Speaker 1: Flow down and love someone who It's a line. The
Speaker 1: woman I'm about to have a conversation with has a
Speaker 1: remarkable story. She is going to share her story about
Speaker 1: her journey growing up in a wonderful family in a
Speaker 1: community that was loving, caring, supportive. Her adoptive family are
Speaker 1: just like the best people ever. But she looked nothing
Speaker 1: like the family that adopted her. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about her journey of finding her birth parents, what
Speaker 1: that looked like, and what she discovered within herself along
Speaker 1: the way. With me in the studio today. To engage
Speaker 1: in conversation in our podcast is somebody that's not a
Speaker 1: famous recording artist. I wanted to talk to everyday people
Speaker 1: who are doing extraordinary things. And Angela, welcome to love someone.
Speaker 2: With the line, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. I saw you outside
Speaker 1: the studio and I was hollering at you. I think
Speaker 1: you heard me, but I recognized you, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I know you because I've watched your your movie
Speaker 1: two times now, and I like finding unique things to watch,
Speaker 1: like I don't own a television, but at night after
Speaker 1: I finished the show, if I can't wind down I
Speaker 1: look for documentaries, and I don't even know how your
Speaker 1: documentary came up on my computer, but the title of
Speaker 1: it is Closure, And I had no idea what it
Speaker 1: was about. It just the title intrigued me. And quite honestly,
Speaker 1: you're a beautiful woman, and that your beauty like intrigued
Speaker 1: me because there was a picture of you and the
Speaker 1: title of the documentary. So I said, let's see what
Speaker 1: this is about.
Speaker 2: That must have been really startling for you, being an
Speaker 2: adoptive mother and just happening upon this story about transracial adoption.
Speaker 1: Being an adoptive mother, you know, with an incredibly mixed family,
Speaker 1: we're multi generational, multiracial, and I thought, well, I'll just
Speaker 1: watched a few minutes of this. I watched the entire documentary.
Speaker 1: I watched it, and I laughed with you, and I
Speaker 1: cried with you, and I rejoiced with you. And the
Speaker 1: next day I got up and I wrote to my
Speaker 1: executive producer of our podcast too, also happens to be
Speaker 1: my sister, and I said, oh, my gosh, I want
Speaker 1: to get to know this lady. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to her and hear your story, Angela, and have you
Speaker 1: share a little bit of your story, but even more
Speaker 1: how you are using your story and your history to
Speaker 1: change the world for good. So welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about your How old
Speaker 1: are you? I'm thirty three, thirty three, yeah, And how
Speaker 1: old were you when you were adopted? I was about
Speaker 1: a year old and it was a private adoption through
Speaker 1: an adoption agency.
Speaker 2: Well, I was adopted through the state. However, the private
Speaker 2: agency who was in charge of me after I left
Speaker 2: the hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, wasn't able to find any
Speaker 2: families that were open to the mariad of medical problems
Speaker 2: that I was said to have, and so they opened
Speaker 2: it up to the whole United States. Anybody that was
Speaker 2: willing to adopt me could and so my parents were
Speaker 2: adopting through the state. But they found out about me.
Speaker 1: And how did they find out about you?
Speaker 2: My parents had adopted several children already with disabilities, and
Speaker 2: so I don't know if the agency knew about them,
Speaker 2: but somehow they knew of a family who was well
Speaker 2: connected with doctors and would be able to support the
Speaker 2: needs that I was supposedly going to have. At the time,
Speaker 2: the doctors had written that I would have spastic quadriplegia,
Speaker 2: that I would never walk.
Speaker 1: And miss basketball star. Yeah, I saw, and in the
Speaker 1: documentary there's a little bit on that, not very much.
Speaker 1: But your parents worked really hard when you were a baby, right,
Speaker 1: doing physical therapy and massaging and stretching, And the diagnosis
Speaker 1: went from not going to walk, going to be in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. And how many of your siblings are in wheelchairs?
Speaker 1: I know at least one is just one.
Speaker 2: My sister Shauna has cerbal palsy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it went from from that diagnosis to well, okay,
Speaker 1: well maybe she'll be able to walk with aids, with
Speaker 1: walkers and crutches and braces, to playing basketball.
