264 Healing Series - Adoptee Remembrance Day

Transcript

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

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Adoptee Remembrance Day was first commemorated on October 30th of 2020. We've done a variety of episodes over the last few years, beginning in 2020, with an interview with the founder of Adoptee Remembrance Day, Pamela Karanova.

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

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

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

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

Welcome, Lina.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's how that began.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you think those things are helpful?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haley Radke: I keep it together.

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

It's all a facade.

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

263 Stefany Valentine - When We Become Ours

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/263

---

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

You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's episode is a bit of a celebration. The first young adult adoptee anthology of short stories, When We Become Ours, releases on October 24th, 2023. The first of its kind, edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung, with 15 adoptee authors, is cause for celebration.

Congratulations to all the contributing authors. We're first going to hear an interview with an emerging author, Stefany Valentine, who shares her story of being adopted at age 12 while her biological father had a terminal [00:01:00] illness. She's the first step parent adoptee we've had on the show, and I think you'll find it fascinating as we talk about the lack of consent to her adoption, the cultural losses Stephanie suffered, and how it wasn't until her mid 20s that she realized her biological mother had been removed from her birth certificate.

Next, we're going to hear from five more contributing authors who share about their stories in the collection and what it's meant for them to be a part of the project. I could have done a whole season interviewing all of these amazing folks. I'm sure we'll hear from more of them in the future. Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.

com slash community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to AdopteesOn, Stefany Valentine.

Welcome, [00:02:00] Stefany.

Stefany Valentine: Hello! Hi, I can't believe I'm here able to talk to you. I'm so excited to be here.

Haley Radke: Thank you for having me. Oh my gosh, I'm excited too. I may have binged too much of your gorgeous Instagram and TikTok. Oh, thank you. Thank you! I know folks are gonna go check you out after we talk, so why don't you start and share some of your story with us?

Stefany Valentine: When I was born, I didn't plan on being adopted. I didn't really plan on being born, but here we are. So it's a bit of a lengthy story. I'm going to try to give you the spark notes version of it. My dad was a Mormon missionary. Went to Taiwan, met my mom. They decided to have kids. Ta da. Now you got this. Half Taiwanese, half white, girly, and so I grew up in Taiwan, and then they got divorced, and so I was kind of like cut off from my heritage that way, and then my dad got married, and then my dad got diagnosed with colon cancer, homeboy died, and then I got legally adopted [00:03:00] by my stepmother. When I was 12.

So, from that point on, my biological mother had absolutely no ties to me. I don't even know how to find her, even if I wanted to. Yeah, so, and now I am a 30 year old author. My contribution to When We Become Ours is a short story about Sora. She is, it's kind of a, an analogy with my... adoption story. So when I was adopted to my stepmother, she's a white woman.

Her kids are Korean, but she speaks Korean, cooks Korean all of that stuff. So I was, I grew up around a lot of Korean influence. And this analogy that I have in, in my short story is about a girl who was born on the moon, who gets raised by parents who live in these colonies that orbit the earth and the analogy is, Oh, well, you're both from outer space.

That should be close [00:04:00] enough. Right. But for me, being a Taiwanese adoptee raised in a Korean household, like there was definitely, definitely some overlap in similarities because they're both East Asian, but I still truly. Missed out on so much of being Taiwanese as a result of being adopted.

Haley Radke: A lot of folks that we have talked to on the show before are adoptees who were adopted as infants in closed adoption. We've talked to some adoptees who've experienced an open adoption. We've talked to adoptees who were in foster care for short or long periods of a ti time and then were adopted. I don't recall having a stepparent adoptee on the show before.

Oh yeah. So, yeah, I think it's really neat that in When We Become Ours, this first YA adoptee anthology that we're sort of [00:05:00] celebrating today that your story is represented as well. Can you talk to me a little bit about when you realized, and this is going to sound a a little bit silly, of a questions because of course there's trauma involved when your parent dies. I'm very sorry for the loss of your father. But can you describe, like, when did you realize that there was such a thing as adoption trauma? And is it weird that now legally your bio mom is not on your birth certificate? It is your step mom. Those kinds of things. When did that realization happen?

Stefany Valentine: I'd love to just like back up just a little bit and talk a little bit about like the legal adoption process, if you're okay with that, because there is something that comes to mind specifically for that. And that is that when I was legally adopted, I was 12-years-old. And at that time, I remember there never being a discussion of consent.

Is this really [00:06:00] what I wanted? And it sucks because as a kid, you, you don't really have the full picture. You have to trust in what your parents decide to do. And I understand that like in that specific situation there, I grew up with nine siblings. So I've got four biological Taiwanese siblings. I got For Korean siblings.

And so it's just a, it's just a chaotic situation where my dad is dying of colon cancer. And now he's Hey, I don't want you, my, my biological kids baptized to your Taiwanese side. You're going to be adopted to her because I'm your, I'm your dad. And this is what I say you're going to do. And I understand that his back was in a corner and her back was in a corner.

And then as a result, all of us kids had our back in a corner, but. Still, where, where was the consent? I was never educated on what that meant, and if I had been told, hey, you're, you're never gonna, your mom isn't gonna be on your birth certificate anymore. Like I would have said I don't want to be adopted, but you know, it happened and here we are today like the moment that I realized and so [00:07:00] so growing up we grew up in a Mormon household, right?

And I love talking about religious trauma as well because religious trauma and adoptee trauma I feel like they go hand in hand so much because in terms of religious trauma, I feel like there's so much kind of propaganda or like you get like this indoctrination. You have this save a life mentality, right?

And like with the adoption narrative it's you're saving a life with a child so they kind of go hand in hand and when you realize oh my gosh like my whole life was kind of a lie. It's you kind of have that same sort of dissonance that are very, very similar. So I feel like for me, when I became an adult, and this is honestly so embarrassing, but I was in my late twenties when I realized, wow, I have a lot to unpackage with my adoption trauma.

And wow, I have a lot to unpackage with my religious deconstruction as well. And it only started because I got on TikTok and someone happened to be talking about their adoption trauma. I didn't even realize that was a thing [00:08:00] until someone was like, yeah, I was told that I should be happy that I was adopted.

But I was never actually happy and I was like mind blown because I had always been told that I should be happy like I should be grateful I should be grateful that my stepmother adopted me because no one else would have wanted me and I I always felt deep deep down that that wasn't true so being able to hear someone else Literally say the words that I've been thinking out loud it meant the world to me and so now I feel like I'm such a huge advocate of sharing stories because one I mean I'm an author that's what I do share stories and two there's so much power in seeing your experiences handled by someone else.

Because now I, I'm not alone. I'm not alone in feeling this way. I'm not this, I'm not this alien. I'm not this freak. I'm not this like weirdo who doesn't fit the mold of what society thinks that I should be. There's someone else who literally knows what I'm talking about and I I get to use minimum words when explaining it because they just get [00:09:00] it.

Haley Radke: You had a lot of feelings when you were talking about your birth certificate. When your father was alive, did he maintain any connection for you with your mother?

Stefany Valentine: I feel like my biological mother, she... made home videos and stuff, but I don't know what happened to those home videos she took a bunch of pictures and to this day I feel so grateful because I have a photo album of like me from ages I believe One, two and three up to three years old I have photo albums with like my first days in pre k my first first years with her I have I swear I'm gonna cry, but I have one picture of me with my biological mother.

I know that there are so many adoptees who don't even have that. I feel so grateful to have that, but at the same time it sucks that that's the only one that I have. It's tough. I think the reason why I'm so emotional is because I'm still, I'm [00:10:00] still new, I guess, to my adoption trauma, and to this day, I haven't fully, it's kind of like a pimple I haven't popped this pimple there's still some juicy stuff in there, and, and these are the emotions coming out.

I haven't had a platform to fully purge all of these emotions. So they just keep coming out like this.

Haley Radke: We do lots of crying here so don't feel like you gotta yeah, I empathize so much with that and my experience is very different. I was adopted as an infant and I too have one photo with my biological mother and it's over there.

But on my wall, you can't see it but it's when she was 38 and I was 22 and wow, so it was like, I just have this one thing. And for a while my, I didn't know where that picture was. And when I found it, it was like having a reunion all over again.

Stefany Valentine: Yeah, I know the feeling. Yeah. Cause it's like, it's like you have [00:11:00] these faint memories of that

and you're like, in a sense did I dream it or is it even real? And then when you see it, you see that picture in your hands, you're like, wow, it really did happen. And it's it awakens things within you that you didn't realize were lost.

Haley Radke: You mentioned growing up with Korean influence. How have you been reconnecting with your Taiwan culture as an adult?

Stefany Valentine: I feel like one thing that haunts me the most is the fact that Mandarin was my first language and I don't remember a single word, like the only thing I remember because I remember going to school in Taiwan is I know how to count to 10. I know how to count to 10 in Mandarin and that's about it. And it was very empowering during lockdown in 2020

I was like, you know what, it's, it's, it's about time. It's about time I start like reclaiming my hope, my culture and my heritage cause, I [00:12:00] miss it. I've always missed it. So I started relearning Mandarin got some tutors, and the most useful and beneficial thing for me has been using an app because I get to go at my own pace and I get to squeeze in a a three minute lesson here, a ten minute lesson there, or whatever.

But the coolest part, I would say, is that when I started relearning Mandarin, I realized that parts of my mouth the muscle memory, my tongue, my lips, my throat, it can make those sounds and it was so like validating to I never would have noticed that my my muscles still remembered Taiwan, even if my brain didn't because I had that experience, I put it into a young adult novel and that was the book that landed in my agent.

And then a couple of years after that, it landed in a book deal. So, and I'm grateful that I'm able to combine so many aspects of of my life and put it into literature, because like I said, there's so much power to sharing stories, sharing the authenticity of those [00:13:00] stories, because that's how we see ourselves in the world, is that authenticity.

And it helps us to not feel so alone. So I love that.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. It's, it's so true. And it's interesting that on TikTok is where you first heard from other adoptees. I want to just go back one more time to this idea of adoption trauma. I see it as sort of different pieces, right? There's family separation trauma, right?

You're disconnected from your biological mom, your father dies, you are losing those connections, and then there's this other piece of the adoption where you've got this legal severing of identity and then this societal expectation of gratitude and then whatever we're getting from our family that we're [00:14:00] placed into.

So do you have thoughts on that?

Stefany Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so because I was 12-years-old, I remember going to court. So this is I guess a funny story is so there's nine of us, nine of us kids, right? My dad's like yellow jaundice, dying of colon cancer. You can see it in his skin, right? And there's my white mom, blonde hair, blue eyed

and then all of us little dark haired Asian kids, right? And we're all going through this courthouse. My youngest brother, he happened to have a tape measure with him. One of those ones where you pull out and they snap back when, because he's a little kid and he just likes toys, right? So all of us, we're going through the metal detector, like one by one, and it gets to my youngest brother and the, and we're all, we're all scared because we're like, what's going on?

