption Fantasies today, The Fetishization of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to W omanhood, which is just out if you're listening when this [00:40:00] releases. And I really appreciated the critical lens that you brought to Sex in the City, Modern Family, Soul Searching, Twinsters, all of these pieces that a lot of us are familiar with and looking at it with different eyes, right? I mean, I know there's a lot of us that would have consumed some of that content and been like, gross or like, why is this uncomfortable? Or oh, I can't believe they're doing this, but you really help us break it down in a way that you're like, okay, here's all the really problematic things in regards to this.

And this is what the public is consuming. And has the warm fuzzies around this is their glimmers is like, oh, let's watch Modern Family together, you know, and when we see all these adoptee tropes, just being over overused, and we're [00:41:00] complaining about it, you really break it down for us. And then, of course, the added lens of the Asian American racism that is going on and I need to be more informed about that as a white woman and I'm, I was, you know, really, you really unpacked a lot of those things for me as well.

I really hope people read it. I know you're an academic writer, but it's very accessible, and I think it helps us build skills in our conversations with people when we're talking about how problematic adoption is. Okay, that was a big mouthful. Any comments on that? And plus, Adoptee Killjoy, please tell us what that is.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: The term adoptee killjoy actually originates from Sara Ahmed's use of the term feminist killjoy. So I have to mention that because I'm really indebted to what Sara Ahmed was doing with feminist killjoy. But with adoptee killjoy, I'm thinking about how, and I know you're not supposed to [00:42:00] use the words and the definition, but like how the adoptee does kill the joy of adoption by voicing critiques or criticism. About the malfeasance, the fabrication, the violence of adoption, and thinking about the ways that adoptees are so aware of what it means to keep their place within their adoptive families and what does it mean to be legible. As kin, what does it mean to disrupt those fantasies of adoption by voicing dissent by kind of acknowledging what transpired was nothing short of either forms of trafficking, violence, et cetera. And I don't mean to repeat myself ad nauseam, but it's to use the concept of adoptee killjoy it also into embrace it really means we want to have those critical [00:43:00] conversations and I think what's also important, it's getting us to move away from the other binary about adoptees.

Like you're happy and well adjusted or you're angry, you're maladjusted no. And also it would be okay if I was angry because wouldn't you be angry when you'd be angry if you don't have access to your original birth certificate. Here I'm thinking about domestic adoptees as well as international adoptees. Wouldn't it, wouldn't you be angry if you were told this one story and then you found out it wasn't true or that you were told this, but you knew in your heart that it wasn't true or wouldn't you be angry if you were used as a prop for your family to feel like they did something good and that they're amazing, even though we know about so many examples of glorified families who have enacted trauma or have murdered their adopted children, but they were lauded at the time.

And so we know those things. So that's just my short piece on that. And now I'm going to switch [00:44:00] gears super awkwardly to think about what I'm doing with this book and why I'm looking at these pop culture artifacts. And you know, if you go to my public Instagram @AdopteeKilljoy at one point this summer, I had hopes and dreams. Don't we all that I was going to be able to look at the second season of and just like that and really dig deeper into thinking about Lily. However, as I also posted on my Instagram later this fall because I have the move to Korea and, you know, literally moving my life here and other things. And, you know, I haven't had the chance to yet.

It's something that I really want to do, especially in light of some of the other conversations that I've had and the work that I did with both with not both because there's more than two of us with Sun Yung Shin, Grace Newton and Grace Gerloff around our discussion guide for Joyride. Which came out this past year and features an adoptee storyline and thinking about fantasies of Asian American adoption [00:45:00] and what does that mean when adoptees are not at the table or when our stories are used as vehicles for larger narratives. Without really thinking about some of the deeper ramifications and impact.

Haley Radke: I think you even mention in one of the chapters on the documentary you asked the question who is behind the camera? Are we thinking about that?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yeah it's important because who's telling those stories matters. And so other things that aren't necessarily in this book, but I'm working on. So I have a piece in a book edited by Jennifer Ho that should be out hopefully next year. It's a collection on global anti Asian racisms. And I discuss how adoptees of color Asian adoptees have known anti Asian racism very intimately.

Because of the adoptive family and what that means. And so the majority of us were adopted by white families. And in that piece, I actually discuss what does it mean when you also look at documentaries [00:46:00] featuring young people and youth. And so I do reflect on my own personal essay in Yell-OH Girls that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.

I also kind of expand because if you read Adoption Fantasies, you'll be like, but Kim, didn't you say that you didn't look at youth because you are reticent? And I'm like, yes, I am reticent. And it took some time as I was digging through and thinking about looking at youth and documentaries about what I was doing and why, which is why I turned my own critical gaze on myself and what I wrote and it mean when you take a snapshot of a young person's life and then you just leave it?

And I think that's something we need to be thinking about, especially given the ways that adoptive parents have monetized their children, or any parent, right? Thinking about sort of momfluencers and like dads on TikTok, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So there's that piece.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Or brave love using the young birth mom who is not processed her grief yet as poster child for [00:47:00] giving away your baby.

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yeah. We need to have that conversation and really think critically. The other thing that I've been spending a lot of time thinking of, too, when it comes to popular culture, I know a lot of folks have been very reticent about talking about the show This Is Us and thinking about Randall Pearson and so many adoptees never watch the show. The series that has since gone off the air, but I submitted an essay to for an edited collection, thinking about racialized childhoods and spent time with the season that This is Us and now I'm forgetting the season because my, you know. I'm a human. But it was the season that the show dealt with COVID and Black Lives Matter and kind of the post George Floyd uprisings in the U. S. And thinking about Randall's character and character development, and I watched, I can and I re watched the, that particular season to discuss that, because I think we need to be able to have a [00:48:00] language to start pushing back against some of these, understandings of adoption. Think about what happened in the news, at least in the U. S., around Michael Oher and the conservatorship with the Tuohy's. You know, I reference, I think it might be in a footnote in adoption, or an end note rather, in Adoption Fantasies that The Blind Side is like the most watched Netflix movie. And I remember hearing it. I was like finishing up doing either like copy edits or page proofs on the manuscript.

And I heard that and I was like, holy moly, that says a lot. About how adoption is understood. So if that's all you know about adoption is The Blind Side you're gonna come in with particular kinds of investments, right? So if all you know about adoption is because you watched Sex and the City in college, and that's why you wanted to adopt, I mean, that, again, tells you a lot.

And I think so often people for people think, oh, pop culture. No, pop culture has a huge impact on society [00:49:00] and it does make meaning. It's how parents of other kids. Also, are understanding adoption. So if you're an adoptive parent and you have an adopted child, you know, other families, you may not watch those shows, but other families might.

And so other families might engage in like weird interactions with your kid as a result. And what does that mean to when you have adoptees who continually speak out and push back in. In memoir in essays in fiction, you know, we should be listening. I mean, I know I've been listening. I know you've been listening and many of your listeners have been, but I think we continue to move the needle in terms of how those voices and the reckoning that we're going to be having if.

And I think we're having that reckoning. I think you could see that when The Lost Daughters. So here I'm thinking of like the writing collective spearheaded by Amanda Transue-Woolston. And then Rosita González also helped sort of push this term forward too, is to flip the script. And so that was a decade [00:50:00] ago.

And so what happens when you have that moment and thinking about how that hashtag really changed conversations and considering what we're doing now. And again, it. It is that genealogy. It is recognizing that we are continually moving that needle. And while it may not be fast enough for everybody, we're having conversations about abolition and adoption abolition.

You're seeing how that is in conversation with around the family policing system and the Up End movement in the US to talk about foster care and the violence associated with that. We're seeing conversations and people being able to kind of think broadly and coalition build about the experiences of like donor conceived children and having that conversation around adoption and what that means moving forward too.

And so for me, it's about where are we going next? And what, how can we create the change that we want to see?

Haley Radke: Your friend has a new book coming out [00:51:00] in January that you wanted to tell us about. Speaking of new things changing.

I am really excited about Sara Docan-Morgan's book, In Reunion, that comes out in January from Temple University Press and by, I'm sorry, by January, I mean January 2024, in case you're listening to this episode in 2024 or beyond.

What Sara is doing is weaving accounts from Korean transnational adoptees adopted abroad to not only the U. S. but elsewhere to really think about. Not only that first point of contact and reunion, but what does that look like in the intervening years? And then when she reconnects with the participants, her research participants, she also interweaves her own experiences.

She, like I said earlier, gives voice and is able to name the labor associated with managing not only your affect, but also the experiences [00:52:00] of others. And so here I'm not just thinking about adoptive parents and adoptive families, but also thinking about what that looks like in terms of labor with your birth families.

And she does it with such tenderness and care. I love her book, and I can't say more about it. I think everybody needs to read it, not just if you're Korean adopted, not just if you're in reunion. It's an important book because it helps, like I was saying earlier, change the conversation and narratives we have about reunion, because it's not an end point, and we know that.

We know it's not. We've seen how it's not an end point in documentaries, and yet it always still is seen as the end point. And this isn't to say that everybody is going to want to search or that everybody has success in reunion. Rather, she's giving us the tools, though, to have much needed dialogue and much needed conversation about such an important topic. And so I can't say enough or gush enough about Sara and her work.

Haley Radke

I'm really looking forward [00:53:00] to reading it. I've already been messaging her and hopefully she'll be on to talk about it a little bit with us. Okay, thank you so much, Kim. What a delight to talk to you and hear your wisdom and your shoutouts to all your people you've learned from and we've also learned from.

Where can we find Adoption Fantasies and connect with you online?

Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Adoption Fantasies is published by The Ohio State University Press, so you can go directly to their press website. You can also purchase the book online. Or in a probably online wherever books are sold. I would like to think that I would be carried at some big box retailer, but I'm not. So why pretend you can also connect with me on my website, mckeekimberly.com or you can find me over on Instagram @ adopteekilljoy. I will freely admit I am not very strong at managing my DMs on Instagram. So [00:54:00] sometimes if you message me, I will message you back. It just may not. Be very quick.

And I'm always very apologetic. And trust me, it's me. It really is me. It's and as you can see, if you're if you go over to my Instagram account, I don't tend to post a lot. And I think it's because people forget, you know, that's not my full time job I'm not a I don't, I manage my own social media, so I'm a person, like everybody else, so I hope people give me some grace if you try to find me online.

Haley Radke: That might be one of the things I relate to most about you. Relatable, DMs gone unanswered for a long time. Yes, me too. Yes, we're human on the other end. Thank you so much, Kim. Thank you.

This has been so much fun talking with you.

I'm so thankful for Kim and the other critical adoption scholars who share their wisdom and knowledge with [00:55:00] us. On the show, it just means so much to me that we are getting a high quality education here on the podcast from these really tremendous folks who have put so much effort in researching Adoption from the adoptee perspective.

So one amazing way to support these folks is to make sure we are ordering their books and writing reviews for them. Wherever we order our books from or on Goodreads, it is a big help and a lot of them love hearing from you and knowing what impact their work has had on you. So make sure you are kind and generous when you are supporting these fellow adoptees. Who are spending a lot more time researching adoption stuff than a lot of us would like to spend on it. And I'm grateful for their efforts for us. I want to thank all of the [00:56:00] people who are supporting Adoptees On, whether it is a one time donation or you are a Patreon supporter, you make this show possible. Thank you so much. If you want to join them, go to adopteeson.com/community to find out more details. And we have book clubs going on. And we have. Adoptee's Off Script Party is going on where you can make a new adoptee friend. We have our monthly Ask an Adoptee Therapist events and I just, there's so many good things going on over there.

I hope that you'll join us. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

267 Jessica Hairston

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/267

---

267_Jessica Hairston

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. I am so excited to introduce you to our guest, Jessica Hairston, author of Power of Our Wombs. Today, Jessica shares her complex origin story where both of her biological parents were struggling with addiction when she was born.

Jessica was apprehended and adopted soon after. We talk about the traveling trauma, that's a quote from one of Jessica's poems, that has impacted her family system, and the power of the word womb, which features prominently in her poetry collection. Before we get started, I wanted [00:01:00] to personally invite you to join our Patreon Adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources 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 Jessica Hairston. Welcome Jessica.

Jessica Hairston: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really grateful to be here. Really looking forward to this.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm so glad. Me too. I would love it if you would start and share some of your story with us.

Jessica Hairston: So I'm from Oakland, California. I was born June 19th in Oakland, 1998. And I, guess I'll say that I was born to drug addicted parents. And I mean, I can get into [00:02:00] where the story fits in the larger scheme of Oakland, but I was born to drug addicted parents. My mother had another child 12 years before me. My father had two kids before I was born as well.

So there was already a kind of a standing history of family struggle and family separation. It's kind of unclear. Some reports say they were married and others say they were not married. And then I have two younger siblings who share the same parents as well, mother and father. I was as commonly done with kids who are born to drug addicted parents.

And also found cocaine in my system as well. I was put in foster care pretty soon after. What I learned from going through my adoption records was I was able to do so a little later in life around college, my college years, my early college years. My mom was able to breastfeed [00:03:00] me for a few days while CPS and the courts were doing an investigation which revealed her first child from 12 years prior.

And the child abuse or housing was denoted as child abuse allegations with that child. So her drug addiction was definitely something that was really apparent and integral in her life. And my older sister was taken out of her custody around two years old and placed in foster care. And so the courts used that as evidence of being an unfit parent a second time around and promptly terminated her parental rights.

But what I did find interesting was that both of them put in for an appeal against the parental rights cutoff. And my birth father actually kind of labored, so to speak, for that reversal for almost four months. But ultimately the judge ruled no in his against his wishes due to the fact that he also was HIV [00:04:00] positive and had progressed into AIDS.

So at that time being off and on homeless and whatnot. They determined that he wouldn't be a good parent in the long run. So yeah, I was born in 1998 and my birth father passed away in 2008 when I was 10. Yeah, he was definitely terminal. And then my birth mother passed in 2016 when I was about 17.

Haley Radke: Really sorry for your losses.

When you were taken into care, did you maintain a connection with either of them?

Jessica Hairston: No, ultimately, no. My mom told me somewhere around high school that they, I don't know if this was something afforded to them because they were doing the appeal. And honestly, I'm not sure that lines up because I do think that this happened a little bit later when I was around because it took it took my mom or everything took about three years to be finalized or when I was about [00:05:00] three.

So I guess you could say that I was in foster care until I was about 10 months. And then at about 10 months, I started going home with my mom occasionally, and then I would go back to the foster home for a little while and go back and get used to her. And then about at a year is when I was full time placed with her.

And then around three is when the adoption was finalized. So I believe somewhere at the age of two is when I think she was, my mom would go down to the Alameda County building and do possible supervised visits. Story that I was given that she didn't show up for them. .

Haley Radke: So once you were adopted, you didn't have a connection with them?

Jessica Hairston: That is correct. I had a closed adoption.

Haley Radke: Yeah. And what about your siblings? So you had older siblings and then you had younger siblings. You were kind of in the middle of six, is that right?

Jessica Hairston: Yeah, there's six of us total. I have five siblings.

Haley Radke: What was it like for you [00:06:00] building relationships with them as young adults, essentially strangers to each other?

Jessica Hairston: I think partly there was this feeling of wow, how could we mostly all still be located in the Bay Area? I mean, it's definitely one of those adopting narratives where you're like, it could be you, it could be you, it could be you, it could be you, it could be you, it could be you. You kind of think any person that I'm passing, any person I'm sitting in this class with.

I did kind of have a lot of connection with community members, whether it was dance or like some little volunteer work that I would do with people who are, long standing folks in Black Oakland, and so I would kind of just throw my last name out there from time to time, which I did have and I could say more about that later, but got nothing back, actually.

Nobody's heard the last name. Nobody living that would know knew about that last name, so that was a little bit frustrating, but nonetheless, meeting them, it's been one of the most incredibly beautiful experiences, [00:07:00] wouldn't change it for the world. I was definitely that kid that wanted to meet them, prayed for that experience.

And I, to this day, I'm mostly close with my older sister on my father's side. She lived in Las Vegas now with her 10-year-old son, and my dad. So that's a really wonderful relationship. It's been difficult because essentially we met, I started to meet all of my siblings in 2018 2019.

So we got about two visits in before the shelter in place. And at the time the shelter in place, my sister lived in Roseville, which is like two and a half hours from the Central Bay Area. So we really couldn't even sneak and see each other, that's a really far drive. And so it was almost like five years before I really got the opportunity to really spend a good amount of time with them.

My relationship with my sister on my birth mother's side, it's also really [00:08:00] wonderful. It's been getting better. One of her favorite activities is to hike, so we go and we bond by hiking and talking. I also enjoy being able to meet her friends because being in foster care, she doesn't have any main parental figures in her life.

So meeting her friends and whatnot, or her foster siblings, those that is her community, and of course her kids as well. But at the same time, when we first met, it was a little bit more tricky because she wasn't ready to introduce me to anyone in her life yet. And she wasn't ready to have a full on relationship per se.

So I kind of had to just be patient and kind of just sit back and let her trust me and come to terms with that. She met our birth mother at 18 19. She invited her to her son's first birthday. And her mother kind of did not come inside and had an emotional breakdown and just kind of left the party and so that kind of stained her one and only chance or her one and only [00:09:00] desire to reconnect with her birth mother.

My sister is also biracial, so I was afraid possibly that meeting me would be triggering as I have the skin tone that my mother has and whatever features I have that are similar to her might be very feel like she's kind of talking to her. She took her time and I had to be patient and then a year or two ago, she invited me out to her son's graduation from high school, friends were there, and I'm always a little bit awkward around new people, but I think one of the things that kind of stood out to me was seeing a lot of the people in that space are fossies themselves, and so there's this sort of connection that I can kind of see, even if it's not spoken per se all the time, that's we've survived a certain kind of lifestyle together, a certain kind of struggle together and they support each other, but she has so much community within those people. They have their kids, they have, [00:10:00] there's just so many people at that party. And I guess I don't know why I thought there would be anyone there, but I, some folks who come, age out of foster care don't have really anybody in their corner.

