Letter from the Director
Always, I’ve been fascinated with family. Like many adopted people, I’ve spent most of my life, defining and redefining what it means to me. But I think most people, adopted or not, spend volumes of time, emotion and energy trying to determine how much of our essence is shaped by the people who reared us. Much of what we learn about our families and ourselves comes from listening and watching other families. That’s what I hope this blog gives all of us – a place to learn by sharing and listening to each other.
With our film Adopted: The New American Family, we’re bringing you the stories of real people’s experiences with transracial adoption. With this Web site, we’re bringing you the most up-to-date resources on adoption–memoirs, guides, counseling services, support organizations and more.
In filming, we’ve had the opportunity to interview many of the foremost experts in the adoption industry. We’ll share these interviews in an easy-to-view video format on this blog, which we hope will prove as useful to you in understanding the complexities of adoption as they did to us.
We will also feature guest blog entries from these adoption experts, articles on current events pertaining to adoption, and personal adoption stories. But we also want to hear your stories and perspectives–whether you’re an adoptee, birth parent, part of an adoptive family, or considering adoption.
Please share your stories and the lessons they’ve taught you. And when you read others’ stories, consider them and learn again. As we share and read, I implore us all to remember that each of us who writes here is extending ourselves with one of our most valuable, but vulnerable assets – our family. All in all, we want to create a forum in which the issues of adoption, family, race, and love can be discussed in a productive manner, leading to a greater understanding of adoption. See what you can learn.