Angela, from Seattle Washington, grew up in a home full of adoptees whose adoptions were prioritized because of perceived medical needs, including her own. Angela pursued reunion, expecting she would search for and find her birth mother and they would look just the like,

Instead, Angela first found a man who was loved by his community and when she appeared there in his town where she was born, everyone knew exactly who she was because of her close. paternal resemblance.

Angela's maternal reunion started with a jarring introduction that initiated with what she thought would be a reunion rejection, but eventually evolved into a maternal connection. Angela is the author of "You Should Be Grateful: Stories of race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption".

AngelaTucker.com

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Inro

[00:00:00] Damon: Hey. Recently I heard from Dr. Lynn Zubov from Winston Salem state university. She's a birth mother in reunion with her daughter and she is working on a study called a preliminary exploration into adoption reunions that is collecting information on a number of adoption related topics and reunion issues. You can find information about the study on the study Facebook page. Lynn asked me to help her team a little bit to develop their survey, which is collecting data that they hope will provide society with a better understanding of the aftermath of adoption, as well as identify some variables that may influence the quality of adoption reunions. I have seen some interim results and they have collected some compelling data already, but they need more.

Okay. You ready? Let's go.

Cold Open

And I feel like. What I am still chasing after is going back to that moment where I could just be held by my biological mother [00:02:00] after that first moment. That's what I want.

Show Open

And they would look just the like, Instead, she first found a man who was loved by his community. and when she appeared there in his town where she was born, Everyone knew exactly who she was because of her clothes. Paternal, resemblance. Angela's maternal reunion started with a jarring introduction. That initiated with what she thought would be a reunion rejection, but eventually evolved into a maternal connection. Angela is the author of "you should be grateful stories of race, identity, and trans racial adoption".

This is Angela's journey.

Her parents primary focus was in supporting children with extra medical needs, including Angeles.

And so I. My initial diagnosis was spastic quadriplegia, that I would not be able to walk and that is just not true. And that's something that's fascinated me because my parents ended up adopting me thinking that I would need lifelong medical care and there were three black families. that were [00:04:00] interested in adopting me from foster care, but said no after learning about the diagnosis, which turned out to not be true.

I went on to do collegiate sports and I think it was really more just drugs in my system that needed. To get out and not having guardian or somebody to, to challenge that diagnosis. So interestingly, ended up with my folks out in Washington state and growing up in a large family where everyone is adopted, except for one meant that adoption is really an free flowing, easy conversation that was always discussed.

and helpful. I do think that my parents were trained under the love is enough sort of guise by the adoption agencies when they were adopting, but they have a sense of a genuine interest in the world and difference and so that allowed them a real natural entryway to talking about race with importance, although they may not have known that it was important.

in the ways that we talk about it now, I think it was just a byproduct of who they are, which is great.

And in the absence of true in depth knowledge about that child, there's going to be some misconceptions. In your case, it was that the presence of, illicit drugs, it sounds like. were unfortunately a path to a misdiagnosis of what you're likely inability to be physically active ended up being.

And it's just, that's just one of the things that you touched on. Something else that I thought was really interesting is the notion that a family can have such an array of adoptees in it that you do get some mixing of closed adoptions semi open adoptio that I would imagine it was pretty tough for you sometimes for you to see

some of your siblings being able to see their families and wondering to yourself, , how come I don't get to see mine, right? Where, when are they coming back,

It was just the lot, we don't know where your birth parents are. We don't know who they are. We can't know. And. So it took time to develop the awareness that perhaps it didn't have to be but that's going into my twenties when I was legally allowed to apply for my original birth certificate in the state of Tennessee.

I was an undergrad, I guess sophomore in college. So I borrowed money from my parents to be able to pay for that. And then what I got back was the same birth certificate that I already had, which said my adoptive parents names on it. And so that was really frustrating. And then. That's what really fueled the desire to not just find my birth parents because I wanted to, but the injustices of it all.

