276 Sanjay Pulver

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/276

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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. Today's guest is Sanjay Pulver, an Indian adoptee who has become an outspoken adoptee advocate in recent years. We talk about the complexities of being adopted from an orphanage in a country that is not currently safe for him to return to as a queer trans man.

We discuss the intersections between being transnationally and transracially adopted with being a trans person. And Sanjay also shares about his experience with somatic therapy. Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon Adoptee community today [00:01:00] over on adopteeson.com/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 Adoptees On, Sanjay Pulver.

Welcome, Sanjay. How are you?

Sanjay Pulver: I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for having me on.

Haley Radke: I remember the first time we were in a Zoom room together, which was a couple of years ago. But today, I'd love it if you would start with sharing some of your story with us.

Sanjay Pulver: I am originally from a very small village in South India, somewhere outside of Hyderabad.

And at three weeks old, I was relinquished to an orphanage in the [00:02:00] area and was there for about nine to ten ish months and then was placed with an unofficial foster family for about a month or so, and then at 13 months old, I was flown over to the U. S. and placed with my adopters, and I flew into Los Angeles International Airport, but my adopters live in San Diego, so we just drove down from there, and I've been here pretty much ever since.

The parts of India where I'm from, like I said, very small village. From my understanding, my birth family was part of the lowest caste in India. Usually referred to, or previously referred to, as the Untouchables, now they're called Dalits, so that's D A L I T, [00:03:00] is the nomenclature now, and I, as far as I know, I have four older sisters, one older brother, and a fraternal twin brother, who I only knew, or found out about when I was 11. And the orphanage I was part of, I found out in around 2020, was actually part of a giant international adoption trafficking scandal. But within my adoptive family, I'm an only child I'm also a transracial adoptee, and it was a lonely experience.

Because being raised in a family where I was the only non white person my age, it felt pretty isolating at times, and then, of course, realizing [00:04:00] later in my life that there were more aspects of my identity that I was unaware of and started having, thoughts about and I'm going to use the phrase coming into consciousness about really threw a lot of that into chaos and realizing how my identity as a transgender man and being adoptee are inherently linked to each other.

So a lot of that is how I started coming into consciousness or, as we sometimes say, out of the fog. Put that in quotes, is really where I started coming into the advocacy part of my journey and now talking about how all of the intersections that I have really [00:05:00] shape how I navigate the world and the conversations I have within it.

Haley Radke: You're in your early 30s now, right?

Sanjay Pulver: Yep, just turned 31 in November.

Haley Radke: Okay. I'm just trying to drag you along a little further. Early 30s, I could be anywhere in there. And you said that you didn't find out that you had a fraternal twin until you were 11. Where did, when, where who did you find out information from that you had older siblings? Where you were born, your orphanage, all of those things, did you get that information disclosed to you or did you have to look for it?

Sanjay Pulver: My adoptive grandma had made a scrapbook for me when I was really little and it had photos of the orphanage and I think photocopies of the very sparse paperwork that I had.

And this was information not compiled by my adopters there [00:06:00] was another couple who actually went to India to the same orphanage to go get their child, and while they were there, took tons of photos. Took video and then sent it to my adopters. My adopters didn't go to India to get me they decided to have me delivered instead.

They wanted expedited shipping, but that actually ended up getting delayed. Yeah, they tried real hard, but didn't happen. The paperwork that I have is like the patient intake form for the orphanage, and on it said information about family, and it just says family is poor, mother is weak.

They have four daughters, two sons, this child is born a twin, couldn't save both so wanted to give one up to adoption, and the way I found out about my twin, even though [00:07:00] it was written on that paperwork I was at an endocrinology appointment with my adoptive mother. And this was because as somebody who was assigned female at birth, my adoptive mom wanted to make sure that hormonally there was nothing going wrong that would impact my menstrual cycle.

And so we were there and as she was giving the doctor my family medical history. She was saying that, Oh, she's a twin, she has siblings, all these things, and I sat there for a minute with my jaw dropped wait, run that by me again. She, what? And that, I think that was the first time I had heard those words come out of somebody's mouth, rather than skimming over them and reading them.

And I was at an age where I could actually consciously [00:08:00] process what I had heard, and so yeah, I found out at a doctor's appointment, and I actually didn't know the the sex of my twin at that point, I only found out in 2020.

Haley Radke: Okay, I'm sorry that is how you found out. And also, I'm, do you know anything further besides just what was in that paperwork or what she said?

To me, I read that, or heard you read that off to us, recall that to us. And I thought, oh my goodness did the twin die and they didn't want you to you know what I mean? It sounded like there was some peril there.

Sanjay Pulver: India in the 1990s was very similarly had a similar attitude, rather, towards girls than boys and wanting sons over daughters, very similar to China's, one child policy in sentiment, just not legislated [00:09:00] into existence, and my birth family, as far as I know, had four daughters and one son, and then my twin brother and I were born.

So it was like, yay, we finally have our second son, and then, oh my god, we have a fifth daughter. Get rid of her. I, that is a part of my story that I have always known and have been told since I was very young. Yeah, you were probably given up because you were a girl. That was a reality that I've lived with for a while.

And I say it so matter of factly, and people are very shocked by that, I think. And it's like saying what I had for breakfast. It's just, yeah, this is my life. Okay, next thing. But I think also the fact that when I was trying to follow up with my adoptive mother like as we were walking to the car I was sobbing and crying and very upset being like why didn't you tell me [00:10:00] and the answer I was told was oh we did tell you were when you were younger but you were probably watching TV, so you didn't hear us, and even if you did hear us, you were too young to understand what we were saying, and that was the end of the conversation.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, so dear. Yeah so I've heard you talk about this a little bit, but maybe you'll weave this in as you share more of this part of your story, but if you had grown up in India, obviously stating the obvious here, you would have had a very different life.

Sanjay Pulver: Yes.

Haley Radke: And what does that mean to you to be living in the United States having been able to make some choices that you wouldn't have likely been able to had you grown up where your biological family [00:11:00] still is I'm assuming. I don't know Yeah, I don't know exactly. We don't know. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe more about your coming into your identity?

Sanjay Pulver: I would say that I fall very solidly into the stereotypical tomboy, to butch queer woman to trans guy sort of pipeline.

I know that's not everybody's experience, but that was mine, absolutely. Just short of playing softball, I was a band kid instead.

Haley Radke: Wait, what did you play?

Sanjay Pulver: I'm a French horn player.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Sanjay Pulver: I've been playing for 20 years.

Haley Radke: Wow.

Sanjay Pulver: I'm very proud of that. And funny enough, I was actually the only girl in my entire fifth grade class to play trumpet so I was just you know I was one of the guys from a very young age and I think I never [00:12:00] grew out of that if anything I grew into that more than out of it I guess you could say but I think the biggest differences, the fact the access to gender affirming care is the biggest one as far as differences in being raised in the U. S. versus being raised in India, I think a big one too is just, how long would I have actually survived? I know it's a morbid and macabre thing to think about, but I've told people since I was, young that, yeah, I probably wouldn't be alive had I stayed in India because I was very small when I was born.

Even by Indian standards, I was small. And at 31, I'm 4'10 and a half, so I'm like, look, if Indian people were saying I was small when I was born I was small. I just, there was no way of winning that. And saying I was relinquished for being assigned female at birth, [00:13:00] saying that yeah, I probably wouldn't have survived had I stayed in India is just one of those unpleasant but objective facts that I share as part of my story.

And the other side of being trans, and if I were to go try and search for family now, aside from the fact that I have no information, so I really have nothing to go on, there is a major risk as a trans and queer person traveling to India right now, so it's literally not safe for me to go, even if I wanted to.

And if I did go, I would basically have to, I'd say be stealth, so being stealth is just not being open about either your sexuality or your gender identity is a term that's in, used in the community [00:14:00] pretty frequently. And having been on testosterone a little bit over nine years now I do, I'm gonna use it in quotes, but I pass pretty well.

Passing is not necessarily the goal or really should be considered the standard for any trans person. If you want to pass, great, if you don't, great. Just like there's no one right way to be an adoptee.

We're all individual, we all have our own different stories, paths, and all of them are valid. I just, I do want to make that parallel as well. But, I run into the issue of if I were to find my family what would I say? Hi, I was your daughter, I came back with a beard. Hi. What, how, how do you navigate something like that or in a way, I almost need to use the very small [00:15:00] amount of masculine privilege that I have, which is not a lot. I will definitely say that it is not a lot. I still experience misogyny on a fairly frequent basis, and just because I have a beard and a slightly deeper voice does not mean that people have stopped treating me as though I was still feminine.

But, I've thought about if I were to go search, I would basically take all of my paperwork that has my birth name, all of my stuff, and just say, yes, my name is Sanjay, but I am searching on behalf of my sister. Because they'll probably want to talk to a guy about this more than they would want to talk to a woman about this.

And whatever information they give me is my information, but I'm asking for it in such a way that I'm not, hopefully, not putting myself in unnecessary risk. [00:16:00]

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, the complexity, like all the added layers you have in your experience and from what I understand, it's very difficult to search in India anyway, DNA testing and things is I don't know, we're recording in 2024, maybe it's different in the future, but you can't take kits out, I think I saw you post something about that.

Sanjay Pulver: So the current laws around at least DNA testing in India from my understanding is that you can't take genetic material out of the country. So for example, if I were living in India and I wanted to take a 23andMe test, I could order the test, take the test, I could just not ship, I would not be allowed to ship it back out to be processed.

And that is the biggest reason why both Ancestry and 23andMe do not ship to India. [00:17:00] And therefore, all of the demographic data those companies have come from expats and adoptees. And there are DNA companies within India that do testing, but they only say here's where you're from in India they don't do family matching because that still is a very taboo subject, you know talking about having children out of wedlock especially when you get into caste politics, which I do not have a thorough enough understanding to be able to fully explain that.

Haley Radke: When you mentioned that I was like, oh, yeah I have heard from fellow Indian adoptees that they sometimes will match with other adoptees in the states, which, great that you have a connection, but you're still at a loss for the other [00:18:00] information.

Yeah, that's complicated. Okay, there's so many things I want to ask you about. I don't know where to go first. I think I want to circle back to the orphanage tracking, trafficking, tracking the, I'm thinking about DNA too much, the orphanage trafficking situation, because again, in your story, there's this complexity where, people often will say to adoptees, oh do you wish you had languished in an orphanage?

And that is a part of your story. You were in an orphanage. Can you talk a little bit about that, and how did you find out that your orphanage was caught up in this

scandal?

Sanjay Pulver: In 2020, I was on, funny enough, I was on Reddit, and I posted in the Adoptee Reddit page community saying, I'm an Indian adoptee, this is all the [00:19:00] information I have.

I'm making one last ditch effort to figure out if there's any other information I can get. Anybody got anything for me? And somebody said, you should contact this particular person who's the main point person doing searches in India, who's also an Indian adoptee who was adopted to Germany.

And so I got in contact with this person, and we set up a Zoom call, and when I was mentioning, oh, I'm from the action for social development orphanage, he was like, wait, you came out of ASD? And I said, yes. And he's I've never known anybody to come out of there from that scandal. And I was like, what scandal?

And basically in 1999, so I had already been in the states for six years at that point, but in 1999, the orphanage got raided and it was [00:20:00] shown and proven and the executive director confessed was arrested and confessed to illegally purchasing children and sending them to the U. S. to make money off the adoptions.

And even went to lengths to forge relinquishment documents. To file guardianship certificates, basically falsely, like under false pretenses. And how that connects into my story is that in May of 2020, before I had this zoom call, my adopters were cleaning out a filing cabinet and my adoptive dad was like, here's a file about your adoption if you want it.

And I was like, oh, okay. And I opened it up and it was all information and files that I had never seen before in my life and it also included this guardianship certificate, which [00:21:00] I did not know existed and essentially what that said was my adoptive father was named my legal guardian, and it gave him the legal right to take me out of India and adopt me according to the laws of whatever country he, he lived in this case being the U. S. On the U. S. side, I am completely legally adopted all above board. I have not actually been formally adopted in the eyes of Indian law. So I'm only half adopted, technically. But, to your point about the orphanage, being in a tiny crib, on my back, pretty much, the only times I would be picked up is maybe if I was being fed, maybe not, I don't know.

I actually had a lot of developmental delays physically, because I wasn't hitting all of those, crawling, rolling [00:22:00] over modeling milestones, and I didn't realize that structurally, my body compensated for that over the years unknowingly, which is why, actually, last year, I started seeing a somatic therapist who also specializes in trauma, and in developmental stuff as well interestingly, I'm hitting developmental milestones in my late twenties, early thirties that babies do in the first few months of their lives, which is interesting and fascinating.

And also, I never thought I'd be looking at a baby rolling over and going I'm jealous of you you're a baby, why should I be envious of you you haven't done anything, but I'm like, wow, here I am being jealous of babies, who knew, but, institutional orphanage care[00:23:00] did mess me up in a lot of ways, and I know that because in the criminal complaint and everything, the documents were forged, that really gives me a lot of, hesitation around whether or not if something were to happen where we're going into a new election cycle, knock on wood, this does not happen, but at least for the U. S., if trans people continue to be attacked and attempts to eradicate us continue. As an immigrant, I'm really here at the government's pleasure, and the government's behest. And I don't really know what I'm gonna do if, for some reason I get in trouble or something and I get deported because India has no records on me, really.[00:24:00]

At least not currently, because everything, again, is in my birth name, and none of it has been updated gender wise, and I found out I'd have to pay like 600 bucks to change my name and my gender on my Certificate of Citizenship, which is the only document I haven't updated, because I didn't know you could update that, but I also worry

or I was worried as well, because funny enough, when I did change my name and gender legally in 2016, going to the social security office to update everything they asked me do you have proof of citizenship? And I said what like a passport and they said yeah, and I said, oh I do it's just at home and they said oh it looks like when you got naturalized in 1994 nobody updated social security and told [00:25:00] us so I was legally I was a legal alien according to social security for twenty some odd years and I had no idea.

Now it says I'm a citizen, but it's funny that had I not transitioned that little hiccup and falling through the cracks within like bureaucracy that could have come back to bite me in a really bad way and the only reason I found out is because I transitioned so that's where I'm at with it.

Haley Radke: It's really mind boggling to me that in 2024 Adoptee citizenship is still such a critical issue, and adoptive parents really need to stand up and take responsibility for this issue and because there's so many deported adoptees.

They have no power in the United States to make change and [00:26:00] call for reform. They're not here anymore. Yeah, I know that's an aside, but I'm really disappointed with adoptive parents who don't take responsibility for that.

Sanjay Pulver: Oh, yeah, I'm right there with you.

Haley Radke: We have so much complexity in your story and I'm gonna ask you a question where I don't think these things are able to be separated.

Coming into your identity as an adopted person, unpacking the complexities of that, coming out of the fog, coming into consciousness, all of those things. And then, also, coming into your true gender identity. Can you talk about those things? You've said before they're intertwined for you. Were you processing them at the same time? What was that like for you? Can you share a little bit more about that?

Sanjay Pulver: I wasn't processing my gender stuff and my adoptee stuff at the same time. I think my [00:27:00] adoptee identity had been pretty solid as far as growing up, I was like, I knew I was adopted, I had a fairly consistent narrative from my understanding although, on the outside looking in, it seemed like I had a pretty cushy setup and life.

There were a lot of cracks in the stereotypical narratives that, we have around adoption. I saw those from a very young age, but I never really had the language to describe what felt off about it. And around, I'd say ten years old, I started realizing that, as far as my, my sexuality, my sexual orientation, I knew there was something slightly different about that.

I think that's when I [00:28:00] started questioning that, and I'd already been a tomboy for, since I was really little, and then in middle school middle school's just chaotic for everybody, regardless of your identities, it's just a bad time usually for everybody, because you're going through social changes, you have hormones running amok it's just, I wouldn't wish repeating middle school on anybody, and I will also say, especially going through a puberty that you don't want.

That's also a trip and a half, because technically, being on testosterone, I had to go through puberty again, so it's puberty 2. 0.

And there were moments where I would I asked one of my friends, I was like if I, if everything about me was the same, but I was a boy, would you date me? And, if that wasn't a big sign, I don't know what is, [00:29:00] but that just went right over my head. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but as I've continued on my journey as an adoptee, what I started realizing was that at the very beginning of my transition, I was talking to another trans person and I had said, oh, I want to get a tattoo of my name Sanjay and my birth name in Telugu, which is the language I would've heard growing up, had I stayed in India, and I wanted to get them in a band around my arm, to symbolize that even though these are two different names they are still me, and it is connected, and this other trans person told me, oh, I guess you're not really trans, and I was like, what do you mean by that?

And she's oh the fact that you're not rejecting every single part of [00:30:00] yourself that's feminine, you're not really trans. And that was just a really crappy thing to say in general, but also hearing it from another trans person also added another level of hurt to that. But then what I realized was to reject my identity prior to my transition was actually mirroring the invalidation of my experiences prior to my adoption.

Because growing up it was always like you're in the U. S. now, everything's fine now, you don't need to think about your life in India. India bad, U. S. good that's very reductive and very simplified. But that is what it boiled down to, and it feels disingenuous, for me. To [00:31:00] not acknowledge that I had twenty two years, twenty one and a half years of life experiences that have shaped me.

It just feels disingenuous to, to ignore all of that and just pretend like none of it happened because I say this a lot, but living as a woman has made me a better man, and it's allowed me to navigate situations that I think a lot of cis men don't have the tools for and have not been raised to have emotional intimacy with other people a lot of parts of that the of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, those are not things that I was raised with, so I have an objective, a more objective view of it so I can see it, but I can also then say, hey, you can still be a man and [00:32:00] not ascribe to those things.

And I also realized that my relinquishment and my adoption are both based on the assumptions about who I was because of my assigned gender at birth. I was relinquished because we had another girl, we don't want you, and then my adopters were, in their applications, were like, we are writing this specifically because we want a daughter from India.

And they did. They had a daughter from India for about 21 and a half years. And now they have a son for the rest of their lives. So those things are too ver are always going to be entwined for me, and I will also say a small caveat that while obviously nobody is ever prepared to have a trans child, or a gender non [00:33:00] conforming child, that's not something anybody can prepare for, and while I don't believe that either set of guardians and parents that I've had over the course of my life are inherently transphobic as people the decisions that were made based on my assigned gender and the worth and value that were ascribed to those, and those decisions, those were absolutely transphobic. And granted this is just my own perspective on it, it's not necessarily gonna be how other trans adoptees feel about it, but the people might not have been transphobic, but their actions absolutely were.

Haley Radke: I appreciate you sharing that and I know you've done a lot of speaking and panels about your experience as a trans person with [00:34:00] of course your adoptee identity, a transracial and trans nationally adopted person. And this is the tricky part of being, what I see as being a member of the queer community who's often looked at adoption as a tool for family building. Can you speak into that as, you've got your foot in different worlds that do intersect, but as someone who has spoken out for family preservation and abolition of both the family policing system and the adoption industrial complex, those things. The queer community often is still using adoption as a family building tool.

Sanjay Pulver: I think the biggest thing that I would like to see is more honest and open conversations [00:35:00] and more transparency around family building for queer folks because I know you had other guests on here who've really talked about the history of adoption and the link to queer community before.

So I'm not necessarily going to rehash all of that. I know which episode folks should go listen to if they want to get that that history lesson.