We know we look out of place here, like people keep looking at us. We keep looking at them and we just keep walking and the metal detector goes off for my brother and he is, he's I don't even remember how old he is at the time, maybe like maybe eight, [00:15:00] six, six to eight years old or something super young.

And he's oh my gosh, what is happening? And so all of us, we're all freaking out because that's our baby brother and they're like, do you have a weapon on you? Asking it to a child, right? And so he pulls out this little tape measure thing and they're like, oh yeah, well, you can't take that with you because it's dangerous.

And all of us were thinking like, okay, like I know we're young, I know we're kids, but like, how is that dangerous? So anyway, we go there, we go into the courtroom and I remember the judge literally just taking a look at us and being like, yep, this is final. You're legally adopted. And that was it. And so all of this buildup, all of this, like fear, this trauma, we didn't even understand what was going on and lack of consent again.

Like I, I didn't want this looking back in retrospect and in the moment, I knew for a fact I didn't want this. And a part of me was always wondering why couldn't I just go back to Taiwan? But nobody asked me, we go, we do that, finalized. And then it wasn't until I was looking at my [00:16:00] birth certificate in my mid to late 20s that I was like, hold on a second, where's my biological mother's name?

And that, that was the moment that I realized in my late 20s, after all of this, this is like how little I was educated on the adoption process as I was going through. It was just, here you go, we're just going to send you through it. It wasn't until I was like, in my adulthood that I was looking at my birth certificate

I was like, hold on a sec. There's no way. I do not, I look nothing like this lady. There's no way my stepmother is my biological mother and yet her name is on my birth certificate. It was, it was very traumatic and kind of silly, I guess, how the whole process went down, but I'll never forget it. And I honestly haven't shared that story out loud.

This is probably the first time I've ever had the opportunity to share that experience out loud. Because this is how little I get to talk about my adoption trauma. And I feel like that's why I have so much to purge, so much to, so much to exhale, because it's a lot, it's a lot to... I've lived with [00:17:00] this, like since my childhood into my teen years and now into my adulthood.

I'm still learning how I feel about it and how, how it's still affecting me to this day. There was a, there was a time in my life when I kind of, I don't know what the word for it is, but I'm, I'm gonna refer to it as like internalized adoptee trauma. Where people will be like, well, don't you miss your biological mom?

But I've been told time and time again that I should be happy that I was adopted. And so, even though as a kid I had opportunities to talk about it, I had that kind of like indoctrination ingrained into me so, so much that I was always like, no, I really am grateful to be adopted. I would vocalize it, but deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down

I wasn't, so that's the only way I can learn. I can express it. But I growing up I kind of had that internalized adoption trauma where I, I fed into that, that harmful narrative of adoption is good. Adoption saves lives. This is great for kids. I fed [00:18:00] into that narrative. And now they're like, I've grown up and I'm able to have that emotional competence, have therapy that I need to put words to my feelings and everything and of course to have the validation of an entire community of people who have gone through what I've gone through?

I I'm able to be on the other side of it where it's hey like I am able to see that sort of like internalized adoption trauma in the people around me and even in my own siblings at times because it's such a difficult emotionally exhausting thing to undergo and to unpackage like you have to let go of so much of your past and you have to really sit with that discomfort of this so messed up and then and then you get through it and now you're able to talk about it on platforms like this and share stories so that other adoptees don't have to feel alone.

Haley Radke: Well, let's talk about some of your loves, which is reading and writing. I know there is. So, there's [00:19:00] just this lack of authentic adoptee representation in literature. We've talked about that before on the podcast. We're treated as a trope we're the plot twist, we're the secret murderer revealed at the end.

I mean, all the tropey things.

Stefany Valentine: Absolutely! Oh my goodness, yeah! So... Like growing up let's take Harry Potter, for example that's our that's our classic adoptee, right? But oftentimes in literature you see the adoptee trope because it is a trope unfortunately in publishing even though it's literally like something that needs to be handled with delicacy and care, but it's used so that one gives immediate sympathy to the reader so oh this poor adoptee doesn't know who he is,

whatever. Number two, they always pair the adoption the adoptee to the orphan thing. So, oh, not only is he gonna be adopted into this household, but he's he's [00:20:00] orphaned, doesn't have his parents. Oh, man, poor kid. You, the reader, you better sympathize with this, because me, the author, I don't want to go into the emotional baggage that comes with the trauma of losing both of your parents at a young age.

And it gets really frustrating, and it's, it's, because as, as a writer, I see through it. Not only do I see it as a reader perspective, but I see it from the craft perspective, where it's man, minimum effort was taken and yet the funny part is the adoption trauma is the character development and I'm not I don't want to call out like every single author who's ever attempted to write an orphan or an adoptee because there are certain like nuances that come into play for instance different genres like what age group you catering to and just how much trauma do you get to discuss per age group and then another thing too is like you know what does your editor want so that that's a whole other other ball game that gets added into the equation.

But to me, as a writer, I often see that the adoption trope is used so that as an excuse [00:21:00] for lack of character development and to get immediate sympathy from the audience. And it's, it's, it sucks because that is the character development. That exploring that adoption trauma, exploring being an orphan as a kid, that is the character development.

There is so much internal conflict and internal turmoil and external motivations that you can pull from this, this void that happens when you are severed from your parents. I feel like maybe because it's been done time and time and time again and hasn't been explored in depth that unfortunately people see it in literature and they're like, oh, sure, I can use that in my story.

And another thing that I feel like I see, too, is a lot of the time the orphan slash adoptee trope is very prominent within sci-fi, fantasy, the speculative stuff. And from a craft perspective, a lot of speculative fiction [00:22:00] tends to be about the outside, the world building, the politics, the the magical elements, how the, how the spaceships go from point A to point Z, it's very, very external.

And so it takes away from the character's internal exploration of my adoption trauma, or the character's orphan trauma. In a sense, I guess you could say that the the genre at play takes away from the author's ability to discover and unpackage a lot of that. But that said with a character who has had a lot of that internal trauma, a character's motivation comes from within.

And so, at the end of the day, I feel like if a character has this true adoption trauma part of their motivation is always gonna be like, I just want to know who I am. That can be such a powerful driving force that nobody, like it's just sitting there, it's this untapped potential in literature and it's, it's wild to me from like now that I've had a chance to like really process and unpackage [00:23:00] my adoption trauma, how so many authors don't see that and yet they continue to use the adoptee orphan trope.

To just give you a generic character that's been done time and time and time again.

Haley Radke: What do you think about, I'm going to call it the ethics, of authors writing characters that are adoptees without checking in with adoptees. There's a couple of very famous books, one in particular. I'm not gonna name names, but the author has been quoted in several sources.

We did a bit of a deep dive on this on Patreon a long time ago. And the author said, oh, yes, I researched extensively. I talked to adoptive parents. I talked to birth parents. I talked to social workers lawyers who work in adoption. She listed the whole list of people she researched, [00:24:00] but did not talk to an adopted person.

Stefany Valentine: Yeah, I feel like I feel like you and I, we know we see the elephant in the room, right? Because that's the thing. That's the thing with the adoption narrative is it so much about how adoption is ethical, how, how great it is, how much you're saving lives and you're saving babies. But then when you actually ask the adoptees, we're like it ain't sunshine and rainbows okay. Like ours, our origin story is that we have no origin story. That's the trauma, like that, that in itself needs to be handled with care, completely gets overlooked. I feel, and I'm so grateful for platforms like your podcast. And When We Become Ours and like the whole storm of adoptees coming forward and sharing our experiences, I am so grateful for this movement that is coming, because I feel like a lot of publishing because publishing is such an old storytelling is probably the oldest art form in human society across all [00:25:00] cultures yet we're still uncovering new ways to become better storytellers and one of the ways that do become better storytellers is to be authentic to be vulnerable to be human because as we develop and as we evolve, as in a society we are capable of picking up on these subtle details and these nuances, and they need to be examined for the sake of art and for the sake of humanity, explored very carefully and in publishing specifically. If not, then we risk falling into the same cycle, which is like this underdeveloped is underdeveloped storytelling that we tend to see over and over again.

And not only that, but it just, it continues to perpetuate these harmful stereotypes and the harmful narrative that is the adoption industry. I, I'm just grateful for people who are speaking out about it and speaking up, too, and sharing their stories.

Haley Radke: Well should we talk about it? Let's, let's go to recommended resources When We Become Ours.

It's so exciting to see [00:26:00] it in the world. I don't know if regular listeners will remember, but I talked to Nicole Chung a number of years ago and she was talking about, oh my gosh, one of the things I really want to do is help publish an adoptee anthology. And I recently got to talk to her again and she, and we're like, let's celebrate because it's here,

it's coming out. I'm so impressed by the collection that Nicole and Shannon Gibney have put together. The authors that you are listed among, 15 authors, some of them are best selling authors, some of them are new up and comers, and I just, talk about own voices, like this is it.

Stefany Valentine: Oh my, oh my goodness.

And okay, so I haven't read the whole thing quite yet, but during the developmental processes, I was kind of able to take sneak peeks at some of the other stories. And I'm still waiting for my hardcover to come in and everything. But [00:27:00] I read this one.

Haley Radke: You'll have it in your hands, Stefany. By the time this comes out.

Stefany Valentine: Yeah. Yes. So the very, very first story in this anthology is one Cora and Benji's Great Escape. And I swear within the first page of reading it, I was in tears I was laughing, I was crying I was angry, and I was like, man, this is a whole other genre, I guess, or this whole other aspect of adoption trauma that I need to unpackage still, and it's so basically it follows the protagonist, I believe is Cora.

She's a black adoptee and her mother is white. And her mother is kind of like one of those mom fluencers. Who's like hashtag salt and pepper family, because, the mom is the salt and the pepper is the kid, and I feel like as adoptees hearing this especially transracial adoptees, like all of us are like, oh, like we've got that cringe, right. So I remember reading this and I was like, oh oh, the cringe is so real. But then like how this mother just kind of [00:28:00] like, I don't know if this is the right word for it, but like kind of fetishizes or what's the word I'm thinking of? Exploits, how the, how the mother exploits her children.

And I remember this one time in my, in my childhood, because there's nine of us, right? In this adopted family, there's nine siblings at one point 8 of the nine, we were, we were in elementary school and my mother, none of us wanted to do this talent show, but my mother, my adopted mother was like, hey, all of you guys are going to wear these shirts, they're gonna say, we are the Valentine family because let's be honest, like Valentine is a pretty cool last name. And then the fact that there's nine of us total, like it's, it's pretty eye catching. None of us wanted to get on stage and dance at this talent show and yet she forced us to like... go up there and dance and everything. And I was like, oh my God I can't unsee it now. Like mom, what were you thinking? But at the same time though, it's I get it, mom. Like you were doing the best you were doing what you could with what you had. And we were all kind of in a pickle, [00:29:00] but man, like reading that story and just like the whole hashtag salt and pepper family. I was like, oh, oh, I feel so seen. I've been there. Oh, I've done that. The cringe is real. And she captures, she captures everything about that experience. So, so, so well. Oh man, it was beautiful, beautiful story.

Haley Radke: That's so good. We love Mariama.

