Posts Tagged ‘intercountry adoption’

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Learning by listening

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Recently, two articles about the ways adoptees are affected by adoption made a big impression on me. The first, Adoptee View: What Can a Tiny Baby Know? by Karl Stenske, recounts the trauma experienced by babies who are separated from their birth mothers. The second, Primal Wound Author Speaks on Adoptee Challenges, an interview conducted by Nancy Axness with Nancy Verrier, discusses the phenomenon of the primal wound—that is, the deep and lasting hurt felt by people who are relinquished for adoption. Verrier is the author of The Primal Wound and has written and spoken extensively about this concept.

As an adoptive parent, I finished the articles wondering “Are my children doomed to a lifetime of pain? Can I do anything to help them heal from their primal wounds?”

Then, this week, a friend sent me a link to a post titled Adopter Savior Syndrome (A.S.S.), on the blog Coloring Out Lori Jane. The first few paragraphs left me nearly gasping for air:

What is Adopter Savior Syndrome (A.S.S.)?

A.S.S. is a highly contagious and devastating disease that is estimated to be found in millions of White adoptive parents and White adoptive prospective parents around the constructed Western world. Adopter Savior Syndrome is not yet fully understood, though it is speculated to be a White disease that is particularly pervasive among desperate wives and cisgender men with Yellow Fever… Ask your adult Adoptee about A.S.S. if you experience the urgent and persistent need to adopt in order to become a complete person.

And that’s only the first hundred words. You must read the whole post to gain the full impact. Better yet, read all of Lori Jane’s posts to understand the depth of her sorrow and rage at being a Korean baby removed from her birth country and adopted by white American parents. Through her writing, Lori Jane expresses pain related to a primal wound that feels acute and devastating.

After reading these three essays, I was tempted to take to my bed, overwhelmed by inadequacy. Then I realized: I’m my children’s mother. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the luxury of saying “This is too hard! I give up!” So inside of hiding under the covers, I went outside for a walk, and the fresh air made me think: “What can these writers teach me? Are there lessons to be learned from each of their experiences? How can I try to do better for my children?”

One of life’s realities is that many families face challenges. Illness, a physical or mental disability, poverty, insecurity, anxiety, alcoholism, physical or mental abuse, isolation, fear. One of the realities of our home is that we—my husband Tim and I, and our children, Olivia (10) and Mateo (8)–are a transracial adoptive family. Among Tim and my duties as parents is to help our children navigate that experience. We strive to give our kids a context where they feel comfortable with their adopted-ness.

During my walk, I thought of a list of ways Tim and I—and literally hundreds of other adoptive parents we know—try to foster healthy attitudes toward adoption, Guatemala, and our family. I don’t pretend that this list, or we, are perfect, or even the best solution. Nor do I pretend our methods can heal the indelible scars of the primal wound. My list serves merely as a place to start:

We talk about adoption. A lot. From the moment we first held our babies in our arms, we’ve told them their adoption stories: “You were born in another mommy’s tummy.” Our conversations continue today: “How did you feel about meeting your birth mom? Anything you want to talk about?” We don’t wait for our children to ask questions, although we are happy when they do. We keep the channels open by bringing up the subject ourselves.

We study Spanish. Personally, I’m terrible at it, but the point is I try, and my children appreciate the effort. We honor our children’s heritage, and that includes studying the language that people in their native country speak.

We visit Guatemala. This is easy for us, because we love the country. Yes, it’s an international flight to Central America. We can’t drink the water or eat the lettuce. Sometimes we worry about our safety. But those inconveniences are insignificant when compared with our children’s joy at getting to know their birth country, and feeling at home there.

We go to Heritage Camp. In many adoption circles, heritage camp is criticized as a faux experience where families learn to make tortillas and black beans. In fact, Heritage Camp has less to do with “heritage” than with our children connecting with other kids who share a very specific experience: being adopted, being a foreign-born person in the United States, having a skin color/religion/cultural history/interest set/talents/desires/that may be very different from one’s adoptive parents and peers.

