260 Mike Hoyt
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/260
Haley Radke: 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're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is Mike Hoyt, remarkable artist and author of the graphic memoir Hanabata Days. We discuss his reunion and subsequent reunification process with his first father. Mike also shares how reunification has impacted his own identity and that of his daughter's.
Before we get started, I want to invite you personally to join our Patreon adoptee community today. Over on AdopteesOn.com slash community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adopted people around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources for you today. And as always, links to everything we'll be talking about are on the website, AdopteesOn.com Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Mike Hoyt. Welcome Mike.
Mike Hoyt: Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Haley Radke: I would love it if you would start. Would you share some of your story with us?
Mike Hoyt: Absolutely. Mike Hoyt, I use he, him pronouns. I was born in a little small town in southeast Minnesota. And I was, you know, transracially adopted at birth and raised in a white family in sort of the near suburbs, first ring suburbs of Minneapolis.
And I'm married to an adoptive, transracially adopted woman who is Korean adoptee both also raised in Minnesota. And we are raising a family together in the Twin Cities. And in 2017, was able to reunite with my first father, Leonard, and we have been developing a relationship since that point. And so, for me, being 53 years old now, and having reunited with my first father at 47 we're developing this relationship and learning to, to discover who we are as Ohana over the past six years.
And... I'm an artist. I trained as a visual artist, but a lot of my practice has been sort of public art or community based practice. And so I spent roughly 3 years sort of telling this story through the medium of graphic storytelling or graphic novel. And it was a really powerful and challenging undertaking, but it became a project that I could engage during the pandemic and really reflect on this experience over the past several years.
Haley Radke: I saw that you have had this ongoing public art project of drawing people's faces. Can you talk about doing that and what that means to you and meeting new people and just the process of drawing someone's face and like concentrating on what they look like. And then doing that with your father.
Mike Hoyt: Yes, absolutely. You know, I think that early on in my life and in my 20s and 30s, I was a studio based artist and I did a lot of my work in isolation. And I grew increasingly, not by bored or tired with that, but I felt like it was very limiting. I didn't feel like I was connecting to the community in which I live in and the people I live around.
And there's been a lot of studies about access to the arts. And, you know, 1 in 1 in 10 people that visit a large legacy arts institution is a person of color and I live in a community where 70 percent of people are, you know, majority of people in my neighborhood and community are people of color. And so how do we access the arts and engage in either other people's or our own creative expression?
So I felt very interested in using drawing and art as a platform to connect with my neighbors and to do sort of neighboring in a way to build connections. So I developed this platform called One Another, which is a mobile portrait station that I hook up to the back of a bike, the little bike trailer that folds out into a drawing desk.
And I invite neighbors and people to sit with me for half an hour at a time or longer and we draw each other's portraits and have a conversation. And it's a very simple process of using brushes and ink and very limited materials, but I felt like it was it also an invitation to do something that we don't really do today, which is to sit with a stranger to have a very intimate exchange that is also safe and to just be and how often is it that we sit across from someone we don't know and just quietly engage one another or even look deeply at each other's features.
And so It was really, I know I've done hundreds and hundreds of portraits of people in my community, at basketball courts, at picnic areas, at parks, and for me it was also really just a beautiful way to connect to people, hear their stories, and I think also be transported into the lives of my community in ways that I wouldn't necessarily be connected to and be in relationship with. So just trying to expand our human connectedness or the betweenness between people. And then at the end, I normally I'll give the drawing to the person that I've, you know, drawn the portrait of. And if they've drawn me, then oftentimes they, they give it to me as an exchange. And so it's also sort of a, it's a way to think about exchange in a sort of non commercial or capitalist sense, you know. Like we're giving each other this exchange and this gift and we share in this moment and the drawing is a reminder and an archive of that moment together.
