#323 - Milestones in Blogging

Book cover photo

Three years ago, a blog about American Indian Adoptees was a dream and the  history of the Indian Adoption Projects was buried.  Now it’s out there.  

Three years ago, this blog was born.  I set it up in 2009 but I didn’t blog much that year since I was just getting my feet wet - it seemed daunting at first. It was the technical parts of blogging that were new to me. But I had plenty to say and lots of research, news and history to share.

This is my 323rd post. It’s hard to wrap my head around that and how this one little blog has had over 43,000 visits.

The most important thing for me to say is this: Thank you. I don’t think I say it enough. That you all come back here week after week, reading, commenting, and sharing this blog means the world to me. That you’ve spent your hard-earned money on my memoir One Small Sacrifice, told your friends about it, talked about it on Facebook, visited my Book Page, you’ve taught me my vision for this history to be told - it was not wrong.

It’s not every day I get to say this  - thank you.

To recap the life of this blog, I thought I would highlight some of the biggest milestones of the past three years.

Top Search Engine: Google (they referred 4,500 people to this blog)

Most Searched Word:  Split Feather Syndrome

Most Page Views: Split Feathers Study (1,253 people have read this study on Native American adoptees called Split Feathers which is incredible!)

Most Visitors from another Blog:  Cassi’s blog “Adoption Truth” http://adoptiontruth-casjoh.blogspot.com/

Visitors around the world who regularly read this blog:  USA, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Australia, India, South Korea, and the Netherlands.

 I could go on and on, but for now let me just say that you all are the best.  Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/



Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/

Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/

Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/

Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/

Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Coerced Adoptions in Canada NEWS

‘You suffered just as much’: Adoptees gain new insight into parents’ choices as coerced adoption stories come to light... Read this news story from Canada here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/15/you-suffered-just-as-much/

Since a National Post investigation began uncovering stories about coerced adoption among unmarried women from the 1940s to the 1980s, several adoptees have contacted the newspaper saying the reports have validated their mothers’ accounts and helped prove that the choice to surrender was not fully hers. Some women had told their stories on the record for the first time, and they said their children have since expressed shock and compassion.

Does your path choose you?

What is your path in our world...

Even as a kid, instinctively I knew that until I had many life experiences, I didn't have the right to an opinion until I understood many other viewpoints and lived around the country awhile. After I graduated from high school and college, I lived in many different places and worked many kinds of jobs, that included singing in rock bands.

Did I know where it would lead?  I think I did! I followed my interests like a map.

Somehow I knew writing was my eventual path by age 10. I wrote in my journals religiously. No one ever told me to write... In those days I devoured magazines, a study of our strange and evolving American culture.  At one period in my 20s and 30s, I wrote three to 20 pages a day. That led to the discipline I needed to be a writer and have a solid "skill set" to do the work.

By early 1996 I did not choose journalism; it chose me. First I was hired as editor at a weekly newspaper in Hayward, Wisconsin. Then Paul DeMain, the publisher of News From Indian Country, hired me that fall.  It was obvious to me I only wanted to write about Native people and Native news.  Paul and I created Ojibwe Akiing about a month after I started.  After four years and a variety of duties on two Native newspapers, I had earned my unofficial degree in Native journalism from Paul DeMain.

Then the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation called and wanted to interview me for the editor position in June 1999. I flew to Connecticut for the interview and started work on August 16. That year I published a chapter in the book “Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics and the Games, 2000” based on my interviews with the family of Olympian Jim Thorpe, a Sac and Fox. It was published by Rutgers Press, in time for the Sydney Olympics.

One thing led to another. Yes, life experience shapes our thoughts and determines our path. The Old Ones visit in our dreams to guide us. We need to pay attention. Our path can take us down many new roads to many new people and we can learn so much in these challenges if we follow the signs which are our interests.  For me, being a journalist and blogger is a gift with power, one that I treat with respect and humility. If you abuse power, you lose it.