That you're, we're all adopted. So this [00:09:00] is a nice, plain thing that is just us. But in fact, when there's no mirroring, you also don't get any kind of, centering grounding either. So it's a six of one half dozen to the other, right? You're both, everybody's adopted. So it doesn't matter, but then there's literally you can look in the family portrait and see that nobody looks like you.

And that can also be weird.

Yeah. My sister who is not adopted she's my parents, biological child. We were really close. So that piece I really think is a falsity and not just for the reason of, yeah, there's no racial mirroring or genetic mirroring, but also the adoptions themselves being so different. And each of us having different perspectives on feeling deracinated from our culture or.

The why and so their outlook and perspective on the need to talk through adoption and make sense of it differs. It also has to do with some of their abilities and disabilities. I have siblings who have feel alcohol syndrome and so cognitively it's they're not. Really able to have the depth of linking things like Jim Crow laws to transracial adoption and maybe even without fetal alcohol syndrome, they wouldn't want to, but something like I do.

Yeah, I think there's so much difference that one aspect of being adopted does not equal ease for everybody in the family.

Mm

Tell me a little bit about how you got along with your parents and your thoughts on their vision for providing a home for Children who ultimately might not get one.

So I'm excited about that. It'll be fun to do some desert hiking with my mom and the and that's been the case growing up that I've had a good relationship with my folks. I think we're wired a little bit similarly, [00:13:00] especially maybe my dad and I with. The desire to learn and curiosity and learning history and reading and my parents loved my athleticism.

It gave them into a window of something that they hadn't had before going to all the sports and very supportive. Also very supportive of my lifelong yearning. And that was evidenced by me. Saying things blatantly, like I really wish I knew who my birth parents were, or I hate being the only black person in my class. And my parents response was typically like, we wish we knew who your birth mother was too and then conversations about growing up in a predominantly white space and the conversations usually took the form of.

That was like a fundamental question I still wrestle with. I think my parents are part of a huge system. You know that my parents did a fine job raising me and the kids and my siblings. And it's a result of America's White supremacy, and even thinking about black families choosing not to adopt me because [00:15:00] of my medical issues is a conversation around blackness and black history with, medical institutions, so having conversations about black distrust and how that could play a factor, we don't know, we don't know anything about these individuals as well as my birth mother, but those conversations, I'm just really thankful that I could have them.

And I still do with my parents without them having any. I never experienced a feeling of they are mad at me or thinking like the title of my book that I'm not grateful for what they've provided. I didn't have that sense. Instead, it felt like they understood why this is confusing without conflating that with she's not grateful for all that we're doing.

[00:16:25] Damon: Do I want a black child who is going to potentially need a lot of interaction with the medical community, a community that I have not necessarily thought to myself. This is a factor in this adoption, but a community that I also do not trust, and so it was an undercurrent potentially of at least probably one of those couples.

That's a really interesting fact that you brought out there. I hadn't really I've never contemplated that before. It's really interesting.

So I brought together all these black folks in Seattle and asked that very question. Like why aren't you stepping up to the plate in formally fostering and formally adopting these kids of color? Because we know of course black folks are informally raising kids, but we need. Many people to do it formally too.

And. No fear. Like Come on in to do the home study, check out my house, ask me all the questions about how I parent asked me to provide you my social security number, my salary information and references and all that stuff. They were like, as black people, we, This group of people, social workers, CPS workers, they kind of lumped them all together.

Historically have used that information against us. I'm not going to just open my door to them and I'm not just going to fill out all their papers willingly and let them dissect me because we've seen what that does. So I felt like that was really interesting.

That people have been sensitized to somebody [00:19:00] knocking on the door and asking for information. And it was how they grew up and how their parents grow up. The generational, it's really fascinating. Wow.

So at 20 years old, Angela had accumulated enough money to pay for the application for her original birth certificate or OBC. She said she had always had the fire within her to search for her birth family, but she also recognized the importance of pursuing the information through legal means playing the game as it had been laid out by the system. When her OBC came back with information, she already had, she felt like it was a confirmation that she had permission to travel her prep. To travel her path to reunion her own way. All bets were off and she was going to find whatever information she could through, whatever means were available.