Haley Radke: I'm picturing you having, well, first of all, a wall full of drawings of yourself made by other people. Which, as an adoptee, to see how someone else sees us feels particularly impactful. Perhaps you don't have that. But, what was it like to draw your father like that? You said this, intimacy, and you share a little bit about it in your book, but I'm like fixated on that moment.
The permission to see. Stare at a genetic relative's face for that long. It's interesting to me.
Mike Hoyt: Yeah, it was one of the first things we did after our initial greeting as he welcomed me and my family into his home and we sat down and talked and then I politely asked him if I could draw his portrait and we continued to talk story.
But I think part of it was also to just ease the anticipation and the energy in the space and maybe our nerves that I could just be doing this activity while we're talking and he could follow and watch along and, you know, a drawing is not a photograph. It doesn't. It's not a perfect representation of someone.
It is. It's always sort of, it's, you know, it's a move through someone's hand onto a page. So I think there's something about the imperfection of it. That also is interesting. And it is also a moment in time. But it, it became this interesting process where my children who were younger at the time where they were noticing all of the similarities and our features and also the differences.
And they were calling all of that out during the process. And that became a way for us to really look at each other's features. You know, if we had attached ear lobes, or if his fingers were as long and narrow as mine, and just to be able to look deeply at each other's likeness.
Haley Radke: So I think reunion is often highlighted to us as this mountaintop moment.
It's the moment. Okay, you're drawing his portrait. You're meeting at an airport for the first time. And that's the stuff that gets highlighted on the reunion TV shows and things. But I love that word of reunification. And what does that look like? And so you've been in this process for a number of years now.
And how challenging it is and the ups and downs and I wonder if you can share a little bit about that what did you think it was going to be like, did you think of it as like this one time first meeting and then you're like, wait, how do we sort of get into each other's lives and like actually reunify?
Mike Hoyt: That's a great question. I didn't have, I mean, I think maybe in the back of my mind, I was trying to trick myself into not having expectation. Yeah, but the anticipation is so heavy. And it's so layered.
I think having experience and been with my wife and her process of reunification 20 years prior, I had some idea of at least experiencing what she went through with her first mother and. I didn't know if it would go in a similar way, but I very much was interested in just learning who he was and his story and even less about how I came to be.
Or I just wanted to know who this person is as a human. And he was so generous in his interest in connecting. But I also knew that it would require me to do more of the initial work, you know. He's not great with the internet. Doesn't do email or social media. So it's very much old school. We talk on the phone or I'll write him a letter or so in some ways.
Maintaining and having this relationship with him is using the tools and the technology of the past and there's something actually really sweet about that. But I, I think that is one of the interesting mysteries of, I think a lot about our responsibilities or it's a better word for it, but yeah, I guess I, you know, how are we connected to each other and how are we responsible or even implicating each other's features and what does that mean for both him and I, you know, he, his health isn't great and so at some point he may have to move in and live with us and we might take care of him in his later years.
And and this is only a person I've known for 6 years. And to have that conversation with my family with my wife and my kids, what would that mean to them? And thankfully, they're very open and receptive to that idea. But that's also, I didn't imagine before this process that might be something to have to tend to, right?
The caregiving. And we're ready and willing at this point. I don't know if that answered your question.
Haley Radke: Well, I was thinking about how special it is that you had your wife as a resource for you, of what does this look like? What could it look like? And so many of us go in not knowing anything.
And it's kind of overwhelming and scary and like world upending. And another thing I remember from Hanabata days is when you're first getting messages from this, these DNA matches. So, extended family and you're kind of like trying to. figure out the connections and things. And it doesn't happen in like this clean spot where you're ready to sit down and, you know, get on the phone with somebody or whatever.
You're like in a camping trip and, you know, and so again, when we're imagining what reunion looks like in these connections and things, it never comes in at the perfect moment. It comes during life and I don't know. I think there's something important about talking about what it actually looks like for fellow adoptees.
