“Somewhere Sisters” with Erika Hayasaki

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 62. We're the Nelsons. I'm Lanette. And I'm Shaun. In this episode we interview author and award-winning journalist Erica Hayasaki. Erica is a journalism professor at the University of California Irvine. Five years ago Erica learned this fascinating story about two twin sisters who were born in Vietnam who were actually separated when they were five months old. One was sent to an orphanage while the other one was considered too sickly to take to an orphanage.

0:32And so she was raised by some family members while the one who was in an orphanage was eventually adopted by a family in the United States. And so she learned about these sisters who were eventually reunited and was super interested. And so she spent five years working on compiling their stories. She interviewed all of the adoption community surrounding their story and their families and researched adoption extensively. And she wrote a book and it's a fascinating really

1:04great book. It's called Somewhere Sisters and it goes into the history of adoption. It talks about nature versus nurture and that debate. It talks about poverty and privilege. It's a fascinating book. I highly recommend it. We were really lucky to get an advanced copy of it to read and we were really happy to interview Erica and talk to her about the book more. And yeah we're just super excited to share all of this with you today. Yeah Somewhere Sisters is available on amazon.com

1:35and in many other places. We'll put a link in the show notes for today's episode. But for now we'll just jump right into our conversation with Erica Hayasaki. All right we are here on the podcast with Erica. Erica thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So to start off can you tell us about your new book Somewhere Sisters? Yeah the Somewhere Sisters is a story that is a true story, reported narrative. I'm a journalist and five years ago I

2:05got pregnant with twins. I became a mother to twins and I started looking into twin science because I write about science and I was always very interested in nature versus nurture.

3:12So so when raised in a predominantly white neighborhood and a white family and

3:42Catholic school and the other twin she you know went was raised Buddhist and in completely different environment. So the story is a narrative of their lives and eventually reunions but it also took me deeply into the world of adoption research which I was not so familiar with because I am not an adoptee and I as it but I am a journalist so I'm often venturing into worlds that are you know new to me and learning as much as I can. So I ended up learning a lot from adoption scholars and

4:19interviewing a lot of adoptees and really started to piece together some of the history specifically around adoptions from Vietnam but also you know domestically and overseas and then I also delved into the research around twin studies. So it's not entirely a book of research like that but there it's a narrative but it weaves in some of this context just enough hopefully to help people

4:51understand the context but there's also a very extensive bibliography with many resources if people want to learn more. Yes I love that about your book there is so much like you're learning about science and history and also these personal experiences and it's just yeah it's everything I love. Thank you. I love that about it. Yeah so you said that you really didn't have very much exposure to the adoption world before writing this. What exactly was your exposure before? I mean I think

5:22I grew up in a society and a time when I absorbed the narratives around me and from popular tv and movies and because I was not adopted and didn't know many people who were adopted I didn't know I didn't think about the real. I think a lot of people and I hope people who read the book maybe come at it with an open mind too and start to understand well I've learned these narratives that have come down maybe like fairy tale narratives that have been sort of ingrained

5:53in my psyche since I was a child happily ever after everything's always perfect and you know these sort of Disney movie type of things right where you always have the child who searches the parents or ends up you know trying to find their parents or trying to find a home and so my knowledge about adoption was limited to be honest and I had to really unlearn which I think you know we have to do in our lives sometimes we have to unlearn narratives

6:26that we've learned and I've done that in different areas of my life and things that I did not learn in school for example my own history for example I did have experiences as an Asian American growing up in the Midwest and my mother is white and I was often assumed people assumed I was adopted and I was often bullied because I didn't fit in so I had that connection of identity confusion but that's not the same as being adopted at all and so I had to really like put myself aside and

7:00put my maybe preconceived notions aside and that's what you do as a journalist you should if you're good and listen to the experts whether that's adoptees who are the voices out there sharing their stories on podcasts like yours or on TikTok or wherever they are connecting Twitter and then dive into the research because there's decades of it about critical adoption studies for example

