Two Recent Articles About My Work
I am feeling sheer gratitude with regards to how my work has been portrayed recently! Wanted to share a couple of articles that have been published within this past month.
Yes! Magazine published a piece entitled What Happens When White Parents Adopt Black Children and Move to Black Neighborhoods. I've spent a couple of years journaling about my experience feeling dissonance between recommending some transracially adoptive families to consider moving to nieghborhoods that racially reflect their childre, while recognizing that this advice has inadvertantly contributed toward the gentrification of nieghborhoods. It's such an honor when my journal scribbles can provide helpful fodder for others. Please give the piece a read!
Sometimes the best intentions to bolster identity and culture contribute to gentrification and displacement of the Black community.
The South Seattle Emerald is running a wonderful series on "Revolutionary Women" for which I'm honored to be included. Marilee Jolin wrote about how my advocacy work has impacted her, which has served to fuel my mission to continue to educate. She kindly wrote:
In addition to supporting adoptees, Angela’s program works with birth families. This aspect of her work has been particularly compelling to me. Angela exemplifies a deep compassion and understanding for birth mothers, birth fathers, and extended biological families, advocating for adoptees to maintain or build connections with their families and communities of origin. In witnessing her compassion and advocacy, I realize that I’ve internalized incorrect, racist, and harmful messages about birth families and adoption.
— Marilee Jolin