Mike Hoyt: Yeah. I mean, I think that's just it. You know, I had sort of not, I had kind of given up on the process for many years because there just wasn't much information about my first family. You know, they didn't have... there were sort of ghosts on the internet, you know, there was no public record really that I could track.
And obviously with closed records laws here, there was nothing I could surface through the state. But, you know, these connections became like my, I was so thankful that my first cousin, Kim Lynn was so receptive and so excited to know about this, our connection and, you know, that her, that my father was her uncle and that she thought very highly of him.
There was a lot of mystery and familial history and stuff that kind of was entangled up in all of it, but she really wanted to connect us and felt really. She felt accountable to making that happen. And so I'm really thankful that she was so diligent and did a lot of the initial outreach to him. And I, the layers of connection aren't just about, you know, whether it's biological parents or not, but also all of the people that help make that connection.
Right. And. All of a sudden we have this extended ohana that, you know, stretches the mainland and Hawaii and the, so our sort of familial accountabilities have increased significantly. But also the immense desires to connect and learn who our people are and why they've poured so much love and aloha into this process for us. Why they're so willing to help create this bridge.
But it very much, you know, happens like, well, there's a phone call at work or there's a text message that happens while you're driving and life gets put on hold because that's such a significant thing to tend to. And I think for me, you know, waiting 47 years to have, you know, whatever I'm not knowing, but not saying that it's necessarily a resolution, but to have small questions answered for the possibility of that. I'm willing to put a work meeting off. I'm willing to adjust my schedule because I don't want to have regrets either.
Haley Radke: Some of these things come in and it's- Oh, actually, this is my top priority now. This is my identity. This is my, right? This exploration. And for those of us who have children, when we don't know our legacy, when we don't know what's come behind us, it's oh, you discover it and you're like, oh my gosh, I got to know all this so I can pass it down.
There's this more sense of urgency for me. That's what sort of happened.
Mike Hoyt: Yes. And for, you know, my children, unfortunately, my, my wife's first mother passed before they were born, you know, and so and my adoptive mother passed before they were born. So they didn't have the history and the connection to any of these important people.
And so it feels like this, whether it is for them or not, it feels important to me and my wife that they are very much a part of this process as we step through it as much as they're willing and able. And I think that my hope, I guess, is that they'll understand the significance of it, both for me, but also for them.
Haley Radke: You were raised in a white family. Did you know your ethnicity growing up, or when did you discover that?
Mike Hoyt: You know, I was sort of given a vague, I guess... I was told that I was Hawaiian and and, you know. I was actually told that was a lot of things. Okay that, you know, and that's, I have this nickname Hapa 9.
So Hapa is sort of half in Hawaiian or it's used if you're half Asian or Pacific Islander and half what you're a Hapa Haole. And so I was always told that I was nine nationalities growing up. And so I always use this nickname, hopa nine, but I'm actually probably more like hop at 14 when I look at my DNA results. But, you know, I never really fully understood what percentages I was.
And so it's interesting to have online consumer DNA testing sort of confirm my racial and ethnic sort of makeup. And, you know, percentage is even- about half hawaiian, but a quarter Filipino, and about nine or ten other things mixed in, Irish, English, Scottish.
Haley Radke: I'm Scottish, partly. Okay I have seen part of your career unfold and I know that you're an activist and so involved in your community and Indigenous rights and all of those things.
To me, when I'm looking at it, it seems that you have done that for a couple decades prior to reconnecting with Leonard and your Hawaiian heritage. Is, as, am I accurate in observing that?
Mike Hoyt: To a degree. I mean, I always felt like my identity was somewhat mystery. Like I could never fully claim who I was. Because it wasn't really, I didn't have an actual record of my authentic racial makeup is X, Y, and Z. And so I felt like I tried to align myself with movements and people doing work in our community. And I have a lot, our community is a lot of Asian American and some Pacific Islander people.
And so I think there's a large group of activists and organizers. That do a lot of really powerful work. I wouldn't say I was as active as I could have been in my younger years. And I'm not sure if that was because of the sort of ambiguity of my racial identity but I felt like I was always trying to be an ally and is in ways that were authentic.