7:30and talk to psychologists who are also adoptees and not only that I had readers who I had multiple readers on my book on the book who were also adoptees adoptees inter-country adoptees transracial adoptees and from you know journalists and memoirists the adoptees from Vietnam so I had I had a lot of input and learning happening

8:03as a journalist so I felt like I wanted to share what I learned too and those voices and center those adoptive voices in the narrative. I love that so you said it was five years ago yeah you started this book and so it really was this very intensive long labor of researching connecting with different people who know the topics more and really just deep diving for that long yeah and I mean that is what you're supposed to do in journalism I'll say five years

8:35it took five years also because we had a pandemic and I was also raising children who are five now my twins and and it was many many different interviews intense interviews reading and so it was a journey it needed to take that long to have the kind of depth I think. If I had just written a book the first year out I don't think it would be the same book also we were going through as a country kind of a racial reckoning right and all of us have been re-examining

9:10our own biases our experiences like structures in this country and I've done that in my own family and in my life and that is the discussions around adoption should be also and are having the same kind of examination and discussion and real conversations that are sometimes uncomfortable which I've had in my own family you know. Yeah so interesting so yeah what a journey yeah

9:45putting all of that time I mean I can tell it's yeah so I feel like we often get people asking us on our show what do we think about nature versus nurture and I would love to hear your thoughts on that after so much time listening to these sisters do you feel like you have a better understanding of how identity forms and how nature versus nurture factor in? Yeah I mean the sisters themselves are clearly these amazing young women who are totally individuals even though they are

10:15identical in genes they were raised in drastically different environments and while they have similarities they are their own people with their own personalities and just very individual. That seems inevitable because you know you're just raised so differently right but throughout history obviously there's been this constant tug of war between nature versus nurture is it genes is that your environment and always the swinging you know from one end to the other and the reality

10:48and I understand this from the science I understand this from being a mother of twins and I understand this from learning from these twins in the book the reality is much more complicated it is an interplay between both forces environment does impact your genes there's some you know the whole field of epigenetics which has exploded in recent years talks about how you know your genes can be switched essentially switched on and off by factors in your environment right and I've written about

11:22that there's also random chance mutations chance in our lives you know there's so many decisions made on behalf of you decisions you make and that really boils down in many ways to discussions we have about fate versus destiny like do we have control or is it all written and it's not so simple you know and I think that all of the discussions in the book like a lot of times the twins will talk about fate and destiny nature and nurture and Ha who's the twin who was raised

11:54in Vietnam you know she was she articulated it so beautifully because she would say you know yes I she believed you're born you're you know there's like a reincarnation process and you know you're born into a new life based on your actions in your previous life right and that might be your fate but you also have some control over your destiny and so she already got that she doesn't have to study all the science books to understand that there's

12:25both forces at play and with your genes and your environment and that's the same that the science now understands right so I don't know if that answers exactly but I just think that I've learned that to embrace these multiple forces that could be a play and understand I love that they're all part of identity absolutely I feel like it's really easy for people to just write off whichever one they want to and kind of focus on one or the other but I love how you really tie it into

12:59destiny and fate too and yeah I think that's beautiful of course it's going to be both and it's so complicated and you could say the same for the twins liars and how they turned out right so one is raised in Vietnam and does not have a lot of access to resources education money is basically raised poor has this beautiful life full of love and you know plays with like the leaves and the sand and loves her life you have the other twin also raised with so much love incredible love

13:34within her family has access to much more as far as educational access and just different things that we have in the US both of them experience different hardships but to say one is better than the other I think it's a little more complicated than that and I don't think you can just make a judgment call so easily without all of the details and that's I think and all of the little factors at play so I think that that was also important to sort of convey in the story so interesting I

14:08agree so what was your biggest takeaway personally after you wrote this book I think my biggest takeaway was I think that the direction that was surprising to me when I when I got into it is how complicated and sometimes hard and even traumatic adoption can be and how that's not often talked about in mainstream I know that it is absolutely talked about in the adoptee community right but we have these you know again like narratives that are built into our society and

