In this presentation, Jae Ran Kim will facilitate a discussion about race and identity, what our adoptive parents did or did not tell us about being Asian in America, the pressures and messages we receive from society and the media about being Asian adoptees, and how that might affect us as adult Korean or Asian Americans.

Click here for more information.

We have the privilege of having a special talk back with both Sun Mee and Katie after their last show on June 9th!

Chomet’s “How to Be a Korean Woman” recounts her reuniting with her birth family using text, music, and movement, exploring how this affected her sense of what it means to be a woman. Leo’s “N/A” uses narrative storytelling and speculative mythmaking to explore her body and personal health, reconciling her present with an unknown genetic past.

This event will mark the first time that these two pieces have been presented in full in Minnesota, as well as the first time that these two artists have presented this type of intimate and deeply personal work. “N/A” premiered as part of the Artist Exchange Program and festival at Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia, and excerpts of “How to Be a Korean Woman” debuted as part of Pillsbury House’s Late Nite Series.

Discounted Tickets for paid Members only to the JUNE 9th show! $5 at the door with membership card. Call 651-645-5506 or e-mail info@dreamlandarts.com to make a reservation and mention AK Connection discount.

Tickets $15 adult, $10 students, group rates available.
Website for more info: www.dreamlandarts.com

The celebration will take place at Eagle Brook Church located at 3603 95th Ave NE in Blaine, MN.

There will be a reception following the Saturday screening, sponsored by Concerned United Birthparents, Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform, and Adoptees Have Answers.

Click here to order tickets online

A Girl Like Her website

NEW! AHA to Launch Online Support Group on November 8

To celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month, AHA is launching a new online support group.The first online meeting will be Tuesday, November 8, from 6 to 7 PM CST. Julie Hart and Amy Fjellman, both adult adoptees, will facilitate the group. Thereafter, beginning December 6, Julie and Amy will facilitate the group, LIVE, the first Tuesday of every month from 6-7 PM CST. Registered participants are welcome to post comments and interact with one another at any time. The focus will be on Minnesota adoptees and formerly fostered people, but the group will also be free and open to adoptees outside of Minnesota. Visit the AHA website to learn more about registering for the group or feel free to complete the necessary fields at the bottom of the page to register. All identifying information will remain confidential, accessible only by the group facilitators. We are looking forward to meeting you!

Other AHA Support Groups

All other AHA Support Groups will be running as usual. Please visit the web listing for details.

AHA Sponsored Community Events

This Many Miles from Desire: Reading and Open Mic Event

Adoptees Have Answers, AK Connection and The Loft Literary Center are very pleased to invite you to a poetry reading and open mic on Wednesday, November 9th at 7:00 PM, at The Loft in Minneapolis. Lee Herrick was born in Daejeon, South Korea and adopted at ten months old. He is the author of This Many Miles from Desire (Word Tech Editions, 2007) and has recently completed his second book manuscript, Gardening Secrets of the Dead. His poems have been published in The Bloomsbury Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others, and appear in several poetry anthologies including Seeds from a Silent Tree: Writing by Korean Adoptees. Lee is the editor of New Truths: Writing in the 21st Century by Korean Adoptees. He lives in Fresno,
California where he teaches at Fresno City College. For those interested in participating in the open mic, please sign up the night of the event. You will have 3-5 minutes to read a short excerpt. Click here for more information.

Other Community Events

8th Annual Gathering and Pow Wow for Returning Adoptees, Foster and Adoptive Families

This free event will take place Saturday, November 5, 2011, from 1 PM to 8 PM, at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, 1530 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN. It is sponsored by the First Nations Repatriation Institute and Hennepin County. Please join returning adoptees, Native American fostered and adopted children and their families for an afternoon of song, dance and ceremony. Jerry Dearly will perform his original “Wablenica Song” and Ceremony. Sandy White Hawk will co-emcee. Please visit the FNOA website for details.

14th Annual Circus of the Heart Event

This annual family event will take place this coming Sunday, November 6, 2011, from 1 PM to 4 PM, at the Prom Center Event Facility, 484 Inwood Avenue, Oakdale, MN 55128. Come help us honor families who have grown through adoption this year and who are waiting to adopt children under state guardianship. There will be fun activities for people of all ages. View invite online or contact MN ADOPT with questions at 612-861-7115.

AK Connection 10-Year Anniversary

On Saturday, November 12, AK Connection will hold its 10th anniversary celebration at the Holiday Inn in St. Paul, MN. The gala begins at 5 PM. There will be dinner, entertainment and dancing for people over 18 years of age. Tickets are $35 (early registration $30). Visit their website for more information.

AFAAD MN Hoping to Host International Gathering in 2013

The Minnesota chapter of Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora (AFAAD) need financial assistance and community support to host a major event in 2013. AFAAD is one of the first adoptee-led organizations specifically for adoptees and foster alums of African descent, a highly diverse international group. To learn more about AFAAD MN, please visit their website.
For details on the monthly AFAAD support group, please visit the AHA website.

Annual Orphan Train Riders Reunion

AHA attended the annual Minnesota Orphan Train Riders of New York reunion in Little Falls, MN in October. There were four Minnesota riders in attendance this year. The featured speaker was Harvey Ronglien, who spoke about his experience as a state ward growing up in The Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children in Owatonna. His book, A Boy From C-11, Case # 9164, is a memoir worth reading. As always the personal stories told by the riders at the reunion were riveting. The organizatin is grieving the loss this summer of Al LaMoure, who charmed all of us at the Minnesota History Center in June, 2010. DVDs of this event and
other original orphan train materials are available on the AHA website.