At home, we create a local network of other adoptive families, with whom we meet monthly. We view this as our own mini-heritage camp. (See above.) Given a choice, we will always choose the dentist, healthcare provider, church leader, and teacher who looks like our kids.

We searched for and found our children’s birth mothers. Finding “Ana” and “Lety” perhaps hasn’t “healed” for our children what Nancy Verrier calls the primal wound, but it has gone a long way toward filling in the blanks about who they are and where they come from. My kids feel loved by their birth mothers, and seem to understand the circumstances that compelled each of these women to do what they did, which is place their children for adoption.

We embrace the unease. We tease it apart and analyze it. One day, Olivia said to me, “Really, I should be living in a village and speaking Spanish and K’iche. I should be wearing traje (Guatemala’s native dress).” Instead of feeling rejected or threatened, I validated her feelings by suggesting she address the dichotomy she feels in a painting. (Olivia is a talented artist.) Immediately, she planned a self-portrait that showed her split down the middle: half in everyday clothes, half in traje, against a background of part suburban California and part Guatemalan countryside. We both agreed that adoption likely will inform Olivia’s art for many years to come.

Finally, we honor our children’s birth country by supporting organizations that help women, children, and families who live there—a feeding program, a convent, a home for the elderly, a high school student sponsorship, a program for teachers, and birth family support. Our actions show our children that we care about the future of Guatemala.

That’s my list. If anyone has any other suggestions or comments, please feel free to share them with me. I learn best by listening.

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“The Global Adoption Threat” in TIME

Friday, January 18th, 2013

The January 21, 2013 issue of Time magazine features an in-depth article by Kayla Webley titled The Baby Deficit. I paused when I read those words, “Baby Deficit.” From my observation, people who wish to become parents will find a way—if not through the “usual channels,” then through in-vitro fertilization, embryo transfers, sperm donors, or surrogates. Some other people, like my husband and me, will choose adoption. While I’m not sure there exists a “deficit” of babies being born, there definitely is a shrinking number of babies available for adoption. From the article:

The number of international children adopted by American families has dropped some 60% from its peak in 2004. That year, Americans adopted 22,991 foreign children, according to the State Department. In 2011, despite long waiting lists at adoption agencies, the total was 9,319—the lowest since the mid-1990s.

Then I read the subhead, “How changing attitudes about international adoption are creating heartbreak for American families,” and agree that much is true. Many American families are heartbroken, especially the families of the Guatemala 900, whose adoptions have been pending for more than five years, and families of the group known as the Kyrgyz 65, whose cases have been tied up in Kyrgyzstan for only slightly less time. I would add another group whose hearts may be broken, and that is children who will grow up in institutions, without ever being part of permanent families. In the article, nobody asked them how they feel about losing the possibility of ever being adopted.

The article focuses on one particular couple, Frank and Gabrielle Shimkus, who readers of this blog will recognize as members of the Kyrgyz 65.  The Shimkuses have been trying to adopt their son for more than four years, demonstrating a steadfast dedication that would be unbelievable except for the fact some 60 other couples adopting from Kyrgyzstan have endured the same anguishing slog. In 2011, I wrote about Frank and Gabrielle here and here.

The Time article is thorough, comprehensive, and definitely worth reading—a kind of International Adoption 101. Maybe it will educate a few readers on the insane roller coaster ridden by so many of us adoptive parents. I read the piece the old-fashioned way: bought a copy standing in line at the grocery store. I’d post a link, but that option seems available only to subscribers.

We can argue all day about whether or not international adoption should continue, and when night falls, still not agree. But one point that seems undeniable is that children should not be used as pawns in long, drawn-out processes. Sadly, this is precisely what’s happening around the world: in Guatemala, in Kyrgyzstan, and soon in Russia. What good possibly can come from institutionalizing a child for four years while bureaucrats stall to make a point?

At least for now, the world is paying attention, with coverage in The New York Times, the Russian press, and this week, Time magazine. The question is, will anything change before focus shifts to the next big story?

