Convoluted thoughts and a Ted Talk…

By TAO

Hopefully the title has warned you that my thoughts are all over the place. Below is one of the Ted Talks I listened to today…

While you listen to the talk given in Wellington, New Zealand by a member of OXFAM, think about how adoption is consumer driven, although a much more arduous process then simply a trip to the grocery store, prospective  and adoptive parents are the consumers in adoption.  They (the AP’s) hold the power to make the adoption agencies change their practices when found to be questionable ethically.  They make the choice of who they take their business too, and, what they require the process to be.  They also have the ability to speak up, or not.  Their voices have more power to effect change, than any other voice in the adoption community.

 

Willful blindness…

By TAO

Although this talk is on another subject, it provides very good food for thought for those who don’t speak up and demand accountability when you see something done wrong in adoption. 

You don’t need to watch, just listen. 

 

Knowledge About Your Adoption prompt…

By TAO

November 16th prompt…Knowledge About Your Adoption

Some adoptive parents share more than others for various reasons. How much of your adoptive parents’ story was shared with you? If they shared details about your adoption, how did that make you feel? If they did not, do you wish they had? Did your parents share with you why they choose to adopt? Did they share that story with others in your life? If so, did it affect you in any way?

Mom and dad shared exactly what the SW told them, and that part of my story was they were asked to adopt me, when they weren’t looking to adopt again.  Everyone knew we were adopted – there wasn’t anyway they could have hidden it if they had wanted to, so I am sure my entire four sentence story was shared with at least those close – really how could they have abbreviated it anymore than that…

Every time talk about an adoptee’s story comes up – I am drawn to look back to the posts I have done about Chimanda Adichie – “The Danger of the Single Story”

This is a snippet of what I said in my post on November 20th 2011…about what Chimanda Adichie says in her talk – and how I related to it.

In the talk she shows time and time again with anecdotal personal stories how our impressions and views on an individual are shaped only by what we know about one part of who they are.

She states “It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word an evil word that I think about “oncarli” (my phonetic spelling), it’s a noun roughly translated “to be greater than another”. Stories to are defined by the principal of “oncarli”, how they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. Power is the ability to tell the story of another person but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

As an adoptee in a closed adoption with knowledge that I would never know my family, my ancestors, my nationality I had one Single Story of them. A Single Story passed to my mom and dad from the social worker. That story consisted of four sentences. Once the court opened my records and I met my family, I learned that story had no truth to it at all. But it had been MY Single Story of my family for over 40 years. The power was held by the social worker who crafted my story, each sentence had the smallest grain of truth and a liberal helping of borrowed or changed information designed to ensure that even if I searched, with those facts I would fail.

I think Chimanda Adichie provides the very best advice to adoptive parents in her talk.  What I took away in part was – be aware that you are telling only one story of another person – tread very carefully with the terms you choose to use, and how you tell the story, and how limiting that story actually is.  Recognise the power you hold over making that single story – the only story anyone hears and remembers – you don’t know all the stories – just the one story you were told.

This is what I said about this ted talk back in 2010…

Adoption is not part of this video but it speaks so loudly about it that every single person involved in the adoption world must hear the words in this video.  Please take the time to listen to her words they are important.  None of us comes with a single story, nor is one story the only story you must hear on anything.

Even if you have listened to the talk before – it is worth listening to it over again, I can’t stress that enough.

 

Film Review of “Somewhere Between” on NPR

For Chinese-American Adoptees, Matters Of Identity

I was interested in reading about the film “Somewhere Between” and clicked on the link to a review and was deeply disappointed.  I left the link open, and continued on reading the news of the day and favorite blogs.  Having cleared my mind, I returned to re-read the review, hoping I had been wrong in the tone and content.  Sadly, the review read the same, and yet, I wanted to give the writer the benefit of the doubt so I went and read other film reviews she had written.  Listening to the tone and looking at her words in other reviews, I came away with the opinion that she could not leave her role in adoption out of this review.

The opening paragraph states statistics of adoptions from China to the US and the reasons.  The second paragraph has nothing whatsoever to do with the documentary.

Waiting for them at this end was the pent-up parental longing of thousands of infertile couples, single women (and a few single men) and gay and lesbian couples. I was one of those parents-in-waiting, and trust me, by the time I traveled with 11 other families to Guangzhou to pick up our babies, you could have put pet rocks in our laps and we’d have loved them to bits.

The writer goes on to describe in detail the type of parents each of the four girls had who were in the documentary, and reunion of Fang and her parents in China.  Then to me, her bias shows through even stronger.