The poet warrior John Trudell's life is a source of my inspiration. Trudell suffered the loss of his entire family in a fire, which could have ended his life as a writer and activist. How he healed is how I intend to heal my own recent losses of close friends and beloved family members.

How we heal is entirely up to us, but we have to chose it. If we bury and deny our grief, it will inevitably hurt us more. Even our being adopted is a path. Where it leads is up to us.

After the tragedies, Trudell began to write in a manner as fearless and uncompromising as his political stance with the American Indian Movement, by picking up the pen... He said, "When I went to the writing, it was the most vengeful thing I could do. I won't say I started writing out of love. When I started out to write, I did not want to explode. Writing lines, poems, songs -- that became my explosion."

Can't escape the heat

Disguised as a memory

Howling at the sky

Always chasing almost love that way

Loaded heart in the need to run

Almost always chasing love that way

There's a way you're expected to obey

Don't bite the hand that feeds you

Don't you know what freedom means

Bad dog Bad dog

--John Trudell, "Bad Dog"

Please share how your path chose you in the comments section.... Trace

10 Things You Need to Know About Native American Women

February 5, 2012 by Laura Paskus

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It’s no exaggeration to say that American Indian women are missing from most media coverage, history books and classroom discussions. But at least journalism students, instructors and state educators in Nebraska are doing something to help end America’s ignorance of Native women and the contributions they make to their communities, their tribes and to the nation as a whole.
Last year, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications published the magazine, Native Daughters. With a grant from the Carnegie Foundation and under the guidance of five university professors, students spent 18 months reporting and writing about American Indian women who are artists, activists, lawyers, cops, warriors, healers, storytellers and leaders.
Now the Nebraska Department of Education has also released a companion curriculum for the magazine. You can download it for free here.
Can’t wait even one minute more to learn about Native women? Here’s a teaser of what you can learn more about in Native Daughters—and what you can share with your students via the new curriculum.
1. “A lot of people think that us women are not leaders, but we are the heart of the nation, we are the center of our home, and it is us who decide how it will be.”–Philomine Lakota, Lakota language teacher, Red Cloud High School, Pine Ridge, S.D.
2. The art forms Native women practice stand as reminders of cultural endurance. “Their crafts survived the Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Big Horn), Wounded Knee One (1890) and Two (1973),” writes Christina DeVries in Native Daughters. “Their spirits survived the Trail of Tears, the Relocation and Termination program and continued struggles against cultural annihilation.”
3. In 1997, Ms. magazine named Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) Woman of the Year. That same year, the activist also debuted her first novel, Last Standing Woman.
4. Of nearly 2 million women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, 18,000 are American Indian women. Their representation in the military is disproportionately high—and Native women are more likely to be sexually harassed, which increases their chances of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
5. The number of Native women applying to medical school has increased since 2003, peaking in 2007 when 77 Native women applied nationwide.
6. In 2007, when Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet (Diné) was named president of Antioch University, she became the first American Indian woman president of a mainstream university. Not only that, but about half of the nation’s tribal colleges are led by Native women presidents.
7. Cecelia Fire Thunder (Lakota) became the Oglala Lakota Tribe’s first woman president. She has fought against domestic abuse, saying it’s not a part of traditional culture, and been a leader for women’s reproductive rights. In 2006, when the South Dakota state legislature prohibited abortion, Fire Thunder announced plans to build a women’s clinic on the reservation, and therefore beyond state jurisdiction. She was impeached by the tribal council, who said she was acting outside her duties as president.
8. Women lead nearly one-quarter of the nation’s 562 federally recognized tribes.
9. “Through the late 1700s, Cherokee women were civically engaged. They owned land and had a say during wartime,” writes Astrid Munn in Native Daughters. “But this changed after the tribe ceded large tracts of land to the U.S. government in 1795.” Since the mid-1980s, though, a generation of Native women activists, lawmakers and attorneys have been changing that history and working to empower women again.
10. Indian Country could never survive without Native women.

Photo of magazine cover. To order copies of the magazine, contact Joe Starita. You can also visit nativedaughters.org to watch video clips and extended raw footage of the interviews.