That is that story, literally, when I got to the Salt N Pepa line, Stefany, okay, I emailed, I think I emailed Nicole or Shannon, I can't remember which one, because I was like, that's it, because I don't know, we're not going to say the name, but everybody who knows, knows there is a momfluencer who has called her platform this thing.

Not salt and pepper, but related. And [00:30:00] it's so gross. It's so gross. And I think fetishization is a great word for it, actually. And I think it's accurate because we don't talk about people of color as food items. Thank you.

Stefany Valentine: I know right? Oh, it's just a whole other level of cringe. But oh, I love I, I hate that I love it.

So I hate that I feel this way but I love that I feel this way because it's so true. And and that's it. That, that level of nuance, that level of detail, that, that level of care can only be written by someone who has first hand experience that, and that is what I love about this anthology, that is what I love about talking about adoption trauma, and being an author who writes adoptee characters and gets to explore all of this because there's so much intersectionality and there's so much nuance and and the only way to tell it with this much raw human emotion is if you have lived it [00:31:00] and I feel so honored to even be a part of an anthology like this because like this, this story is this anthology is going to it's gonna make so many people feel seen.

It's gonna, gonna help kickstart so many healing journeys.

Haley Radke: Yes. For young people. Yeah. One of the questions I asked, we're going to hear from a couple of your fellow authors once we wrap up our conversation. But one of the questions I asked was like, what would it have meant to you? To have something like this to read when you were a young person and how meaningful that would have been.

So I just think it's so special. I love that it's short stories. And I'm going to ask you a little bit about why you chose sci-fi as your genre of choice. But I think there is something about short stories. Well, For all of us, but I'm thinking especially for your target for the young people [00:32:00] that when you read a short story, you can have this, immediate emotional reaction in a short period of time.

And often those things unlock something for us often those are like the memorable story that you will think back to. And to think there's so many of those in this book all together like it's just really special. Okay, why sci-fi?

Stefany Valentine: Oh, yeah, so, what one of the reasons why I chose to write my story in sci-fi, was because There are so like so much of the adoptee trope that we see is in speculative fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and it never gets explored internally because we're spending so much time building the world, building the conflict, building the plot, and these are all external things, but what if we had a speculative fiction story with an adoptive protagonist and that was the protagonist [00:33:00] motivation was the adoption like it starts from within and it bleeds into into her world.

And this is why I wanted to specifically use this analogy of well, the protagonist is an extraterrestrial she's not like from Earth, like she's a lunar creature, like a lunar alien or whatever, if you want to call it that, but so are her parents, they're, they're both extraterrestrial, but one of them lives on the moon and the other one her parents exist, or they come from colonies that orbit the Earth's atmosphere, so that was the analogy I wanted to use for my adoptee experience with being a Taiwanese girl, adopted into a Korean household.

Yes, we're both extraterrestrial. We're not the same. And I, I feel like specifically with so much of so much racism surrounding East Asian countries, a lot of the narrative is, oh, well, you guys look the same, or you guys speak the same, or you guys [00:34:00] eat the same. No, we don't it's 2023. No, we don't.

And I really wanted to encapsulate how yes, we do share some similarities, but we are different and I, I missed that. I missed that so, so much about growing up in a Korean household. I missed the fact that I never asked my, my adopted mom if we could try to cook something Taiwanese if you, if we could just cook like a Taiwanese food

'cause she was always making like Korean food. And I'm not gonna lie, like my mom's an is a, is an amazing chef. To this day I can't go to get Korean barbecue without comparing it to my mom's cooking because she, she cooks it's so much better than any restaurant camp. Like we went to LA one time, we were in K-town and everybody was like, you've got to go to this Korean barbecue place.

It is the best in town. My husband and I, we go there and we were both like, dude, Mom literally cooks way better. Like we had leftovers of hers that are better than this. Are you kidding me? So I'm, I'm, I'm super grateful. Don't get me wrong. I'm super grateful [00:35:00] for the Korean food that my mom cooked for us, but it's not the same.

And and so now that I live by myself, I'm, I'm exploring Taiwanese food and it's been so rewarding. How smells awaken the deepest memories within you. I made I bought a Taiwanese cookbook and I made something called Three Cup Chicken. And just the smell of the ginger and the garlic and the oil.

It was, it was me walking on the streets of Taiwan all over again. I remember that smell vividly. Just mix in a little bit of car exhaust and that's literally... what Taiwan smelt like so much of my childhood, my, my young years was wandering the streets of Taiwan and it took me back, took me back to before, before all of this trauma, like before, before I had any idea, had just how much heartache was in store for me it took me back to those simple, to that simple

time and it was it was incredible. So yeah, like it's it's been it's been very rewarding and healing and fulfilling for me to reclaim that [00:36:00] part of me because like I want it back.

Haley Radke: Well in many of the stories include some aspect of food and I love that. Thank you for sharing that. We like I said, we're going to hear from some of the other authors and they'll talk a little bit about their work, but I absolutely recommend that folks pick up When We Become Ours.

But what do you want to recommend to us today?

Stefany Valentine: I want to share some, some TikTokers that I love to follow because their content makes me feel so seen. So, the first one is adoptee _ thoughts. So this creator, she's been sharing a lot about her reunification journey, meeting her her bio mom, and on top of that, just being an adoptee educator, and she's also written some books about adoption as well.

And that's Melissa, right?,

Haley Radke: Melissa Guida Richards. Yeah, she's been on the show before. We love

Stefany Valentine: her. Ah! So, so wild. So cool. And [00:37:00] yeah, we follow each other. I love her content. She's doesn't hold back. Like she says it as it is. And that's what I love about it. Because I feel like when you, when you, when you have to deal with so many people who still fall for, I guess, I don't know if I'm saying this

Right, but it feels like the adoptee propaganda when they're still like, oh, like, why can't you just be happier? Why do you have to make your life so much about trauma? When you have to deal with all of that constantly on the internet, like it kind of gets, it's annoying, gets redundant.

And I love that Melissa is so so strong. She's, she's an incredible person. She's very patient,

Haley Radke: I would say. Yeah. She's patient with the nonsense.

Stefany Valentine: Yes. Yes. I absolutely love that about her. Another TikToker that I absolutely love. It's @first.birth.mom. I love a lot of her content as well, because I feel like we relate to each other so much, not only about the adoption trauma stuff, but about growing up Mormon, how [00:38:00] Mormonism overlaps with the adoption narrative really encapsulating the grief of missing the, the, the longing something that adoptees really share and I, and I love, I love that she, I love what she does for the community in, in just being vulnerable and expressing herself.

The last one that I wanted to share, I don't know if I'm saying this right, but it's eunaeemily, she's a Korean adoptee and she makes Korean cuisine. And she does like these voiceovers while she's making Korean food talking about, and she talks about her experiences growing up as an adoptee.

What I love most about her content is it's, it's so empowering. Any, anybody can start cooking. Anybody can start like feeling that void of that cultural connection, like re reclaiming that cultural connection through food and that's what she does is she she cooks and she shows her adoptee stories her adoptee experiences [00:39:00] and like not only not only is the food porn like to die for but the stories to the stories they hit home they she's so vulnerable so raw so unapologetic, and I love that.

I love that about when adoptees share our stories we don't hold back. I see the courage in their words. It's never said outright, but it's said in every other way. Body language, tone of voice, the way that the words are paired together. There is so much strength. It takes so much strength to have to be able to share this experience because I feel like sometimes like I to this day sometimes get anxious sharing my adoptive experiences because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

I don't want to maybe cause more harm for people who might still be in that sort of like internalized adoptive trauma headspace like at the same time, though. I've lived my entire life catering to that narrative, and like, when am I going to [00:40:00] finally, like, when are we, when are we going to become ours, damn it, or darn it.

Haley Radke: That's a great place to to end, amazing. Well. The way you described some of those creators, Stefany, is what I see in you super authentic, vulnerable, seeing some things out loud that maybe other people haven't had the courage to share yet. And you're Sort of helping open the door for that. So, speaking of that, where can we connect with you online?

Stefany Valentine: Yeah, so I am @booksbystefany , S T E F A N Y, across all platforms.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Folks need to make sure they're following you there so they can check out your debut First Love Language. And it seems so, so many people thrilled about that [00:41:00] romance coming up.

Stefany Valentine: Yay. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Yeah, it's so exciting. Thank you so much for sharing some of your story with us, Stefany, and for celebrating, celebrating the book launch!

Woo!

Stefany Valentine: I know! God, oh, so excited! Ah, man I just keep thinking about me, if I was a kid if somebody else, even if just one classmate had said man, I really miss my biological family or if even if just a classmate was like, yeah, I'm adopted too It would have been a game changer for me game changer, but like it's so mind boggling that like it's such a hard topic to discuss and I'm so glad that not only is this anthology coming out, but there's this whole movement, whole wave of stories coming out and I want to make, I want to make discussing adoptee trauma mainstream. I want people to, to know the nuances, man. Very excited about that.

Haley Radke: Yes. And, and I'll spend one moment honoring our [00:42:00] forerunners just talking with someone who read one of the first adoptee memoirs in 19, in the mid 1970s. So we are Wow. Yeah, we're standing on, standing on generationally. We are not the first.

Stefany Valentine: Absolutely. It's, yeah. Domino effect, man. Mm-hmm. , seriously. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. , thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Haley Radke: We are going to hear from several authors who have pieces in When We Become Ours, and I will make sure to link to everyone in the show notes, so you can connect and follow their work. I asked them a few questions, and we're going to start with, what would you say to your younger adopted self that you needed to hear?

This is Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, who is also the author of the graphic memoir, Palimpsest.

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom: Dear Wool-Rim, yes, Wool-Rim. This is how your name is supposed to be pronounced. [00:43:00] It's soft, beautiful, and poetic, and means forest echo. They pronounce it in Sweden incorrectly, and I understand why you resent it. Also, I want you to know that you were never abandoned.

Don't believe what people are telling you about why you ended up being adopted. Your mother loved you and wanted to keep you, but she wasn't allowed, and lost you as much as you lost her. She's thinking about you every day and has not forgotten you.

Mariama J. Lockington: Hi everyone, this is Mariama J. Lockington. I'm an adoptee, an educator, and author of books for tweens and teens, and I am so honored to be a contributor to When We Become Ours.

Something I would want to tell my younger, adoptee self today is simply just to tell her that she is enough, that all of the isolation and loneliness and feelings of otherness that she is feeling are valid, alongside all of her joy and curiosity and dreams, and that she's not alone. That one day [00:44:00] she will find people who see and hear and love her for all of her nuances and complexities.

Haley Radke: What would it have meant to you to have a resource like this when you were a teen?

Kelley Baker: Hello, my name is Kelley Baker and I wrote a story called Deadwood for When We Become Ours. I would have really appreciated a book like this when I was growing up to help validate and normalize my experience as an adoptee.

I think grown ups tend to simplify adoption for children, but in reality, adoption is very complex and nuanced. I wish my younger self knew that it's okay to have complicated, difficult, or even surprising feelings about adoption, and you deserve to feel seen and supported to process those emotions.