 

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Obsession

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

I have to tell you, at least several people known to me wish I were a little less obsessed with the subject of adoption, and one of the most vocal of these lives in my own home. I’m not naming names, but last night, again, this person said to me, “Mom, why can’t you leave the house like other mothers? Join a gym or meet someone for coffee. Go shopping. Think about any topic except adoption and Guatemala. Do something besides write. Please!”

I don’t disagree. Because, honestly, I’m not sure what drives my obsession or why I believe it possibly can do any good. But then, earlier this morning, I read an article titled “Romanian orphans face challenges decades after adoption,” which includes these sentences:

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) has studied the effects of institutionalization on orphans in Romania for the past 13 years. Working from a small lab in a former Bucharest orphanage, researchers from the US and Romania have compared children growing up in institutions with those living with families.

“We found that institutions are a particularly toxic environment in which to raise young children,” says BEIP’s lead researcher Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.

Institutionalized children exhibit everything from reduced IQs to reductions in brain size and activity, he says.

The researchers say that although any time spent in non-family situations is harmful, their work suggests institutionalization past the age of 2, and in some cases earlier, causes irreversible effects.

That’s grim news for the 8 million children UNICEF says are living in institutions worldwide today.

… I read those paragraphs and thought, Somebody’s got to care about this. Somebody’s got to pay attention, and think about this, and write about it, until more people pay attention and change is made.

For now at least, one of those somebody’s seems to be me.

And based on the evidence—the recent Russian protests against Putin’s adoption ban; the countless news reports and blog posts about the reformers, filmmakers, and aid workers who continue to work toward ethical and transparent adoption; my conversations with fellow adoptive parents whom I know personally and virtually, who are doing their best to raise great kids while staying connected to birth culture and birth family; my chats with friends who are not associated directly with adoption, yet still care about the plight of children without parents around the world—I realize, in a deep and very encouraging way, obsessed I may be. But I am not alone.

Today, for my family’s sake, I will get out of the house. Maybe run over to my favorite local bookstore and see if there are any new books about adoption. Or Guatemala. Or even better, both.

xoxo

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Russian adoption and hope

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

Wonder of  wonders, for the first time in a long while around the subject of international adoption, I feel hope. I’m talking about the protests in Russia against President Putin’s banning of international adoption.

For days, my friend Sveta, who grew up in Russia and reads the daily Russian news, had been posting on Facebook that thousands of Russian citizens in fact support international adoption and disagree with Putin’s ban.  Lo and behold, Sveta was right. (As if I ever doubted her. I’ve never known Sveta to be wrong about anything!)

Sveta sent me a link to some photos in the Russian press, my favorite of which is posted above. Look at that staggering number of people! The other photos are equally powerful. Sveta translated one of the banners as reading, “Mothers have no nationality.”

The New York Times also reported on the rally, calling it a “Revival of Anti-Kremlin Protests,” and quoted one woman: “They have decided to settle a score by using children, and it’s shameful,” Ms. Nikolayeva said as friends gathered around, nodding their encouragement. “O.K., maybe at some point it will be better not to give our children away; we should take care of them ourselves. But first you have to make life better for them here. Give them a chance to study. Give them a chance to get medical treatment.”

I like Ms. Nikolayeva’s statement because it speaks to the shame that is often the subtext of international adoption: the feelings of inadequacy that a country can’t “take care of its own.”  But, as Ms. Nikolayeva said, “First, you have to make life better for them here.” If that’s not  happening—and for myriad complicated and entrenched reasons, it sadly often doesn’t—why should a child be deprived of an opportunity to find a life with a permanent, loving family elsewhere?

May the protest by thousands of  Russian citizens be a harbinger of positive change in the larger world of international adoption: more stringent accountability, more humane practices, and better sense.

Image credit: Novayagazeta.ru

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My essay in the NY Times Motherlode

Monday, December 10th, 2012

On Monday, the New York Times Motherlode blog published my essay, An Adoptive Parent Won’t Take the Blame. As a former Jersey girl who grew up reading the Times, I am honored.  As an adoptive parent who feels her voice often gets muffled by the screaming that surrounds the subject of adoption, I also am thrilled, big time.