Link to Native Daughters: http://cojmc.unl.edu/nativedaughters/

Tribes want to regain authority in adoptions of off-reservation American Indian kids

by Jon Collins, Minnesota Public Radio                                       

March 3, 2012

St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota American Indian tribes and their allies in the state Legislature are seeking to plug a gap in child custody laws opened by a state Supreme Court decision last year.
The court's decision derailed the common practice of giving tribal courts a role during pre-adoption and adoption for off-reservation American Indian kids.
Until the late 1970s, American Indian children across the country were adopted outside their communities at very high rates. The practice had a devastating effect on tribes, as generations of youth were cut loose from their cultural identities.
"People thought they understood that children would fare better if they were raised in white middle class homes," said Andrew Small, a lawyer and former tribal judge in the state. "When you remove a child from their home, that begins a process that sometimes is impossible to stop... a child is going to be lost to the tribe."
In 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was designed to allow tribes a say in child custody and adoption proceedings. Since then, Minnesota state courts dealing with custody of an American Indian child off the reservation have been able to transfer jurisdiction to tribal court, even in the later part of the proceedings, which are called adoptive or pre-adoptive stages.
But a Minnesota Supreme Court decision late last year found a gap in the Indian Child Welfare Act. The court decided that neither federal nor Minnesota statute explicitly allowed state courts, when dealing with an American Indian child living away from a reservation, to transfer jurisdiction during the later portion of custody proceedings.
Although Small warns that the issue isn't "black and white," he said a failure to pass legislation explicitly giving state courts the right to transfer jurisdiction to tribal courts might lead to a slight uptick in the sort of outside adoptions that first inspired Congress to pass the Indian Child Welfare Act in the first place.
"You're excluding the possibility that adoptive and pre-adoptive placement will be undertaken in a distinct and unique way of the tribe," Small said. "Children in that situation are typically going to be adopted out of their tribes."
Rep. Susan Allen, the first American Indian to serve in the Minnesota State Legislature, introduced a bill to fill the gap last week.
"The statute is adding [to] a procedure that's already in place," Allen said. "It's just extending that procedure to adoption proceedings."
Dawn Blanchard, Minnesota ombudsman for American Indian families, saw the state Supreme Court decision was a "fluke."
"For us it's sensitive, just because American Indians don't want their kids adopted outside the tribe," Blanchard said. "This [bill] kind of helps keep it the way it should be and the way it should be going."
The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and the three Dakota tribes have passed resolutions in support of the bill. The bill's next stop will be a hearing in the House Civil Law Committee.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html


Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.


In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.


However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.


Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.


Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.


Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.


Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.


Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.


When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”


Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.


As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.


Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.


However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.


While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.


I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.



Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html

Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.

In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.

However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.

Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.

Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.

Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.

Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.

Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.

When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”

Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.

As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.

However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.

While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.

I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.

Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html

Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.

In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.

However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.

Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.

Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.

Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.

Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.

Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.

When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”

Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.

As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.

However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.

While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.

I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.

Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html

Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.

In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.

However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.

Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.

Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.

Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.

Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.

Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.

When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”

Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.

As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.

However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.

While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.

I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.

Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html

Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.

In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.

However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.

Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.

Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.

Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.

Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.

Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.

When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”

Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.

As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.

However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.

While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.

I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.

Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

Adoptees deported by US? Yes

By Kim Sung-soo
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/03/137_106204.html

Until 2001, when Korean children were sent to the U.S. for overseas adoption, it was their adoptive parents’ responsibility to naturalize them as U.S. citizens.

In addition, adoption agencies both in Korea and the U.S. were responsible for post-adoption services that should monitor adoptees and their adoptive parents until the children are fully integrated into U.S. society. This is a key principle of overseas adoption.

However, the reality is not the same as the principle. The U.S. deports foreign adoptees aged 29 and older who haven’t been naturalized when they commit certain crimes. Washington must stop this practice immediately.