Community has been an important part of my journey towards healing, so I'd love to connect. You can find me on Instagram @kelleydbaker.

Mariama J. Lockington: It would have meant the world to me to find a book like When We Become Ours on bookshelves, I was an [00:45:00] avid reader as a kid and I was constantly searching for books with characters that were like me with transracially adopted black girls or black characters and, families that were multiracial. And I didn't find those books growing up. So one of the reasons I write the type of books I write for young people, centering adoptee characters is because I'm writing into this void from my own childhood in the eighties and nineties.

And this book is just, it's just going to be so life affirming, even to me now as an adult, I haven't had the opportunity to read many of the other stories in the anthology yet. So when I get my hands on this final copy, I'm honestly going to, make some tea, put on a cozy sweatshirt, get under a blanket and just relish in the opportunity to read, numerous stories that center people who are like me in some way, even if we come from different contexts that center the adoptee experiences, the good, the [00:46:00] bad, and everything in between. And I just know that it's just going to be such like a soul affirming moment, even for me now as an adult reading this book.

Eric Smith: Hey, everyone. My name's Eric Smith. I'm one of the contributors to When We Become Ours. I cannot stress enough how much a book like this would have meant to me as a kid. I grew up and some of what I'm about to talk about probably means nothing if you have If you're not a big video game nerd like me, but, I grew up with video games like Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana and all these golden age of Super Nintendo role playing games where you had protagonists who were the forgotten adopted kid or that the orphan or the foster youth who somehow has magical powers and saves the day and saves the world.

And while that might sound great oh, wow, cool. You're, you're, you're people you looked up to were, were superheroes. It's also not great because, I didn't have magic when I [00:47:00] was a kid. I didn't have any, I didn't have a giant sword that solved all my problems. So having a, a book that had, real stories from real people that could answer real questions would have been so helpful because then I would have had the language I needed to communicate what I was feeling.

Those video games didn't give me that language, they gave me an escape, and I needed, I needed to face what was going on and a book like this would have really helped out a lot.

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom: I want to say that I would have loved it, but when I was a teen, I was so busy fitting in, dreaming of waking up white, and hating myself for being Asian.

I still didn't understand how adoption had impacted me, and that I could draw strength from other adopted people. So I'm not sure there would have been room for me to appreciate this book then. But the more positive me would like to believe that reading a book like this, with voices mirroring my own experiences, would have been of great comfort to me.

This book could have been the first step for me to stop internalizing racism, and maybe it would have shortened the length of time I [00:48:00] spent denying my own adoption experience.

Haley Radke: How does it feel to be a part of this growing chorus of adoptee authors?

Lisa Nopachai: Hi, my name is Lisa and I wrote the story Glide for the anthology. I'm so happy and grateful to be a part of this collection of stories. The only story that I ever grew up reading when I was a teenager, young adult about adoption was a chicken soup for the soul story. And it was about a girl who was adopted and everything was tied up in a bow at the end. And it was like the typical grateful adoptee narrative.

It kind of was my paradigm and framework growing up as to what my adoption experience should have been like, because that's all I knew. And so, I'm so happy to be able to be a part of this anthology where, there's just so much more, so many more shades of gray. [00:49:00] I think in our culture, there's just a lot of black and white and dichotomous kind of thinking where it's, there's a good guy and the bad guy.

And I have two small children they're four and six and even in the shows that they watch about learning their ABCs, there's, there's good guys and there's villains, and I think we just kind of see life through this framework in our society. And so, yeah, I just think that it's so easy to stick adoption into that framework where there are good guys and bad guys, and that's how it's so often portrayed.

But you know, I think there's more and more people who are embracing the gray areas and just saying that, it's okay to have complicated feelings. It's such a complex situation to be in. And we can hold the struggle and the pain and the loss and the grief and the questions of identity and belonging together with joy and gratitude.

And we can struggle with so many things. And that's [00:50:00] okay. And it's not only okay, it's normal. And we just have such complex lives. And yeah, so I think it's really empowering to be a part of this anthology. And that's why I like the anthology approach so much is that it's a whole bunch of different stories and everyone's is so unique and so different and everyone, has different losses and different struggles.

But at the end of it, there's this implicit invitation to, share your own story and that the reader can just add their own story with the honesty and with the self compassion and self love that they

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom: deserve. I'm so honoured to be included in this anthology with all these great authors. It gives me hope to see more and more of us putting pen to paper to communicate our experiences of grief, loss, trauma, racism and forced migration in a world where adoption narratives are still mainly written by non adopted people and still favour the adoption industry [00:51:00] over family preservation.

When other people speak for us, we tend to be reduced to passive objects whose sole purpose is to be rescued, feared, or fetishized. But when we get to speak in our own voices, we reclaim our humanity and show the world we are people of flesh and blood.

Eric Smith: Being a part of this growing roster of... adoptee the authors now as a grown adult.

I can't even tell you how much that means to me. I mean, I keep saying I can't even tell you, but I guess I'm going to right now, but I didn't have any adopted friends as a kid, they just. They weren't around, or if they were around, I just, I just didn't know them or they didn't talk about it.

And now finally having all these friends and all these colleagues who know what I'm feeling like about these very specific things that are hard to explain and define with people who aren't it just means a lot. And it means so much to me to know that we're writing this work that's going to mean a bunch to kids like us who needed it so badly.

Mariama J. Lockington: So, in [00:52:00] short, it feels great to be a part of this anthology, and exciting, and I just, I'm so honored to be part of this cohort of colleagues who are writing stories and sharing their truths. Even if it's through fiction on the page in this way. So, I've been screaming about this book from the rooftops already at every event I've done.

I've been like, this book is coming out, pre order it, write it down. And that won't end once it comes out. I'll be screaming about this book for a long time because I think it's, really pivotal. It's a pivotal moment.

Haley Radke: Tell us a little bit about the piece you've written in the anthology.

What can we expect? What are the themes you're hoping to share more about?

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom: As far as I know, I'm the only one who's contributed with a comic rather than written prose. So there are two versions of my story. One for the printed book and one for the audio. I hope my story communicates some of the painful loneliness many adopted people experience throughout their lives.

We may be surrounded by people trying to love [00:53:00] us, but non adopted people can't possibly understand what we go through. Adopted people are often told that we've been given everything, that we're lucky and have been saved from terrible circumstances, so what more could we possibly need? But many of us feel a deep hole in our beings that can only be understood by other adopted people who've gone through the same thing.

So my story is also a celebration of adoptive friendships and solidarity .

Mariama J. Lockington: My story is called Cora and Benji's Great Escape, and it is about a 16-year-old girl named Cora. She's black. She's adopted. She's the oldest of four adopted siblings. Her parents are white, and when one weekend she and her family go to one of those adoption retreats or camps that sometimes adopted families go to to meet with other families that look like them and learn she's not excited to go to this camp.

She's sort of outgrown it and doesn't understand what it, what's in it for her. She only sees it as well, it's just our white parents. You get to talk about the racism that the kids kind of don't do [00:54:00] anything, but she is excited to go to the camp because it's an opportunity for her to see her best friend, Benji, who's another black adopted girl like her.

And the two of them really don't get to see each other very often. And when they do see each other, one thing that they like to do is share. poetry with one another something that Cora doesn't share with anyone else in her life, only Benji. And so the two meet over this weekend, they're kind of rolling their eyes at everything that's happening, but they plan an escape for a couple hours.

And I won't spoil it, but they plan some type of escape to get away from this camp and go experience what the larger world has to offer them once they're of age and out there as young adults. So I'm excited about it and I hope, hope folks enjoy it and it resonates in some capacity. I'm Mariama J. Lockton. You can find me on Twitter as long as Twitter exists @marilocke. I'm also on Instagram and TikTok @forblackgirlslikeme. And my website [00:55:00] is mariamajlockton.com. Thank you so much, Hailey, for featuring us in this pivotal moment and to Shannon and Nicole for gathering all of us together to put together this wonderful book.

Eric Smith: As for the piece that I wrote in the anthology it's called Truffles. It's a cute story about a adoptee living on a farm with her family. She's transracially adopted, doesn't look like anyone around her, and really wrestles with every holiday. It's something similar to what I dealt with as a kid. And when she finds a puppy lost on her family's truffle farm, she decides to raise it alongside the family's truffle pigs in hopes that maybe this pup might find a family alongside the animals on the farm and sort of parallels her experience of not quite fitting in with her own family.

I'm hoping that the themes it touches on about, identity and family and transracial adoption. It shouldn't really ring with people who feel the same way. As for where people can find me [00:56:00] online, you look me up at ericsmithrocks, that's my website, dot com. I have a couple books out and about including Jagged Little Pill, the novel, and the upcoming With or Without You.

And yeah. Thank you for having me on here to talk about this wonderful anthology. I'm just, just so happy to be a part of it.

Haley Radke: I want to say a giant thank you to Stefany Valentine for sharing her story with us. Thank you to Kelley Baker, Mariama J. Lockington, Eric Smith, Lisa Wool-Rim Shoblam, and Lisa Nopachai for contributing to this episode as well. A huge congratulations to Nicole Chung and Shannon Gibney for this marvelous collection.

And I want to list the other authors for you as well. Some of them have been on the show before, and some are might be new to you. Mark Oshiro, Susan Harness, Matthew Salesses, Jenny Heijun Wills, [00:57:00] Sun Yung Shin, MeMe Collier. Meredith Ireland. The book has a forward by Rebecca Carroll and an afterward by JaeRan Kim. Sure. I'm sure some of you recognize a lot of those names and I think as our community, it's really important to support this important work. So my apologies if I mispronounced anybody's names. I am so excited for this book to be in your hands very soon. And I was so honored to get an advanced copy and be able to share about this right before it came out.

So thank you so, so much. And a huge congrats to all. Thanks for listening to AdopteesOn and for supporting adoptee voices in this world. Let's talk again next Friday.

262 Healing Series: Difficult Relationships

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/262

---

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. Welcome, friend. We have a Special episode in our healing series today, where we talk to adoptees who are also therapists. And I would say today's episode is kind of like a little bit of a tune up for anyone who has experienced or is in a period of estrangement or separation or on a break from a close relationship, whether it's adoptive parents bio parents, somebody close in your life. And we're kind of talking through some of the things people don't talk about and some things to consider. So I think this will be really helpful for you if you are experiencing any of those things.

And our guest Marta Sierra also talks through some things that might be impacting your life and you just don't even realize it till you hear her say the thing. I don't know. Every time I hear her talk, I always have little light bulbs go off. So this is definitely one I will be really listening to, to make sure I get everything out of it and that it like sticks for me.

Before we get started, I want to. Personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. Okay, let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome back to Adoptee on Marta Sierra. Hello Marta.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Hi Haley.

Haley Radke: I think you're one of the most, how do I say this? One of the most commonly hosted therapists on our show. One of our favorites. And we've talked about a lot of hard things in the past. We talked through estrangement attachment issues.