The comments following the article are enlightening. As I expected, not everyone shares my point of view, and they’re forthright about their reasons why. But if that’s the price I must pay for speaking honestly and rationally, so be it. No complaints here. 

Here are the first few paragraphs:

I’m the adoptive mother to a daughter and a son, ages 10 and 8, both born in Guatemala. Three years after my daughter came home, in November 2006, The New York Times ran an article blasting Guatemala’s adoption system, calling the country a “virtual baby farm.”

Two years later, in January 2008, Dateline NBC showed hidden camera footage of my adoption facilitator plying his trade in the lobby of a Guatemala City hotel, in a segment titled, “The Baby Broker.” In Northern California where I live, a man from Central America recently asked me, “How much did you pay for your kids?”

More recently, a front-page article in The Times told the story of a Reno, Nev., family whose adoption case stalled when allegations of corruption shut down the system. Many of the comments left by readers made me feel like a guilty criminal, simply because I’m an adoptive parent.

The question for me is, “How do I make sense of something that is both the best thing that has ever happened to me — becoming a mother through adoption to my two beautiful children — and the most troubling — becoming that mother by accessing a system that is now known to be so corrupt that it was, in fact, closed in December 2007?”

 

Click on the link and read the rest to see if you agree with my conclusion.

 

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The NY Times addresses the endless wait

Monday, December 10th, 2012

When the adoption system in Guatemala closed in December 2007, no exit strategy was in place. Now, we witness the aftermath.  Families in the US wait for children they feel are theirs, who have lingered in orphanages or foster care for the past five years.

On Sunday, December 9, the New York Times published a front-page article by Rachel L. Swarns, about a Reno, Nevada couple, Amy and Robb Carr, and their struggle to adopt their hoped-for son, Geovany. A Family, for a Few Days a Year recounts the Carr’s commitment to Geovany as they navigate their way through the labyrinth that is the Guatemala adoption system.

Maybe now that the New York Times has published a story about the five-year process endured by the Carrs and other waiting families known as the Guatemala 900—on the front page, above the fold, with a big four-color photo—change or movement will occur and the cases stuck in limbo finally will be resolved. Please, let it be so.

GUATEMALA CITY — The little boy flies like an airplane through the hotel, his arms outstretched. Then he leaps like a superhero, beaming as the red lights on his new sneakers flash and flicker, while the American couple he is with dissolve in laughter.

He calls them Mamá and Papi. They call him Hijo — Son. He corrects their fledgling Spanish. They teach him English. “Awe-some,” he repeats carefully, eyeing his new shoes.

To outsiders, they look like a family. But Geovany Archilla Rodas, an impish 6-year-old boy with spiky black hair, lives in an orphanage on the outskirts of this capital city. The Americans — Amy and Rob Carr of Reno, Nev. — live a world away. They are the only parents he has ever known.

They have been visiting him every year, usually twice a year, since he was a toddler, flying into this Central American city for a few days at a time to buy him clothes and to read him stories, to wipe his tears and to tickle him until he collapses in giggles at their hotel or in the orphanage.

Yet half a decade after agreeing to adopt him, the Carrs still have no idea when — or if — they will ever take Geovany home.

“There’s this hope in you that doesn’t want to die,” said Mrs. Carr, who arrived here last month with her husband, more determined than ever to cut through the bureaucracy. “In my heart, he’s my son.”

The Carrs are among the 4,000 Americans who found themselves stuck in limbo when Guatemala shut down its international adoption program in January 2008 amid mounting evidence of corruption and child trafficking. Officials here and in Washington promised at the time to process the remaining cases expeditiously.

 

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A spectacular spectacle

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Over Veterans’ Day weekend, friends we met through Latin American Heritage Camp came to visit. And because their daughter, like our daughter, studies ballet, I bought tickets for four of us–the two girls, the other mother, and me–to a performance by Ballet Folklorico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez. For years, I’ve heard about this company, and now that I’ve finally seen them, I can say, without reservation, if they ever come to your town, or anywhere close, run, don’t walk, to the box office  to buy yourself a ticket.