Haley Radke: Okay. Sandra's

Sanjay Pulver: Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Yep. That's the one I was. Yep.

Haley Radke: Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Okay. Let me look it up for folks so they can,

Sanjay Pulver: I think just recognizing that we are not poster children for I guess being able to adopt children as queer people, we shouldn't be seen as like the gold standard of this is how you are a [00:36:00] successful queer person, like this is how you get it made. There are so many other ways to be in community, to have family, chosen family, found family that don't involve supporting harmful and oppressive systems.

And I think the biggest thing is being honest with the kids and making sure that they have access to the resources, namely therapy, and also any information about their biological parents or their sperm donor or their surrogate or, the egg donor, like whoever was involved, excuse me, involved in the creation of this child, being able to access that information so that as things come up and kids are growing and they have questions, those [00:37:00] conversations can happen honestly and in age appropriate ways, and then once the kids are old enough and if they have a desire to seek out these people, the ability to do so is there and it's not behind red tape and there's no gatekeeping for that. And interestingly, touching a little bit on genetics, it's very interesting being a trans adoptee in trans spaces because so much of the conversations regarding early transition and medical transition focus a lot on DNA and, people going what's my beard going to look like?

Am I going to go bald? Or, how much is my chest going to grow if I'm on estrogen? And like these sorts of things. And. a lot of the default answers are like, oh just go look at [00:38:00] pictures of your family. Go look at this or, and I have to sit there and keep my mouth shut because frankly, it's triggering and activating every single time somebody asks that question, which is pretty much always because new folks are going to be asking all the time.

And I, at least personally for me, don't feel like it's appropriate to be in those spaces and ask, hey, can you put a content warning or a trigger warning on talking about genetics? Or talking about family or talking about relationship to parents or like genetic mirroring because most often I'm the only one in those spaces or if I'm not I'm the only one who is not in reunion and has no information or photos or anything.

So I [00:39:00] just I just keep it to myself. And I just, I usually joke and say, I just look in the mirror, cross my fingers and hope for the best. So it can be very difficult at times to hold space for both when you know that you can't necessarily access the answers you want. Which also begs the question too of, is my twin trans?

That's a question I think about sometimes. And, we are fraternal twins, but if we both transitioned, did we just become fraternal twins in the opposite direction? Or, if my twin isn't trans, and I did, and then I did transition. Now do we look more identical? Do we look like identical twins now?

Those are questions I think about that I know I'm probably not gonna get an answer for. [00:40:00]

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. So many things. Thank you for sharing. I know we're going to do recommended resources. I just want to ask you one more thing if you're open to it. You mentioned.

Sanjay Pulver: Sure.

Haley Radke: Trying out somatic therapy and is there anything you want to say about that?

Like for other adoptees who may have had some similar Circumstances, maybe being up for a long time in orphanage as you were mentioning about not being attended to your physical needs. Anything like that to encourage folks if they want to try that

out?

Sanjay Pulver: I'm very fortunate in that my somatic therapist is also a trauma therapist and specifically works from an attachment lens like I I hit the trifecta and somatic therapy can look a lot of different ways.

So I do talk therapy with my regular [00:41:00] therapist. I do EMDR, which personally has been a literal life changing experience for me. It's been amazing. And then doing somatic therapy for basically all the body work stuff that EMDR and talk therapy can't necessarily help process. And a lot of it is body work of just like being on the table and getting like like deep tissue massage and but also there's a lot of like restructure like actual restructuring of my physical being of moving muscles and realizing oh, never learned really how to hold my head up correctly because my lat muscles in my back never really activated so I'm using my neck and my shoulders to hold my head up and that's why I have so much tension in my shoulders and my neck and [00:42:00] learning that oh, I didn't really have a lot of core strength as a baby so learning how to stabilize my core or even learning how to stand, because that was the biggest surprise I had, because I used to stand with my legs pretty far apart, so I almost looked like a triangle, because, a triangle's a strong shape.

The first time I stood with my legs pretty much in a normal stance close together, my knees went wobbly, because they didn't know how to hold I almost didn't know how to hold my own weight standing without my legs being super far apart. But I was like I physically have changed everything about body mechanics and how I move to finally compensate for that time in the orphanage.

But I will also say the most recent appointment that I had with my somatic therapist, we didn't do any body work, but for the [00:43:00] majority of it, I was sitting and holding my somatic therapist's six week old baby. And it's funny because the baby and I, we actually share a birthday, which is a total coincidence.

But that created a bond and a connection because now, here is a baby with my birthday who is hitting all of these developmental milestones and I get to see a parallel process between when that baby was three weeks old, this is what was going on when I was three weeks old I was already relinquished, and seeing that very clearly was really profound, and then just being able to hold a baby that was that small, and I'm like, I was this small once?

And, the baby just slept through everything and was snoring, and there I was just like, sobbing and having a big giant emotional moment, and the [00:44:00] baby was just totally unaware of everything, which I feel like encapsulates that experience pretty well. I think somatic therapy can incorporate lots of different elements, depending on your own situation and your own needs and what you're hoping to get out of it, and not all of it will be lying on a table and getting massaged or getting body work.

Sometimes it's holding a baby and crying.

Haley Radke: Beautiful. What an amazing experience. I'm glad you were able to do that. Okay, let's talk about our recommended resources. So I'm just going to quickly mention the episode we were referring to was episode 240 with Dr. Sandra Steingraber. And I want to recommend another podcast today that it's only four episodes.

But [00:45:00] for people who are in the abolitionist mindset, it is with Dorothy Roberts, and she has a four part series called Torn Apart. Which is based on her fabulous book, Torn Apart. We're talking about the family policing system. And she talks with people who are adopted, fostered parents who have been visited by the, by CPS, all of those things it's really an incredible resource.

And for folks who the book is like kind of dense and you haven't gotten there yet this is a great primer into Dorothy Robert's work. So I will make sure to link to that. And then I mentioned earlier that you have been a guest on several panels for adoptees speaking about different things. Two with Adoption Mosaic, one where you're talking about [00:46:00] your twin experience, if people want to hear more about that.

And then I also really enjoyed listening to you on the Adoptees United panel, the Rainbow Adoptees, Intersection of Queerness and Adoption. And so if folks want to hear more from you. Those are a couple of great places where they can hear your advocacy work, and I'm going to link to those in the show notes as well.

What did you want to recommend to us today?

Sanjay Pulver: I think you've already mentioned it before but the podcast Rescripting the Narrative, which is hosted by previous guest Lina Vanegas and Sol Yaku, is a great podcast. I think they have one or two episodes out currently, but it is a podcast really talking about making adoption narratives more adoptee centered talking about the connections to imperialism, colonialism, an extension of, white supremacy culture and [00:47:00] really deconstructing the adoption industry and how we can reform it, abolish it as far as like plenary adoption is concerned and that's, even just those two episodes are fabulous, and the other resource I wanted to mention as well is the Adult Adoptee UK movement, and that was actually started by the host of the Zoom call where we met, as it turns out, and while a lot of their advocacy is UK based their website and their blog posts are open to all adoptees to share their experiences and I think a lot of folks can find good writing there and things that resonate with them and I know I think they do some I think they do some Meetups [00:48:00] and things like that, and I think they are going to try and expand and I think they might also be working with Adoptees United Executive Director Greg Luce on a couple of things, so I want to plug that because if it hadn't been for that zoom call and that group of folks, I wouldn't actually be sitting here having a conversation with you. So

Haley Radke: I don't know, do you think.

Sanjay Pulver: I don't know, I,

Haley Radke: We've connected in other ways, but yes,

Sanjay Pulver: I feel like we would have eventually,

Haley Radke: Yes I'm so appreciative of Vic and their work and we will link to adultadoptee.org.Uk in the show notes as well. So folks can find that. And they have been doing a lot of forward, a lot of forward momentum has have been happening there with the government and yeah, lots of things in the last couple of years.

Thank you so much for sharing part of your story with us. And talking about some things that, a lot of [00:49:00] people don't really know much about. I really appreciate that. Where can folks connect with you online and hear more from you?

Sanjay Pulver: As far as adoptee stuff goes my Instagram, which is just my name.

So it's just @Sanjay.Pulver on Instagram. That is the only social media that my adopters don't have any presence on, either one of them, so that's the main place where I feel the most safe to just post candidly about my experiences, I guess we'll say. I do use Twitter occasionally, if I really feel like I want to post something for folks I know through that platform, which again is just It's @PulverSanjay, with first and last name capitalized.

Those are the main social medias that I use for Adoptee related stuff. And, yeah, really am appreciative of you letting me come and run my mouth for about an hour, [00:50:00] and

Haley Radke: Sanjay, you're someone that I have linked other trans adoptee folks to, because I know you're a safe person for them to go to, and you have open doors for them to go to other support group spaces and things.

So I really appreciate having you as a resource for me when I don't know the right thing to say. And I'm really thankful for that. Thank you for your service to other adoptees in that way. I really, I do really feel grateful. Trigger word. How about that?

Sanjay Pulver: And I'll say, I'm very thankful. Other trigger word that, I, that that I'm able to be a resource and help our community in various ways it's really been an honor to be on here. Thank you so much.

Haley Radke: Thank you

I feel so deeply honored and grateful to be able to share [00:51:00] stories like this with you and I trust as always that you as a listener will be honoring and respectful to my guests and thank them for sharing their story and being vulnerable with us. It takes a lot of courage to share your story in such a public way.

And please make sure you thank our guests for how they are able to share with us so that we can feel seen and validated in our own experiences as well. It is, it's a real honor to be able to hear these stories. And I couldn't share them without our Patreon supporters. So thank you so much for those of you who support the show monthly or yearly.

It just is a huge deal to me and I really appreciate it. If you want to join them, you can go to adopteason.com/community. We would love to have you over there. [00:52:00] Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.

275 Sara Docan-Morgan, Ph.D.

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/275

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AO E275 Sara Docan-Morgan

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 guest is Dr. Sara Docan-Morgan. Professor of Communication Studies and author of the brand new book In Reunion, Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family. Sara shares some of her personal story with us and then we dig into her qualitative research from multiple Korean adoptees who have been in a relationship with their biological families for over a decade. There's a treasure trove of reunion wisdom in this episode, including a new term that so perfectly encapsulates the weight adoptees carry [00:01:00] through the search and reunion experience.

Before we get started. I just want to say, I know I'm sick. My voice is sick right here, but it's not in the interview. So if this is bugging you, it's going to go away almost immediately. And I want to invite you to join our Patreon Adoptee Community today over on adopteeson.com/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 Adoptees On Dr. Sara Docan-Morgan. Welcome Sara.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Thank you, Haley.

Thanks for having me.

Haley Radke: I am so excited to get to talk to you today. And I would love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Sure. I am a transnational Korean adoptee. I was adopted at four months old [00:02:00] from Korea and raised in North and South Dakota by my white adoptive parents and two older sisters who are six and ten years older than I am and not adopted, I was contacted by my birth family in 2001 and corresponded with them a little bit by letter and then email and then finally felt ready to meet them and met them in 2009 and have really developed what feels like a close relationship with them. I have three biological children and I'm a professor of communication studies and that's the Cliff Notes version but obviously there's always more to the story

Haley Radke: [00:03:00] Absolutely, there's so much more I know that you have been delving into the world of Korean adoptees for many years.

I have, I literally have your dissertation pulled up over here.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Oh my goodness.

Haley Radke: From 2008. I know you've talked to a lot of Korean adoptees. How common is it to be found?

Sara Docan-Morgan: It isn't super common, although it's probably more common than one might expect. I think that the subjectivity of social workers and adoption agencies in Korea really influences What people are going to find and whether birth families contact Adoptees or not.

So if I think about the 18 Korean adoptees that I interviewed I believe there were only one or two who [00:04:00] were contacted by their birth families first, but I think also and Shannon Bae who's a Korean adoptee researcher. She's also doing some research on the DNA databases, and so has said that's going to change the game as well, because people who are doing DNA testing, DNA matching are, perhaps, Korean American who was raised in the U. S., maybe matching with a Korean adoptee, but the Korean American who was raised in the U. S. is like, oh, I didn't know I had a third cousin who was sent for adoption. And so people tracing their way back that way. So I think the game is changing too. But yeah, I haven't spoken to that many who have been found.

Haley Radke: What was it like for you to be [00:05:00] contacted? I'm reading into this and I'm going to make a gross generalization. But it sounded to me like when you shared part of your story in the book that you were we'll say it, happy adoptee. And it seemed like quite a shock to you to be contacted in this way.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yes, definitely shocking, definitely bewildering, that's the word I keep using to describe it because it's almost like the way that I viewed the world was turned on its head. My family, my adoptive family, just made it seem very simple like you were found on the doorstep of the police station it says birth parents unknown on your records so there's gonna be no way to find them and of course, this was all pre internet.

And so I just took [00:06:00] that at face value, and I, on one hand, don't think that they were trying to hamper my curiosity or my, thoughts about my birth family, on one hand, and on the other hand, I also think it felt pretty comfortable for them to assume that my birth family was out of the picture. And I just assumed what they had told me was the truth.

I think the other thing that I think about when I think about this time and when I think about all adoptees and reunion is that your reunion or your contact or your search or whatever always happens within the context of whatever else is going on in your life at that moment. And so when my birth family contacted me in 2001, this was right after my adoptive mom had gone into a nursing home and was, I don't know if it [00:07:00] was specifically dementia, but she wasn't quite herself, like I would have to repeat myself within the span of the same conversation and she had multiple strokes since I was 16. And so I also felt pretty protective of her.

So it's not just that I was like a happy adoptee, although I think people could definitely ascribe that label to me, but it was also that there were things going on within the context of my adoptive family to that limited my capacity to delve into another family at that time. So it was to answer your question in a succinct way.

It was shocking. It was bewildering. It was almost like being contacted from another planet. Because I had been to Korea once in 1999 with a Korean [00:08:00] adoptee group of 25 of us who went there and in 2001, I think I had the impression that okay, I've been to Korea maybe I'll go back again someday, but it really wasn't central to what I was thinking about at the time.

So then it was almost and I assumed that my birth family was unknown. So it's yeah, somebody reached through this kind of gap in reality. I'm not really into science fiction or know much about it, those kind of ideas of somebody from another, somebody found a portal, is how it felt.

Haley Radke: What did you have to do to process that in order to be open to meeting them later on?

Sara Docan-Morgan: I think that I needed time. I needed support of friendships. And I think what happened [00:09:00] for me was that studying Korean adoption gave me more exposure to various Korean adoptee stories. And I remember one interviewee from my dissertation who said something like, just because you're not just because you're searching that doesn't mean that you're not happy with your adoptive parents or that you don't love them that you can do both things. And it sounds really simplistic now looking back on it but at the time I think that she articulated something that I hadn't really given much thought to that it was really difficult to hold both of those things at the same time. And you know that makes a lot of sense giving what a lot of people are taught that you can only have one [00:10:00] air quotes, real mom and one real dad and so it did feel like you had to choose and there have been communication researchers and adoption researchers like Barbara Yngvesson who have said, there's this idea of exclusive belonging that you can only belong exclusively to one parent and even people who study, there have been people who have studied children of divorced and remarried parents who will say, oh, I felt caught between my step mom and my mom.

And I think that sentiment is pretty similar that you feel this conflicting loyalty. And so I had to work through that. I think that my mom who died in 2003, my adoptive mom, in some ways, she freed me, and not that the grief didn't almost totally consume me, [00:11:00] because it did. And my dad then died five years later, 2008, unrelated motorcycle accident.

But I think that in a lot of ways, that allowed me to navigate these relationships with more freedom. I don't recommend that as a strategy, but I think that helped me. The other thing that I think was also helpful, was that my sisters, my American sisters have been really supportive through it all and just saying, yeah, of course, you'd want to do that.

Of course you want to explore that you should. I think also for me having my partner by my side who I met in 2004 was also helpful and not that people need to have a significant other to navigate reunion. But for me, because my parents here had died, it gave me an extra anchor to hold on to if [00:12:00] things felt rocky therapy was very helpful.

So there's all these things. I think that yoga was helpful. I think that there we have to dig through the various tools in our toolbox and see what helps us to navigate whatever situation we might be facing at any given time.

Haley Radke: I appreciate you sharing those things. It is so complex to be, again, quote unquote, ready. Like, when are you really ever ready? One thing I really appreciated you pointing out in your book, In Reunion, is that several researchers have pointed out this shift. So previously, if you were an adoptee, who was searching for biological family, you were pathologized as there's something wrong with you and now there's like this shift of if you don't want to search, there's something wrong with you.

Can you speak to that a little bit? [00:13:00]

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yeah, I think that there is, because things are more open now with internet, social media, DNA testing, all of the things that there is more sense of it's available. Why wouldn't you try? And so I think that there is, and I think within the Korean adoptee community specifically, but maybe within the broader adoptee community, the sense that there is a right way to be an adoptee.

And I think it gets really bifurcated into you can be the right type of adoptee by being a perfectly devoted child to your adoptive parents, or you can be the right type of adoptee who is, searching and or in reunion and politicized and active and in those ways. I think that [00:14:00] we do a disservice to adoptees when we say this is the right way to be adopted.

It's hard enough to be adopted in the first place, and so to ascribe a certain way of enacting that identity, I think is really damaging. I also think that adoptee identity and others have said this and it's nothing new, but is something that's really fluid. And so maybe you don't want to search at, 18 years old, but maybe you do want to search when you're 40 and, given various things that happen in one's life such as death of a parent or having one's children or things like that can mark those changes, but I think that we need to honor the fluidity of people's trajectory and to be [00:15:00] okay with it being non linear and cyclical at times.

Haley Radke: I really appreciate your candor in sharing parts of your story in the book, and I'm curious if you felt this need to be a little more open because of how candid your interviewees were with you and or this. I know this push pull, right? If it's in academia, like to add your personal story into something that can be used as an academic text, I think is frowned upon even though the other thing I'll just mentioned an offhanded thing, but disclosure statements in research papers that are often put out like we see adoptees disclosing their adoptee status and then oftentimes adoptive parents are not disclosing that their adoptive [00:16:00] parents.

So anyway, that's like a mishmash, but can you talk about weaving your story in and what that was like for you? How that felt personally? Did you want to do it?

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yeah, I, so I think if we think about social scientific research that is aimed at understanding human behavior, it was historically modeled upon the scientific method, people studying bacteria in labs.

And so it was thought that if we can bring that same objectivity to studying humans, then that would be the most accurate way of predicting behaviors and certainly a lot of great research and generalizable research has come out of that and at the same time, people who were, I was just talking to my best friend about this morning that people who, developed that model were not from marginalized identities, right?

So it's like [00:17:00] historically white and male. And what comes along with that? Probably a disinclination toward vulnerability and, public sharing of struggles. So I think that there is becoming a shift where people are saying, if you're studying people, there's no way to be objective.

And I once heard a researcher say, all research is semi autobiographical. So if you study fish in a lake, that's semi autobiographical, that's gonna somehow connect to your personal story. Now, do biologists need to put disclosure statements in their research, not necessarily for me when I was thinking about the book, I was thinking a lot about what type of books do I like to read and what will be resonant to people reading [00:18:00] this book and I love memoir and I like, I've always liked essay based writing and I remember in my master's degree being told, you use some creative and descriptive language in your writing, but we don't do that. And you're very explicitly taught to not do that as a social scientist. But I think that I've seen over time more and more of the research that is social scientific or interpretivist go in that direction and certainly the type of research that I Enjoy reading has that component oftentimes and if it doesn't sometimes I go looking for it so if it's a book, I will look I will read the acknowledgments first because that gives you a little window Into how the author is coming at this topic with regard to that experience of [00:19:00] actually writing it and sharing it.

