S4:E9 Theater as a Catalyst for Change in the Adoption Community with Suzanne Bachner

Art meets advocacy when the transformative power of storytelling takes the spotlight. As a playwright, Suzanne Bachner channeled the raw emotions and experiences of the adoptee's pursuit into narratives that resonate beyond the stage, touching hearts and influencing legislative change. This episode doesn't merely trace Suzanne's path to discovering her beginnings; it also celebrates the broader victories for adoptee rights, highlighting the vital role of the arts in this movement. Through the craft of live performances, we've seen the adoption narrative shift and gain momentum, even as we continue to advocate for unrestricted access to original birth certificates and the fulfillment of every adoptee's right to know their heritage.

When Suzanne speaks, we listen - the echoes of a past era and the soul-searching journey of an adoptee become palpable - a narrative woven from the threads of the Baby Scoop Era, where the controversial practices of Louise Wise Services and the emotional odyssey of finding one's roots take center stage. Suzanne's candid recounting are far from a tale of disloyalty to her adoptive family, it emerges as a tender testament to the complex layers of identity and the hunger for truth that defines many adoptees' lives.

Listening to Suzanne's journey, our hearts are woven into the fabric of her experiences, reflecting the spirit of resilience that defines the adoptee community. We discuss the significance of these shared stories, the advocacy that propels us forward, and the interconnectedness that fosters a sense of belonging within our ranks. Join us as we traverse the emotional landscape of adoption, celebrate the strides made in adoptee rights, and affirm the enduring strength found in the community's collective voice.

🎭 Award-Winning Play by @suzannejouvay
Suzanne Bachner

Artistic Director | JMTC Theatre

Playwright & Director | The Good Adoptee | More

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheGoodAdoptee

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thegoodadoptee/

Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

You know, when you're walking down the street and you're just like, oh, one of these people could be my mother, like that is terrifying, and just narrowing down and finding all of those pieces that're missing.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, lisa Ann. We are an experience-based show focused on sharing the journey of adoption, life identity search and reunion. Let's begin today's conversation with our guest of honor, suzanne Backner. Welcome to the show, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Lisa Anne, I'm so honored to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Yeah, we're glad to have you with us and we're going to go ahead and just kick right into the conversation, get going with who you are, but, more importantly, a little bit about your adoption story.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Great. Well, I am a domestic same race, white and Jewish free row baby scoop heir, adoptee, born, raised and adopted in New York City. My pronouns are she, her and I was relinquished and adopted through Louise Wise Services.

Speaker 2: 1:27

So I don't know if everybody's heard about those services in the past. I know we have a lot of commonality in our stories, but I came from Crichton. I know that there's Bethany Services and so I thought maybe if we could just take a couple minutes and give a little bit of context about those services for others that might be impacted by that particular branch of the world.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Well, louise Wise has an interesting history. It was the premier Jewish adoption agency in New York City for years and years and years. They were located. They had a spot on the Upper East Side and that was sort of where Jewish people looked to adopt back in the baby scoop and post baby scoop eras actually. So they closed their doors around 2010. And then they got a little not so great publicity with the books Identical Strangers and the movie Three Identical Strangers, where adoptees who went through Louise Wise were secretly separated and studied in horrific, unethical, destructive twin studies that were conducted with the cooperation of the agency. So I'm so glad to be from there.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Well, I think that it would be good to know you are not a twin or a triplet, and you are not part of those studies, you just happen to be, a baby that passed through that particular center and service.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Yes, yes, so a very different story, although when I was doing my search they had just moved and so all of the records from Louise Wise had gone to Fence Chapin, a surviving adoption agency in New York, and still today they didn't know if I was part of the twin studies while I was searching, because all of those records were all messed up, and so I went for the better part of a year thinking that I knew of adoptees who were sort of bookending me in time. So I thought, oh, I am part of this era of these horrific twin studies, so I didn't know that you know if I was a twin or not, until they finally were able to tell me.

Speaker 2: 3:50

I find that interesting, and maybe what we should do is take a little bit of a step back and talk about your search and some of the activities that you engaged in to find out who you were biologically Taking another step back.

