HEIDI LYNN ADELSMAN is a University of Minnesota graduate and a licensed pipe fitter. She is researching and writing about historical housing and school segregation in Minneapolis, as well as environmental justice. Her writing has appeared throughout Minnesota in various periodicals and newspapers. Adelsman’s interest in transracial adoption stems from her experience in a family at the forefront of transracial adoption in Minnesota the 1960s. Her brother was transracially adopted in 1966 through the agency where her mother worked.
ELLEN M. BARRY is Founding Director of Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children and co-chair of the National Network for Women in
Prison. Awarded a Soros Senior Justice Fellowship and a MacArthur “Genius”
Grant for her work on behalf of women in prison, Barry was one of the lead
counsels in Shumate v.Wilson, challenging
medical conditions in California state prisons. PeaceWomen Across the Globe nominated Barry for the Nobel Peace
prize in 2005 as part of their 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005
project.
LAURA BRIGGS is an associate professor of women’s studies
and an adoptive parent. She also holds affiliate appointments in history,
anthropology, and Latin American studies. She authored Reproducing Empire:
Race, Sex, Science, and US Imperialism in Puerto Rico and is working on a book on transnational and transracial adoption. Some of her
other research interests include education and technology, eugenics, and
reproductive technologies.
CATHERINE CENIZA CHOY is associate professor of ethnic
studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
She is the author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American
History and is at work on a book that focuses on the history of Asian
international adoption.
GREGORY PAUL CHOY lived and worked for six years in Minneapolis,
RACHEL QUY COLLIER was born in Central Vietnam in 1974 and
adopted to the United States the following year. She has since lived in both her native and adopted
countries, writing, editing, teaching, and doing social work. She now lives in California with her
husband and two dogs.
J. A. DARE was born in Busan, South Korea, around December 28, 1974. He was adopted in 1980 to the United States. His adoptive parents divorced six months after the adoption; no relationship was maintained with his adoptive father. Dare earned two BS degrees in 1998 from Virginia Tech, as well as an MS from California State University–San Jose in 2004. He currently lives in Germany, working as an engineer for a German-based multinational corporation.
KIM DIEHL grew up in Miami, FL where she currently lives and
works. She is a National Organizing Body member of Critical Resistance, a
national organization that works to build an international movement to end the
prison industrial complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling
people makes us safe. She delights in writing at the beach, playing tennis
year-round, and returning her library books on time.
KIMEBERLY FARDY is an Executive Director of Young Women
United for Oakland—a social and economic justice
organization dedicated to the self-empowerment and self-determination of young
women of color living in Oakland’s
lowest income neighborhoods and highest-risk blocks. At 23, she is an outspoken
activist, stud, visionary, and wordsmith. She has traveled the country to see
the conditions people of color are facing. She shares her perspectives and
knowledge of politics, freedom, love, pain, and history through a mixture of
spoken word, rap, poetry, and narrative. Her mission in life is to bring women
of color a step closer to liberation.
LAURA GANNARELLI was adopted from Korea at nine and was brought up in a small Minnesota town. She now lives in Chicago,
where she runs her graphic design firm “gannarelli: design as strategy”
(www.gannarelli.com). She has also started a not-for-profit organization, Paper Lantern Resource Center (www.paperlantern.org), to provide resources for parents, teens, and children.
The center will help transracial adoptees navigate the unique and challenging
circumstances that they face as children and as adults.
SHANNON GIBNEY is a 31-year-old mixed race Black woman
adopted domestically by a white family in the
United States. A 2005 Bush Artist
Fellow, Gibney’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous
magazines, newspapers, and journals, and her short story won the 2002 Hurston
Wright Award. A graduate of Indiana University’s MFA program
in fiction, she edited Indiana Review. Most recently, Gibney was editor of the
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. She is currently at work on her novel “Hank
Aaron’s Daughter.”
MARK HAGLAND was born in Korea in 1960 and grew up in Milwaukee, WI. He received his BA in English
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then moved to Chicago,
where he received his MA in journalism from Northwestern University in 1982. He has lived in Chicago and worked as a professional journalist since then. He writes in a variety of
areas, including health care policy and business. He has a life-partner with
whom he has shared 20 years, and a 5-year-old daughter.
PERLITA HARRIS is a 40-year-old woman of Indian parentage
who joined her adoptive family at just under the age of 5 years. She has
reunited with both her paternal and maternal families. Harris is the editor of
In Search of Belonging: Reflections by Transracially Adopted People (London: British
Association of Adoption and Fostering, 2006). Harris is also a lecturer in
social work at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. England.