In some ways, it was great because it allowed me to or forced me to sit and process things about my reunion and my family. In other ways, it has been hard. I think that it's been hard in the sense that I just had to pause once in a while and maybe I would cry for a few minutes and then get back to it.

Or maybe I would work on something that was a little less emotional at times. And then, the fact that the book is out in the world, and that it has my story in it, when I've been doing interviews or talks, then my story inevitably becomes a part of the conversation, which I knew would happen, but it's also, I feel a little bit like I'm walking around with an open wound right now because of the book coming out.

And that's [00:20:00] scary, and it's made me feel vulnerable in a way that I don't know that I anticipated. I think, it's all a process and nothing's ever closed or finished when it comes to adoption and emotion and family.

Haley Radke: Yes. And I imagine you have a new found respect for the people you interviewed who really went there.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yes, for sure. And yeah, being interviewed for podcasts, certainly I found that actually I feel more nervous for a podcast than I do a public talk because I feel. Yeah, in the hot seat in a different way, and I appreciate it so much because it gives me all the opportunity to articulate some things about the book and my perspectives, and at the same time, it does force you to think about things that,[00:21:00] you might not have the time or space to do when you're grading papers or planning class or picking your kids up or whatever it might be so in some ways, it's wonderful. And then in some ways it's whew, here we go again.

Haley Radke: It's totally, it's the unspoken emotional labor and okay, we're going to get to that. We're going to get to it really soon. You have this really great thing you talk about in your book. I don't want to spoil it yet.

Before we go there, I was wondering if you could talk about, I'm sure when talking about bringing about painful things. I'm sure you've reflected on this a lot and in your research coming into consciousness of really what adoption has meant to you and has, how it has impacted you. If you can share a little bit about that and also intertwined, I know you wanted to talk about your mom. And so she was diagnosed with MS when she, when you were 12, is that right?

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yes.

Haley Radke: And I'm really [00:22:00] sorry for her loss, an early passing in. And how has that impacted your adoptee journey, as seeing a mom, losing a mom sooner than you should have, and your first mom, just like all adoptees, losing your mom when you're, very young.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yeah I think that in some ways that my mom getting diagnosed with MS when I was 12, then she had a stroke that paralyzed her completely on the left side when I was 16, which brought me into becoming a caretaker when I was a sophomore in high school. And so things like helping her get into the shower or helping her do her daily injections for her medicine or making sure that I was home so that I could help with dinner, those things became really normalized when I was really young.

And I think that [00:23:00] in some ways it made me mature quickly. I think that in some ways it was beneficial in the sense that I realized very early on that people you love can die really at any moment because we were just sitting at the dinner table when all of a sudden she put her head hand to her forehead and was like, my left side feels numb.

And then she got up to stand and she couldn't really stand and so she's put her arm around my shoulder and I walked her to the couch and she was laughing actually, she was like, oh, my gosh, what's wrong with me? And then it just became progressively more serious as the days and weeks went on.

I think that in a way, it was a gift because I don't take people for granted in the way that I might have had she been healthy my entire life. [00:24:00] So I think it made me grow up faster. And I think it also gave me that gift. And at the same time, there wasn't really ever space for me to, or at least I never felt space.

To do regular teenage things like explore who I wanted to be that was separate from them or to express my independence and rebel or any of those normal developmental things. And so I think that did keep me and you know what Susan Branco and JaeRan Kim and other colleagues have said, you know the status quo perspective of adoption.

I think that the more I studied and read about adoption in graduate school and also studied and read about race, those two things coalesced, but it was really to move me in a different place with regard to seeing adoption [00:25:00] more critically in my story as a reflection of a larger phenomenon of transnational adoption and whiteness and all of these things.

But that was painful for me, and I don't know, I think it really taught me the importance of being able to hold multiple truths, right? This idea that my adoptive family loved me, and I loved them, and it's genuine, and it's ongoing, and it shaped me in many ways. And I also think that, adoptees don't like the word lucky.

Despite everything, I feel lucky that I always knew that I was loved. And that my family really emphasized that they wanted me and that my sisters, no matter what stage of life I've been in, have always been on my team. And so I think that shift from that kind of status quo to a more conscious state when it comes to the [00:26:00] stakes of adoption was slow because of my mom's illness, but also yeah, I think it is challenging I think we when people say coming out of the fog, it sounds lovely but I think it's I think it's difficult I think it's difficult because you have to challenge everything that you've thought before about what it means to be adopted and how you came to be in your family did that answer your question?

Haley Radke: Absolutely.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Okay.

Haley Radke: Beautifully. It is this world shifting event and I find it's so fascinating to, for a lot of my listeners, if they're new here and they'll listen to an episode and they'll be like, wait, I relate to that, but also what? And they'll start listening to a bunch of episodes.

And so they come into consciousness very quickly because once you see the problems in adoption, you can't unsee it. It's, you can't, there's no going back. [00:27:00] And so personally, though. It's this very painful journey. If you've always been, enveloped in love and in the gratitude narrative and all of those things that we know the stereotypical parts of

adoption.

Sara Docan-Morgan: And I would say it's probably not unlike when people go from thinking that they're not racist to realizing that we all operate in a system of racism and that we, people who are non black benefit from this system. And so that's painful as well. So I think that anytime we're grappling with our complicity or the complicity of people we love in systems that are dehumanizing and for profit, that's going to be painful. [00:28:00] So it makes sense.

Haley Radke: Yes well said. Okay. I want to talk about your book. It is so good. Thank you. I loved it. I devoured it. I'm going to show you now how many sticky notes I have in your book. Okay.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Oh my gosh.

Haley Radke: No one else is going to be able to see this, but I just want you to.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. That's incredible.

Haley Radke: There's quite a few just so people know.

Sara Docan-Morgan: There's a lot.

Haley Radke: So when I interviewed Kim McKee last year, she recommended your book and was like, oh my gosh, people are really going to love it. And there's this term and I don't want to say it. But people are really going to resonate with it, and I'm not quoting her verbatim, but she really hyped this up.

And so when I opened the book, I was ready. I was like, I'm looking for this term that Kim says that Sara talks about, and it's really important. And I think it's discursive burden.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yes, and Kim was so kind to[00:29:00] recommend my book in that way, so I so appreciated that.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm glad she hyped it up. This totally, it lived up to the hype. Okay, Sara, so you are an expert in communication and in particularly in family communication. So can you give us a little professor talk? About what is discourse mean? And then what is discursive burden? Because man, does it nail the adoptee experience in reunion perfectly.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Oh, thank you so much. I think that when we think about communication and specifically in the US, people say, oh, communication. That's an easy major. But when we think about what is one of the hardest things that we have to navigate in our entire lives and throughout our lives, it's communication, it's relationships.

And so when we think about something, a term like discourse, which [00:30:00] you can find a million definitions for discourse, but I like to think of it as meaningful talk, and it occurs or meaningful messages, and it can occur at the cultural level, so I recently saw the movie Wonka, and I don't know if you saw it, but there's an orphan in the movie, and it's just okay she's an orphan, but then at the end of the movie, spoiler alert, she meets she finds out that her birth mother is alive and they meet each other and the music swells and the light comes up and it's this beautiful moment and her birth mother is beautiful and everything is lovely and the cultural level this is the discourse of reunion that it's a happy ending. And then, at the interpersonal level there's also discourse surrounding adoption, like people saying things like my adoptive parents are my real [00:31:00] parents. And at the same time, this contradictory discourse where people say have you met your real parents referring to the birth parents?

And so these kind of meaningful messages or messages that people exchange in the context of relationships really contribute to how we view adoption and family and reunion. And so when I think about discursive burden, I think a lot about communication. And by communication, I think of messages and meanings.

So when people think what is communication all about its messages and meanings, and these messages constitute our relationships, meaning we can't separate the messages from the relationship, the messages are the relationship. So if people say, oh, we have a close relationship. That means that the messages that are exchanged in that relationship are intimate, they're vulnerable, they're supportive listening, or if people say, I don't have a [00:32:00] relationship with my mother, usually that means they don't communicate with one another or they don't communicate meaningfully. And so when I think about discursive burden, I think of this idea that in reunion, adoptees bear a lot of responsibility, this communicative responsibility, and some of this is communicated really directly.

When people say, when birth parents, Korean birth parents have said to adoptees, hey, you should learn Korean, I'm too old to learn English, so you need to learn Korean. That's putting a responsibility, a discursive or communicative responsibility on the adopted person. There are other discursive burdens that adoptees in reunion experience, starting with, for most adoptees, if they want to find their birth family, they are the persons who have to initiate search.

But then when it comes to other types [00:33:00] of discursive burden, they might have to explain to their adoptive parents why they want to search. They might also have to reassure their adoptive parents that, hey, I'm going to search, but you are my real family. I know that one person in my study, she told that she told her adoptive parents that she was searching and her adoptive mother who they had a really close relationship burst into tears and this adoptee said, I felt terrible, right?

I felt like I was breaking my mom's heart and then she also said that her brothers who are not adopted also felt threatened by this and so she said, she had a few weeks leading up to her reunion and she said that she really felt like during that time she had to reassure all the members [00:34:00] of her adoptive family that she wasn't gonna leave them that she wasn't replacing them that she felt thankful to be in the family and she wrote handwritten notes, she wrote blogs, she communicated it verbally. And that's a lot to put on somebody who should be thinking who, in my opinion, should have the space to prepare for this event, this reunion, that is not focused on her adoptive family and she says she said she didn't. They didn't want that from her, her adoptive family didn't necessarily ask for that, directly, but she felt really compelled. So it did feel like a burden.

For the actual reunion itself there were our other discursive burden. So things like the adoptees often feel compelled to bring an appropriate gift but that requires research into what would constitute a gift other things like birth families often feel guilty so [00:35:00] adoptees often feel compelled to express forgiveness for the birth family to tell the birth family that they had a positive and happy life and oftentimes, if they're trying to maintain a relationship over the long term, a lot of the people in my study said I'm the one who has to reach out and I'm the one who has to maintain that relationship.

So all of these things, and this is always in addition to the logistical planning of a reunion, which for people who have or haven't traveled abroad, it's a lot, right? Like, how do you find a place to stay that's in the right location? How do you get time off from work? How do you afford the expenses of this trip?

Once you're in this foreign city, how do you get from one place to another? Which places should you go to? So there's all this logistical stuff. On top of the emotional stuff, which is very connected to the [00:36:00] communicative tasks that are asked. It's no wonder that adoptees often find reunion overwhelming and tiring, too.

Haley Radke: It's no wonder.

Sara Docan-Morgan: It's no wonder. It makes sense. Yeah.

Haley Radke: It totally makes sense. Just our internal processing would be enough to carry, but as you name all those things, and there's even more than that, then we have time to talk about, of course, like it makes so much sense. And we have talked our way around this in so many podcast episodes, it's all on us. This is on us. We've talked our way. And so I love that you've named this for us. And so we can say now that's the discursive burden of being an adoptee in reunion.

Sara Docan-Morgan: It is. And there's discursive burdens on a daily basis, too, for visible adoptees. Even when people say, hey, Are you adopted? Where were you born? Do you know [00:37:00] your birth family? This idea that it's, it's the discursive responsibility for an adoptee to respond and just like everyone, adoptees just want to go about their daily life, but there's always this discursive burden. And I think that other discursive burdens that are important to mention include things like if an adoptee wants to learn about their history they have to ask those questions to the birth family and if those questions don't get answered or if the answers are unclear, then it's up to the adoptee to continue asking. And I would say that. Most adoptees don't feel like they go to a reunion, they ask their questions, all of those questions get answered, and then now they know the full story and it's done.

But rather that those questions generate more questions, and the answers generate more questions, and so the continual asking to make one make sense of [00:38:00] one story is also on the adopted person in addition to the restoring adoptive families when adoptive parents come with adoptees to reunion, which can be a great thing because they can offer support and do tasks and be there for the adoptee in a lot of ways. It can be great. On the other hand, adoptees said when my adoptive mom or dad was there, I also felt like I couldn't ask as many questions or I shouldn't be as affectionate with my birth family. And so then that's another discursive burden that even in the moment they have to communicate in ways that preserve other people's feelings, even in this moment, that is and I would argue should be about their own journey and again, it's not because adoptive parents are saying you have to protect my feelings, but I think as an adoptee, you also have a really sensitive social antenna for how you're making your adoptive parents feel and so [00:39:00] that gets extra activated I think during a reunion and that's another discursive burden.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. Thank you for naming those for us. One thing I've read a lot about adoption over the years, including Korean adoption. And one thing that I was like, okay, this feels like a benefit to have been from a country who has exported a couple hundred thousand children for economic profit.

And I don't often say there's benefits to adopt. But because Korea has, this culture of transnational adoption, it also has some adoption reunion rituals that you name, and I was like, this is amazing that going into reunion, you can assume that [00:40:00] one or a few of these rituals will be taking place.

And I don't know, what do you think about that? Do you think that's a benefit? And can you talk a little bit about those? Because I was unaware, really, they're very common these few things.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yes, I think that the benefit is due to the strength and resilience of the adoptee community and their willingness to tell their stories and their bravery and courage in reuniting and in going back to Korea.

And I think especially the early wave of adoptees who went back in the 80s and 90s before there were trans, electronic translators or phones or they were using paper maps to navigate and English was much less prominent. So I think we owe a lot to adoptees who have been willing to tell their [00:41:00] stories, my participants included. When we think about rituals, we think of birth mothers wanting to hand feed their child or wanting to sleep together. These aren't necessarily rituals that are common in Western countries. Having some touch point for adoptees so that when these kind of things happen, perhaps in their own reunion, that they aren't totally taken off guard.

I think even some things like visiting graves and knowing that might be a common thing for someone to do during reunion can also be helpful because again reunion is an inherently uncertain experience by nature. It is uncertain and out of one's control and if we think of [00:42:00] experiences that adult Westerners don't like, they don't like uncertainty and they don't like not being in control.

And if we think about reunion, it's like choosing these circumstances. And my goal with the book is to provide a little bit of a resource so people feel a little less uncertain and it's possible that some of these things may happen. It's certain that not all of these things will happen, but just a little bit of predictability I'm hoping will ease that experience for people.

Haley Radke: Even something you mentioned before exchanging gifts and all of those things I thought, oh my, I would never have thought of. I was really young when my first reunion, and I was in my early 20s, and I never would have thought of oh, bringing something, but my reunion with my birth mother was like, very fast.[00:43:00] We met, I think, within a day or two of an email connection.

Sara Docan-Morgan: So fast.

Haley Radke: Yeah. So fast. So yes, I absolutely want to recommend people pick this book up. So for Korean adoptees in particular, it will be so valuable and helpful. You have stories from your participants of positive and challenging situations they faced in reunion.

And I love that you have interviewed these folks. All these folks have had been in a relationship with their Korean families for at least 10 years or more. So this is not just the the first meeting. This is like, how have you or lack of, maintained a relationship with these folks from a distance. I know some people you included, right?

I've lived in Korea for a little bit and come back and forth and those kind of things. It is just so valuable, especially for Korean adoptees. But [00:44:00] myself, I don't have that experience. I thought you really beautifully laid out so many different things to watch for in reunion. Even this little note I have.

You wrote, before the reunion, I had told myself to avoid having unrealistic expectations of my birth family, but I hadn't considered my expectations of myself. Just those things when you're going into the meeting, like the first meeting and like you're picturing everybody else, but you don't think about, oh my gosh, what is my face gonna look like? Am I gonna cry? What's the, all of those pieces?

Sara Docan-Morgan: Definitely, and there were several people who said, I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't cry, and I think that really speaks to that cultural discourse of reunion that, oh, it's supposed to be this heartfelt, emotional meeting, and then when people don't experience that emotion themselves, then they feel like maybe something is wrong with me or something's wrong with the reunion and rather to say [00:45:00] this is, and maybe not even having realized that they had that expectation going into it.

So tempering one's own expectations and saying this might happen, this might not happen for my own personal, reaction to what's happening and all of it is okay, all of it's okay.

Haley Radke: You have a whole chapter on your concluding recommendations for transnational adoptees. And you have multiple pieces of advice.

And I think it's all so helpful. I really think, I took away a lot from those things too. I really think it'll be super helpful for folks. And I mentioned before, it's academic, but it absolutely doesn't read that way. It is such an easy read, and I took a ton of notes. And I thought, God, this is one of those books where I wish I [00:46:00] had that when I was going in.

I wish my eyes could be open. And and so I'm so glad that you And this is so many years of work, Sara. Oh my gosh.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Yeah.

Haley Radke: When did you start your interviews? 2010?

Sara Docan-Morgan: 2010, yeah. I started them when I had, when my twins were about five months old, and so now they're 13 and a half. So a long time, I am just so thankful that people wanted to be interviewed again, 10 years later, and I had written a number of academic articles based on those initial interviews.

But when I wrote the book, I took an intentional turn away from not entirely away, but to some extent writing for an academic audience because I really want this book. I wrote it for Korean [00:47:00] adoptees. I didn't write it for journal editors. And so I want it to be useful and helpful. And even if somebody has chosen not to reunite or chosen to reunite and then not continue that relationship, to give them insight onto the complexity of family.

And I think that's part of the message of the book, too, is that, yes, it's about reunion, but also family is a complicated thing for us to define and that we have some agency in how we define it and enact it.

Haley Radke: I love that. I have. You wrote a chapter in a book a couple years ago that was called Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Discursive Burden of Establishing Individual and Family Identity.

And so now to have it really fleshed out and you explained it so well, I [00:48:00] appreciate you doing that on the show for folks. But In Reunion, Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family. Oh my gosh, Sara, what a treasure. Love it. I know folks will pick it up. So excited for them to have it in their hands.

What did you want to recommend to us today?

Sara Docan-Morgan: As I had a really hard time recommending, I had a hard time, not because there weren't things that I wanted to recommend, but because I was having difficulty narrowing it down. The first piece I'd like to recommend is the movie Resilience. And this was directed by Tammy Chu, a Korean adoptee filmmaker.

It follows the story of Brent Beesley, who is a Korean adoptee in his 30s, who was raised in South Dakota, as he reunites with his birth mother and some extended family in Korea. And what I like about Resilience, [00:49:00] And also the other resource that I'm going to recommend is that it really speaks to the politics of Korean adoption, Korean transnational adoption, Resilience does, because it tells really intimately the story of Brent's birth mother, Myoung-ja, and the circumstances that led to her losing him and the pain that she has experienced. So it really humanizes her. It also really beautifully and painfully evidences their disconnect. That she just wants to love him and take care of him and be a mother to him. And he articulates things like, we're basically strangers to each other and he feels bad because he knows how much she wants to mother him. He doesn't know how to let her [00:50:00] do that and in addition, as the film goes on, it also shows that Brent is also juggling fatherhood in the US and a marriage relationship that is unstable and aging parents and so really displaying the fact that, our life context really influences how engaged we can be in our reunion relationship. So it's a really beautiful film. It's a sad film. It's an, it's a profound film. I wish it were more widely accessible, but if people have access to Canopy through their public library or their school or university library, they should be able to request it and be able to watch it.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Thank you. I know you have one other thing that we can get for sure.