And so I didn't exactly know where I would stand. I know that sounds crazy and a little bit selfish, but I didn't know. If my presence was needed, I mean, it seemed like all her friends were like her sister and I was like, oh I'm like our sister, but I don't have any of this history with her like personally and then on top of that, she didn't invite me.

She didn't introduce me to her children, her, like her son, who was the main focus of the party she not introduced me. Towards the end, when he finally came out and started saying hello to people, I, when it was my turn, I said, hello and congratulations. I even kind of gave him a gift who are you?

I have no idea who you are. And I was like, oh, I'm, I'm your mother and your sister by birth. And he was like, oh, and some of the other folks at the party some of the men at the [00:11:00] party or whatever, boyfriends or foster people from male foster folks also did not know who I was and were very interested to know who I was and who is this 12 year younger person in the mix.

And so that was a little bit overwhelming for me because it kind of retriggered this original fear when we first met that she didn't really want to integrate me into her life. And I don't think it was to be malicious, which is a very tender topic for her in general. But after 3 or 4 years, I was like this is, it would be good for me as well if we could at least talk about, I don't know, it's a tricky one, it's a tricky one.

Haley Radke: Speaking of tricky, having a birth mother who had trauma in her life and I mean, something causes someone to seek out escape and I'm curious if there are things that you found out about her or [00:12:00] your biological father. Characters, traits, things from their younger years when they weren't struggling as much from your siblings, or have the things that impacted their lives been a barrier for you to even think about asking those questions?

Jessica Hairston: Yes and no to what I've been able to find out, I know some things about my mother's side and my father's side of the family in general, what they come from generationally. It's, I know even by their teen years, they were already overcoming a lot of just poverty in general. I think my father kind of bounced around family member a lot.

And then there was undetermined accusations of our grandfather on my mother's side, touching his children sexually, and that possibly being a motivator for drug use to start. As far as character traits [00:13:00] go, there are definitely two people, or, my birth family is, they're not the most talkative as to, on one hand, a lot of people don't remember a lot from that time, almost 25 years ago or more.

And then of folks who are still alive, it's even harder because a lot of people are not still alive. My father has, I'm not even sure how many siblings he has, but it's many siblings. And a good chunk of them have passed away. And the same with my mother's side of the family. It's hard to find people who can give me information in the first place.

I asked a little bit of my younger sister. Who was raised by our cousin, adopted by our cousin, as when she was adopted, our birth mother did try to sort of come around when she was about, so I guess they had tried to do supervised visits when they were, she was a bit younger, 1, 2, 3 years of age didn't work out, same thing that had happened with me, [00:14:00] and then around 4 or 5, she started popping back up again, trying to have a relationship with my younger sister, but was kind of insistent on, if I'm going to be in my younger sister's life, she needs to call me mom.

She needs to be the sort of intimacy that kind of ignores the original trauma and... The separation that's been some years now and the fact that, her, our cousin is now her legal mom and it has to be feel tricky, my mother would have been 45, 50 at this point with someone who is 25 raising her daughter, but not being able to sort of exercise any real control of the situation.

And she was, they kind of just described her as being very, just emotionally aggressive demanding, and when she doesn't get her way, she kind of disappears, and that kind of thing, but that could very well just be someone who has been addicted to hardcore drugs for a very long time, and their personality and their thinking patterns have [00:15:00] been severely changed by that because, my, one of my other mother's sisters, We occasionally speak on Facebook, and I immediately noticed she told me she had done cocaine for 15 years.

But, one of the first things I noticed was kind of the inability to sort of make complete sentences or have sort of complete thought processes and really explain herself when she speaks. A lot of times I do not understand what she's saying. The thoughts don't follow a consistent, linear kind of understanding.

And so I think whoever they are, it's been a very long time since they've been who they were in the beginning, and I don't think anyone has the capacity to kind of decipher it, which is frustrating for me because I want to know, and these are the kind of things that I find important in general as someone I find, I love sociology, I love history, and of course, studying the Black experience and supporting people is very important to me, so There is sort of that saviorism within me to kind of support my birth family after all this time, but that's [00:16:00] very difficult to do.

I think I'm a lot like my father. I definitely look like him. Definitely his doppelganger of my, all my siblings, I look the most like him. Oftentimes my siblings mothers, who also had a relationship with him, will kind of, I'll catch them staring at me. They'll kind of be like, oh my god, here he is in the present tense after all these years.

But other than that, I don't know much about the personalities, very little about our health history as well.

Haley Radke: So I'm going to make an assumption that from the fact about your origin story, it possibly was untenable for your mother to care for you. And and we can talk a lot about all the upstream things that need to change so that we don't keep removing disproportionately more black and brown children from their parents, and you had a [00:17:00] really difficult situation. So placed in foster care and adopted, your adoptive mother was black. And... So you were raised an only child, at least minimum, same race adoption.

That's what I experienced as well. Do you have thoughts on that? Do you feel like you got to have a different experience than some of the, we talked to a lot of transracial adoptees and that extra layer of not understanding racism by their white parents is so difficult to overcome.

Jessica Hairston: That's one of the things I definitely wanted to speak on today, I, especially as I've been listening to more adoptee podcasts and just really diving into the world of adoption literature, I think that yes and no. But when I say yes, as a different experience from what transracial adoptees experience, [00:18:00] I don't have a lot of clarity of folks who've come from same race adoption, like myself, who're also Black, because it seems to be very uncommon from what I've experienced.

Not that it doesn't exist across all 50 states and the world and whatever, but I have actually met quite a few adoptees over my lifetime. We haven't all been able to maintain relationships over the years, which I think is interesting. But most of them have all been adopted by white folks, but living in urban environments, not in the suburbs or in sort of more, in less metropolitan areas.

But my experience, my mother is something I'm still trying to figure out myself, but she's very conservative, not like homophobic, not Christian homophobic. An evangelical, super conservative in that way. She definitely knows that [00:19:00] racism is a thing. She grew up during the Martin Luther King era. Her oldest brother was born in 1947.

But it was not exactly what you would think or expect. My mother is, her family is from Illinois. Her mother's side of the family is from Illinois, and that is where she was raised. And they were raised in the suburbs of Illinois. Definitely comes from poverty trauma. But as far as growing up, like I said, in an urban environment that has high policing, particularly after, the 80s and 90s and the war on drugs there's a lack of experience during the formative years like that and during years where you would have needed parenting or some sort of mentorship in an environment like that.

So what I experienced growing up was more like, as I got older, I started dealing with suspensions and expulsions. Between both public and private school, when I started to experience micro, macro aggressions, like being followed around the store being accused of stealing, [00:20:00] those were times where I did not experience a parent who was able to support me with coping mechanisms or understanding the level of racism that I was facing, and oftentimes was dismissed and gaslighted about the situation.

There's many experiences, like even when we would go out to eat at a restaurant and I'd say we're not being served or we're not being served properly because this is this would be racism. I have definitely detected some prejudice racism something's going on here And I think also it's a cultural thing the sense of she was kind of raised during a time where even if the older folks kind of understood the nuance, I think as a child she observed was just don't make a scene don't speak about it.

Just ignore it. Just sort of let it happen. Take the high road something like that. I don't want to say turn the other cheek. It's a, that's very, I won't say that, but it was definitely, that's what comes out. And I think she's someone who also struggles with conflict resolution in general. And so I think that is [00:21:00] not something that you can be.

That can that's not conducive to an urban environment. Obviously, you can't always control your surrounding. You can't control the way you respond or how you support your loved ones through those experiences. And yeah, I also lived in neighborhoods that had high crime, essentially, a lot of killings from within the neighborhood, gang, street, drugs, that kind of stuff, or police killings.

So there was also a lack of support with that as well, coming from, I presume, not growing up in an environment. She grew up somewhere where they were able to leave the doors unlocked. We were not able to do that. We had to live in places that had gates in the front to catch bullets, essentially, or blackout curtains and that kind of stuff. It was not, I was not able to go down the block very far. I'm barely allowed to step outside for during certain periods of the day. And just kind of experience all around gaslighting and just, like even today I'll ask my mom I'll [00:22:00] bring up something about when we lived in East Oakland.

She'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't experience any of that. What are you talking about? She's completely unable to go back and be clear about that. And when I would go, when I was in public school, especially during certain time periods, I think it was popular for kids of a certain, and this is not to shame them, like you go through what you go through.

This is the world you come from. This is what it looks like a privilege if other folks are not going through that or not having to come up with coping skills for that. So I'm not trying to shame folks who I felt bullied me, but I feel like there was a lack of compassion or anybody who was able to sort of pull me in and support me with what I was experiencing as well.

And so a lot of times people say they see my name, they see Jessica, they see my mom, they think we kind of live in some big house on the hill somewhere. That I had everything set out for me. They fear that I'm adopted and I'm not in foster care. So my life must be great and there's not a lot of investigation into what else is going on in my life.

So I carried a lot of stuff alone. [00:23:00] And I found myself learning how to take care of myself from listening to other people's conversations, but not being a part of the conversation, not being asked to be a part of the conversation.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of us have assumptions about what it's like to be adopted out of foster care, right?

You have this extra label put on you. And the trauma is there. The trauma is still real. It's layered. It's so complex, our relationships with the people that... or caring for us can be really complex and well into adulthood. I want to talk about your book, Power of Our Wombs. You are a poet and you share so many deeply personal stories throughout this.

And I wanna know, okay, first of all, do you have a word count on how many times the word womb [00:24:00] appears in this ?

Jessica Hairston: I do not.

Haley Radke: Okay. That's a challenge to you to go ahead and discover that, to search on your electronic file. I am curious what your relationship to the word womb is now that you have written so much about it, and I mean, obviously, it's related to being an adopted person.

Every human has a relationship to a womb in some form. And your poem stack of papers is really, I don't know, do you want to talk about sort of all that theme? I'll just leave it to you. What direction you want to go on that?

Jessica Hairston: Yeah. I think that part of the desire to, to write this book or to write it the way I've written it and use the word womb was definitely partly to push [00:25:00] myself to overcome my uncomfortability with the female experience, wombs, motherhood, pregnancy, because a part of the way I feel like my adoption trauma manifested or metastasized in a way was to sort of reject anything that reminded me of familyhood.

So as a young girl, I could not and I've heard this from a few other folks who are adopted. It's hard to look at pregnant women. It's hard to look at mother daughter relationships that look healthy. I had a science teacher one day that came in and announced her pregnancy and, or, well, later on she did a baby shower at our school and just out of joy and excitement, she like, turned to me because I was standing most closely to her because I came in late because I was avoiding the baby shower.

And she like put her hand out to have me kind of touch her belly and I was like, snatch it back so quick. I was like, oh no. I'm happy for you, but no, we're not doing that. So I know that sounds weird, but I needed to sort of get comfortable, investigate and sort of take my power back.

And [00:26:00] I think that it's just a fear that my inner child has. And now that I'm older, I have the power to sort of start that journey of positive association and positive recall, positive outlook on it. Not like toxic positivity, but I think that is something that I try to do in the book, which is sort of hold a balance of like the last poem in the book is Think About Mothers which was attempted to be a love letter, which, another thing is like writing about love, writing about joy to be difficult.

Sometimes it's easier to write about the feels More authentic to write about trauma, and it feels somehow inauthentic to talk about joy. And I think it's also kind of like pushing back on that overarching theme of just be happy, just be positive. Just be joyful. And so there's kind of like this uncomfortability I'm dealing with uncomfortability in this book.

And I think even now I, I've kind of self-diagnosed myself with endometriosis. And so now I'm kind of [00:27:00] dealing with the actual physical health of my own womb, whether that be, and even how does endometriosis start is the question, what has caused this rise in endometriosis in women in reading all kinds of articles, everything from early childhood trauma can start this internal scarring in the uterus or it could be something that is common in my birth family.

I do know that my brothers dealt with cysts, possibly fibroids as well. And then my sister has also dealt with cysts and just had to have a hysterectomy herself. So wombs really does cover a lot of stuff for me. And so Power of Our Wombs, the title is sort of speaking to the intensity of life emanating and surrounding the female reproductive familyhood and all of that kind of thing.

It's not so much to be like, we overcome, per se, because a lot of trauma around Wombs is. [00:28:00] Systematic, everything from birth control, everything from Roe v, Wade, and abortion rights, everything to adoption rights, birth motherhood, birth mothers, birth, family support. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Haley Radke: Well, it made me feel. So deeply, I think every time I saw the word, because for many adoptees have expressed something, some form of this to me in either private conversations or on air that you kind of feel like you got dropped by the stork or, you were born when a paper was signed and there's this extreme disconnection from the physical idea that you were in a mother's womb at some point, whether or not she wanted to be a mother to you and, then you also, God, this line, I don't know if I already said it to you or not, but the traveling [00:29:00] trauma.

And I was thinking about how, well, supposedly we're also carried around as eggs, one gen back as well. Yes. Yes. So there's all these themes to think about, and I think your book really masterfully brings us through some of those things that maybe we just don't want to think about. Yeah.

Jessica Hairston: I was going to say was yes, that, that life begins when the paper is signed. That's actually something I was thinking about this morning. I think one of the things that people don't fully understand, and I think I heard it on your podcast or a similar podcast was about adoptees, kind of, if this is your experience of not having birth or having pictures of yourself before a certain age.

So for me, it would be 10 months and, people who are not adopted said, well, that's not super weird, whatever. And [00:30:00] I'm like, well. I think when you parallel it with that, like you said, life doesn't really start until you are adopted. It kind of feels in an unspoken way, either things were quite literally survival mode both for me and for the foster family, so to speak.

There's no time to document my growth or my coming through a difficult origin story or, bringing into this world. And or my life doesn't I, I don't really it's not really valid. It doesn't quite exist. It doesn't quite meet the standards of existing until you're adopted. I don't really know how else to put it, but I often contend feeling frustrated, not so much because I need to see what I look like immediately coming out of the womb, but I, when you're dealing with trauma that started before you were able to speak.

Being able to do recall using your, using visual cues to kind of conjure up [00:31:00] memories that are just in the body. I feel like it's powerful and it should be available to us. And then if nothing comes from it, then nothing comes from it. It's not that important. It's not that important. But again, It's frustrating when everyone decides what's important for an adopted child, other than what, adopted kids would say and need.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. Hard degree with that. Well, I definitely want to recommend that people pick up Power of Our Wombs. I... Was trying to think of how to describe it. I had such a visceral experience while reading. It's very powerful storytelling Jessica and you've got these just deeply honest observations about painful circumstances and I think you're really bringing us on a journey with you.

The other thing that was unexpected to me and really helpful is you included a reading guide and you talk about some of the themes that [00:32:00] you're addressing in your poetry. And I think it will be really helpful for folks to reflect on. So I love that you did that. Yeah, I hope people grab a copy of Power of Our Wombs.

Is there anything you want to tell us about it that you think is important for us to know?

Jessica Hairston: I actually, I love that you mentioned the reading guide. It was a requirement, really, from the publisher, but I decided to sit down and kind of do it the way that I've done it, by breaking it up into these particular categories that I broke it up into family origins.

I tried to use language that had been used in the book. So what has been lost, which is kind of reminiscent of the first poem in the book. But I also, I wanted it to be, because I know that my writing style can be a bit visceral, a bit, really stirring of the emotions. And I think that's also partly to sort of push back on my own chronic dissociation.

But [00:33:00] I also include somewhere at the, after the reading guide, there was like an intuition. prompt. There's even a space to write to the younger self. So I really enjoy that you kind of went cover to cover with the book. Not everyone mentions that part at the end where I try to make it hands on, sort of interactive, so to speak, of getting both me and you to, not only me to look at myself, or you to look at me or think about the world outside of yourself, but also for you to look at you too.

Haley Radke: I think that's a part of it is definitely opening the door for us to do that. So thank you. I was just, I was flipping through the poems I've marked up and I, One Last Catwalk is just wow.

Okay.

What do you want to recommend to us? Cause I know people are going to go buy your book and so that's great.

They'll read along and enjoy. But what do you want to recommend to us?

Jessica Hairston: [00:34:00] I found through I'm not sure you may know or have seen, be familiar with the account on Instagram, Susan Ito, as a professor for news.

Haley Radke: She's been on the show. Oh, yes. Love Susan.

Jessica Hairston: Hey, oh my gosh, I missed that. Wow. So that's not my recommendation, but from her, I realized that I actually needed to branch out and connect with folks. And that's kind of what got me starting to follow these accounts. And I found BIPOC Adoptees from several accounts. Susan, from you, a few people, so I knew to go follow it. And took me to YouTube where I just got to really sit down and watch adoptees speak with Patrick on their stories.

And I think one thing that I really love about it is, and not too different from a podcast, is being able to listen to people speak about their experiences from adulthood. The last time I really had an integrative conversation with [00:35:00] someone else who was adopted was probably in high school. And we feel and that's a great time to be talking about.

I mean, there's no bad time to speak about adoption, right? But I think that we have our perspective is going to grow as we grow especially as we get to an age we may be starting families ourselves. So I really enjoyed those conversations those revelations made I think it's a great opportunity to see especially adopted folks of different BIPOC backgrounds speak about their experiences.

You get to see their faces as well. But I know you said only to say one thing, but I just in general have realized that there is a lack of adoption work and resources in my life, which sounds crazy after I've written a book and known about being adopted and even had friends about it. But there is a lack of really understanding the history behind adoption, how it's looked at different decades, how it looks internationally, and all of these things, so kind of really getting to sit down and look at the [00:36:00] field of study of it has been really enlightening, and anything that I was ever not sure was a real feeling that I've had has already been validated ten times over, which is sad in a way, because I think, someone had said, people try to say when an adopted person speaks up that it is, oh, your is an outlier. It's not. It's actually quite the norm, whether you're suburban, transracial or not, the identity issues, the abandonment trauma, the sort of be grateful and just all these narratives they're actually quite common. Unfair.

Haley Radke: Yeah. I mean, when people hear our stories and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only one . It's no, you're not and welcome in. I hope you get connected. Welcome. Yes. Thank you for sharing that with us. I, when we're recording this. So they have a fundraiser going to help produce some of their content.