14:47they don't often leave room for the complications and the complexity all of the constellation of family members involved which is why I try to give voice to more of those voice I couldn't get everybody in the book but I try to focus on the women at least the mothers and the grandmothers and the daughters but there's you know people that weren't in there at the same time but I think that that was the learning curve for me that I tried to convey and I knew it would be you know a

15:20you know a complicated structure to do that but it wasn't a linear story it wasn't like the fairy tale it was just a much more complex reality that is you know both forces of pain and beauty which I think exists in any life so yeah so I want to talk about adoptee citizenship so we know

15:51this is a huge issue right now where there are so many adoptees who were born overseas and they were adopted legally but they don't have legal citizenship because paperwork was done wrong by agencies or adopted parents or somewhere in the line things just weren't filed correctly yeah so can you discuss the legal loophole that led to all of these adoptees falling through the crap yeah so I mean basically it was it was a big loophole that people did not pay attention to

16:25and parents did not pay attention to and did not know that that you know know that the paperwork wasn't 100 legit and that their children were going to grow up at a certain point discover that they weren't citizens right and that so the sisters in the book there's three sisters who are adoptees to the two that are raised in America find that out one day and both of them were not considered legal citizens yeah they thought and I'm talking about the two that were raised in

16:57America not the one raising you they thought their whole lives that they were American citizens and then they turn 18 and turns out they're not and so they were able to navigate that system through the help of their mom however it opens up a discussion as to why this is so the book does delve into that and it also delves into stories that did not turn out with a happy ending again so there are stories I'm sure you're aware of people who were adopted being deported

17:33there's a suicide that occurred what young man who was deported and he did not have family that he knew or the language and you know um yeah where these people are taken from their home as children and then expected to just go back because we were back into society separated from their families here in the U.S. and for years um adoptees have been trying to change

18:03this um adoptees for justice is an organization that I was able to you know interview and learn more about and they've been working on this along with other groups for years to try to change this legal uh legal and ensure citizenship um and recently I believe it was in February um they did get the Adopting Citizenship Act passed as part of this larger package under the America Compete Act um but it's still you know they're still trying to figure out if it'll go through

18:39for sure so it's not 100% but that was a victory for them but you know I think you know there's the fingers crossed type of thing that it's something that they've been working on for years and there could be anything that goes and it gets taken out of that particular act for example then they're back to starting over you know it completely blows my mind so crazy that happens and yeah so is there anything that we could really do at this point or are we just waiting to see

19:10what happens with that legislation I mean I think at this point it's it's gone pretty far and but I certainly would would get involved with and support um adoptees for justice for example because they are working on the front lines of this and have been for a very long time and they're very sharp and can talk about this legislation and can talk about it um you know even to you know groups about how because it is complicated like it's tacked on to this larger package of America you know it's like there's a lot of different layers to it but they um you know they're excellent on

19:46navigating these things and so I think just look them up if you're interested and and try to find ways to support and follow what they're doing and if there are ways to you know push it forward more that these things don't happen again you know they would be the ones to connect to. That's great advice so you mentioned that growing up you sometimes felt like you experienced a little bit of what some adoptees might experience with people kind of judging you based on how you looked versus how

20:16your mother looked and how growing up as an Asian American was just different especially in the Midwest and about how that kind of drew you toward Isabella and Olivia these sisters that were adopted in the United States. So how do you believe these experiences fit into that complex understanding of Asian American identity and especially right now with all of the tumult and yeah tension right there

20:48yeah yeah it's a good question because I think that I don't I will never say that I understand the adoptee experience as deeply as I've studied this and and but I have the experience of being an Asian American who oftentimes I think like adoptees that I've spoken with feels like on the outside of being an Asian American but the truth is a lot of Asian Americans feel like that because we're really just lumped under this umbrella and the only thing connecting us as

21:18you know people have said before is like sort of the names that were called on the playgrounds and the ways that we're maybe targeted when there's anti-Asian hate happening right. Unfortunately these experiences are sort of universal for us and even in my generation and these sisters generation it's amazing and even now you know the twins we're walk they're living in America now the one from Vietnam is in the U.S. they're walking down the street in Chicago