Unlike European governments, the U.S. government did not automatically grant citizenship to overseas adoptees until 2001. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 came into force on Feb. 27, 2001, allowing all internationally adopted children under 18 on that date, and all those adopted in the future, to become U.S. citizens automatically. However, adoptees 18 or older on that date could not be covered by the act.

Many adoptees discovered, usually when applying for federal student loans or a passport, that they had never been naturalized by their foster parents. I know three Korean adoptees ― Monte, Tim, and Matthew ― who could not benefit from the act.

Monte was born in 1970 in Korea and was sent to the U.S. in 1978. Although he served in the U.S. military, he was deported to Korea in 2009. Monte claims that when he was arrested, he did not know that he had been set up by his truck driving partner to transport drugs. Like most other Korean adoptees sent to the U.S., Monte is culturally American and does not speak Korean.

Tim was born in Korea in 1974, and in 1977 he went to the U.S. as an adoptee. His adoptive parents cut their ties with him after he graduated from high school, so he left his home and wandered throughout the U.S. He became homeless and addicted to drugs for over 15 years. Ultimately he was arrested, imprisoned, and deported to Korea, where he became homeless again in April 2011. He has no trace of his birth family on his adoption records.

Matthew was born in Korea in 1978 and he went to the U.S. at the age of six months, but his parents did not naturalize him. He was not deported, but willingly returned to Korea in February 2011 to be close to his family and experience Korea as a young man.

When the Seoul government discovered that Matthew, technically an “overseas Korean citizen,” was back in the country, he received a compulsory enlistment notice from the Korean military. After a prolonged struggle over paperwork that reflected both his permanent residency in the U.S. and his Korean citizenship, Matthew was finally granted an exemption from military enlistment because he is also technically an “orphan.”

Matthew would like to have dual citizenship, just as other adoptees have that option. But because he received his Green Card only in the past few years, he would be in his 40s by the time he gains U.S. citizenship. In the interim, he would be required to live within the U.S. Meanwhile, adoptees with only U.S. citizenship may live in Korea indefinitely on an F-4 visa.

As the U.S. leads the world in terms of the numbers of children adopted from other countries, it should also lead the world in the humanitarian treatment of them. However, we are now seeing that adoptees from not just Korea, but many other countries, are being deported from the U.S. even on minor charges.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), amended and expanded by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996, non-citizens may apply for “waivers” to deportations, based on factors such as length of residency in the U.S. and potential hardship if deported.

However, no such exceptions are available to “aggravated felons.” Aggravated felonies include crimes such as drug trafficking, but may also include misdemeanor charges. For instance, the IIRAIRA expanded the INA so a person may be treated as an aggravated felon for committing a theft punishable by only one year in prison. This opens up the risk of adoptees to be deported for petty crimes such as shoplifting.

While recognizing that non-adopted people who immigrated as children are also subject to this law, I believe that the U.S. Congress, through passing the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, has already shown its belief that international adoptees should be automatic citizens.

I urge the U.S. government to correct defects in the U.S. legal system by quickly passing an amendment that would allow all overseas adoptees ― even adults like Tim, Matthew, and Monte ― to rightfully receive their U.S. citizenship. This would stop the deportations and also give the benefits and protection of citizenship to all law-abiding international adoptees.

Dr. Kim Sung-soo is the author of a biography of Korean Quaker Ham Sok-hon and executive director of Transparency International-Korea. Reach him at wadans@empas.com.

RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

WRNI: RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

WRNI: RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

WRNI: RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

WRNI: RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

WRNI: RI adoptees may now request birth certificates (2012-02-29)

Blog Week: Biological Curiousity

BLOG WEEK: What bothers you about the Adoption Establishment?

Excerpt from ONE SMALL SACRIFICE: A Memoir (2nd Edition)

Never before had I experienced such difficulty with one story.  I repeat: never.  I took to writing like a duck takes to water.  Most days, writing and doing research is like breathing.  This time was different.  I struggled.  I knew I’d hit something so I had to slow down, to process, to dig. This history, my history, similar stories, had to be somewhere.