TOBIAS HÜBINETTE (Korean name Lee Sam-dol) lectures in
Oriental languages at Stockholm University,
Sweden, where
he received his PhD in Korean Studies in 2005. He got his BA in Irish Studies
from
Uppsala University and his MA in Korean Studies from Stockholm University. He has
published books on Swedish national socialism and fascism and is researching
Korean adoption, adopted Koreans, and Korean diasporas, as well as Western
images of Korea and East Asians, problems regarding Orientalism and Asianists, and issues
concerning marginalized minorities.
JAE RAN KIM was born in South
Korea and adopted to Minnesota in 1971. She was 30 years old the
first time she ate kimchee. After returning from her second trip to Korea in 2005,
she legally changed her name back to her original Korean name. She is a Title
IV-E Child Welfare Scholar at the University of Minnesota School of Social
Work, where she is completing her MSW. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have
been published in Korean Quarterly, KoreAm Journal, Minnesota Monthly, and Star Tribune. Jae Ran lives in Minneapolis with her partner and two kids.
ANH ĐÀO KOLBE was born outside Saigon, Vietnam and came to the United States via New York in 1972. She left two years later
and grew up with her Greek and German parents in the Middle Eastern countries
of Qatar and Oman, spending a good part of her childhood schooled in the
British system. She came back to this country via Boston, MA for college. Currently she is working on publishing her
photographs as an adoptee revisiting her birthplace. For a sample of her
portfolio, go to www.adkfoto.com.
MIHEE-NATHALIE LEMOINE is a Korean-born, French-speaking
Belgian. She founded Euro-Korean League, the first adoptee association in Belgium; cofounded EKL-Korea, the first-ever
adult adoptee association in
BETH KYONG LO was adopted from Seoul, South Korea in 1975. When not busy chasing around her house full of children or working on her doctoral degree in clinical psychology, she spends her time writing fiction and creative nonfiction. Her work can be found in Colors Magazine, Seeds From a Silent Tree: An Anthology by Korean Adoptees, A View from the Loft, Journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and Paj Ntaub Voice. She is currently working on her first novel “Kimchi, Wild Girl.”
RON M. was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1961 and adopted at six months by Scottish parents. He and his family migrated to Australia in 1970. He found his Scottish birthmother at 30 and has recently found his Kashmiri birth father. Ron M. currently works for the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and has a 17-year-old daughter. He is active in adoptive issues in Sydney and regularly appears as a speaker at workshops for prospective parents of children from other countries.
PATRICK MCDERMOTT is a student of Latin American and Latino
Studies at Salem State College in
Massachusetts.
He has presented his research on Salvadoran/US immigration at Harvard’s Rockefeller Center for Latino Studies. McDermott has
worked with Pro-Búsqueda, a San Salvador-based NGO that reconnects families
separated during the armed conflict in El Salvador. In the United States,
he has been active with Central American immigrant organizations.
TRACEY MOFFATT was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1960. Of Aboriginal ancestry, she was adopted by a white family and grew up in a white, working- class suburb. She studied visual communications at the Queensland College of Art, from which she graduated in 1982. Moffatt gained critical acclaim for her short film Night Cries, selected for official competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature film, Bedevil, was shown in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 1993. Since her first exhibition in 1989, Moffatt has shown her art in many exhibitions in Australia and abroad.
AMI INJA NAFZGER (a.k.a. JIN INJA) was adopted from Cheonju, South Korea in 1975 at the age of four and grew up in Wisconsin. She attended Augsburg Lutheran College in Minnesota, graduating in social work, sociology, and Native American Indian studies. She moved to Korea in 1996 and co-founded GOAL in 1998 (http://goal.or.kr/). She serves on the boards of the Asian Pacific Cultural Center, Children’s Home Society, Korean Quarterly newspaper, and Dragon Boat Race Festival.
KIM PARK NELSON was born in Seoul, Korea in 1971 and adopted by white parents in St. Paul, MN. She is currently a PhD candidate in American studies at the University of Minnesota. In her dissertation, Park Nelson positions Korean adoptees at intersections within American race relations, as emblems of US-Korean geopolitical relationships during and after the Cold War, and as empowered actors organizing to control racial and cultural discourses about adoption. She teaches one of the first college courses on Korean adoption.
JULIA CHINYERE OPARAH is a diasporic Igbo woman and member of the Umochoke clan, Owerri,Nigeria. She was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1967 and grew up in a multiracial adoptive family in the south of England. She is a professor of ethnic studies at Mills College, a women’s liberal arts college in Oakland, CA, author of Other Kinds of Dreams, and editor of Global Lockdown. Oparah is involved in the prison abolitionist, anti violence, and global justice movements, and is a co-founder of Sankofa, a support group for transracial adoptees in the San Francisco Bay Area.
