VOA – CONNECT EPISODE 95 AIR DATE 11 08 2019 TRANSCRIPT OPEN ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) Adoption Across Racial Lines ((SOT)) ((Patsy Hathaway, Alex Landau’s Adoptive Mother)) We just wanted a baby that would be healthy and we did not care about skin color. ((SOT)) ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) So, I knew I wasn’t white, I looked at my skin, but I certainly identified as a white child. ((SOT)) ((Nyara, Adoptee)) One of my best friends came over to me and said, “Timany just said she doesn’t want to be your friend because you're black.” ((SOT)) ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) One minute I was born and I was with one family and the next minute I was with a different one. ((Open Animation)) BLOCK A ((PKG)) ADOPTION 1 / IDENTITY ((Banner: A Question of Identity)) ((Reporter: Claire Morin-Gibourg)) ((Camera: Arzouma Kompaoré)) ((Map: Seattle, Washington; Albuquerque, New Mexico)) ((NATS: Chad Goller-Sojourner one-man performance)) ((Courtesy: Vimeo / Chad Goller-Sojourner)) ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) Black people scared me. And since I wasn’t a fan of being scared, I would do my best to avoid them at all times possible going so far as to cross the road when encountering multiples of them. Raised on Lawrence Welk and Amy Grant, I would be shy of 25 before I could hear rap music and not think something bad was about to go down. ((NATS)) ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) I was this black boy who didn’t want to be black. From an identity standpoint, I identified with the people around me. So, I knew I wasn’t white, I looked at my skin, but I certainly identified as a white child. I identified with my white peers as opposed to black people either I saw on TV or didn’t know. So, yeah, and I think this is very common with transracial adoptions. You know, with transracially adoptees, your first identification is that of your surrounding. ((Megan Walsh, Director, La Familia-Namaste Adoption)) A lot of adoptive families struggle when they adopt transracially, because they are maybe not so comfortable stepping outside their comfort zone. And I think it's really important for adoptive families to be able to realize that when they adopt transracially, they're asking their child to often be the minority even in their family. And that's really challenging for kids. ((Locator: Albuquerque, New Mexico)) ((Lizelle, Adoptee)) Sometimes, I’ll walk into a class, and the first, like, thing that comes to my mind is there another black person in this room that I could relate to and that looks similar to me. ((NATS: Gym)) ((Megan Walsh, Director, La Familia-Namaste Adoption)) It's really important that kids that are adopted transracially have adult racial mirrors. I think the first thing that families need to do when they're raising a black child or a child of an ethnicity different than theirs, is that they need to find professionals in their community that share ethnicity with their child. ((Neema Hanifa Kamaria, Founder, Creations Spa)) With most families what I found is that they start by coming in and asking about, you know, hair. That’s the initial referral. “I need to know about how to take care of this child’s hair.” But the truth of the matter is that it’s so much deeper than that. You know, self-esteem, of course, you know, how a child feels being in a place like New Mexico, where we have such a small population of people of African descent. ((Deborah Hill, Lizelle's Adoptive Mother)) That’s interesting. That’s interesting for moms, I think, and families to know that bit of hair culture. ((Kamaria, off-camera: Absolutely.)) ((Deborah Hill, Lizelle's Adoptive Mother)) Because, you know, hair is a social, socio-political issue in our culture. ((Kamaria, off-camera: It is, it still is.)) ((Deborah Hill, Lizelle's Adoptive Mother)) It will help us as white parents who have not experienced this to understand even going deeper, the issues of race and social and political sort of ramifications of caring for hair and understanding the dialogue around hair. (Kamaria, off-camera: Right, absolutely.) ((Deborah Hill, Lizelle's Adoptive Mother)) And beauty, standards of beauty. ((Megan Walsh, Director, La Familia-Namaste Adoption)) Learning to value every one of every ethnicity, and not to be afraid of what we don’t know. I think that's what's really important. People that get really stuck on being colorblind, I feel like they're doing their kids a disservice because they're not teaching them that how they are is wonderful and how they came into this world is important and vital for everybody. ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) So, what we know, once again, all the statistics we talked about, there are all studies, a lot are government, it says that around 13 years old, that black boys are seen as adults whereas white kids are well into their 20s before they're held accountable. How did that play out? Did you have like a plan? Like how did that play out for you? ((Malia Fullerton, Adoptive Mother)) Yeah, so this has been a huge issue for us. My son, he’s 12. He’s 6-foot-1 (1m 85 cm). People think that he is 17 right now. We’re already talking to him about, you know, what you do if a policeman stops you, you know. How you have to assume that people are going to question you and assume the worst of you. And at the same time, we were appealing to a lot of things in African-American heritage. Martin Luther King, Junior, you know, a lot of things that were really positive about social justice, and helping him to understand that he had a lot of tools available to him. ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) I firmly believe that as transracial parents that they have a duty to prepare their child not just for the world they live in but most importantly for the world they will age into. So, it’s not fair to raise them when, and turn them out at 18 and say, “OK, go live in this world that is foreign to you, that is hostile to you.” Certainly, when I do their coaching in adoption, that’s the message I send. When you decide to adopt children of a different race, you've made a conscious decision to expose your family to being uncomfortable. ((Popup Banner: Chad’s birth mother was an actress who died in 2011)) ((Chad Goller-Sojourner, Adoptee, Performer)) It was very interesting to see for the first time, at 44, somebody who looked like me and to end up in the same profession as she did was just crazy, you know. A lot of people forget that adoptees have a story before they come to you. Whatever it is, we have our own story and this was my story. To know that I could like run my fingers over here and I’m touching her! When I’m putting my hand under the cellphone, we’re touching. This is her work, her fingerprints are on here. My fingerprints are on here. Although she’s deceased, I’m actually touching my mother. Not metaphorically but really. And certainly that is something beyond what I ever thought possible. TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) Isolation ((SOT)) ((Dale Morrison, Zach’s Adoptive Father)) He has been from kindergarten through the only Afro- American male in his entire class, all the way through. BREAK ONE BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK B ((PKG)) ADOPTION 2 / EDUCATION ((Banner: School)) ((Reporter: Claire Morin-Gibourg)) ((Camera: Arzouma Kompaoré)) ((Map: Seattle, Washington; Albuquerque, New Mexico)) ((NATS)) ((Nyara, Adoptee)) One of my best friends came over to me and said, “Timany just said she doesn’t want to be your friend because you're black.” That made me get mad and go and walk out of the class sometimes. I would just, I would just go out of school and stuff. ((Stephanie Poole, Nyara's Adoptive Mother)) So, this is the behavior I was talking about. She would get punished for leaving class, when class was an environment where kids were calling her out for the color of her skin. ((NATS)) ((Stephanie Poole, Nyara's Adoptive Mother)) Yeah, Carter's already internalized that and said, “I don’t want to be black.” And that’s a horrible thing to hear your son say that he doesn’t want to be who he is, you know? By the end of kindergarten, they wanted to qualify him for social-emotional for Special Ed also. I went right to the Special Ed department and said, I want these taken off. Because this is literally the school-to-prison pipeline where we’re talking about how can you list these descriptors of 'violent' for a 6 year-old boy? ((Nicholas Zill, Research Psychologist)) The thing that's striking is that with many a large minority and even a majority of adopted children often have behavioral issues in the classroom and they have some difficulty getting along with other children at a higher rate than biological children do. And that was a consistent finding that we had in our research studies. Generally speaking, black children do have a somewhat higher rate of problems within the adoptive population as well as in the biological population. That does show up. ((Stephanie Poole, Nyara's Adoptive Mother)) There’s so many layers of, if you look at the curriculum it's mostly white. If you look at books, they're mostly white. And all of these things just disenfranchised our kids of color year after year after year. And now, having adopted black kids and having to pretty much fight for them so much to get them what they need in school, has changed my lens completely. ((Constance Lindsey, Research Associate, Urban Institute)) If you're growing up in a home that doesn't have a college- educated black person and you're able