Divided Families Podcast

Halfway through his ten-year ban from the United States, Adam Crapser has been thrust into public attention again with the release of Justin Chon's movie "Blue Bayou." The film has striking similarities to Adam's own life story, blasphemed as a heartfelt tragedy of Adam's personal trauma.

In this episode, Adam sits down with DFP team member Mailé to talk about Adam's story of family separation and the oversight of non-adoptees surrounding the realities and trauma of adoption. Adam talks candidly about being deported to Korea, and how he's making the best of his situation by using his platform to call for change.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

https://nakasec.org/

https://adopteesforjustice.org/

Adoptee Citizenship Act 2021:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/967

Why Do People Keep Finding Their Lives Onscreen Without Their Consent? by Peter Kim George: https://hyperallergic.com/683606/blue-bayou-controversy/

This episode was edited by Mailé Nguyen.

"Kill the Indian, save the man" was a mantra propagated by General Richard H. Pratt, who famously established a model for Native Residential Schools that tore Native children away from their families and cultures.

Brayden Sonny White is Kanien'kehá:ka from the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, and member of the Bear Clan. He is an advocate for suicide prevention and mental health resources for Native youth. He was named a Champion for Change in 2016 by the Center for Native American Youth.

In this episode, Brayden and Paul talk about the repercussions and intergenerational trauma passed down as a result of Residential Schools. Brayden shares more on the forced adoption of Native children—known as the Sixties Scoop—and the PTSD resulting from discriminatory policies and involuntary family separation in the US and Canada.

Read "Our Long History of Family Separation" written by Brayden Sonny White:

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/our-long-history-of-family-separation/

Read more about the 751 Unmarked Graves discovered at a residential school in Canada in 2021:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57592243

Movies mentioned in episode:

Indian Horse (2017)

Wind River (2017)

Additional Resources:

Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit issues in Canada - Chelsea Vowel

The Marrow Thieves - Cherie Dimaline

Boarding School Seasons - Brenda J. Child

Custer Died for Your Sings - Vine Deloria Jr.

Red Alert! - Daniel Wildcat

Our Live Among the Iroquois Indians - Harriet S. Caswell

Indigenous Nationhood - Pamela Palmater

Indian Giver: How Native Americans Transformed the World - Jack Weatherford

Indian Resilience and Rebuilding: Indigenous Nations in the Modern American West - Donald L. Fixico

This episode was edited by Helen Packer.

Liberty in North Korea, or LiNK, is a nonprofit that primarily works to help North Korean refugees hiding in China resettle in South Korea or the United States. The organization has many high school and college chapters, and seeks to raise awareness about human rights through North Korean issues. In this episode, Paul, a former member of LiNK himself, speaks with Hannah Song, President and CEO of LiNK. The two talk about the work LiNK does, stories of particular families' journeys, and how you can get involved.

To learn more, you can find their website here: https://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/

The videos mentioned in this episode can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhD2SabYvu0&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvsqpwI_IfU

For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at [email protected]

In this episode, Paul speaks with Tereza Lee, a pianist, activist, and original Dreamer. Tereza tells the story of how she was born in Brazil to South Korean immigrants but later moved to Chicago, where she was undocumented. The two talk about how not only Tereza's life, but those of many others changed when her music teacher reached out to Senator Richard Durbin to see if anything could be done about her situation. This eventually led Senator Durbin to co-sponsor the 2001 DREAM Act, which was disrupted by the 9/11 attacks.

To watch the Asian Americans PBS Documentary (in which Tereza is featured), click here: https://www.pbs.org/show/asian-americans/

For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at [email protected]

In this episode, Eugene interviews Rachelle Barbour, an assistant federal defender for the Office of the Federal Defender of the Eastern District of California. She is an advocate for Omar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee accused of being an ISIS commander and murdering a police officer in Iraq. On April 21, 2021, a federal judge ruled this was physically impossible because Ameen was not in Iraq at the time of the alleged murder. However, Ameen nonetheless remains detained in an ICE facility and has been held in detention for over 1000 days. Eugene and Rachelle discuss federal immigration cases and the mechanisms that can keep someone locked up and separated from their family.

In January of 2020, Ben Taub wrote a piece for the New Yorker that outlines how Ameen landed in prison: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/27/the-fight-to-save-an-innocent-refugee-from-almost-certain-death

Watch Vice's video coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1ngPeyv1g

Take Action: https://freeomarameen.com/

This episode was edited by Eugene Lee.

Ioanida Costache is an ethnomusicology PhD student at Stanford University who is Romani-American and activist. In this episode, Eugene speaks with Ioanida, a friend from college, about Romani-American identity, the erasure of the Roma as victims of the Holocaust, and the continued separation of Roma families in modern day America.

For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at [email protected]

The Trust for Social Achievement is an organization based in Bulgaria dedicated to helping people reach their full potential. Its staff particularly focus on aiding the Roma community, of which 72% live below the poverty line. In this episode, Eugene speaks with Maria Metodieva, the Institutional Development Officer, and Ognyan Isaev, the Educational Achievement Official, about who the Roma people are, and the particular challenges facing their community both at home in Bulgaria and abroad.

Learn more about the Trust for Social Achievement here: https://socialachievement.org/en/

For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at [email protected]

Hollis Gentry is a genealogy specialist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture Library. Following DeNeen Brown's overview of family separation and slavery in our previous episode, Hollis shares her personal quest to reconnect her family through genealogical research.

For information on the Museum of African American History & Culture Library, see here: https://nmaahc.si.edu/

To become a Smithsonian Digital Volunteer, see here: https://transcription.si.edu/

This episode was edited by Maggie Deagon.

Professor DeNeen Brown is an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and an associate professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. In this episode, Paul and Professor Brown discuss the legacy of American slavery and family separation, and in particular, the way generational trauma connects the past to today.

Watch the trailer for Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer, DeNeen Brown's documentary: https://youtu.be/rFR0wUtcrZU

Buy How to Be an Antiracist from your local bookstore: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525509288

Buy Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents from your local bookstore: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593230251

Transcript:

https://dividedfamiliespodcast.medium.com/american-slaverys-legacy-of-family-separation-with-deneen-brown-95e9c4747c2b

This episode was edited by Katherine Moncure.

Thanhha Lai is Vietnam-born American author perhaps best known for her debut novel, "Inside Out and Back Again," which won the Newbery Honor and the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. In this upbeat episode, Eugene and Thanhha talk about her young adult novel, "Butterfly Yellow," and how we should allow complexity in telling the stories of refugees.

Transcript:

https://dividedfamiliespodcast.medium.com/allowing-complexity-in-refugee-narratives-with-thanhha-lai-52ea6a61518f

For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at [email protected]