TWINSTERS
On February 21, 2013, Samantha, an American actor living in Los Angeles, received a message via Facebook that would drastically change her life. It was from Anaïs, a Frenchfashion design student living in London. Anaïs’ friends viewed a KevJumba YouTube video featuring Samantha. They were immediately blown away by the identical appearance of Samantha & Anaïs. After a few light Google stalking sessions, Anaïs & her friends discovered that both girls were born on November 19, 1987 & adopted shortly after. Anaïs knew immediately that it was possible for Samantha to be her biological twin sister & reached out to her through Twitter & Facebook.
Binitay (Teaser Video)
By: James Beni Wilson
“Binitay” will be a documentary film about James Beni Wilson, a Filipino adoptee, who was born in the Philippines. It’ll highlight his journey through his struggles of culture identity, healing, and reconciliation with his past.
This is only a tentative opener for the video documentary. Filming progress will be an approximate eight month or longer process and its final release will be in the late summer or early fall of 2013.
Being Adopted.
China's Dreamers: So my other Asian (and adopted) friend told me yesterday to stop trying to be a fake Asian.
I’m sorry that I really want to learn about my own culture. This is something that has always really bothered me. I just started to accept that I am Asian and I have been trying to embrace so it was kind of upsetting, but I understand that it takes different amounts of time for everyone to…
November is National Adoption Month
by: JB. Wilson
Edited by: A. Duenas
The month of November is recognized as National Adoption Month.
The Governor of Massachusetts ,Michael Dukakis was an advocate for raising the awareness of foster care, first acknowledged “Adoption Awareness Week”.
In 1984, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan “Adoption Awareness Week” became National Adoption Week celebrated in the week of Thanksgiving. President Reagan highlights the adoption of children and giving care to them with the help of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980. The acknowledgement of Adoption Week has given rise to many communities such as adoption, parent groups, and agencies whom serve as advocates and supporters for adoption and reinforce a positive light on it.
Since then in 1995, President Clinton has opened up the entire month of November to be approved as National Adoption Month. During Clinton’s term, his signing of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 has shifted adoption and foster and adoption regulations and understood the ‘racial background’, ethnicity and culture of adoptive and foster placement.
And now most recently, National Adoption Month under Barack Obama’s presidency in 2011 has revolutionized against many barriers within the adoption programs. These barriers which once had discriminated towards race, religion, sexual orientation and marital status has shifted allowed caregivers and possible adoptive parents opportunities . The signing of the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act has reduced the amount of time that waiting children are to be placed in permanent homes and of the International Adoption Simplification Act which has taken away unnecessary restrictions that regarded with trans-national adoption.
Pathos of Asian Adoptees, which is a submission blog, would like to share and celebrate with its writers and its readers, the brief history and acknowledgement of National Adoption Month.
Opening The Bird Cage
S. Flood
This is an experimental short documentary about my adoption and reunion in the Philippines. I made a lot of it poetic, as I use my mixed media as a metaphor of a “cathedral” I built inside myself when I felt broken in the past, with a placement of facts of my adoption, photos of my baby files/photo albums, and personal comments before and after the reunion.
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program Timeline
This timeline provided by the Smithsonian APIA Program Timeline helps provide the Korean American experience within the context of the larger Asian Pacific American Community.
Are you a part of or in-charge of any Asian Adoptee Organizations?
If so and you’d like to promote your organization on Pathos of Asian Adoptees, please contact adopted.asians@gmail.com
In response to some of the negativity that’s been circulating the KAD groups online.
Life's Just Swell: Happy Mother's Day.
So I have two moms. The two women in the pictures are sisters. The mom on the left is my biological and the one on the right is my adoptive mother. I feel very blessed for these two women in my life. I grew up not knowing I was adopted. It was like the Truman Show. Everyone in my life knew I was adopted except for me. Regardless of the circumstance, I must admit I am very fortunate to have two solid moms. Lillian, the one on the right raised me with a strict hand and an open heart haha. She showed me compassion, kindness, and a lot of heart with the people around her and with me. No matter what hell I put her through in my teen years, she always had unconditional love. We may not connect in ways a natural mother and daughter do, but to have this mother as a guide in life, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I hope to be a woman/wife like her one day. I woman with exceptional compassion and woman of integrity. I look up to her, not just as a mother, but as a woman. As for my biological mother, all these years, after the truth came out, I heard her truth. Even though they moved forward with three amazing kids, the love she expressed to me as being her first born and her baby, moved mountains within me. The love my biological parents showed me that no matter how far or how long, love knows nothing but simply love. She said that they have thought of me everyday and have been proud of the woman I have become. She instilled a foundation of love that I believe in to this day, the love that knows no boundaries or limits. A love that is selfless and filled with so much understanding. Maybe I’m a two person job haha. I was given a mother to guide and instill the things that we need to survive and to thrive in life in a positive way. Then my biological mom came in the picture later to remind me to trust my heart and showed what love is and what it can acheive. I cannot change my circumstance and I think now I wouldn’t. I feel very blessed to have two women in my life who have done nothing but the best for me. I am thankful to have a piece of both of you within me and I hope one day to pass on these strengths to my children one day.
