Labor Day weekend we celebrated the last weekend of summer with a hike out to Pt. Reyes and gazpacho on the deck. The kids are back in school, and we’re in that beautiful period before homework begins in earnest. That, I am dreading. But until then, the days are hot and clear, and the nights still warm enough to eat outside while the kids jump on the trampoline. Even as I’m living them, I know these are some of the best times of our lives.
I’m posting a link to an insightful and perceptive essay about a mother-daughter trip back to Guatemala, this summer. The journey was the first one back for 11-year-old Nohemi, who came to the US at six months old. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Mother-Daughter Trip Back to Guatemala was written by her mom and my friend, Beth Kawasaki.
Finally, for anyone who has been following the case of Encarnacion Romero, the Guatemalan undocumented worker whose daughter was placed for adoption while Romero was incarcerated: From the Joplin (Missouri) Globe:
A state appellate court is scheduled to hear arguments next week on behalf of a Guatemalan woman who wants to overturn a ruling that terminated her parental rights and allowed her son — now 6 years old — to be adopted by a Carthage couple.
The case, set to be heard Sept. 9 in the Southern District Missouri Court of Appeals in Springfield, challenges a decision handed down a year ago that cleared the way for the adoption of the boy who has lived with Seth and Melinda Moser, of Carthage, since he was a year old.
Joe Hensley, attorney for the couple, said last week that the biological mother’s parental rights were terminated on the grounds of “abandonment, neglect and parental unfitness.”
… The mother of the child, Encarnacion Romero, has remained in the United States to pursue appeals that started more than three years ago. The issue has received nationwide attention from groups that advocate on behalf of women and immigrants, including those who claim that the mother lost custody of the child because she is in the country illegally. …
Romero was living in Carthage in May 2007 when she was arrested on immigration charges while she was working at a Barry County poultry processing plant. While at work, she left her child with her brother. After her arrest, her brother turned the child over to a sister, and she left the baby with another Carthage couple, who agreed to adoption by the Mosers. While serving a two-year sentence for immigration-related crimes, Romero learned that the child had been adopted.
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As more details become available, I will post them.
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