And if that came up short at times, it's probably because I just felt self conscious about who I was and how I could be an ally and how, I where I fit. But I think it's my understanding of that myself, at least within all of that has grown and change over the years. And maybe I've come to forgive my younger self for not being as vocal or powerful as I could have been, but also have forcing and challenging myself to turn up the volume now.
Haley Radke: I'm picturing you as a father teaching your children these things and how you want to raise them to be what kind of humans in this world and you and your wife, obviously exploring these things as you're leading them.
So I'm curious if you have thoughts on that, passing on your cultural heritage to them. And also while navigating reunion and also while really actually claiming those identities while you're doing all of these things at the same time with them watching you.
Mike Hoyt: Yeah I'm sure they witness it as a big, messy, meandering process that we're engaged in.
And hopefully at some point in their lives, it'll make sense. And hopefully in some time in our lives, it'll make sense, but, you know, we're, I think we're just trying to find our way through. And I was just recently talking with a friend's class, actually a class of undergraduate students about the book.
And I think this sort of, this came up in, in in a small way, just thinking about what the impact is on my kids, but also that the book reflecting on how I wrote it and that sort of tenor and tone of it is a very kāne or male situated perspective and voice. Right?
And, but I think that and I don't know if it comes across actually, I felt like I was very much trying to think about and as we raise our children, think about where, how do, how am I growing to support the development of two powerful young women, you know, female identified children. How do I, how can I be a feminist ally to them in their development, and how do I practice that forward?
So I think the book is also me being in dialogue with that within myself. Whether it comes across or not.
Haley Radke: Some of the most powerful things in the book to me is as you're writing these like soul burying letters to ambiguous loss and, I have a lot of markers, But I'm picturing your children reading it as adults and- I hope my kids are just a little younger than yours.
So we're sort of on the same parenting path. I'm just behind you, and the boys. And I think, what do I want to leave them? What kind of relationship do I want to have with them as adults? How am I really sharing of myself with them? And I thought, wow, if I would have known, you know, these innermost thoughts from a parent, I wonder what that would change for me.
You know? Because you are so deeply personal. In what you're sharing in this book.
Mike Hoyt: It was very challenging. I think. Because my work has shifted so much to public practice into supporting, much larger sort of equity work and community or community development work. I had moved away from any personal work at all.
And so this book is very personal and deeply vulnerable. It was deeply vulnerable to. I had to challenge myself to sit with my own stuff and to sort of sift through it. And I still, I'm still processing what it means today after several years. But I also think, you know, time is so finite, right? And What are the questions that my children will want to ask me before I pass or I would not want them to regret having never asked me.
And maybe there's some freedom at 53 or when I wrote it, between, you know, the past several years that I care less about, like sharing my imperfections and sharing the sort of the messiness of our lives. I want that to be revealed to them so that they know that they can have imperfect lives and that know that their parents made mistakes and that we had, we tried and that beyond intention, we wanted to have good impact and that they can carry themselves forward that way.
Haley Radke: I love that. It's so powerful, you know, and I don't know that, there's this, I don't know, I have this deep fear that my legacy is not going to be that important in some way.
Mike Hoyt: We all have that, don't we? Yeah.
Haley Radke: Yeah. So, I don't know. What are my sons going to think when they listen to hours and hours of this show when they're adults?
Mike Hoyt: I don't know. They're gonna be like, wow this was important to so many people.
Haley Radke: I'm like, God, my mom sure talked a lot. Wow.
Mike Hoyt: We have to have inquiry though, right? Like that is what you're passing down too.
Haley Radke: The curiosity. This is why I got really obsessed with the portraits you were drawing of people.
At one point, maybe like a year or two into Reunion, our public library was doing this human library thing where there would be an event and you could sign out a human book.. And I was one of the books people could sign out and ask me about adoption. Yeah, it's a really cool idea I know lots of people lots of libraries have projects like that. But that's what I was thinking of it.