And so if that [00:37:00] is interesting to you, if that sounds like a project you want to support, we'll link to that in the show notes. So you can go check that out and support more adoptee voices in the world. It's important to me too. I think that would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Jessica, for sharing your story with us and for there's some really good nuggets here and there through our conversation of things I'm going to be thinking about for a while. So I really appreciate that. Where can folks get Power of Our Wombs and connect with you online?

Jessica Hairston: My website is new and it's up jhairstonwrites.com. And there you will, the first page will have a link to my book to buy, should be taking you both to the distribution website and possibly Amazon as well. There's also unpublished new poetry on the website. And you can also contact me through the website. Send me a message, send me an email. And my socials are on the website for [00:38:00] Instagram, kemaniii.j, my birth name. And, yes, you can find me most regularly on Instagram, at kamaniii.j with three i's. And, yeah, I'd love to hear from you all. The link to buy my book is also on my Instagram, plenty of places to find it, you can Google it, it should pop up.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you.

Jessica Hairston: Thank you so much for having me, this is a wonderful question session, fantastic.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

I want to remind myself how much of an honor it is for us to hear our fellow adoptees Stories and share them here. Sometimes because this is my job, I think I'm like, Oh yeah, I get to hear another story today or I'm recording and [00:39:00] I don't necessarily remember the gravity of it. And so I was just thinking about that after my conversation with Jessica and how many more young adoptees are becoming adults and thinking about adoption critically so much sooner than many of us.

And also sharing their stories a lot sooner than a lot of us ever did because we hadn't processed it yet and our stories shift and change over time, how we share them, what we're comfortable with, all of those things. And anyway, I really hope you pick up Jessica's book because her poetry is really evocative, and it made me feel some kind of way.

So if you're looking for something that will really make [00:40:00] you feel big visceral feelings. This is the perfect one to grab and support a new author. I want to thank all of my Patreon supporters. You guys make this show possible. I couldn't do it without you. And if you join Patreon, you get all kinds of extra bonuses.

I have. Adoptees Off Script Podcast, which is every week. We have our monthly Ask an Adoptee Therapist events. We have the Adoptees Only Book Club and some other community gatherings. We would just love to have you join us and you help keep the show going. So please join us at adopteeson.com/community and thank you for listening to Adoptee Voices. Let's talk again next Friday.

266 Susan Kiyo Ito

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/266

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is the indomitable Susan Kiyo Ito. She has been writing, advocating, and leading in the adoptee community for decades, and we are all the richer for it. Susan's brand new memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, has just been released, and it is fantastic.

We talk about how Susan first discovered an adoptee memoir at her local library at age 13, and how that changed the trajectory of her life. We've got adoptee activism history, relatable reunion problems, and the power of sharing our adoptee experiences in community all throughout this [00:01:00] conversation.

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

Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you so much, Haley. I am thrilled to be here.

Haley Radke: I respect you so much. You've been in the community for sorry, no, no age shaming here. We are thankful for our elders for years and years. And so I know lots of people know you, but would you start and share a little bit of your story with us, please?

Susan Kiyo Ito: Sure. And I, I love being an elder. I feel really good about it. So no shame. [00:02:00] So my story is that I am a biracial Japanese American adoptee. I was adopted by Japanese American parents at the age of around four months. I was born in New York state, and I was raised mostly in New Jersey. I searched for my birth mother when I was a college student and took me about a little bit less than a year to find her.

And since then, when it's a long time ago since then we've had a kind of up and down reunion and that kind of forms the basics of my book, of my memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere. That was a very brief story. I don't know how much, that was like the nutshell version. I don't know how much more detail you want me to go into, but if you would like me to expand on any part of [00:03:00] it, I'm more than happy to.

Haley Radke: I'm sure we'll get into all kinds of parts of it. Well, I know that you are a writer decades long. You're a professor, you teach people how to write, and you're a voracious reader. And I remember talking to you about something that you share in the book, reading The Search for Anna Fisher. And I'll admit, when I was reading your book, I was like was she old enough to read this book?

I was like, kind of fact checking you as I read, because I was like, how old would you have been to read something so formational? So, can you tell us a little bit about that book? How old were you when you found it? Because I know you weren't making stuff up.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Yes. Do you know that book, Haley?

Haley Radke: I haven't read it.

No. But believe me, I've been looking for a used copy because I want to read it.

Susan Kiyo Ito: It is an incredible collector's item. I think I found one on eBay or somewhere. So I actually do have a copy. It's incredible. [00:04:00] So The Search for Anna Fisher was published in 1972, I believe, 72 or 73, which would have made me 12 or 13 years old.

And I was obsessed with our town library. I lived in a little town in New Jersey. We had a very tiny municipal library and I remember going to the library and looking in the little card catalog and looking up adoption. What is it about adoption? What, what have people written about it?

And this was about the time when I had moved into the adult section of the library and I wasn't in the picture book section anymore. And I saw this book called The Search for Anna Fisher by Florence Fisher. So I went and looked it up, took it out and it blew my mind. I think it's one of the very first adoptee memoirs that was ever published.

And the thing that's amazing is, this was the early seventies is how [00:05:00] radical she was. She was all about, I need to know who I am. I need to know where I come from. I have the right to know. And it was kind of when I look back on it, reading it recently shocked at how so many things have not changed since the 1970s.

And, people were really, she was really wanting her original birth certificate and she went to her agency and asked for her records and she got the runaround just as I did, and a lot of things had not changed, but she was really determined to find her roots, and it really radicalized me.

I mean, a lot of people talk about quote unquote, coming out of the fog when they're in their adult years, in their thirties or forties or later, and I came out of the fog when I was 12 because and Florence Fisher pulled me out of that fog. It was like, yeah, it was like a bolt of lightning inside me.

[00:06:00] And at the end of the book it said, if you are an adoptee and you're interested in finding more about your roots, we have formed an organization called ALMA, the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association. I mean, super radical. And they had a P. O. box in New York. So I wrote to them immediately at the age of 12.

And they wrote back and said, sorry, you're too young. We'd love to help you but please contact us again when you're 18. And I did that. Literally, I turned 18. I'm like, oh, I'm old enough for ALMA now. And they wrote back to me and said, welcome. We'd love to meet you. And we're having a meeting in New York City. We have we meet every month. And I started going to meetings at the age of 18. And it was life changing. I mean, it changed everything for me.

Haley Radke: I mean, I alluded to this in our little intro there, but you literally have been going to these things since you were [00:07:00] 18-years-old. So you've seen all the things you've seen all the cycles, the new people coming new ideas that are the same old ideas.

All of that. But what I want to ask you is how does it feel now to think there's going to be an adoptee somewhere who picks up your memoir and that is going to be the first connection that they've had to feeling not alone and like they're not crazy and you're going to impact their adoptee consciousness.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Okay, you just about made me cry here. I had not thought about that specifically like that. And the thought of that is just kind of mind blowing. It feels very full circly to think about that. I will. share something happened recently, where, as a biracial Japanese American [00:08:00] adoptee adopted by Japanese parents, I have often felt as we said, the unicorn among unicorns.

And I have been taken in many ways, by other Asian American adoptees, Korean adoptees have been extremely welcoming and kind to me. Although our experiences are very different. I'm not an intercountry adoptee, but you know, they kind of feel this, I feel this kinship with them because they've been just really wonderful to me.

So if there's an Asian adoptee gathering, they'll include me sometimes. And it's, a Korean adoptee had written something on Facebook about a gathering that they had, and somebody had written a comment that said, it was really nice being with all of you, but as a half Japanese adoptee adopted by Japanese parents, I always feel so different, and I feel like I don't really fit in.

And the original poster was like, oh my goodness. Have you read Susan Ito? You've got to read Susan Ito's book. She's also half Japanese, [00:09:00] adopted by Japanese parents and it blew this person's mind. It blew my mind and we immediately connected and we've been you know, in communication, and that was like a little hint of that, it's like somebody who I have felt I have met maybe less than a handful of people like me adoptees like me in this exact same situation, and to find someone out there who was also feeling very isolated, very unique and alone, very unicorn ish.

It was it's it's It like made everything worth it or just so exciting to have that moment.

Haley Radke: I love it. It's like goosebumps, right? You're like, Oh my gosh, my people, like you really get it.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't had a chance to have a conversation with them, but I'm very eager to learn how our stories are similar and also different.

Because all of our stories are so unique, even if they have a lot of similarities. [00:10:00]

Haley Radke: So I think the last time we talked we were preparing for this class that you were teaching and got to lead around adoption narratives. And just like really tremendous opportunity for people to get invested and learn from you and so many voices.

And I'm curious now, over these decades of work and teaching a class like that, and of course you infuse a lot of adoption themes, I'm sure, into some of your writing classes. What are some things that have been impactful as you share about the truth of adoption with people who are not adopted and who may not have a connection to adoption.

Susan Kiyo Ito: That's an interesting question. I mean, I think just on the very basics of things like so many people who are not adopted [00:11:00] do not understand about closed records. And our inability to access our original birth certificates, people have no idea. And to me, that's one of the very first things I learned.

I learned that when I was 12. I learned that from Florence Fisher. And I think it's something that so many people take for granted. Of course, they have their birth certificate. Of course, they have their, they know their heritage or they can, their ancestry matches up with the people that they grew up with.

I think. And often I'll talk about non adopted privilege, some other people have had other words for it, these things that people really never think about, it's like breathing air, that things that they know, pieces of themselves that they have access to, that we don't have, and It's kind of stunning to understand that.

So I think that's one of the things, just all the ways in which, because I think [00:12:00] we're taught or, media and society tells us that, adoption is such a win thing. It's such a great thing. It's such a, it's such a gift. It's such a, all the things, right. And I think people are shocked that there are other things that there's loss and grief and all kinds of things that they never think about because if you were to look at me and my family, they're like, oh, but your parents are so great and they love you so much and you had such a wonderful family and all that, that a lot of those other things are really under the surface and not visible, and not things that people either know or understand.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I think we're always looking for these ways to tell our friends and family like actually, this has had an impact on me and finding those like safe first kind of topics. [00:13:00] I was Oh yeah, when you were started off with the OBCs, cause I'm like, I find lots of ways to somehow say I have a fake birth certificate.

Isn't that weird? Isn't it weird that adoptive parents can actually just in some states, choose where their adopted kid was born, supposedly Oh, you didn't know that? Oh, yes. I didn't know that. Huh. Yeah. There's a couple's, I don't know which states they are, but they can actually change the location of where you were born.

Wow. Talk about a fake document. It's so maddening, I can only laugh, right? Messy. Messy. So, speaking of adoption is messy. I have heard you express gratitude for your adoptive parents and the connection you were able to keep with your culture. And I heard you talk about going to a very Japanese church [00:14:00] on Sundays.

And maybe to your chagrin at the time, but all of those things that people that are normally interracially adopted, the common thing is for a child of color to go into a white family and be stripped of their connection to their heritage. And in a, I'm going to, I'm going to ascribe a racist action by the adoption agency.

They would not allow your parents to adopt a white baby and made them wait for 10 years for you. So, do you have thoughts on that? Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Susan Kiyo Ito: Oh yeah. It's it is, it's really complicated. And sometimes... I don't know whether to call myself a transracial adoptee because I didn't really exactly match my parents because I am biracial and [00:15:00] half white and sometimes I consider myself same race adoptee.

Or same culture adoptee because my birth mother was Japanese and so are my parents. And so sometimes I'll call myself three quarters or whatever. And, but to have that sense of continuity has meant everything to me. And not feeling many intercountry or transracial adoptees who were raised in a completely different family and community than the one they were born into, and how disconnected and painful that is.

I have witnessed so much of this in many of my friends and... Adoptees that I know that I read. And I don't know if it's a little bit of survivor's guilt of I didn't have to, I didn't have that. And I am grateful for myself that I didn't have that. And it makes me really conscious of the [00:16:00] pain that must be like to not have that.

I recently this summer traveled to Japan. And it was really profound for me. The last time I was there was probably almost 20 years ago. And it just wasn't as conscious in my mind then. But being there and feeling this deep connection, not only to the family that I grew up with, but knowing that it's that I wasn't just borrowing their culture because I grew up with them.

I wasn't just like in it because they were in it, that it actually is also a part of my birth culture as well. And it made me feel doubly, triply connected to it. And yes, this is where I came from on every level, and it was very emotional for me and very meaningful and made me feel even more, just even more connected and [00:17:00] appreciative that I had that.

And knowing that it's kind of a rare thing, even with quote unquote, same race adoptees, like an adoptive family might be Italian, but the birth family is, some other kind of European it there's there's a rupture there. It's like our family didn't go back to this country.

Our family is from another country. And I feel like, I was able to experience that and it, it means a lot to me. Although I, I don't think it was for my benefit that this happened. I think it was just, it was how it turned out and maybe some racism on the agency's part. And I don't know what, but for whatever reason, this was the outcome.

Haley Radke: Well, I, there's, some parts of your story. I'm like, okay. She always knew she was adopted. Good job, mom and dad.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Well, good job, mom and dad. But at the same time, it was like any other transracial adoption. Like they couldn't really [00:18:00] hide it from me. It was kind of obvious that I didn't quite match them.

I matched them sort of.

Haley Radke: I think you say somewhere that you always knew, so they'd obviously told you from a super young age.

Susan Kiyo Ito: They definitely told me. But the thing that I really appreciated about it is that they were super matter of fact about it. They weren't precious about it. They weren't like, you were chosen and you were this and you were that.

I mean, they were just like... Yep, you're half and half. We're not, you're different. It's okay. We adopted you. We couldn't have children and we went to the agency and we waited a long time and then you came. I mean, they were just like, there was no, I don't know, there was no either guilt or preciousness about it.

They're just very straightforward. And so not that it wasn't a big deal, but I felt like there wasn't a lot of baggage attached to it, which I think I've heard a lot from other people that it's wrapped up in a [00:19:00] lot of heavy stuff.

Haley Radke: Yeah, and I've I don't know, I've listened to a few conversations lately or and read a few things where people were kind of sharing it wasn't outright said, but I knew on the tone around it's not safe to talk about.

And, you wrote a letter to tell your parents you were searching and they're like, well, how can we help? Right? And some people, some adopted parents would get that and be like, Oh my God, all my greatest fears are being realized. And I'm so thankful that you had some complicit in your wild west search tactics.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Totally. Well, I love actually talking about this letter cause I was so nervous. I was away at college. So my parents were both born in New York City, and my mother grew up in Brooklyn, and so what I love doing a little imitation of her when she called me up after receiving the letter, and she's what took you so long?

We've been waiting years for this. [00:20:00] She was just so tough, and so New York in her response. And then they were like, so what do you need? Well, how can we help you? What do you need? And I was like, okay, and I actually did have things that I needed from the adoptee support group. They had a search consultant who had a number of steps that they were recommending that people do.

And, I did all those things. And, but it was just, it was kind of comical, their response. Cause I was so afraid, I was so afraid of how they were going to respond and it was laughable. And it was beautiful. It was laughable and beautiful because I think about it now. I get very emotional, but

Haley Radke: Well, I mentioned the wild west search tactics.

I don't want to spoil that. I want people to read it you got some good stories in there

Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah It's the things you have to do when you don't have the internet didn't exist yet. It was all just paper, telephones, [00:21:00] phone calls, lying, stealing. Yeah. Things like that.

Haley Radke: Oh, man. So good. Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, and, how do I put this you published an you edited A Ghost at Heart's Edge, which is an anthology, in 99, a long time ago.

I have poetry that you've written, I've I've seen you do readings the, like you've been writing and writing a long time, all these different pieces and all the way along and I think you mentioned to me at one point, you were like, oh yeah, I've got this memoir. I keep picking them, putting down and I don't know what I'm going to, it's like why now?

Why, when why are you ready now to share this story? Why not sooner? You had most of it written sooner. I feel like, I don't know. [00:22:00] What do you think, Susan?

Susan Kiyo Ito: This is a really hard question, but I think I got to a certain point. So I don't think this is a spoiler that eventually a few years ago, my adoptive mother died and then my first grandchild was born.

And I think those two events really made me feel like an arc had completed itself in some way. And before those two things happened, I really felt like this story could just go on forever. And it did, I mean, I had ended this book about 10 different times, this is the end. No, this is the, okay, like one more year, something else is going to happen.

And then life would go on. The story would change. And often it just felt like I was stopping it in some very random arbitrary place. And when I got to this point a couple years ago, I think I really felt like that's, this is it. I think I've said all there is to say about this. Of course there's always [00:23:00] more, but it felt like a real I wouldn't say literary because that's a little, that's a, it just felt like a real narrative arc had taken place.

And I felt ready to finish.

Haley Radke: Well, this is one of my favorite things about your story, is having the wisdom to go through all those things, have time to look back on them and process, and we're all the richer for the lessons that you've learned over these years.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, looking back on it, it seems like it's the only way it could have happened.

But if you would have told me this 30 years ago, I would have thrown a fit. I would have been like, there's no way I'm finishing this book when I'm in my 60s. That's torture. That's no, I would have, I mean, and I did [00:24:00] have a lot of tantrums when people suggested that the story was not over.

Some people suggested that I did not have enough distance, when they read parts of it along the years. Some people suggested that there was more stories still to come, and I was very resistant to this idea I did not like that idea, and, but that's the way it turned out, and now, of course, in retrospect I'm glad.

Haley Radke: Well, let's talk about this idea that the fact that adoption is a lifelong experience because you give us this window into reunion specifically with your birth mother and the ebbs and flows of that relationship makes it so real and visceral to so many of us, right? You're telling the highs, you're telling the lows yeah.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Well, I think for many stories, the meeting or [00:25:00] the search and the meeting is the end, it's the climax. It's the end of the book and then they lived happily ever after or whatever, or maybe then they, I don't know how they lived, but That's often the point that people are aiming towards will there be a reunion?

Will their searching end up in some way, et cetera, et cetera. And just the fact that is barely the beginning. And the rest of the story is really where the story lies.

Haley Radke: And that's where you start.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Right. And I think it echoes a lot of those I don't even know the names of it. Those like drama TV shows where, it ends with the reunion or with people meeting each other. And then that's the end of it. And then we don't get to see what happens after that, after the cameras go away or whatever, and yeah, and this is where the whole thing has been for me, has been, the, I think when I first started writing [00:26:00] my story, it was much more focused on that part, the before part, because that, that's got its own drama, right?