That aside, all four girls are thoughtful, moving and imaginative on the subject of their split identities. Haley thinks of herself as a “banana,” yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Describing herself as “stuck between two countries,” Fang laments that she’s always trying to compensate for the fact that she was abandoned because she’s a girl.

Watching the tears roll down Fang’s otherwise cheerful face, I wondered whether she’d be this sad if she wasn’t facing a camera. On the plus side, Somewhere Between is refreshingly free of the cloying, one-size-fits-all dogma that sometimes bedevils the adoption community. (I parted company with my chosen adoption listserv when I got tired of hearing about “the holes in all our daughters’ hearts.”)

Finally, in my opinion, her bias is cinched by completing her review of this film by having the last four paragraphs of the review be about her and her daughter, and how her daughter has no issues.

I understand that she is a film critic and works for NPR and is the reason NPR had her do the review.  I think she should have recused herself.  Here are a few links to other film reviews she has written so you can see the difference I saw between them, (or not).

At Home With Warriors, And The Burdens They Carry

A Good Daughter, But A ‘Pariah’ Among Her Own

Edit: 8/25/2012 – Malinda at Adoption Talk also talks about this review that is worth reading.  Another Adoptive Parent Tells Adoptees How They Should Feel

 

April 2, 2012…

A day I have looked forward to since 2005 when I learned my father’s name and after I found out he did not want contact.  A date when I could start exploring my family history by learning the names of my paternal grandparents in the 1940 census.  The starting point I needed to start my final family tree.

The day I was counting down to in this post.

Well, that day has come and gone.  That day I logged on and was disappointed.  The next days and the following week were disappointing too.  Seven weeks later I am still disappointed.  The hype leading up to it and after as a paid subscriber of ancestry.com was intense.  The lack of specifics that the census would be released but not searchable, must have been hidden deep in the advertising because I did not see it.  The ongoing lack of any projections on when states would be searchable is not visible to me on the site.  To date they have the following states – NV, DE, DC, ME searchable – seven weeks later this is all they have done.  Any other state you need to at least know the district and then must scan through each page individually from that district.  I don’t know the state, let alone the district.  I have an idea of which state they may have lived in, but other than an idea I have zero information except my father’s name and age at the time of the census.  My grandparents could have lived in any state for all I know.  That’s a lot of districts in a lot of states to search each page from the 1940 census.  What good is having that subscription if it does nothing for me? 

It is excruciatingly painful to be so close and yet so far…after waiting so long.

It makes me angry that I still don’t know the other 50% of who I am…

I’m getting downright snarky…I just want to know and really don’t think it is too much to ask to know when they expect to have each state, by state, indexed and searchable.  Is that really so much to ask?

 

70 days to go…

The 1940 US Census will be released April 2, 2012 – just 70 more days to wait – kind of like waiting for Christmas when you were a kid, counting down the days. 

Once it is released for the first time in over 5 decades, I will be able to find out the names of my paternal grandparents, whether they were alive when I was born, when they died, what they did and where they lived.  Whether I had aunts and uncles and who they were too.  Perhaps even a picture or two if I am lucky. 

I can start researching and documenting the paths that side of my family travelled.  Who my great grandparents and great-great grandparents were.  What they all did, where they lived, what land they originally came from, and when.  What life was like in each era and place.  Anything that will paint me a picture of who and what they were like, and what life was like for them. 

I will finally know the other 50% of my ancestry, heritage, nationality, story.  I can’t wait…have already waited far too long.

Anyone else waiting for the 1940 US Census?

 

Is a child of a single parent an orphan?

I know the title is a strange question – but stop and consider what your answer is.  If you are reading this, then your answer is most likely no – the child is not an orphan.

Yet, if you are a prospective adoptive parent and you use the UNICEF number of 143 Million Orphans as your rally cry to “solve the orphan crisis” –  you must also then agree that children of single parents are orphans – regardless of the country they live in, because that criteria is included in what UNICEF uses to come to 143 Million Orphans.  Also included are double orphans where neither parent is living, social orphans who have full families, but have been put into orphanages so they are fed or sheltered.  And even those double orphans still have aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents…

It really is that simple.  Your definition of orphan – is not the definition used by UNICEF in compiling that number, and family preservation is still an option for many of those children.

You can read a very enlightening article published in Sage Journals and is an open access article written by Karen Smith Rotabi who is Assistant Professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University and Kelley McCreery Bunkers who is an International Child Protection consultant and she has worked in a number of countries including Romania, Guatemala, and Ethiopia.