JOHN RAIBLE is a biracial adoptee of African American, English, Irish, French, and Norwegian descent. After living with an African American foster family for several years, he was adopted in 1962. Raible hosts a website (John Raible Online) that offers transracial adoption support and information. Raible also answers questions posted on the “Ask the Experts” page of the NYSCCC website. He is the father of two African American sons he adopted from foster care. Raible holds an MA in multicultural education and has received doctorate at the University of Massachusetts.
DOROTHY ROBERTS is Kirkland & Ellis professor at
Northwestern University School of Law, with appointments in sociology, African
American studies, the Institute for Policy Research, and the Joint
Center for Poverty Research. She received her BA from Yale College and her JD from Harvard Law School.
Roberts has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of gender, race,
and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, motherhood, and child
welfare. She is the author of the award-winning Shattered Bonds and Killing the
Black Body.
SUN YUNG SHIN was born in Seoul in 1974, 21 years after the Korean War Armistice. According to the Holt Agency, she was abandoned at the Shinkyo Police Station. She was adopted in 1975 by a white American couple. In 1978 she became a naturalized US citizen. Her name and photograph were featured in a high school textbook under “Immigration.” She is the author of Skirt Full of Black, a book of poems, and Cooper’s Lesson, an illustrated children’s book in Korean and English. She has a BA in English from Macalester College and an MA in Teaching from the University of St. Thomas. Currently she is a 2007 Bush Artist Fellowship recipient. Shin has returned to Korea twice. She lives in Minneapolis, where she teaches at the College of St. Catherine and the Perpich Center for Arts Education.
KIRSTEN HOO-MI SLOTH was born in Korea in 1973 and adopted to Denmark at the age of about nine months. She holds an MA in political science and works as a project manager in a market research company in Copenhagen. Since 1999 she has been on the board of the Danish association of Korean adoptees, Korea Klubben.
SOO NA lived in Corea for six years before her migration through adoption to North America. Soo Na’s life work includes working at unclotting the throat and loving without exploitation. Currently, she lives in the Republic of Corea, where she is working on a video and writing project. By day she is a teacher. She received her BA from Hampshire College.
SHANDRA SPEARS is an actor, singer, and writer who has performed or read throughout North America. Her poetry and scholarly works have been published in Native women’s anthologies and journals. Spears holds a BA in drama and communication studies and teaches in the Assaulted Women and Children’s Counsellor/Advocate Program at George Brown College. She is Ojibway, a member of Rainy River/Manitou Rapids First Nations, and a member of the Wolf clan. Raised in Chatham, Ontario, she now makes her home in Toronto.
SUNNY JO is a 30-year-old KAD (Korean Adoptee) writer and activist. She was kidnapped from her birthparents and adopted to Norway at 18 months old and currently resides in Sweden. She reunited with her birth family in Korea and her biological brother, adopted to the US, in 2000. Sunny Jo is founder and president of Korean @doptees Worldwide (K@W), an online debate and information forum about KAD issues. She holds a BA in communication from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia,Canada. Sunny Jo may be contacted at: http://www.sunnyjo.info.
KEKEK JASON TODD STARK (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is a Bush
Leadership Fellow and third-year law student at Hamline University School of
Law. He has also served as an Indian Child Welfare Act Court Monitor for the
Minneapolis American Indian Center.
HEIDI KIIWETINEPINESIIK STARK (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is a
Ford Foundation Fellow and a doctoral candidate in American studies at the University of Minnesota. She received her BA in
American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota.
SANDRA WHITE HAWK is a Sicangu Lakota adoptee from the Rosebud Reservation, SD and lives in St. Paul, MN. She has three children and three grandchildren. She is the cofounder and Director of First Nations Orphan Association. White Hawk is a spokesperson on the impact of adoption and the foster care system on First Nations People and has traveled internationally sharing her inspirational story of healing. She is also a traditional dancer and participates in powwows across the US and Canada.
INDIGO WILLIAMS WILLING was adopted from Saigon, Vietnam to Sydney Australia in 1972. She is the Founder of Adopted Vietnamese International and a post-graduate research student at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). She has presented her work in conferences at MIT and Yale (2002) and has been published in The Review Of Vietnamese Studies and Phoenix: An Anthology of Vietnamese Australian Writers (2002).
BRYAN THAO WORRA was born in Vientiane, Laos in January
1973, and was adopted by an American pilot. One of the most widely published
Laotian writers, his work has appeared in the anthology Bamboo Among the Oaks,
as well as Whistling Shade, Urban Pioneer, and Unarmed, among others. He
resides in St. Paul, MN.
JENI C. WRIGHT is a 28-year-old biracial woman (Polish/German and African American) who was adopted at 7 months by a white family from New England. She grew up with an older brother who was adopted from Vietnam, a white sister who was not adopted, and a sister of biracial background who was adopted when she was nine.