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By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
Thanks for joining us for another Holt Adoptee Camp interview! This interview is with Tracy, a member of our leadership staff from Camp season 2011. As you prepare your summer plans, please consider Camp as part of a great support for your family and your child! In addition to our week-long overnight camp, we also have a single day Day Camp at each of our six locations (OR, CA, IA, WI, GA, PA)! See our website here and register for these exciting opportunities!
Michael: Hey Tracy! You and I worked closely this summer, but the readers aren’t familiar with you yet. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Tracy: Well, my name is Tracy, and I grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts — a small suburban town with only 3-4 other Asian Americans in my school. I have a younger brother who is also adopted, Robbie. I am currently acting, and lived in LA after college. I am now living in Atlanta with my husband, and pursuing my acting career here.
M: Awesome! And you volunteered with camp this summer, too! What was your position and what did you do?
T: It was my first time at Holt camp! I originally applied to be a counselor, but then I became leadership [staff managing the counselors]. Being around that many adoptees was amazing — it was an amazing time in my life. As leadership, we were in charge of Continue reading Straight from the Adoptee: An Interview with a Counselor and Camper about Holt Camp – Part II
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
 Hey, everyone. I wanted to give you an opportunity to learn about Camp straight from the mouths of our biggest participants: a camper and a counselor who were each part of our program in 2011. What follows are two interviews I conducted on Facebook that will hopefully help you learn more about the program. Look for this interview in Mei Magazine’s upcoming Camp Issue where an editorial about Camp will also appear!
My first interview is with Rachel, an Adoptee from Wisconsin:
Michael: Hey Rachel! Thanks for joining me for this conversation. We know each other but the rest of our readers don’t – could you tell me a little about yourself?
Rachel: My name is Rachel. I currently live in Madison, Wisconsin and I’m 15. I was adopted from Fujian, China when I was Continue reading Straight from the Adoptee: A Two-Part Interview with a Counselor and Camper about Holt Camp
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
 Imagine this scene. You and your child are minding your own business, when all of a sudden you hear someone make a racist comment. Confused, you pause for a second and think to yourself, “Did he really just say that?” In an instant that seems like an eternity, you emerge from the incredulous fog and find yourself angry; you’re angry the person would use such derogatory language, you’re angry you keep hearing stuff like this, you’re angry they’ve never been confronted about it before. Then, as quickly as the anger emerged, the mental scatteredness and disorientation begins. “What do I say? How do I respond? Should I just tell him he’s a jerk? Maybe he didn’t mean to be offensive.” All of these thoughts race through your mind as your opportunity to respond slips away. Inevitably, as you figure out the perfect response, the moment has passed and Continue reading The Awkward Racist Moment
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
 As my seventh summer as camp director has come to an end, I sit and reflect on what we’ve learned and how the camp has grown over the years as a program and a Post Adoption Service. We’ve come to expect shockingly real and honest advice about how to navigate the challenges of adoption from both Adoptees and Adoptive Parents, and this year was no exception. We heard stories of struggle and triumph as Adoptees and Adoptive Parents from around the country proudly shared their personal experiences on topics ranging from racism and public perception to insensitive policies in the schools and the neighborhood bully. Each story unique in its occurrence but bound by the common thread of the Adoption experience.
