Archive for 'International Adoptions'

Parental White Privilege Does Benefit Interracial Adoptees

Parental White Privilege Does Benefit Interracial Adoptees

Last week, an article in the Huffington Post https://huff.to/1I0A0fj To The Lady Who Called my Toddler a Thug, written by Rachel Garlinghouse, a white mother who adopted a black boy, got my attention. Particularly because of her concern that her little boy, just because of his appearance was, innocently and not so innocently stereotyped by people whom she knew. It’s the US, I thought, and it’s a dangerous, racialized ...

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Women’s History Month: Part 2: Honoring The Mother I Loved.

Women’s History Month: Part 2: Honoring The Mother I Loved.

In the past few blogs I’ve written about wanting to love my birth mother Rosa, a woman I did not get to know. The mother who raised me, however, I knew and loved dearly.

She was 50 when she decided to keep me. her name was Esther, but I called her Mutti, for she was German. She was born in 1888, while Queen Victoria still ruled in England. Picture being raised by a Victorian woman! I could ...

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March, Women’s History Month: Let’s Honor Our Mothers

March, Women’s History Month: Let’s Honor Our Mothers

This blog post was inspired by Denise Oliver Velez’s diary in The Daily Koz, https://bit.ly/1F9qYs3 in which she writes about the almost complete lack of representation of non-White women when female merits are praised during this month. It comes down to the usual, that history is written by the victors, and those have belonged, in our time and age, to the White race.

I was thinking of blogging about women writers whose ...

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The Beauty of Having African Hair

The Beauty of Having African Hair

These days I’m again going through the paces again with my hair. By that I mean: now that it’s more gray and white than black, I’m trying to figure out what to do with all the gray kinks and curls. I wish I had the nerve to just go “natural” the way younger women are doing. I’m also fascinated by the way African women have for centuries worked their hair. Look at novelist Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi’s many styles! Here she is in my ...

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Dreams of my Birthmother Rosa

Dreams of my Birthmother Rosa

 

In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:

The night I finished reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, the wind blowing outside my window ushered messages into my dreams.

I was Annie John, and had ...

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The Page Turners Reading Group Invites Author to Discuss her Book

The Page Turners Reading Group Invites Author to Discuss her Book

At her dinner party last fall, Kathleen mentioned that I had written a book and suggested that everyone should read it. Suzie read it and recommended it to her book club, The Page Turners. “It would be great if you could be there when we discuss Split,” she said after the book was accepted by the group, “but it won’t be until February. Would you like to join us then?” Now isn’t that a wonderful question? I know of several ...

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Want to know a Black child’s thoughts about class & privilege?

Want to know a Black child’s thoughts about class & privilege?

Catana at 7years with doll LuluHere is an excerpt from my memoir Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity in which I write about having grown up as an exotic child among Whites in Guatemala City.

“On my first day of school, ...

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Happy Memories of an Adopted Child

Happy Memories of an Adopted Child

Those who seek to adopt and those who have adopted don’t want to read about unsuccessful adoption stories or hear from adult adoptees who are at odds with their fate of having been given up for adoption. It’s easy to understand why that’s so. After all, parenting is the one science for which there are no guidelines. My childhood, as the only black pearl among white ones in Guatemala City, was undoubtedly a happy one.

Going to town ...

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Being Middle Class: The Pain of White adoptees

Being Middle Class: The Pain of White adoptees

Lately, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with several adult adoptees, all White Americans, aged between 30 and 70 years old, who were adopted in the States as babies or very young children. They contacted me after reading Split at the Root. Because of the immediacy of the emotional content in the book, they felt they knew me well enough to open up about their stories. While we hurt differently because our experiences are different, our understanding of ...

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The Exotic Adoptee Speaks

The Exotic Adoptee Speaks

Blame it on the Gemini Mid-heaven or the waning quarter moon in the 10th house of my chart, or both, but fact is that I enthusiastically start a project only to let it lie around, sometimes for years. Then I find it, act as if I’ve made a great discovery, blow the dust off and continue where I left off as if there’d been no lapse in time.

That’s what happened with a manuscript I began in 2005. I had practically ...

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