Sara Docan-Morgan: Okay. Yes. I also want to recommend All You Can Ever Know by Nicole [00:51:00] Chung, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have read it. Again, even though Nicole was born to Korean parents who are living in the U. S. at the time, but I really liked about her story is how she really navigated the reunion on her own terms that she developed a really loving relationship with her Korean sister, but she really because of some of the family history that she learned of, she really kept her birth father, but especially her birth mother at a distance that felt comfortable to her, but also wrestled with those decisions too and I think that she really, it's Nicole Chung she's a beautiful writer, but she really articulates some of those push pull emotions and phenomena and a really beautiful way that really will resonate with anybody [00:52:00] who is in reunion. And that's one thing that I think is important to know is that a lot of the people in my study found that their most meaningful connection and relationship was with a birth sibling and not necessarily a birth parent.

And so when we think about birth family reunion, oftentimes people focus on the birth mother the most, the birth father, maybe secondarily, but it's really seems like the siblings who are able to identify with adoptees more and maintain relationships and give insight into the family history that maybe the birth parents are unable or unwilling to do and that's certainly the case for Nicole as well. I want people to also think of reunion as just, as something that is beyond just the birth parents.

Haley Radke: Yes. I love that book too. Great [00:53:00] recommendation. Thank you so much, Sara, for sharing with us, teaching us a whole bunch today. I really appreciate it.

Where can people grab In Reunion and follow you online?

Sara Docan-Morgan: They can order from Temple University Press or wherever they buy their books. They can follow me online @in.Reunion on Instagram. And that's where I usually post events and other things. I'm not a super active social media person, but I will try to keep that updated.

So and thank you so much for having me and for the work that you do with facilitating all of these meaningful conversations. It's really a gift to everybody and speaks to your ability to ask good questions. So thank you.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much. Friend. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.[00:54:00]

274 Julian Washio-Collette

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/274

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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. Today's guest is Julian Washio-Collette. A writer and monastic spiritual seeker whose story includes the rarity of being relinquished and adopted twice. Julian shares what he hears when someone says the term, forever family.

How building community was difficult here when seemingly no one else has had the same experience of being a double adoptee. And we ponder what the spiritual implications of adoption may mean. Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community [00:01:00] today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We also have a seven day free trial, so you can check us out. 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 Adoptees On, Julian Washio-Collette. Welcome, Julian.

Julian Washio-Collette: Thanks, Haley. It's great to be here.

Haley Radke: I'm so glad we finally get to chat. I know you've supported the podcast. You've been a listener for a long time, and I would love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah, thank you. So I am a baby scoop era double adoptee. So I was relinquished and adopted twice. So first as an infant, I was formally adopted at 14 [00:02:00] months. I have no idea where I was before that or when I arrived at the house of my adopters. So that's a black hole. And so my first adopters also adopted a baby girl when I was five years old, which is a little confusing to me because sometime shortly after that they got divorced and my sister and I were with our adoptive mother and things really went downhill from there, things that I remember or have been told this was when I was around eight years old. She was certainly dating a lot. She was doing drugs, going out dancing, and on the other side taking us to what I would call fire and brimstone fundamentalist churches on Sunday, which is a really confusing mixture that left an imprint.

But at some point, [00:03:00] she decided that she did not want to have children anymore, and so she placed us for adoption. And what that process looked like was my sister and I were scooped up by a social worker and taken to the house of who would become our second adopters. I think there was two or three visits.

And then one day we were dropped off and that was it. And so it was another closed adoption. The dynamics mirrored my first adoption. Both were closed adoptions. My birth certificate was changed. Anyone from my first adoptive family could not legally have contact with me until I was 18. So I've been thinking about this a lot because, for many reasons, people [00:04:00] have to disown or repress or deny parts of themselves, right?

People who experienced various kinds of trauma. So for me I had to do that. I had to disown the first nine years of my life and on top of that, the whole world mirrored that. The whole, the whole world mirrored the role that I was forced to take on. I basically did not exist for the first nine years of my life.

And all the evidence was hidden. Anyone from that time period was not allowed to contact me. So again, it, that happened when I was a baby and my system internalized it at it as it did then. And then I underwent the same process again, this time at a very different developmental level. I had some comprehension of what was happening to me.

I basically had to deconstruct and reconstruct myself as a nine year old child. [00:05:00] So unfortunately, that was not the best family again. I feel like this is another systemic failure. This was not a family that had any business raising children. My second adoptive family. So my second adoptive family parents had adopted a boy as an infant. So they already had one adopted child. So my sister and I arrived and so there was three children and the dynamics of that family, I think are very common among abusive families, but I think my sense is even more common among adoptive families. So the mother had all the markings of a malignant narcissist.

The father was her enabler, their first adopted child was the golden boy who could do no wrong, and I was the scapegoat. So one of the common [00:06:00] refrains I heard was, whenever he got into trouble, he didn't do that until you got here, and I heard that up until I was a teenager. So on top of having my identity completely stripped from me in order to be part of this family, all of us.

There was no room to be a person in this family, all of us had to organize around my second adoptive mother and the emotional chaos that she constantly stirred up. And so that was basically my life until just before my 17th birthday, when I was thrown out of the house. Those parents also divorced, I think when I was about 16.

And so my mother, my second adoptive mother made it very clear that she wanted me out of the house. So as soon as I graduated high school and I managed to graduate a year early, not unexpectedly, she threw me out of the house and given [00:07:00] the, the childhood that I had, I was not at all ready for independence psychologically or practically. And I am extremely grateful that I got out when I did. So I've never regretted that happened, but I also recognize that like I was still a child, even today I'm in my early fifties, but I just feel like that sense of not being ready. for life is so deeply ingrained.

I was not ready when I was an infant. I was not ready when I was nine years old. It was not ready when I was 16 years old. And I still feel that, oh my God, I'm not ready. Like it's too much. So that's my adoption story in a nutshell.

Haley Radke: I'm so sorry. I've heard You share your story in other ways, and I still hear it, and I just think, oh, it's so unfair and difficult, so difficult.[00:08:00]

What do you hear when people say the words, forever family?

Julian Washio-Collette: Oh, God, I don't know. That's an interesting question. So what comes up for me immediately, I'm thinking adoption people use the, that terminology when referring to adoption, right? So it's already, it's a false narrative because there is no forever.

You've already, an adopted person is someone who's already lost part of their forever. So to me, being an adopted child is having to take on a false identity. And it certainly was for me, absolutely the language that we use such as forever family just obscures the reality. It creates a kind of false veneer over something very tragic and broken.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I've been thinking about that since knowing we were going to talk because I just, [00:09:00] whenever I hear that phrase, it makes me so upset because I know it's not true. And I think of exactly what you just said. This falsehood, really, that we're like putting someone in this like perfect home that is so much better than what they were originally intended to, live out.

And it's just not the case.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah. One thing I would add from my own experience is the, I think maybe every adoptees, but certainly many adoptees secret fears that they're going to be given up again, so there's always that, there's the promise of a forever family. And then there's that underlying anxiety.

And so for me, that was not just an anxiety. It was a reality. So I know that's not a guarantee. There's no security.

Haley Radke: So going out, launching into the world, unprepared, with [00:10:00] no support system behind you. What was that like? What were your next years like?

Julian Washio-Collette: Fortunately the mother of an acquaintance of mine gave me a place to stay.

I spent a week just couch surfing, and then I had a place to stay for about a year. After that, one of my cousins from my first adoptive family actually tracked me down because I had turned 18. So I have a lot of reunion stories. And it can get very complicated.

Haley Radke: Wait, how is that possible?

Julian Washio-Collette: I have a lot of stories. I don't know how true they are. But when I reconnected with members of my first adoptive family, namely my cousins, aunt and uncle, they claimed that when I was placed for adoption, they were not told until after the fact, or at least until it was too late to do anything to intervene. They claimed that they would have taken me in.

I do not know if that's true. But it [00:11:00] sounds like they had no say in that process. They also claimed that they just, they found out where we lived and they found the phone number of our new home, which happened to only be seven miles away and that they tried to call the house once and got my younger sister on the phone, but decided to let, just to back up back away and trust that things will work out.

So it sounds like they already had some information on us. I have absolutely no idea how they could have acquired that. So I don't know, but they tracked me down. I think they got ahold of my sister at our adopter's home. And then she contacted me. So that was a really gosh, so here I am.

I'm meeting my aunt, uncle, and cousins for the first time in eight or nine years. And, my God here I was, like, I had to disown who I was for the first nine years of my life and become a completely different person. And now I am with the people [00:12:00] who did not know me as that other person. They only knew me as the person I was supposed to disown.

And it caused, it caused such incredible internal turmoil. So during that time, my drug of choice was punk rock music. So I just remember like I would visit them and then I would just drive home and just have to turn up, just listen to this incredibly aggressive, despairing music at full blast just to know that there was something in the world that mirrored my insides. It was way more than I can handle and I didn't have any support or guidance. Yeah, it was very overwhelming.

Haley Radke: How do you get from there to I'm picturing you rocking out to this punk rock music to the simple monastic lifestyle that you live in now, that's is, I'm picturing like a wide gap, but maybe it's closer than I think.[00:13:00]

Julian Washio-Collette: Oh gosh. So just for the record, I don't live in a monastery now. I did. I was actually a Catholic monk for four and a half years. I also lived in Buddhist monasteries and my wife and I just moved from living in a monastery for five years. We were the housekeepers there. So I do have a lot of experience in spiritual community and monastic communities.

So yeah, so that is quite a big shift. I think in part because of the turmoil I experienced, I had a lot of big existential questions. that I had to face. And so I was very spiritually curious from a fairly young age, which is to say I also want to say there was no, especially in my second adoptive family, There was no real religiosity or spiritual or intellectual curiosity, so I really had, it really had to come from me.

And so in my early 20s, I was invited to [00:14:00] come to a Zen Buddhist meditation group. And so in my 20s meditation became a very big part of my life, to the extent that I eventually moved into a Zen Buddhist community, spent some time at a monastery. I do want to say I think when I think about the things that I've done in my life and the things that have been very meaningful, there's the sense of ambiguity about them because like on one level, I think I am a very, I have a strong spiritual orientation and I may have made similar choices if I wasn't a double adoptee and yet, for instance, like I had this strong interest in community living in part because I had this deep hunger for the holding environment that I never had.

I didn't feel ready to be an individual, to be an I, like I was looking for that foundation of we, where's the we to which I belong, to [00:15:00] whom I belong that can mirror me, nurture me so that I can be an I in the world. So I came to community living with this kind of dual consciousness. And one, part of that was like, hey fill up what I didn't get, right?

I think that was the kind of unconscious agenda. And of course that never works. It doesn't work in individual relationships. It doesn't work in relationship to communities. And so I struggled a great deal. I struggled in individual relationships, but I also struggled in community living because I was plagued with this sense of I don't belong.

I'm not sharing in what other people are sharing in. At the same time, I found it very meaningful and I found the spiritual practice very meaningful, and that eventually led me to becoming a monk.

Haley Radke: When did you, I don't know how to put this, because it's probably something going on in the background, right?

But when do you realize [00:16:00] I don't know who I am.

Julian Washio-Collette: Oh, God.

Haley Radke: And it's because I've had these disruptions. These familial disruptions,

Julian Washio-Collette: I lived that implicitly my whole life, obviously. And so that was part of, like part of, going from community to community and not finding on the surface I thought I wasn't finding my place in the world, but I wasn't finding me. I wasn't finding a mirror, a stable mirror that reflected who I was, I don't think that I got really explicit about that until honestly, discovering Adoptees On in 2020, when I really started to learn about how adoption impacted me.

I've definitely had other experiences and other understandings. Like I, I definitely knew I had a lot of identity confusion, but I didn't appreciate the depths of [00:17:00] it until I started learning about the impacts of adoption and working with an adoptee therapist in particular.

Haley Radke: So how did you find Adoptees On? What were you looking for?

Julian Washio-Collette: Sure. So again, this was in 2020, September of 2020 during the pandemic. I was about, gosh, I was about a year out of re, not out of reunion, but like I, my reunion started in winter of 2018, and I met both sides of my birth family, including my mother and father in 2019. My wife and I actually went, spent a summer renting a house in New York and the Finger Lakes region where I could be closer to my family.

And that was a big deal, obviously. And there's a lot that we can talk about there, but I just want to say, I was a year later and the dust had settled from reunion, so to speak, and [00:18:00] it was definitely it, it answered a lot of my questions. It really filled in something for me.

I feel it physically because for me, especially as a double adoptee to know people and to meet people with whom I'm irrefutably related to no matter what the quality of relationship is, was profound. Like it, it's almost, like it's almost a physical sensation. It's okay, like I actually exist on planet earth.

And there's the proof. And yet reunion was also in some respects disillusioning. Like it, it didn't fill the ache. It didn't give me that sense of belonging and identity that I craved. And so I was in that space, when I happened to be listening to another podcast, a storytelling podcast that had nothing to do with adoption, but this woman was talking about her experience [00:19:00] of trying to adopt two brothers, eight, nine years old, out of foster care, and it was a very painful story to listen to because it did not work.

And these two boys were just abruptly whisked away one day without any warning. And that, hearing that story just pierced me to the heart. And so it just opened up a whole other level. It's hey, I'm adopted. I'm still suffering. What do I do? Like I need community. That's the, that was my first thought I need to meet other people.

And as soon as that story ended I got on the computer and I googled Adoptee Podcast, because I was, yeah, I was actually at the monastery. I had a job that didn't ask for a lot of mental energy. I could listen to as many podcasts a day as I wanted to. And Adoptees On was the first one that came up.[00:20:00]

So I, I started binge listening. And I think I, I actually contacted you because I, and I do have this kind of, yeah, this kind of dual relationship to the adoptee community because on one level I relate to what people are sharing and that was incredibly inspiring. relieving, healing, and I don't hear stories that sound like mine.

So shortly after I started listening, I became a Patreon supporter and I went to an event. I don't know if you remember, but it was some kind of celebration. I think it was like 150, 000 somethings. And I was, I was conspicuous because no one knew me. So at some point someone asked like, what do you want to introduce yourself?

And I felt such a weight because I, on one level, I was feeling relief okay, I found my people. And at another level, I still, I have, and I had a lot [00:21:00] of shame. Like I have to say not only that I was adopted, but that I was adopted twice. And so that was really difficult for me. Yeah.

Haley Radke: I was trying to think if I've, if I know anyone else, I still don't think I know anyone else. Have you met other people that have been relinquished twice now?

Julian Washio-Collette: I haven't. I've met people who've been in multiple foster care placements, but to me that's a very different thing because when you're in foster, I wasn't foster care. I don't remember when I was a baby. When you're in foster care, they don't change your birth certificate. They don't make it illegal for anyone you've known to have contact with you. So I think, I do think that's a very different experience.

I

Haley Radke: hope that if someone listening has had that same experience as you, they will reach out to you. So you can, [00:22:00] unfortunately, relate to it. I don't know what to say, but I do feel like, I, I remember you asking me at one point did I know? And I'm like no, you're a unicorn. Oh.

Julian Washio-Collette: Did you know that Astrid Castro? Named me an adoptee unicorn. Okay. She actually, I was on one of Adoption Mosaics We the Experts panels. And it was, the topic was adoption, disruption and dissolution. And there were three of us on the panel, but even there, our stories were so wildly different, that she ended up naming us adoptee unicorns. So I do own that name.

Haley Radke: Can I ask you a speculating question, and I want to go back to your reunion.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah, sure.

Haley Radke: Do you think it's because, I know there's other adoption disruptions, I know that. And I know there's a lot of re homing situations. Do you [00:23:00] think that it's, we don't know more adoptees that have that story publicly because they don't know, these things haven't been done legally, they're really struggling people and are just not

online and in community because they're having other difficulties. What's your, if you had to make guesses on the reason why?

Julian Washio-Collette: I don't know. I re, I really don't. I think what comes up for me is how I carried my adoption story until I started connecting with other adoptees. Like I, In a way, I bought into the dominant narrative I didn't think it was a big deal that I was adopted as a baby, so I didn't think that I, I thought that my experience is very unique, which it is, but at the same, at the same time, I didn't think I had much in common with people who were [00:24:00] only adopted once, until I started understanding better the impact of relinquishment and adoption trauma. So that could be part of it. My attitude was like, Oh, you were adopted once. Like big deal. I understand better now but I ha I had to be educated and I had to face the impacts of my own adoption as an infant.

Haley Radke: I really appreciated you saying how reunion didn't fill in everything for you and there was still this longing.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah.

Haley Radke: You know what I was thinking when you were sharing that? I was like, Oh my gosh. How did you tell your birth mother that you?

Julian Washio-Collette: Oh, God.

Haley Radke: And did it take you a while to have the courage to tell her that you had two placements?

Julian Washio-Collette: When I, I found my family through DNA testing, and when my ancestry [00:25:00] results became available. My birth mother actually contacted me before I had the opportunity to contact her because she was already on Ancestry, which was really powerful, and she sent me like the sweetest notes, the sweetest messages, the kinds of things that I wanted to hear.

I, I've thought about you and prayed about you every day of my life. And so at first I was in that elation, I was just talking to my therapist about this, but I think what's really important, I want to say for us, but certainly for me is disillusionment because I lived with this I call it the prime directive, which is find mom. I can't survive without my mother, right? So I've had that in my system since I was a baby. And because of that, I carried [00:26:00] inflated expectations, inflated hopes, inflated desires of what a mother could give me. So all of that. Came out of the box, came out of the box when I discovered my birth mother.

That said, After those first few messages, it was becoming quite apparent that things were not ideal. So for one, sadly, because of social media, I knew her politics, I knew her religious convictions, I knew that she was a Christian fundamentalist, and that we were at very opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of our political, cultural, religious convictions.

And that was going to make it difficult. So I knew that going in, but. As we were communicating at first through email, it was becoming apparent that okay I'm not sensing [00:27:00] a lot of capacity for emotional reciprocity and availability. So those, that, that burst of elation quickly diffused, I, I would say and, and one of my frustrations was that she wasn't really asking questions about my life and to me, it was this incredible weight. Like I, I can hardly say anything about my life without opening up the fact that yes, like I had this these incredible ruptures that I endured and so one day I just frankly, I just got frustrated and I just wrote her an email kind of spelling it out.

Just telling her what happened and sent it and she did respond and the response was disappointing. But I was ready for that, because I, at that point I tempered my expectations, but she [00:28:00] heard it. She definitely understood what I endured to, to the capacity that she could, but that was hard.

That was definitely hard. And I'm sure it was hard for her. I don't know that she knows how to communicate that, but absolutely. I'm sure it was really hard for her to hear too.

Haley Radke: Again, thanks for sharing that the hard parts because we like so many of us have these glorified ideas of what reunion is gonna look like and it's just not always gonna live up to our ex it's maybe never gonna live up to our expectations actually depending on what you go in with, but thank you.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah.

Haley Radke: I'm curious, you said you have an adoptee therapist, and I know that you've done some other work in adoptee community. How has that been going for you, and what are some things you want to share with folks who might be [00:29:00] nervous about joining in an adoptee community.

Julian Washio-Collette: Two things have been really important to me since discovering adoptee community, discovering you and Adoptees On.