And that could have been a whole book, but really I'm glad that I waited. And then, I just kept going.

Haley Radke: Okay, so you've been through it, we already talked, there's ups and downs. Do you have advice for fellow adopted people who may have experienced similar things to you? We know lots of adoptees who have had to keep their identity is secret or their relationship with their birth parent is secret because the birth parent has not been open with the people around them and managing that as a person who would like to be announced as.

That can be like soul tearing in some way.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Yeah, that's a really it's a really apt way of putting it. Soul tearing. Yes, I feel the tears in [00:27:00] my soul a lot. And I don't know if I have advice. I mean, I don't know what would I have told my younger self? I kind of feel like I had to go through it the way I went through it.

And I, in some ways I'm still going through it. I would like to tell myself to be kind to yourself and treat yourself with dignity and I can't say, I mean, I don't think I could say to somebody else, if somebody won't treat you with dignity, then it's not worth it because I certainly didn't follow that advice.

I felt like the title of the book, I Would Meet You Anywhere. I would have done anything to have this relationship. And I did do anything in a lot of ways. And in a lot of circumstances, I think I would say it's very hard to have ambivalence in a relationship as I did. I don't know if it's you can really compare.

I don't know if it's easier to have outright [00:28:00] rejection. I don't know if that's easier. It's, you or if it's harder, to have that, but at least one has a sense of this is where I stand and I felt like for me it was like back and forth and back and forth and sometimes I was in good graces and sometimes I was not.

And, I had given, I had come to peace with this, the circumstances of my birth and being relinquished. I had come to peace with that and even though it was a loss and it was all those things, I think I understood it, given the context of those circumstances, what was much, much harder for me was being turned away from as an adult, when there was an established relationship, like there was a relationship, and then it went away. And then there was a relationship and then it went away. That was really hard. That was really hard. And I think much harder for me to cope with, then I understand [00:29:00] the circumstances, when I was a baby. I don't think that's advice at all. I mean, I think the only advice is surround yourself with people who can be with you in what you're going through.

Do you know people who will listen to you, people who will hold you or understand you or love you or see you and that your worth is not connected to however this relationship is going. I mean, I have to tell myself that every day, but I think, I mean, and literally, I call people up all the time, or I go to my husband, or just expressing how incredibly complicated and difficult it is, and to have people just be there and listen to me, they can't fix it, they can't change it, they can't do anything about it, except just really listen to me, they can't talk me out of it.

I think [00:30:00] that's the thing. A lot of people who love us try to talk us out of it. Look, you've got such a beautiful family, but look, you're so lucky. Look, you're doing work that you love. Look, it's oh, look, you've got a book public. You know what I mean? There's many things in my life that are absolutely.

Beautiful that I am really grateful for and it doesn't take away how complicated and painful a lot of parts of this are.

Haley Radke: It's something I completely related to in your book. I had a very brief reunion with my birth mother. It was not quite four months and I've never had any contact with her since I've reached out multiple times and just nothing and literally, if she found me I'd be like kay drop everything go like I like today, you know I feel that viscerally and there's just something we just want the connection. Yeah, I so related to that.

Susan Kiyo Ito: And when you know when for you, you wouldn't be [00:31:00] friends with somebody who treated you that way, and I wouldn't be friends with somebody who did or said things the way that, our relationship has been, but this is different, and you've got different feelings, as you said, very visceral about it, and you're willing to do things that you wouldn't in other circumstances, and I think that balance of self dignity and self love and really wanting something.

It's a hard one to, it's a hard one to straddle.

Haley Radke: One of the hardest parts to read was this part where you were working in a lab with mice. And I won't say more than that, really, about it, but the picture I got, and I wonder if this is what you were trying to create, was that, God, they're just never going to quit experimenting on this whole adoption thing as [00:32:00] adoptees, we're, like, trapped in this thing, and...

Susan Kiyo Ito: Haley, that is a completely unique response to that piece. I love that. I love that insight that you just said.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Because I had not thought of that consciously while I was writing it. I mean, I was basically like I had this really weird job at this same time that I was negotiating this very new relationship with her.

And it all came together in this confluence of madness. It was wild. But I think the thing that I so I don't think it's a spoiler to say that I worked in a laboratory that had mice. And I was the caregiver of the mice, the caretaker, caregiver, I don't know. And one of my jobs was like, tracking their genealogy, and keeping their little charts of who was parents of who and who.

And [00:33:00] it just kind of blew my mind that I was doing this for these mice. And I didn't even have it myself. Like I knew who the mouse nicest parents were, but I didn't know my own parents and I was dealing with, possibly having a meet up with my birth mother and possibly not. And it was just all these sensations were all.

Coming at me at the same time. It was something else. But I love that experimenting on adoptees and adoption. I love that.

Haley Radke: That adoption is this grand failed, experiment. I won't swear because it's clean on the show. But yeah.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Wow. I love I'm going to write that down because a lot of people have had a lot of visceral reactions to that piece.

And for different reasons, but I love that. I love that take on it.

Haley Radke: Well, we all are going to take something different from your story, right? Yes, okay. I [00:34:00] remember you sharing when your adoptive mom passed, and I'm really sorry for your loss. But one of the photos you shared was just her joy, expression of joy on her face at a basketball game.

And so I know you, you share about her in the book and, but that's the piece I remember. About your mom, said she loved basketball.

Susan Kiyo Ito: She was an incredible sports fanatic from the time I was, a child. And I had a boyfriend at one point who joked that he was going to get her a subscription to Sports Illustrated.

She, I don't think she actually had one, but she would have loved it. She would have loved it. She went to nickel. It was ladies night was a nickel at Yankee stadium. She was obsessed with the Yankees because, she grew up in New York. And so she would go for a nickel to the baseball games by herself.[00:35:00]

And cheer on the Yankees. And then when she moved out here, we would go to baseball games and then she started going to basketball games with my husband and they went for many years, he would take her three, four times a week and they would go see the Warriors and she was into it. That was her thing.

Haley Radke: I love when we have these like happy memories of someone and then our friends, our people can get connected in that way. And just how you talked about her and your husband are just like a special that stuck with me for sure. So, I already said, you've written all the things, you've done so many things you even had a one woman show at one point, The Ice Cream Gene, okay, tell us a little bit about that.

And where I wanted to go with that was, maybe you can't tell because, pull behind the curtain. We were talking before your book is released. [00:36:00] What is it going to feel like to have this story in the world, the exposure of some deep, things that are so important to you versus performing something like this on stage in front of a live audience where you could see their faces?

Susan Kiyo Ito: I have been thinking about this a lot, Haley, because so I started performing The Ice Cream Gene, I don't know, more than 10 years ago. It started actually because I was at an adoption camp for families with adopted children of color and another I was speaking or actually I was directing the camp and a woman named Lisa Marie Rollins came and did a solo performance called Ungrateful Daughter and it was her experience of being a transracial adoptee.

It blew my mind. And I ran up to her afterwards and I said, what are you doing? How did you learn to do this? And where can I sign up? And she said, Oh, I'm taking this solo performance workshop with W. Kamau Bell. And I was like I'm signing [00:37:00] up. And so I signed up immediately. I started studying with Kamau.

This is before he became totally famous in his own right, but he was teaching solo performance classes and it was amazing to embody my story. It was his method of solo performances. It's not just like storytelling or standup comedy or whatever. It's, you're embodying your story. So there's a lot of really physically living it and being in it.

And it was incredible for me to live the moment of meeting my birth mother. It's like the opening, it's the opening scene of the book. And it was also the opening scene of The Ice Cream Gene where I'm making my way from the elevator to the hotel room and I'm counting and looking at the door numbers and I'm counting the door numbers.

And then I get to the right door and then it's two minutes before, and it's like the audience is like waiting there for it to be the exact time I'm supposed to knock on the [00:38:00] door. And it was incredible. It was it like it gave me permission to tell the story in a very embodied way. That's all I can say.

But looking back on it, it was also in many ways, one would think it's like it's so exposed and it's so like out there you're on a stage and everyone's looking at you and all this. But It was very contained. I knew who was in the audience for the most part. I was like, I was at an adoption conference, or I was at a small theater in New York, or I was at family camp, or I was somewhere, there were, there's a lot of like small theaters in the Bay Area.

And I knew that's, those were the only people who were seeing this. It was like the people in the room and me. This book is like one, there's so much more story that was not in The Ice Cream Gene. It's a million times more. And I have no control over who's reading it and who's responding to it and what people are thinking or what people are saying, or it's, it feels like a [00:39:00] much more naked experience than getting up on a stage and doing it physically.

And I would have thought it would be the opposite. Oh, I'm just like, typing away, and it's very, it's just words on a page, I don't know, and this feels much more vulnerable than actually doing The Ice Cream Gene. I'm like, can I take it back? Can I do The Ice Cream Gene again? Because that actually feels like it was in some ways yeah, safer and more controlled. But it was also, it was a big moment for me to like actually claim the story in my voice and in my body. It was, it was different and very empowering.

Haley Radke: Do you think some things in you were moved, healed, processed through doing that helped you finish your memoir?

Susan Kiyo Ito: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I think it was a good step. When I published A Ghost at Heart's Edge, it's [00:40:00] got like 50... other writers in it. And I was very careful. So I have two pieces in it. One is a poem about Albert Einstein's daughter. And another is a short story set in Central America, which was inspired by some people that I knew there was nothing in it about me.

It was like, I want to write about adoption. I want to publish about adoption. It's very important for me to get adoption stories out there. But I didn't want to put any of my own story out there. So that was like 1999, very protected, but still wanting to have a voice in the world. And then, few short pieces, and then The Ice Cream Gene.

And then that led to this. And this is like the biggest reveal that I can imagine. Somebody just a friend of mine, or actually a colleague of mine just read it and they were like, Oh my God, I just read your book. And I'm like, yes. And they're like, it's so personal. And I think they were shocked because they probably didn't know 95 percent of what was in the book.

We worked [00:41:00] together, and having somebody that knows me on a professional level, see all these incredibly intimate details of my life. I think it was stunning for them. And then they were like, are you sure you want me to read this? I'm like, yes, anybody can read it.

But it also is I don't know, it's can I actually put some blackouts, like in certain areas of my life? You people don't read it. You don't read it. You don't read it. You all that I don't, you can read it. But unfortunately, you don't have that control. So I just have to, I said to somebody recently.

I have to put on my big girl pants and take responsibility that I did this. I wrote the story, I put it out there, and now whatever is coming, I have to take, whatever the consequences are, good consequences, hard consequences I have to deal with it, personal consequences, and I have to just remind myself that [00:42:00] nobody put a gun to my head and made me write this book or publish it.

Nobody made me do it. I have chosen to do it. And it's very scary, but it was my choice.

Haley Radke: Well, we will be all the better for it. As I said at the beginning, you're one of the elders in our community. And I look up to you and I have seen the investment you've made in all the people that have come after you and what I find so amazing and I feel so grateful for is that you've had to move your venue for your book launch party because so many people want to come and celebrate you.

And that might feel hard for you to accept. I don't know. But I'm celebrating that for you because you're so well loved and deserve to be [00:43:00] celebrated. So.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you, Haley. Yeah, it's a little, it's a little wild. There's officially going to be probably almost double the number of people at my book launch than were at my wedding and my wedding was like the biggest deal ever.

You know what I mean? I just felt like I couldn't handle anything bigger than that. And my daughter's wedding, it was like they were like major productions, granted, there's not all this aspects, but you know, I'm going to have food and we're going to have entertainment and we're going to have all kinds of things.

Yeah, it's a little overwhelming, but it's also great. And I think of all those people literally over decades, I would go out to dinner with my husband and we'd meet another couple to be. How's your book coming? This was maybe 15 or 20 years ago. And I'd be like, it's coming. It's coming. And I was so embarrassed, humiliated it's not coming at all.

Or I'm just writing the fifth draft of it. And it's a novel now. And it's a memoir [00:44:00] now. And it's short stories now. It changed form so many times. And then people just stopped asking. And I think a lot of people just didn't believe it was ever going to happen, including me.

Haley Radke: Well, I Would Meet You Anywhere is so amazing.

I genuinely loved it. I couldn't believe I was so lucky to read it early. And I'm so excited for our community to have it. It's just like this tremendous, to me, it's this is a love letter to adoptees. It's see, I've gone through these things. You can do it too. I've gone through these hard things. You can do it too. And I just, there's some very tender personal parts. There's some very funny parts. I mean, yikes. Wild West. We'll just, I'll keep going back to that. You'll know it when you read it, that's for sure. It's just so good and I know it's going to [00:45:00] reach outside the adoption community because it's just so well written and you can just tell this is your accumulation of wisdom and love and story and yeah, it's just so beautiful, Susan. Like well done. Well done you.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you so much, Haley. It was such an honor to have you read it. It made me so happy. I was really excited to have you as a reader.

Haley Radke: Aw, that's so kind. What do you want to recommend to us?

Susan Kiyo Ito: This is a really hard question, but I decided to, and I know that you said you can only recommend one thing.

And so I did, I'm doing a little cheat here. I am going to recommend Angela Tucker, my, wonderful, amazing adoptee, activist, author, friend. Angela has two resources. One of them is her newly released book, You Should Be Grateful. And that book, how many adoptees have heard this [00:46:00] throughout their lives, right?

You should be grateful, you should be grateful, you're so lucky, all these things. And Angela really addresses this head on, includes not only her own experience as a transracial adoptee, but the voices of many others, and takes on the institution of transracial adoption, and it's really brilliant and really moving.

She also has an organization called the Adoptee Mentoring Society. And I think this is a resource that is so important because adoptees need mentors at all times of their journey, at all stages of their journey, whether they're adults, young adults, teenagers, seniors. Adoptees need mentors. And so, Angela has worked at training mentors to be there for other adoptees, mentoring adoptees.

And I just think it's a tremendous resource and value for the community.

Haley Radke: You shared a little bit, just briefly, about leading PACT camp for many years. Do you have a thought [00:47:00] about the impact that can have for a young adopted person to have a fellow adoptee walking alongside?

Susan Kiyo Ito: Oh, for sure. Well, PACT Camp is a family camp for adoptive families with children of color, so many of them are transracial families and some of them are same race or parents of color with children of color of another culture or race.

So many children are raised in isolation, racial isolation, and they don't see families that look like theirs. And so when they enter camp for the first time, and there's like hundreds of families, I mean hundreds of people there, and they see families that mirror theirs, the look on their face is like shock and awe and joy, and they're mentored by many foster alum or adoptee counselors who are their mentors and who are there with them so they can see young [00:48:00] adults who mirror their experiences and it is so meaningful and at the same time I mean they're having fun they're having the time of their lives and the adoptive parents are learning what it means to adopt children of color, and they're getting really important lessons themselves about race and adoption, about openness, about all kinds of things, how to navigate how to help their children navigate through the world when their children have experiences that are very different from their own.

So I think it's invaluable, and I was very proud to be a part of it for the many years that I was.

Haley Radke: Well, thank you. We thank you for your decades of investment in the adoptee community in so many different ways. And please tell us where we can get your book and where we can connect with you online.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you. You can order my book anywhere books are sold. I, of [00:49:00] course, encourage people to go to their local independent bookstore or bookshop.org online. You can also go to your library. I really encourage people to ask their libraries to stock it that way you can read it for free if you want to. And I think I, it's really great having it in libraries.

I'm a big fan of libraries. So that's where you can get it bookstores or libraries and I think there's also going to be an audio book it's not quite there yet, but I think by the time you hear this, there will be an audio book on Audible. Yeah, and then my website is www.thesusanito.com, and then there will be a page with all of my events. Many are online, and many of them will be in person.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Come celebrate with Susan. Yes,

Susan Kiyo Ito: See me in person. I would be like so tickled to have anybody come up to me and say, I heard you on Adoptees On and here I am. That would [00:50:00] just make us so thrilled. Me too. And we can take a selfie and send it to Haley.

Haley Radke: Please do. Oh, that would just be a delight. I can't wait for people to start reading your book. And we're going to ask you for book club next year. So I hope that that's yes. Okay. I got a yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Can't wait to read it with y'all. Thank you so much, Susan. It has just been a delight.

Susan Kiyo Ito: Thank you Haley. I, this has been such an honor and I've been looking forward to it and I feel so happy to be here with you.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

I know we have talked about this before on the podcast. But if you're new here or maybe haven't listened to everything, there's so many episodes. I think it's really important [00:51:00] for us to acknowledge the people who have been doing this work ahead of us. Susan and I were talking about The Search for Anna Fisher and how groundbreaking that book was by Florence Fisher.

And since we recorded this episode, time shifting it's going live. Today for you, but since we recorded it, Florence Fisher actually just passed away. And so I want to send out my condolences to those who were impacted by her loss. And we think of the immeasurable impact that her memoir had.

And her work for fellow adoptees and the other forerunners in adoptee activism, it is just so important that we recognize those folks. And I hope we [00:52:00] can highlight more of them here. And we are doing some great work as a community as a whole right now, really getting voices out there and we didn't invent it.

I think it's really sweet. Some of the really young TikTokers think that they started something and really, there was a lot of people paving the way for us a long time ago. And no shame to those folks, because believe me, I was thinking the same thing 10 years ago when I was talking about adoptee stuff on Twitter as if, we were some of the first people talking about it.

So. Thank you to our foremothers and fathers. I don't know, in adoptee activism, and a big thank you to Florence Fisher. Thank you for [00:53:00] listening to adoptee voices. If you think this show is important and want it to keep existing, please join us on Patreon, which is at adopteeon.com/community, and you can find out all the benefits of joining and supporting the show. And, that helps produce this podcast. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist but you do get lots of great benefits like our adoptees only book club and the ask an adoptee therapist events and some other community gatherings. We would love to have you at and I'd love to meet you there. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday

265 Louise & Sarah

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/265

---

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. You might know today's guests and recognize their voices from their podcast, Adoption, The Making of Me. Louise Brown and Sarah Reinhart are here! Today, we hear about how their friendship started, they dish about some of the fights they've had, and how they've sustained their close friendship.