Speaker 2: Which I love and was my outlet. I really think
Speaker 2: it was a misdiagnosis, which happens frequently when and kids
Speaker 2: don't have parents in the hospital, that dates are wrong
Speaker 2: on the paperwork, and I am. I think that I
Speaker 2: had a lot of drugs in my system that made
Speaker 2: my limbs really tight. So that, yeah, my foster parents
Speaker 2: too had to do so much work physical therapy, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that it was anything more than that.
Speaker 1: So you were taken from the hospital to a foster
Speaker 1: family yep, and I saw they're in the documentary Wonderful family.
Speaker 1: Who shot the documentary my husband. I just had to
Speaker 1: get that up there. What's his name, Brian?
Speaker 2: And at the time he was not a filmmaker. I
Speaker 2: really just wanted someone to capture these moments when I
Speaker 2: was first meeting my birth family, because I was so overwhelmed,
Speaker 2: and I knew that I wasn't going to remember things
Speaker 2: that are really important, like what color is the siding
Speaker 2: on my birth mom's house and was her grass mode?
Speaker 2: And like things that seem insignificant were really important to me.
Speaker 2: And so I was like, Brian, you just can you.
Speaker 1: Just video this? Yeah? So how long had you known
Speaker 1: Brian when you started? Because I could tell just from
Speaker 1: the quality of the videos that when you started you
Speaker 1: didn't think, let's turn this into a doctor.
Speaker 2: No, we were just using a little flip camera. Brian
Speaker 2: and I had been married maybe three or four years,
Speaker 2: but all the time through our marriage and while we
Speaker 2: were dating, I was searching for my birth parents.
Speaker 1: So you had questions. So you were you went from
Speaker 1: the hospital, left there relinquished? Did your birth mom relinquish
Speaker 1: you in the hospital.
Speaker 2: It's all so fuzzy I'm not sure. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: understand the details.
Speaker 1: That sounds like she doesn't know either, right, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: she was not in a good state of mind then, right,
Speaker 1: So you were left at the hospital, you went into
Speaker 1: a foster home that knew they weren't going to adopt you,
Speaker 1: but cared for you, yes, and then you were placed
Speaker 1: with your family, who live in uh, what's now a
Speaker 1: pretty big town, but at the time, thirty years ago
Speaker 1: a small town.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fifty thousand people in Bellingham, Washington.
Speaker 1: And forty nine thousand and nine hundred of them all
Speaker 1: right are white, our Caucasian? How is that? Growing up?
Speaker 2: Representation is so important. But growing up you don't know
Speaker 2: what you don't know. And I had a wonderful family.
Speaker 1: Your parents are saints, by the way. I could tell
Speaker 1: in the documentary that they just love you so much.
Speaker 2: They do, but they really don't like being called that.
Speaker 1: No, they don't, and you know, because they're like, this
Speaker 1: is this is our family. There are my kids. We
Speaker 1: didn't do anything extraordinary, and I love that about them.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're saints for adopting, you know, multiple kids.
Speaker 1: I think they're saints for juggling everything that they did.
Speaker 2: I still that's where the.
Speaker 1: Saintthood comes yes, because I know what it's like to
Speaker 1: juggle one or two kids with special needs and doctor's
Speaker 1: appointments and therapy. And they at one time had how
Speaker 1: many kids in the house that all were going to doctors,
Speaker 1: going to therapists, going to counseling, going to hospitals.
Speaker 2: Maybe ten?
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, that's where the sain hood comes in. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: And now you're all grown. How old is the youngest?
Speaker 2: Still, I'm the youngest.
Speaker 1: You're the youngest, Yes, but I was not the last.
Speaker 2: To come to our family, right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they not only they broke all the
Speaker 1: adoption roles, but I feel like your mom and I
Speaker 1: are kindred spirits in so many ways.
Speaker 2: I think she'd love to hear that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she sent me a present, thank you for bringing this. Yes,
Speaker 1: so she makes these weighted fuzzy blankets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the weighted blankets have been so helpful
Speaker 2: for me, even going through the search now in reunion.
Speaker 2: My birth dad recently passed away, which was really confusing
Speaker 2: and difficult because I didn't know him super well.
Speaker 1: But we look exactly, I exactly like it.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's the first person I've ever seen that
Speaker 2: I look like.
Speaker 1: So let me just tell our listeners people who have
Speaker 1: joined up love someone with Delilah. I'm talking with a
Speaker 1: beautiful young woman, Angela Tucker, African American love the natural hair.