So very early on she was actually at that celebration where I met you, I met Sara Easterly and she's the author of Searching for Mom and her new book Adoption Unfiltered which I was interviewed for, but she was, she and I connected because we have some things in common and one day I started writing, I started a blog, and I really wanted other adoptees to write with and so I just sent her a Facebook message. Hey, do you know of any adoptee writing groups that I could join? And she replied funny you should ask because I've been thinking of starting one myself. And I think I'll do that. So [00:30:00] she started Adoptee Voices and I've been a part of every cohort since then. And so that, yeah, that surprises you.

Haley Radke: That's a lot of writing, sir.

Julian Washio-Collette: It is. Yeah. And I will say, so that's been really important. And for one reason I You know, I write a lot about some really difficult stuff that I experience. And one of the things that's been so healing for me is that people who haven't had the same experience, adoptees who haven't had the same experience of me, read what I write and say, yeah, me too.

So that's incredibly powerful. So that's been a really important part of my journey. Early on as I was binge listening to Adoptees On I discovered the person who is my therapist and she's a regular guest on your healing [00:31:00] series and yeah, so I, I just, I started listening to Adoptees On at the end of September by mid October I had my first session with her. And I've been working with her ever since. So I really hit the ground running.

Haley Radke: Oh, I didn't know it had been going for so long. Okay. Okay.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah, so for one, and I did send you a Facebook message about this it was so helpful to be able to get to know someone through your healing series, to actually develop a real appreciation and respect for a therapist and to know like oh, wow. Like I would love to work with this person before I even contacted her. So that was a great service and I'm very grateful to you for it. So yeah, we started working together and I'll say a few things like I've been in therapy a few times prior to this and it just [00:32:00] wasn't that helpful.

So on one level, those therapists weren't quote unquote adoption competent. So there's that. But I think it goes deeper than that. Like when I started working with my current therapist, I immediately had a sense that she sees me, she understands me, or has the capacity to see and understand me in a way that no one else I'd worked with can, and that she's really invested.

And that made all the difference, not just being adoptee competent, but that she understands the depths of my wounds, the depths of my pain, and that she's invested in making this journey with me. So that was really powerful. And then the other part that's really important, given all of that, she put [00:33:00] attachment front and center.

In other words I'm already deeply committed to inner work, I'm very articulate about my inner life, so I'm good at therapy, I can show up and present really well. And that's what I did with other therapists, and they didn't take it much deeper than that. And so it wasn't very helpful because I wasn't attached, I wasn't attaching, and I didn't know any better.

Because that was just how I lived. So with my current therapist, she would interrupt me and ask okay, like, where are you right now? Because I'm not feeling connected. And really dig into okay, where am I? Am I connected? If not, Where, so really paying attention to relationship, connection, attachment, and that is what cracked me open.

Haley Radke: She's a good one. Wow. My goodness. I love [00:34:00] your writing. It is, I do connect to so much of it and I've read many of your pieces over the last couple of years since you've been putting things out publicly. And, I get why they're so resonant, like it's like I totally get it, you're a beautiful writer and I think all the inner work you've done all through the years shows up in your writing now and whether it's just with your current therapist or all of your silent meditative time, I'm, I see your writing and I see you have come through a lot of things, and I think it shows. I don't know. Do you think that's true?

Julian Washio-Collette: I do, because writing is where it comes out. My writing is a really good reflection for things I might not be aware of. It's a place where I experience my own strength, [00:35:00] power, integrity. And get to see it reflected back to me, not just in my own reading of it, but in other people's reading of it.

Haley Radke: I have one more question for you before we do recommended resources, and it's a big one. So I know you're a very spiritual person, and I'm wondering if you have a thought about, where do you think the spiritual aspect what is the impact of adoption on spirituality.

Julian Washio-Collette: Oh gosh. Yeah. So this is a huge question that I could spend a lot of time talking about, but just to be brief I really do think of adoption, which includes relinquishment as a spiritual wound.

And by that, I mean that I believe that it disrupts our [00:36:00] spiritual capacity for deep trust in existence, in life, in, in that which holds us. So I think a, certainly a big part of my own spiritual journey has been seeking that deep holding, mending that rift that I experienced right after I was born.

And I also that's the relinquishment part. And I also believe that adoption in itself is deeply traumatic. Our systems have already been, have already internalized this rupture through relinquishment, through separation. And then after that, we have to adapt to something completely foreign to our systems.

So we become, there's a kind of falseness built into our developmental process. So coming back to ourselves, which [00:37:00] includes reconciling ourselves with that disruption of what we've lost, and then developing some kind of faith. And I don't necessarily mean that in a religious sense, but just a basic internal faith in existence is such a profound and difficult journey.

And adoption puts a lot on our shoulders to make that journey. I think it's very easily, it's, I think it's a real temptation or vulnerability for adopted people to spiritually bypass either through, I would say, maybe in a more theistic or Christian vein. God loves me.

Everything's fine. Or, I. In a more Buddhist or Eastern sense, I meditated all the time more than I should have, I would say because I couldn't find a sense [00:38:00] of connection, an adequate sense of connection and safety in life. So I wanted something else like I wanted another transcendent plane that I could exist on.

So to speak, so I, yeah, I think that temptation is very strongly present for a lot of us. So it's really tricky adoptees and spirituality. We have that deep wound. We have this fervent. Need to escape the pain that we're in. And it can, it can go toward bypassing or it can go toward really delving into that rupture and finding healing.

And it's, it can be very tricky.

Haley Radke: Thank you. So well said. I'm gonna recommend that folks follow along with your blog, which is Peregrine Adoptee, and we'll link to it in the show notes and I'm sure they can hear from hearing you and how you speak. You are so articulate, and you have this [00:39:00] beautiful way of expressing things that some of us haven't been able to express yet.

I was wondering, can you just read a portion of your piece, A Mirror Infant, for us?

Julian Washio-Collette: Sure. Yeah, and I'll give a little background. Lori Holden, who's an adoptive mother, and she has a podcast called Adoption The Long View. On her website, she has a blog, and I met her, and she appreciated my writing and asked me if I would contribute.

And I wrote this piece, I thought okay, like I'm assuming that most of her audience are adoptive parents. So what would I want to say to an audience of adoptive parents? And so this is I think this is the first or second paragraph of that piece. Oh, I should say, so I'm speaking as an infant,

Some say I'm a blank slate. That [00:40:00] biology is not so essential to identity and belonging. But I am already charged with the dreams of my ancestors, communicated to me through my mother's blood, bone, voice, inflections, moods, and the rhythms of her sleeping and waking, movements and stillness. I emerge from her womb, and I know. My senses reach for her like tuning forks seeking a common vibration.

My whole body aches for the living field of energy that has enclosed me since my conception. I am born full of my own being, still inseparable from my mother.

Haley Radke: Beautiful. Thank you. I know folks are going to go check out more of your work. I just thank you, Julian. Just wonderful. What did you want to recommend to us today?[00:41:00]

Julian Washio-Collette: I want to recommend an author. Her name is Susan Anderson and the book I have in mind is called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. She is not an adoptee, and to my mind, to my knowledge, she doesn't write explicitly about adoption, but she writes a lot about loss and abandonment, and the impacts of loss and abandonment, even when we're infants.

So her work really speaks to me. And in particular, so I can say that I used to be what she calls an abandaholic, which means that I had this uncanny intuition to find women who would abandon me in some way or just not be available. And I would form these intense attractions to them. And so I had a relationship with one such [00:42:00] woman who abandoned me in a very painful way.

And I was just crushed afterwards. And I, that's when I discovered Susan Anderson and she helped me incredibly to understand why I formed these attractions, how I get out of these, how do I get out of this loop? And also helped me to understand that At the time, if I would have met someone who is just simply available to me without an agenda, without a push and pull, I would probably feel indifferent because I was so wired to recreate that abandonment experience.

So without her, I don't know if I would be happily married right now. She was incredibly helpful. And I would say, even if you don't have that relationship pattern, She talks about how when we experience a significant loss in our lives as adults[00:43:00] it reverberates all the way back through all of our losses, even into infancy.

And so she, she really walks the reader through the different stages that we go through which is really helpful because certainly I felt like I was crazy. Like I am losing my mind. Because I've lost this person. I am completely out of touch with reality. Surely I'm the only person who experiences this.

And so I've just found her incredibly helpful and I would definitely recommend her to other adoptees.

Haley Radke: Amazing. It looks so good. Yeah. I think I told you. I was like, I'm going to order it when we're done.

Julian Washio-Collette: Totally.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Julian, for sharing part of your story with us and for your wisdom. Where can we connect with you online?

Julian Washio-Collette: I'm not a regular blogger, but I do maintain a blog. It's called Peregrine Adoptee, and that would be the primary place to connect with me. [00:44:00]

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much.

Julian Washio-Collette: Yeah, thank you. This was great. Yeah, I think of how much Adoptees On and you have impacted my life. And it's pretty amazing to be here after all of that.

Haley Radke: My honor. Thank you.

Julian Washio-Collette: Thank you.

Haley Radke: I really hope you will reach out to Julian if you have had a similar experience to him, or if you know of others who have been relinquished and adopted twice. I think it would be really amazing if you guys could find each other, so you could talk about your commonalities. I'm so grateful for this community, and I know it has shortcomings, and so many of us have had a multitude of different experiences. And yet, when we have one or two of those [00:45:00] things like for sure in common like it helps so much to just deepen our friendships and relationships if you're looking for community I'd love to have you join us we have a weekly podcast for patreon supporters on adopteeson.com/community and we have live events a couple every month.

So we have off script parties where you can get together with fellow adoptees and we give you some questions to think about together and chat together. We have book club events where you can meet fellow adoptees who are interested in the same things that you're interested in. And we have ask an adoptee therapist events, which were brand new last year and we're continuing them monthly where you can submit questions anonymously to our adoptee therapists and we will answer them [00:46:00] on air for you live in a zoom call so you can ask for clarifications and we always have a little time to hang out with a therapist and interact with them and ask further questions, follow up things. And then the audio recording is available in podcast form following those events.

So amazing resources for you guys. I'm so proud of what we've built over there on Patreon and would love to have you join us. That supports this show to keep existing in the world. So thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

273 SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/273

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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. I'm so excited to welcome professor and sociologist Dr. SunAh Laybourn. SunAh's brand new book is called Out of Place, The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants, and it is definitely one you're going to want to add into your collection.

Today, we talk about SunAh's research, the realization that heritage culture camps are prioritizing adoptive parents comfort, the public's perception of the still dire issue of adoptee citizenship, and I've finally get to ask the question I've wondered about for at least five years. [00:01:00] Is being an adopted person a distinct culture of its own?

Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/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 am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Dr. SunAh Laybourn. Welcome SunAh.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

Haley Radke: Fellow podcaster, listen, my favorite people Yes. I would love it if you would start out by sharing some of your story with us.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I would love to. Haley, I've been thinking about this question.

My story and, for adoptees, we get [00:02:00] all these demands to tell our story, but it's something so special when we can share our story with one another, the way that our story and the storytelling that we get to do is a point of community and belonging, and it's not, a way for us to have to defend our existence or to make sense of, why we're here, and it's such a special moment I'm literally getting chilled right now, to be able to share in that storytelling, and so it's such an honor.

For me, I've also been thinking a lot about what is my story outside of the demands that people have made on me as a transracial adoptee, as a, Korean adoptee adopted into a white family, what is my story outside of just saying, Oh, I was, adopted from Korea when I was a few months old and adopted by a white American family and I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and I, don't have any siblings that I know of.

I didn't grow up [00:03:00] with any siblings. Oh, my parents adopted because, this reason, what is my story? What is a story that I want to tell outside of those demands to answer people's questions? And for me today, anyway, I'm thinking about, my adoptee story as how I've been able to come to this place of understanding that I do belong because for so long I felt that I didn't and not only that I felt like I didn't belong because people are always asking me, about my family or why are you here as Asian American person in the U. S. But thinking through, this idea that I can belong, that I deserve to belong. And that is how I'm thinking about my story now, as seeing all the ways and all the many communities that I am a part of. Which is a big shift for me. I remember having this conversation, an argument with my therapist about [00:04:00] that I could never belong.

And she was like, Oh, so that's a limiting belief that you have. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you're right. That is not a fact of my existence that I will never belong. But rather, that is something that I've come to believe through a lot of different experiences that I had, but that at its core was not true. And so that's where I am. At least today, how I'm thinking about, my adoptee story.

Haley Radke: I have a question for you before we go any further. Because you're a sociologist. And I've been, I gotta tell you, I've been thinking about this for years. And I think you're the perfect person to ask this of.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Ooh, okay. No pressure.

Haley Radke: Is being an adoptee, adult adoptees, is that a distinct culture?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah. This is such [00:05:00] a great question. I say yes. I say it's definitely a distinct culture. And when we think about culture, it's about the meanings that we share. It's about shared feelings, shared experiences, shared language, right? Shared way of seeing the world and interacting in the world.

And certainly as adoptees, and particularly as we come to consciousness, which for a lot of us does happen in adulthood. I see us making our own adoptee identity, adoptee culture, adoptee shared meaning making. And isn't it so beautiful to have a community to which we belong? That we have our own experiences, language, ways of feeling and seeing the world that we share among one another and that other people, they can't understand, they might be able to learn about and, try to imagine, but there's a feeling right that we share because of this [00:06:00] experience that we have that really can't be explained in words. It is felt and shared among us. And that's so beautiful.

Haley Radke: I suspected. Thank you for confirming. I wonder if you can take us down the personal a little bit, because am I correct in understanding that your first kind of toe into adoptee community was when you started interviewing adoptees that eventually turned into the book we're going to talk about today, which is Out of Place, The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.

Yeah, that is correct. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and because of the way well, I don't want to say because of the way that I was adopted, but certainly it probably played a role in it. My parents adopted me when my dad was stationed in Japan. And so we spent the first couple years in [00:07:00] Japan on a military base, which meant that we weren't connected to an adoption agency, which also meant we weren't necessarily connected to other adoptive families.

And so for me, once we finally moved to the us, moved to Memphis where I ended up growing up, I wasn't connected to any other adoptive families, any other adoptees and I didn't know that there were other adopt I didn't know it was a thing, it felt very singular and very isolating and very individual.

And, I had so many questions, right? I think that's very common. People just have questions in general. Are people like me, whether you're an adoptee or, not an adoptee, are there people like me? And I found no validation, affirmation, confirmation that there were. And so as many questions as I had and as many ways that I tried to answer that question whether through the library there was not the internet okay people there was not the internet when I first was [00:08:00] having these questions. You know how old I am but there's not the internet as we know it today. So I couldn't you know, jump on Facebook and connect with people or

Haley Radke: Hold on a second. What year were you born?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I was born in 83.

Haley Radke: Me too God no internet.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: We were not on the internet when we were like five, six, seven, eight years old, like we were on the Encarta CD, like pulling up some information, but not like the way the internet is now where you could like Google something or ask Jeeves or anything like,

Haley Radke: You're lighting up parts of my nostalgia area in my brain.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I was in the encyclopedia set that we had in our house. That aspirational middle class encyclopedia set. And, I was using the tools at my disposal, but I couldn't find any information about adoptees. So this is just a long way of me saying I learned not to ask.

At a certain point, I learned not to look anymore, and I learned not to [00:09:00] ask, and I felt extremely betrayed after going to our local branch library, my safe haven, my place of imagination, all the things, and to find there were no books about adoption or about adoptees. Maybe it was a good thing that our local branch didn't have any of the published, studies that were about adoption at that time because that probably would have been even more isolating and traumatizing because of how adoption studies were carried out in early decades. But I just learned that there weren't people like me. Or at least that's what reality had confirmed for me up until that point. So you are absolutely correct. It wasn't until I started graduate school at the University of Maryland.

I knew I wanted to research and understand and connect with like with other adoptees. I think by this point, I knew that there were other adoptees out there somewhere. And that's when I actually got connected to an adoptee community. And like many adoptees, was both [00:10:00] excited about the possibility of connecting with other adoptees and also completely terrified.

Haley Radke: Oh, you have to say more. Terrified of what?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Terrified of this idea of okay, what if, these are my people, they're supposed to be my people, but what if I don't fit in there either? Or what if they don't like me? Or, just all the fears that we have about, rejection. And so it took me a while to actually really connect with the adoptee community.

So I mentioned being at the University of Maryland, so in the broader D. C. area. There's Adoption Links D. C., a Korean adoptee group in D. C. And I knew they existed but I was really afraid to get involved because again, that fear of what does it mean about me if these folks who are supposed to be just like me don't like me, or I don't like them, or [00:11:00] I still feel like an outsider, then it really is me.

Haley Radke: I know you've shared before that your adoptive mother passed when you were still a kid and I heard you talk about how, I think it was Kaomi on the Adapted interview. She was like, did you picture it as being losing your second mother? And you said no at the time. Do you think having lost a second mother has impacted your feeling of being very sensitive to possible rejection.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah. So many things happened during that time in my life that made it very, I didn't want to even take the risk of having relationships. My mom passed when I was 11 years old. She had breast cancer. I was the last [00:12:00] person to see her alive. Which as a child, I made sense of as like I did something right you know of course, she had been sick and she was in hospice care and so it was very much inevitable that she was gonna pass, but still even then as a child, you think like I must have done something wrong. Again, that idea of it's something about me, like there's something wrong with me.

And then shortly thereafter, my favorite uncle came to live with us. And then he passed right in our living room, right in front of me, had a brain aneurysm. So again, something completely unavoidable. But the way I was interpreting, these losses was that everybody who loves me leaves me. And so very much from that point, as a young child, I was like, it's not worth it to have, deep committed relationships of any kind friendships, romantic relationships, family [00:13:00] relationships, and as a protective measure, I was like, I'm just not going to allow myself to get that close to people. And I felt that way for a very long time.

Haley Radke: And what's changed for you? Because I hope something has.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes, so bleak.

Haley Radke: No one will ever love me.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I know, right? It's just I didn't feel like it was safe. It didn't feel like something safe to do. And, I did have a very big shift, thankfully, and it happens, I don't know how to make sense of it, right? I can't tell you this nice linear package story, but I can tell you that in 2018 I reclaimed my Korean birth name. And so I legally changed my name. I know sometimes adoptees change their name socially, or just in certain settings might change their name. But I [00:14:00] wanted to legally change my name.

Because there is something about that authority of saying I've legally changed my name. It's on my ID, like you will call me by this name. This is who I am. And that was really important for me to make that claim and have, proof or evidence or whatever, that this is how you will refer to me.

And this is how I'm referring to myself. And I think that set me on a path to be all of me. I like to say all of me all the time with everybody, instead of trying to hide parts of who I am or try to make it safe, not even for me, but for other people to not see parts of who I was and with that realization of wanting to be all of me, all the time with everybody and understanding my self worth, I think, and my whole identity and not wanting to hide parts of who I am or not [00:15:00] wanting or no longer feeling ashamed. I think that feeling of shame, that idea that something is wrong with me, right? Releasing that put me on a path to say, there's a big life for me that I have been not allowing myself to accept.

And part of it had to do with not wanting to be vulnerable, not wanting to have deep committed relationships and just something in my mind said the only way to have that big life that we all deserve and that big love that we all deserve was to have relationships to be vulnerable to let people in to believe that people love me to believe that I could belong.

And so now I'm all about the relationships and wanting to be committed. And it's been a major shift for me but [00:16:00] definitely has been worth it.

