Adoptees of Color by White Adoptors

This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and professional experience in adoption studies and activism. We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake, and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.

We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected, including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help. We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children. There is evidence of the production of documents stating that a child is “available for adoption” based on a legal “paper” and not literal orphaning as seen in recent cases of intercountry adoption of children from Malawi, Guatemala, South Korea and China. We bear testimony to the ways in which the intercountry adoption industry has profited from and reinforced neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, aid dependency, population control policies, unsustainable development, corruption, and child trafficking.

For more than fifty years “orphaned children” have been shipped from areas of war, natural disasters, and poverty to supposedly better lives in Europe and North America. Our adoptions from Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala and many other countries are no different from what is happening to the children of Haiti today. Like us, these “disaster orphans” will grow into adulthood and begin to grasp the magnitude of the abuse, fraud, negligence, suffering, and deprivation of human rights involved in their displacements.

We uphold that Haitian children have a right to a family and a history that is their own and that Haitians themselves have a right to determine what happens to their own children. We resist the racist, colonialist mentality that positions the Western nuclear family as superior to other conceptions of family, and we seek to challenge those who abuse the phrase “Every child deserves a family”  to rethink how this phrase is used to justify the removal of children from Haiti for the fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Western and Northern desire for ownership of Haitian children directly contributes to the destruction of existing family and community structures in Haiti. This individualistic desire is supported by the historical and global anti-African sentiment which negates the validity of black mothers and fathers and condones the separation of black children from their families, cultures, and countries of origin.

As adoptees of color many of us have inherited a history of dubious adoptions. We are dismayed to hear that Haitian adoptions may be “fast-tracked” due to the massive destruction of buildings in Haiti that hold important records and documents. We oppose this plan and argue that the loss of records requires slowing down of the processes of adoption while important information is gathered and re-documented for these children. Removing children from Haiti without proper documentation and without proper reunification efforts is a violation of their basic human rights and leaves any family members who may be searching for them with no recourse. We insist on the absolute necessity of taking the time required to conduct a thorough search, and we support an expanded set of methods for creating these records, including recording oral histories.

We urge the international community to remember that the children in question have suffered the overwhelming trauma of the earthquake and separation from their loved ones. We have learned first-hand that adoption (domestic or intercountry) itself as a process forces children to negate their true feelings of grief, anger, pain or loss, and to assimilate to meet the desires and expectations of strangers. Immediate removal of traumatized children for adoption—including children whose adoptions were finalized prior to the quake— compounds their trauma, and denies their right to mourn and heal with the support of their community.

We affirm the spirit of Cultural Sovereignty, Sovereignty and Self-determination embodied as rights for all peoples to determine their own economic, social and cultural development included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Charter of the United Nations; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The mobilization of European and North American courts, legislative bodies, and social work practices to implement forced removal through intercountry adoption is a direct challenge to cultural sovereignty. We support the legal and policy application of cultural rights such as rights to language, rights to ways of being/religion, collective existence, and a representation of Haiti’s histories and existence using Haiti’s own terms.

We offer this statement in solidarity with the people of Haiti and with all those who are seeking ways to intentionally support the long-term sustainability and self-determination of the Haitian people. As adoptees of color we bear a unique understanding of the trauma, and the sense of loss and abandonment that are part of the adoptee experience, and we demand that our voices be heard. All adoptions from Haiti must be stopped and all efforts to help children be refocused on giving aid to organizations working toward family reunification and caring for children in their own communities. We urge you to join us in supporting Haitian children’s rights to life, survival, and development within their own families and communities.