21:52this is the scene toward the end of the book and a man starts to verbally harass them and call them racial slurs and china virus and chases them basically into this store and the one raised in America she was ready to fight this man on behalf of her sister because her sister had not experienced racism like that you know and so that's just in the last you know I don't know since COVID right happens so these are reoccurring experiences that we share and I think as far as Asian American

22:26identity the thing about being mixed like myself or an adoptee perhaps when you're raised with family members who maybe don't look like you or don't you know have the same life experiences walking through the world sometimes you can also feel though that you're not connected to your family that you're not connected to the core of like the Asian American community like you're not enough and I know I've had those feelings through my life like I don't quite fit in enough like

23:00right and so I think these conversations we have about what is Asian American need to expand to include people who are mixed and adoptees right and those experiences belong within our very intense discussions around being Asian American because we have like these shared experiences that we have different experiences too but it's all part of this umbrella term that we're kind of lumped under not that that term makes a lot of sense but there's reasons why

23:34and I think I even addressed some of that in the book like why we're under that umbrella term but I do think that the conversations again need to get more complicated about that experience for people because we are also Asian American right yeah yeah that's so important so in the book I read I really was so fascinated with how you drew in the history of what it looked like with adoption in Japan before or was it during World War II and then also in Korea and China and

24:12how that's evolved over time and obviously I won't be able to reiterate that as well as you stated it in the book so just read that anyone listening but how would you say this history and our understanding as a country of adoption and this practice of saving children who are in need how do you feel like that has continued to shape adoption today yeah I mean that was so

24:42interesting for me to learn more about going back all the way to Japan and mixed children for example in Japan adopted into American families and how the idea of you know saviorism developed and started and also just became a part of the legacy of adoption and and so I think understanding that history again these sisters are adopted in a different time period

25:15but the system of adoption has been built on this idea of saving children from circumstances like poverty for example or or the aftermath of war you know a lot of a lot of ideas about what constitutes a better life and sometimes that has led to these you know really it's just kind of unbelievable situations like I mentioned in the book when you know after the

25:50war ended in Vietnam you know there is a story of a plane crash with a bunch of children who were being sent to America to live to be raised by American families and it crashes but then the U.S. goes back and starts sending more planes and at one point Hugh Hefner gets involved and sends an airplane to also bring more children to the U.S. with playboy bunnies like helping and it became this big spectacle you know now when you talk to the people who were adopted at that

26:28time who've grown up you know the narrative that was in you know popular at that time saving the children on the airplanes with the playboy bunnies their lives have been again very complicated painful sometimes searching for family members but the paperwork was never registered so no no no reunions like what happened in our in this book identity confusion lots of things you know

26:58and so yeah I think that it's important to know that history just like we talked about earlier like set the context for how we got here and how some of these kind of mentalities continue on in our systems and then how do you recognize that that way of thinking and if you're going to start to challenge it you have to recognize it first if you're going to start to do things better you have to

27:28recognize what was done not great in the past. I love how you say that you need to recognize first and that makes me think of a part of the book that really struck me where it's like you know the book that really struck me where the American adoptee girls their adoptive mother was in Vietnam in the process of adopting them and at one point she has this moment where she's like wait what am

27:58I doing taking these girls away from their homeland and their culture like I can't do this and she talks to the orphanage director or the adoption agency director yeah and says I can't do this and she the director like talks her down and is like oh no you need to do this it's like to save them and but but yes where she had this moment of crisis where she was like wait and yeah what an important step in any situation where there are so many potential ethical

28:34yes yeah so many things that we need to be thinking about and analyzing and really and really yeah going through carefully yeah yeah it was it was that really struck me and I thought it was so interesting that the director just kind of dismissed it and was like oh don't worry about this yeah it's fine yeah we're helping it's good and don't question it right yeah but and I think sometimes and I think the way she put it in the book is that she had to block things out to to go through with it all you know and that meant