Haley Radke: Amazing. What part of interviewing adoptees for research? This is for research purposes. So you can build a line in your own self, I think, when you're asking them the questions.

But what part of having all these conversations with fellow Korean adoptees did you notice? Something in me is shifting, I'm coming into consciousness in some way. Do you have a moment you remember or something you identified with one of your respondents saying to you?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I think what sticks out to me the most is connected to what you asked earlier about adoptee culture. Of seeing that and hearing that some adoptees who have been in the community for several years did think about adoptee as a culture and not [00:17:00] just this discreet, biographical fact, not just this thing that had happened was, and was in the past, but rather that being an adoptee was an ongoing accomplishment, something that was continually being wrestled with and created and grown in community, that was a very different way for me to think about.

Again, something that I had thought about is oh, this is just a fact of how I came to be in my family. And that was a new way of thinking that being able to define adoptee for myself, but also within community, which I think is just so key of again not it being something that was individual to me, but something that was shared and that it was meaningful and positive and expansive and something I could claim versus something that someone else used to say, you're different or you're less than.

And so [00:18:00] that, I think, was a big revelation that came both slowly, but also all at once, if that makes sense.

Haley Radke: And I'm just going to say there are definitely a couple of folks in the book that you quote or share some of the insights to say that don't identify with being a part of adoptee culture and are actually not necessarily against it, but are actively choosing not to participate in it for various reasons. Do you have a comment on that?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I think we're all trying to find a way to belong and to feel safe. And it might look a lot of different ways for people, sometimes it might look like not wanting to have relationships and not being able to believe that you could belong. And sometimes it can be, that there is a shared source of feeling a shared experience.

And [00:19:00] everyone's experience is different. How everyone makes sense of being an adoptee is different. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way but I can understand and empathize with folks who are like, no, being an adoptee is just, this thing that happened in my life and it doesn't mean anything to me. And in fact, I think people who, find meaning in being an adoptee, there's something weird about them, which some of the people in the book do say. And I get that because for so much of I'll say for my life anyway, that's how it's made to feel. So why would somebody want to identify with something that for so long, so many people have said, that's what's wrong with you.

So I can understand why people would feel that way.

Haley Radke: And why would anyone make it their entire personality and have a show about it every week and just constantly talk about it for years and years? I don't know.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I don't know! It's so weird![00:20:00]

Haley Radke: Okay, I have literal pages and pages of notes from reading your book, because I'm super into being an adoptee.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: So weird.

Haley Radke: This should not be embarrassing, because this is my whole job. Okay. First, I want to talk about you talk to some Korean adoptees who identify as white. And in my own personal relationships with fellow adoptees, like I've heard that from friends saying, I look in the mirror, I expect to see a white person.

And. For me, white woman, I'm like, okay, I don't understand, but there is this expectation that you're, look like part of your family and it's incongruent.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Can you share about what you heard when people were [00:21:00] telling you that? And did you personally feel that way ever?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, such a great question. It is such a common Korean adoptee experience for Korean adoptees who are adopted into white families to say at some point, yeah, I thought I was white, right? Like my mom and dad are white. Maybe they even had sibling grew up with siblings that were biological to their white mom and dad.

So it seems pretty normal. And of course, because of ongoing racial residential segregation, we often are growing up in communities, at least in the U. S. where it's typically folks who are of our same race. So if you're that adoptee in a white family, in a white community, going to a predominantly white school, you just begin to accept that, okay, I must be white too, right?

Not a lot of Korean adoptees continue to identify as white or to feel that they are white, though, of course, I talked to some adoptees who do, and the way that they're making sense of it is, again, tying [00:22:00] their, how they feel about themselves and how they think about themselves to how they feel a part of their family and how their family belonging has been constructed, that we are a white family, and by default, you too are white because that's what it means to be a member of this family. It means having this white world view and these white activities or part of these predominantly white communities. And so there's no space for the adoptees to explore their Korean ethnicity or their Asian identity. It's just not part of what it means to be in the family. And so again, that feeling of I want to belong. I am part of this family. So in order for that to be true, that means I also have to identify as white and to see the Korean and Asian parts of me as less than, or not desirable, or try to hide or minimize them, which of course we cannot, it is literally on our faces, regardless of how we might feel.

But again, it is that protective [00:23:00] measure, that feeling of belonging here forged through family, which is so important, right? For me, I never had the opportunity to think I was white. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, a very black, white city and it was very apparent to everyone around me that I was not white, and I was not black, and people made sure that I knew that.

It seems like it was a daily occurrence that people were asking me, what are you, or telling me that I was Chinese, right? That's the idea of every Asian person in America. It's you have to be Chinese. And so I never got the opportunity to think I was white because no one would allow me to believe that about myself, whether or not I may have, eventually developed that idea of who's to say, but I was never given that opportunity.

So no, I very much knew that I was not white. I knew that I was Asian, [00:24:00] even though I didn't really know what that meant. I wasn't part of any Asian groups, any Korean groups, any, I wasn't seeing Asian people on a daily basis in my community. So there was no way for me to make sense of okay, I understand this word and that I'm supposed to be this, but what does it mean for me?

I don't know.

Haley Radke: Okay, we're going to go to the adoptive parents. And this is going to really sound ridiculous, but I had a lightbulb moment in reading your book that I can't believe hadn't come to me yet. And I've spoken to many adoptees who have gone to heritage culture camps. You go for a week with your family and you experience the culture from which you were born, and you eat, I'm assuming here, you eat Korean food, and you do [00:25:00] whatever cultural things that the people who planned have in place for you, and you write, oh my gosh, this is so good. "Activities picked prioritized white adoptive parents comfort rather than adoptees racial or ethnic socialization.

They're safe and symbolic ways to engage with culture, and it's leaving their own understanding of race unchallenged." And I was like, Oh, yeah, because we'll just use the Korean adoptee example of Korean Heritage Culture Camp. All the adoptees are Korean kids who are being raised mostly in white families, and all the adults there are their white adoptive parents.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: So again, you're not being immersed in Korean culture, you're being immersed in Korean adoptee, white parent culture. [00:26:00]

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Sorry, that was a lightbulb moment because I was like, oh, they're trying so hard, but they're trying to avoid it still please talk about that and how you are revealing that to us.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. Heather Jacobson writes a lot about this as well in Culture Keeping and this idea exactly as you said, heritage camps. I think they're great. I think it's wonderful. But there are limitations because exactly as you noted, it is more of adoptive family culture, right? It's not in this case, Korean culture per se. Yes, there is Korean culture happening for sure but we're still maintaining this white world view. We are still not getting outside, particularly for adoptive parents, white adoptive parents, not getting outside of their white bubbles, right? It's still all very easy. Again, very symbolic. We go to this camp, we do the activities, and then we go home to our, our white communities, our white [00:27:00] world.

And we can check the box and say, oh yeah, we're doing culture. But are we? And for Korean adoptees, and for a lot of the adoptees I spoke with, they weren't necessarily making the connections between, oh, I go to this heritage camp and who I am as a Korean American, right? So it was still something that they got to do in within the scope of their family and even for adoptees who understood that, oh, this is something different.

This is something special. This is something, where I'm getting a sense of belonging and connection that I don't get in my other friendships or other relationships or other community groups that I'm a part of. For many of them, again, because it's a culture camp, maybe on the weekend or a week in the summer, it's not maintained.

And so still being able to cultivate an identity is very difficult when there are very few other ways that those connections are being maintained or that exploration can [00:28:00] continue.

Haley Radke: I think the other quote, sorry, paper noise. You say the parents made specific decisions to cultivate predominantly white social context.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And I think, that's still continuing to this day.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. It's an uninterrupted process. And that's, it's unbelievable, but yet believable, obviously, that this has continued to be the practice. But the adoptees that I spoke with whose stories are at the center of this book, there are folks who were adopted or born in the 50s and 60s, as well as folks who were born in the 80s and 90s, and still the same experiences, the same thing. And I wish things could change and would change, but decades of the same experience show that not much has changed.

Haley Radke: Ah, but we'll [00:29:00] just keep talking about it.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: We will.

Haley Radke: Hopefully it'll change for somebody, right? There must be this hope. And I believe, reading your book, there must be this hope that your work will impact how little adoptees are being raised today.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. I maintain that hope as well. I think I have to. And for folks who read the book, particularly for maybe adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents, hopefully folks can read it with an open mind and understand that, adoptees, we need more than just a loving family.

We need more than that. We live in a society that where love is not enough, right? We're still experiencing the world and all the inequalities that exist and you know having a loving family if you [00:30:00] have a loving family is wonderful, and that's beautiful and great but in a system where we are treated differently in a system where there are policies and also public attitudes that very much shape our experiences and life chances and opportunities. We need more than just love and good intentions.

Haley Radke: Let's talk about the adoptee as immigrant. And this is, again, I was like, oh my gosh, of course, this makes so much sense. You so amazingly tackle the adoptee citizenship issue, which is something we've been covering on the show for many years, and, I think people are still surprised that some adoptees don't have citizenship in the country they were brought to be raised.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And I found it really interesting, this observation you bring forward, that when we talk about the citizenship issue to the [00:31:00] public, one of the main kind of pushbacks is the public blaming the adult adoptee. That it's their fault they don't have citizenship as if they had anything to do with it.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Can you please talk about that? Because it's really silly and you elucidate it much better in your book. So please talk.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Thank you. Yeah, it is this weird kind of like inability for folks to understand that adoptees as infants cannot fill out naturalization paperwork.

Go figure. No, as an infant I could not do that. And so there's this weird process that's happening in people's minds when they find out adoptees don't have citizenship. Then we see this shift in framing. What I talk about in the book is, adoptees in our minds are these, children that are in [00:32:00] need, these lovable, cute children that, we can rescue and take care of and, fulfill that need of family for us or this idea of family.

But then when adoptees grow up, and particularly for those of us who are Korean adoptees or adopted internationally, we grow up and all of a sudden, we're not children. So people can't make sense of that. Wait, you're an adoptee, but you're an adult. That doesn't make sense. And so now they're like, okay, how am I making sense of this?

And they're like, oh, and particularly for Korean adoptees, right? We're Asian in this nation where Asian is seen as the other and not American. And so now they're like, Oh, okay immigrant, foreign, you don't belong here. You're trying to, again, like you're lazy or you're trying to steal from the system or you're you didn't do it the right way, right?

All these arguments that circulate about immigrants in particular quote unquote illegal immigrants And so then we get seen through this framing that americans can very easily pick up on [00:33:00] right this idea of like immigrants being bad and you know all these stereotypes and racist beliefs that we have.

And so you see that in the book, I'm thinking about, one of the quotes that one of the adoptees I talked to was explaining like, oh, people say, they should have done it. They should have taken care of this. And we're like, but we're talking about someone who was adopted as a child.

Like they were supposed to do this. And out of sight, out of mind are adoptive parents, the government, legislators, just all of this personal responsibility, right? Something else that we really emphasize in the U. S. Personal responsibility is oh you should have done it. It doesn't matter what the circumstances were. It's your fault.

Haley Radke: And then the next shift that is here is that you mention there's this idea that citizenship should be earned while the rest of us are born into it.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. It's just it's really phenomenal [00:34:00] how our mind just shifts to all these different arguments that really make no sense.

And that's the point this whole situation of adoptees being undocumented makes no sense. And so people are relying on these other ways of thinking or explanations that also don't make sense. Without just looking at the kind of obvious answer in front of us, which is like, okay, this was a policy failure and we need policy to address it. It's not about can I earn citizenship? It's not about I should have done this myself as an infant, but it is a policy failure. And guess what? In this case, the solution actually is derived from the problem. Of course there are many problems we could also talk about, but in this very small piece of it, we're talking about policy oversight and we in fact could enact policy to change it.

Haley Radke: Maybe someday somebody will be listening to this interview and they'll be like, there I did, they fixed that.[00:35:00] That's the hope. What a dream.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: What a dream.

Haley Radke: So you wrote a book, you got your degree you have a lot of podcasts, you do radio hosting you got a lot on the burners SunAh. There's a lot going on. Are you ever still, do you ever pause and think about the impact of the work that you're leaving in the world?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: No. No. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that question. No. And I don't think it's any of my business, the impact. I think it's my business to do the best work that I can and how it's received is not really I don't know. It's yeah, that idea of impact such a great question because I'm really like, ah, [00:36:00] I just I don't think about it. I think about can I have I done the best work that I can do have I done the best work that I know I'm meant to do or feel purpose to do and just release that out into the world and know that it'll go to the places it's meant to go.

And that it'll do what it's meant to do. I think sometimes when we're too, when we're too focused on impact, that it can cause us to do things in a way that might get more visibility, but might sacrifice the goal or the purpose or the. I don't know, I'm at a loss for words right now for what I'm trying to find, but no, I don't think about the impacts.

Haley Radke: Has [00:37:00] delving into adoptee rights and studying the impact adoption has had on fellow Korean adoptees, has it impacted your family relationships?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Mmmmm. Oh, this is juicy. It has in a lot of different ways. So once I talked earlier about. wanting to hide parts of who I am and my work is all about race and racism and adoptees and adoption.

And I never talked to my family about that. Granted, they never really asked oh, what are you? What are you researching? That's not something that they would ask, right? That's not a way that they would ask. It's more like how school going, that type of thing. And I very purposely never shared [00:38:00] that with them, that, hey, actually, I'm a sociologist who specializes in race and ethnicity, my dissertation is about Korean adoptees, and identity development, and citizenship, and yeah, I never shared that with them.

And I think that was part of me wanting to hide parts of myself, whether to make it easier for me whether to make it easier for them. My, as a professor, as a teacher, I teach classes about racial and ethnic inequality, but these are not conversations that I have with my white family, or I have very minimally.

I guess I learned, not I guess, I learned that talking about race and racism in those ways was not an acceptable way to be part of the family. And I'm saying that now as I'm like, okay, you literally probably wrote that exact sentence in the book because that's what the [00:39:00] adoptees I spoke with, that's what they were learning.

But that's what I was learning too, that there's a way to talk about race or racism. And then there's a way to not talk about it and within our family, if you're part of our family, this is how we talk about race and racism, as if it doesn't exist or as if people are responsible. Again, that personal responsibility piece, right?

My family is very conservative, so that's how it's learning that it was acceptable to talk about race as a member of this family.

Haley Radke: What would you say to other adoptees who might feel the same way? I don't think it's even safe to express this. Do you think it's, I want to say, I was going to say better.

Like It's, is it safer to not address those topics? Is it, it's tough, right? There's not a good answer here. Let's, why don't you spitball? And we're not saying you're [00:40:00] necessarily giving advice, but would you do things differently? I know that these conversations can be family breakers, if it's unsafe for the adopted person to express this intrinsic part of themselves to the people who are supposed to have loved and nurtured you and cared for all the parts of yourself but have failed in one really important way, it can for sure feel unsafe to address that.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, this is a difficult question to answer because on one hand, we could say, oh, like people are who they are. I firmly believe that our families are not very likely to change their ideas about race and racism because of what we say. Now, I know there are wonderful examples of adoptees and their adoptive [00:41:00] parents who are learning alongside each other, and I think that's beautiful. I don't think it's the common experience. I think it's more likely that our families will change their mind about race and racism because of something that their peer their friend, or, someone else says, but not what we say.

For a lot of different reasons. One, just family dynamics, right? If we're the child, right? And depending upon how your family feels about, elders and children and, all that they're not going to change their minds because of us. They're more likely to change their minds because of their own friends, right?

In the relationships that they choose to have. And so I think it is an uphill battle. On the other hand, I think, is it safe to not is it safe for you to not be who you are? Because there's a cost that we pay for hiding parts of who we are and not speaking up when we know we need to speak up and for remaining silent. There's a cost to that. And are we willing to pay that cost? I think regardless of [00:42:00] the choice or the strategy that we decide, there's a cost that is going to be paid, and it has to be the cost that we can live with.

So for me, I'm thinking back to, I guess this was 2012. Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown or maybe even after Tamir Rice and Black Lives Matter was first forming. And I had posted something on my Facebook page, Facebook, ugh. Facebook and, talking about police brutality. And one of my aunts was just extremely dismissive.

And it ended up in lots of private conversations about her just telling me how police brutality didn't exist, and racism didn't exist, and, all these things, and I just eventually had to tell her we can't have these conversations and I'm not going to have these [00:43:00] conversations with you and several other similar examples with family members where they were either gaslighting me or being intentionally antagonistic to me around topics of racism and race to where I had to say, I'm not engaging in these conversations with you.

And if this is how the only way you're going to engage with me, then let's just not. And that was something I had to do because yes, you're my elder, but there is still a level of respect that I deserve to have. And so really being firm on this is how you're going to talk to me and this is how you're not going to talk to me.

And there's a way we could still have a relationship but not like this. So I think there's a cost and we have to weigh. What those costs are.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and I agree that the adoptive parents [00:44:00] changing their perspective on race and or just ultimately that maternal separation is a trauma that adoption is a trauma.

I think it's uncommon yeah, and it definitely takes it takes a long time when you're not the one that's lifted. Oh my goodness I cannot recommend your book enough. It's called Out of Place the Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants and for sure fellow Korean adoptees will get a ton out of this book, but all fellow adoptees, I think there's so many relatable points in the story, and especially for folks who are passionate about adoptee rights and activism, you lay out some really concrete points for us in terms of giving us the ammo for [00:45:00] our arguments.

For adoptee citizenship, for example, as we discussed earlier, and for pointing out that white adoptive parents of children of color are not maybe doing their best work. And I really just appreciated so many of the snippets of conversation you share from the interviews with fellow adoptees.

And it's just so wonderfully done, SunAh. I really enjoyed reading it, and

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Thank you.

Haley Radke: I mentioned at the beginning you're a sociologist and a lot of, I minored in sociology. I'm like, I love sociology. It's so fascinating and so much of what is written about adoptees is more in the psychological realm and so this is a different framework that people can really look at it from a different way.

I don't know. How do you say it? It's not like necessary. It's not like it's just a step back. It's like a step back from the personal to more of the [00:46:00] structure and framework of it. Would you say is that more accurate?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Definitely. So thinking about that group level again. So that question of adoptee culture, right? It is personal, but it's also very much, again, made in community. And so while there are a lot of personal voices in the book and voices of individual adoptees, it is that lens of how are adoptees collectively creating identity and collectively creating culture.

Haley Radke: Very powerful. And we didn't even get to this, but there's this piece of language you gave me, which is the biculturalism. Can you explain that? Because I think that's probably really helpful for a lot of adoptees to hear.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. So we think about biculturalism in terms of assimilation or in terms of folks, from one culture, living, growing up or coming to live in a different culture. And so we [00:47:00] could think about biculturalism in terms of having and holding two different cultures.

So maybe it is Korean culture and maybe it is American culture and being fully immersed and well versed in both cultures, so having that biculturalism. In the book, I talk about, how some adoptees, they might develop some biculturalism, right? We learn a lot about our birth cultures, language, culture, et cetera.

But then also for adoptees, we might be creating something completely different. An adoptee culture, for example, that might be drawing upon a heritage culture or birth culture, but also the culture we grew up in, but not to the same intensity or the same degree, but instead merging different pieces of those cultures into something else.