How many countries do not allow adoption?  Several.  Iraq is one.  No children from Western Europe, Australia, or Canada are eligible for adoption by Americans right now.

Nonetheless, America’s adoption reach has been global, widely publicized, some insist saintly, God-like of those who adopt orphans, even if money is exchanged for babies.

International adoption really began after the Korean War, when American GI’s left numerous orphans with their poverty-stricken mothers; then Korean and American-Asian orphans were brought here to be adopted in the United States.  After that, Americans adopted thousands of children from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.  There is no bigger adopter.  In 2002 alone, U.S. families adopted over 20,000 children from various Third World nations. 

The overall topic of adoption begged one question for me. “Wait, how do adoptees feel?”  No one had asked me when I was young or old.  I wanted this answered so I dug in.

An adoptee movement makes headlines these days.  Adoptive parents are usually shocked to hear their adopted child say they need to know who they are and what happened.

My Alaskan Native-Celtic friend Anecia says, “The power of identity is stronger than fear.” That’s a powerful statement about adoption, yes.  Anecia went full circle as an adoptee and met her birth mom and dad.  Her adoptive dad helped her.

The reality is adoptees do have a strong biological curiosity. It’s awful scary not to know who you are.  My first goal was discovery —how I lived a mystery and solved it, and I survived spiritually intact and remarkably well.  Other Split Feathers need to know how this is possible, even after our pain.

This memoir is not about my recovery from depression or addiction or self-mutilation or suicide attempts, not at all.  Apparently adoptees do suffer from these more than the rest of humanity.

Facing my own situation head-on, what choice did I have? I was an abandoned baby—it was my initiation into being human.

My new paperback is now available at http://www.amazon.com/One-Small-Sacrifice-Children-Adoption/dp/061558215X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330473755&sr=1-3 

On Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/One-Small-Sacrifice-Children-Adoption/dp/061558215X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330473755&sr=1-3

Blog Week: Propaganda aimed at teens

Continuing with Blog Week: What bothers you about the Adoption Establishment?
I found a website (http://starcasm.net/archives/145898) that featured teens who used Bethany Christian Services. Teens are not educated about Birth Psychology or the life-long health effects of trauma on the infant who is given up for adoption. What bothers me? How the adoption industry plants propaganda to influence teens and we can see their profits are their priority, not keeping young families intact.

Excerpt:
Teen Mom's Catelynn Lowell and Tyler Baltierra Appear in Adoption Agency Commercial (VIDEO)  by Wetpaint Entertainment Staff...

Catelynn Lowell and now-fiance Tyler Baltierra made the tough decision to give their baby daughter up for adoption. But in this commercial unearthed by Starcasm, they say the time was made easier by adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services.
At first, we were both really nervous," Catelynn says. But, "Bethany cares a lot about the birth parents ... they'll help the birth parents through anything."
 "When you walk into that office and talk to one of the counselors, the feeling you get is warmth and care," Tyler adds.

To see the commercial go to : http://starcasm.net/archives/145898

In Indian Country, young children are raised by aunties and grandmas if mothers cannot - that practice has been going on for centuries - Everyone is your relative in your tribe so kinship adoption was not destructive or disruptive to the child.
America's Adoption Industry cannot grasp the importance of keeping families intact....Trace

BLOG WEEK: My beautiful sister Teresa

Teresa (1961-2012)

Meeting and getting to know my sister Teresa was the greatest gift in my life. I met her in 1994 when I met my dad Earl for the first time. She died yesterday at age 50.
I always wanted a sister and she was the very best for the past 18 years. I will be attending her funeral and conclude BLOG WEEK "Adoption Establishment" with this.

1. Getting to meet siblings is life-changing.
2. Knowing my first family and siblings helped me go full circle on my adoption journey to healing.
3. Finding family who looked like me and loved me unconditionally was priceless.

I am glad I never gave up the search for my first family. My reunion happened 16 years after I started looking for them. I don't regret opening my adoption, despite the laws that prevented me and unwritten rules that said I should never search because it would hurt my adoptive parents.