Speaker 1: It was fun to follow you in your documentary My Hairstyles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have great hairstyles. You have great hair. She and
Speaker 1: her husband did a documentary quite by accident. Started out
Speaker 1: just as a personal thing, and then they turned it
Speaker 1: into a documentary called Closure that journeys. It's like a journal,
Speaker 1: a video journal of your journey to find your birth family.
Speaker 1: And we're going to come back and talk about that
Speaker 1: because there are some things that really resonated in my
Speaker 1: heart about the beginning of the journey and the struggles
Speaker 1: you face to find your birth family. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with Angela in just a moment in the studio today
Speaker 1: for our podcast. Is Angela Tucker, who is a beautiful
Speaker 1: you could model. You're so kind, you have such a
Speaker 1: radiant smile. Thank you a fun style. I noticed that
Speaker 1: in the documentary. I don't know if you like, don't
Speaker 1: shoot me now, because I gotta go change my clothes.
Speaker 1: You all, it's so cute oh thank you.
Speaker 2: That was the thing that was hard is I would
Speaker 2: be lying in bed at night with my hair wrapped, and.
Speaker 1: You know, like it starts a videotape.
Speaker 2: Well, I would have some thoughts about like my deepest
Speaker 2: thoughts come when we're about to go to sleep, and
Speaker 2: I would be thinking out loud, like I'm never going
Speaker 2: to find my birth parents. This is never gonna happen,
Speaker 2: and like lamenting to him, my husband, and he would
Speaker 2: be like, got hold on, let me go set up
Speaker 2: a camera. Oh, like no, And at that time, since
Speaker 2: we didn't think the film was gonna go on Netflix
Speaker 2: or Amazon Prime or anything, I was like, Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is gonna be my home video, so you can. You
Speaker 2: can film me and I'll keep talking to you. I
Speaker 2: think that's the magic of.
Speaker 1: It, it is that people love that.
Speaker 2: It was just really honest.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. The beginning steps. How old
Speaker 1: were you when you decided for reels that you were
Speaker 1: going to search for your birth family?
Speaker 2: Think I was about twenty one, And.
Speaker 1: One of the things that resonated with me was when
Speaker 1: you first told your family supportive or not so much.
Speaker 2: Very completely supportive, supportive even prior to twenty one, because
Speaker 2: I'd always had so many questions about my birth family,
Speaker 2: and it was always met with, we are curious about
Speaker 2: your birth family too. We want to know where did
Speaker 2: you get your athletic abilities from? Where did your big
Speaker 2: smile come from? That felt really supportive, like I knew
Speaker 2: they would be along the journey with.
Speaker 1: Me, and they were along the journey the whole way.
Speaker 2: However, it wasn't until I watched what my husband had
Speaker 2: filmed an interview with my mom. I was watching it
Speaker 2: on screen and she said that she did fear being
Speaker 2: replaced by this birth mother if I found her. I
Speaker 2: had never heard her say anything like that, And I
Speaker 2: think that's beautiful because if I had known that, I'm
Speaker 2: not so sure I would have searched, because I don't
Speaker 2: adoptees don't want to hurt our parents, YEA or anybody.
Speaker 2: And so I'm grateful that she was able to separate
Speaker 2: her feelings from my needs.
Speaker 1: Right that's true love, I mean that right there is
Speaker 1: true love. Love is saying your needs are more important
Speaker 1: than my wants. So you go on this search, and
Speaker 1: I love how you found your birth dad. His name
Speaker 1: is so unique.
Speaker 2: So unique. So his his birth name is Oterius, but
Speaker 2: the city who has fallen in love with him, and
Speaker 2: he's kind of an icon, but he is Sandy the
Speaker 2: flower Man.
Speaker 1: But in your search, all you had was Oterius, right,
Speaker 1: no last name? Right, Oterius is not a real common.
Speaker 2: Name, thank goodness. Because my birth mom, her name is
Speaker 2: Deborah Johnson, and I knew her last name was Johnson.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, this is not going to be easy.
Speaker 1: So well, yeah, okay, So but with the name Oterius
Speaker 1: and their last names, how did you know your birth
Speaker 1: mom's last name? Because most of them are redacted.
Speaker 2: I think someone forgot to redact.