Haley Radke: See, look at all the stuff you're going to learn when you read SunAh's book. Okay. It's so exciting. It's out in the world. If you're listening when this episode is dropped, [00:48:00] it's just out and so you can grab it wherever you get your books. And what did you want to recommend to us?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes. So my recommendation for folks, if you aren't already familiar with or following Patrick Armstrong, he's Patrick In The World.

I know this will be in the show notes. Another Korean adoptee, but someone who has very publicly been able to share a lot of his journey and a lot of the ways that he has grown. And I think it's so beautiful for someone to share with us how they're learning and as they're learning and so even seeing them change their minds.

And for Patrick, I know he's been a guest on the show and for him. To say like the ways that his own thinking has changed and maybe the ways that he was wrong or the ways that he's grown in thinking about his own identity or adoptee community or adoption. And so that is who I would recommend. He has a podcast. He has a newsletter. [00:49:00] He has all the things everywhere.

Haley Radke: He's on LinkedIn, posting up a storm. I love Patrick. He was on episode 233 and his show his Conversation Piece is Patrick's standalone show. And then of course he has the Janchi Show and some other podcasts he's working on.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yes. I agree. SunAh he's really putting himself out there. And that takes a great cost when you're sharing your in real time learnings, but it's really powerful. And I think that he's helped a lot of adoptees examine a little deeper. Some of the impacts adoption has had on us. So I love that.

Oh my goodness. I am so sad. Our time is coming to an end because I've had so much fun with you. Where can we find your book, connect with you, and if you loved SunAh's big energy and all the [00:50:00] things, I know we can hear from you in places too, so tell us all the stuff.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. The book is Out of Place The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants. I would love it if you shop local and bought it from your local bookstore. I think that's so important for our communities, wherever your community may be. So please shop local, buy the book. You can find me, I'm most active on Instagram @sunahmarieonly and, you can catch up with me and see what's going on in my world, and we can stay connected.

And that would be wonderful. And of course, the easiest way to find all the academic things that I'm doing is on the website, sunahmlaybourn.com, and we could definitely stay connected and continue to learn from one another.

Haley Radke: And you have a radio show, which is also available in podcast form. Yes. Yes. And there's several episodes where you interview fellow adoptees.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes.

Haley Radke: And you never hear it [00:51:00] here, but you interview authors of books that have adoption as strong themes. But if they're not adopted, they don't get to come on Adoptees On. But SunAh will interview them. There's some really great episodes, we'll link to those in the show notes. What's the name of your radio show and where can people find that?

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, it's called Let's Grab Coffee on WYXR, which is our local community radio station here in Memphis, Tennessee. But as you mentioned, available in podcast format. So go ahead and subscribe. And again, more opportunities for us to learn together.

Haley Radke: And I so appreciate that you bring your adoptee lens to your listeners.

And you're, yes, you're doing adoptee activism in a multitude of places, and I thank you for that. Thank you for sharing your story with us and your wisdom. I really enjoyed our conversation, SunAh.

SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes, thank you so much.[00:52:00]

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, she is amazing. So fun and knowledgeable. Definitely one to follow. I want to let you know, if you're listening the day this drops, you still have a chance to join us for our discussion of the brand new YA anthology, When We Become Ours. We are talking about it on the morning of January 20th, 2024, with editors Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung, and a couple of the contributing authors.

I hope you will join us. It's going to be a fantastic discussion. If you're listening after this has already aired, we will have the recording for you up in Patreon, so you can enjoy it that way. That is one of the ways you can support the work of Adoptees On and help continuing to [00:53:00] pay for production of this podcast.

If you go to adopteeson.com/community, you can find out how to join. There is a seven day free trial. We would love to have you with us and all of our live events are adoptee only. So it's a good vibe. Yo, I'm so thankful for every single one of you that supports the show and continues to help us do this work for you.

I am so grateful for each one of you. Thank you so much for listening to Adoptive Voices. Let's talk again next Friday.

272 James Cagney

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/272

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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. Welcome back. We are in our first episode of 2024. Happy New Year. Today's guest is award winning poet, James Cagney, author of Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, and Martian, the Saint of Loneliness.

James is known for his absolutely dynamic live poetry readings, and we are honored with a reading in this very episode. We discuss how James came to find out he was adopted. And as usual, I've got questions about why parents keep these things a secret. Before we get started, [00:01:00] I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/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 am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, James Cagney. Welcome, James.

James Cagney: Thank you, Haley. It's so awesome and great to be here with you. I'm honored that you invited me to come do this show.

Haley Radke: I am so excited to talk with you. I'd love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.

James Cagney: I was born in in 1968 as an only child.

And had, I guess I have to come out and be honest and say I had a really positive and pleasant childhood. I was an only kid. And I guess if anything, my issue was I was mighty lonely. I did bond very [00:02:00] strongly with this youngster when I was very in elementary school. And it was one of those situations where his family ended up having to move out of town.

And I guess I bonded with him. So when he left, my mom got a different kind of kid. So my mom biologically could not have any kids. My mother and father, when I was born in 68, my dad was working as a longshoreman, a mechanic for the Naval shipyards in San Francisco. My mom was working as a supervisor and instructor at beauty schools here in the East Bay.

And when I was born, they were both in their in their mid forties. So what I was going to say is that my mom's sister. As I mentioned, my mom biologically couldn't have any kids. Her only other younger sister had 12. [00:03:00] So my, after my friends just sort of, went out of my life, my aunt would come, would occasionally send cousins down for me to play with or whatnot.

Because loneliness, I guess, was my only issue. There was this moment that I distinctly remember where my mom turned to me and she said, cause I guess I was whining about, playing by myself or something. It's not like I'm an outgoing man now, and it's not like I was an outgoing kid then, but she turned to me and she said to me, do you want me to take you to where other kids are?

And the way she placed it, the way she said that particular sentence at that particular time when I'm standing with her in the kitchen made me massively uncomfortable because it almost sounded like she knew of a place where she could drop me off if I wanted to. And I was horrified by what I didn't understand in that sentence.

And I was like no, I'm good. I'm good. [00:04:00] I have no issues. I'll go back and do what I was doing or whatever. It was like that. I had a fair, good childhood in high school about when I was like in the 11th or 10th grade or so. My father came to to pick me up as he often did. And at that time I was friends with this kid at school named Michael.

And. My dad gave Michael a ride back to our neighborhood because at the time, Michael supposedly lived near us. And Michael's one of those, I'm saying kid, he was a 10th, 11th grader, but I would like you to understand that Michael was also one of those young people that kind, that instead of wearing, taking a backpack with him. He was one of those kids that would use a briefcase or a satchel. One of those, okay? I can't define that any better. aS he and I are sitting in the backseat just kind of like chatting and whatnot, he just boldly and blindly just turns to me [00:05:00] and asks me if I was adopted, which just blew my mind away a moment.

Which just didn't even make any sense to me because I was like, why on earth would you even say a thing like that? You know I'm not adopted. Of course not. And I'm chatting with him about this while my dad is sitting right there driving the car. And I'm looking at the back of his head and that eternal cowboy hat that he's wearing.

And then Michael explains, he says, Well, it's basically because you and your dad are just so very different and I don't know what my response to that was I possibly may have just shrugged that off and just you know let that be whatever it was just like an oddity or so's that but he just asked the question and let it go dropped off and we went home and yes hey, I'm about to say a few years later at that time, I've graduated high school, and now I'm just getting in, I guess, to Laney College and just then starting [00:06:00] to figure out who it is I wanted to be or where I wanted to go.

I'm 19 at this particular point now, and one, it's a Sunday afternoon at this point, and I'm in my room as I am at just hanging out with with me, and, what I'm hearing in the house, actually, is these women have come to visit. And this didn't strike me at all unusual. In fact, I just shut the my bedroom door so that they can have their conversation, because I was barely interested in that.

Because what it was, is that for the bulk of my life, my mom's students at the beauty school where she worked after she retired, they would often come visit and hang out with her and check in on her because she, I will say was an honored teacher at that school and by her students. And it was on a regular basis that people would come by and hang out and chat and visit.

And I'm like, I have no, no game in that.[00:07:00] So I'm just going to sit in here and watch television. And then my father did something. I'm 19. He did something he had never in my life had ever done, which is he knocked on my bedroom door and came in. And he said to me why don't you come out and visit with the people.

And that strikes me. Very strange, but I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm halfway scared because he just did something that was extraordinarily unusual for him. Him being a very stoic, very Texas kind of man. And I go into the living room and the living room and the dining room with these open two rooms adjacent to one another.

And what I'm seeing is my mom sitting at the edge of the dining room table talking to a woman sitting in our rocker, that gigantic, lounger that everybody adds. And I'm seeing another woman on the [00:08:00] couch. with two children on each side of her, a little boy and a little girl. And I grab a chair from the dining room table and sit in on this conversation where they're chatting.

Turns out, this woman in the rocker who's come to visit is one of my mom's former students. And so I just sit here, hey, hello, how are you? And they just continue this sort of conversation about, family and life and whatnot. Two things happen. Let me say this one first at one point, the woman who was visiting had taken out her photos because this is, those photos would not be on the phone.

It's funny how my mind is trying to rewrite that moment, but women used to carry these little purses that also had photos in them and she took this out and she showed me some photographs of her son, her other sons of which she. Yeah, of course. I didn't even ask what that, why you were even [00:09:00] bothering sharing this with me.

Maybe just proving that there's other boys around in the world. She shows me a photo of a man in a military outfit. She shows me a photo of another man participating in a marathon. And she doesn't really explain anything about them. She just showed them to me and wanted me to look in that. And I'm obediently paying attention to the conversation and listening and whatnot, and hanging out and listening to these two older ladies talk. And I'm just waiting for my release to be able to go back to my room and listen to music or whatever. Then my mom says to me why don't you take the kids that the second woman was sitting with why don't you take them and give them some cookies?

And look I've mentioned not being an only child. I don't know how kids work. I was a I just had no I wasn't that gregarious with kids, but I'm like, all right, come on you guys let's go and I take this container down and open it and offer these [00:10:00] two some cookies the boy is my blood nephew, Joshua.

The girl is my blood nephew niece, sorry, Brandy. Allow them to take what they wanted and place the thing back on and we go back in the living room. These two kids sit with the woman who came with them, who is my sister next in age next in age above me. A couple of years older than me, if one or two or so.

And during that time, during that process, she said all of nothing. As a PS, her mother asked her not to say anything because she was just going to explode in conversation and chat. So it was almost like she was doing this purposeful Buddhist meditation of silence while she was there with us. The part of me that almost rang that I thought I knew her before was true.

Not only [00:11:00] because she looked very much like me. But when I would think about it later, I realize these two women have been to this house before, that they visited, and as a kid, I remember playing with her once in the backyard. But that was a hell of a long time ago and, and it's whatever.

Yeah, all of us, my dad sitting there quietly, I'm sitting there quietly, my mom's doing the chatting, the woman in the chair whose name is Rosie. She's doing the chatting. The woman on the couch is not chatting. The kids are not chatting. They're all just talking and we're just witnesses. The afternoon, sort of, comes to its natural conclusion.

I guess we better go. Goodbye. Maybe I they decided to hug everybody as they were leaving. I kind of don't remember that I just remember going out on the front steps as they went and got in their car parked directly in front of our house and just got [00:12:00] in it and waved and we all sat on the front steps of the house and watched as they pulled away and then my father turned to me and he said, do you think you look like either of them?

And my immediate answer here is, of course no, why would I think that I look like, a couple of strangers? I certainly did not at that time see or perhaps even wanted to see any resemblance. Beg your pardon to, a strange woman that I just was introduced to a few seconds ago or whatever's like that.

And that, Haley, is the only thing either my mom or dad said to me from that Sunday afternoon. And I'm going to give you another chapter to that. I'm going to say that Sunday afternoon went on because I remembered us making a trip to go get some [00:13:00] furniture or something or look at a case or something.

And I remember going to school the next day of taking classes at Laney and just feeling massively distracted because that question kept rolling back through my head. Why on earth would he say that to me? Why would he even ask that of me? And my dad was out when I got back and it's just my mom and me and I'm sitting on the floor next to her and we're both watching, Wheel of Fortune.

And I am just sort of not really being present with that. I'm just sort of trying to put together what just happened. And I just spontaneously then turn to my mom. In this space, if you're looking at it in your head, I could pretty much put my hand on her knee, on her on her leg from where I'm sitting on the floor.

And I just turn up and look to her and I say, Are you really my mother? And what she does [00:14:00] is she just takes this huge inhale of breath and she tells me this story.

She explained to me that the woman that came, that was sitting in that rocker was one of her students many years ago. She had, at that point six kids. And she was in that college, in that beauty school, trying to learn a trade, to make some money or whatever's like that. And she was going through a lot of hard times.

My mom, because she, had gotten into her mid late forties or so, was okay, the word would be den mother to all of her students. It's like all of them could come to her and she was a supportive heart. She was a hard, good teacher, but she was also just very generous.

She taught me the open hand [00:15:00] policy in that she once illustrated to me and said to me, if I put my hand out like this in a fist. You can't put anything in it, and you can't take anything out of it, can you? And then she said if you can put as much as you want in it when my hand is open, and you can't really take anything more from me than I'm willing to give when my hand is open. And I'm like, that made like a lot of sense to me, and it turned out to be that was an actual deep Buddhist philosophy, that there was no way that she could have learned on her own anyway. That was just how she lived. And she ended up giving and sharing a lot with this particular woman, and she said, that the woman had gotten pregnant with me and was going through this weird relationship and breakup with my biological father. And there was just like an issue with having enough money to take care of all of these kids. So she ended up distributing and sharing some of her kids to her sisters. Cause she had four or five brothers and sisters of her [00:16:00] own, so she would send a couple to Louisiana from the state where where she was from, and so on and so forth.

The dude in the military outfit that she shared with me, she sent him to military school. It was just there was just a lot of drama and stress, and she felt I guess, if I can talk for her, she could not be present. for, raising a brand new kid. What her plan was and what she asked my mom was to take care of me for a few years until she got her life together and then she would come back and claim. And my mom agreed to that. And what do you call it? When then I was born, what my mom told me is that she and my dad was both getting ready to go to work. They were dressing and whatever it was like that. And the phone rang. The phone was a nurse at Highland Hospital who basically said to her my mom had told me that she said to her something To the effect, [00:17:00] Ms. Cagney, your baby is here and ready. And my mom was almost like what are you talking about? Seeing my dad go down to the hospital to go see me and basically, in a way, and then, and a truncated story basically can sign me out of the hospital. And I stayed with them for the rest of my life. The addendum to that is that she told me that when I was still in arms, that she visited the house again and asked to borrow me to take me to the, for the day to at least show the rest of her family me and who I was.

Haley Radke: Your birth mother.

James Cagney: Correct. Because, it is possible, and after meeting her, it is totally possible that she thought that a shared child was reasonable, but she thought that would actually be a plan and could work. And she just wanted to introduce me to the other side of my life. And the way my mother explained it [00:18:00] is that when Rosie, my biological mom, then took me and left the house, from that moment, I started crying and did not stop for the entire trip until Rosie brought me back to that house and put me back in, in my mom, whose name was was Juanita. Placed me back in her arms and then I stopped. And if I'm not mistaken, I think that was one of the last times that she just kind of physically came to visit me. But to answer a phantom question I do believe that the two of them remained in continuous contact throughout my life off and on and just made a decision to sort of leave me out of their conversation and or, periodic check in relationship.

Haley Radke: Did you ever ask them why they didn't tell [00:19:00] you? All of them.

James Cagney: I did not have. Which I'm going to describe here as this wonderfully brave soap opera moments of turning to anybody and saying, why didn't you say something beforehand? And I sitting here thinking about that, strangely, I don't think that ever would have occurred to me. I don't know. And, and it's I've listened to a couple of your podcasts and I've heard a couple of stories from other adoptees or whatnot.

And there is this consistent sort of thing about, at least being confronted by the idea of adoption and then feeling a need to close this sudden mystery as to who is this mysterious person then that left me with you? Or, what was the circumstances of why did this happen? The why of [00:20:00] it, honest on everything I can tell you, just never, ever occurred to me because there was never, even after they left the house when I'm an adult, there was never a point when I felt unhappy or dissatisfied where I was like, I feel like there's some other story going on here. There was never a moment where I felt separated. There was never a moment when I felt uncomfortable. There was never a moment when I felt that something was wrong with the relationship that I had with my parents.

I was fat and happy as far as I was concerned. And there was never a trigger for me to want to chase that car and answer any questions. I had no questions. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Do you know, that's, I'm sorry to say this to you, that is so strange to me just in the fact that they knew this huge secret about you.[00:21:00]

They had her over and sat her with you in the living room. And if you hadn't asked your mother, were they ever going to tell you?

James Cagney: And you know something? Later. Later. I'm actually, I may not watch the screen depending on your response to this, but later sometime later, how long later was this? I don't know what weeks, months maybe a year or something.

At some point, my father sort of explained to me that they must have reckoned. Let me say it like this. They wanted to prevent me from meeting and falling in love with a relative I did not know. That I guess that was the trigger that possibly made this happen. No one, my father, for example, never ever circled back to that moment with me and Michael and him in the car and said anything to me ever [00:22:00] about that, positive or negative.

My read of it now as a middle aged man and then looking back at the details and the patterns of how all that works. I'm pretty sure that he and my mom talked about that and then they had to figure out how exactly and when exactly to introduce this concept to to me. And that apparently, from my understanding, that was how they did it.

They decided to just have this big meetup and see what would happen.

Haley Radke: So it was like bread crumbing you? So you would ask instead of them outright telling you that was the plan.

James Cagney: Correct. Because, they've been, that does take all the pressure off of them, because I guess, and you may have a better insight on this than I would, I guess there is then this certain pressure for the parents of adopted kids, because then you have one of two kind of adopted kids.

[00:23:00] You have a kid that you purposefully went out and adopted as an older kid. And you have a kid that you may have purposefully went out and adopted as a baby. And your decision becomes, do we raise this infant with full knowledge that we are taking care of this infant for someone who is missing and not present?

Do we wait for this kid to ask us about certain things and then we just tell them the truth. I don't even know what the sort of familial family ethics about that would be. I don't even know what a lot, what has happened in a lot of other families where a person has been adopted as an infant and then needed to have it revealed to them that they were adopted.

I don't know what that percentage worked out. I don't even know what kind of stories those are.

Haley Radke: There, we definitely have more late discovery adoptees than we should, in my opinion. I'm curious [00:24:00] because I've talked to a couple of other late discovery adoptees who are also black, same race adoptions, and there's, there was a couple of thoughts that they've presented to me over a couple of conversations.

So one is there was still stigma and shame surrounding adoption for infertile black couples. And then, what you were sort of describing with your biological mother having, oh, it's kind of a difficult time, so my sister's going to raise these kids. Sort of the communal family is sort of like a normal thing, kind of passing around kids to, what do you call that? Just, it's a, like kinship situations, right? Which sounds more like kind of what your situation was, but you were legally adopted, right?

James Cagney: Correct. Thank you. Cause that conversation triggered a memory that I [00:25:00] think there was this long time when the two mothers didn't talk. And that was when I guess they somehow Went to an attorney at some point. My, my adoptive parents went to an attorney or something like that. And they explained to me that they somehow worked it out for me to be, a legal child of theirs on paper, on documents. So they, so I could get access or to, to their records or whatever. That's so that I'm acknowledged as a child and part of their family.

