My adopted life was a mountain of isolating, hard terrain. Now an adult, I know the importance of being connected to resources, information and diverse perspectives. I also know that action and awareness is needed on this subject that we’re all connected to, as the degrees of separation with adoption continues to close in for adoptees and non-adoptees alike.
This past week, I shyly began to make friends on Facebook with adoptees, in-between the regular stresses that consume me at this school on the Navajo Reservation. I observed everyone’s posts and photos, and found that we’re are all so individualistic and unique. Yet in so many ways, we’re just like everyone else. Posting photos of cats, food, and sunsets. Most times, I can’t even tell which is an adoptee or non-adoptee.
I did a lot of thinking during the 50-minute shuttles to and from work this week. First, I wondered about categorizing individuals as “adoptees.” In the context of human rights, I felt it important to make efforts to define what it is that identifies individuals and communities. Especially if people fall into the regions of being at-risk, vulnerable, or marginalized. Later, I went home and found some research to discover – that adoptees do fall into these regions.
During more shuttle rides, I thought more on this. I realized that categorizing also gives a face, to concepts that are hard to perceive for those who haven’t experienced this type of displacement and assimilation.
From my own life, I know how these events alter human life and psychology. And since this categorization includes a massive populous of marginalized and underrepresented people I feel that adoptees, our, experiences need to be named, identified and hopefully, equalized into society one day.
After friending some hundred adoptees on Facebook, I also learned that adoptees encompass about every demographic and community existing, and are also living in all geographic regions of the world.
Further research showed a growing amount of adoptees in the world, that supports how the degrees of separation between adoptees and non-adoptees are closing in. And just on personal levels, this can happen by making more adoptee friends on social media or knowing more peers in my everyday life that are associated with adoption.
Towards the end of the week I learned that with or without our knowing, this subject is connecting us all together almost invisibly.
Additionally, adoptees are linked by other global issues and situations. As socio-economic issues and refugee crises in the world increases, adoption situations rise too. So overall, from my knowledge and finding online research that I’ve linked and referenced here, I guess I believe it’s time to begin to bring these difficult topics to the table to start making solutions.
For me, raising awareness can bring a light to that difficult terrain that has weathered my life path since birth. This action allows me to envision ways to connect us all to each other a little more too. From working as a librarian on the Navajo Reservation and by being a writer, I have found that making connections keeps us all from being isolated in one category or another. Connections, can also bring support to where its needed most.
References
Friedlander, Myrna. (2003). Adoption: Misunderstood, Mythologized, Marginalized. Counseling Psychologist – COUNS PSYCHOL. 31. 745-752. 10.1177/0011000003258389.
Harf, Aurélie et al. “Cultural Identity and Internationally Adopted Children: Qualitative Approach to Parental Representations.” Ed. Ye Wu. PLoS ONE 10.3 (2015): e0119635. PMC. Web. 1 Dec. 2017.
“Human Rights Watch.” Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/.
Keyes, Margaret A. et al. “Risk of Suicide Attempt in Adopted and Nonadopted Offspring.” Pediatrics 132.4 (2013): 639–646. PMC. Web. 1 Dec. 2017.
“Looking out for vulnerable international adoptees.” The Donaldson Adoption Institute, http://www.buildingstrongfamiliesny.org/news/looking-out-for-vulnerable-international-adoptees/.
Silverstein, Jake. “The Displaced: Introduction.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/magazine/the-displaced-introduction.html.
Wulczyn, Fred H., and Kristin Brunner Hislop. “Growth in the Adoption Population.” Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, 2002, doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.