In an Era of Reform – A Review of Social Work Literature on Intercountry Adoption

You can also listen to a podcast about this article here:

In an Era of Reform – A Review of Social Work Literature on Intercountry Adoption – Podcast and then click on podcast.

 

I was, then I became…

I have been watching the different posts about the Oklahoma adoption case where the father prevailed. That isn’t completely what this post is about though. This post is about the long-term implications of the legal act of surrender on the person surrendered, regardless of whether or not that person was adopted.

When I was surrendered I was legally severed forever from my family. They did not have any legal claim on me, nor I them. In law, I was not related to them, nor did I now have any common ancestor with any biological relative. That is how the law stands on this issue both in the legislative adoption process, and probate laws. The only two parts of the law to my knowledge that weigh in on who you are or aren’t biologically related too.

Yesterday, I read this:

IN RE: the ESTATE OF Thomas A. FLEMING

(you can read the paper here which is fascinating)

An interesting case in which Thomas A Fleming was surrendered by Margaret Mary Fleming in 1947 for adoption.

In 1947, the King County Juvenile Court entered a parental termination order stating Fleming was “permanently deprived of any and all maternal rights and interests in and to the said Baby Boy Fleming.” 

The state placed Thomas in the permanent custody of Catholic Charities Diocese of Seattle for the purpose of, and to approve his adoption. Thomas was never adopted and in 1996 died intestate. He had never married and had no biological children. After his death Margaret Mary Fleming and her son Antonio B Marzan (half-brother of Thomas), petitioned to be the heirs to Thomas’s estate.

In 1998, Judith Kovacs, the personal administrator of Thomas’ estate, filed a petition for determination of heirship.   Kovacs asked the court to find Fleming and Marzan were not entitled to inherit from Thomas because by court order all maternal rights had been terminated.   She argued Thomas’ estate should escheat to the State of Washington because he died intestate without any legal heirs.

Fleming and Marzan filed a response and objection to the petition. The superior court commissioner agreed with Kovacs and ruled the estate escheats to the State because Thomas was without legal heirs.   The commissioner found the 1947 order terminating Fleming’s maternal rights to Thomas also extinguished her right to inherit intestate, and Marzan could not inherit from Thomas because there was no longer a common ancestor between them.

Margaret Fleming passed away and Marzan as personal representative to her estate appealed the ruling but the Superior court upheld the ruling. The court had to determine two separate issues: what Margaret Mary Flemings legal status to Thomas A Fleming was based on the law at the time of surrender, and secondly, whether at the time of his death where the current probate law applies, if she is entitled her to be considered an heir.

Under the express language of the statute and termination order, Fleming lost all of her rights and interests in Thomas in 1947.   While the order could not change Fleming’s status as the biological parent of Thomas, it did end her legal status as his parent.   Since Fleming never reestablished the parent-child relationship, in the eyes of the law she was not Thomas’ legal parent at the time of his death in 1996.

Marzan argued that even if Margarets’ legal status was gone you could not change the common bloodline. Remember the legal status of the mother is based on the law at the time of surrender, but the intestate probate laws at the time death apply whether or not she is an heir. Marzan argued with an old probate case-law that consanguinity remains in the adoption cases, but that was before they changed the adoption law denying an adoptee the right to inherit from a biological relative.

Contemporary probate and adoption statutes provide ample evidence the Legislature has abandoned consanguinity as the overriding policy consideration where the parent-child relationship is terminated.   For instance, RCW 11.04.085 provides that an adopted child is not an heir of his or her biological parents.   Similarly, RCW 26.33.260(1) provides that an adoptive child enjoys complete inheritance rights from the adoptive parent.

Marzan accepted that aspect based on the Donnelly case (read the paper), but then challenged that Thomas had never been adopted, and that the act of adoption triggered the abandonment of consanguinity.

We reject this argument because it fails to consider that  adoption is a process rather than a single event.   Reading the adoption statute as a whole, it is apparent the Legislature considered adoption as a fluid process starting from the termination of the biological parent-child relationship and extending beyond the placement of the child into a new family. See RCW 26.33.120.   Washington’s adoption statute includes provisions for the filing of petitions for relinquishment of parental rights (RCW 26.33.080), hearings regarding those petitions (RCW 26.33.090), grounds for the termination of a parent-child relationship (RCW 26.33.120), and the effect of a termination order (RCW 26.33.130).   Given the overall statutory scheme, adoption cannot be narrowly construed as a single event when we are determining the intestacy rights of biological parents who voluntarily terminate the parent-child relationship.