And I do believe that caused a little bit of a rift then between the two moms for a while, just really because they decided to claim me. I guess in that process, or maybe even from the first day, that was how I got my name, because my father was legally a Cagney. His name was James. And when I was given to them, that got placed on me as well.[00:26:00]

Haley Radke: Can I fast forward you a little bit? I know that you had a period of time where you lived with your biological mother a few years down the road. What was that like getting to know her? What was that experience like?

James Cagney: I listened briefly to this wonderful story that you recorded with another guest earlier this year, where this man explained that he went down this elevator and, to meet his particular mother.

And when the elevator door opened, there was this moment of them just falling in and just recognizing and sort of loving one another, instantly in a way that he had sent her, photos of him and his family and stuff so she knew what to look for, but yet when they saw one another that first time, there was this wonderful click that happened in these and [00:27:00] something made sense for him and perhaps her.

I never felt comfortable with that particular story because it felt. And I learned this as I was going through the process, but it felt very much like I was cheating on my family. Like I was cheating on my mother with another mother. There is no better way to really explain that metaphor to you. And and to fast forward through some stuff, so when my, the mother that raised me then finally died, and then I went and spent full time with my biological mother, and, and she kind of then went back and explained certain things to me and so on and so forth.

There was never actually a particular trigger. Where I was like, I am happy about this. There was never a moment when I was like, when I felt like I [00:28:00] am really honored to meet you and to figure any of this out. There was not a moment of a particular thrilling joy for me. What there was admittedly was this level of performance, this level of, I don't really have a choice here for where I want to go or want to do, especially after, after my family finally, died out, there was a sense like I have to figure out and develop a part of my personality that is okay with this because admittedly, I don't really think that I was and I don't believe not that I feel like they could have or that I blame them for that or, or whatever.

I don't really think anybody in the family when I finally met everybody together, I don't really feel like anybody really saw me in the sense that,[00:29:00] okay, I'm an artist. I'm about to say something weird. That I realized over time that the eyes are both a camera, and they're also a projector because I realized that you also that you not only just take in information from what you're seeing and experiencing, but there's a time where you're laying over information based on what it is that you're seeing and what you assume about it.

And I feel when I got into my biological mother's house, I felt myself kind of wrapped in this sort of weird plastic where people are looking at this creation that they have thought about for the bulk of their lives and have been told about. But, I never truly genuinely felt like anybody was curious and interested in me.

I don't know if that's a, that almost feels like a selfish narcissistic thing to say. And maybe it's kind of foolish to be dropped into this room full of people and expect them to ask me [00:30:00] anything about what's been going on with my life before, before meeting them and what that was like. But it always felt a little bit to me like I had to perform through this like everything is okay.

Like I'm not sort of confused. Like I'm not sort of in this weird panic, like I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with myself that I don't exactly know then what identity I'm supposed to have here to you. It was like this weird little thing I had to figure out for myself. And that became especially, I guess, looser or more easier for me.

After my mom died because I realized their death then just finalized and closed this major chapter on my life and technically in theory their death freed me to just fully embrace being now instead of a only child, the youngest kid for under seven[00:31:00] with these seven brothers and sisters. And then all of this, you know, huge collection of nieces and nephews.

And that is a huge difference for me to kind of figure out how to navigate and to be in. Because, I will say to you, I mentioned that my mom's aunt had 12 kids where my mom could not. When my mom died, my aunt invited and asked me to go with her to Los Angeles and live. And she just blatantly just stood there and stood in my face and invited me to come with her.

And it was almost like, because the rest of her family were out in the car and they were about to drive off and she was saying her final goodbyes to me, and she said that. And it was almost like, if you just want to shut the door and come with me right now, you can do that. And because of how I had been raised as an only kid, I guess I was so used to the isolation. I just didn't know how to be in that circle of 12 people. And consequently [00:32:00] I had to figure it out with being dropped as a adult into this circle of six. And then, yeah, to wrap back around respectfully. Yeah. There was never a moment when I had this great connection or had these great stories or had this great sense of sharing with my biological mother.

It was always a sense of me performing as a sort of. Just listening a lot allowing her to tell the story, observing a lot I don't want to seem like I was completely, a closed shell of a person, I'm not speaking, because I was speaking and talking, but it was just like there wasn't a lot that I could present, because I was at a level sort of confused as to what I'm supposed to do and what I'm supposed to be, both, to them as a family, And then to myself, who feels bifurcated [00:33:00] when I even hear now the word mother.

It's to drop that word for me, my brain goes into two different places. And I feel if you ask me about my mother, I suddenly have to feel like I need to explain something to you. And there was no real sense of gaining love being introduced into that other family. More than there was a sense of losing my identity and losing love when my the family that raised me finally admitted this story and then became sick and died away.

It's just sort of a pretending to be okay with all of this. Because I guess technically and deeply, I was not. Not that I was angry and not that I was, hateful or frustrated or anything like that. I just suddenly didn't know what my own ID was supposed to be.

Haley Radke: I think there's this thing in reunion too, where [00:34:00] there's a fear of revealing our true selves. First of all, yes, we got to figure out our identity. Adoptees have trouble with that. Most of, I would say, most of the people I talk to do anyway. But there's a fear of revealing our true identity because are they going to reject us again? And it's, that's really scary to look at.

James Cagney: Yeah, because I don't think, I didn't think of the math of I guess I did, and I'm denying you that I did think about it, because I guess, I must have spent some time writing in my journal about it, but it was that I didn't really think about the concept of feeling rejected. I don't believe I shared with you that I was the only one or made clear that I was the only one of her kids that she gave to someone outside of her immediate family.

But it never was like a worry to me and it was never a thing to [00:35:00] me where I felt like, I hated or had issues against her for doing that. To be completely honest, now standing here after she has been passed a few years ago. And then looking at the entire landscape of all of that with the grace and the apology and the support of God and whatever entities want to support me in that moment, I just didn't get to value a good relationship with my biological mother that really made me wish that my childhood was different, that I felt kind of mildly relieved after I really got to know her. I felt mildly relieved that I was not raised under her. There are assumptions on my part as to what would have happened to me if she had kept me and if I would have stayed there. And there's a lot of things that I assume never ever would have happened. I don't presume there would ever be poetry. I don't [00:36:00] presume I would be like a published author at all.

I don't even see how I would have had the time or the inclination to do any of that or maintain it. And again, as I mentioned, my parents were good to me. You know what? If I would think I was spanked like three times and I had it coming and, as a baby.

Haley Radke: Okay.

James Cagney: Honest to goodness. I was, I was raised really well. If I went to bed hungry, that was my fault because I was being a rat for whatever was cooked on that particular day. But you know what? I had a good life. I was happy with my parents. And I guess maybe that's what it was, is that my story got engaged with a touch of resentment because I'm living here in this life and someone touches me on the shoulder to basically tell me that the life I have been living is not exactly mine.

That it's this kind of creation that in a strange way doesn't exist yet. That's the role I've been playing since I've been born.

Haley Radke: [00:37:00] I kept thinking when you were talking about your like living with your mother and what was that like that the words blood strangers, which is the title of one of your poems but I mean I'm unhooking it from the title and I'm just thinking about that phrase and I've heard you talk in other interviews about your relationship with your siblings and those kinds of things And what you wished for or what could be different in those. And I thought, Oh yeah, blood strangers. I bet a lot of people will resonate with that phrase for struggles and reunion.

James Cagney: It's funny, because that was almost the title of my that first poetry collection. And I was in a circle of writers, and one of them was a transracial adoptee. And she had mentioned to me that there was this book written by a doctor, a psychologist, or something like that was out there, that was called Blood Strangers.

And you know what? And there was no [00:38:00] on that end, it was sort of like it, it pushed me to try to be a little bit more creative with what that title was, but that's absolutely how I felt for a very long time. I kind of recognize my face in some of these some of these folks. Yet at the same time I don't fully, truly recognize myself in this picture or what I'm supposed to do or be.

I just kind of I remember at the time just sort of feeling like I didn't really know how to do it. I just rode with the, I just rode with the wave. I also want to be clear that when I did finally go live with my biological mom and her family, everybody was very kind and very sweet to me.

I do want to wink at you and say that I feel like I ended up having a better, more comfortable relationship with my mother's sister than I actually did with my mom because I felt like she was when I told you that story [00:39:00] that she felt like she could give birth to me and then maybe in a couple of years come back and pick me up, that basically is her personality.

You know that she is just disaffected and just I just sort of watched her just do a lot of really interesting things. and that was what really sort of soothed me and made me think, maybe I got a much, much better deal than to staying here.

Nobody was ever awful to me. Everybody was very sweet, including herself. It was just It was just kind of, after I was placed back in her family, back in her, collection and after the honeymoon period wore off, it just sort of, then everything returned for them to normal and then I had to figure out how to be in this new normal.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I hope that was an answer. You should ask me if I, for clarity.

Haley Radke: I think we have clarity. I think I appreciate you saying the real feelings of your experiences, right? Because I [00:40:00] know you're not alone in having that situation. I know there's other adoptees that have experienced that.

I was wondering if you would read something for us. Which poem do you think will be the most linked to what we've talked about?

James Cagney: I want to talk about one poem and then I'm going to read another poem.

Haley Radke: Okay. Yep.

James Cagney: I'm going to ask your listeners to go pick up my book to find out what it is I'm talking about when I mentioned the Empty of Apologies.

And then I'm going to read, I Am Adopted. Cause I haven't read that in public in a really long time. What I remembered is one weekend when I went up to go visit, I at the time I think I was living in San Francisco, I had moved out of staying with my biological mom who lived in Sacramento, and I was back in my apartment after, hanging out for the weekend or holiday perhaps [00:41:00] with them and I was back and I was standing in the mirror shaving. Looking at my reflection, and I was thinking of watching her bake bread and explain to me what her life was like during the time when she gave me up that when she put me up for adoption. And she actually apologized and said that she was sorry for everything that it was that she, put me through in the context of telling me this story.

And I listened to and accepted all of that and dismissed it. I didn't really feel at that moment when she was even saying that I was even edging out for a for an apology of any kind. But when I was standing there looking at myself in the mirror I almost became a touch offended because I really, truly did not want an apology.

I guess as I mentioned to you earlier, I feel extraordinarily blessed with how my life turned out to be and how it [00:42:00] was. And there was a tiny bit of me that was almost grateful that it happened in that way. And I kind of realized, I just didn't want her or didn't need, thank you, maybe that's the thing, I didn't need her to apologize and cover for my childhood and cover for that choice that she made.

That, I guess it was alright to me, and we didn't really need to go back over that. And for her to be clear. I appreciate it, I accepted it, and thanked her, but when I'm standing here just sort of reviewing, that story she was telling me and looking at myself, I was like, I just don't want this apology.

And for the bulk of my life, I've been told by random friends and heard in random stories, don't say sorry. It's oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. I hate the word sorry. Don't you say anything, but don't say the word sorry. And then I just decided to turn towards that word and really look at it. And that tension was what the poem [00:43:00] Empty of Apologies was all about.

But what I really wanted to do for your show is this poem called I Am Adopted. Every so often, my dad would tell this joke, uh, that he and his, and my mom would, went fishing one day and they saw a baby on a log floating down the river. And my dad cast a fishing line out and grabbed the log and reeled it in. And his, and the end of his story was, and then we had a baby. He found this very funny. My mom found this slightly embarrassing. I kind of found it funny not really realizing that the joke was about me and that, that was kind of how my story got dropped into me.

That was the rawest seed of truth that they ever told me as a kid, as an infant. That they gave me a key, but they [00:44:00] had never ever indicated to what lock that was supposed to really open. I think this is the first clear time, I just turn towards the mic. Said it,

I am adopted. I am carrier of all stories and owner of none. At my birth there were no storks, just an armada of perch and sunfish, guiding me naked, unmoored, down river on driftwood. The name of that river, flush with butterfat free range babies, astride floating trunks like a colony of frogs, was never said, just this. The tale of how I came to be in your family without love's drunken regret or teenage impropriety, but rather a fishing trip where the big one was me, as huge a surprise as a tsunami.

Imagine Plato, a glitter in Vegas, or touring the Chitlin circuit as a stand up. [00:45:00] This was how my truth was revealed, couched in a drunken comics aside. I am the conjured one, and my life story is his big closer. Think it's easy making this [censored] up? Try inventing a real life. You are reflection of every previous face and posture.

You are reflection of every memory recalled, every shot of generational juice exchanged. I am the dust on your mirror. I am the crumpled receipt in your purse. I am adopted, from the Latin word meaning, to pencil in, to opt for. I am carrier of the virus of story. Along the fault lines cracking my heart are inherited memories like viral jingles for products they no longer make.

You are my cousin, my brother, my niece. Yet I apologize that every time I see you, I [00:46:00] must renew my vows. I hold the stories your ancestors are too busy with death to explain. If you can put your phone away long enough, I can recite their ungooglable stories. Stories you'll soon learn the hard way. I knew your grandparents and I ushered their funerals.

I collected empty bourbon bottles during their bid whist games. I can remember them planting the fruit trees crowning your yard. I can remember your aunt Effie saying, you can hollow out the people, but they still carry the seed. Blood knows the memory and ancient songs will play through the pinch rollers of your children's bones and habits.

I am keeper of the stories falling under the table. I am keeper of the virus of memory. I am adopted. Too often my dreams are full of strangers and my pockets [00:47:00] full of someone else's keys. My burden is to know everything and be asked nothing. I was born anyway. A kind of bastard with a license. I will have to be penciled in at the corners.

My mugshot will have to be footnoted in your family album. I will be recalled like a ghost, haunting the smallest real estate of your unused rooms. I will be fed everything you can't stomach. My mask is made to resemble your father, who taught me how to build a house of bottles and fish bones. But not how to keep it warm if I'm the only one in it.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much. I, in preparation for our conversation today, I watched many of your readings and listened to interviews, read a bunch of interviews you've done. And you're just [00:48:00] like, I mean, electricity is what I got. And so amazing to hear that from you. Oh, I know we're not in the same room, but I just, oh, that was so amazing.

James Cagney: I'm so honored that, I so thank you for that. I feel like one of the main reasons that I finally pushed myself to publish a book is because as a younger person, especially after this got revealed to me when I was 20, and then I started being introduced to the world of poetry, I never heard anybody talk about being adopted.

I never ran into poems or stories that covered this. It was like there was a sudden conversation that I felt like I needed or wanted to really have about this. And strangely enough, I couldn't do it with the only person I trusted, which is my mother, because it would suddenly make her feel a little bit different.

So it was there was nowhere for me to really go to process this. And there was no obvious places of conversation or any place I could turn for this. And I realized what an incredible, [00:49:00] blessed resource you're providing by doing this podcast. That it may have been a help to me as a 19-year-old finding this show if it existed back then, and hearing different conversations and different perspectives would've been a great help to me because I felt so massively isolated.

Yeah, I really thank you for for doing and producing this show because, in sitting here talking about this with you now which I haven't really done in a really long time, there really is no forum for me to clear my head about this kind of story, and I just want to give thanks to you for even, thinking to come up with a way for these stories to get out.

And to be shared. So thank you for creating this and doing this process. It's a, it's an incredible thing.

Haley Radke: Thank you, James. That's very kind. I want to make sure people grab your books. You've two award winning books of poetry. And so what you read from and the other poem that you talked about are both in Black Steel Magnolias and the Hour of Chaos Theory.

And I'm going to link to a blog [00:50:00] post where you describe coming up with the name for this as well. And then your latest is Martian, the Saint of Loneliness, and your poetry is so vibrant. It feels alive. It's narrative poetry and you have this I'll just describe your word choice as luscious. You're, it's just tremendous.

I've heard you say, you've called Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory the stand in for your autobiography. And for adoptees there's so much that resonates I think, in this first one. And then you have this really tremendous poem in Martian, The Saint of Loneliness, called The Mask, that I hope folks will also read because I really, yeah, that really spoke to me.

James Cagney: Thank you for that.

Haley Radke: I hope you might consider joining us for a book club.

James Cagney: We should talk about that. I don't know about the [00:51:00] book club.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. I think we'll choose one of your books of poetry for our 2024 book club. That would be really amazing. What would you like to recommend to us?

James Cagney: Here in the Bay Area, and as I said, a couple of minutes ago, when I was, 19 I guess that was Yikes, the early mid 90s or something like that or late 80s or wherever I was.

There were no real resources that were obvious for me to turn to, to figure anything out. I did eventually get to sit with a therapist and he ended up recommending to me an organization called PACT. here in the East Bay area, which is for adult adoptees. And I guess some youth adoptees as well, because I guess, they do a lot of work in adoption services here in the East Bay.

That is the organization that I really appreciate that exists. And I feel like it is extraordinarily rare and I give blessings to what they do. I actually went to one of their adult adoptee open [00:52:00] circles cause I guess they do a regular meetup of people to go and visit and talk about what's been going on with their situation.

I went to one of those and, couldn't go back because my own introversion and my own sort of dislike of being in public like that. But I really love and support what they are doing and I feel like that was an extraordinary thing. And I do wish that was available to me when I was a 19-year-old versus when I was in my 40s, when I ended up actually getting to go and finding out about it.

So that's what I would like to recommend back to everybody in your audience, especially those here in the Bay Area.

Haley Radke: Amazing. I'm just on their website, which we'll link to in the show notes, but it says we serve adopted children of color and their families. Honest, child centered, anti racist, lifelong education, support and community for adoptees of color and the people who love them.

So they have got lots of resources on their website, which is pactadopt.org. [00:53:00] All right, James, what a wonderful conversation. I wish we had more time but perhaps we'll discuss more of your poetry in book club.

James Cagney: Yeah, I'll be back.

Haley Radke: Where can we find your books and connect with you online?

James Cagney: You can connect with me online and certainly email me. That's been very successful at jamescagneypoet.com. Because if you're not careful, if you don't add poetry or African American, you're going to get the movie star if you try to Google me.

Haley Radke: Who is ironically, I think, an adoptive father.

James Cagney: Yeah it's very funny. It's very great. That's the whole conversation in and of itself.

Black Steel Magnolias and the Hour of Chaos Theory is available through a Black Lawrence Press which is this great, wonderful press. It's been doing lovely work. And Martian, the Saint of Loneliness is available through North Atlantic Press. And you can get that online yet and still

Haley Radke: Perfect.

James Cagney: I need to get more copies for myself, to be honest.[00:54:00]

Haley Radke: I wish I could reveal to you and maybe I will once we're done. My bookshelf behind me has over 170 adoptee authored books, many of which are poetry. And huh. I can't wait to show you my collection. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, James. I really appreciate it.

James Cagney: Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful conversation.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited. James is going to officially join us for Book Club in March of 2024. So we are going to be reading his poetry book, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, which has many themes about adoption and what it's like to be an adoptee. This month in January 2024, if you're listening, when this show is released, we are [00:55:00] talking with Nicole Chung and Shannon Gibney, editors of the brand new YA anthology, When We Become Ours, along with two more of the contributing authors for Book Club.

You can join us for our live Zoom by going to adopteeson.com/bookclub for details. Patreon supporters are welcome. We also have a scholarship program, and if you want to just check it out, check Patreon out. What is this thing I'm always talking about? There is a seven day free trial.

So you can register and join us for that this month. And we are so grateful for every single supporter of the show. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you so much. I won't ever stop saying thank you because you truly make this show possible. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And let's talk again next Friday.[00:56:00]