Speaker 1: But Oterius's last name. I love this.
Speaker 2: It was redacted.
Speaker 1: It was redacted, but you could tell from the number
Speaker 1: of characters that were painted over that it was a
Speaker 1: short last name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're like, it's probably four letters, five letters. We
Speaker 2: got a computer and tried to get the same type
Speaker 2: font to figure out exactly.
Speaker 1: How many letters it might be, and it came out
Speaker 1: four letters. So, armed with that information, first name, Oterius,
Speaker 1: last name, four letters.
Speaker 2: Then we were able to plug it into a search
Speaker 2: engine in the state of Tennessee how many people named
Speaker 2: Oterius are there? And this search engine brought up, I
Speaker 2: think five and one with the last name Belle.
Speaker 1: So there were the four characters, four spaces, yes, and
Speaker 1: ding ding ding it rang a bell.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so when we typed in Oterius bell up
Speaker 2: popped this male version of myself.
Speaker 1: How did that feel to look? Because Sandy the flower
Speaker 1: Man was quite, like you said, beloved in his community, completely,
Speaker 1: very very affectionate, just a loving, loving man that endeared
Speaker 1: himself to the whole community. And when I saw in
Speaker 1: the documentary his face, I was like, oh boy, no denying,
Speaker 1: that's your daddy.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's overwhelming. After living life, I was really jealous,
Speaker 2: like of my sister, who is my parents' biological daughter,
Speaker 2: who's just beautiful. My dad has these neon blue eyes
Speaker 2: and my sister does too, And so growing up hearing
Speaker 2: everyone say, like, your eyes are so beautiful, you look
Speaker 2: just like your dad, I would just be sitting there
Speaker 2: wishing that could be me. I wish I wanted to
Speaker 2: hear that I wanted And so growing up without that
Speaker 2: and having white people all around me and longing to
Speaker 2: look like them.
Speaker 1: So my five older children are all people of color,
Speaker 1: and then I had a biological daughter who looks just
Speaker 1: like me.
Speaker 2: Blonde, fair skin, blue eyes like your adoptive father's eyes.
Speaker 1: And when she was maybe four years old, Sheila came
Speaker 1: to me and she says, Ma, Bear, I want braids
Speaker 1: like Tangy. And I said, well, baby, I don't know
Speaker 1: that they sell blonde hair where I get Tangi's braids done,
Speaker 1: But I'll ask next time we go and maybe you
Speaker 1: can get braids like Tangi. And she says, no, Mop Bear.
Speaker 1: She says, I want black braids like my big sister.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, honey, I think that might look
Speaker 1: kind of different with your very fair skin. But wow,
Speaker 1: what bizarre standards we have in our society of what
Speaker 1: is beautiful and what is powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took me so long to embrace my natural hair.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of it now, but for so long I
Speaker 2: wanted it to flow in the wind when we were
Speaker 2: driving in our convertible like my mom's and my sisters.
Speaker 2: As I got older and met black women, it was
Speaker 2: comforting to know that black women who were raised by
Speaker 2: their biological black parents also went through all these hair stages.
Speaker 1: These are the things that you talk about in your
Speaker 1: life every day because you counsel people who are in
Speaker 1: transracial situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do a lot of teaching on transracial adoption
Speaker 2: using my own experience. There is a need to change
Speaker 2: your environment so that a child of color can grow
Speaker 2: up feeling.
Speaker 1: Strong, empowered, beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so I talk about the ways that families
Speaker 2: can do that.
Speaker 1: You know, my girlfriend Wendy adopted her little girl from China,
Speaker 1: and she has done everything to keep her daughter connected
Speaker 1: to her heritage. So what are some things that you
Speaker 1: tell people?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, typically, transracial adoption still means white parents
Speaker 2: and kids of color. So I talk a lot about whiteness.
Speaker 2: So for white parents needing to understand what it means
Speaker 2: to grow up in a world that reflects you, because
Speaker 2: many times white folks don't see that right away, don't
Speaker 2: see that they have representation all around them. And it's
Speaker 2: so that providing a safe and wonderful home isn't automatically
Speaker 2: going to feel that way for their children and children.