The legislative policy identified in Donnelly applies to the entire adoption process, including the termination of the biological parent-child relationship.   The adopted child must be given a “fresh start.”   The legislative policy provided that all ties be severed at this point, not at the time the child is placed into the adoptive family.   In fact, the Legislature indicated so in RCW 26.33.130(2), stating:  “[a]n order terminating the parent-child relationship divests the parent and the child of all legal rights, powers, privileges, immunities, duties, and obligations with respect to each other.”   Given this, it stands to reason our holding in Donnelly applies not only to cases where an adoption has occurred but also to cases in which the parent-child relationship has been permanently severed in anticipation of an adoption.

The Court then goes on to determine if Marzan can be considered a legal heir as the biological half-brother.

Intestacy statutes establish a system of intestate succession whereby the line of descent and distribution flows through a decedent’s parents to reach the issue of parents.   The line must flow through a common ancestor.   Margaret Fleming, as the parent of Marzan and Thomas, was the only direct connection between them.   When Margaret Fleming’s parental rights were terminated, the effect was to permanently sever Thomas from her family line, leaving him without a legal parent.   Therefore, the line of intestate succession between Marzan and Thomas was severed as well.

Now to the point of this post…

The above demonstrates that we legally lose our biological history and that history includes our heritage both in adoption and probate laws. I became a person with an English ancestry when I was adopted. I lost my true ancestral heritage of the countries my ancestors immigrated from. That to me is not acceptable. It is problematic but it is hidden in same race adoption. It is easy to pretend my ancestors are English, I grew up with stories of my parents ancestors, but yet looking at myself I am not. I am a combination of two completely different countries, one who warred with England for what seems like generations if not centuries. I am not English, and do not have any English blood running through my veins. I am other than – yet legally, I am English through and through – right up there with the magic of rainbows and unicorns “poof – you are English”.  To bad the reality proves I did not magically inherit my [a] parents DNA with all those lovely longevity genes…that would have been nice…

So that is the long-winded rambling point to the post. The current news item that is being debated in adoption land boils down to: Once the deal is done, the child in the eyes of the law loses their ancestral heritage and magically obtains the ancestral heritage of the adoptive parents – and based on the horrific history of abuse to the Native Americans in this country – they were also fighting for the child to retain not only her cultural heritage, but her legally recognised ancestral blood line. It really is that simple.

Coincidently, I just took a break and found out that Joy has a post on her ancestry today that is well worth reading Ich bin ein Berliner.  Amanda at Declassified Adoptee in the past has also talked about the impact of losing your ancestral heritage.

 

Olivia Pratten wins court case

TELUS, news, headlines, stories, breaking, canada, canadian, national.

B.C. judge says anonymity for sperm, egg donors is unconstitutional

VANCOUVER – A woman born as a result of donor insemination has won her lawsuit seeking to end the anonymity of sperm and egg donors in B.C.

Olivia Pratten was conceived in 1981 as a result of donor insemination.

After fruitless efforts to obtain records about the sperm donor, Pratten sued the provincial government, arguing that the provincial law discriminated against people born from such donations because they don’t have the same ability to learn their genetic roots as adopted children.

In a ruling released today, B.C. Supreme Court Judge Elaine Adair agrees that the B.C. Adoption Act of 1996 is unconstitutional.

The judge grants a permanent injunction against the destruction of donor records in B.C.

But the ruling gives the B.C. government 15 months to amend the law to address the offspring of such reproductive technologies.

 

Everyone is entitled to know…except those who are adopted

“Finding the truth behind the stories.” 

“On the trail of a mysterious ancestor.”

“Who paved the way for you?”

“Where did your family come from?”

“You too can solve a family mystery.”

“How deep are your American roots?”

Catchy headlines from emails I have received lately from Ancestry.  Something that the majority of people would not stop and think about.  Just like the show Who Do You Think You Are? that follows celebrities finding out who is in their family tree and the impact it has on them.  Either you are into genealogy or not but even if you aren’t, the show can be entertaining because it has the celebrity factor. 

But when the show is called “Find My Family” or “Searching For” or “The Locator”…then people all have an opinion because adoption enters the equation, and quite simply because we not supposed to be intrigued or curious or want to know, that it’s not important…who we were born to be…who our ancestors were…what roads they travelled.