I was like, Oh, you're drawing someone you're engaging in and talking with them for, and it reminded me of this book, this human book thing.
Mike Hoyt: I love that idea. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Yeah. It was weird though. It also was weird. I was not very public with my stuff yet. So that felt most exposed I had been to date. I, okay, I have so many things I want to ask you.
I don't want to miss anything.
Mike Hoyt: That's okay.
Haley Radke: So, being married to a fellow adoptee... We sort of hinted that this is, you know, giving you some assistance, hopefully, with your reunion now with your father. What did your wife think about you writing the book and sharing all these things? I'm assuming you had talked about a lot of them as well, but what was that like?
Mike Hoyt: Yeah. You know, it's funny. I think my kids are the most sort of embarrassed by how much it tells their story, but they're like, dad, why did you put me in there? You know, these little like pieces of it. My wife was very supportive and she's always been incredibly supportive of my work as an artist and the time away that I spend doing that because it's not my full time job.
You know, I have a desk job. Have a daytime job. So, yeah. It's always required this sort of really tending to this balance of work life, artist life. Family life, relationship life. And I, she was very comfortable with it, you know, and she was mostly like her biggest concern, is Leonard going to be okay with the story? You know, and how do we, and she coached me and talked to me a lot about like, how do we make sure that Leonard is comfortable with all of this. And which he is, and we, you know, sent many drafts and had long conversations and, but maybe she's also at a place in her life where she's, she'd be better, she'd better tell you than I would, but yeah.
We don't have anything. Secrets are not a thing anymore. You know, we don't want to live with secrets anymore. We spent so much life trying to uncover them or unlock them that they're not healthy for us anymore. And so maybe better to bear more and less. And even if it's a little cringey or sentimental or too vulnerable, she'd rather err on that side.
So I think she was okay with most of it.
Haley Radke: Thinking about what Leonard thinks of the book and the project. You mentioned earlier I didn't know how I came to be, and you know how you came to be now, and a lot of this story is Leonard's story and his extended family, which in turn is yours, but it's this history that so many of us don't ever have the privilege of gathering together either because we don't have access, we are never going to connect with our biological origins for whatever reason, maybe it's impossible or we're too afraid to ask.
And it's, it can be really scary. Can you talk about talking with Leonard about having these conversations and there's a drawing you've got or painting? Paint, draw, what is this?
Mike Hoyt: You know, technically, I think I was never really a painter they're drawings.
Haley Radke: Okay drawings. They're beautiful. I just, I'm like, I feel like I'm being, making a mistake but there's the, there's a panel where you're literally drawing out this timeline, but I was like, oh my gosh, how many of us have done that? I don't think many.
Mike Hoyt: Yeah, I mean, those were just, you know, Leonard is very generous, and I think that he also wanted me to get things right.
And he wanted me to, I think he felt like Mike doesn't know what it was like to grow up in Hawaii, pre tourism, you know. Leonard was born in the 50s, so before it became what Hawaii is today, he wanted to share with me in a very nostalgic way, like this portrait of the family experience growing up on the islands at that time.
And I think because it'll never be that way again, given, you know, the commercialization of the islands and the colonial history, and the fact that more Native Hawaiians live on the mainland than do now on the islands, any longer. So I think he, he wanted me to understand that, but from the narrative of the family's experience and wanted me to connect to that.
And there are, you know, there are parts of his life that we haven't talked about, you know. He went through dark periods and which is why he ended up on the mainland. And I've been very, I've tried to be really respectful of that. So we have these unspoken sort of ways of keeping things compartmentalized until he's ready to talk about those things.
And hopefully I believe that he treats me with the same respect and, you know, a sense of boundaries, but we didn't have, there was no rule book for that. We just sort of tried to figure it out together. But, you know, maybe it's his age, you know, he's in the middle seventies.