29:11just sort of not thinking about that ever again or trying not to think about birth families for example and that was her way of moving forward but I think we are in a moment now where again we are these uncomfortable conversations are forced into our homes already by the discussions that are swirling around us in the media and everywhere and and and you know I've had them in my home

29:41I've had them with my mom you know but I think we're better for it you know it doesn't mean we're always on the same page on everything and we all operate with our own blind spots but when you can sort of recognize that and hold these multiple truths in your mind then you know that's that's something I think absolutely yeah and I love that idea of you can just constantly work on growing and learning more yeah I mean you do the best with what you know now but hopefully you're gonna know more later absolutely yeah and I think as parents we

30:14we we do that too you know we have to do that too we're changing a lot as we're parenting and and figuring our way out our way through and I do say that in the beginning of the book I said you know I mean I think all mothers including all the mothers in the book are trying to do their best with what they know and what they have and that's that's true for all of the mothers and the grandmothers and that best is going to look differently depending on where you're standing

30:44and what you know and what you have and what kind of choices you can make so it's going to look different does it make one better than the other I mean that's again that's not the way I think it should be viewed it should be trying to understand these different points of view and that's the way we try to understand these different points of view and and how we do have blind spots we don't see the other side sometimes yeah yeah that's something I really just another quick plug for

31:19your book I really do love this about your book how it's very non-judgmental there's all of these different situations and very human people who you might be able to look at from the outside of the pages of the book and say oh why did you do that but it's not written in a judgmental way it's very compassionate and thank you just really balanced and listening yeah I was trying to listen and just tell the stories as they were told to me you know and I think it's not easy when it's

31:50so personal for people yeah I don't think it was easy for everybody in the book wasn't easy for me either so but I do appreciate that because you know I hope that you can have empathy for everybody in the book yeah I thought it was beautifully done really thank you so can you tell us about what it was like meeting the twins birth mom and all of their biological family and then also their

32:20adopted families and traveling to Vietnam and just like weaving all of these pieces together all of these stories and voices together and telling their story through so many lenses like that yeah I think the weaving is the hard part when it comes to writing and so that was hard I'll just say that's just a writing thing but the doing the traveling and meeting everybody was eye-opening and emotional a very emotional and you know everybody is human and you see them and you see

32:56their love and their tears and you see that people who weren't you know like the birth mothers love their love the children that they could not raise personally you know which again is hard right it's hard for the adoptive mother for example who you know by the way is totally open

33:26to these families and embracing and everything it wasn't always like the case but it was a little bit hard to get around to the other people when the reunion of the twins happened so she was not ready for that but you know that takes a like a level of emotional maturity and strength to be able to embrace all the people right and that's complicated so Right?

33:56And that's complicated. So it was very emotional. And I think, again, not a fairy tale, just complicated and in some moments very beautiful to see them interacting and sometimes very painful too. You could see that for some members of the family. Yeah. So the complexity is what I go back to a lot because I just think that the story is all

34:32of that. There's just all of the complexity in their story, which is in the end a beautiful story, but also, you know, it's sometimes uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah, there's loss and love and yeah. Yeah. So a really interesting part of the story is that you talk about this history of twin studies, twin science, how twins have sometimes been subject to these crazy experiments and

35:13how they've been exoticized and just treated so differently. Do you want to talk about that? That was super interesting to me. Yeah. So unfortunately, going into the twins studies and even adoption studies history, you see that science, science and not just science, but eugenicists, for example, have taken this science and used it as sort of a tool to champion their cause, for example.