Of course there are those who agree we should be able to access our original birth certificates, those who provide the PC lip service but don’t really like the idea of us knowing where we came from, and those who simply think we should be grateful for what we have…and be happy and content to live life without answers.

This is what I was thinking about today as I was cleaning out my inbox.  And I realized that for 90% of my life I could not have answered any of those questions in the headlines, or had any hope of ever knowing anything.  For last 10% of my life I have been able to answer those questions for 50% of my family.  And realizing I am one of the lucky ones with that knowledge, some will go to the graves never knowing, some have already gone.  

A right everyone else takes for granted…

 

Mirror Identical twins…adopted into different homes, different countries…

You really will enjoy the video and then read the following continuation of their story a year later…

Joy for adopted twins after Immigration red-tape U-turn

A YEAR ago, these identical twins were left heartbroken after authorities told them they were not officially related because they had been adopted as babies by different families.

This week they are celebrating after migration officials did a backflip, paving the way for the siblings to be reunited in WA. Carnarvon woman Rosabelle Glasby was devastated when told she could not bring her sister to Australia to live from Malaysia because the Department of Immigration and Citizenship did not consider them to be related.

Mrs Glasby and her sister, Dorothy Loader, who were adopted by different families soon after birth in Malaysia, were apart for nearly 50 years before finally meeting last year.

According to migration laws, the legal relationship between siblings – even identical twins – is severed when they are adopted out.

The Sunday Times revealed the case in January last year. But sorrow turned to joy this week when Federal Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Evans said he had intervened on compassionate grounds.

There is more to the article in the link above…

And while I am certainly glad the Australian government changed its mind, but really did it have to be so difficult and take the better part of a year?  Can anyone really deny that identical twins are related?  To state they are not related because some judge deemed it so by a stroke of a pen on an adoption petition?  Seriously people need to just stop and give their heads a shake.  Just another example of the insanity adoptees face.  And they say being adopted is a one-time event…

 

November Adoption Awareness Month – Day Ten

“J” is for Just…

just (just) adjective

1. right or fair; equitable; impartial: a just decision
2. righteous; upright: a just man
3. deserved; merited: just praise
4. legally right; lawful; rightful
5. proper, fitting, etc.: a just balance of colors
6. well-founded; reasonable: a just suspicion
7. correct or true: a just report
8. accurate; exact: a just measure

Origin: ME < OFr juste < L justus, lawful, rightful, proper < jus, right, law: see jury

The laws surrounding adoptees sealed Original Birth Certificates are unjust.  They need to be changed.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that we need to be protected from our family or that our family needs to be protected from us.  It makes no sense and is harmful, hurtful and hateful that the adoption industry supports keeping our Original Birth Certificate from us.  

“We” are that precious infant that families line up to adopt.  That prospective parents dream of, desire and need so badly that they create blogs about the day they become parents.  “We” are dreams come true for that hole in their heart that only a baby can fill.  “We” are the prize…at least until “We” grow up and then “We” become the enemy, treated like “We” are perpetual children or that “We” will become evil stalkers out to harm our families…at least to the adoption agencies who lobby against our right to our Original Birth Certificate…why is that?  Don’t we count as individuals?  Humans?  Deserving of respect for “OUR” needs and desires to know where “We” came from?     

Ask your adoption agency whether they lobby FOR adult adoptees right to their Original Birth Certificate or AGAINST.  If they (or you) support the NCFA they are against our fight to restore our rights.  They will tell you about the confidentiality that our mothers were given.  I have my surrender document from my court ordered unsealing of my adoption file…not a whisper of a promise of confidentiality to my mother.  Professor Elizabeth Samuels of University of Baltimore School of Law submitted an Opinion piece based on the research into the ‘promise of confidentialty’ she has done and is urging NJ to support the adult adoptees right to their Original Birth Certificate because their was no promise.

What rights will your adopted child have when they become adults?  What are the laws in the state you adopted in?  Even if you have an open adoption your child’s Original Birth Certificate is still sealed if you live in a closed state.  I urge you to stand up and support adoptee rights.  Aren’t “We” worth writing a letter to your state representatives?

A couple of reunions from YouTube that are worth watching…

 

And stop and think – how on earth are we expected to know if we date/marry a twin, sibling, cousin if we do not know who we are?  Trust me, it’s a thought that runs through our heads when we start dating…wouldn’t you want to know?  Wouldn’t you want your child to know?

Don’t let another generation of adoptee grow up to not have the same rights as everyone else to their own Original Birth Certificate.