Speaker 2: I remember one time when my mom took me to
Speaker 2: an African fashion show at the University in Bellingham, and
Speaker 2: I was little and so and she went and she
Speaker 2: was the only white person in the room, and I remember,
Speaker 2: as a little kid just feeling kind of subconsciously feeling
Speaker 2: proud that my mom could be in what it was
Speaker 2: like in my place, She could be in my shoes
Speaker 2: and not make it about her. But it was a
Speaker 2: time for me to see others, but she was the
Speaker 2: only person, and it felt like she was so willing
Speaker 2: to try to experience what it felt like for me
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: I loved that, And you shared in the documentary that
Speaker 1: your folks did a lot of things like that to
Speaker 1: try to keep you connected and help you to develop
Speaker 1: your identity. But what happened after you found Oterius your
Speaker 1: biological your birth dad.
Speaker 2: My birth dad had no idea that he had a child,
Speaker 2: and so he was shocked, and so were all of
Speaker 2: his siblings.
Speaker 1: And he had been told, at least in the documentary,
Speaker 1: you shared that he had been told that medically he
Speaker 1: was not case the bowl of fathering children, right, and
Speaker 1: he had not fathered any children before or after to
Speaker 1: his knowledge. Right, and along comes this beautiful young lady.
Speaker 2: So crazy, it was so exciting for everybody. I am
Speaker 2: there near where he lives with my husband, who is white,
Speaker 2: my parents who were white, one of my sisters who's
Speaker 2: white with her husband. So it's this entourage of somebody
Speaker 2: that looks just like him, who's saying I think I'm
Speaker 2: your daughter, and all these white folks, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: it was really a strange sight, but at the same
Speaker 2: time it was undeniable.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And he took the DNA too, He took a DNA test,
Speaker 2: but as everyone was saying, you didn't really need to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are a carbon copy, a beautiful, beautiful carbon
Speaker 1: copy of your biological father. And he was in the documentary.
Speaker 1: He was overwhelmed with joy.
Speaker 2: Yes, he had wanted a a child, and he has
Speaker 2: a big family. He has six siblings and all of
Speaker 2: them have children, and he was the only one that didn't.
Speaker 1: And when did you lose him? When did he pass
Speaker 1: three weeks ago? Oh? I am so sorry.
Speaker 2: And so going back to his funeral, there were so
Speaker 2: many issues only developed because of transracial adoption that was
Speaker 2: coming up. You know that I didn't know so many
Speaker 2: of the cultural traditions around funerals and wakes. But growing
Speaker 2: up in the Pacific Northwest, the furthest corner away from
Speaker 2: the Deep South.
Speaker 1: Yes, and we our traditions here are in the Northwest
Speaker 1: are so different.
Speaker 2: But for me as a translational adoptee to look just
Speaker 2: like my birth family on my dad's side and be
Speaker 2: experiencing culture. Shock is complicated. And there were a couple wakes,
Speaker 2: and then the funeral the next day, and then the
Speaker 2: session because he was a marine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, bless him, bless him. Wow, Angela, thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing the story of your birth dad. What a
Speaker 1: joy that must have been to his heart to have
Speaker 1: spent his whole life thinking he couldn't have a child,
Speaker 1: then to discover not only did he have a child,
Speaker 1: but such a beautiful, remarkable daughter. Your story's moving well.
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry to hear of his passing and sad
Speaker 1: you don't have more opportunities to make memories. I'm happy
Speaker 1: you did have the opportunity to meet him. Oh terious,
Speaker 1: and rejoice in your love for one another. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a little break here so I can tell
Speaker 1: everyone about our podcast sponsor, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll share the part of your story about
Speaker 1: reconnecting with your birth mom with us too. When the
Speaker 1: weather turns nice, the outdoor projects can get started, like
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Speaker 1: your color is going to be, you'll get all the
Speaker 1: help you need and all the supplies you need the
Speaker 1: home depot, More saving, more doing. Let's get back to
Speaker 1: our conversation with Angela Tucker and hear how she finally
Speaker 1: reconnected with her birth mom. This was the hard part
Speaker 1: for me in the video because I want my kids
Speaker 1: to have connections with their biological families. And it's easier
Speaker 1: now than when you were young because the Internet, you know,
Speaker 1: the Internet makes anything possible. But when you found your
Speaker 1: birth dad, he knew who your birth mom was and
Speaker 1: took you there and she said.