And now I think he loves to wax on about what Hawaii was in the fifties and sixties and what a beautiful and magical place it was for him and his family. And because it's so different. I think what it is in some ways for Hawaiians today, but also the lives that they've established on the mainland as well.
Haley Radke: When you asked him about your origins, what was that like? And do you have a sense of that he thought of you because he knew there was a baby out there somewhere? Or did he put it away sort of to the side and not think about it? These are like these are like these deeply painful things a lot of us think about.
Mike Hoyt: I mean, he was very forthright, but also, you know, I don't, he had a very different context than my first mother. Her choices were different than his. He could step away from the situation. He didn't have to, he could either grant or just give up the choice, the choices to my mother to deal with.
And so, you know, in the sort of the world of gender roles and how to make those major decisions and choice points in a situation of birth and adoption. He took a step back from that process. You know, and they were young, obviously. But I don't, I think that, from my understanding, he didn't necessarily see, even if my mother had been pregnant with me or not, that he didn't necessarily see them having a long term future together as a couple.
She was going off to college and onto the mainland, and he was going to be back in Hawaii, and they were on different paths. And, you know, a lot of what I share in the book about my origin story is... It's only through his voice. I mean, actually, some of it is shared from my biological mother. We had been in correspondents, and so she filled in some of the holes as well.
But, you know, there's, so there's a, maybe a sense of there's some truthiness to the account of things, and that maybe the account is a little one sided because it's only being, the detail of it, the story is probably being told more from him. And so when we connected, you know, he knew that he had a child out there in the world, and I'm not sure how much he spent time thinking about. Probably not a lot.
But when we first met, he first talked on the phone he revealed to me that he thought that he had a daughter and he didn't know, you know, the gender of me at the time. And so that's, you know, the level of his connection to that piece of my story and his story. And they both, you know, went on and got busy with life too.
And so. I don't think he was, I think that he was comfortable sharing as much as he knew, but he also understood that it was only his perspective that he could share and that he wasn't obviously as close to the process of carrying me to birth than he could have been.
Haley Radke: In this letter, the Dear Surrender letter, I don't know if I'm going to say this right, you say, what if I had been Hānaid instead of being adopted within the formal Western system?
Can you tell us how to say that? What does that mean? And then what do you think about when you think about that?
Mike Hoyt: Hānaid. So that's sort of the Hawaiian term for sort of informal adoption. And I actually, you know, some folks that I talked to in my family, cousins and relatives, they talk about hānaid family and that just, you know, for centuries people would hānai another family's child and raise them as their own.
And that was sort of more of an indigenous cultural practice. And there's actually really a lot of challenging things that are a result of that. Who can attend Kamehameha schools and get a scholarship, right? Is it about blood quantum or is it about culture and acculturation? But anyway I think a lot about, you know, my, my mother was Filipino and half white and grew up in that family context.
And so, given that the choice, my adoption was hers and within her family. And the expectations that were placed upon her, you know, I went through a domestic adoption process, a very formal process. Had the choice been within Leonard's family, would I have been hānaid. Would I have been raised on the islands by a neighbor down the street, or by a third uncle of his or auntie.
And I think, you know, obviously, we have no idea of knowing what our lives would be like if we took a different path that, you know, it doesn't work that way. But. I do think a lot about just, I just know that I would be a completely different person and I don't necessarily have remorse or grief. I don't grieve that in a way as much as I may be used to. But I know that's one of the multiverse identities that live out there is the, you know, my, my name would have been Akana and not Hoyt or whoever the family down the street who hanaid me, I would have had their last name or surname.
Haley Radke: Okay. Interesting to think about. The exploration of identity is so... I don't know. It consumes more of my time than I'd like to admit, probably. Still. Mike, is there anything that you want to make sure that you say to your fellow adopted people? What's important for us to know? I don't know. Any thoughts?
