The complexity of Mother’s Day and AANHPI Heritage and Foster Care Month
Published 15 days ago • 17 min read
It is important to mention Mother's Day, even though personally I prefer other people would ignore it - and I know I'm not the only one. It can be a very difficult day for adoptees, first mothers, and many others who have experienced loss, parental separation, or difficult relationships. A person centered approach reminds us that wishing a Happy Mother's Day is an assumption in the majority of cases and may not be the kindest of approaches.
By Sydney Schaub: Birth moms, birth fathers and adoptees want to know they're thought of, cared for, supported, appreciated, and special. You can’t go to the store and find an appropriate birthday card for your child because they don’t fit with the son/daughter labels, and the boy/girl are too informal. You can’t find birthmother’s day or birthfathers day cards. So what cards do you send to show you're thinking of each other? I've crafted a line of greeting cards for all sorts of occasions. These would include from the adoptee to the birth parents, from the adoptive parents to birth parents, from the birth parents to the adoptee, and birthparents to adoptive parents. Now members of the triad can confidently find the perfect card for the occasion instead of stirring up confusion and more emotions during times that are already emotionally hard.
Asian Pacific Heritage Month, Asian American Pacific Islander, Asian American Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month - The terms and acronyms are not even consistent within a single site. Asia itself is large and diverse in cultures. The Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island) each have their own cultures and histories.
For Asian and Pacific Islander adoptees, May can be an opportunity to explore culture or it may make them feel more separated from their heritage. It is not uncommon for Samoans to be raised outside of Sāmoa and not speak the language, but Korean adoptees have reported feeling rejected by other Koreans if they do not speak Korean, regardless of where they were raised. Some adoptees may feel more comfortable connecting with other adoptees to explore culture rather than with people who were raised in closer proximity to their culture of origin.
For those not yet ready to connect with others, there are many ways to explore culture individually as well. Culture is the values, patterns of behavior, and communication created by a people. It includes language, food, music, dance, literature, sports, clothing, art, rituals, history, and more. Books can help you explore history, values, and mythology, in addition to language. Etsy can be a great way to add art (and values) into your life and home. Streaming services make it possible to watch films from all over the world.
Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Mental Health, published in late 2016 and then expanded and re-issued in 2019, is an arts and humanities intervention to decolonize mental health, a community effort, led by Mimi Khúc, to collectively ask what Asian American unwellness looks like and how to tend to that unwellness.
We’re seeking work from AAPI Adoptee Poets for a collection of poems featuring emerging + established poets across the US.
Tie Your Roots To Mine, an AAPI Adoptee Anthology will gather contemporary voices of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Adoptee Poetry to explore identity, ancestry, and the complexities of adoption. This collection offers a rare and necessary perspective on diaspora, family, and culture. Highlighting both established and emerging writers, we aim to create a space where grief, resilience, love, and transformation coexist. We are searching for poetry that bends form, breaks structure, and moves around the page.
We invite you to submit 2-3 poems, with no page or word limit, as well as a short statement (300-500 words) about your experience being an adoptee, your perspective of adoption, or your relationship to an AAPI identity. Both items will be featured in the publication!
We are accepting submissions until June 1st, 2026 with planned publication in May, 2028.
I am not a fan of Psychology Today, but I am a fan of Jeanette Yoffe, so I am happy to share this collection of 20 blogs she has written as a part of National Foster Care Month.
I want to highlight a book with each newsletter, so we can all continue to grow and learn. AD
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung is the type of memoir that appeals to so many; it is no wonder it earned so much recognition when it was first published. It is a story that many adoptees can find relatable and adoptive parents can reflect on, told with truth and kindness. It is not just a memoir but a sharing of thoughts and emotions. You will not regret this read.
From Amazon: Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up—facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from—she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child.
For more recommendations, check out my (affiliate) Amazon Storefront
Resource for Taiwanese Adoptees
Taiwan has developed a online booklet designed to help returning and reuniting adoptees understand Taiwanese ways and how families can react in reunion.
We have Pop! Star Judi to thank for taking us on this journey to a time when adoption jokes got the studio audience roaring, lying to kids passed for good parenting, and one real mother was all that anyone was allowed. No, we’re not talking about 2025; we’re talking about 1984! Join podcast journalist, Haley Radke, filmmaker, Kristal Parke, and cultural critic, Sullivan Summer, for this nostalgic romp back in time to one of the most popular family sit coms of the 1980s. What would we do, baby, without us?
Currently available in six languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Haitian Kreyol, and French
Unlike paper or PDF-based emergency plans, ReadyNow! is built for real-time response. If users have a run-in with ICE, they simply press the big red alert button and ReadyNow! will send out those emergency messages via SMS to pre-assigned contacts. All data is encrypted, stored only on the user’s device, not on the Cloud, and deleted after an alert is sent—preventing access by ICE if the phone is seized.
Adoptees United’sCitizenship Clinic assists intercountry adopted people with US citizenship or immigration issues. The clinic’s services include legal screenings, consultation and advice about legal options, and legal representation to secure a Certificate of Citizenship or, if needed, a Certificate of Naturalization.
This website collects community-submitted information about possible ICE activity to help inform the public and raise awareness. All reports are reviewed by a moderator team before appearing on the map and the map is cleared at the end of each day.
AFFCNY has put together two really thorough lists of resources. The Immigration Resources pictured below includes a listing of several legal resources and other information. The Citizenship Resource for Intercountry Adoptees resources is also full of very helpful links. They have also invited Greg Luce to be a Keynote for their May conference.