Speaker 2: Leave, leave right away. And when I even though my
Speaker 2: birth dad had brought us there and clearly she knew
Speaker 2: recognized him and he knew her obviously, obviously, I got
Speaker 2: back into the car with my husband, my parents, and
Speaker 2: it was like, bummer, we didn't find her.
Speaker 1: Let's keep looking because you were just in denial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just it was so overwhelming. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to believe what people were telling.
Speaker 1: Me that that wasn't the right woman that birthed you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and then.
Speaker 1: Even though she had the same name everything, Yes, So
Speaker 1: that's really deep denial.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I've for what was about twenty six
Speaker 2: years at that point, had dreamt that my birth mother
Speaker 2: was Halle Berry because she's just beautiful and why not
Speaker 2: or you know, you would make up all these fantasies
Speaker 2: about who who might be my birth mom.
Speaker 1: And why you might have been placed for adoption?
Speaker 2: Right, and so this just didn't match.
Speaker 1: Any of your fantasies, right, the reality I could tell
Speaker 1: in the documentary My Heart, It was so hard to watch.
Speaker 1: My heart just broke for you.
Speaker 2: The rejection was hard. But I'm super excited to be
Speaker 2: working on a novel with my birth mom.
Speaker 1: Right now, which says a whole lot. Because she did
Speaker 1: finally come around.
Speaker 2: A year later, a lot of people were learning that
Speaker 2: I was out there because of the Internet, because of Facebook.
Speaker 2: I was then connected with my birth sister and a
Speaker 2: couple birth brothers, and so I was chatting with them.
Speaker 1: Did you find the other child that your mom plays
Speaker 1: because she placed two children?
Speaker 2: No, we're still looking.
Speaker 1: Do you know names?
Speaker 2: We know a first name, Rachel.
Speaker 1: And do you know very state she was adopted in.
Speaker 2: We think we know into Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And how old? What was her birthday?
Speaker 2: She's one year older than me January nineteen eighty f for.
Speaker 1: So, who knows, Maybe somebody listening to this podcast, a
Speaker 1: beautiful young black woman named Rachel might be listening, or
Speaker 1: they might have changed her name, but she might be
Speaker 1: looking for the same answers. And if she is, let's
Speaker 1: tell them how she can find your web series and
Speaker 1: connect with you. And if it's not her, I know
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: in the adoption triad, either adoptive parents or birth parents
Speaker 1: or children that might want to talk to you or
Speaker 1: connect with you, Angela. How can they do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So the Adopted Life dot Com is my website
Speaker 2: where i have videos that I'm talking with other transracially
Speaker 2: adopted youth, and i have blogs where I'm just kind
Speaker 2: of talking through all of the complex thoughts and feelings
Speaker 2: that I and other adoptees have. So that's an easy way.
Speaker 2: And then I'm on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1: And which is how I found you after I watched
Speaker 1: the documentary, is I got to find more about this
Speaker 1: woman because you're so dynamic and you have such a
Speaker 1: great story. So tell me about the project Search and Reunion.
Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting project that I'm doing through AMARA,
Speaker 2: where I work a foster care agency in Seattle and
Speaker 2: Pierce County. But i'm the director of Post Adoption Services
Speaker 2: and AMARA has been opened since nineteen twenty three. Wow,
Speaker 2: so since nineteen twenty three they've been facilitating adoptions. And
Speaker 2: I was recognizing that because of how we used to
Speaker 2: do adoptions, which were very secretive. We wouldn't tell people
Speaker 2: facts about their life because it was all in good
Speaker 2: intentions but harmful ultimately for adoptees to not know things
Speaker 2: about themselves. So I was finding that we hadn't told
Speaker 2: folks that, for example, they had siblings because a social
Speaker 2: worker thought that it might be too difficult for that
Speaker 2: person to know that the siblings were alive and maybe
Speaker 2: weren't full siblings, or for whatever reason, chose not to
Speaker 2: tell them. And so this project, I am going through
Speaker 2: over three thousand of our own files to make sure
Speaker 2: that every adoptee that has ever come through our agency
Speaker 2: has all of the information that they can know about themselves.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. There's a young woman who contacted me
Speaker 1: on my Facebook through the radio show, who is an
Speaker 1: adoptee adopted at ten through foster care, has no idea
Speaker 1: what happened to her the ten years she was in
Speaker 1: foster care and in the state she's in the state
Speaker 1: will not release any of her records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an injustice and the laws are moving. The
Speaker 2: laws are oftentimes slower than society moves, and so people
Speaker 2: are able to find stuff out about themselves through at
Speaker 2: home DNA kits and just Google and things, but the
Speaker 2: laws prevent agencies from giving that very information to them.
