Our Voices
“Stories simultaneously celebrate what is unique about us and provide bridges to what is common among us.”
The Storyweavers, Lucinda Flodin & Dennis Frederick
Whatever our place in the adoption constellation, we all have many stories to tell. “Our Voices” is a place where those stories can be shared. We welcome adoptees, adoptive parents, first parents, extended family and friends, adoption professionals, and other members of the adoption community.
You don’t have to be a writer to contribute to Our Voices. You can choose to tell your story to one of our volunteers, for an “as told to” piece, or you may want to share your journey in the form of drawings, photography, or video. If you’re interested and want to learn more about the options for telling your stories, email us at blogATadoptionmosaic.org. Contributors have the option of remaining anonymous if desired.
Catherine, Part One- Jennifer Lauck
“I have done so much and yet a part of me waits and has always been waiting. It’s as if I haven’t gathered enough speed to lift off the ground and truly take flight. I’ve been a bird without feathers but today, I get what all human beings are supposed to have—a mother—my mother.”
Jennifer Lauck is an adoptee and a Portland based writer who has published three memoirs, Blackbird, Still Waters and Show Me the Way. Catherine is an essay from her latest memoir titled: Gone Home. The audio edition of Gone Home is available, for free, for fans of Jennifer’s work at http://jenniferlauck.blogspot.com
Twice Foreign – Shelise Gieseke
“Where I reside in Asian-American society, as a Korean adoptee, has been referred to as the “third space.” It is a place that hovers between who I was raised to be and who I was born to be…”
Shelise is a Korean adoptee with an undergraduate degree in communication and is interested in the way society shapes the adoptee experience through language. She was raised on a farm in southern Minnesota with three siblings who were not adopted. Shelise is excited to work with all members of the adoption constellation to create a safe and open learning environment.
Return to Taiwan – Huang Mei-Ling
“…there are still no words to describe the surrealism of that moment – when I met my father and sister for the first time in person…”
Mei-Ling is an Taiwanese adult adoptee who sent out a translated letter via Babelfish to her biological family’s address back in May 2006. For the next few years, she sent letters and exchanged pictures online with her biological siblings. In early June of 2009 she visited Taiwan to stay in her family’s residence until the end of August. If you have any enquiries about her adoption experience or reunion, she can be contacted at little.wing04AThotmail.com