[00:20:13] Angela: His name is Otiris, which is really unique. And then we could tell the whited out last name was like a short last name.

And so we just Googled Otiris and then the city where I was born, Chattanooga, Tennessee. And found a guy who had a short last name, which is Bell, B E L L, googled that. Eventually up came a photo of this man who looked just like me. And it was undeniable. So we then tried to get in touch without just flying there and knocking on doors.

[00:21:16] Damon: I love that you expressed that 50, 50 piece, right? This is a hundred percent of a story. And 50 percent of it is your right to decide whether you want to tell me or not. And 50 percent of it is I get to decide whether I'm coming to find it or not. And that's a really important thing that I think a lot of folks don't necessarily weigh with the kind of equality that you just expressed it And I think that's really valuable and I'm really glad you said that. I want to go back for a quick second though, because you said something really interesting that you've Googled a man with a unique name, And found a picture online. Can you tell me about that moment when you basically saw your face on another person?

And they're so blue that everyone would comment on them and I would Just listen and watch and wish that I could have that. So my, some of my defining features are that I have a smile. That's like half the size of my face. It's really

[00:22:47] Angela: And I, growing up, it was just me, but, and I also don't have a resting face.

Like I was, I just dropped in the planet somehow. I knew how sex works. I knew that two people had to make me, but I didn't really believe it. I don't think until seeing this man, I'm like, Whoa.

A lot of times it's hard to fathom that continuum of what had to happen for you to be there. You just pop up in adoption and you just start living your life over in this other lane without this, having realized someone was in this first lane and, the adoption system basically put on its blinker and moved you over to the other, it's just, it's a weird disconnected. I think a lot of people don't. And I'm sensitive to that because I absolutely had the same thing. When I first saw my birth mother, I was, I literally was looking at her going, holy crap, that is my face on another person, right? It's unreal. And as you said, at 23 years old, never having seen anything that remotely resembled that.

And in contrast to your sister and her father, your father, who, have these piercing blue eyes and it sounds like they resemble each other. There's also that. Constant commentary of, oh, you two look alike, which also signals you don't look like anybody, Angela, right? Weird.

Is the person who looked just like me and acted just like me and my birth father, just, I really didn't think much about him. And so that was an overwhelming realization. A, that I didn't think about him much and then B that I could resemble him.

Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:25:43] Damon: So tell me, you were about to say that you were trying to decide what you wanted to do. You felt like you had the right to this information. You found this guy online and it sounds like he was definitely in Chattanooga still.

What happens next?

knew where he was, took care of him, and he enjoyed living on the streets. So it was that aspect. And then his profession was he would panhandle flowers. So floral shops in Chattanooga would give him leftover flowers that didn't sell. He would go around in the bars at night and give people flowers. And he was just this smiley, jovia, cartooony almost a guy.

And thank you, Sandy. Just all these stories. And

People loved him. And not only did I see this photo of him, but I also got hundreds of other people's love for him.

And that was really interesting. So my husband and I then did some outreach to some of the people who wrote comments and worked out times to meet up with these people who said, we know Sandy's route usually hits this bar, then this bar. So if you come out at night so we flew to Chattanooga.

But they're like, you look just

[00:28:10] Angela: that we've loved. So for so many years, that was, That was something I'd never experienced. It was similar to how my sister got to hear about her eyes looking like my dad's finally, I'm in this city. I've never been in before, but people are like, you look just like your dad.

[00:28:32] Angela: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Angela: Getting. In touch with him and he never knew that he had a child. So he found out when he was looking in my face saying, it looks like I'm looking in a mirror that he had a child.

And I'm just,

[00:28:53] Angela: Outside of his mother, my grandmother's apartment complex. He was [00:29:00] riding his bike, which he does with all his flowers. And we flagged him down. I think you're, I think You're my birth dad. That's what I said to him.

I lie because I absolutely did that. To be honest with you. Like I found my birth father through ancestry DNA, but I didn't actually walk up and say it to him. I wrote him a letter and I described my journey, but you actually had to think to yourself, all right, this is the moment. I think I know that's the guy I've seen his face online.