The costumes! The music! The passion! The pageantry! All absolutely fabulous.

The program notes state that Ballet Folklorico was founded by Amalia Hernandez in 1952, and numbers 76 dancers. Hernandez’s goal in starting the company was to preserve the folk dances of Mexico. That she has done, and then some. Every piece was more intricate and involved than the one previous, and just when I thought the choreography and costumes could never top themselves, out would parade a line of mariachis, or a few dozen people decked in quetzal headdresses, or a man lassoing a rope over his head in a breathtakingly display of skill and arm strength.  

The girls loved it!

My only complaint–and it’s not a complaint, really, but an observation–is that the floor of the venue stage–in this case, the Marin County Civic Center–was covered with a thick rubber mat. Alas, this is common in performance spaces, but I know from my years of tap-dancing that a wooden floor is what the intricate footwork of Ballet Folklorico cries out for. Rubber deadens the rat-a-tat-tat of the heel drops, turning them into dull thuds.

But this is a small quibble. Ballet Folklorico is a must-see, especially for families like ours. Go!

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Mamalita at Literary Mama

Monday, November 12th, 2012

Me again. There’s so much happening in Guatemala lately–a terrible earthquake and a monster aftershock, the shooting of unarmed protestors by the military in Totonicapan. But, at the moment, I’m not here to write about that.

Right now, I’m posting a link to A Conversation with Jessica O’Dwyer, published this week at Literary Mama by my friend and writing colleague, Marianne Lonsdale. 

Thank you, Marianne and Literary Mama. I’m honored!

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Book review: “The U.S. Embassy Cables: Adoption Fraud in Guatemala 1987-2010” by Erin Siegal

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

 As an adoptive mother to two children born in Guatemala, as well as the author of a memoir about Guatemalan adoption, I read every book, article, and blog post I can find on the subject. No single piece of writing has fascinated me more than The U.S. Embassy Cables: Adoption Fraud in Guatemala 1987-2010, by investigative reporter Erin Siegal. The publication isn’t a book in the traditional sense, but a 717-page compilation of “cables” (pre-internet communications), memos, and emails, generated by officials in the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City and the U.S. Department of State (DOS). Siegal obtained the material from DOS after filing 30 Freedom of Information Act requests between November 2008 and 2010.

The book’s unconventional format takes some getting used to, but that’s precisely what makes it so compelling: the reader feels he is privy to something secret and private, a communication never intended to be revealed. Those readers who stick with the challenge are rewarded with a deeper understanding of one particular aspect of adoption between Guatemala and the United States—fraud–as it was reported via the keyboards of U.S. government officials.

Adoption between Guatemala and the United States was shut down in December 2007, due to allegations of corruption. The thousands of Embassy cables regarding corruption—what it entailed, how much there was, and who knew about it and when—both enlighten and disturb.

Concerns about falsified documents are stated as early as August 1987, as demonstrated by this memo generated by officials in the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City: “[T]he ability of persons involved in child trafficking to proceed as if the adoption were completely legal is facilitated by the ease with which Guatemalan documents can be falsified.” (13) And from July 1993: “Just because the civil documents and identity cards presented are genuine, does not mean that the information contained in them is correct. Guatemalan civil documents, particularly birth certificates, containing false information are easily obtainable for a small fee.” (126)

A memo from 1989 sounded this alarm: “Attorneys who do adoptions in Guatemala receive fees that are astronomical by local standards. One adoption attorney regularly charges the adoptive parents 12,000 dollars, plus 150 dollars per month for childcare… (Most heads of family in Guatemala make less than 150 dollars per month… Judges of the family courts make about 500 dollars per month, and social workers make about 200 dollars.) The incentives for fraud are very strong…(34).”