Adoptees, please start your search if you haven't. FIND YOUR FAMILY! Write your legislators and tell them to open your adoption records. Contact Soaring Angels on Yahoo Groups and get your non-id paperwork. Don't wait, start today.

Trace/Laura Thrall-Bland

(I have a few more BLOG WEEK posts scheduled in the next few days)

Blog Week: Toxic Stress & Adoptee Health

patient rights

BLOG WEEK: What annoys me about the Adoption Establishment continues...

TOXIC STRESS is an integral part of adoption in my mind.  The Adoption Establishment doesn't mention effects on the baby who is orphaned and put up for adoption. That annoys me!
Being adopted affected my health as a child and as an adult. I call myself Super-Sensitive....the trauma of being abandoned is one of the greatest pains you will ever feel and impossible to heal...

ADOPTEE HEALTH

          Adoptees are truly a unique and diverse group. Some adoptees know they were traumatized as babies and now are plagued with emotional and physical problems...A few adoptees I know were adopted as children so they spent time with the natural mother, and many were breastfed.

          I did not spend any time with my natural mother and went directly to an orphanage. By the time I was adopted, I was a wreck. How do I know this? My parent’s memories and home movies. My immune system struggled continuously, and I struggle with adult allergies. You name it: weeds, grass, molds, dust, trees, and many foods.

          I admit I was running on high speed as a kid and taxed my adrenals to the max. When you’re in a heightened state of fear, in my case, this is called the fight or flight response. Doctors call it adrenal overload.

          In an earlier blog I posted information about the ACE STUDY and how childhood stress becomes an adult health problem.

          Now this: "Could your flight-or-fight response be giving you cancer?"

That question is answered by Alice Wessendorf on the Healthier Talk website.

Alice: "When you find yourself in a difficult situation, hormones are released that up your heart rate, quicken your breathing, narrow your vision and, in general, prepare your body to clash or dash.

"This process, known as the fight-or-flight response, is supposed to save your life. But it turns out that it may also be giving you cancer.

"We already knew that this stress response could increase the risk for illnesses like heart disease. But now, new research out of the University of Texas points to stress hormones directly supporting tumor growth and spread.

"They do this by flipping the switch on the stress- activated protein known as focal adhesion kinase (FAK). FAK protects the detached cancer cells from dying. Allowing them to spread through your blood system finding places to re-attach and grow new tumors.

"And, as you may have already guessed, the higher your stress hormones are the higher your FAK levels become and the quicker tumors can grow and spread.

"So what can be done to stop the spread? Reducing the stress hormones circulating in your system is critical. You can't rid yourself of your natural fight-or-flight response. But what you can do is manage your stress levels."

The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health hosted an event to discuss the long term toxic stress consequences on children.

From the Summary: Evidence suggests that for the youngest children, prolonged or severe exposure to abuse, neglect and economic hardship – exacerbated by a dearth of stable, supportive relationships with adults – can provoke a “toxic stress response” with lifelong consequences. Such stress may influence brain development and increase the risk for illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. While efforts have been made for decades to intervene early in children’s lives, the results have not always been resounding.

Quotes: “What the science is telling us is that what happens early on affects lifelong health… So this is a game-changer for how the policy deals with toxic stress. This is for the health committees as much as it’s for the education committees. It’s as much for the Secretary of Public Health as it is for the Secretary of Education because what happens early on affects both, lifelong.” - Jack Shonkoff, Director, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and Professor of Child Health and Development, Harvard School of Public Health
“Rather than saying to the parents, ‘You are a problem,’ what we have to say to the parents is, ‘There are some things going on in your life that are having a tremendous effect on you and your child. Let’s see if we can figure out a way to help and make that situation better.’" - Robert Block, President, American Academy of Pediatrics
“There is no silver bullet solution here. I think it really requires us having a more systemic look at the well-being of our kids and putting that front and center. So our Administration is going to remain committed to that goal. “ - Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy, The White Houses
Link to videos: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/forum/toxic-stress-of-early-childhood-adversity.cfm

mp3 file: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/forum/files/audio/20120207_toxic_stress.mp3

Blog Week: Toxic Stress & Adoptee Health

patient rights

BLOG WEEK: What annoys me about the Adoption Establishment continues...

