Join us for a beautiful conversation with adoptee mother, Astrid Castro and daughter, Maya Papaya Castro Dabbeni. They generously share about their tremendous love and bond, and shed light on how intergenerational trauma and painful legacies of adoption have affected their relationship, perspectives, and behaviors. We also discuss the importance of mirroring and how unique it is for adoptees and children of adoptees; their unique birth family reunion story; birth language acquisition within adoptee families; creating adoption fluency; and moving from isolation as adoptees into community together with our children.
https://www.adoptionmosaic.com/
Astrid Castro Bio
Astrid Castro (she/her/hers) is the founder and CEO of Adoption Mosaic. Adoption Mosaic is a BIPOC adoptee, woman-led business that seeks to build an inviting adoption conscious community by providing innovative adoptee-centered programs and support.Including a monthly virtual panel series called We the Experts: Adoptee Speaker Series. Astrid has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in adoption. For twenty plus years, she has traveled the country to lead youth groups, present workshops on transracial parenting, talking with children about adoption, and various other workshops focusing on adoption. Prior to creating Adoption Mosaic, Astrid worked in both the private and public sectors of various adoption organizations such as the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center (ORPARC), Holt International and Rocky Mountain Adoption Exchange.
Astrid co-authored Adoption in the Movies, which takes the reader on a guided tour of 27 movies and documentaries that are ‘dripping with adoption’ which are asking questions that encourage viewers to engage in ongoing dialogue and discussion. She also developed an innovative, evidence-based, 27-minute training DVD titled, Adoptive Parent Training:Developing Communication Skills. The training demonstrates how adoptive parents can communicate openly and honestly with family, friends and especially children. Astrid is a former member of the board of directors of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the author of many articles on the subject of adoption and contributed a chapter to the book Parenting as Adoptees.
Astrid’s personal experiences as an adoptee, a woman of color, and growing up in a white family and community, fuel her professional path to helping others. Astrid is aware of the benefit of post-adoption services for individuals and their families and seeks to bring these services to the adoption community. Her life-long interest in adoption is rooted in her own adoption at the age of four from Colombia (along with her older sister). Astrid has been in reunion with her birth family in Colombia since December 2011. Read about Astrid’s journey of searching and finding her birth mother in The Oregonian.
When Astrid is not working she loves to spend time with family, friends and enjoying the adventures of life as the mama of an amazing daughter.
Maya Papaya Castro Dabbeni Bio
Maya has grown up hearing and talking about adoption as a child of an adoptee. She is biracial, Colombian and Italian, as well as trilingual, Italian, Spanish and English. At a young age, Maya was a driving force in finding her maternal birth family. To this day, she is still uncovering connections to her Colombian roots, in addition to exploring how generational trauma and epigenetics affect children of adoptees. Maya is excited to share her experience of being a "child of an adoptee" and to bring this topic to light. Maya is currently a third year student at San Jose State University majoring in International Business with a double minor in Spanish and Italian.
Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Frederico Soler Fernández
Artwork: Dalhe Kim
Listen on: iTunes & Spotify
Instagram: @laboroflovepodcast
Venmo: @laboroflovepodcast