Is loyalty a trauma response? Lots of heavy things. And we're just gonna keep going.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes.

Haley Radke: We're gonna keep going on that path today. So... One of the things I've noticed a lot of people in our community struggling with are these interactions in difficult relationships, whether it is we're still in relationship in a challenging spot, or we have chosen estrangement, but that's still taking up space in our brain.

What do you think about that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Absolutely. I think when you brought this topic to me to revisit, it's about how does it stay alive inside of us? I heard you kind of asking that question and how do we tend to that? Both maybe in action, but also in response to the parts of us that are still very much alive in the dynamic, no matter where it currently sits.

Haley Radke: You told us this thing that was so wise that I've just like kind of clung on to it for a while. That you think adoptees have an internal mandate to put others first, before ourselves. And if you listen back to that, people, I think you'll understand why.

So I don't know if you want to speak to that a little bit, but then I wonder how that plays out when we're still in this, whether we're setting boundaries and continuing to do labor of holding things together, or we're out and we're just having these internal thoughts still of the challenging relationship

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah, I think the self abandonment just runs so deep. And it's not something where we set a boundary and then that feeling that urge to abandon ourselves to make things easier for the other people.

I don't think that goes away. Even something that can feel as final as ending a relationship or severing ties, there's still going to be moments where that decision is either reflected back to us or triggered in media that we're watching or a friend is going through something similar, even like distantly adjacent.

And we and it kind of like trips that wire in our nervous system that makes us go well, should I abandon myself now? Maybe now I should do it. Maybe now! You know, like that part is almost like Kind of my image right now is like doing double dutch in our mind like it's ready to jump in and abandon at any moment.

Haley Radke: Oh Geez. When you word it like that then of course, no, of course, we're not gonna make that decision, but that is what we're doing. Okay.

Marta Isabella Sierra: You know and again, I think depending on your experience in your adoptive family system or whatever caregivers you were around growing up, if that self abandonment was rewarded in any way, and I even mean rewarded as far as like people left you alone for a couple of hours. If it was rewarded in any way like that, again, like we have, I think to shift any of this, we have to come from a place of compassion that like this abandonment served an important survival purpose. And yeah. It's not doing that any more.

Haley Radke: Okay. I think we'll probably get to some tools later. I have another question that is kind of related because I almost just want to bring it to you. Okay. Our attention that I don't think we realize and there's not enough acknowledgement around this that we're doing extra invisible labor carrying around these relationships with us.

And as you said, like anything could just be a reminder here and there and. There is a weight that carrying this, I don't think we're acknowledging. And I'm wondering if you have thoughts on how we become more aware of this and, in hopefully inducing self compassion. Because if we're going to count the cost of maintaining these relationships or having these triggers in our lives, how do we be kind to ourselves? And be like, okay, of course we're having these reactions, of course, and what can we do about it?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah I loved the way that you articulated that emotional labor, Haley. That we're always in this state of managing our anxiety. Really, our fear, our terror is what I hear you talking about, like this way that, you know, I think I've said this definitely a million times in life, but definitely I think sometimes on here too. Like we just, I've never met an adoptee that couldn't stand to calm down and that includes myself, like we're just, we just vibrate on this other level.

And so how do we, yes, A) not make it a problem. That's there, that's happening, that it makes sense that we carry a lot more fear than your average person. And that's going to be about you know what to do.

And that even after we decide quote unquote what to do and maybe take an action step that doesn't necessarily soothe that one part that's afraid. It might soothe a lot of other parts and there may be relief and you can be crystal clear that you've made the right decision for yourself and these younger parts of us still feel afraid and still need attention.

Because its so difficult for us to let go. Because letting go, the separation was so traumatic and so these young parts still believe that holding on and squeezing and refusing to let go is the best way. And it's just not always the best way.

Haley Radke: I have lots of friends that are adopted. Which I feel very thankful and grateful that I have that in my life. I know not everybody has that privilege.

And recently I asked someone, because I was kind of feeling like alone. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I keep perseverating on this. But I asked someone, I was like, well, how often do you think about your adoptive mother? You know, kind of, and she was like, are you being facetious? I'm like, no I genuinely want to know.

She's- every day. Every day, Halye. Like, why are you? Of course I still think about her.

Is this

Marta Isabella Sierra: a trap?

Haley Radke: Yeah, exactly. And I was like, oh okay, so it isn't just me.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And yeah, so, I don't know, maybe, is there anything you want to say to us about that? It's, that feels normal.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. I absolutely think it's just not within our control. Our thoughts are not within our control.

I saw like a funny Instagram that was like, what I need is to just not have thoughts. And I was like, yes! Wouldn't that be incredible to just not have thoughts? But we don't have control over our thoughts. And nor our dreams, you know. For me in estrangement, some years out, like that is still a place where they enter my consciousness with or without my consent.

And. It can be really hard to wake up from that, literally. And I know it's just going to be something I have feelings about for the rest of my life. So, yes, what can be gained when we radically accept that we're going to just never stop having feelings about these people and these relationships?

That anybody that was classified to us as family. And where there's been pain or distance or hurt or abuse or neglect or abandonment, we may never fully make peace with that. And doesn't that make so much sense?

Haley Radke: Yes, right. It does make sense just in the nature of how our society is structured. Of course, we're going to have constant reminders of maternal or paternal figures and we're and of course, if you were a parent yourself, seeing your kids do things and that will remind you of when you did something and it just there's just no way to sever our brain from those triggers.

God, what was that movie? That Jim Carrey movie? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Can you like erase this whole relationship out of your brain? Yeah. How about that being tempting?

Marta Isabella Sierra: And even in the fantasy sci fi world of that film, right? The answer was no, you can't. You cannot pull someone out of your experience by the roots.

What happened to us left imprints.

Haley Radke: All right, so let's go to some practical kind of tool things. I think I shared this with you privately, but I had this dinner recently catching up with some old friends who I haven't seen for 20 years. And naturally, when you're my age a couple of them had lost parents already.

And so then they were asking about mine, because they all knew them from childhood.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Right.

Haley Radke: And I shared, I was like, oh I'm not in touch with them right now, and relayed whatever info I knew about them. And one of them was like, "oh that's really disappointing. I'm sorry to hear that." If you knew the context, like I'm not just like adding that in, it was very much, I felt it very much as like a shaming sort of, Oh my gosh, I'm so disappointed in you.

When they had no idea of the context or all the work and decision making that led me to that choice for my own emotional safety. Okay, so can't prevent the person from saying the thing to us necessarily. What do I say back in the moment? Or is there something I could have said to prevent maybe, her saying something shaming like that to me?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I do think this is so much about how we frame things. And I, you know, again, you're not going to get in front of every single comment that someone has for you. And yeah, I would frame it at, you know, and when this comes up for me, I often say, you know, after a lot of pain and a lot of therapy and a lot of soul searching, I finally was able to do the best thing for me, for my health and for my mental health. And I do not have those people in my life anymore, and it's been so incredible that the people that love me have supported me in that.

Then they don't really need to get it. You're very clear in that language, right? This was something that was A) very hard and painful for me, but also is for my best interest. And it invites them to get on board.

Haley Radke: Or at least don't share your opinion with me.

I like that. I chose to just let it go. I, for me, it was someone who I'm likely not going to be seeing them again, maybe forever, or maybe 20 years from now. So.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Which you're always weighing that who do I do the emotional label labor for? Right? Yeah. You know, another thing you could say is what's been painful in disclosing is like, sometimes people are more worried about their feelings about this than mine.

Haley Radke: Which again, I guess, I'm more worried about their feelings than mine. Okay. Okay. I'm starting to get it. Should I get this already?

It takes so much time.

Marta Isabella Sierra: It reminds me almost of, it takes me back to reunion also, like I would have to give those disclaimers immediately if someone asks like, Oh, I heard you found your mom or you know, whatever. The first thing out of my mouth was usually yes- and what's been upsetting as this has been happening is that people's first question is about how is this for my adoptive parents, and I will not be fielding questions on that topic.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Don't come here. With that don't bring it to me. I'm not having it.

Haley Radke: Oh Okay. I don't know if- it's feel like it's all the tools that you teach us, we literally have to practice it, have something that you've already decided you can say and repeat.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes.

Haley Radke: And like I'm not comfortable talking about that right now. I don't know. We got to pull that out too, I think.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes, exactly. Of just, you know, exactly. I, just a no boundary is great. And again, if you feel super uncomfortable with that, getting support around that, around how to say no. How to embrace no as a complete sentence. And workshopping some of these conversations. I think, again, like they're not always going to go perfect.

And sometimes we walk away wondering what we could have said differently. And that can be great stuff to workshop with a therapist or a coach or a trusted friend who's maybe more fierce about their boundaries than you are. And get some of that language. Because again, when our first language was self abandonment, wrapping our mouths around some of these sentences, even, feels so foreign.

Haley Radke: Yes. Okay, so we are choosing ourselves first, learning self compassion. This is just going to be an ongoing practice. Thanks for the good news.

Marta Isabella Sierra: I always bring you great news, Haley.

Haley Radke: Always! I bring you good tidings of great joy. Sorry, that's a little, that's a little Christmas reference for anybody. Anyone religious?

Okay, I'm, how do I put this? So, I know we are talking about, we're both estranged from our adoptive parents. People are making choices around this, whether they want to continue reunion, if it's been challenging. All kinds of our relationships can be going sort of this way. I hope that people are able to get support from a therapist and make these choices in a healthy way.

Also, if it's healthy, pivot and hopefully maintain relationships that they want to maintain. This is not a, like, how to estrange convo. But I do have a question for you.

One of the things I wish I would have done before I went ahead with the decision to estrange was setting up some boundaries and safety in my life with other people who were also connected to me and my adoptive parents. Because there have been some things that have kind of happened over the last couple years that maybe I could have prevented with some conversations.

So do you have ideas about that? Things that we can think about? And how to do that in a safe way?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah, I think again, communication and boundaries, anyone that you're going to keep, try to keep in your life that has a connection to whoever you've estranged from, including, I love that you included biofamilies. I have some estrangement in my bio family as well. That you're being really clear about your expectations and giving the person that. An opportunity to opt in or opt out of that dynamic with you, depending on whether or not they can hold that. Right.

So whether that's, you know, I'm really wanting to stay in relationship with you. And these are my needs around privacy, around social media boundaries, around, yeah, sharing where I live or whatever pieces are really important to you. Making sure those are clearly communicated. And then of course, like responding to boundary violations if they happen. Then you have another decision to make. There is going to inherently be risk of staying in relationship with anyone that's in relationship with them.

Again, bringing the good news. I'm so sorry. I think there's. An emotional risk beyond these boundary concerns. Right? We carry so much around feeling unseen. And I think when we make these hard choices, it's after years of feeling unseen in our hurt. And so another question, is it safe for you to stay in relationship with someone who just by nature of their relationship with these people are essentially co- signing and by standing the behavior?

Haley Radke: Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot to kind of consider when you are doing that boundary setting. If we're going to stay in relationship, please do not be in touch with them. Whatever that might look like, and then sometimes it's, it is more close in. It's more close in, and they are not able to sever, nor, or maybe don't want to sever communications.