TOXIC STRESS is an integral part of adoption in my mind.  The Adoption Establishment doesn't mention effects on the baby who is orphaned and put up for adoption. That annoys me!
Being adopted affected my health as a child and as an adult. I call myself Super-Sensitive....the trauma of being abandoned is one of the greatest pains you will ever feel and impossible to heal...

ADOPTEE HEALTH

          Adoptees are truly a unique and diverse group. Some adoptees know they were traumatized as babies and now are plagued with emotional and physical problems...A few adoptees I know were adopted as children so they spent time with the natural mother, and many were breastfed.

          I did not spend any time with my natural mother and went directly to an orphanage. By the time I was adopted, I was a wreck. How do I know this? My parent’s memories and home movies. My immune system struggled continuously, and I struggle with adult allergies. You name it: weeds, grass, molds, dust, trees, and many foods.

          I admit I was running on high speed as a kid and taxed my adrenals to the max. When you’re in a heightened state of fear, in my case, this is called the fight or flight response. Doctors call it adrenal overload.

          In an earlier blog I posted information about the ACE STUDY and how childhood stress becomes an adult health problem.

          Now this: "Could your flight-or-fight response be giving you cancer?"

That question is answered by Alice Wessendorf on the Healthier Talk website.

Alice: "When you find yourself in a difficult situation, hormones are released that up your heart rate, quicken your breathing, narrow your vision and, in general, prepare your body to clash or dash.

"This process, known as the fight-or-flight response, is supposed to save your life. But it turns out that it may also be giving you cancer.

"We already knew that this stress response could increase the risk for illnesses like heart disease. But now, new research out of the University of Texas points to stress hormones directly supporting tumor growth and spread.

"They do this by flipping the switch on the stress- activated protein known as focal adhesion kinase (FAK). FAK protects the detached cancer cells from dying. Allowing them to spread through your blood system finding places to re-attach and grow new tumors.

"And, as you may have already guessed, the higher your stress hormones are the higher your FAK levels become and the quicker tumors can grow and spread.

"So what can be done to stop the spread? Reducing the stress hormones circulating in your system is critical. You can't rid yourself of your natural fight-or-flight response. But what you can do is manage your stress levels."

The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health hosted an event to discuss the long term toxic stress consequences on children.

From the Summary: Evidence suggests that for the youngest children, prolonged or severe exposure to abuse, neglect and economic hardship – exacerbated by a dearth of stable, supportive relationships with adults – can provoke a “toxic stress response” with lifelong consequences. Such stress may influence brain development and increase the risk for illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. While efforts have been made for decades to intervene early in children’s lives, the results have not always been resounding.

Quotes: “What the science is telling us is that what happens early on affects lifelong health… So this is a game-changer for how the policy deals with toxic stress. This is for the health committees as much as it’s for the education committees. It’s as much for the Secretary of Public Health as it is for the Secretary of Education because what happens early on affects both, lifelong.” - Jack Shonkoff, Director, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and Professor of Child Health and Development, Harvard School of Public Health
“Rather than saying to the parents, ‘You are a problem,’ what we have to say to the parents is, ‘There are some things going on in your life that are having a tremendous effect on you and your child. Let’s see if we can figure out a way to help and make that situation better.’" - Robert Block, President, American Academy of Pediatrics
“There is no silver bullet solution here. I think it really requires us having a more systemic look at the well-being of our kids and putting that front and center. So our Administration is going to remain committed to that goal. “ - Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy, The White Houses
Link to videos: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/forum/toxic-stress-of-early-childhood-adversity.cfm

mp3 file: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/forum/files/audio/20120207_toxic_stress.mp3