Mike Hoyt: Oh, you know, there's surround yourself with other adopted people, if possible. You know, I have, we have a very powerful, rich community of friends and I think that's also who is raising our children is this community of friends that we have in the sort of found family or family that we chosen family.
But so many of those friends are adoptees that we don't necessarily have weekly meetings about the politics or academics or academic theories of adoption, or, but we have, we're together. We be together. We are together in space. We hold space for one another. And there's something comforting and supportive, even if it's not about having those conversations all of the time. There's just something about knowing that people exist within your friend community, support community that have lived this experience and walk with you, even if it's to walk with you through some other stuff you're trying to work out. And obviously, it's important to when able to have those conversations about adoption as well.
And I, you know, and I think. How do we practice forgiveness for ourselves? For people entangled in these processes and these policies and the practice of secrecy, there's so much that has been out of our control and so much that we haven't been able to access them. And so it's, it seems like it can be easy to feel like you've never done enough.
Or I should like, all right, I should have a different emotional capacity and I could be better at being a person, a whole person. And how do we care for ourselves and forgive ourselves for where we think we don't have what it takes to sort of live through these unknowns and to deal with longing. And there's, everyone evolves along this path at different times and at different stages in their lives.
And I've learned so much from peers and friends. I've just. And just seeing how they walk in this world. So, I don't know, I just, have grace, take care of your heart. Yeah, that's not really great other than taking care of yourself. There's not a lot there that, that's really specific. I'm sorry.
Haley Radke: No, I think this call to community is important. It's easy for us to find ourselves as the only adopted person. It's not something you usually go up and introduce yourself to people in adulthood as oh, I'm Haley. I'm an adoptee. That's I don't lead with that. But I do think there's so much healing that can come from being connected with fellow adoptees.
Mike Hoyt: Yeah.
Haley Radke: We talked about that a lot here. I really want to recommend your book Hanabata Days. It is a graphic memoir. Well, okay, so I read it and I thought this man is a remarkable human I so enjoyed learning more about you, learning more about Leonard and your family, and it gives just this beautiful layers of what reunification can look like.
And I learned so much about Hawaii, and you unpack all of these topics like colonialization and all of these things that we should know more about if we're ignorant of the topics. And so you address all of these other social issues as well, which is amazing that all the layers are just amazing.
So it's so beautiful too. Oh my goodness. The art. It's just tremendous. I wish people could flip through it with me right now. You can't see because you're listening, but It's so gorgeous.
Mike Hoyt: Thank you I mean the great thing about the graphic memoir is that you can't really spoil it on a podcast because, you know half of it is visual, right?
Haley Radke: Yes. But I think this is one that has more writing than a lot of them with the letters, like in your prologue, the dear daughters, I talked about the dear surrender letter you write to your wife, to Leonard and you kind of let us in behind the wall a lot more than others, I think.
So, anyway.
Mike Hoyt: Thank you.
Haley Radke: One of my favorites. And I want to say thank you to Lynn, who messaged me to tell me about your book because.
Mike Hoyt: Thank you, Lynn.
Haley Radke: Yes. Thank you, Lynn. Is there anything you think we should know about Hanabata Days before you tell us what you want to recommend?
Mike Hoyt: You know, I had grown up being in love and collecting comic books, you know, superhero comic books as a child and I always thought I'd be an illustrator and never went down that path, whether, I don't know, I just got too wrapped up in other things and to return to this late in life and it really was a project about inquiry and, you know, teaching myself this very specific medium. I've, that I've been inspired by other Graphic storytellers Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do, one of the greatest novels of all time, in my opinion, but I just wanted to see if this story would work in this medium and challenge myself to grow.
And so I'm not a writer, but I think that it helps me understand how to, how I fit within storytelling maybe? Or at least how my skill sets and where I might have some facility could help shape the way the story gets told. And so I'm just honored to be here.
You know, I just hope people have a chance to see the book and to have a conversation about it. Or find something moving about, you know, a piece of it, or make some curious, right? Given what's happening in Maui right now and around the world. Be curious about the state and the conditions of native Hawaiians and Kanaka and and what's happening now.
