Magazine issue dedicated to Guatemala; readings in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and elsewhere

January 6th, 2011

The current issue of Harvard University’s ReVista magazine is dedicated to Guatemala. Thanks to Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the magazine is available online and free of charge, although donations are welcome. Here is the mission statement:

ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, published three times yearly, focuses on different themes related to Latin America, Latinos/as, and the Iberian peninsula. The magazine-length publication brings together different voices on each theme, highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, students, alumni and Visting Scholars.

In her introductory Editor’s Note, titled “Legacies of Violence,” June Carolyn Erlick talks about reading the contributors’ manuscripts, and the complex portrait they paint of Guatemala. She concludes with this observation:

“…as I read the incoming articles, I wondered, is the glass half full or half empty? Guatemala is exploding with projects and ideas and filled with brave men and women intent on transforming society. It is also filled with sadness and corruption and underdevelopment and inequalities and all the legacies of violence that it has inherited over the centuries. I don’t know. Dear reader, I leave it to you and these pages to decide about Guatemala and the proverbial glass.”

For anyone interested in Guatemala, each article is profound in a different way, whether it speaks to the country’s present or past, textiles or languages. The author of a fascinating article on Peten is Mary Jo McConahay, co-producer of the documentary Discovering Dominga. Do yourself a favor and take a look at the issue. Better yet, order yourself a copy. It’s sure to come in handy when your child asks questions about Guatemala or announces she has a social studies project on her ethnic heritage, due tomorrow.

A quick note: Next week, I’ll be reading in New Mexico, and the week after that, in Durham, North Carolina; and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Washington, DC is also on my itinerary this month, but that event is at a private home. If you live in the D.C. area, and are really, really interested in coming, please send me an email and I’ll ask the host if she can fit one more. The date is Thursday, January 20.

Meanwhile, here are my dates in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and elsewhere. For my full schedule, including summer readings in Iowa and at the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference, click on the EVENTS tab. Hope to see you somewhere soon! Continue… »

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NY Times article and State Department announcement about adoption from Brazil

January 5th, 2011

A fascinating article about assisted reproduction ran in Sunday’s New York Times. Melanie Thernstrom and her husband, Michael, formed their family by using the services of an egg donor and two surrogates. Their two children, Violet and Kieran, were born five days apart. The Thernstroms call them “twiblings.”

Much has been said and written about the article, but most interesting to me is what Ms. Thernstrom writes about adoption. She and her husband considered adopting–after four failed rounds of IVF– but felt the process was too expensive and unpredictable.

I had friends who spent all of their money trying to adopt, only to have things fall through again and again — birth mothers who changed their minds, foreign programs that were discontinued. I researched adoption in China but discovered that the criteria excluded us. When Michael’s parents adopted his sister in the 1970s, there was an abundance of babies in the United States in need of homes, but the widespread use of birth control and abortion, among other factors, has caused the supply of infants available for adoption in the subsequent three decades to plummet to a fraction of what it was then. Knowing that, I was still taken aback by how discouraging one adoption agency was about our prospects for “competing” against other couples. “Most birth mothers do prefer younger women,” the woman informed me. “But you’ll get a letter from your doctor, certifying you are in excellent health for the social worker anyway.”

“Right,” I said, thinking about the arthritic condition that caused the chronic pain I had been struggling with for many years.

This is not the first time I’ve heard or read about prospective parents discouraged from adopting because the process takes too long, is unpredictable, and can be expensive.  Not to mention the lifetime of intrusive questions adoptive parents often endure from observers–“Have you met her ‘real’ mother?” “Are they ‘really’ brother and sister?” “What do you know about her health history?”–and the challenges that may accompany children who have endured the rigors of institutional or foster care for extended periods.  

Adoption is not for everyone. We know that. But wouldn’t it be nice if the “system” didn’t discourage prospective adoptive parents at every turn? Yesterday, I posted a perfect example of this. Families of the Guatemala900 have been waiting four years for their children, who are housed in orphanages. Upon hearing such stories, who can blame someone for deciding adoption is too big a risk? Continue… »

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Stalled more than 4 years in Guatemala. One family’s adoption story

January 4th, 2011

When I read this story in the Washington Times, my reaction alternated between sorrow and outrage.  Andrea Poe writes:

Anthony Gatto, an attorney, and his wife Megan live outside Albany, New York.  They have been waiting to finalize the adoption of their son Anderson since he was born in October of 2006.  More than four years later, they continue to fight to gain custody of their little boy. 