NAKASEC also has a 24/7 hotline, where you can call and receive live confidential assistance in English or Korean. If you or someone you love is confronted by police/ICE/CBP or has been detained, you can call 1 844 500 3222 for immediate support. For non-emergency calls, such as requesting help determining your immigration status, please contact legal@adoptees4justice.org.
Seeking Research Participants
For adopted women who relinquished children
Stevens, T., & Moss, M. (2026). Understanding how adults adopted in England pre-1989 experience parenthood. Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759261421601
ABSTRACT
Adoption has a lifelong impact, with events such as parenthood reactivating adoption-related thoughts and feelings. English adoption generally falls into two eras: pre-1980s adoptions, typically secretive infant relinquishment due to societal views on illegitimacy and interracial relationships, and post-1980s adoptions, involving older children often removed due to abuse or neglect. This study explores how adults adopted before 1989, potentially raised with limited biographical and communicative openness as well as less post-adoption support, experience parenthood, a life stage affecting identity, mental health and relationships, areas notably complex for adoptees. Four English adult adoptees (two men and two women, aged 40– 50), adopted domestically before 18 months old (three at birth), with two or more children predominantly in their teens and 20s participated in semi-structured interviews covering their parenthood journey. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed three themes: ‘Parenthood is an awakening’; ‘Adoption echoes on’; and ‘Moving forwards’. Communicative openness within the adoptive family had lasting effects on adoptees’ own parenting communication. Recommendations include training adoptive parents on adoption’s lifelong impact and promoting open and supportive communication with adoptees. Targeted psychosocial support for adoptees who become parents is also advised.
This systematic review examined pre- and post-adoption factors associated with internalizing problems in adopted children and adolescents. Forty observational studies published between 1998 and 2024 were included, identified through searches across seven databases and screened according to PRISMA 2020 and JBI guidelines. Eligible studies assessed anxiety and depression with validated instruments in samples of adoptees under 18 years. Findings showed that pre-adoption risks, such as older age at placement, maltreatment, and institutional care, were associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms. However, results were heterogeneous, with several studies reporting null or inconsistent effects. Post-adoption factors showed more consistent patterns: parental warmth, sensitivity, family cohesion, and open adoption communication emerged as protective, whereas parental depressive symptoms, parenting stress, rejection behaviors, and family conflict were linked to greater risk. Differences across reporters (parents, teachers, children) highlighted the importance of multi-informant assessment. Overall, the findings suggest that while pre-adoptive adversity contributes to vulnerability, modifiable family and contextual processes play a central role in shaping adoptees’ emotional adjustment. These results underscore the developmental potential of adoption and emphasize the value of family-centered post-adoption supports. Future research should adopt longitudinal, multi-informant, and culturally diverse designs to clarify causal pathways and inform targeted interventions.
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Lepard, T., Philobos, R., Williamson, L., & Blake, A. (2026). Exploring parents' experiences with direct-to-consumer genetic testing for their adopted children. Journal of genetic counseling, 35(2), e70210. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgc4.70210
ABSTRACT
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT) is rising in popularity and may be especially valuable to adoptees, who may be lacking family health history information. Because DTC-GT does not require a healthcare provider to be ordered, parents can conduct DTC-GT on their children, though professional organizations caution against it. The aims of this study were to understand parents' motivations to conduct DTC-GT on their adopted children, explore what they view as the pros and cons of testing, and learn how they use the information gained from testing. Parents who had conducted DTC-GT on their adopted minor child(ren) were eligible to participate. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded, and transcribed. Inductive content analysis was completed using a codebook by three authors separately. A total of 11 interviews were conducted. Participants were motivated to conduct DTC-GT on their children to learn medical and ancestry information and/or to connect with biological relatives. Participants were also aware of the drawbacks of testing, namely privacy concerns. All participants shared the complete results with their children, except for two who withheld some medical information. The reaction to the results by participants and children was generally positive, with many parents recommending DTC-GT to other adoptive families. Most participants found the information gained from testing to be interesting but not useful and therefore made no changes to lifestyle or medical management. The participants in this study indicated that DTC-GT can be used to help adoptees navigate questions about sense of self and did not report DTC-GT directly leading to harm in most cases.
Camp Dates; July 9-12, 2026 Registration opens January 15, 2026 and Closes June 9, 2026 Location: Front Range Community College
June 25-28, 2026! , an optional casual camping experience can be added, 24-25th
Join us for this 4 day, 3 night Gathering (with an optional additional night/day) set in the picturesque Mt. Hood National Forest, set on the banks of the salmon river! This family-oriented camp experience is open to all Ethiopians, Ethiopian -Americans, and Ethiopian adoptive families and friends. Share a taste of the traditions from the Horn of Africa and come together to celebrate families in all shapes and sizes.
Family Camp July 30 - August 2, 2026 Location: Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
July 26 - August 8, 2026 Adopted Kids Sleep-away camp
Family Camp July 20-25th, Texas
June 19-21, 2026 or September 18-20, 2026, Columbus, IN
Hope Family Camp 2026 Dates: 2 weekends about 1 month apart -training for first weekend, then check in & adjustment for second weekend June 11th (4p-8p), June 12th (8a-4p), July 9th (4p-8p) & July 10th (8a-4p)
Location: Pathfinder Farms: 846 Co Rd 30A, Ashland, OH 44805