Marta Isabella Sierra: It's again, this self worth piece of I am deserving of safety. And If you can't create that for me, if you can't co create that for me, if you're not going to protect me, then I don't know if I can have a relationship with you.

Haley Radke: You know what's so interesting to me about that comment is that one of the pieces that sort of held me back from doing it sooner was my children. And my psychologist was like, Okay, so not safe to be in relationship with you, but safe to be in relationship with your children? Right? Like major side eye. What are you thinking?

And it's like all these, again, societal expectations of- this is what you do. You let your kids have a relationship with their grandparents or whatever it may be.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes.

Haley Radke: So. Yeah, and then there's these extraneous things where it's like, Oh, is it okay for them to send Christmas cards? Is it okay for them? You know. I made this really painful, critically well thought out, with support from experts in my life, decision, but somehow that isn't giving you enough information?

I do have to spell it out. I have to spell it out and say what my expectations are. Okay. Well, I guess we just have to keep having hard conversations. That is the good news that you're giving us.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Or again, if those conversations are costing to you much, then you have the option, you have the option to pull away.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. But if we don't have those conversations, if I'm not setting up the boundary, that's a me problem. How are they supposed to know? There is something where I haven't told them, please don't give this information to- because I was assuming that they wouldn't, you know? But I can't do that.

I can't make that assumption. They're not in my head.

Marta Isabella Sierra: You can't make that assumption. And there are people, it does exist, for people to understand and protect you without needing to be asked. So thats something that's coming up is almost the way we're talking about it, Like everyone needs this explained to them. And I have to challenge that because some people don't. It's almost like some people who have never even considered adoption trauma quote unquote as a topic, as like a whole. You know this whole world that we live in, still inherently are like, yeah, why are white people buying black and brown babies?

Like they also think it's strange, without having turned it over, without having that explained to them. So again, we're back to worth, right? Like you, there are people in this world that will protect you without needing to understand or have explained to them what happened to you.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Marta Isabella Sierra: And you're worthy of that.

Haley Radke: Okay. And I love I'm glad you did call that out. Because I do have people in my life that are like that. So, yeah. Okay, lots of things to think about.

The last kind of topic I want to cover is I think probably common for a lot of us who haven't quite gotten all the way there to accepting that we can put ourselves first.

So there is this nagging feeling over time: should I continue to be estranged? Has enough time passed? Maybe they've already dealt with the issues. Maybe I'm healed up more, so I won't be as sensitive. Or those tender spots won't be so tender.

When you're talking to an adopted person who has chosen estrangement and then is: huh, should I open the door again?

What are some things we should be looking at in ourselves to make these decisions?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I mean, A) I would wanna go to the fears. What are you afraid happens, you know, if you don't do these things, if you don't go back? What are the fears and really sitting with those and then seeing what's the data around that?

Is there any evidence that it will be different, right? Again, honoring that our younger parts are never going to stop wishing that it was different. And is that where this is coming from? Or is it coming from a totally different place inside of you? Is it, you know, why now? I would also ask myself, my parts what, why now? What's going on? What?

And then practically like outside of yourself, I would say, without concrete data that there has been change, I would not reengage. And that might not be a popular opinion. But that is my opinion. That without serious data that there has been a change, I don't know why it would be safe to go back in for more.

Haley Radke: Even if we've worked on ourselves and grown.... I think we've talked about that, this in a lot of our healing series conversations with you and other therapists, but like when you have grown and worked on yourself and, I'm making hand movements where people can't see, but if other people aren't working on themselves and growing, you're growing further and further away over time.

So even if we have strengthened ourselves, that's no comment on where they are and what work they've done or not done.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Right. And it may ultimately mean that you're less compatible than ever to be in relationship with them. Even if your younger parts don't get triggered in the way they used to. Still, is this someone that you want to be in relationship with?

Just person to person.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Marta Isabella Sierra: And then we're back to grieving like the fantasy of what we wanted it to be, what we hoped it could be, and hopefully seeking community in that grief.

Haley Radke: I'm friends with someone who's been estranged for like so long, and they just, how do I put this? They just feel to me like they never think about going back.

Do you think that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, that we will? feel differently, that we will not have those like nagging sort of reminders? Or for me, like the little guilt niggling kind of feeling. I think it'll go away in time.

Marta Isabella Sierra: I do think it's so individual and so dependent on, you know, what else you've built in your life, what else you have going on.

And again, different phases, there might always be waves of wondering, waves of guilt. I do think the more healing we do the less we question ourselves

Haley Radke: And the more like skills we have to talk to our younger parts and self soothe and all of those kinds of things I guess.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah

Haley Radke: Any other thoughts or things you think we need to hear around this? Like how to maintain a separation while still, I don't know, having the feelings?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Again, you know, I can't get through an episode without saying, community is the medicine. Just don't go through this alone. Don't go through it alone.

There are other people navigating estrangement, hurting, grieving, fighting for boundaries, struggling around language. You don't have to go through it alone.

And so whether that's a Facebook group or however you want to seek your community around estrangement. You know, and it's not just our community, that piece too, there are connections around this.

I think I might have shared in our first estrangement episode. The first time I helped a client navigate estrangement was not an adoptee. The first time I was, you know, support and witness to someone severing ties with an abusive caregiver, it was not an adoptee. So we are also not the only ones hurting in this way.

And not the only ones navigating this. So the more we feel like the only person, it just intensifies the emotions. So just don't be alone in it.

Haley Radke: Yes, thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, where can we connect with you online Marta?

Marta Isabella Sierra: You can email me at MartaSierraLmhc@gmail.com

Haley Radke: Perfect. And on Adoptees on Patreon, you are a regular guest on our Ask an Adoptee Therapist event, which is so fun. And we talk about hard things there too. And you've coached us through some tricky situations there. And we have one next week if people are listening to this when it drops in real time.

And then there'll be more with you this fall and into next year. And we're really just so thankful for the wisdom that you share with us. Thanks, Marta.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Also, if you're listening in real time, Adoption Mosaic has a speaker series panel this month on October 14th around estrangement, and I will be on the panel.

Haley Radke: Okay, that is like tomorrow, if you're listening on real time. We will link to that. And I know Adoption Mosaic also has recordings of their events. So if you have missed it, then you can check their website for a recording of that. I think a couple of our podcast friends are on that panel. So great. Great.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Cool.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Thank you so much, Marta.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Thanks, haley.

I don't want you to miss out on our Ask an Adoptee Therapist events. They're really special because we have a whole hour together. A part of it is recorded, and I will ask questions to Marta, kind of like in our conversation today, except for they are listener submitted. And so folks get to ask kind of whatever they want privately, anonymously, and our therapist gives their thoughts.

And then when we are done recording, it's usually between 30 and 45 minutes, the last bit of our hour is kind of a live discussion with our guest therapist. So you can ask for clarification on the questions. You can ask your question with details and not recorded. So it's just for whoever is there live to hear.

And I have learned so much. We only started doing them earlier this year and they have been so, so valuable for me and my listeners already. They've been thanking me for having the event and people are really excited about it. So I just want to make sure you know about it so you don't miss out.

And all of the audio that we record in the first part is released the following Monday on Adoptees Off Script, which is our Patreon weekly podcast. So even if you can't be there live, then you can hear the audio recording later and still get all the good advice and wisdom.

Okay, so please check that out, adopteeson.com/community. And we have links to our live events in our calendar on the website. There is a scholarship tab. So if you are just not able to join Patreon right now, but you want to come to one of our live events and you are an adopted person, you can click on the scholarship to apply and yeah, please come.

We would love to have you. There are scholarships because of our Patreon supporters and this show survives, because of Patreon supporters. So we're really thankful for your support. Okay. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

261 Lanise Antoine Shelley

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/261

---

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 actor, director, playwright, and podcaster, Lanise Antoine Shelley. Lanise shares about being adopted from a Haitian orphanage at age four by her single white adoptive mother, and how exploring the impact of adoption over the last three years has challenged her connections with her adoptive family.

Lanise also tells us about when she realized that her removal from Haiti left a huge hole for her entire biological family that was left behind, including her mother and father. I also want to mention that in today's episode, we discuss a suicide attempt. Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Lanise Antoine Shelley. Welcome Lanise.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Thanks for having me, Haley.

Haley Radke: I love talking to a fellow podcaster. It's one of my favorite things, I got to admit, but I'd love it if you would start. Would you mind sharing a little bit of your story with us?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Well, in regards to my podcast, I started my podcast as a panel series in 2020, when the global racial unrest just erupted with George Floyd and a lot of us BIPOC adoptees didn't really have a support system when it came to our families because many of these families are white.

And so I launched a panel series that focused on identity, race, family and these kinds of conversations and how to have these kinds of very complex, challenging conversations with those that are in our inner circle and that just flew, it took off. We, I guess you could say we went viral because we had over 12, 000 views and people were engaging from all over the world.

But I knew that I couldn't sustain it, just corralling and wrangling a bunch of adoptees from around the world for a panel was just a lot. But I knew that I could have one on one conversations, so it evolved naturally to a podcast. That I've called when they were young, amplifying voices of adoptees, and that has been going strong for three years now.

And I've started off with conversations with adoptive parents and adoptees in season 1 and in season 2, going deeper into the mental health of adoptees and in season 3, really pulling apart what it feels like to engage with adoptees, our spouses, our families, and figuring out how we can move in a world that feels more healed and whole and grounded in these relationships.

So each season has a very strong theme, and we'll see what happens next, but that's the podcast in a nutshell.

Haley Radke: And your adoptee experience?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Yes, that little story. I was adopted from Port au Prince, Haiti when I was four. And I was actually one of, one of two little girls who were adopted, and we were the first to be adopted in that orphanage ever. And they had just started exploring what it would be like to have international adoptions happen. They'd been engaging in mission missionaries and for a long while. And so this was what they thought a natural evolution. And I left Haiti when I was four and grew up in Northern California with a single white female mother. And that's basically it.

Haley Radke: So one of your first podcast episodes very early on, you interview your mother and godmother and you talk about that experience with her and she shares her process of adopting. And while I was listening to that I got very activated and it's not my story. It's your story. I'm curious how you heard her share that story then, and what you think about when you think about that conversation today. Because I think that your views on adoption have evolved over the last few years, and you've shared about that in a few different solo episodes on your show. But I'd love to hear about, from your point of view that sort of evolution.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Oh, it's definitely been an evolution because when we recorded that, I thought that I was out of the fog and I thought I understood what that meant because I felt connected to my adoptive mother. I felt connected to my story, and I could recount my story easily without being activated. So I believed that in itself was being out of the fog, but that was not it.

I had no idea that over the next three years, I would have a deeper, more profound understanding of what the miasma of revelatory insights about my adoption would be. And at present, I have a very estranged relationship with my mother, and that's because of the work that I have been doing on anti racism, the work that I have been doing on myself for healing, the wounds that I didn't even know existed.