Speaker 1: 4:08

I landed in the household of a wonderful couple, the Backners, where I had a sense of a certain amount of belonging and we were a very small family. I was an only child adoptee, which I think is a it's. I feel like we should have our own support group for being only children adoptee, but only child adoptees. But and we kind of called ourselves the tripod, because it was mom, dad, me and we went through a lot of difficulties with illnesses and stuff when I was in high school, all three of us life-threatening illnesses, all three of us life-threatening illnesses. So my desire to find out more about myself and to find, you know, to do a search, to do that kind of thing, was a little bit stunted because I felt like, oh my God, I am belonging here and kind of hanging on by a thread of survival, you know, in this situation. And I felt that it would be an even bigger betrayal if I went and searched and that was, you know, thankfully, to thank, thanks to, in part, you know, the culture that says, oh, if you are interested in searching, then you're automatically betraying your adoptive parents, which does not help anybody. So I really was like a late searcher.

Speaker 1: 5:22

I was in my mid-30s when I first searched. Although I do consider so many different activities you know the inner life of an adoptee, even as a child I consider some of the things that I used to contemplate and look into, and when I used to write stories and all of these things. If I, you know, look back on all of that, I say I was, oh, I was searching, I was always searching. There wasn't a time that I wasn't searching, and I always knew that I was adopted. My parents were very open about that, and so I don't remember an event of being, you know, having this news broken to me. Oh, guess what? You're adopted, you know. So it was almost like normalized to you know, aren't, aren't most kids adopted?

Speaker 2: 6:13

you know right? Yeah, I said, everyone like me. Well, I want to. I would do want to acknowledge you made a couple of statements, but there's a word you used a couple times already and so I'm going to circle back on that which is your, your tripod, but belonging, and I want us to always hold a spot for how everyone feels about their adoption, but also their family that raised them, and so you have indicated you felt a belonging. You didn't feel, you know, drastically separated from them still a little bit of searching, but not drastically separated from them. Is that a true interpretation of your statement of belonging?

Speaker 1: 6:53

Yes, and I'm so glad that you are holding that space for this because I think it's so crucial and just to map that out a little more. And to map that out a little more and to acknowledge that having a sense of belonging in your adoptive family is a place of great privilege, which I want to note and be thankful for, but also that that is not something that happens all the time for adoptees, but just inherently being adopted and being displaced from my original family and from that ancestral line into the one that and the ones that I feel that sense of belonging to with my adoptive family. You know, it's kind of that two sides of the coin. You know where I felt an intense sense of belonging and safety with my adoptive family and that almost allowed me to deny adoption issues and to push aside the undermining effect of not knowing where I came from and not having a connection to my original first family.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Yeah, I think that's important. You can have both sides of your coin. You can have the concept of belonging and you can also want to search, and the reason I brought it to the table for our discussion is there really is a place for everybody to have those feelings, and I also want to hold a spot for those that have been hurt by this event relative to how they were raised. So I'm pretty open about my own experience and I, you know, I know I was loved in the best way that I could be. I'm also very open about my thoughts and feelings about my adopted mother. So you know, we all have a different experience and it's nice to hear when adoptees are also comfortable acknowledging that they really did have a good sense of belonging, despite the circumstances. Take us on a part of your search journey and some of the highlights of what you found out about yourself, because there's some parallel about how you were placed and where you came from biologically, and I find that intriguing.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Well, my parents, my adoptive parents, are an interfaith couple and when they got together it was really frowned upon. It was really a big deal. You know their wedding pictures there's people of the immediate family wearing black. It looks like a funeral. It's unbelievable to me, but they kind of fooled everyone or they showed everyone, I should say because they have been together for a very long time and when they were adopting they went to a Unitarian adoption situation first and they sort of said, oh, my mom is Catholic, my dad is Jewish. And they said, oh, you need to sign away that you're part of the Unitarian community. And my dad said I'm Jewish, I can't do that. So they then went to Louise Wise where my grandmother was on the board and actually very close friends with Justine Poehler who ran it, and I think they didn't want to do that because my grandmother was one of the people wearing black at their wedding. So I don't think they wanted to really do that necessarily. And I just want to make it clear that anyone who has seen Three Identical Strangers my grandmother was not one of those people in the back room, you know, drinking champagne for getting away with this horrible twin study that did not happen with her involved. I think they took extra care to kind of like match me.