Haley Radke: Yes, I think for fellow adoptees, no matter what our experience, there is something that you will find that is resonant for you in this book. So definitely. Okay. What do you want to recommend to us?
Mike Hoyt: Well, I think one of one of my favorite books by an adoptee is, appear and another dear person on the front network is Sun Yung Shin's, Unbearable Splendor.
And I think I found it so powerful because it's so unlike the type of storytelling that I would approach, you know, my storytelling is very more matter of fact, like this thing happened and then this thing happened. But when I first picked up on Unbearable Splendor, it almost takes you away in a way through its sort of surrealist, allegorical framing.
Of all of these issues of adoption that you forget that you're reading about adoption in a way it's so stirring and so powerful. I think I just hadn't read a book that dealt with these issues that took me on such a journey and maybe left me reflecting for as long as this book did. She's just such a powerful writer.
And I think, you know, Sun Yung will never have to create a graphic novel because it is the way that she works language is so visual. You don't need pictures. The poetry just fills your mind with images. And so I just, I recommend the work of Sun Yung Shin, in particular, Unbearable Splendor, one of my favorites.
Haley Radke: That's a good recommendation. I have a few of the poetry collections of theirs. And I think Unbearable Splendor is one of the first adoptee books that I saw that had some replications of documents in it. And I was like, Oh, I love that. This is the true thing. And let's have it permanent for all to see. And copied and multiplied out. What a treat to talk with you. I will double down on that I think you're a remarkable human and I'm so glad your work exists in this world. Mike, if folks wanna connect with you, where is the best spot for them to do that?
Mike Hoyt: I think through my website, michael-hoyt.com. I'm also on Instagram at it's Hapa9, H A P A 9. Don't do the Facebook as much. Or, I left the X, as it were.
Haley Radke: Oh, I'm almost with you. Almost.
Mike Hoyt: And hopefully, those are great ways to connect with me. And I think I'd, you know, out in the world as much as possible.
Haley Radke: In person. In person events. There you go.
Mike Hoyt: Maybe at a park, drawing your portrait.
Haley Radke: All right. Well, we'll catch up with you somewhere in Minnesota. Okay.
Mike Hoyt: But it's really, I thank you so much for having me on and for sharing the book and doing what you do, you know, it's really such a wonderful resource to be able to listen through all the episodes and to have a deeper understanding of the work of people in my peer group that I haven't had the depth of conversation with them, even about their work around adoption. And so I have such a great respect and a deep and appreciation of people even within my peer group or community group. So what an incredible resource you've built.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much It is my honor to do so.
Oh My goodness, I just feel so lucky some days at the Amazing Humans I get to interview and share with you. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I really have been craving more time with fellow adoptees talking about these things. I know, right? I do it every day and yet I think there's just something so special about being together in community.
However, it looks if you're in an in person support group or on a Zoom call. And in, in our Patreon offering, so Patreon is a crowdfunding platform that I use because this show is literally listener supported. So thank you so much to all of you who already support the podcast in that way. And I want to invite you if you haven't yet joined us on the adoptees on Patreon. We have several live events every month, including a book club gathering with fellow adoptees.
We have our Ask an Adoptee Therapist events where you can ask an adoptee therapist whatever you want, and we are so pleased that we have these cool things. You can join us I, and I don't want you to miss out. So I would love to have you. AdopteesOn.com/community explains all the things you can get when you join Patreon and we'd love to have you.
And in our upcoming month, if you want to see what events are coming, you can go to our website, AdopteesOn.com and click on the live event calendar, which has information about all the upcoming events. And, thanks to Patreon supporters, we also have a scholarship program. And so if there's one that you would like to attend and money is tight, you can apply for a scholarship to an event that interests you.
So I'm so happy to be able to offer that. So you can go to our website to check that out. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
