The Rambler

Cynthia Gordon-Burns was born in 1965 in Paju near the DMZ and adopted in 1967. She grew up in CT in an adoptive home that provided unconditional love and support. Her parents, Roy and Annette, as well as her adoptive brother, Glenn, have always given her the room to be herself. After a 5 year career in Interior Design, Cyndy returned to school to get a teaching degree and certification. She taught middle school social studies for 11 years. In 2011, she took a leave of absence to figure out what she wanted to do when she grew up. She currently works for Wells Fargo in CT. She lives in Woodbridge with her husband Paul and her son Zachary. Some of her story was covered by CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-womans-life-long-quest-to-track-down-her-biological-mother/), but you can hear the rest of it here!  She is also the admin of the Connecticut Korean Adoptee group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/144268429078137/), so if you’re in the area, you can link up with them and request permission to join their group!  

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Wendy Marie Laybourn is a Korean adoptee and current PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. At four months of age, Wendy was adopted by a white working class family and was raised in Memphis, TN. Growing up in a city haunted by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., she was acutely aware of racial politics, the continuing legacy of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and the work that is still to be done. Experiences of racial division and bridge building have informed her perspective and academic work. Her research interests are race and ethnicity, identity, and cross-racial bridging. When she’s not working on her dissertation, Wendy enjoys traveling, sampling local restaurants, and making notoriously long to do lists. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @wendymarieonly, visit her website at wendymlaybourn.com, and her blog at savvysunah.com.  

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at Macklemore, LLC, and Marvin Gaye at Universal Motown Records.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Spencer is a Korean-Adoptee, born in Seoul and raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. In pursuit of higher education, he enlisted into the US Air Force with the great fortune of serving six years as a Korean Cryptologic Language Analyst, spending two years learning Korean in Monterey, California. After being stationed in Maryland, Spencer pursued networking and community building within the international adoption community in the Greater Washington DC metropolitan. There, he has served as the former president of Adoption Links, DC and later connected with Connect-A-Kid in 2015 to become the Social Media Manager. Aside from community involvement, Spencer is pursuing a career in the federal government and actively training and competing in the ice sport of curling. 

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Katie Holz is a Chinese American adoptee and is one of the board members for China's Children International (CCI). Currently, Katie is earning her bachelor's degree in Health Science at Stockton University. She's passionate about providing a platform for adoptee voices and through her work with CCI she has accomplished just that! 

Where to find CCI? 

Website: http://www.chinaschildreninternational.org/

Facebook Group for Chinese adoptees and their parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/chinaschildreninternational/

Follow CCI on Instagram and Twitter @CCI_Adoptees

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at Macklemore, LLC, and Marvin Gaye at Universal Motown Records.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Elizabeth was born in Busan, South Korea and was adopted by an Italian American family.  She grew up as an artist with an intense interest and passion for international affairs and law.  She volunteered as an actor with the Florence International Theater Company to help combat violence against women. 

After graduating magna cum laude from a state school in Maryland with a degree in Political Science/Prelaw and a minor in Art in 2011, Elizabeth hopped on a plane to begin a short term career as an English teacher at Samsung Electronics in South Korea.  Ironically, Elizabeth’s experiences in her birthplace inspired her to serve in the military.  Elizabeth traveled to Thailand to train with a premier world champion Muay Thai fighter, returned home to DC, and trained with a DC Hall of Fame boxing coach.

She joined the USAF, she competed in the 2014 National Worldwide Ringside Boxing Tournament in Kansas City.  In May of 2016, she became the first female Air Force officer graduate from the Marine Corps Martial Arts Instructor Course at the Marine Corps Martial Arts Center for Excellence.  She fell in love with learning as well as teaching knife fighting techniques, joint manipulations, and arm bar takedowns to Marines, and aims on teaching self-defense to airmen as well.

