Our second episode commemorating National Adoption Month features three members of a collective of transracial adoptees advocating for abolition of the transracial international adoption system: Meghan Kelly, Chris Santizo-Malafronti, and Eleanor Vasquez-Kelly. Meghan and Eleanor share their radicalizing and transformative experiences of "coming out of the fog" as adoptees and their search for their birth families, followed by a group conversation about the dissonant duality of adoption and its sociopolitical implications today.

To learn more or to collaborate with the collective, you can reach out via email to [email protected].

Resources that our guests shared to learn more about transracial adoption:

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption edited by Julia Chinyere Oparah, Sun Yung Shin, and Jane Jeong Trenka, 2006

https://www.amazon.com/Outsiders-Within-Writing-Transracial-Adoption/dp/0896087646

Declaration Calling for an Immediate End to the Industrial International Adoption System From South Korea, 2017

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A0HW9Ip-r6gdHm9yxqj-VYw9pM-owxii/view

“The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time” by Daniel Drennan ElAwar

https://dissidentvoice.org/2012/08/the-new-abolition-ending-adoption-in-our-time/

Selling Transracial Adoption: Families, Markets and the Color Line by Elizabeth Raleigh

https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Transracial-Adoption-Families-Markets/dp/1439914788

Not My White Savior: A Memoir in Poems by Julayne Lee https://bookshop.org/books/not-my-white-savior-a-memoir-in-poems/9781945572432?aid=846

Between European Colonial Trafficking, American EmpireBuilding and Nordic Social Engineering: Rethinking International Adoption From a Postcolonial and Feminist Perspective by Tobias Hübinette www.rethinking-nordic-colonialism.org/files/pdf/ACT3/MANUSCRIPTS/Huebinette.pdf

Social media accounts that our guests mentioned to follow and learn more:

@Nowhitesaviors

@Adoptees4Justice

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

This episode was edited by Katherine Moncure.

Chapter markers:

00:34 Katherine introduces this episode

01:13-22:26 Meghan and Eleanor share their lived experiences growing up as transracial adoptees and search for birth families

22:42 Paul and Chris discuss the significance of “coming out of the fog” for adoptees

27:18 Eleanor, Chris, and Meghan comment on the relationship between transracial adoption and systems of oppression such as colonialism and ethnocentrism

33:56 Eleanor and Chris share their thoughts and experiences on reuniting with their birth families and the complexities of birth-adoptive family dynamics

40:00 Meghan shares her thoughts and yearning for her heritage and culture

41:50 Discussion of the political implications of these experiences and advocacy of abolishing of the transracial system of adoption

45:55 What are things in the short-term that can be achieved? And what can listeners do to educate themselves and support this cause?

54:06 Katherine closes the episode