They are one of the nearly 1,000 American families who have children stranded in Guatemala due to bureaucratic snafus, inter-country glitches and adoption laws that shift like sand beneath their feet.

The Gattos have visited Anderson in Guatemala. The child’s birth mother has gone on record stating her wish that the Gattos adopt him. Back in the States, the couple has done everything in their power to finalize  Anderson’s adoption. They pay $500 per month to an orphanage for his care. Four years later, they are still stuck.  Anthony Gatto writes:

Last May, we attended a Congressional Briefing on the issue that was attended by staff people from over twenty members of Congress.  We are part of a group of parents waiting to adopt children from Guatemala since the new law passed in 2007.  The group is called Guatemala 900 (http://guatemala900.org/wp/). We currently have over 20 Senators (including New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand) and 10 Representatives (including Rep. Scott Murphy) fighting for the 400 families who have been waiting since January 2008 to adopt a child from Guatemala with stories similar to ours. 

All of these children have been in orphanages for over 2 1/2 years.  These children do not know the joy of a loving family and unless something is done, they will spend the rest of their lives in an orphanage.

Gatto supplies a vivid illustration of what waiting for Anderson since 2006 looks like:  

We have had his nursery fully furnished for almost three years and it only serves as a reminder that we must continue to fight for him because he is our son.  Every day we look down the hall at his room.  His crib is still assembled even though he’s too old and too big to fit in a crib. 

We refuse to take it down until we get him home.  Each year for his birthday and Christmas we buy him presents and wrap them for him when he gets home.  My wife and I celebrate his birthday each year and his closet is now full of presents, waiting for him.

I share the Gattos’ final plea:

We need to bring national attention to this matter in order to bring all of these children home. 

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/red-thread-adoptive-family-forum/2011/jan/3/not-home-holidays-story-adoption-guatemala/

 

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Mamalita good news

January 3rd, 2011

When you work on something as long as I worked on writing Mamalita, you develop little incentives to keep yourself going–at least I did. One incentive that motivated me a lot was the hope that someday, somewhere, someone might read our story and react with: “This book has made me think about adoption in a different way.” If that were to happen for even one reader, I would consider my efforts a success.

Today, Paty LQ posted a blog in which she speaks about how Mamalita did exactly that. She picked up the book at Upstart Crow in San Diego, and read passages from it to her husband. Soon after, they came to my presentation at the Santee Public Library, where we chatted about adoption and my experience with it. That same day, they filed foster-adoption paperwork with the County of San Diego. Paty writes:

Until the moment before I started reading the book I felt that parents looking to adopt were victims of a complicated system.  I felt that the system had become a business and that you had to be very careful of people who will try to take advantage of you.  I felt like when I was planning our wedding and all those vendors tried to take advantage of us, and we had to haggle.  Somehow this felt worst, we were talking about a child (life).  I felt that as potential adoptive parents we were doing a great thing and that people working in adoption should take that into consideration.  While some of the things I mention before I still feel are truth, my eye opener was the other side of the story, the mothers that give up their children to adoption.  This part of the story in the book no longer made me feel as a victim.  My feelings started shifting from unfortunate to blessed.  Now I feel grateful…  My husband and I are thinking about having an open adoption.   Continue… »

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A new year.

January 1st, 2011

When I was a little girl, my youngest sister, Deanna, and I shared a bedroom. On our wall hung a poster of a ballet dancer balanced on one foot, her other leg extended in a gravity-defying arabesque. Along the bottom of the picture was a quote by Goethe: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

As a child, I thought the most important words of Goethe’s quote were “genius” and “power” and “magic.” Since then, I’ve realized that the crucial word is “begin.” Whatever it is: a short-story, an exercise plan, a commitment to a cause,  a journey toward parenthood.

Today starts a new year. Whatever it is. Begin.