May is APIA Heritage Month.
I made this to express the social labels, prejudices, and struggles to be an Asian adoptee, Asian/Filipino-American, and other facets of my identity.
As part of the 2nd largest Asian American group, Filipino American, while growing up I was and am determined to learn more and understand what it means to be both Asian/Filipino American due to my socialization in a densely populated white cultured area. I’ll re-emphasize the culture shock of not meeting other people of my heritage and ethnic background until halfway through high school and even made my own effort of learning more what constitutes my heritage, not my culture.
So for many APIA Adoptees, I highly encourage to express yourself and your stories within histories/herstories that we share.
Feel free to submit them on this site.
Geographies of Kinship -The Korean Adoption Story
GEOGRAPHIES OF KINSHIP-THE KOREAN ADOPTION STORY(working title) is a feature-length documentary that follows 5-6 Korean adoptees from the U.S. and Europe, each on a unique journey related to their adoptions. One person is searching for roots and returns to Korea for the first time. Another undertakes a search for her birth family and the reasons for her adoption. Yet another is seeking community among other adoptees. Some are motivated by a sense of loss, while others are well adjusted but desire a connection to their past. These character-driven stories will unfold against a wider backdrop of the Korean War and the hidden effects of post-war industrialization and globalization on women and families in South Korea.
(Click the title for more)
JB: Reception & Study Center for Children (RSCC) Cebu City
So I just emailed the orphanage/RSCC that I was in when I was younger in the Philippines.
This however brought me the most attention:
CLIENTELE SERVED
Children 0-2 years old who are:
- Abandoned/foundling
- Neglected or involuntary committed
- Surrendered/voluntary committed children
- Not suffering from any communicable disease, well nourished and not ill.
I was admitted into there when I was a newborn and they only kept me until I was two years old. After that I was placed into a licensed foster family who I lived with for one year I was adopted.
It’s saddening to see that for other orphanages that if children are not placed in a permanent home by 6 years old, they are left on the street. It could have been me.
Currently it’s 8am in the morning in the Philippines. I hope that they receive my contact letter and reply to me soon. I requested help to look for further records of my past.
Pao’s Adoption Story (I): The Colonel
It was a dusty Fall morning in 2010 in the Philippines. The streets of Manila were already tightly packed with street vendors, impatient taxis, and jaywalking pedestrians. The retired Colonel, a reserved man, quietly observed his fellow countrymen with pride and a certain regard. The traffic light was red, and he patiently waited for it to turn green. He surveyed the tightly packed neighborhood. It was the same neighborhood he lived and raised two children in for the past two decades. Trash decorated the streets, the buildings needed repainting, and chicken darted in between cars. It wasn’t Tokyo, for certain, but it was his home. He took pride in it. He was a decorated Filipino Colonel. He was proud to be Filipino.
The light had yet to turn green. He patiently waited as traffic started to pile up. A motorcycle pulled up next to him. The two men sitting on the motorcycle seemed to acknowledge the Colonel. They waved to him. The Colonel waved back. The Colonel was known to value his privacy, so it would have been rather unlikely for him to wave back to complete strangers.
The friendly exchange would turn deadly for the Colonel. Within a matter of seconds, the two strangers on the motorcycle pulled out their guns and shot the Colonel.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
They revved up their motorcycle and disappeared into coagulation of Manila’s infamous traffic.
The streets were left in panic and confusion. The Colonel was dead. That day is always going to haunt my family. The Colonel was my uncle. The mystery behind his murder has not been solved. However, in retrospect, through this tragedy lies a blessing.
It opened the door to my past: my adoption.
(part 1)
Beyond Two Worlds: Musings of an Asian American Adoptee
Meet Marijane, a Taiwanese adoptee. She has an interesting story to tell along with her dialogue about cross-culture adoption and her journey as a Asian American, Taiwanese American Adoptee. Please subscribe to her blog, Beyond Two Worlds. =)