These pearls of wisdom have taught us a lot about the current life of a family created through adoption. Given the safe space and opportunity, the campers and Continue reading Foreign Adoption Languages
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
 2011 was another fantastic year for Holt Adoptee Camp and Day Camp! We served over 445 individuals in six different states. Every week is a new Camp with new campers and a new location. Every week is an opportunity for Adoptees to meet other kids like themselves, an opportunity to create a community of Adoptees. And every week inevitably comes to an end. For campers, this may mean sad goodbyes to their new friends and a long ride back home. But though Camp ends, the community does not. The Adoptee community created during the Camp week becomes the most empowering and lasting aspect of the program. Young Adoptees maintain this community throughout the year through conversation, support, and camaraderie. This kind of communication is mostly (and unsurprisingly) supported by Facebook. I’ve seen a number of trends regarding how young Adoptees stay in touch throughout the year – these trends can provide great insight into how Adoptees think and the kind of connection they want to have with each other. I’d like to share some of these trends with you to help support your understanding of what Adoptees want and need Continue reading How Adoptees Communicate: An Insider’s Look into Adoptee-to-Adoptee Communication Trends
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
I’m trying to determine how international adoption is portrayed in TV news by examining clips after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Thus far,  I’ve sifted through roughly 80 clips from network affiliates around the country. Preliminary analysis has uncovered a couple major themes in the stories/reports: 1. The adoption process takes time. 2. Child rescue. As I discussed these (extremely) early findings with one of my professors, we debated about how these images and stories shape the conversation landscape regarding adoption. Are themed stories like these adding to the international adoption lexicon? Are the stories benefiting us as an adoption community in any way? After an hour of discussion, the answer was confusingly clear Continue reading It’s Complicated
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
Birth culture is oversized in our adoption community. Teaching Adoptees about their birth country’s culture is a significant focus in adoption-targeted events and media and has been for nearly thirty years. Camps, weekend events, magazines, television, and websites are frequently built around the birth culture concept. Unfortunately, birth culture education is often used in place of an equally, and sometimes more important, component of an Adoptee’s identity – race. We all recognize that race and birth  culture are two separate things, but they are frequently lumped together in adoption resources and this generally results in the replacement of race-focused discussion. I’ll illustrate birth culture’s current role, the importance of race talks and offer some tips for talking about race with your child.
Understand that birth culture is a component of Adoptee identity. It is just that, a component – a part of a greater and more intricate Continue reading Birth Culture vs. Race: What to Do?
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
A big part of my job involves crafting strategies to help Adoptees and their parents communicate with one another about tough issues like adoption and race. Common sense tells us that it’s a simple task; encourage Adoptees and parents to talk with each other about their life experiences, so they can understand each other on a deeper level. Sounds easy enough, right? It, however, proves to be much more complicated than that. Two major factors — when it comes to tough conversations about race or adoption — prevent meaningful conversations between Adoptees and parents.
The emotional, protective instincts both parties have for one another is the first contributing factor. Parents want their child to be happy and feel good about themselves, and will often go to great lengths to make it so. This protective instinct Continue reading The Challenge of Intimate Conversations
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
Every Adoptee knows them. The questions. The questions that come regularly and without warning from strangers, acquaintances, friends, and yes, even family. They happen when adoption comes under scrutiny, for whatever reason. The questions range from thought provoking, to annoying to hurtful. Sometimes, these questions aim to explore the private aspects of Adoptees’ lives – aspects like emotional stability, family life, parents’ (adoptive parents or birth parents) motives for adoption, level of gratitude to these parents, and feelings on international adoption. That’s a lot for a young Adoptee to face. What’s important is that we consider some ideas surrounding these questions, so we may prepare young Adoptees to respond confidently. Continue reading Questions: Empowering Adoptees to Respond
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
When birth search is mentioned in the international adoption world, our minds usually drift to images of an Adoptee scouring through files and records, making pleas with foreign media outlets, or negotiating with foreign authorities in hopes of discovering some morsel of information that will lead to his or her Birth Family. However, these images only represent one idea of birth search; the Adoptee searching for the Birth Family in a foreign country. What many don’t realize is that Birth Parents from sending countries often search for their relinquished children in the U.S. This search process occurs through a concerted effort between the sending country agency and the placing agency in the U.S. This is one of our many post adoption services.
Over the years, I’ve made several calls to unsuspecting Adult Adoptees informing them that their Birth Parents were searching for them. Responses vary. Adoptees have told me everything from Continue reading The Other Sides of Birth Search
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