to see one at school who's your teacher, that might signal to you that, “Hey, I can do this, too.” I actually have another study that shows that having a same-race teacher for black students decreases rates of discipline actions. And so, you're less likely to get suspended or expelled if you have a black teacher. And so, that might be related to how teachers think about misbehavior. So, if you have a white teacher who isn't trained in cultural competency and how to work with diverse students, it might be harmful for students. ((Locator: Albuquerque, New Mexico)) ((Zach Morrison, Adoptee)) I think everything that’s happened to me at the school happened to me because I was black. A lot of people at this school had it out for me from the beginning. My principal was giving me a detention or something I didn't deserve. That made me angry. I did punch a wall and I did break the bone in my hand. ((Dale Morrison, Zach’s Adoptive Father)) He has been, from kindergarten through the only Afro- American male in his entire class all the way through. ((Ramona Martinez, Zach’s Adoptive Mother)) I believe that race was an issue for Zach when he was young when he was a little boy. I think that it was especially difficult for him going to school and not having anyone that looked like him that he could reach out to. ((Dale Morrison, Zach’s Adoptive Father)) Probably the worst incident we had was with the football team. He was the only black kid on the football team, the only one. ((Ramona Martinez, Zach’s Adoptive Mother)) He posted a picture of Zach going into the locker room after practice completely drenched. And it had been a hot day and, after practice, you know, they're all pretty sweaty and it was a photo of him and underneath it, it said, “This is Zach after a long day of picking cotton.” ((Zach Morrison, Adoptee)) I think it affected me a little bit for a while and then I just kind of got used to it. ((Stephanie Poole, Nyara's adoptive mother)) The lessons I’ve learned as a white mom and having black kids, how much institutionalized racism is in our school structure is absolutely phenomenal. And I never had to realize that before I had black kids and yet this has been the truth for all black families as far back as we can remember but because I am white, I never had to, I never had to look at that. TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) Fear ((SOT)) ((Alex Landau, Adoptee…..in the street where the beating happened)) It’s like right in this area, facing underneath my car, and I could just feel the gun pressed to the side of my head. BREAK TWO BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK C ((PKG)) ADOPTION 3 / FEAR ((Banner: Police)) ((Reporter: Claire Morin-Gibourg)) ((Camera: Arzouma Kompaoré)) ((Map: Seattle, Washington; Denver, Colorado)) ((April Rauch, Mother of Adopted and Biological Children)) What I do ask you almost every single day is to not wear your hood on your sweatshirt. People perceive differently if they see you in your hooded sweatshirt versus your brother in your hooded sweatshirt. You’ve told me that you’ve been followed in the Safeway up there, right? ((Guyan Rauch, Adopted Son)) Yeah. ((April Rauch, Mother of Adopted and Biological Children)) So, you know, so both the kids go up to Safeway to go grocery shopping. Do you get followed at Safeway? ((Henrik Rauch, Biological Son)) I haven’t noticed it. ((April Rauch, Adoptive Mother)) You haven’t noticed it? ((Guyan Rauch, Adopted Son)) That’s probably a ‘no’. ((Journalist)) Are you worried about your brother? ((Henrik Rauch, Biological Son)) Yeah. I just don’t want him to get hurt because of the way he looks because he is my brother. ((April Rauch, Adoptive Mother)) I thought that we were prepared to parent children of color. But I remember that the very first thing that really rocked our world was [the killing of] Trayvon Martin. ((Picture of Trayvon Martin / Credit: AFP)) Because I remember that photo that was released of him in his hoodie that looked so much like you, and we took you kids to the march here in Seattle. And that just rocked my world. That could have been you guys. ((NATS: children marching and chanting)) (Chant: I am Trayvon! I am Trayvon!)) ((Locator: Denver, Colorado)) ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) I was adopted when I was two days old. ((Patsy Hathaway, Alex Landau’s Adoptive Mother)) We just wanted a baby that would be healthy that could be ours legally and we did not care about skin color. ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) When I was four years old, we adopted my younger sister Maya from a different biological family. She is my sister just like my parents are my parents. I never really had the ability to distinguish my skin color and how my skin color was different from other folks around me, even my parents. ((Patsy Hathaway, Alex Landau’s Adoptive Mother)) When you are Caucasian parents, you may go into it thinking on some level that you understand the concept of colorblindness and superficially we were terrific. I mean, we knew that it would be good to have a name identity that they could relate to being black. Alex was named after Alex English, an amazing Denver Nuggets basketball player who is also a poet, and Maya was named after [writer and activist] Maya Angelou. And we joined a group for transracial adoptions and we bought the right kind of books and with black characters but we didn’t understand what it’s like to be black in America, what it’s like to grow up in a transracial family. I did not understand about race. I was totally naïve. ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) ((Credit: Youtube, University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work)) My name is Alex Landau and I appreciate everybody coming out here this evening. I also am very thankful to be here. I am a human right activist. I am a community member in the Denver metropolitan area. I am a survivor of extreme police abuse. I didn’t even fully understand their capabilities. I assumed being out of handcuffs that I can have an interaction with these law enforcement officers who were searching through my '84 Lincoln Town Car. And to give you a description, if you’ve seen 'The Godfather' it would be what some people might consider a mobster mobile, very old, very big body. I asked if I could see a warrant before they continued searching my car. ((Chyron: Re-enactment)) ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) However, these officers immediately became irate and began to punch me in the face. ((NATS: Alex Landau in the street where the beating happened)) It’s like right in this area, facing underneath my car and I could just feel the gun pressed to the side of my head. And then, when I regained consciousness, they rolled me out by my ankles and dragged me across the grass. And then let me bleed on an officer's jacket until the paramedics arrived. ((NATS: Police cars)) ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) I almost bled out on the way to the hospital because I went into hemorrhagic shock. And so, after the photos were taken, I received 45 stitches. I was treated for a broken nose, diagnosed for a concussion and later with a brain injury. ((Maya Landau, Alex Landau’s Adoptive Sister)) I want you to know that, like, it affects me all the time. But me, as a person, it’s hard for me to fully come up with the words to just say, I’m so sorry for what you went through and I should be more vocal and I am learning how to do that. I’m learning how to be more outspoken. ((Patsy Hathaway, Alex Landau’s Adoptive Mom)) What I had to do after the assault was to begin to talk about it and to fight for Alex. ((Photo Credit: Danielle Lirette)) And by fighting and speaking out, I began to lose friends and immediate family members that I would talk about this stuff. But it’s been worth it, because that’s what you do. If you don’t talk, then you’re complicit. If you don’t fight racism, then you’re complicit. ((NATS: Excerpts - "Mr. Officer,” Alex Landau)) ((Courtesy: YouTube)) ((Popup Banner: Landau settled a lawsuit with Denver City for $795,000 in 2011 and two officers were fired)) ((Alex Landau, Adoptee)) It’s made me colder and it’s made me bitter. There is a part of me that has been permanently altered. I am a different person because of that night and it totally changed the trajectory of my life. ((NATS: Excerpts - "Mr. Officer,” Alex Landau)) ((Courtesy: YouTube)) TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) Origins ((SOT)) ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) Finding my birth mom has helped me feel more whole. ((Deborah, Angela Tucker’s Birth Mother)) To be with you is a joy. That’s God's gift to me. BREAK THREE ((PKG)) FREE PRESS MATTERS ((NATS)) ((Popup captions over B Roll)) Near the Turkish Embassy Washington, D.C. May 16, 2017 President Erdogan’s bodyguard attacks peaceful protesters “Those terrorists deserved to be beaten” “They should not be protesting our president” “They got what they asked for” While some people may turn away from the news We cover it reliably accurately objectively comprehensively wherever the news matters VOA A Free Press Matters PROMO ((PKG)) FREE PRESS MATTERS ((NATS)) ((Popup captions over B Roll)) We make a difference When we unmask terror When we explain the impossible When we confront an uncertain future When we give voice to the voiceless The difference is Freedom of the Press We are the Voice of America where A Free Press Matters BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK D ((PKG)) ADOPTION 4 / ORIGINS ((Banner: Origins)) ((Reporter: Claire Morin-Gibourg)) ((Camera: Arzouma Kompaoré)) ((Map: Seattle, Washington; Bellingham, Washington)) ((NATS)) ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) Part of my life is like a mystery to me. One minute I was born and I was with one family and the next minute I was with a different one. So, sometimes I can feel, like, why did this happen? And I don’t know how it happened. And I want some of those questions to be answered. ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) What other question would help you feel, like, more complete if you knew the answer? ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) Like, were you sad when you had to give me up? ((Amy Bowton-Meade, Maggie’s Adoptive Mother)) Adopting a child of color has another layer of complexity and concerns about her well-being. I have felt like I can’t be, I can’t do enough or be enough. I can’t do it right or I’m not the right person for her. Like, what was I thinking that I can do this? How can I be so arrogant to think I could like, you know, fulfill this role for her? ((Brett Bowton-Meade, Maggie’s Adoptive Father)) I have come to understand more over the years that everyone is looking to figure out who they are. It’s about, it’s about one’s identity and I think for adopted kids and particularly transracially adoptee kids, they have to continually work through their stories. ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) My birthday always is hard for me. ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) It is? You think about that? ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) Yeah. ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) You think about what she is doing on this day? ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) And then seven weeks later I feel even more sad because that was the day that I was adopted and the day that she couldn’t take care of me anymore, so, sometimes I just feel sad about that. ((NATS)) ((NATS: Excerpts from documentary, “CLOSURE”)) ((Popup Banner: Angela Tucker produced a documentary about searching for her biological parents)) ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) Finding my birth mom has helped me feel more whole. ((Deborah, Angela Tucker’s Birth Mother)) To be with you is a joy. That’s God's gift to me. ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) I’m middle class and she is not. And so, I think that the conversations are uniquely difficult with that with, like, a love for each other, a serious connection but we live so differently. ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) And then just seeing someone who looked just like me, my birth dad, that was crazy. ((Teresa Burt, Angela Tucker’s Adoptive Mother)) It was hard for me to see it at first, because I felt like maybe meeting her birth mother would kind of replace me. But Angela’s interest in it was so deep, became so deep that it helped me realize how important it was. And so, I think that helped me change into, be part of it and to be excited about it. And that was really freeing for me to be able to do that. ((David Burt, Angela Tucker’s Adoptive Father)) I got the joy of raising her from 1 through college. I couldn’t, I wasn’t going to lose anything. I mean, you know, they’re their own people. Children become their own people. And because someone else may come into their life as an important person and should, that does not have any impact on my relationship. ((Angela Tucker, Director of Post-Adoption Services, Amara)) The most common thing I hear from white parents raising black kids is the fear that they won’t be able to raise their child to have a full, healthy, black identity. ((Kristi Kilcher, Prospective Mother)) Yes, I feel like I’ve failed, and I don’t want to fail this child at all. I want to be as good of a parent as I can be. ((Teresa Burt, Angela Tucker’s Adoptive Mother)) Yeah, I think the search has made her stronger. After doing it, she can help others and is helping others with their searches. ((Angela, with Maggie)) ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) Do you think I feel sad, as an adult, having met my birth parents? ((Maggie Bowton-Meade, Adoptee)) Maybe not as much anymore? ((Angela Tucker, Adoptee, Post-Adoption Mentor)) I feel less confused but the fact that my birth mother couldn’t raise me is sad. And it’s not going to change. NEXT WEEK / GOOD BYE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up next week….. ((Banner)) I Support the Girls ((SOT)) ((NATS)) ((Dana Marlow, I support the Girls)) So, we’re on our way today to do a donation to the National Center for Children and Families, of bras and pads and tampons. And I’m just gonna go down and load up everything we have. CLOSING ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect SHOW ENDS