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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 Lisle Veach, Admin Coordinator, China Program
ANNOUNCING PLANS FOR A COMBINED HERITAGE TOUR & ADOPTEE FAMILY DAY CAMP IN CHINA IN 2012!
Holt was the first agency to pioneer the concept of heritage tours for international adoptees in the 1970s. With adult adoptees in leadership positions and on our staff and board, and with years of experience working with children in orphanages all over China, Holt is uniquely qualified to offer a profound homeland experience for adoptees and their families.
On Holt’s upcoming 2012 Family Tours, in addition to two weeks of sightseeing and educational activities around China, for two and Continue reading Combined Heritage Tour & Adoptee Family Day Camp in China
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 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 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 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 Lisle Veach, Admin Coordinator, China Program
Holt was the first to pioneer the concept of heritage tours in the 1970s, offering adoptees and their families professionally escorted visits to the adoptee’s birth country. Next year will be our sixth year to offer these tours to China. Our Family Tours, assisted by experienced guides and skilled Holt staff, include visits to famous tourist sites around China, cultural activities, as well as visits to the adoptee’s orphanage, finding site and foster family wherever possible. We are tentatively planning two Family Tours to China in Continue reading Holt’s 2011 Adoptee Tours to China
By Steve Kalb, MSW, PAS Social Worker
As another Adoptee Camp season is placed in the books, the dust begins to settle from the frantic pace of my summer camp adventures. Back in my Eugene office, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling a sense of relative calm before I begin my article. As I exhale slowly, my eyes open and begin to focus on the blinking cursor and blank page before me. The calm quickly fades to a light panic.
“How?” I ask myself.
How can I possibly describe everything the campers have taught me? How can I convey to readers the beauty and value of the Adoptee community? How can the strength and urgency of their voice be turned into a newsletter? I fumble through several iterations; reading, re-reading, deleting, shaking my head as I struggle to get it “just right”. In spite of my desperate efforts to capture their voice, I sense the soul and poignancy of their wisdom evaporating with each keystroke. Frustrated, I decide to move on to another project. As I close the document, it hits me; Continue reading Ask the Experts
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
 Our inaugural Day Camp season was an outstanding success. During each of our four overnight camp weeks, we hosted over 100 adoptive parent and Adoptee visitors for a day of workshops, friends, and fun. Most importantly, both parent and Adoptee connected with the Adoption Community, of which we are all members, and created relationships with people like them – people with similar thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
One of the most effective and innovative components of Day Camp was pairing the young Day Campers with our older overnight campers. The older campers (14 to 16 year olds) generally took on the roles of Continue reading Day Camp Success
By Michael Tessier, Youth Adoptee Services Coordinator
 There is an inherent connection when Adoptees meet. Some Adoptees describe it as a “comfortable” relationship, that there’s something natural about it, or that they feel a “click”. Sometimes this connection manifests as a constant conversation or sometimes it’s quiet introspection, where two Adoptees acknowledge but don’t necessarily address the link. However it’s described or experienced, the relationship between two Adoptees or a community of Adoptees is powerful.
There’s something intrinsically good when two or more Adoptees meet, although it may not be palpable or explainable. I’ll list five of a myriad of positives we typically see at Camp. The many advantages of an Adoptee community work in conjunction to form a unique, meaningful experience but the following are some of the most readily describable:
1) Adoptees learn that there are many more Adoptees. It may be surprising, but we often hear that Adoptees feel lonely in their communities, whether it’s as one of a few children of color in their hometown or one of a few Adoptees they contact regularly. Continue reading What We Gain — Benefits of Adoptee Community
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