So many of us adoptees are playing catch up. And that's how I feel, because there were a lot of missteps that I didn't quite notice from my caregivers growing up. Because I thought it was normal. Because I didn't have a voice. Because I wasn't connected with a strong lexicon of emotions to draw from and so I thought it was okay to be treated a certain way and as I started to dig deeper and unpack, I realized that there were a lot of missteps that could have been avoided had my mom been more educated. Had she been just slightly more willing to be curious and ask more questions. As opposed to feel that everything was okay because she quote unquote loved me. And so I'm learning through this work that story of estrangement is actually quite prevalent in the adoption community, right?

When you come out of the fog and realizing that certain things that happened when you were younger were not okay. And coming to grips with that trauma, it's interesting because I had no idea that adoption was traumatic or had the capital T trauma labeled intrinsically inside of it until these past two, three years, because I was told that it was all good.

Everything about adoption was good. It was for the betterment of me. And that's not, that's not so. And as I speak to other adoptees, as I do my own work, I understand the underbelly, the darkness, the sordid history behind adoption. And in wanting those conversations, sometimes people aren't ready to have those conversations.

Sometimes they're not ready for accountability. Sometimes they're not ready to come to grips with the fact that they did not protect you. And I know I'm being vague right now. One of the things that, that I encourage adoptive parents to focus on that I've learned that is imperative, as opposed to focusing on "I'm going to love and save this child," I really want people to pivot from that way of thinking to "are you going to protect and guard this child"? Because love will be inherent in that.

But there is this sense of saviorism that is attached to love, the sense of indebtedness. I'm sure you've heard many adoptees talk about that. But I encourage adoptive parents and my adoptive mother- who did not protect me in a variety of ways and even as an adult, I have identified ways in which she fell short of that guardianship- and understanding that there are these invisible parameters that adoptees have to negotiate and navigate all the time. And I feel strongly that adoptive parents are the ones pulling the strings and understand the parameters and understand the rules more than we do.

And so when we ask the wrong question we get stonewalled. When we try to ask for a certain level of engagement or a certain level of emotional availability, we are again met with defensiveness. And I should probably speak more for myself. But that has been my experience and in listening to other adoptees throughout the years that has been their experience as well.

Haley Radke: I also am estranged from my adoptive parents and I absolutely agree. It's so common in our community. And it's like, the more healing work we do, the more learning we have to do about the atrocities committed in family separation, we're sort of moving forward. And if they are not willing to go there and learn those same lessons, the gap just widens into a chasm. You know, it just it's it seems insurmountable sometimes unless they're willing to start getting in there and doing the work

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I think I'd made some inferences based on some of the things that you had shared in your show, that I thought that may be the case. I don't want to like just go in at your adoptive mother. I'll just say, you know, there's so much of this.

I also grew up in an evangelical church, so there's so much of the colonial mindset when you're talking about missionary work in a foreign country. And wanting to save these orphans and you had a family. You had living parents. And so can you talk a little bit about your experiencing experience going back to Haiti when you were 13?

And when did you come to understand that maybe my family actually didn't realize the implications that adoption would have? Were they hoodwinked in some way? Like, what's the, what's the story there? If you would unpack that.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Well, I grew up Presbyterian.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Yeah. So I get it in a very conservative Presbyterian household. And you're right. My family was, to some extent, hoodwinked because...in these developing countires their idea, their understanding of adoption is different from ours. And a lot of these families who either relinquish their children -or their children are abducted because that happens to- believe that when they turn 18 that they'll come back. And I did not know that was my mom's expectation until I went back when I was 27.

And I had that face to face that every adoptee dreams of with my mother. And I was just keening, you know, on my knees, like, bawling, like, why? What led you to this, to relinquishing me? Because I have three biological siblings who grew up in Haiti, who grew up with my mother and with my family and in the orphanage. So that's a whole nother ballgame. A whole nother layer of complexity because I didn't realize the depth of my absence until three years ago.

When I was looking at my little sister's Facebook page, and there were all these photos of me, like it was a shrine. And I realized in that moment that I was being mourned. I had never conceived that was a possibility. Why would someone mourn me? Who am I? I can barely receive love as it is. You know?

And to surpass love to the point of grieving for me was something I had never considered. And so, when it comes to realizing the reason behind my adoption, that didn't happen until I was 27, and when it came to me understanding the depth of the impact of my absence, that wasn't until three years ago.

Haley Radke: Did your adoptive mother know you had siblings in the orphanage?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: She did. And my older brother at the time was in the orphanage with me, but she didn't feel equipped to raise a boy. Which I give her props for, because I kind of suck my teeth a little bit when I see a single white person raising a black man because that in this environment, it's very, it's complex. You know, and understanding the gravity of that is essential.

My mom ended up adopting another little girl who was in the orphanage, and she became my sister, and she and I grew up together as sisters in California, and she and I are not close. We have a very contentious relationship, and we always have had, and it came to a head in January.

And hearkening back to what you said about the evolution of my podcast where it starts out very optimistic and somewhat naive, and then it gets real. Towards the very end in some of my solo episodes, I talk about aloneness. And the gravity of that and the idea of belonging. Brene Brown talks about how the antithesis of belonging isn't fitting in.

We, as adoptees are thought to need to fit in. Like, we need to be just like the person next to us. And in order to feel a sense of assimilation, a sense of belonging. But it's essential that fitting in is the opposite of belonging. It is when you contort yourself, when you change yourself essentially, and that's why I don't like the word transracial because trans meaning erase does not resonate with me.

I'm interracially, internationally adopted. There was nothing erased about me. It was, a lot of things have become dormant, that I had to awaken in my adulthood such as my Haitian identity, my culture, my fervor for certain foods and certain music and all of that. Those sort of things. But those existed inside of me.

And for a long time, I believed that my ancestors didn't come with me. Like I was alone, just floating in an abyss by myself. And it's so dire and dark and dreary, right? But that's how I felt, you know, and I feel that a lot of adoptees struggle with aloneness.

There is a positivity to solitude. I'm an introvert. I like solitude, but to feel perpetually alone is something different.

Haley Radke: As an actor, director, playwright, do you feel that your work has been impacted? In the last few years, as you're coming to unravel this adoptee identity, and as you say, coming out of the fog, some new lingo is coming into adoptee consciousness. How has that impacted your creative and professional work?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: I think that the work that I've been doing in my healing has definitely permeated in my artistry. I've written a play called Pretended, a take on Adopted, because for a long time I felt that, that adoption was just pretending. Like we're all just, you know, playing our roles here, right?

Like this is an assignment that was given to me. And every once in a while I'm reminded that we're acting. And we all have costumes and makeup, but this is my life. And so I wrote a play, and I am also curious about writing plays for young audiences, because I think it's imperative for us to start to educate and support young adoptees.

If I had a mentor when I was younger, I think I would have turned out slightly differently, but I didn't have a mentor. I didn't start to have mentors that would affect me in a very positive way until I went into dance. I was an African dancer, and the African dance community just swallowed me up. And that's when I started to love my skin.

And that's when I started to love Black culture and all of those things. When I was just immersed in a very Afrocentric community. And so, other than that, other than writing, it doesn't really show up in my work, but it is a constant kind of elective passion of mine that I do on the side when people ask me, oh, what are you up to?

I actually don't mention my adoption advocacy oddly enough because it just feels like my daily bread. Why would I mention that I wake up in the morning? Like, it just is.

Haley Radke: You're talking about mentoring younger adoptees, and I focus on adults, you know. I talk to adult adoptees, those are the people who I want to support. They're going through search or reunion or they don't want to talk about it, those are my people, those are my people.

And so, I see other adoptees doing some youth mentoring and those kind of things, and that's really exciting to me, too, because I think, oh what if I had that when I was young? And I'm curious about what your thoughts are, I don't know if there's a good answer for this, it's like, if the adoptive parents don't really get it, that they were complicit in some sort of, you know, family separate, whatever the circumstances, there's a part that, you know, I don't know. I'm all for, I am for family preservation. Lanise, that is my 100%.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: So am i. So am I. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. So that's sort of where I'm coming from with this. So mentoring young adoptees to hopefully, you know, be more secure in their identity, be able to, Yeah. I don't know. Maybe you can fill in some of those gaps for me.

Like, what are some of the things that we would have needed when we were younger? How do you mesh that with like, but also keeping safe in your home where your adoptive parents still have the power and into young adulthood, you know, when some of us may still need some of the supports from them that can feel kind of dangerous.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Oh, absolutely. I know it can get precarious if the wrong person comes through. But I think that having someone that reflects your story is important. I felt that I was the only one and it was because I was. In a town, in a small town in Northern California, my sister and I just had each other, but she had her friends and I had my friends. So we really didn't bond in the way in which my mom thought we would.

And I came to find out that's actually quite true for a lot of adoptees who are adopted with other adoptees. Like the adoptive parent thinks that they're going to become besties and rarely does that happen. And so I think that finding someone that reflects their story, that supports their story, that believes their story and who can be empathetic to their point of view is a game changer.

Because I was silenced as a kid, not in the way of like verbal abuse or emotional abuse because I had a fairly serene childhood. But when things did come up, such as in middle school, I took a bunch of pills and I wanted to kill myself. That was never addressed. The why was never addressed. It was literally brushed under a rug and thought to have been, oh, just an errant teenager acting out.

As opposed to, this is an adoptee who has experienced trauma, who, my mom told me this three years ago, and I had no idea, I guess I had forgotten- there's a lot of my childhood that I blacked out.

We cried for two years when we came from Haiti. And that's huge. I had no idea. My mom now recognizes that was us grieving. But at the time, she didn't recognize it as grieving. Which is so odd to me, as it comes out of my mouth, I'm just like, why didn't she think of that?

But that's, that is the mindset of a lot of adoptive parents, right? They get so excited about this vision for their family. They extract this child from wherever, domestically or internationally, change the child's name. My name at birth was Lunise Antoine. My mom changed my name to Lanise with an A, Anne, A N E, Shelley. In high school, I reclaimed my old last name, Antoine. And that's what I go by, because I'm both. Again, hearkening back to nothing was erased.

It's something that adoptive parents do indirectly, right? They try to just, like, scrub the child's history clean off them to give them a brand new start. And that's not the truth of it. Every single child, whether it be from infancy or four years old, or nine years old, or a teenager coming with rich history.

I didn't even know English. To have somebody who spoke Creole, who could mentor me, who had somebody who could speak French, who could encourage me to keep my native language, would have been instrumental. But because we were plopped into a neighborhood where we were the token, where we were the singular oddity exoticized, we did not want to be ourselves. We wanted to fit in.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that part of your story. I see that connection as life saving to see that, to have someone that's like you. I also identify with a similar experience and it's just like we're in so much pain, but we don't know why like it's this. Yeah hidden thing because we're not talking about Oh, are you thinking about your mother?

Are you thinking about like those conversations were just not had in my experience. I I love the name for your play, Pretended. Like, my God, that's so brilliant. I love it. There, I think when I've talked to other adoptees who are also actors. I've heard a few sort of express this, like, I'm already an expert in acting.