We also talk about all the books they've read in community with their audience, and which ones have been most impactful on their understanding of the impact of adoption. I think you're going to love this conversation. Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon community [00:01:00] over on adopteeson. com slash community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson. com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to AdopteeZone, Louise Brown.

Hi, Louise.

Louise Browne: Hi, how are you? Great. Good to see you.

Haley Radke: You too. And Sarah Reinhart. Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah Reinhardt: Thank you. Happy to be here. It's finally happening.

Haley Radke: Listen, fellow podcasters. I always say it's one of my favorite things because you get it. Yes. Yeah. You just get it. And our setup was so fast today. So well done all.

I would love it if we could hear a little more of your personal stories. Sarah, do you want to start?

Sarah Reinhardt: Sure. [00:02:00] I am a baby scoop era adoptee. I was born in St. Louis, but I found out later that was just kind of by chance because my birth mother was her water broke on the ascent out of JFK. So she spent the whole flight in labor.

She too was adopted and she was with her adoptive mother who knew nothing about her pregnancy. The jury's out on whether or not. She knew she was pregnant. She told me she knew, but some of the things that I've since found out make me wonder, you know, like she only gained seven pounds. There was never a prenatal visit.

I think I might have been premature. I don't know. I don't that. I don't know. But at any rate, I was born. In St. Louis, her mother said you are not keeping this baby and [00:03:00] she was not allowed to hold me. So I was taken away and I know that I spent five to six weeks in foster care and then I was adopted into with my parents and I've raised about two hours away from St. Louis and in a smallish town called Jefferson City. And then my parents, two and a half years later adopted my brother, no, no biological relation. And then when he was five months old, they discovered they were pregnant with twins. They did an x- ray in 1969 or whatever it was to discover there were twins.

So then there was the four of us. And when I was seven, and it was pretty, as far as I can remember, I don't remember a lot, but it was a pretty decent seven years and then my parents got divorced and then probably the year leading up to that wasn't great. I remember fighting and [00:04:00] tension and my dad left for awhile.

Then he came back and then they tried again. And then suddenly my mom was gone. And then that was kind of that. And they didn't give us much of an explanation. Then we would see her. She moved about 30 miles away and went back to school and two of us would go every other weekend. So I would see her every other week, briefly lived with her, but that didn't work out.

And then she got remarried and moved to Miami, Florida. And then when I was 12, my dad got remarried. And so then step siblings entered the picture. So there was a lot of, you know, when I look back now, for many, many years, I, you know, because there weren't therapists that talked about relinquishment trauma or adoption trauma or any of that, I put a lot of stock into the divorce.

Everybody [00:05:00] focused on how that affected and not the adoption stuff. So I conflated a lot for many, many, many years, but that's my story in a nutshell. Obviously, there's a lot deeper stuff. I, when I was 15, I ran away from home and went to Miami and lived with my mom and my stepfather that short lived. He wasn't there for long.

And then from there, I went to New York and then New York to L. A. I just kind of bounced around and moved around. Sometimes I think that's because I was sort of born up in the air. You know, it's hard to ground me, so it took my child to ground me. It took having a baby to have any kind of grounding in my life.

And, and that was when I, that was, that was the first time I, as many of us, Louise and I've talked to a lot of people on the podcast, it seems to be that pivotal moment in which you go, wait a minute, where do I come from? Hang on a second. And then I sought out my [00:06:00] birth family when my son was a baby, found my birth mother, which is why I know my origin story.

They had been wait, she and her, my siblings had all been waiting for me to find them because she did not want to give me away. She, she kept her name with the registry all those years, hoping I would find her one day. And I did, so they just welcome me like in a, in a big way, but I, you know, not knowing anything felt guilt, loyalty, all that stuff and always kept her at an arm's length, which is a big regret that I have now because she passed in 2009 and it was way before I am where I am. And so I was close to her, but always not that close and always pushed her away. So that's a sadness. And my birth father. He did not know about me. He got drafted into Vietnam. They had dated in college and then they broke up before she knew she was pregnant.

He got [00:07:00] drafted into Vietnam. He had horrible PTSD. I have siblings through him, but I recently found out his death was caused by suicide. I didn't know that until just a few weeks ago. So that's another piece that lately I've kind of been grappling with wow, suicide. There was a suicide and suicide runs in families and that's me in a nutshell.

Haley Radke: That's a lot of compounding trauma factors. Oh my goodness. Yes. Wow. Thank you for sharing that Sarah.

Louise, do you want to share yours?

Louise Browne: It's interesting hearing Sarah's differently you know what I mean? Listening, I'm also a host. I was like, I wanted to say, oh, so I'm Louise. I was also a baby scoop adoptee.

1968 was born in Colorado. My bio mom, Linda was a young woman, 19-years-old. She could not [00:08:00] financially keep me. I really think that's what it came down to. I think she wanted to keep me and had a lot of pressure as I'm getting to know. I recently have been reading some things and just discovering some things through some biological relatives, her sister and others, or I just think she had a lot of talking in her ear about how it would be better to give me away. To give me up to relinquish me, she'd be giving me a father and a mother. A father was very important to her because her father was not in the picture and most of her teen years and that kind of thing. And she went through a lot of hard stuff in her teen years. So she was her letters. I have some letters from her and they're all very they're very sweet.

They're innocent about, you know, This is going to be so good for the baby. She didn't know if I was a boy or a girl and all these things. And I think it really affected her later. She's passed away. She passed away in 1975 when I was in the second grade. So I've never known her, but I know a lot about her.

I was adopted about four [00:09:00] days after that's what I can piece together. And I'm like, Sarah, I'm still trying to get like the information from here to there, but I do know I was with my biological mom for at least three days in the hospital. And I have pictures of that. And that's kind of one of those things where you're like, oh my God, I was this person to somebody else.

And then went directly to my family. I do not think I was in foster care very long. I think there was maybe a day or two of just transitioning me. It was a private adoption. I went to live with my parents and an older brother, five years older, who is their biological son. My mother could not have more babies because she had Rh negative blood and carried a full term baby two years before me that died that she had to deliver and there was no help for her.

For that, you know, there was no counseling. I don't think anybody ever talked to her about it because she started talking about it before she passed away in 2018. She [00:10:00] started to bring it up and talk about a little bit and that's some push down stuff for years. Right? So my heart never knew that it was a weird thing.

How you come into a family and never really know why you're in that family. So, I had a pretty idealistic adoption, as they say, the good adoption. I think you used the word when we met with you, a compatible adoption. Got along very well with my family, especially my father. My mother as well. I pushed back a lot.

I thought, I think growing up, I thought I was very just off or weird and kept it to myself. Like, why aren't I fitting in? I do everything to fit in, you know, observe, watch, mimic my older brother. I was in awe of him, all my relatives. And even to this day, I feel like I'm sort of a person who keeps the family together.

My adopted family, I'm sort of a fixer still, even though I try not to be so much anymore. I'm aware of it, but it's, if I don't do that, maybe they'll leave me [00:11:00] or I won't have them. But I never knew I had all these feelings, probably so many adoptees, right? We've interviewed so many people and it's the same story.

I was sort of, I'd say heavily in the fog. I wouldn't say sort of heavily in the fog until two years ago, three years ago, but when my son was born, like Sarah mentioned, when she had her child, that's when I really was like, wait a second. I mean, I really got close to him didn't want to ever leave his side probably over parented him was too needy You know all the all the stuff we do and I was really curious then okay I didn't know my biological mother had died.

I knew nothing about myself so I thought oh I should look and then I was busy and I didn't look but my biological family found me on my mother's side so it's one of those things that like you think you want to look and then you don't do it and then somebody finds you and you're like, wait a second, I'm not ready for this. Right? So my biological grandmother was dying of Parkinson's disease and [00:12:00] they had been looking for me for about 10 years. I mean, like on and off and paid a lot of money to agencies and Colorado was a private adoption. It was just very hard to figure out who I was. So they found me. I was excited about it, overwhelmed, nervous, went into reunion very quickly with no, I mean, I wish I knew Sarah at the time or somebody, but no knowledge of what to do with this because I wanted to meet my grandmother because she, you know, I was the healing part for her.

So it was all about that. You know, she's lost her daughter. So long ago, tragically, they found me on the missing link. Everybody knew about me, not everybody in the family, but the closest family knew about me and had wondered how I was or I was missed me. So I went into a very excited, but then did the pullback thing, right?

So went in, got to know everybody, then pulled myself quickly back from it all. Probably hurt a lot of people along the way, not meaning to just kind of disconnecting. [00:13:00] I had a lot of guilt about it. My parents guilted me about it, but then started to open up about it. But even then I had my own internal guilt about it.

Oh, I shouldn't really talk about it or upset anybody. Let me balance these two things for years. For years, I went through that. So recently both my parents have passed away, my adopted parents and you know, I grapple with that. I miss them a lot. I was really close to them, but I sort of feel like we started to just talk about this right before the end.

And so. And, you know, in my wishful thinking, I think that they'd be happy I'm doing what I'm doing and learning about who I am. And I just go with that because I want to know who I am and it's time. So that's my story.

Haley Radke: Oh, thank you both. There's all these things I want to dig into too, but I'm going to save it.

I'm curious. I think the story is [00:14:00] that your sons, who first grounded you, are also who brought you together. Is that right?

Sarah Reinhardt: Mm hmm. Yes. That's how we met. Our sons were in school together.

Louise Browne: It was like basketball after school. Sarah was super cool. I'd see her hanging out and I was like, Oh, I got to know her.

We had a friend who introduced us as well. So.

Haley Radke: Okay. So how many years ago was that?

Louise Browne: 2007 or eight, seven or eight.

Haley Radke: Okay. So the people who listen to you want to know, have you had any major friendship bumps in the road? Because Adoptees are very good at cutting people off and, or pushing people away before we get pushed away.

So, how has your friendship gone? Have you had any, you've got a [00:15:00] business together? I mean.

Louise Browne: Haley, these are good questions.

Sarah Reinhardt: Really good question.

Louise Browne: I'd say, yes, I think we, well, I mean, we, first of all, Sarah and I owned a business together that was a very stressful business, right? Sarah was like, we had a gourmet ice cream truck, the food truck in Los Angeles while we're raising sons and we're both single moms.

I mean, they had active fathers, but just that pressure alone would bend a lot of people. And I don't know. I think we, we did have some bumps, but I think we kind of gave each other a little grace too. Sometimes we'd be like, all right, because if we really love each other.

Sarah Reinhardt: We definitely had a connection that seemed that it wouldn't break no matter. I mean, I feel like I probably pushed Louise away more than she pushed me away And so if not for her sort of steadfast like I'm not going anywhere even though it was that wasn't a verbal, it was just more of a show up [00:16:00] by her action, I probably would have been out the door.

Louise Browne: You know why? Because I'm the good adoptee and Sarah's the poor soul.

I'm the, I'm the fixer loyal to a fault. And Sarah's the I'm pushing you away. But, you know, we both have the same stuff. You know, it's been really actually cool about it now. We just tell each other, we love each other and just, I don't know, this podcast, I feel like I know her so well and vice versa that I'm like, you know, I don't know, I just give her grace because I'm, I have my own issues too.

Yeah. That's it, right? What's your thought?

Sarah Reinhardt: I, no, I, I agree. I was just thinking of, we had, you know, two pretty big bumps in this whole time and we really managed to get through them. One of them was the truck during, during that period of time and we managed to, you know, we rose above it. We talked it through, [00:17:00] we got through it and then another time was, I don't know, what was it, six months ago?

Louise Browne: Or so yeah, when we started to just get super busy with the podcast and you know, we're both working full time, you know, because you did this for a living and we're working full time trying to have a podcast super busy. And we were just like, but we stayed on the phone.

We're like, we talked to Louisa.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yeah, I was ready to hang up. And Louise was like, no, let's like, we're, talking this through.

Louise Browne: I love that you give me credit. I think you were more mature in that one than I was.

Sarah Reinhardt: I think I was more mature in the first one. This one, I think you were more mature.

Louise Browne: Yeah, we have, we worked it out, you know, I mean, it's pretty cool because we've done two really ambitious projects together and I couldn't do them. This is interesting. A friend of mine asked me recently, would you do this on your own. I'm like, I would never have done either of these businesses on my own and not without Sarah because [00:18:00] Sarah has her own close friends. I have my own close friends. We have some mutual friends, but she's the person I somehow do these projects with. It's like we have that.

Sarah Reinhardt: No, my son says that, you know, he's mom, you and Louise really have like something. I mean, so many people say that, so that, that it's our dynamic with each other that makes it work.

You know, both. The truck and the podcast. There's just some sort of magic that the two of us have together that on our own we wouldn't have.

Louise Browne: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Do you remember the first time you disclosed to each other that you were adopted?

Sarah Reinhardt: Very well. We were playing pool with our mutual friend.

Louise Browne: Shout out to Karen.

Sarah Reinhardt: Karen. I, I guess she introduced, I mean, we'd see each other at school, but she was the one who put together. It's the three of us go out. And so we went out and we were playing pool. And [00:19:00] I don't remember exactly how it came out, but we were both like, I'm adopted, I'm adopted too. And then, then Karen was kind of. The third wheel as it were in that.

Louise Browne: We were like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, me too. Blah, blah, blah. You know, Karen still jokes about it to this day. She's I was there. I should have just gone home.

Haley Radke: Finally, you're the majority in the room. What does that mean?

Sarah Reinhardt: I mean, really?

Haley Radke: Okay, so you decide to start a podcast together. I want to hear how that came about. And you guys always read a few chapters of an adoption themed book before you share your interview with the guest. How did you come to start the show? And how did you pick The Primal Wound for your first book?

Sarah Reinhardt: COVID happened. I had moved to Kansas City from Los Angeles, Louise had moved to the central coast.

And we were just, we had a lot of idle time, I guess, even though we're both [00:20:00] working, it still was, you know, how early COVID was. And Louise was like, you know, we should start, we should start a podcast and maybe we should do it about, you know, women in their fifties with second acts or something. And I was like, it doesn't really resonate.

So I just said, let's do something about adoption. That's something we both know. And the book idea just came, came about. Neither one of us had ever read anything. And I had been hearing about The Primal Wound. Somehow, you know, when things just. Just happen when they're meant to happen and there's signs that keep coming your way that book just kept crossing my path so I said we just decided to try this sort of book group aspect of the podcast and that's because that's the only one that I knew that I'd ever heard about I didn't hear about any other books?

Cause who was, I wasn't looking as far as I was concerned. Adoption was a wonderful thing. We were lucky and chosen and, and that's just the way it was. And that was the [00:21:00] attitude when we started the podcast.

Louise Browne: I had had The Primal Wound given to me, I think by a marriage counselor or something. It sat on my shelf for years, my, with my ex husband in our living room.

And I think I threw it away. So when Sarah brought it up, I go, Oh, not that book. I remember that book. I'm scared of that book. And that's kind of, we're that naive. Honestly, it was kind of, I kind of say it's a good book to start with. It sounds because I know adoptees sometimes have problems with it not being written by an adoptee, but it's not.

It's sort of a nice entrance into it.

Haley Radke: If you, if you like having all your problems exposed to you, in one shot, sure.

Louise Browne: We went through this, exactly, right? It was like, but, you know, because we've read many things since, that I think would have been a harder thing to tackle, right? I don't know, it was hard as it was.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yeah, I, mean, I think it, I think that that we chose that book because it was the only one that I'd ever heard about adoption. I'd never heard anything else. [00:22:00] I'd never heard anything but positive stuff about being adopted. And but then I read about that book. I was like, huh, there's, we should, we should tackle this.

And then, then we did.

Louise Browne: I still remember texting Sarah from the back porch going, oh my God, like two chapters in maybe what, like rereading things like this makes sense about me, you know what I mean? Do you resonate with this would be we're kind of like it was it was weird being in that position I don't know at that age Mm hmm, right.

Haley Radke: You kind of feel naive like what how did I not know this?

Yes, so as you're reading Primal Wound chapter by chapter, you're also interviewing Adopted people and I think you do a couple of other constellation members at first. What are the things? That are sort of like, let's call it clearing out some of the fog for [00:23:00] you. Is it more the book, is it more you're texting each other being like, can you believe this?

I'm just like this. You're just like this. Or is it hearing story after story of people that have unpacked a few things, maybe a little further along the way than you? What was it? Is it all of those things?

Sarah Reinhardt: I think it's a combination of all of those things, because you're right. In the beginning, we were like, yeah, you have a relative adopted come on the show.

I mean, we really literally were just we didn't know anybody. I mean, we knew other adoptees. They didn't all want to come on. They didn't want to come on. And so our first guest after the two of us talked to each other was, was a woman who was the sister of someone that I lived across the street from. And, then, so I think, I think initially, like the, our first guest isn't necessarily unfogged. I don't think I think, you know, still thinks of adoption is a wonderful, [00:24:00] wonderful thing. But as we went on, then we, I don't know, it must have been like midway through the first season. We're like, each chapter we read, we're like, oh, my God. And then, you know, kind of connecting all starting to connect the dots.

And then and then I think we had a few guests that were really gracious with us because they were further along than us. So they were very gracious to have been on with us and been patient with us and, you know, saw us going through this. Coming out of it ourselves.

Louise Browne: We had a lot of support from the adoptee community right away.

People are kind. And I think also one thing Sarah and I remember a conversation we had where we, I think we are going to have a birth mother on and she canceled something happened, but we, we both said, you know, we should just speak to what we know because it is a sensitive subject too right. So what do we know?

We are adoptees. We can say we're an adoptee. We can speak to this. Even if we all have different feelings or different ways, we come about it. And so we narrowed it [00:25:00] down pretty quickly that maybe we shouldn't be having the whole triad on. And that's not our role. And just some things will come up. I think we started reading more articles. I mean, just as it went through, we narrowed it down pretty quick.

Sarah Reinhardt: And guests would tell us, you know, we have, we had a guest say, you know, you should read Journey of the Adopted Self. And, you know, I know it's talked about in the Primal Wound as well. Betty Jean Lifton is. Yes, I think there was a moment when we had an adoptive father on and he said something and I, I really feel like that might have been my.