Signers:

United Adoptees International (UAI)
HALT  (Helping Adoptees Lead Together)
AFAAD (Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora)
Sahngnoksoo, Seattle, WA
So Yung Kim, Oakland, CA queer femme of color, writer, filmmaker, transracial abductee, Outlandish Remarks blog
Indigo Thuy Willing, Australia, Transnational and Transracial Adoptee of Colour
Lisa Marie Rollins, Oakland, CA. writer, author of A Birth Project, Founder of AFAAD
Mia Mingus, Atlanta, queer, disabled, Korean transracial and transnational adoptee
Leanne Leith, adoptee of color
Ida Davis, Korean adoptee
Danae Kovac, Chicago, adoptee of color, Korean adult adoptee
Kim Langrehr, Chicago, adoptee of color, Doctoral candidate at Loyola University of Chicago
Dave Room, Berkeley, adoptee of color, global citizen
EunHye Kim, Oakland, adoptee of color
Juli Martin, Oberlin OH, queer disabled Korean adoptee artademic and zinester
Kristin Pak, Adopted Korean American, unwilling immigrant adoptee
Erick Anderson, musician and composer,  black american Adoptee, Minnesota, US
Tobias Hübinette, Ph.D. in Korean studies, researcher at the Multicultural Centre, Sweden
Amalia deloney, transracial/transnational adoptee activist, Dezplazada blog, Guatemala
Tammy Ko Robinson, artist researcher, South Korea
Kim Stoker, Duksung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea, South Korea adopted to U.S.
Mervyn Marcano, PR strategist, afrolatino, U.S.
Becky Belcore,  Chicago, Adoptee of color, Korean adult adoptee, mother
Tammy Chu, filmmaker, Seoul, Korea, adopted to U.S.
Cori McMillan, adoptee of color, Korean adult adoptee
Brian Belcore, adult Korean adoptee
Bryan Thao Worra, author, Laotian American Adoptee
Tk Karakashian Tunchez, queerfemme adoptee activist, To tell you the Truth, Guatemala,
Amie Kim, queer korean adoptee, community organizer, musician, cultural worker
Diego Hayim, adoptee
Angarita Horowitz, adoptee
Connie Galambos Malloy, adoptee of color, AFAAD Board Member

Endorsers:

Jamaesori, Korean-Am progressive women’s drum group in SF Bay Area, adoptees and allies
Oori Sori, Korean American women percussion group, made up mostly of mothers.
National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)
Korean Resource Center, Los Angeles
Korean Community Center of the East Bay, adoptees and allies
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, adoptees and allies
Korean American Women In Need (Chicago, IL)
Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (Chicago, IL)
Working Hands Legal Clinic (Chicago, IL)
International School for Bottom up Organizing (ISBO)
Michele “Shelly” Vendiola, Co-founder Community Alliance & Peacemaking Project
Juliana Hu Pegues, PhD candidate, American Studies, U of MN, author activist, and mixed-race educator

Bao Phi, community organizer and spoken word poetYoungju Ji, mother of two (4 and 8 yrs old), working for women and children affected by domestic violenceMimi Kim, Oakland, Executive Director, Creative Interventions
Inhe Choi, immigrant from Korea,  mother of 2
Curtis Muhammad, SNCC veteran, organizer
Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, Oakland writer
Angel Kyodo williams, Founder, Center for Transformative Change
Steph Eunha Lee
Richard Wright, Bay Area grad student, dj, activist
Christine Hong, Asst. Prof, Asian-Am & Critical Pacific Rim Studies, Literature Dept, UC Santa Cruz
Yuni Cho, Korean-Am, mother, teacher, Southern California
Cynthia Goldberg, adoptive mom of an international/transracial adoption 25 years ago
Christen Lee, Korean-Am attorney
Christopher Williams, Attorney and father
Kat Choi, Korean citizen
Emily G. Park, Oakland, Korean American
Debanu Dasgupta, San Francisco, Queer Theorist
Elakshi Kumar, PhD Student, Dept of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, U of MN
Claudine O’Leary, Youth Worker, Milwaukee
Trisha Park, Teacher Candidate, Stanford Teacher Education Program
Joyce Kwon, musician based in California
Louije Kim, ally and student
Stella Kang, UC Berkeley Graduate Studies
Dennise Moon, Psychology Student at the Wright Institute
Eddy Zheng, “The more I suffer, the stronger I become”
Thuy H. Nguyen
Jennifer Pae, Community Organizer/Advocate
La Peña, Austin, TX