In the News

University of Minnesota Launches New Adoption Competency Program on National Adoption
Day

Department of Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson, representatives of the University of Minnesota Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, and prominent adoption community members were present at Peters Hall on the U of MN St. Paul campus to celebrate the creation of a new adoption competency certification program. It has been a dream of many in the community who have long seen a need for mental health practitioners and other professionals who work with adoptive families to have standardized training in Adoption. This program will begin to meet that need in Minnesota and beyond as more and more people advance through the new certification program. Read the full story.

Child Trafficking in China

SOURCE: New York Times — “In almost any adoption, the new parents accept that their good fortune arises out of the hardship of the child’s first parents. The equation is usually tempered by the thought that the birth parents either are no longer alive or chose to give the child a better life than they could provide. On August 5, this newspaper published a front-page article from China that contained chilling news for many adoptive parents: government officials in Hunan Province, in southern China, had seized babies from their parents and sold them into what the article called ‘a lucrative black market in children.’” Read the follow-up article.

Dr. Jane Aronson, Outspoken Pediatrician, Weighs in on Poverty and Adoption

Read the article online.

Copy of Illinois Birth Certificates Available to Adoptees

SOURCE: ENews Park Forest — “Under the amended Illinois Adoption Act (750 ILCS 50), starting November 15, 2011, adults born on or after January 1, 1946 in Illinois who were surrendered or adopted, can request a non-certified copy of their original Illinois birth certificate, which typically includes the birth parents’ name(s), age(s) and place(s) of birth. To allow birth parents who surrendered their children in Illinois for adoption to convey their wishes regarding the release of
their identifying information to their surrendered child or children, the Illinois Department of Public Health is providing a Birth Parent Preference Form that will allow birth parents to request their identifying information remain confidential.”

National Public Radio Shines Spotlight on Foster Care System in South Dakota

Read the article online.

In the Arts

Late Discoveries by Susan Bennett

SOURCE: Fithian Press — “Sue Bennett’s book, Late Discoveries, is the tale of her search for two mothers. It ends with the discovery of how very much Susan was wanted and loved by both of them. This quest for truth was frequently frustrating but ultimately rewarding, and it changed Susan’s life dramatically. She now is an involved member of adoptee rights organizations including the American Adoption Congress and Search Triad, Inc.” A must read, especially for those who discovered later in life that they had been adopted.

A Girl Like Her by Ann Fessler

SOURCE: A Girl Like Her — “A GIRL LIKE HER is the real story of ‘sex and the single girl’. It reveals the hidden history of tens of thousands of young women who became pregnant in the 1950s and 60s and were banished to maternity homes to give birth, surrender their child, and return home alone. They were told to keep their secret,
move on and forget. But, does a woman forget her child? This film combines footage from films of the time period about dating, sex, ‘illegitimate’ pregnancy, and adoption that both reflected and shaped the public’s understanding of single pregnancy during that time. Hear the voices of these mothers as they speak today, with hindsight, about the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives.”

Songs of My Families by Kelly Fern

In 1971, Lee Myonghi, aged five, was taken from her family and placed in a Korean orphanage. Six months later, she was flown to the United States where she and two other Korean girls were adopted by a Minnesota couple who renamed her Kelly Jean. Eleven years later, Kelly found herself at the doorstep of a Minnesota agency, this time as a teen mother placing her own child for adoption. Kelly later married and had two more children. Then, in 2007, Kelly’s husband found her original Korean family, and so began a journey that reunited Kelly with the family she thought had abandoned her. It also triggered memories of placing the daughter she herself had lost twenty-five years before. Told with refreshing honesty, Songs of My Families is the moving story of two generations of women forced to make agonizing choices as they coped with harsh economic realities and personal crises. It is also an affirmation of the strength of family, the importance of one’s cultural heritage, and the enduring power of love. The book will be released early next year. Please contact Kelly for more information.

Call for Adoptee Interviewees

Anyone interested in sharing your adoption story for publication, please contact Anne Pollack, clinical social worker and adoptive parent, who is hoping to interview international adoptees for an upcoming book project. No identifying information will be made public.

Resources

New Data on Adoptees

The National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University is pleased to announce the release of a series of data resources on adoption. These include:

• Adoption Motivations Among U.S. Parents
• Adoptive Parents in the U.S., 2007
• Adopted Children in the U.S., 2007
• National Survey of Adoptive Parents, 2007
• Family Structure

(View the complete series
index)

New Blog Radio Spot from American Adoption Congress

Be sure to tune in to Pam Kroskie’s next Blog Radio interview with Patti Hawn, birthmother, author of Good Girls Don’t, and sister of actress Goldie Hawn. The interview will be live on November 18 at noon CST. For details and to hear past Blog Radio interviews, please visit the American Adoption Congress website.

AdopSource’s International Adoptee Needs Assessment

AdopSource wants to understand more about the international adoptees in Minnesota. How many adoptees and their families are in Minnesota and where do they live? All Minnesota adult international adoptees (including Native American Indian adult adoptees), please complete this 5 minute survey about the types of post-adoption services that would be most helpful to you and your family.

Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)

CUB has a jazzy new website! Feel free to stop by and check it out.

YouTube Animation on Adoptee Search

Check out this animated video of an adoptee explaining searching for birth parents to a non-adoptee.

Resources for continued exploration and healing will be provided to all participants.

Retreat cost is $15.00 to cover the cost of food. Scholarships are available for those with a financial hardship.