My coming out of the fog, like really no turning back moment when he said they celebrated gotcha day and it was just, I had such a visceral reaction to that and I think in that shortly after that, I think we said okay, we're just going to have adoptees on. Yeah, going going further. Yeah, but that I really now that I remember that was it where I [00:26:00] just it probably showed on my face too.

And I think I think I don't know. Yeah, we don't we don't celebrate that or, you know, something. So, yeah. And then that was it. No, no turning back.

Louise Browne: We don't even say it for our dogs. Really?

Sarah Reinhardt: No. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Exactly. Louise, do you have a moment like that? Or do you remember something?

Louise Browne: It was pretty much the same moment. Sarah and I were texting each other oh, and then should we air this? I mean, he was a sweet person who was open. You know, he was open actually to us talking to him about it. And he said, I want to learn about this because of the situation he was in. And I think that's when we kind of got on the phone with each other and said okay, we need to focus on our feelings about this now and, and what we know. And we don't want to do that.

Sarah Reinhardt: It's been, you know, years and years and years of everybody else's voices. It's adoptee voices that[00:27:00] we want to hear and have told and be a part of, you know.

Louise Browne: Even though we were in the fog, I do think Sarah and I throughout our lives. We've talked about it. We've had moments where I mean, I used to try to tell people, you know, what it's like when you're adopted and people don't listen.

So then you're kind of just quiet oh, you know, where you have. So we started to get stronger with our voices okay, hello, been saying things for years. And now I'd like to say things, you know, and then not be so worried about everybody else's feelings, really. For me, and yeah, maybe for Sarah, too.

So, you know, we're always worried about everybody else. So.

Haley Radke: You've got over 80 episodes, I think, right at the time we're recording this. And I've, done a couple hundred. Well, you've talked to so many adoptees between all of us. And over the years, I've been podcasting for seven years now. I'm going to call myself that I feel like I've [00:28:00] become radicalized. So I definitely was critical of adoption in the beginning. I don't think I was fully like realized all the complexities behind everything and the money machine and all those kinds of things. I think it's amazing when folks can listen to you and hear this progression through your season.

I think it's. Through your seasons. I think it's happened with several adoptee podcasters that I've spoken to.

Louise Browne: Yes, sir.

Haley Radke: But I want to ask you about some of the books you've read and let's sort of, I don't know, rank them, but express to me what things you learned through them that sort of pushed you more and more into the place that you are now and your feelings about adoption?

Okay, so Primal Wound very much was eye opening, obviously. Did you read Journey of the Adoptee Self [00:29:00] next? The adopted self?

Sarah Reinhardt: Yes, that was our second season. That was our second season.

Haley Radke: Okay, so that's by Betty Jean Lifton, who is an adoptee. And how was that experience for you, reading that?

Sarah Reinhardt: Big.

Louise Browne: Yeah, that, that was the one that really I, we got depressed, like we both suffered a little bit of I mean, that's when it started to really be emotional, like heavy for us.

I mean, I think it took emotional toll on both of us a little bit too, just okay, whoa, maybe that's why it wasn't a good one to start with is what I was implying before, because it really was. I mean, I just remember reading parts of it and being like, I can't finish this tonight, this chapter. And we'd only read like one, we read in real time.

That's one thing we really do on our show is we do not read ahead. So that way when we record, it's, it's real, it's raw. We read a couple hours before we record, which I think comes off better than if we're trying to backtrack or [00:30:00] something, but there's times that we're like, oh my gosh, it was really hard on both of us.

Sarah Reinhardt: Well it because it was somebody who with lived experience. Yeah. And Nancy Verrier, she was an observer. She wasn't, she was, didn't have lived experience, so it was a different mm-hmm. a different thing. And it was, it was it, you know, it was reading like, wow, this is how I felt my whole life. Yes. Never could give voice to it.

Never had anyone to talk to about it. It all made sense. It finally, it finally made sense. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Then you went to The Mistress's Daughter by A. M. Holmes, which is a memoir. So good.

Sarah Reinhardt: Love that book.

Louise Browne: We did a memoir series. I was going to say that. Memoir season. Yeah. Season. That was probably, I don't know, favorites or not.

Just that book. Everyone should just read that book anyway.

Sarah Reinhardt: She's such a great writer too. You know, she's just. She's just [00:31:00] I just love her. She just is brilliant with words, you know, and put the way she puts her words together and she's got a lot of humor and she's so. Just so brilliant, you know, and there was

Louise Browne: some laughter too.

We needed some laughter. Honestly after season 2 it was nice to have a little like levity once in a while

Haley Radke: So I know that this next one I'm super biased cuz Megan Culhane Galbraith is my friend I love her so you read the Guild of the Infant Savior, which is so creative and different.

Sarah Reinhardt: Oh my God, just so interesting and yeah, that's where we really, you know, what we learned about.

She's a true artist, you know, and a historian.

Louise Browne: We learned a lot about just some of the things that we didn't know about the mothers with the colleges and all those experimental things. Like she really did some,

Haley Radke: yeah, learn the whole, learn home economics on a borrowed baby.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yes.

Louise Browne: Super impressed with that.

Well, we love her too, but [00:32:00] yeah, it was, I mean, these are, I feel like should be on every adoptee shelf.

Haley Radke: So, you guys, I'm so sad. You can't see my bookshelf. I have a hundred and seventy adoptee authored books right behind me in this very room. So,

Sarah Reinhardt: oh my god. Wow.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited when you read something adoptee authored because I also have this thing of who gets to tell our stories. And I'll ask you about that once we finish this list. So I have American Baby next. Is that right? Or am I missing one?

Sarah Reinhardt: We had Damon's. Damon Davis.

Haley Radke: Okay. Damon. Mm hmm. So also fellow podcaster.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yes. Yes. And you know, he, he, his book, he tells, he writes his book exactly as he tells his story, which, which we had had him on the podcast. So it was kind of nice to actually just read his words. That we'd heard.

Haley Radke: Yeah, I remember when I read his book. I heard it in his voice because [00:33:00] listening to his show. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Louise Browne: Yes. How he talks. Right? Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yeah. I love him.

Louise Browne: So distinctive.

Haley Radke: And so American Baby.

Louise Browne: Yeah, American Baby. I was going to say when, when you were saying rate them, I think American Baby, everyone should read not just adoptees. I think it's the history.

Sarah Reinhardt: Right? I think it's that, it's that, that, that book that would maybe shine the light on the horrendous practices of adoption. You know, it's not what I like about it is that it's that she is just historically reporting on the facts. She's not. It's not her experience.

It's a reporter's lens. Just the facts, ma'am. And then highlighting this, tragic. Horribly sad story of a mother, you know, who didn't want to give up her baby. I mean, it's just something that everybody should read to know the history of the [00:34:00] privacy laws and the baby scoop era and all of that stuff and then stuff that is still going on.

Louise Browne: I feel like people could read it too. Does that make sense? I've told a few people about it. I have a friend that's going to read it with her book club coming up and they're not adoptees, but I think that it doesn't offend. You know how it's kind of like this. Well, okay, great. Well, you're an adoptee.

You're putting this in my face type of thing. It's not this is somebody who writes for the New York Times and other publications. This is a history just reading about anything else we need to learn about, about people who have been compromised or whatever. Right. So I feel like it's a book for everybody, even though it's incredible for adoptees.

I just feel powerful about it.

Haley Radke: Lends more credibility to it.

Sarah Reinhardt: Well, that's what I was going to say in, terms of out in the public, in the world, right? If you want to tell somebody about what, the adoption experience is like as an adoptee or as someone in [00:35:00] the triad, you know, being Margaret, the mother in the book and David, the son, it's not coming from, I, know that there's some criticisms that adoptees are angry and get over it.

And, you know, I feel like this book would give people the do you know what I'm trying to say? I'm sorry.

Louise Browne: It would actually give them the reasons that they might be angry. They'll go oh, they should be angry. This is not okay. Right? What she's saying. It's putting it out there. I think I just think it's a powerful book. I mean, she's

Sarah Reinhardt: putting it out there from a journalist journalist, someone who's a journalist and telling the story as an observer as a journalist. Not like. Nancy as a adoptive mother, you know, Gabrielle is none of those things. She saw a story. She went after it. And in that, you know, in a cinema verite kind of way, it unfolded. And, it was super powerful as a result of that. And I think , it's a good vehicle to get the message out in a way [00:36:00] that isn't just an adoptee. Being emotional. If that's how people look at us

Haley Radke: And Sarah, you're a journalist, right? You're trained as a journalist.

Sarah Reinhardt: What? No, I used to do some magazine writing a long time ago, and I'm a writer.

I did like screenwriting and TV writing and now I'm doing like essay writing. Storyteller. Yes.

Haley Radke: Yes. All right. And now you're reading actually by another adoptive mother, The Baby Thief, the story of Georgia Tann, who lots of people don't know about. And wow. I mean, so eyeopening.

Louise Browne: It's really a hard read.

It's we were like, why can't we move on to an adoptee book right now? Cause we, had our Patreons vote on our season, which was kind of neat. It's also very important. I mean, it's just so horrific and really Georgia Tann is, you know, she's the reason a lot of adoptee practices, adoption practices are the way they are [00:37:00] now in the United States from that historical happening with her.

So it's an important book as well.

Haley Radke: Like closed records.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yep. Right.

Louise Browne: Closed records, the narrative. Just the narrative and she really it's called The Baby Thief because she stole children and sold them and horrible besides that horrible practices within that. I mean, just it's and it's, it's not a fun read.

That's for sure. None of these are fun reads, but it's a hard read.

Haley Radke: No, that's what I find too. When I'm reading,

Louise Browne: I was listening to a smutty type thing last night on my walking on the walk. I'm like, Oh, it feels so good to just listen to this because it's deep work, right? It's

Sarah Reinhardt: yeah. Yeah. I did hear they are making a movie out of The Baby Thief.

Louise Browne: Yeah. God.

Sarah Reinhardt: So. There will be someone I work with actually had [00:38:00] said, Oh, I didn't realize Georgia Tann was a real person. She'd read a novel where they used Georgia Tann, used her real name, but she thought she was just a character in a book. She was a real person. So, yeah, interesting.

Haley Radke: I wonder what impact that will have on the public's view of adoption then. Just depending on the framing.

Sarah Reinhardt: It just feels you know what it feels like it almost these times, if I can use this analogy, maybe it's it feels like the, you know, how in the 60s, 1960s with all the, you know, civil rights issues and this and that, and it still has been another 50 some odd years and it's still, you know, slowly, I feel like that's what's going to happen with us.

There can be a ton of information out there. It's, just going to take awhile to, really have people admit it, I guess, is really what I'm sure, you know. [00:39:00] I think we talked about, you know, we've, we've definitely triggered some adoptive parents with, our podcast. And I don't think you get triggered without knowing that there's some truth to it.

And I, so I think the louder we are, the better there, there's so many of us out there talking about it. But it's so ingrained. It's so ingrained think that it's such a wonderful thing.

Louise Browne: We see things now. And I was all bent out of shape recently about a Dateline, right? Because it was a Dateline and and they were highlighting the boy who killed his adoptive mother or whatever.

And he was adopted from another country but it was all about this bad kid. And I saw such a different story with it about, because after watching, and this is Dateline, but I was like, going to write to Dateline. Hello, you need to investigate the other. So it's, it's funny how you see things now, movies we used to like things in the media, you know, the Hollywood [00:40:00] ending of reunion or just, you know, movies that I used to be like, oh, that's such a good movie. Now I'm like, Oh. No, it's not.

Haley Radke: So many, so many things are ruined.

Sarah Reinhardt: I know so many things. I mean, I used to love, I love Juno when it came out. Now I'm just, yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yeah. So what are your thoughts then? It has to be explored a little bit when you were talking about American Baby, about who gets to tell our stories. And why isn't it accepted when an adoptee is sharing that story? You know, Megan's book, we're calling her a historian. She's uncovering some of these same expose things that are credible about the Domicon babies, for example, you know,

Louise Browne: I don't know that people want to hear about [00:41:00] not fitting in and families or that you were depressed or the things, you know, I really think people do think still that babies are blank slates. And if you give them love, love is a great thing. There's nothing wrong with giving a baby love and a home, but I think that they don't want to hear that the child's going to have internal.

Everybody wants to know who they are and where you're from. It's a natural thing. So even if you're in the fog or not in the fog, you're an adoptee. You wonder who you are, right? And you have your almost all of us have the same patterns and little things that we do. That's why adoptees meet each other and go oh and you just get each other and you can't explain that to other people.

And I think. It's a really hard thing, unless you've been through it, how do you explain it in a way that people can hear it without turning them off or making them feel bad or because it would be nice to have conversations where people could talk and not be angry. I mean, we've had adopted parents write us who are very thank you for [00:42:00] right for doing this.

This helps me because they're, reacting differently in their home to their child and we've had the exact opposite. So.

Sarah Reinhardt: But to your question about who decides who gets to tell those stories, I mean, I guess it's just an individual decision. You know, we, when we started off with Nancy, then from there, we thought, well, we're, we're going to do read all the adoptee books.

And then American Baby came along and that kind of opened up the door to Georgia Tann that you know, well, we had Patreons that wanted to us to read that book. Again you know, maybe. Maybe we should just focus on adoptee voices, but I do think there are other if we want the message out into the mainstream.

Maybe we have to be open to also reading about. I don't [00:43:00] know that I would do the. In terms of I don't know that I want to maybe in retrospect, I understand people's beef with Nancy Verrier book. I understand that beef. I don't hold that in the same category as American Baby again because because it was a, it was a journalist telling a story.

If that makes sense. It wasn't an adoptive mother. With her own feelings about it, if that makes sense.

Haley Radke: I know you haven't read it on air. I don't know if you've read The Girls Who Went Away. I think that's

Louise Browne: on our stack.

Sarah Reinhardt: That's one of the next.

Haley Radke: Okay, because this is a story of all these, the baby scoop era. Voices of mothers of loss. And it is written by Ann Fessler, who is an adoptee. Right. And so that's the twist on, oh, it's an adoptee is going to tell the mother's story, right? And I think it's really interesting and nothing [00:44:00] wrong or right either way. It's just up for discussion. And I agree. There's so much criticism on The Primal Wound for that.

And I mean, I used to tell people like that was the book that I mean, we recommended it so many times on the show. And now we have so many other resources. It's Yes, there's riches everywhere.

Sarah Reinhardt: It's yeah, it's kind of the ground floor, isn't it? Or the entryway into it

Haley Radke: for a lot of people. Absolutely.

Louise Browne: And I'm great. I'm grateful to that entryway, because if I didn't read it, I wouldn't be where I'm at. And so I think there's room for a lot of it, right? You were saying that you're radicalized, which I think happens, right? I do, I also think what Sarah is saying, you have to have a lot of different ways of communicating out there with other people about this topic.

And sometimes I feel we're all in our own little, in general, just in the country. We're all in our own little vacuums, right? Let's [00:45:00] talk here. Let's talk here. But I do I did like American Baby because it was like something I could send to my brother could read that and be like, oh, wow, this went on. And then he and I could have conversations that are different. If that makes sense. And I don't know that he would get it if I sent him Journey to the Adopted Self. He'd be like, I'm not reading that. You know, it wouldn't relate. So I think for adoptees there's reading and for everybody there's reading and maybe eventually it's all the same. I don't know if that, if I'm making sense, but

Haley Radke: I'm so. Deep in, I have no concept anymore of which book did which thing to me because, when you read so much, like I, before I have a guest on, if they have a book or books, I've read them. It like I have read so much My friends make fun of me because sometimes I'll hesitate calling myself an adoption [00:46:00] expert and they're like, okay who else has read that many books on adoption besides adoption scholars.

So yeah. Anyway, thank you for your thoughts on that. I know. Yeah, people have all kinds of opinions. My last thing before we do recommended resources, as I did want to touch on representation, and, you know, we are folks with a platform, and we've built it, and we give people the mic, and when I started, in my first season, I was very hesitant on interviewing anyone who had a kind of a different experience than me, whether that was someone who is internationally adopted, or I mean, most of the guests I had were white people adopted to white families.

And we talked about the complexities of that. Not all, but most. And so, over the last years, I've [00:47:00] worked so hard to spread my platform to many more people. And I have people apply to be on the show all the time, which I'm sure you do too. And there's also this responsibility, I feel, for vetting people and not platforming harmful people.

So, do you guys have thoughts on that? What you've seen in the space, what you've been working towards doing things about just making sure we are sharing our platform in a responsible way. And I think we have a duty to the community to make sure we hear from all voices.

Louise Browne: I feel like we've had a couple people on where we were like, you know, where we're like, Oh.

Should we tell that story or you kind of catch yourself mid interview? Oh, you know, but then we're like, this is their story. Everybody has a story to tell. Right? So I think we've been pretty good about, [00:48:00] we would like to get anybody's perspective. We've tried to get actually more perspectives and I've interviewed people from all over, but even recently, we had a guy on from Scotland and some people are like, well, I don't understand them as well, but people in Scotland do.

And they like to hear from the Scottish people as well, or whoever it is. Right? We have had some situations where we're not sure it's going to be what we want to say, but we're like, okay. If we ask the right questions and don't put our opinion on it, they're still allowed to tell their story. We haven't had any real haters. Well, Sarah can speak.

Sarah Reinhardt: Well, not since not since we went adoptee only, but definitely in our, in our first season. This is how naive we really were. We had a adoptive mother on who had a savior complex, and we trashed the interview. We did not didn't that even and that was pre fog, honestly. [00:49:00] And but we knew this is not

Louise Browne: what made us both feel weird.

Actually, just internally as adoptees. And so I

Sarah Reinhardt: mean, we've definitely I mean, we've had a guest here and there that, you know, maybe is what's the word I'm looking for that angry, rightfully angry, but they have the right. We try to make a safe space for people so that if it seems like it's going to go south, you know, we try to, we try to give room at the same time of reigning it in, if that makes sense.