Did you ever feel that way? Or have you looked back and thought, why was I drawn to that? Or, I don't know, do you have any ideas about your theatrical nature?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: That's funny that they say that. I was always artistically, you know, drawn. I had an affinity for dance, for visual art, for movement and expression. That was something. It meant a lot to me from an early age to express myself in that way. And then with acting, when you're doing it well, you're telling the truth. And so when you see something that's moving in a movie or a play, you cannot imagine that was written because it feels so anchored in truth, anchored in a naturalistic delivery.

And so for me, oddly enough, Ppretended feels like adoption is a game where I'm lying. I'm lying the whole time. I'm lying when I tell you I love you. I'm lying when I tell you I care. I do not care. But yet I'm assigned to care. I'm assigned to love you. And when I break down adoption, and it's just like really simple parts. When I was taken from Haiti, from my family, which you mentioned before, a lot of adoptees have families, orphans, bt definition, have lost one or more parent. The majority of adoptees have both.

And at the time of my adoption, I had both. So in this pretending in adoption that I have felt that I have been just playing into for so long, it felt that I was taken from an orphanage in Port au Prince, Haiti. I was stripped of my name. And then I was told you're not going to speak Creole anymore. You're going to love this person. You're going to call this person mom. You're going to call this person grandma and grandpa. You're going to like this food. You're going to like this environment. That's what it is.

And no one asks you if it's okay, how do you feel about it? Do you miss your mom that you remember? Because as a four year old, I was completely materialized. And when you meet any child, even if they're a kid, they have preferences. When little babies have their preferred binky, you know. But I was a four year old. So imagine my preferences, the list of that. So I just feel strongly that when it, in regards to my adoption, that a lot of it was pretending to be something, to be someone that I was not.

And when I started to have those hard conversations with my mom about what was true for me, that's when her and my relationship got sticky.

Haley Radke: In your podcast, you come across, at me, as Big Sister Energy. And so I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm in reunion with my father and three younger siblings.

And so I, in 12 years ago, I, boom, I'm an older sister, so I have these conversations with my younger sisters, especially, and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm a big sister. I gotta, you know, bring the big sister energy. I'm curious about that, if you're willing to talk a little bit about that part of your experience. And have you been able to feel like you're part of your original family, even though I know that's really complex and you're not in a great relationship with your first mother right now either.

I don't know. I don't want to speak for you. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, especially with the big sister energy. I know you said you had an older brother as well, but.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: That's funny that you caught that from my podcast because I like to take people underneath my wing. I like to mentor people, and I think that was to kind of address that I missed that energy as a kid.

My sister did not give that energy to me, and my sister's older than me. And so, I do find brothers and sisters and so many people like the majority of the people that come on to my podcast are now siblings, you know. We call each other sis and all of those things now. But I think it's important. In the beginning, when I first was unified, reunified with my family at the age of 13, I, I found that it was easy to talk to my siblings.

Even though I didn't know Creole and they didn't know English. I just felt that there was an ease because it wasn't as complicated of an emotional history as it was with my mom. And so I had hoped that I would become close to my siblings, my biological siblings, but we haven't. And I don't think that will happen in this lifetime just simply because of the cultural chasm between us.

I tried for a few years to get close to my older brother who has learned English, but again there is that cultural barrier between him and I, and not to mention the fact that he was left behind. Like, I am not going to understand the complexity of his healing process of being left in an orphanage and watching his little sister leave forever.

Like, that is trauma. I don't know if he's addressed that. I don't know if he knows that even exists within him. But I have to give him grace and give him space to process that however he deems fit. And so it, it's unfortunate that I don't have in real life true sibling energy. And that's why I seek it in other people.

Haley Radke: Oh, thanks for sharing that.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: I know it's also dark and dreary.

Haley Radke: But we relate to that. We relate to that. You know, we have a list of losses And there's some things that no matter what we do, we may feel like we can't fill that gap. And so I've, I think, God, I love that you know how you're filling that gap. You know, and you can model that for fellow adoptees who might feel that same loss that you have.

So I think that's empowering. You know, we can't go back in time. We can't get unadopted. We can't. Your mom can't have a change of heart and be like, actually, oh my gosh, what did I do? Like, I gotta bring her back to her family. Like, that didn't happen, you can't undo it. But now, what are we gonna do with it? As adults.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Well, thank you for that, because I do try to alchemize that pain that sorrow right into something that is empowering for others. That is encouraging, inspiring, motivating, because that's all we can do in this lifetime. So, that is what I try to do with the resources I have and the time that is allotted to me.

Haley Radke: Which we don't know what that, how much that is. Let's, how else can we make this morbid and just super dark?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: I know, I know. I'm in real life, like outside of this, even in my podcast, I feel like I'm a little bit more upbeat than I am today, but alas, like listening to my own tale, it's wow, this is, a downer.

Haley Radke: Yeah, you know, sometimes it's just when we're telling the truth that is just what can happen. I love listening to fellow adoptees share their stories. And I've heard so many, and I think no matter what our circumstances, just saying the things out loud can empower other people to have agency over their own stories and decide whether or not they want to share them publicly but yeah, I love that you do that.

For fellow adoptees as well on your podcast and I love that it's we're going to recommend resources now. I should have said that, okay I love that you have left up your process. I remember interviewing another adoptee years and years ago and she's like my first few blog posts are so cringy because they come off as so grateful and adoption is the best and walla and then, you know, she came out of the fog and started to write more and more critically about adoption and I think.

I love that you can follow your progress through your interviews, through the different kinds of conversations you have through the last few seasons. And I think it's really special because I think you're bringing your listeners along on that journey in, I was going to say in real time, but you know what I mean.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Thank you for that.

Haley Radke: Your podcast is called When They Were Young: Amplifying Voices of Adoptees. Can you tell us about why you chose the name when they were young?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Well, I wanted something catchy and I wanted something to reference to adults talking about their past. And so, When They Were Young: Amplifying Voices of Adoptees is the opportunity, the platform for adult adoptees to delve into, dissect and heal what they did not understand when they were young.

And so, that Is the premise that is the goal that is what I seek in each episode is to identify within myself because I am learning, you're right. You do kind of watch in real time, my evolution in the fog, out of the fog, through the fog, all of it. And I think it's essential. I think it's expansive for people because adoptees, again, do not get to witness a lot of that unfolding.

And a lot of those conversations, for fear of the reaction from their adoptive parents, for fear of being, being face to face with their shame that has become so ingrained that they didn't even know existed within them. And so I just wanted to create a platform where we can reclaim our voices, as I reclaimed my voice, reclaimed my name, my identity, and redefined what it is for me to exist as an interracial adoptee.

Haley Radke: I think it's... It's really powerful. I've already said, I think it's so important to have these conversations and elevate the adopted person's voice, which is what I'm doing as well. And I love your solo episodes. I really enjoyed your conversation with Patrick Armstrong in particular, again, fellow podcasters.

So if folks want to start, is there one or two episodes that you would point them to as like a good first touch point for them to get to know you a little better or the show? That's putting you on the spot, I know, because listen, all our episodes are our babies.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: I know. I'm like, what?

Haley Radke: Yeah, pick a favorite, Lanise. Let's go.

Lanise Antoine Shelley: What episode? Okay. I would say start with, any of the most recent five. Because there's such a wide array of adoption stories of resilience, stories of healing. And what I do on the podcast is not just talk about their stories, but I make sure that we frame their triumphs as well. Like a lot of the people, all of the people that come on to the podcast are writing books. They're launching podcasts. They're doing such excellent work in the world. And I want to make sure that we adoptees aren't just our stories. We're so much more, we're doing all of these amazing things. And that's why your podcast is so great too, because you highlight all of the triumphs of adoptees as well.

And that is essential because our stories, yes, there, they are sad. There's some sad elements to them. But we have survived them. We have survived that story. And that needs to be noted as well. So for listeners out there, start with the first five episodes. If you want just a little sip, try the solo episodes.

Those are just one on one, between you and myself. A lot of musings, a lot of books that I've read that have resonated with me that I want to share with the listeners. I'm constantly learning, constantly sharing what I learn and get, I get very excited to, to share what other adoptees are doing. So that's why I'm here.

Haley Radke: Amazing. We're kindred spirits and you didn't even know it. Lanise, what did you want to recommend to us today?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: I would recommend following Tony Nabors, T O N Y N A B O R S, at racial equity insights. He just has some really strong insights on what it means to be anti racist, what it means to be an ally. These are all kind of buzzwords right now floating around in the adoption community. Words that I've used, but he breaks them down in respect of what supremacy has done to adoption, what its doing to adoption, and how we can dismantle a lot of the supremist mindset behind adoption that's keeping it prevalent. That's keeping it boisterous. That's making sure the industry of adoption stays lucrative.

And as we mentioned before, we're about the preservation of families, and that is the cure for adoption is the preservation of families. So understanding the history behind adoption and also a documentary that people should watch is One Child Nation on Amazon Prime. That is amazing. It is about the one child mandate in, I believe, the 1980s or the 1970s in China. And that is what launched the influx of Chinese adoptees and the suburbanites here in America didn't know that the reason why all of these babies were available was because they were being abducted, essentially. So it's understanding the history behind these countries that have adoption as a resource, which many of them do, and understanding your part in keeping adoption alive.

And making sure that supporting adoptees, supporting the preservation of families should be the first and foremost mission.

Haley Radke: Definitely, and I listened to one of the guest spots you just had on Unraveling Adoption where you talk about how to be anti racist within adoptive families. So I'll link to that in the show notes as well which totally goes along with what you're telling us about Tony.

Thank you so much, Lanise. It has been a pleasure talking with you. Where can folks connect with you online and find your show, When They Were Young?

Lanise Antoine Shelley: Thank you so much, Haley. They can find When They Were Young on just about every platform, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes. And if they rate and review, that would be amazing.

But you can also go to my website and engage with me on Instagram at YoungAdoptee or Lantoines. And I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you.

I can't express how valuable I think these conversations are for us to hear when other adoptees are just going through it and we can just know we are not alone. That is one of the main reasons that this show continues to exist is because I just want you to know that you're not alone. I have really loved getting to know so many of the people I've had on the show and it's a real privilege to be able to bring them to you.

And if you're looking for adoptee friendships and community, we have some really great spaces that you can hang together with Fellow adoptees for Patreon supporters, AdopteesOn.com/community, and if you're looking for a support group in your area, you can always go to Adoptees Connect and just Google Adoptees Connect.

There are so many groups around North America, and I know that they're expanding beyond as well. So if you want to get your in person connections I think it's just so valuable. So I'd love to have you join us at one of our upcoming events in October 2023 if you're listening when this episode is released, we have an Ask An Adoptee Therapist Live zoom call with Marta Sierra.

And we also have a book club event with Nicole Chung, and we would love to have you join us so you can find out about both of those at Adopteeson.com/community. There are links to Patreon and all the events we have going on on the website. And I invite you to join us and help support the show to keep going and help having these conversations available in the world.

Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

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.