Everybody I've seen has said, you look just like that, dude. Yeah, you have to go up and actually speak these words to him and inform him. If he, and you probably didn't know if he knew or not, right?

And we had this rented SUV suburban and we're in a poor area of Chattanooga. So we looked wealthy and I was like wearing my best clothes. Cause I love. I love clothes and fashion and shopping. And, but the message was like, these people aren't from here. And so that I wonder for my birth dad, how that felt being flagged down by this crew.

That's a little intimidating.

[00:31:03] Angela: feel it.

I wonder, yeah. I was in school. It was such an overwhelming moment. And we did capture a lot of this on camera because I asked my husband to film thinking that these might be the first and last times that I get to see people like my birth mother, my birth father. So thankfully we have that and I can watch back Since it was so out of body.

You can't even think to yourself. Oh, I should have somebody record this for me. It just, there's so much to think about. There's so much emotion in it. It just, I can imagine that must've been really crazy. So how did you spend your first couple of moments with your birth father, with your family there?

And then what did you learn about your birth mother?

I'm not trying, we don't need money. Like I needed to diffuse the situation a little bit somehow. So once I did all that, then he said, he was like, please come back in a few hours. We're going to have a family reunion.

[00:32:36] Angela: meet everybody.

Angela just assumed she looked most alike and whom she got prioritized finding. Angela said her maternal reunion was stressful. She had, sleuthed a few addresses that could have been her birth mother's address. During her paternal reunion, Angela asked her newly found extended family.

If they knew her birth mother. New the woman back when Angela was conceived And if they knew where she could be found at that time. One of them said yes. So Angela and her family hopped in their rented SUV with Herbert father to dry to drive by and just see the woman's house.

And when we got there, my birth dad jumped out of the car and he ran up to the door and knocked on the door, which was not planned. And I was in one of the cars just watching and eventually a woman who turned out to be my birth mother came out and [00:34:00] they talked for a minute and I felt like I needed to join the talk.

So I went over and just said, I think you might be my birth mother because clearly she knew my birth dad. She was not happy to see any of us and just said, no, I've never had any kids and I don't know who you are and get off my property. So we left it took a year later for her to call me because she had received one of the letters that I had written.

way prior to that knock on the door. And in the letter, I wrote this is who I am. Here's a picture of me. I think you're my birth mother. Here's my number. Here's my email. So a year later, she calls and says, I actually did get your letter. I knew who you were when you came up to the door. I just, she shared at that point, nobody knew you were born.

And so once he found out, it was just like, Oh, here's a present, this new daughter

[00:35:30] Angela: This is all exciting. And all of his. side of the family came and they're like, welcome to the family and just no questions asked.

That all made for a lot of complexity. And then for my birth siblings who didn't know they had not just me, but another, we have another sibling out there somewhere. It was just a different tenor.

They're very opposite of each other.

[00:36:37] Damon: you something. I've periodically I go online and I'll talk a little bit about it. This notion that I have of secondary rejection, a lot of people call it secondary rejection. I have chosen to call it adoption, reunion, rejection.

[00:36:56] Damon: The reason I say that is because. In my [00:37:00] belief, in my understanding, having spoken to some birth mothers and etc, not every woman rejected the child at the moment of birth. They were coerced, they were forced, they were pressured by society, and many of them have said, If it was up to me, I would have tried to keep you or it, I was forced into relinquishing you, and then I felt like I wanted to get you back.

I'm I'd be interested to hear your thought on how

A choice to reject and I definitely believe that for my birth mother [00:39:00] that some part of me thinks maybe it's easier to accept perhaps a loss by thinking about the history and stuff. But I think about my birth mother who was poor and how often we conflate poverty with. Neglect or not wanting something in reality. That's not the case. I don't think that was her case. And so this secondary, quote, secondary rejection I actually think in the same terms as the first time when I was placed in foster care, that, although it did feel like a rejection, I think it has more to do with my birth mother got zero support.