35:50And so some of the earlier twin studies, twin separated studies, for example, the people writing about these studies and doing these studies were supporters of eugenics. And so the idea is that breeding some sort of smarter, better human, right? So they would study the genes to understand how much genes matter. And so if you're studying twins, identical twins in particular, there's all these experiments

36:22to understand like, well, do genes matter for intelligence and for this and for that? And there were some very terrible twin experiments happening in Nazi Germany, for example. Horrible, horrific twin experiments. I don't even get into that really, but you can't, there's plenty of research on that and but I mentioned it, you know, for the sake of trying to prove that genes, the genes

36:54are your destiny. The genes are what make you who you are in every way. And then you go to the other side of science and it swings at one point very severely into the direction of behaviorism. There's these experiments of, you know, monkeys, for example, being separated from their mothers and raised by cloth mothers, like fake cloth mothers and torturous experiments with animals

37:31proving, as they would say, like that the lack of nurturing would really harm a child and also, you know, impact behavior and personality and all of these things. So there's been these very extreme experiments, unfortunately, and these two extreme sides where it's like, give me a child and I will shape them into anything. That's the sort of saying that got popular.

38:03That's not the exact saying I said in the book, but that's the idea. And so again, it's not either or. And yet we've throughout history had these moments in history where we just have had science really pushing one or the other, pushing it to the point where it's detrimental and the experiments are pretty terrible and there are in some cases also trying to prove, you

38:37know, horrible assumptions about humanity and things like that or prejudices. And that's the dark side of twin studies, unfortunately. And, you know, we're at a different place now. But I think that also is part of the history that people have to be aware of, twins being separated for the sake of science. I'll hold up this book again from the researcher, deliberately divided.

39:10This is about this is inside the controversial study of twins and triplets adopted apart for the sake of science. They weren't told, you know, that they were apart, like they were they had these siblings. They weren't told experiments were conducted. Very unethical. Right. So terrible. Yes. Yeah. So I mentioned that. And again, it's I'm trying not to write the whole book on that because that exists.

39:40But I think you should know it. And if you want to know more, there's many, many other books to read. But certainly, if you're thinking about twin studies and how much you think genes versus environment matter, also give some thought to like how these scientific studies have been based in like a certain time in our history when bias seeped into the science and prejudice also seeped into the science.

40:10So. Really important to talk about. Thank you. Yeah. So lately. There has been a lot of talk about Roe v. Wade being turned over and what implications that has on the adoption community. So what would you like to share about that? So I saw after. After the decision to end Roe v. Wade, these kind of means, I guess you call it going around

40:48on Twitter of families. There was a couple of firsts that said, I will adopt your baby. I got picked up and it turned into like this sort of joke with different families. I will adopt your baby. Right. And that was triggering from what I came to see from adoptee Twitter. Basically, I hope probably people are tuned into adoptee Twitter, but also adoptees that just were posting in different places or talking about this.

41:20That was really offensive because again, adoption is this painful experience for many people. It's not the solution to the end of Roe v. Wade, which is how it has been framed in some places. Right. And so I think it's really important again to listen to the adoptee voices who've lived the experience instead of having society sort of quickly assume, well, we'll just have the

41:54babies be adopted. There's a supply issue like causing like calling it a supply issue is incredibly dehumanizing to adopt these. Right. And so modifying these children. Yeah, exactly. And so I just hope that people will listen to the voices of adoptees more because they're out there speaking on podcasts like yours on Twitter, on TikTok, in research as psychologists,

42:26in novels, in memoirs. I mean, there's so much that there's no reason not to listen to them and to hear that. And if you're coming with the assumption still that it's like this fairy tale solution to the end of abortion, for example, and then it's just going to give a better life to a child, then you're severely like misinformed about the realities and truths. And that will just be continuing sort of the cycle of how adoptions in waves have happened

43:06after different policy decisions throughout history, like the end of the war in Vietnam or in Japan and not with the thinking of like the child first, but sort of like the rescue mentality first. Yeah. And so many problems come with that saviorism mentality of adoption, where adoptees feel like they can't have any opinion other than just being grateful that they were adopted.

43:38Yeah. And that's something that you hear a lot. And I think that that how do you like that? I mean, there is a chapter in the book about the fog. And I talked to experts about that process of coming out of the fog. You know, the idea of starting to step out of that narrative and also the grateful narrative

44:08and seeing all of these forces and complexities and histories and also seeing like the complications with your own identity formation, for example. And so I think that that process that's conveyed in the book, but you know, there needs to be more discussion around that reality instead of like the grateful fairy tale narrative

44:40that is still, I think, persistent. Absolutely. So what else would you like to talk about? I mean, the big question. Yes. This is very good. I think that you covered a lot. I think that there's, you know, I think that you covered a lot. I think that we kind of get the idea of a lot of the issues that are raised in the book. But at the end of the day, this book is a human story.

