They endured the traumatic loss of their whole world: Mother, mother’s breast, mother’s touch, mother’s smell, mother’s voice, mother tongue, motherland. They grew up as strangers in strange lands among people of a different color, with the trauma of racism and often the trauma of severe abuse.

Decoding Our Origins: The Lived Experiences of Colombian Adoptees will reveal the inner world of transracial adoptees. For them to bare theirs souls is an act of great courage. That they survived to write their stories is proof of their inner grit and a shining light for all.”

I read the book in two sittings.  I loved the mix of literary styles … prose, lyrics, narrative, photographs – it made for an interesting read.  It is deeply emotional and contains very moving personal accounts of the struggles and achievements of these Colombian adoptees!  It covers some profoundly sad experiences and includes many stories of reunion and beyond.

I felt very connected reading Decoding Our Origins: The Lived Experiences Of Colombian Adoptees because it reflected much of what I’ve experienced and learnt from intercountry adoptees worldwide from a variety of countries of origin.  The issues and experiences reflect what I’ve always termed the “kaleidoscope of intercountry adoption journeys”.

One aspect that stood out was these experiences voiced by the Colombian intercountry adoptees, appear to be largely the result of the USA’s privatised system of adoption.  It has only been since 2008 that the USA became a signatory of The Hague Convention for Intercountry Adoption.

Prior to becoming a signatory of The Hague Convention, independent adoption agencies facilitated intercountry adoptions for prospective parents.  We see the results from these adoptees themselves, now grown up, with a voice of their own.  They share the consequences resulting from growing up with ill prepared parents due to a lack of mandatory and standardised education, lack of standardised screening, and a lack of education to adoption agencies from the many perspectives of the intercountry adoptee.

The anthology, being largely the voices of USA based Colombian intercountry adoptees, is a reflection on the USA who is the largest receiving country in the world for intercountry adoptions … and a sender of its own children via intercountry adoption!  I hope the USA will work hard to listen to and include a wide range of voices of the adult intercountry adoptee community to improve the standards and processes that would be required to ensure intercountry adoptions achieved better long term outcomes for the child who inevitably grows up to become an adult.

We now see en masse, generations of intercountry adoptees like these Colombians in the USA and around Europe, who have suffered in their adoptions.  Suffered rehoming, trafficking, deportation, false documentation; who are searching for their true identities and their place of belonging, who struggle to have their emotional journey validated, and essentially for whom they have been given inadequate pre & post adoption supports. Our receiving countries have an ethical obligation to ensure if they are going to continue to bring in children via intercountry adoption each year, they lift their standards by providing resources to ensure these children will have positive outcomes in the future and not continue to suffer as many of these adoptees in this Colombian anthology share.

Let’s not forget the role of the sending country, Colombia.  One has to question why our sending countries, not just Colombia, continue to send so many of their children out.  Why, after so many generations, does Colombia still fail to create and implement family preservation systems especially given such a high proportion of these Colombian adoptees successfully reunite and find their families intact?

Decoding our Origins: The Lived Experiences of Colombian Adoptees also highlights the long history of irregularities in documentation from orphanages and hospitals and the long-term consequences for intercountry adoptees of such practices.“