But. Yeah, I mean, there's so many voices out there and and it's we like you said, I mean, we a lot of our listeners are similar to us in age and the baby scoop era white women, you know, we have a that's the majority of the people that reach out to us and how do we get to the other to other voices?[00:50:00]

It's kind of hard to get to those other voices sometimes because of who we are. Maybe I don't know

Louise Browne: I always think I wonder who's listening that isn't saying they're listening, right? So when you put a podcast out you're thinking I wonder who's going to be touched by this interview. I always wonder that like when someone's speaking, like right now you're interviewing us, who will listen to this and it will resonate and somebody else will go, I don't like them.

Right. But it's a, it's an interesting thing because I think women in general speak up more and want to come out and tell their stories more just. Being, you know, with the language and their podcast listeners, the whole thing. So it's hard to get other people in, but when you get them, they're excited, you know, it's exciting to have someone tell their story to and feel safe with you.

It's oh my gosh, this person trusts us. I just try to remember that each time we interview any, anybody, like someone's trusting us with their story. This is so big. Sometimes we're the first person they've ever [00:51:00] told for some people.

Sarah Reinhardt: I had lunch the other day with an adoptee who was coming through Kansas City and when she'd been on our podcast and she's that's the first time I've ever talked about it.

Even to her friends, you know, she'd never talked about it. And that is, then you, just think, wow, I've really. It that helps somebody that helps somebody, whatever little piece you can do in the world to help another adoptee, you know, to have an adoptee that because, you know, I got to 55-years-old or whatever before I realized the impact of it.

And there's a lot of people like that out there that are just kind of waking up and then they have a safe space to come and talk and feel non judged and feel like, oh, yes. Somebody that relates to me.

Haley Radke: Definitely. Well, I will just say, I will continue to [00:52:00] challenge myself and challenge other adoptee podcasters to make sure we are you know, sharing from a wide, wide perspectives and, and from, from people from other communities too.

Not not adoptees, only adoptees.

Sarah Reinhardt: No, we've had several international adoptees. And, you know, again, it's like we go through, probably you go through the same thing when you people apply to be on and, you know, we might, Louise and I might have to have a conversation about, okay, maybe what we've been doing is first come first serve, but maybe there's a better way to go about it.

And maybe there's a better way to reach out and find those voices that you. Yeah, that have not been as represented on the show doesn't have to be first come first serve. Why did we decide that we can revisit that? It doesn't have to be that way. You know?

Haley Radke: Yeah. There's so many podcasters. I don't want you to take that as a, you guys aren't doing something. I don't mean that. I mean, for all of us.

Sarah Reinhardt: No, but [00:53:00] it's, you're having this conversation is just, you know, kind of light bulb. Yeah. Yeah, let's have that talk. Cause We had

Louise Browne: in season two who I think we were doing like a season two mid interview, cute poster thing. And she said, oh, I don't see that many people of color on there.

And I said, and she's an adoptee. I said, would you come on please? And she's oh, okay. I didn't know, you know, I'm like, no, please and spread the word because we're trying to figure out how to spread the word too. Mm-hmm. with our limited means and our, you know, just Sarah and I at night have we doing our social media?

You know, you do all that.

Haley Radke: Okay. Yes. And I think as hosts, then we have extra work to do as white ladies to make sure we are doing our anti racist work and asking good questions and all those things to make safe space. Right. And I think you guys are excellent at doing that. There's others that could improve and, you know, we're all, [00:54:00] we're always improving.

Anyway, I want to encourage folks to listen to your show. Adoption, The Making of Me. It's so well done. I love how you have the book. Thank you. The book discussion up front. You're really taking people on a journey of learning about different things through your eyes and through the eyes of the authors that you share.

And then you share an interview with a fellow adoptee for most of your episodes, their personal story and all those like things that we love to connect to and we can always find something to relate to. I think you guys have great questions. I think you're very empathetic. I think people that like this show will probably like your show.

It's very relatable. Yes.

Louise Browne: Thank you. It means a lot coming from you, because we think very highly of you and to your listeners, you're going to be on our podcast coming up. So that's exciting too. But it, it's very it [00:55:00] means a lot coming from you, from you actually, because you have been in the space for a long time.

I think Sarah called you the godmother of the space and a good, and that's kind of like to us, you know. You put, out great work and you do great work. We've heard it from a lot. When we were first getting into this, we heard it from other people. They would talk about you to us or oh, you know, you get that person that you're like, oh, look at her.

She's doing great. So, and we're not that tuned into so many other podcasts. Like we only, you know, really know probably a handful of myself because we're just overwhelmed most of the time. I mean, just.

Haley Radke: Nobody has time to listen to all of them, but I'm so thankful for them because, you know, Sarah, you're talking about, you have this first come first serve list.

So many people apply to be on the shows and we just don't have enough time in the day to interview everyone. And so it's amazing that there's more and more places for people to [00:56:00] go and hear their have their story be heard even for the first time. Yeah. Very special. So. What did you guys want to recommend to us?

Sarah Reinhardt: Well, on the shelf and I was going to bring this up to Louise let's do another memoir soon, is You Don't Look Adopted. And I have not read that. I'm very curious to read that. Have you read that, Haley?

Haley Radke: Absolutely. I have. Yep.

Louise Browne: And I'm in a writing group. Yes, of course you have. I'm in a writing group with Anne every Tuesday night.

Okay. And I'm like, and the, the most of the adoptees in the writing group are there because they read her book and I'm there because we know her, because we've had her on the podcast. And I'm like, I'm reading this. This year, but I didn't want to read. I didn't want to read it without Sarah because it's one of the books They want us to do so I'm like in a holding pattern.

Haley Radke: Oh Okay, yes I think from what I've heard from a lot of adopted people who've read her book and I agree with this [00:57:00] is a lot of people will read it and think oh my gosh, this is how my brain works Right. Yeah, it's very got some very relatable stories in it. And yes, absolutely. That's a great one. We'll also put in the show notes all the names of the books that you guys have read through your seasons.

So folks can pick those up because we discussed them a little bit already. And yeah, great recommendations.

Louise Browne: Also, can we recommend I think also just having the platforms that are out there like Fireside Adoptees, there's certain things that I'll even look at for two minutes every day and just be like, oh, it kind of resonates and makes your day feel better. You know, things like that, like it doesn't have to be a book, but just resources. I think there's so many.

Sarah Reinhardt: There's lots of resources, Adoptees Connect Fireside Adoptees. Gosh, there's so many. Yeah. There's a new podcast about adoptees at work. Yeah. And it's all [00:58:00] about how you come to work. As an adoptive person, you know, how obviously every area of your life is affected by this event that occurred at birth.

And how does it manifest elsewhere? And that she's focusing strictly on, how we show up in the workplace, which is valuable. Very valuable. Yeah.

Louise Browne: There's some really cool, I mean, just new things out there we've been seeing. So just the resources, Joe Soll, I mean, everyone tells us about him and anyway, those are some things to, recommend.

Your podcast. Can we put that on the list?

Haley Radke: I think they're already listening to that. Well, we'll put links to all those things in the show notes. And where can we connect with you guys online? And where can we find your show?

Sarah Reinhardt: Our website is adoptionthemakingofme. com on Facebook, we're the same Twitter is, yeah, I mean, you just put us in the search bar where we're all [00:59:00] over

Louise Browne: anywhere you get your podcast pretty much.

Sarah Reinhardt: Yep. Yeah, we don't have any exclusive deals.

Haley Radke: Is there a lot of money in adoptee podcasts? You know, guys don't have big advertising deals. Oh my gosh.

Sarah Reinhardt: Exclusively on Spotify,

Haley Radke: That's podcaster humor for anyone listening.

Louise Browne: Can I tell a funny story about that? When Sarah and I started, we were, you may know this. We were in our closets. Okay. For good sound proofing. And we tried to get, you know, you do that where they try to give you. You can get advertisers, whatever we kept trying to get a clothing thing because we're like in our closets.

We can wear whatever you want us to wear. And we're also on YouTube, right? So nobody, nobody bought it. Nobody cared.

Haley Radke: No, no. I did turn down an advertising [01:00:00] deal. Really? Yes. For ethics. I was so unhappy with the way they, their business model was, and it was something for adoptees. And I was just like, No,

Sarah Reinhardt: really?

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Louise Browne: We haven't. We haven't been there.

Sarah Reinhardt: Have that turned down yet.

Haley Radke: If we don't have our adoptees as a highest cause, what do we have left?

Sarah Reinhardt: Exactly. And we did, that's not true though. We did have somebody reach out and say, oh this adoption, I don't know, it was a bunch of websites or newsletters for adoptive parents.

And I said, I don't think you quite understand. We are not, no, we don't celebrate National Adoption Month. No, we don't want to be on anything that is going to promote any kind of adoption. So, yes, we have, we had a couple of things come our way that we did turn down, [01:01:00] but it wasn't a big advertiser or anything, but yeah.

Haley Radke: Good for you. There you go. Now, you know, Louise and Sarah are really are. So, thank you ladies so much. Such a joy to hear from you.

Sarah Reinhardt: Haley. Thank you. Thank you. Haley. This was really great. And you are, you're just your depth. And yes. Perspective and your questions are just, were just so thoughtful and, and great and appreciated.

Louise Browne: Yes, very much so. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

Oh my goodness. They have such a great energy. It was so amazing to talk with them. And I know you're going to love their podcast. I know, you know, adoptee reading is super important to me and that's something we do in community over on Adoptees On Patreon and so we have a book club nearly every [01:02:00] month and if you're listening when this is going live in November. Our book that we're reading this month is called Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson, who is an indigenous adoptee here in Canada. And it's a fictional book, but it's just so insightful into the adoptee experience. I really, really loved Probably Ruby. It tells a story of an adopted person from all different perspectives.

I think Lisa has described it sort of as this like web around the adopted person's character. And anyway, it's wonderful. So I hope you'll read along with us and come to our live book club discussion with Lisa Bird-Wilson and Patreons already have all the info for that and have the zoom link and we would love to have you join us if you join our Patreon that is how this show continues to be made plus [01:03:00] you get some extra fun bonuses. So we'd love to have you over there, adopteeson.com/bookclub has book club details and please join us. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

264 Healing Series - Adoptee Remembrance Day

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/264

---

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. Adoptee Remembrance Day was first commemorated on October 30th of 2020. We've done a variety of episodes over the last few years, beginning in 2020, with an interview with the founder of Adoptee Remembrance Day, Pamela Karanova.

We've had listeners submit recordings of their thoughts, their poetry and prose. In deciding what to do this year, I was considering what would be most impactful for our community. And I chose to do a healing series episode about suicide. This is the thing we [00:01:00] whisper about, we hide, we allude to, we can be ashamed of, and we're getting braver about discussing.

I've invited Lina Vanegas, who holds a master's of social work to talk to us today about suicide. We will be mentioning suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and death by suicide at multiple points during this episode, so please take care in deciding whether or not to listen. I don't usually do quite such an extended introduction, but because of the topic, I want to let you know exactly where we're going in this episode.

We talk about the research on adoptees and suicide, stigma surrounding death by suicide and appropriate language to use. Finding supports as someone who has suicidal ideation and what to be cautious of, support for survivors of suicide attempts and suicide loss, and how to best support fellow adoptees who reach out to us when they are feeling suicidal.[00:02:00]

Links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson. com. We also will have a transcript of this episode if you want to go through some of the... points that Lina makes later on in how to best talk to someone who is feeling suicidal. Okay, deep breath. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Lina Vanegas.

Welcome, Lina.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Hi, Haley. Thank you so much for having me as a guest today.

Haley Radke: I am so glad we get to speak. I know you've been talking about what we're going to talk about today for a long time, and I know your expertise in this matter is really important to our community. But would you start because it's your first time on.

Can you just give us a little snippet of your adoptee experience, please?

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Yes, I identify as a displaced person. I was bought by a white [00:03:00] couple. I was sold from Bogota, Colombia to the Midwest. I reside in the Midwest and I was raised by them. I am in reunion with my family and that has had lots of challenges as many of I'm a social worker. I do a lot of speaking engagements, talking about suicide, mental health, trauma, and adoption. I host a podcast, a joint podcast. I started to teach a class on transracial adoption because I feel like that's a topic where there's not a lot of information on, and we need to fill that gap.

Haley Radke: Okay. Expert in all the things. I wanted to do an episode for Adoptee Remembrance Day. We've done several different versions of this over the last few years that Adoptee Remembrance Day has been going. And I really wanted to talk about suicide and suicide prevention. There are a lot of stats and things [00:04:00] that we kind of throw around at the community level that sometimes we're getting wrong, sometimes we're getting right.

But I'm curious why, personally, why this work has been so important to you. And then let's talk about the stats and studies and if you think it's accurate or not, all that.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Yeah. Well, for me, the work started out very personal. One of my husband's, the father of my children, he died by suicide.

He was adopted. And then five years later, my mom from Colombia died by suicide. So that really touched me on a level I can't even put into words. So as a social worker, I was like, I need to come back to this. I need to talk about this because it's something that's not being talked about at all.

And there is like literally no support. I started from a personal level, it was like lived experience was huge. And then as I've [00:05:00] supported adoptive people, I have some clients that I work with, there's not a day that goes by where I'm not talking about, they're not talking about suicidal ideation, suicide attempts or deaths, from suicide, working with other adoptive people being in community with other adoptive people, it reinforced again, this is where I need to be, this is what I need to be doing.

That's how that began.

Haley Radke: And when you started in the community talking about suicide and things like, you've probably heard this thing that people say all the time, adoptees are four times more likely to die by suicide, which is incorrect. That's referring to one particular study, and it's four times more likely to attempt.

So let's make sure people are getting those things correct. But the you've seen some of the research. I know you've linked to that some of some academic articles in a presentation I went to that you gave. Can you talk a little bit about that? And first of all, what we think, what is out there for us to understand?

I, what I've seen is that some of the studies have adoptive [00:06:00] parents reporting on their teenage adoptees. I don't know if we all told our adoptive parents all the things when we were teenagers, but probably not. Anyway, your thoughts on that.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Yeah, definitely not. We're not, I would say most adoptive children are not in a space where they can, where it's safe for them to tell adoptive parents because if they did tell their adoptive parents, it's usually very misunderstood and it's just looked at as like the suicide or the attempt or the ideations are looked at just as that.

So it's pathologized and they're labeled and, forced into care, forced on medication, but the root cause isn't being looked at, that's being ignored. So that's not going to help children. That's not going to help adults. That's not going to help us. So, yeah, a lot of the narrative and research. And conversations about adoption are led by adoptive parents, and that is extremely problematic because [00:07:00] it's not their lived experience. And yes, there are some adoptive people that are adoptive parents. They need to clarify that they're also an adoptive parent, right? I feel like there's not transparency in that.

And I also feel it's a big thing. Like we could get into a whole conversation about adoptive people adopting, that's like for another day. But yeah, so it's there's not transparency in the conversations in terms of the research, the study that you're referring to the 2013 Key Study.

Yes, that was a very small study in Minneapolis with Korean adopted people and the results where they were adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide. Yes, I do think it's probably higher because as we add an intersectionality as we add in like disability is someone's identifying as trans or queer, if we add in race, all of those things are going to increase attempt rates. If you just look up LGBTQ plus youth, [00:08:00] you're going to see that's they have high attempt rates, right? So I think it's higher than four times more likely just from what I've seen in the people that I support, it's a good place to start, but we can't put everything into that. It's one small study, right? There's a study that's not really talked about. It's from 2001, and it's titled Adoption as a Risk Factor for Attempted Suicide During Adolescence. And this is a really important one because it's going to confirm what a lot of us already know and what we already just kind of said.

The conclusion was attempted suicide is more common among adolescents who lived with adoptive parents than among adolescents who live with their biological parents. Yeah, I mean, that's a huge thing. And then there's also another study from 2010 and it's going to be extremely complex for us, because as adopted people, most of us do not have our medical history.

So, in this study, it's [00:09:00] titled Maternal or Paternal Suicide, Psychiatric and Suicide Attempt, Hospitalization Risk. The finding was that maternal suicide is associated with an increased risk of suicide attempt hospitalization and that's something we wouldn't even know if we don't have medical history.

So I think that's something important to talk about. I mean, and there's other stuff out there, but I think studies, they have their place, right? And a lot of them are academic and, we could debate who's doing them and if someone is biased and don't understand adoption per se, and maybe it's an agency who makes money.

That's their whole livelihood. They're going to make their research fit what they're looking for it to do. So we could get into that too. So it's like research is great. We also have to remember. Lived experience is everything. We need to listen to people who have lost someone to suicide, listen to those who have [00:10:00] attempted, listen to those who live with ideations.

That's really where we're going to learn. And if you don't have that lived experience, you need to listen.

Haley Radke: When you were talking about the other intersectionalities, the other things I was thinking about is how we're overrepresented in mental health issues and addiction issues as well, and all of those things.

When we talk about our lifetime, like we know personally so many adopted people who are struggling with the basics of housing and jobs and in all of these extra things that are upstream issues that we're not paying attention to either. So it is so it's so hard to think about that, right?

Because our community's really hurting and I just feel like this issue is more prevalent even than we might know.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: It really is. I mean, I've kind of got into doing mutual aid [00:11:00] just because a lot of the people that I support. They, they need that, and as I've kind of talked to other people that do mutual aid, yes, that is a huge problem.

If we do not have our basic needs met, we can't feed ourselves. It's going to make sense that we are going to not want to be here, and until we can get that met, we can't even deal with the trauma or some of the, other issues if we're struggling with addiction or suicidal ideations, you know what I mean?

So it's imperative that our basic human needs are met and we could go on. This is like another conversation to I feel like we should have reparations. We should have a basic income as adopted people. We should have free college. We should have grants to start businesses.

We should be able to not worry about health care. We shouldn't have to worry about food. We shouldn't have to worry about transportation, all these things, right? These are big things. And those are barriers. A lot of the time for us being able to get help, if I'm [00:12:00] unhoused and I'm struggling with addiction and I don't have care, if I don't have mental health care, I don't have transportation, I'm unhoused.

So how am I going to, I don't have a phone. How am I going to call somebody. How am I going to text somebody? How am I going to get support? So it's like we need to have a basic level of support before we can even deal with what else is going on. So thank you for bringing that up because that is really important.