And I was coming from a very different place than her. And so for her to just see me without having any therapy was an automatic trigger back to the moment that she lost me. And I, and so I really like your reframe and I think it's important. I think it's probably unfair to my birth mother and to others to consider it just outright rejection.

is basically rewound right back to the time of the trauma and in the absence of any kind of support love, even being able to talk about it, when you read books like the girls who went away and if you listen to, birth moms, real talk podcast with the Yvonne Rivers, wonderful podcast, by the way you end up hearing a lot of these stories of what the birth mother actually went through, not just what society believes that they will just be fine and not what we make up as adoptees as to what the situation was.

And so you don't get to talk about it. You don't get to process it. Your body has changed. You're now, and I don't mean this to be crass, but like you've literally expressed and done the thing that a woman's body is designed to do. And you've gone from teenager, or, not having had a child to having a child like there's a lot to process there and everybody in your world has told you we're gonna shut this out.

And so your child walks up to you at your front door and says, you're my birth mother. Just imagine that 100 times rewind back to that moment when she had to relinquish you. It's impossible to expect a woman to receive a surprise like that in a way that would be favorable to the adoptee.

And to me, that message of whatever state you're in right now, you're not good enough. You're not a good parent. You're not a good mom. You cannot do this. And To then have me show up 22 years later with these people who've been deemed good parents, these white folks who got the honor of, you're better, you can do it.

That has seeped into the relationship that I've formed over the last 10 years with my birth mother. Her trying to articulate To me, like I've only known a handful of white people in my lifetime and they haven't been kind. And so now to meet your parents, she's on one hand, she'll act as though my parents walk on water and can do no wrong because there's a need to show respect to the white person in my birth mother's mind.

[00:44:11] Damon: Yeah, you also just hit on something interesting. I've never really thought of, which is, at the time of birth, the child is crying, the mother's emotional, and each wants to comfort the other.

The mom wants to comfort her baby. Who was crying has just come out into this world. Never been here before. That's the natural inclination. Let me take my baby and comfort my child. And at the same time, the child wants to be comforted by their mother, whose voice they've heard. Who's. Genetic material they share, there's a bond there because just seconds earlier they were together and now they are apart and neither one gets to comfort the other, which, a lot of times in the adoptee space, people say adoption is trauma that actually is.

That inability for the two of you to ever comfort each other was absolutely extinguished and it is in the way that you said,

And I feel like. What I am still chasing after is going back to that moment where I could just be held by my biological mother after that first moment. That's what I want. And I feel like for my birth mother, this is true through what I wrote about in my book, which is that she has baby dolls that she has anthropomorphized [00:46:00] in the sense that she Cares for these baby dolls like they're her children. She does. It was really shocking for me to see the first time how she will talk to them and say, is it time to take a bath? Which means she'll put them in the wash. What do you want to watch?

And she'll turn on the TV and prop them up. And I was, it's the sadness about what I know she's doing. Huh. Is so profound. And that's exactly what you're saying for both of us. We are still trying to get that need met.

Yeah. Next to this woman. This, infantilizing themself almost to [00:47:00] get back to that moment. It seems is really fascinating.

So in our final moments here, I would love for you to talk about your book. The book is called You Should Be Grateful. Stories of race, Identity and transracial adoption.

I just could not put it down. I was so wrapped by both your infusion of your experience. Into the story as well as the ideas and concepts and things that you wanted to share with the world. So tell me a little bit about your work to, to write this book. You should be grateful. Why that title of all titles?

And the totality of all these stories is something akin to this comment that adoptees hear so often, you should be grateful. And I was excited when I finally nailed down that this would be the title because it's so both evocative and obvious and I feel like that's the case with adoption it's both So big, emotional.

[00:49:27] Damon: I'm with you 100%. when I saw the title, I absolutely had a yeah. That's yeah, I should, you should feel grateful is absolutely something I've heard. At least to other people in the adoptee community. Not necessarily to myself. I'm very fortunate to have a supportive community around me, but 100 percent I've, I've talked to over 200 adoptees on the show.

