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.
A Bad Case of Stripes
- By David Shannon
I was introduced this book today in my Intro to Social Work class. We were split into groups and had to create a scenario as to how we would utilize this book for clients in either a individual or group setting.
The story is about a girl named Camilla. She is new to a school and begins drawing concerns with making friends and finding acceptance in her new environment.
While reading this we found many scenarios that we could use this book in and some that are very obvious observations. I don’t want to go in depth too much about the book because I recommend those interested to go to their nearest library and check it out.
- Cross-cultural differences
- Life transitions (i.e., changing to different schools, moving, work, families)
- Self acceptance and accepting others’ differences
- Labeling (racism, sexism, -isms, etc.)
- and more…
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.
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.
I think framing the discourse about transracial adoption as a “well do you think you’d better off if you weren’t adopted?!”… or “at least you got a home rather than living in poverty/the slums/an orphanage/foster care!”… type discussion is really fucked up, as it places the onus for reconciling children needing homes with the inherent problems of white people adopting POC kids on the adoptees. It completely lets the white people who actually make the choice to adopt POC kids off the hook and absolves them of any responsibility to do so in a way that causes the least amount of harm to the child.
No discussion about transracial adoption should be centered on whether or not I’m sufficiently grateful for having been adopted. It’s completely irrelevant & parents who expect their adopted children to feel some sort of gratitude toward them shouldn’t be adopting in the first place.
The discussion that we should be having is why are white folks allowed to adopt POC children regardless of whether they’re sufficiently educated/prepared to rear the child in a way that won’t do lasting harm. Why is it that when actual transracial adoptees and other POC attempt to highlight the problems with white people raising children of color, the first response of most people is to essential tell us to “shut up & be grateful for what you got!”
I’m glad I was adopted because if I wasn’t I more than likely would have ended up in foster care going in and out of white peoples’ homes anyway. I would have been better off, though, if I’d had parents who didn’t ascribe to color-blind racist ideology (as do 90% of white people in the U.S.) but rather chose to educate themselves about the struggles inherent of brining up a child of color in a deeply white supremacist society.
(via raspelfy)
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.
For more about her story, follow the link above.
A Korean woman raised in the US finds out she isn’t who she thought she was. An adopted man in the UK decides never to find out who his biological father is. And a man in Palestine discovers that he may have been switched at birth with another baby.
In response to some of the negativity that’s been circulating the KAD groups online.
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)
Advice to Adoptive Parents - Stephanie D.