Haley Radke: Well, let's talk about the stigma around suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. I know there's lots of us that just don't say anything because we're scared of what the repercussions could be. And there's also this thing around language. And I think some people may have heard on this show and lots of other media properties.

Changing their way they talk about suicide. I don't know if folks [00:13:00] know this, but there's media guidelines on how you're supposed to talk about suicide when you're covering it. And one of the things that we do not say anymore is "committed suicide" because there's this implication that it is I'll like, I'll let you explain it.

Cause you do a really good job of that, but I use died by suicide and can you explain that a little bit about the why we don't say "committed suicide" anymore or why we shouldn't say because lots of people say it. I should clarify.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: I really appreciate you bringing that up because that's something that yeah, that's a that starts the conversation off in a very a different way.

And when we say commit. We're placing blame on somebody, we're placing judgment, we're stigmatizing them, we're associating it with, we're associating it with a crime. People commit rape, people commit murder, people die from suicide. So do you see how if we come at it with a more inclusive way, then the [00:14:00] conversation is going to feel more inclusive.

And as someone who has experienced loss right from suicide and when people say that I feel much more validated if they say, died from suicide instead of saying "committed suicide" because it places blame on the person that I loved and it also places blame on the people that are here, the loved ones, because there's a lot of judgment in that.

I like that you brought that up. And the way we talk really creates a foundation for, having a safe conversation, affirming conversation, inclusive conversation. The words definitely do matter. It's a little thing, and it might take a little bit of time to get used to saying it, but it will go a long way if we say, died from suicide instead of "committed suicide" or "committing suicide".

Haley Radke: Is there other language things that you think we should pay attention to in reducing stigma around suicide? [00:15:00]

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Yeah, people say, associate suicide with being selfish. And it's not selfish. That's a judgment, right? Any kind of blaming language or judgment language. We should not do that. It's not our place to blame people.

It's not inclusive. It's not affirming. It's not empathetic. Anything we can do where it's we're having empathy. I think that's really the key in the conversation. So checking like, is this an empathetic? Is this a validating thing? And if you don't know, you cannot ask, and then if you offended somebody, obviously take accountability for it, because we're all learning here, right?

So it's like we come from a place of empathy. That's what we do. But if we're not sure, we can always ask. We can Google it. We can look to the experts. But, the more we can be empathetic, the more we can open these conversations and destigmatize the conversation because it simply shouldn't be stigmatized.

People will say, unalive themselves. I don't like that terminology. People will say [00:16:00] completed suicide. I don't like that either because it's also, it makes it so much more complex and it just puts so much into it because it's like they died from suicide. Think of it like cancer.

Do we say someone completed cancer? No, someone died from cancer. Think of like medical things. Like people don't complete a heart attack. People don't complete a stroke. So we have to come from that angle. I think that will be a more successful way to talk about it. And we make, we all make mistakes, right?

So it's like we, we can learn from them. We can definitely learn from them. We're all learning. We're all growing. That's why we're here.

Haley Radke: I'm curious if there are things that people said to you after the loss of your mother or your ex husband that were super unhelpful.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Oh, yeah, there are so many.

I could write a book on that. And that's what also kind of propelled me into this work. It was a very lonely time. I was going about it alone. People don't [00:17:00] understand it. People who I thought were my friends are no longer my friends. People... Would place blame. Well, why did this happen? Well, did this person get help, as if that's the end all and be all right.

Also just placing like judgment. A lot of judgment. I think one of the issues is there's a lot to unpack here. The truth of it, are you going to tell the truth? And of course, I'm going to tell the truth. People were like, really in awe that I'm speaking of the truth because I've talked to a lot of people who come up with other ways that loved ones die because they don't want to say it was suicide.

And so I am one for truth and transparency. And if I don't speak the truth, then I'm part of the problem. So that was one thing where I lost friendships because if people are not supportive of the choices that I make, then I can't have you in my life. And that's a huge one. I'm going to speak the truth on this.

So that was a big thing. People [00:18:00] try to distance themselves as much as possible. Or they'll say, everything happens for a reason, and that's not something you should say to anybody, really, who's lost somebody. Would you tell someone who lost their family member to a heart attack, everything happens for a reason?

No, I would hope that you wouldn't, and if you do that, please don't do that. So those kind of toxic positivity things, or people bring religion into it, and that's not helpful. So there were, yeah, there were a lot of things where I was like, yeah, there's not good support here. I feel very alone.

I don't have a lot of resources. I'm having to grapple with my own unlearning and relearning and decolonizing from all of this because we're all indoctrinated to everything, right? So. I was indoctrinated into a certain way of looking at suicide like we all are. And so as I was going through this process, I really threw myself into reading from other people [00:19:00] who have lost loved ones to suicide, listening to voices of people who have attempted Or, and just trying to understand, and I realized yeah, this is so stigmatized.

This is so judged. This is so misunderstood. So it also just kind of catapulted me into this the work that I do. So, yeah, I mean, it's a lot of unlearning we all have to do. And I didn't have it all figured out in that situation. And I didn't have the knowledge that I do now. I wish I had. I wish everybody who's in the situation, everyone that's impacted by suicide, which is probably everyone in the world.

I wish we all had this information because it would make a huge difference.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I hope we're always teaching people to take good care of each other with a little more empathy and thought into our interactions, especially when someone is going through such a difficult time. You mentioned somebody saying why didn't he find help or something so [00:20:00] stupid.

Okay, let's talk about that. How do people find support? And where do you sort of guide them to when we know there's a lot of complexity around asking for support that can sometimes come with harms?

Lina Vanegas, MSW: That's a big question because even I want to kind of demystify the fact that people get support and that everything's okay, because there are people that do everything that we're told to do and then they might still die from suicide.

So just because you got support doesn't mean that, everything's going to be happily ever after, right? So we have to demystify that because we don't want to put. That puts a lot of creates a narrative of well, if you do this, if you take this medication, if you go to so many, therapy sessions, if you get enough sleep, if you eat healthy, if you do all these things, and you're not going to die from suicide.

And that's a narrative. And that's not [00:21:00] factual. That's not true. Yes, that could happen. But every situation is different. And not one situation is better than the other because that didn't happen to them. It's we're all complex human beings. So we have to demystify that in terms of help and support there isn't much, there isn't much for adopted people.

That's again why I do this work, right? As we're thinking about, well, what would we do? And I think the the first thing that would come up is people would say, call a crisis line or call the 988 line. Yes, they're there for people to call when they're in crisis, but I do want to say that they do police, they surveil, and they report.

So if I call, and I'm a transracial adaptive person, I'm from Colombia, so I'm not a white person, right? Or if someone's calling and they're trans and they're a black man, right, that's going to add a lot of complexity to it because we know that the police are going to be involved. So it's it could be [00:22:00] dangerous for people with intersectionality to call these lines because if they report something and the person taking the call deems them to be a risk to themselves or a risk to somebody else, they can do what is called non-consensual rescuing.

So basically the police could be called to the person's house. We know what happens with police violence. So, and if someone's in crisis and the police are not really trained to deal with crisis and mental health, or trauma, and so this could escalate. The other thing is often people are forced into care.

They're forced into psychiatric detention. It has been proven that when you force people into things, whether it's addiction, whether it's mental health, whether it's suicide prevention, it doesn't work when you force people into things and you strip them of their [00:23:00] autonomy. You take their clothes, you take their phones, you lock them in a place they can't leave and they have to prove that they are okay to leave.

The nurses, the doctors, the state has that power. So that. Is enforcing medication on them, right? That is not going to help somebody that is going to harm somebody. And there is research out there. There's a book called Your Consent is Not Required by Rob Wipond. I apologize if I'm not pronouncing his name right. That's an important book. There's a lot. I love that there's support, but when people are calling these crisis lines, if we disclose too much information, we run the risk of the police coming out and being forced into care. We also run the risk of police violence, or being killed by the police, or being, further traumatized by the police.

So, that is a big issue. There are, there is the trans line and the black health [00:24:00] line. Those are two lines that don't do, that don't police. So those are the two lines that I know that don't participate in the non consensual rescuing, but we don't have anything particular to adopted and displaced people at this point.

It would be great to have a warm line where we could call and we don't run that risk of being police. There is nothing now in terms of support there's not really an organizations either. It's tough because there's not anything unique to us. So that's again why I do this work and get the message out there and hopefully other people are going to start doing the same. I'm feeling hopeful because I get invited into a lot of suicide prevention spaces. So those people are like listening and they're like, amplifying the lived experience and realizing, and they're unlearning. They're like, wow, like I didn't know this.

So that's important too, because people are listening and I am hopeful that. Things are going to work. [00:25:00] We're going to get more support. It's not going to happen overnight, but I do think you'll give it like 10 to 20 years. I think the support will be greater. And I know that's a long time, but things are slow.

Unfortunately.

Haley Radke: Well, let's talk about what we can do now. I know a lot of us who are on socials will receive DMs from people who are struggling and either are struggling and don't say outright, I'm having suicidal thoughts, or they do express some form of desire to not be here anymore. And so what are things we not take on the responsibility for someone else's wellbeing.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: It's hard because a lot of us are not, there has to be like a whole, we could do like a whole training on how to do this, right? So I'm giving snippets, so this is not, it's, it is just a piece, right? So I think the key is we [00:26:00] listen, like listening and having someone be heard and not being judged or stigmatized.

So if I say, I don't wanna be here, Haley. And you were to say, Oh my God, you have to go to the emergency room. Like that kind of thing. And you went like alarmist mode that is not going to make me feel safe. It's going to escalate the situation, right? So instead, if you were like, Oh, I'm so sorry, Lina, that must be really hard.

And you just listen. I think we need to be heard because so often as adopted and displaced people. We are not heard. We're spoken for. So I think the listening piece is really key. The validation piece is really key. Most of us are not trained social workers or therapists or clinicians, right?

So, It's we can't take on that role, and we shouldn't try to take on that role. So we could say, are you safe right now? You can ask them if they're safe. And if they say yeah, I'm safe. I, or if they're [00:27:00] not safe, we could say is there someone that could come over to be with you?

I don't want you to be alone, right? But we also have to be clear with our boundaries because a lot of us are struggling too. So if I reach out to you and you're like, struggling too, and you're like, Lina, I'm really sorry. I hear that you're struggling, but I'm also like struggling too.

And I'm not in a place to have this conversation at this point, or it's too close to home. We have to kind of set some boundaries to in terms of the situation, because you might be dealing with the same thing. And me talking to you might, it might activate you even more. So it's it's a very complex conversation because we want people to be heard, but we don't want to try and fill the role of clinicians.

We're not here to fix anything. I think the key is listening and validating. And really, the thing the message I want people to know is there is nothing wrong with you. If you're struggling with suicidal ideations, if you struggle with them, if you live with them, there's nothing wrong with you. If [00:28:00] you've had suicide attempts, there's nothing wrong with you.

There is nothing wrong with you. The situation, the lived experience that we have with being separated from our families, that is what is wrong. This is simply a side effect of that. So, I want people to know. It's not you. There's nothing wrong with you. It's completely normal to feel these feelings and emotions or however you feel given the lived experience.

There is not one right way or wrong way to feel. And the fact that so many of us live with this or have died from this. It makes a lot of sense given the situation.

Haley Radke: I always want to be like, please stay, like the world needs you and it's better because you're here. And in those kind of things that I think can come across as platitudes, even if we really mean them deep down.

Do you think those things are helpful?

Lina Vanegas, MSW: I don't say any of those things. I know it's [00:29:00] like it's good intentions and I think like the impact is larger because we don't want to, if I come to you and I say, I don't want to be here. And then you said that you're the most well meaning person, right? I could feel guilt.

I'm already ashamed of how I feel and it might make me feel more guilty or when people say, oh, but you have a family or what would your kids do? All that kind of stuff. It just it's more of a burden that people that are struggling don't need to hear. So I think the listening is the most key. Because we're not heard.

We don't really need to be fixed because there's nothing wrong with us. We just need a place to speak. And the more we can speak this out there and not be judged and not be stigmatized and not be, committed. Look, I'm losing the term committed. Committed to psychiatric detention. The more we can normalize these conversations, and I think the less shame and guilt and secrecy people will have, and I think that will go a long way, because if I can just come and say, I [00:30:00] don't want to be here or whatever, and I just met with, I'm so sorry I, that makes complete sense, that kind of thing, it's going to go a long way for me.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I wondered if you might say something like that, because even as I was saying it, I was like, oh, I'm putting an extra weight. Please stay so that I will still feel okay. There's something underlying in that message as well. Okay, this has been super helpful.

Thank you. I know a lot of us know someone in our lives that we have lost to suicide. What are things that you do for yourself to take care of yourself? And how can you recommend for us to do so? And after having a, like a conversation like that in the DMs and, still wanting to take care of ourselves.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Yeah. I think it's like. What works for me and what works for you might not work for somebody else. So I don't want people to think that what I say is the only way, cause it's [00:31:00] not. So it might resonate with you. It might not. I think boundaries are extremely important. If we can set boundaries and kind of know how much we can give to people at a certain time, cause if I'm struggling, I need to focus on me and I'm not going to be able to help somebody else or I might not have the capacity to listen to them right and hold space. So that's an important thing for me movements key. I love my Peloton. I love to move. I love to sweat. I love that. I have a network of people that I can call who are also adopted. So if I'm struggling, I can reach out and say hey can we talk? I'm having a hard time. Do you have space for me? I've been in and out in therapy my entire life, so that's a piece, but I'm not saying that's the end all and be all because it's just a piece. I've tried alternative, acupuncture that might work for you.

Other things might work for you. I like spending time with my dog and my kids. So, there's a lot of things [00:32:00] that I do, but I think the boundaries are important and just making sure that we're taking care of and we're in a place. And making sure that we're not prioritizing other people over us, because that's kind of as a adopted and displaced people, we're kind of conditioned to do so.

So we need to check in with ourselves and, how am I doing today? What, what can I do for myself? And maybe I need to relax more. Maybe I need to play video games. Maybe I need to journal. Maybe I need to sleep, those kind of things. Being, focusing more on ourselves. I think about boundaries have been a huge thing in terms of the work that I do.

And I think just being a human being, we all need to have boundaries and we need to check in and see where we are. And some days we're just we need to take care of ourselves. And other days we might have a little bit more to give.

Haley Radke: Thank you. You're welcome. Lina, this was so helpful. Please tell us about where we can find your podcast and connect with you online and make sure we find out any upcoming events or [00:33:00] things that you're teaching on because I know people will want to hear more from you.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Thank you so much, Haley. My podcast, it's a joint podcast with Sol Yaku, and we're available, it's called Rescripting the Narrative. We're available on Spotify and also Apple Music. Lina Leads with Love on Instagram and also on Twitter, and I'm Lina Vanegas on Facebook. My website is under construction.

I, we have an event, Mila and I are, The Empress Han, she goes by The Empress Han on social media. We have an event coming up in November for National Adoption Awareness Month. We do monthly events and this event is going to be a community involvement, community building event. I did research, lived experience research on adopted and displaced people and I am going to do a presentation so I can provide that research to everybody that participated in that. I'd love to connect on socials. Love to see you at my events. And Haley, thank you so much today for this [00:34:00] conversation and, for the space that you create so we can have these conversations.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I appreciate that so much. I went to one of the events that you hosted with Mila and I was I love how you hold space for people. It's so important. So thank you so much for your contributions to the community. It's been lovely talking with you today.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: Thank you so much, Haley. Have a great day.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sticking with us through a very challenging topic. I want to make just a couple of extra notes. What we don't understand is that there's kind of any time we can start feeling in a dark place and things that we can do for ourselves, before that ever happens, is building up our community and contacts and supports [00:35:00] so that we do have a friend to touch base with if things are getting difficult, and I hope that we are making meaningful connections and building out friendships and figuring out how to access therapy and other supports. So we have this rounded community around us. When we're able to do those things, I know when you're in the midst of depression, I mean, getting out of bed and brushing your teeth in the morning feels impossible, so trying to find an internet friend is impossible during those times.

So, I want to encourage you to try and build your community when you're feeling well. And I also want to say that some of what Lina said about supports for adopted [00:36:00] people can feel really disconcerting oh, I can't, there's nowhere for me to call, like there's nowhere. And we do have a variety of listeners listening around the world.

I know that even here in Canada, there are some local crisis lines that are not policed and would be considered warm lines. And so in your area, there may be supports that are safe for you to contact. I have not done research on all of those things all around the world because that is just not within my capacity.

But I don't want to dissuade you from ever calling out for help. If there's something local that might actually be a great support to you. My sister volunteers at a crisis line and we've talked about how safe their [00:37:00] whole setup is for the volunteers, for the folks who call, it is not policed, all of those things.

Like it's a really impressive setup. And so there are places that are doing this well that you may have access to that we just haven't heard of yet. So maybe someone can build a list, a safe list of places for us to go to. And yeah, so I want to encourage you those couple things. Build your community, especially when you're feeling quote unquote, more well, so that you do have friends in place when things are tough, and maybe look for some crisis lines in your area that you think would be safe to send someone when they were in a time of hardship and save it for yourself to [00:38:00] know and save it to have on hand to send to a friend if they need it.

We're sort of all in this together, right? And the more we can do to support our community in this way, the better. I really appreciate Lina teaching us today. I hope that some of the skills we talked about in just listening will be helpful for us and hopefully we never have to use them. But we, you have it in your back pocket.

You don't have to ignore the DM from someone who is in crisis and you will know how to just listen. And acknowledge what they're going through is normal. I'm sending my love to you. Thank you for listening to Adoptee Voices here on Adoptees On. And let's talk again next Friday.

Okay. If you listen to the very end, I'm including [00:39:00] a little outtake here. When I recorded this, I was very sick and I don't know how my voice held up, but Lina, bless her. She got to see me blow my nose, cough down tea, like it was going out of business. It was a whole thing. So that's my comment here. At the end of her, here's how I set that up to her.

You're really going to get to know me today, Lina, and I'm very sorry.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: No, I'm looking forward to it.

Haley Radke: I keep it together.

Lina Vanegas, MSW: It's totally fine. There is no such thing as keeping it together.

It's all a facade.

Haley Radke: It is a facade. I'm excellent at a facade. We all are.