You can't make one decision without having made the prior decision. If you've decided you will not carry the baby, there is no adoption decision. So they have to be considered differently, but that's only one of the things that people say you should be grateful that.

Yeah,

And, but what I realized is the machine is running without me, regardless. If I decide I'm not showing up, that machine's going to keep going. However, what I've also come to realize is [00:51:00] that one, we, as the adults have a responsibility to these children who do not have the voice that we now have. And we have to speak up for them.

And I've seen my presence in the gift of adoption fund born out in my expression of the adopt the experience and reminding people that while we think adoption is awesome, because we have this Disney amazing con conception of it the truth is, as we talked about a moment ago, adoption starts with a trauma, I always remind people.

Adoption never starts from a great place. I've never spoken to a single adoptee on this podcast, over 200 plus episodes, not a single person has said to me, when I found my birth parents, they said things were going really great. We just decided that you should be adopted. It never goes that way.

And then frequently, not always, And it doesn't sound like it was the case in your parents home. But frequently, there's a reason that adoptive parents have to, or need to, or choose to adopt. And so they've got their own stuff that they need to deal with. So when you think about that continuum of these at least three participants, and there's more in the adoption constellation it never starts from a positive place.

That mother will probably say, take my child and you know what the child will do? The child will reach back for their birth mother, right? Do you see what I'm saying? So, so this thing that we are rescuing a child, we think to ourselves, this child comes over from an African country or some third world country and they are rescued from being in that place to the, to America, the land of opportunity.

The challenge with that notion is you've forgotten that you've separated that child from their birth mother.

[00:53:38] Damon: And so I just, I like to remind people of these scenarios that while adoption can be awesome and mine, I was very lucky was a good thing for me. It is not a good thing in its entirety.

[00:54:02] Angela: Yeah, it's true. Also the premise of my book that I also had a great with loving adoptive parents.

And what I had often heard when people are able to understand that adoption may not be ideal. It was only in cases when kids were severely abused or neglected that general society could be like, Oh, that was traumatic for the kid to go through all that. And I'm glad they're adopted now. So part of my book is trying to say, no, it's not just that we can have really loving adoptive parents.

And this is still really hard and traumatic.

[00:55:00] Angela: Or the way I often feel and say is I am thankful and grateful for my adoptive parents.

I am glad that I have a beautiful relationship with them still today. And I wish that I was never adopted. I wish that I never had to be adopted. Yeah, both of those things can be true.

And they're both right. Yes. I'm thankful for my adoption and I wish that I had grown up with my birth parents. They're both right.

And that's really what we need for so much of the change in our. Laws and society. And like how are we going to resolve this border issue? If we have two stark opposites, a Biden and a Trump, I get political because I think the act of transracially adopting is political. And then what we have experienced allows us to.

communicate with such, communicate with ease around different cultures, and that's not everybody's gifts. So part of gosh, we should be helping inform on really crucial issues because of our learned ability to sit with the discomfort All the time.

[00:57:05] Angela: My website is angela tucker.com. I am working really hard to build up a new nonprofit called the Adoptee Mentoring Society right now, which is@adopteementorship.org. And that is. a beautiful space between having a friend and a therapist, but for adoptees being able to be mentored by other adoptees who I'm training in this role, I think is a Absolutely imperative.

So I want all adoptees to have an adoptee mentor. So I'm building that up and so folks can find me either of those websites. And then I'm on Instagram at Angie adoptee, where I'm always just spouting off my thoughts of the day on stories and also sharing other life joys that don't have to do with adoption sometimes too.

It was great to meet you when you were in DC and thanks for writing an amazing book.

[00:58:22] Damon: Absolutely. My pleasure.

Anytime you come back to D. C. Please let me know. I'd be happy to take you around and I'm looking forward to supporting you at your keynote as well. So all the best to you. All right,

Closing

[00:59:42] Damon: So I hope you'll pick up. You should be grateful stories of race, identity, and trans racial adoption. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Angela's story that inspired you. Validates your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you.