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Certified Feng Shui Expert and Colombian adoptee Laura Cerrano is the CEO and founder of Feng Shui Manhattan (established in 1997).  She is a full-time consultant who provides remote and on-site healing consultations, seminars, workshops and classes in New York, California, New Jersey and Connecticut.  In addition, Laura is a resident teacher at the Metropolitan Institute of Design in Syosset, NY.  Her primary focus is a unique blend of wholistic healing for your living and working environments, unconscious mind, body and spirit.  She’s been featured in The New York Times, PBS, the CBC Television Documentary called "Superstitious Minds," The 98.3 K-JOY Morning Show and News China Television.  Follow her on Twitter @NYCFengShui, visit her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/FengShuiManhattanLongIsland/, and check out her website at http://fengshuimanhattan.com.

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell.

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Born is South Korea, Milton was adopted and brought to the states in 1979 where he learned English and the American culture. Today he lives in Harlem and operates a creative agency while completing his memoir entitled Slickyboy. 

Slickyboy Synopsis: 

A fatherless black boy was born to a Korean prostitute a decade and-a-half after the Korean War. Left to roam his camptown with a pack of homeless kids, little Milton-ah fights, steals and drinks while his mother works long hours. All until the age of 8, when he’s adopted from the country that never claimed him, by a black military family from Texas, the Washingtons. Slickyboy is about the love and the loss of one mother, and a finding of another, with a lifetime of living in between. 

Follow Milton Twitter @mltdubslickyboy or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SlickyboyMemoir/.  Visit his website at www.slickyboystudios.com.  

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell, Dumbfoundead’s new single, “Safe,” (h) and Awkwafina’s new song “Green Tea” featuring Margaret Cho (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o23w8i0H-w).  

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Born is South Korea, Milton was adopted and brought to the states in 1979 where he learned English and the American culture. Today he lives in Harlem and operates a creative agency while completing his memoir entitled Slickyboy. 

Slickyboy Synopsis: 

A fatherless black boy was born to a Korean prostitute a decade and-a-half after the Korean War. Left to roam his camptown with a pack of homeless kids, little Milton-ah fights, steals and drinks while his mother works long hours. All until the age of 8, when he’s adopted from the country that never claimed him, by a black military family from Texas, the Washingtons. Slickyboy is about the love and the loss of one mother, and a finding of another, with a lifetime of living in between. 

Follow Milton Twitter @mltdubslickyboy or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SlickyboyMemoir/.  Visit his website at www.slickyboystudios.com.  

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell and DANakaDAN's hit song "Is There Anybody Out There featuring Clara C." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_PcFDoOihY) which is also available on iTunes (https://itun.es/us/i4SbY) and other places you can download music.  

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Brendon Albrizio is a Korean adoptee living in Boston.  He was adopted with his biological brother, Chris, when he was just over a year old (he was 4).  He’s been involved in the community as a member of BKA since 2010.  He was also the co-founder of a mobile app and digital marketing startup called “Sirculr” and is currently the COO of an ad agency called Adlife.

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell, Dumbfoundead’s new single, “Safe,” (h) and Awkwafina’s new song “Green Tea” featuring Margaret Cho (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o23w8i0H-w).  

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!

Nate Kupel is a Korean adoptee living in the Boston area and has worked with mental health, workforce development, and community based non-profits in the Greater Boston area to help them address and tackle systemic problems and strategic growth.  Nate has published community based reports domestically and internationally, produced an award winning nationally syndicated public radio pilot, and is a sound designer and audio consultant for online, tv, and radio advertisers.

Nate has served on the board of directors for several non-profit organizations including the International Association for the Advancement of Social Work Groups and Boston Korean Adoptees, Incorporated.  Nate has a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, and a BA in Sociology with a certificate concentration degree in Asian American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  You can find him on Twitter @natebaek.

Every Sunday, Jen shares her adoption and identity journey via her new YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/JenKimCreative!  Check it out and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @jenkimcreative.

Songs from A Collective Effort are available at SoundCloud (Http://soundcloud.com/acollectiveeffortmusic/sets/a-collective-effort-mix-bag) and other music of the podcast comes courtesy of Needle Drop Records by The Bell.  

Follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, email me at [email protected], and like/share me on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheRamblerADHD.  If you like the podcast, please be so kind as to leave a nice review on iTunes.  Thanks for listening!