Indeed, for some unscrupulous attorneys, the incentives were irresistible, as demonstrated by this 1991 memo: “Since we began routine interviewing of birth mothers one year ago, we have detected cases of baby selling (for very modest sums), imposter mothers, presentation of false birth certificates, children not meeting the legal definition of orphan and deception of birth mothers as to the legal consequences of adoption by local attorneys. We detect this type of obvious irregularity in about 5 percent of the cases presented.” (93)

No follow-up memo is published to interpret this data, so readers are left to wonder if “obvious irregularity in about 5 percent of the cases” is expected and normal, or considered off-the-charts. Nor do we learn if this number remains constant or changes over time. In any case, a quick mathematical calculation determines that this note was written 21 years ago, 16 years before any concerted efforts were made to reform the system.

With memo after memo detailing questionable paperwork coupled with more and more money, readers may dread turning the page, fearing the situation will turn violent. And then it does. This communication dates from September 1998: “Post was contacted by Guatemalan national, [blank], who claimed that his daughter was given up for adoption to an American couple without his knowledge and consent… Mr. [blank] was murdered shortly after he was interviewed by a consular officer regarding the case.” (377)

Even DNA tests, which the Embassy instituted on a wide scale in 1998 after repeated requests to DOS, were not failsafe. Memos state that a DNA match between relinquishing mother and her child did not discount coercion of the mother. Moreover, adoption attorneys, facilitators, and other interested parties were often present when doctors took DNA samples, nullifying the sample’s integrity.

The adoption story told by The Embassy Cables cannot be regarded as complete or balanced because the subject is too complex to be summarized by 717 pages of memos that lack interpretation, reflection, or context. Nevertheless, as a historical record of the U.S. government’s statements and actions regarding adoption as it was practiced between 1987 and 2010, The Embassy Cables makes a singular contribution.

The Embassy Cables: Adoption Fraud in Guatemala 1987-2010 is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and independent bookstores. Some readers report that the downloaded version requires a magnifying glass to read. For more information, visit Erin Siegal’s website, erinsiegal.com.

This review was cross-posted at Adoption Under One Roof.

Image Credit: Cathexis Press

 

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Russian parliament ratifies adoption law

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

As reported by the Associated Press, in an article by Nataliya Vasilyeva titled Russian Parliament Passes Russia-US Adoption Law:

Russia’s parliament on Tuesday ratified a long-awaited agreement with the United States regulating the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

The ratification by a 244-96-2 vote in the State Duma came a year after the two countries worked out the pact.

Key questions and answers about the agreement:

HOW DID THE AGREEMENT COME ABOUT?

Russian officials had long complained about the abuse and even killings of children by their adoptive parents — saying at least 19 Russian adoptive children have died at their American parents’ hands.

The issue came to a head in April 2010 when an American adoptive mother sent her 7-year-old boy back to Russia on a one-way ticket, saying he had behavioral problems.

In the wake of that case, some Russian officials called for adoptions by Americans to be halted altogether. That never happened, but some adoption agencies working in Russia said their applications were frozen for several months.

Russian and U.S. officials signed an agreement aimed at ending the dispute in 2011, but the Russian parliament waited nearly a year to ratify it due to technicalities.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR AMERICANS WHO WANT TO ADOPT RUSSIAN CHILDREN

Ratification should end the strife and allow adoptions to resume efficiently.

All adoptions would have to be processed through adoption agencies registered in Russia. The agreement requires the agencies to monitor the child’s upbringing, schedule visits by a social worker and send reports to Russian authorities.

The deal makes sure that prospective American parents would have better information about the social and medical histories of Russian children.

HOW WILL IT IMPACT RUSSIA?

By providing monitoring, the agreement is likely to reassure a public angered by the abuse and deaths. It also could undercut complaints by nationalists that Russian children are being “sold.”

The poorly controlled flow of Russian adoptions highlighted sensitivity over the loss of children as Russia faces a demographic crisis due to low birth rates.

Full resumption of adoptions will mean increased opportunity for Russian orphans to leave underfunded and crowded orphanages. There are more than 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, according to UNICEF. Russians historically have been less inclined to adopt children than in many other cultures.

 

The speed with which an agreement was reached—one year—is impressive, especially in light of the four+ years of waiting endured by the families with cases pending in Guatemala.

Read the entire Associated Press article here.

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