45:13It's humans and their lives. And so you'll learn and you'll think about these issues, hopefully, but you'll also care about the people on this journey and see like their humanity through the piece, through the book and maybe hope to find out what happens to them because they're real people and they've lived this. And then along the way, you might learn a little as well.

45:43So that's sort of what I hope. It really is a fantastic book. I can't recommend it high enough. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Erica. Really appreciate you talking to us. Thank you so much. It was really great talking to you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and big thank you to Erica. We really are so happy to be sharing this interview and I was so grateful to get to chat with her. Yeah, there were so many things that I found really interesting from your conversation

46:16and also from what I've read in the book is how our genes could be affected by our environment. And I've always had some questions about nature versus nurture and I've seen things in our own family where one of our children do something or say something or have a mannerism that looks exactly like one of their birth parents or sounds just like one of their birth parents or even like grandparents. And yes, so fascinating how genes are so deeply entrenched.

46:47But also I see things that are very much me or you and they become part of who they are because of the atmosphere that they're raised in. And it's interesting for me to think like down the road when our children have children, which traits they're going to inherit. And if their genes even may change some of the characteristics that can be passed down

47:19genetically I wonder if those might alter somewhat because of the environment that they've been in. Anyway, very fascinating topic to consider. Yeah, I wonder how open adoption can factor into that too. Like when you see your biological family and have that relationship, does that help you draw more of those roots and those genes out or does that affect it? I don't know. Very interesting to think about. I think I mentioned this in the interview but I really liked how Erica did this very

47:50well-rounded storytelling where she included all of these different members of their family and never really seemed to project, at least I never felt like she was projecting her opinions of different people into the story. It was just very objective and honest. You could feel all of these people's humanity and the pain they feel. I don't know, it just really drew me in and I really liked that about this book.

48:20I also felt like I learned a lot about the history of international adoption and yeah, just fascinating. I think one thing I'm walking away from your conversation too is something that's been on my mind and on the national, at least here in the United States, political platform is just racism and race in the United States. I just, so hard, I want everyone to have this sense of belonging, of connectedness and to

48:53live in a society where we have just rooted out racism. It's just sad to hear about negative experiences that people can't feel belonging or others don't allow them to feel like they belong to a society because they look or sound or act different. So one of my takeaways is just to be more intentional on how I'm helping other people feel like they belong. I love that.

49:23Yeah, I mean, it is really hard to hear those stories but I'm also really grateful to hear them. I mean, generally, right? Not everybody but our society I think is becoming more open to hearing those stories and I think listening is the first step to changing and becoming better. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It was a great conversation. I'm excited to read the rest of the book and just want to give a huge thanks again once more to Erica for spending some time with us and really spending five years researching

49:58and preparing to share this book. It's very, very well thought out and I think it captures a story that we in the adoption community can learn a lot from. Yeah, absolutely. I would recommend it to everybody in the adoption community and as we're getting ready for National Adoption Month, it starts in November, which from the time of this recording is tomorrow. We are planning a couple of fun things. We will talk about that more soon.

50:28So yeah, to stay up to date with the most recent information that we have, you can follow us on Instagram at openadoptionproject or you can also check out our website and we'll keep that up to date too. It's openadoptionproject.org. Just so you know, I don't know if many of our listeners know this, but for every episode that we drop, especially the interview episodes, Lynette does a little blog post that kind of supports and adds information to the episode. I'd say it more summarizes. I don't know if it always supports and adds information, but I am trying to go in that

51:01direction. Yeah. So check out the website, openadoptionproject.org and if you do slash blog, it will show all of the posts that she's done for each of the episodes. So if you're a little more interested in a maybe particular person or a story, you can check out there for maybe some additional information. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Open Option Project. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks.

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