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Adoption Today: “Inside Guatemalan Orphanages” by Leceta Chisholm Guibault

December 30th, 2010

When I was asked to get a back-cover endorsement for Mamalita from someone prominent in the adoption field, I didn’t think twice before approaching Leceta Chisholm Guibault. Leceta is a person admired and respected by me and many others in the Guatemalan adoption community and beyond: the adoptive mother to two teens born in Central America, a former board member of the Adoption Council of Canada, an Adoption Activist award- winner, and a staff member of the TIES program (Adoptive Families Homeland Journeys).  During the years I’ve been involved in adoption myself, I have read and benefited from Leceta’s magazine articles and postings in which she shares her experiences and insights.

Leceta is currently a Canadian regional partner for Orphan Resources International, an American nonprofit organization that supports some 55 orphanages in Guatemala. During the past two years, she has led more than 150 Canadian volunteers on six separate service trips. In  an article titled “A View from the Trenches: Inside Guatemalan Orphanages,” in the December issue of Adoption Today, Leceta shares her impressions of what she has seen and felt. Or as she says in the article’s introduction, “what keeps me awake at night and why I continue to provide aid to children in Guatemala.” As usual, she tells her story with compassion, honesty, and bravery.  

Adoption Today is published online only. The $12 subscription fee is money well-spent for anyone interested in the current state of international and transracial adoption. Leceta writes:

Most homes share the same issues– overcrowding. Many are filled with abandoned infants, as well as children in care due to severe abuse and neglect. Infants were arriving if not daily, weekly. At Fundaninos orphanage, the infants we met in 2009 are now toddlers. Another home we volunteer for is a baby home with 50-60 children, the majority being infants and young toddlers. Every time I visit, bassinets are full with newborn to 5-month-olds…

In May, I walked into one of the three overcrowded nurseries and fell to my knees… I sobbed. There were babies everywhere being fed by propped bottles. Don’t get me wrong — it was a beautiful, clean and loving home. The home receives a lot of clothing donations… The problem is, it’s overcrowded. There are not enough caregivers — during one visit there were 37 infants with two nannies. It was an assembly line of diaper changes and bottle propping… The children were craving attention and happy just to be held. I brought 23 volunteers and even holding two children each there were little ones waiting for their turn. These children need parents… Continue… »

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Johnnie Walker does the right thing

December 28th, 2010

My friend, Mark McCauslin, who lives in New York City, alerted me to an advertisement he saw in the subway for Johnnie Walker Black. He posted about it on the Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir page on Facebook. Mark wrote:

I was in the NY subway earlier today when I remembered your blog entry about “adoption as a punchline,” referring to an offensive Sony ad. This time I came across an ad for Johnnie Walker Black; the copy reads: “We only shake hands. We call each other once a month max. I still think you’re adopted. And although I’d rather streak across a crowded stadium than tell you this – you’re a great little brother.” The ad implies that an adopted brother is somehow “less than” one who is genetically related. You’ve opened my eyes to this sort of thoughtlessness, and I hope you continue to fight the fight!

Like Mark, I was offended by the ad.  I went to the Johnnie Walker website to track down the person to whom I should complain, but the only address I could find was one for  “consumer care,” in the corporate parent company, Diageo. Discouraged, I sent an email anyway, with the subject line “Offensive Advertising”:

A friend directed me to an ad for Johnnie Walker Black in a NYC subway… As an adoptive mother to two children, I find this ad offensive. Why? Because it implies that an adopted brother is somehow “less than” one who is genetically related. Why do your ad writers think this is funny? Some 60% of Americans report a connection to adoption. Imagine how they–or, worse, adopted children–feel when reading your ad.

Please send me the name and email address of your company president so I can direct my complaint. Thank you very much.

Today, I received this marvelous response from Johnny Walker Consumer Representative Natasha K:

Thank you for writing to us with your concerns. Diageo is a leader in responsible marketing, and as such, we take this issue very seriously. 

The holiday advertisement for Johnnie Walker was not intended to be insulting and we apologize for any offense it may have caused. This advertisement has very limited, regional distribution in a small number of commuter locations. It will not appear in print, on television or online and will end as of December 31. If a similar ad concept becomes possible for use in the future, the Johnnie Walker brand team has committed that this reference will be removed.