Speaker 2: And so that's part of Project Search and Reunion too,
Speaker 2: is we're going to push the limits.
Speaker 1: So how do we change the laws?
Speaker 2: We need to hear more stories from people whom it
Speaker 2: directly impacts.
Speaker 1: Who's we though? Who? How do we get the law?
Speaker 1: How do you and I? What do you and I do?
Speaker 1: Who do we call?
Speaker 2: I think we can tire legislature. Yeah, I think we're lobbying.
Speaker 2: The issues of adoption are still so shrouded in like
Speaker 2: adoption so great, Like if you were adopted at ten
Speaker 2: out of foster care and you had a loving home,
Speaker 2: why would you need to know anything else?
Speaker 1: It's important that people find this out.
Speaker 2: It helps us make sense of our lives. For me,
Speaker 2: meeting my birth parents helped me understand why I needed
Speaker 2: to be adopted, even though I knew on paper, meeting
Speaker 2: them it made more sense and I felt loved because
Speaker 2: I also met my birth dad, who is so full
Speaker 2: of joy. He's not just homeless and has an addiction.
Speaker 2: And my birth mother is not just poor. She loves
Speaker 2: her kids. And so for me being able to meet
Speaker 2: her and hear that, also meeting my foster parents, to
Speaker 2: hear your.
Speaker 1: Birth those holes say. I didn't want somebody in my
Speaker 1: family to take her. I wanted her to break free
Speaker 1: of this and have a better life.
Speaker 2: Wow, she wanted to break the cycle.
Speaker 1: Boyd didn't she look at you? Educated, married to a
Speaker 1: man who adores you, an adoptive family who would move
Speaker 1: heaven and earth for you, And now you're moving heaven
Speaker 1: and earth for other people.
Speaker 2: Hope.
Speaker 1: So I love that. Angela Tucker is with us today.
Speaker 1: You're writing a book with your birth mom. What's the
Speaker 1: title of the book. Have you got a working title?
Speaker 1: Are you going to surprise this? I think also, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to look forward to that. But if folks
Speaker 1: want to find you the Adopted Life web series and
Speaker 1: Angela Tucker. They can find you on social media Facebook.
Speaker 2: Speaking all over the country as well about transracial adoption stuff.
Speaker 2: So I love meeting people and hearing their stories.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you for being here with us.
Speaker 2: Thank thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Go to the Adoptedlife dot com for Angela's web series
Speaker 1: featuring conversations with transracially adopted teens. To view her documentary Closure,
Speaker 1: which is what led me to Angela. I love watching
Speaker 1: documentaries and I stumbled upon hers late one night, and
Speaker 1: I was I was just motivated to meet her, to
Speaker 1: find out about her, to hear her story, and to
Speaker 1: learn more about her workshops and her consultation services. Angela
Speaker 1: is one person making a huge difference in the lives
Speaker 1: of adoptees and their family, especially children adopted across racial lines.
Speaker 1: Through her own curiosity and her quest to discover more
Speaker 1: about herself, she uncovered a passion for educating and supporting
Speaker 1: others and now devotes her life to this important work.
Speaker 1: She's changing the world one heart at a time. I
Speaker 1: am so very fortunate to have made this connection with her.
Speaker 1: My life is richer for knowing Angela's story. It helps
Speaker 1: me to appreciate the circumstances my own children find themselves in.
Speaker 1: Because I have eleven adopted children, None of them look
Speaker 1: like me. They are all transracial adoptions, and it underscores
Speaker 1: the importance of exposing them to positive representations of their rich,
Speaker 1: beautiful cultures, their heritage. I hope you have enjoyed this
Speaker 1: episode of Love Someone as much as I have. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to my podcast and get access to each new episode
Speaker 1: as soon as it's published. Until then, join me on
Speaker 1: the radio and do me a favor. Take some time
Speaker 1: out of your busy schedule to slow down and love
Speaker 1: someone
Speaker 2: To love