We hope this addresses your concerns. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

Thank you, Mark, for being offended by the ad and calling it out. For anyone else out there bothered by how adoption is represented in the media or elsewhere, write a letter, post a blog, pick up the phone, take a stand. As the philosopher Ovid once said, “Dripping hollows out rock.” Change does come, if enough people make noise about what bothers them.

I know what I’ll be drinking on New Year’s Eve. Cheers to Johnnie Walker for doing the right thing.

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Observations by Jane Aronson, MD, the “orphan doctor”

December 27th, 2010

Pediatrician and adoptive mother Jane Aronson’s New York City medical practice focuses on childen who are adopted. By her own estimate, she has examined more than 10,000 children as patients. This article, posted on NJ.com, includes thoughtful insights by Aronson, based on years of her professional observations. Two that resonate for me are:

…Aronson says that for every three months a child spends in an orphanage, he loses one month of developmental skills, causing, for example, language delays or learning issues.

“If you don’t have one adult who loves you,” says Aronson, you “don’t end up healthy.”

And the second:

Most important quality for parents to have: “To be focused on who the child is and make every effort to accept the child for who they are. (Whether) you give birth to a child, you adopt a child, you have to accept the child with unconditional love and acceptance.”

Aronson is founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation.

Her Worldwide Orphans Foundation [WWO], with its headquarters in Maplewood [New Jersey], provides various programs and facilities to orphans in Ethiopia, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Serbia. In Ethiopia, for instance, some of WWO’s programs include a school whose curriculum includes global arts, such as theater, dance and music; a family health care clinic, which counts among its services the treatment of orphans with HIV and AIDS; and an orphan soccer league.

The idea for the foundation came to her in the late 1980s when she looked at the staggering number of orphans who are never adopted. Approximately 20,000 children are adopted annually; the total number of orphans worldwide is now estimated to be about 163 million, according to UNICEF.

“It became clear that the vast majority of orphans would not have permanency,” says Aronson.

Through WWO, one-to-one early intervention programs — known as granny programs — in Vietnam, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria match retired women from the community with orphans to provide the children with individual attention and education.

International adoption can never provide homes for the millions of children in need of permanency. Last year, families in the United States adopted 13,000 from around the world, and that number is dropping. My hope for the new year is the development of more one-to-one early intervention programs in the orphanages of my children’s birth country, Guatemala. Every child deserves a chance to grow up healthy.

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Season’s Greetings!

December 24th, 2010

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Three generations.

Tia Lolly and Mateo.

My Mom and Dad.

Happy New Year, too!~

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Holiday mode

December 22nd, 2010

The last day of school before winter break meant holiday parties in classrooms around the country, including those of Mateo and Olivia. I attended both.

Mateo was proud of his gingerbread house, made from graham crackers, candy canes, and chocolate, held together by cupcake frosting sprayed out of a can. Later, he constructed a reindeer ornament from popsicle sticks, and drew a  picture of a snowman wearing a colorful striped scarf.

After Mateo’s party was over, I made my way to Olivia’s school. In her classroom, each student had been asked to make a presentation on his or her ethnic heritage, followed by a potluck lunch comprising food from each child’s background. The meal demonstrated the great diversity of California’s population, with dishes from Ireland, Norway,  Mexico, Italy, Wales, Cuba, and Iran. Olivia spoke with confidence about being indigenous Maya and Guatemalan, and explained how tortillas are made. Her fellow students enjoyed seeing the Guatemalan flag and a picture of the country’s official bird, the beautiful and elusive quetzal, depicted in the flag’s central field as well as on the cover of Olivia’s Guatemala ABC’s book. Below, Olivia is holding her favorite hackysack ball, a common sight in Guatemala, shaped like a frog.

The next morning, we set off on a road trip to visit grandparents and family in San Diego. With pit stops and delays because of rain, the drive took nearly eleven hours. But with my sister Patrice along and Shakira’s music blasting from the CD player, nobody seemed to mind. We arrived in San Diego in holiday mode, ready to sleep late and slow down.

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