Speaker 1: 10:36

So it's unusual for a baby who has a non-Jewish mother to be put through a Jewish agency.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And as I discovered and I had like a little background on this, but it wasn't quite accurate as so much of our background information that's shared can not be accurate this is accurate now that I know it my birth father was studying to be a rabbi in the Dory but he was actually Orthodox Jewish and not always wearing a yarmulke, you know, and he was also with a non-Jewish person who he impregnated.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So he was obviously the Louise Wise connection. And my first mother was Presbyterian raised, was Presbyterian raised and she was trying to make a family with my first father and ended up converting to Judaism and like reform Judaism. I always say like Marilyn Monroe did for Arthur Miller, but that worked out better than in her situation because she was with an Orthodox man with an Orthodox family and that just wasn't really going to fly. So it was kind of like this weird circumstance of interfaith coupling on both sides of my history that led to me being, you know, in Louise Weiss in the first place and then being, you know, bought by donation to the agency by, you know, this interfaith couple. So it was a strange circumstance.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Yeah, I would agree, very unique. No doubt that was unique. Do you think there were benefits in that, just from your perspective of who you are? Because if we tag in your biology to your adoption family, there might have been just enough similarities. Have you ever given that some consideration that you were actually raised in context to how you might have been raised biologically? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Absolutely. I think that's right on target, because I think I mean I said, oh, I have the privilege of having this belongingness that happened but I think I also have the privilege of having like just a little more I don't know, social engineering going into the match, which can't always happen doesn't always happen, as we know but I think that there was like an extra little twinge of that that really did support my family, me and my parents in having kind of a good match in many ways.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Yeah, I like the word that you use social engineering. That's very interesting. I don't know if I've ever thought of some of the connection of how we are placed as adoptees into homes under that context, and so I like that. I mean, I might have to, over time, think about that differently and and dig in a little bit to see how other adoptees feel about that kind of a concept.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Well, I hadn't thought about you know what, what you're bringing up here, for you know most of my life until I started searching. And I started, you know, I went to Spence Chapin to try to get my materials, my file, that I thought I just go into the agency and say, hey, I'm ready for my file now and they just give it to me. And that's when I sort of discovered all sorts of things about adult adoptees that I had no idea about and inequality. That's a whole other subject. But basically when I went in and finally said this and they had just moved, like they had just acquired, like they shut down Louise Wise, ben Chapin, you know, taken charge of all of the Louise Wise adoptees and paperwork and all of that. So when I first said, oh, you know, I'd like my information, they said we can't have your information. But they also they also said, well, gee, guess what we have have your information. But they also they also said, well, gee, guess what, we have lost your information.

Speaker 1: 14:27

So my file that I couldn't even see by law at that point in New York State was also like all of my my materials were missing and and as this kind of played out. And then they found them. But I thought, perhaps, and maybe, you know, it's me being trained as the chosen adoptee, who is so special, you know. But I did have this weird connection with my grandmother being involved there, et cetera. But I was like, oh, maybe my file was in a different spot and wasn't with all the other files, maybe my file was that drawer that ended up in the other place when they, you know, put all the files into Spence Chapin, something weird like that. Because so that that kind of bolstered my, my social engineering theory about my adoption.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Yeah, but I could see the connection, for you know, for that type of a topic, absolutely let's touch on. You did find some of your information and we're going to come back to your adoptees rights topic a little bit later in this conversation, but let's get back to you. Were able at some point in this search to validate who your biological father and mother were, and you also have made contact with family members, and so I want to talk a little bit about your perspective and thoughts around reunion.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Well, first I want to say that the act of going and searching, you know, which I had to really allow myself to do because I was so stuck on sort of, oh I don't need to do that, oh I, you know, I'm okay, things are okay when I just allowed myself to really search and not just, yeah, I've written plays where I've searched and all of this and it's kind of fantasy searching and I don't get into trouble for it with real people. So when I, when I allowed myself to do that, that just I mean before finding anything, just the act of going and searching was like one of the most powerful and empowering and grounding things I've ever done and it just somehow reclaimed this just the circumstances of being an adoptee where sort of the most crucial decision is just sort of naturally made by biological kids who are kept in their biological families, this displacement from the one line, the one you know, the line of ancestry and the original family. That decision is made and we have no say in it at all and we're not even really supported in dealing with the trauma and subsequent, hopefully, healing of that decision being made for us and then we just get stuck, you know, in that situation. So just going and searching and saying I'm giving you the green light to go search and being able to do that, was just this tsunami of oh, I'm taking back my own life, like I am, I am empowering myself and, as I found out, stuff sort of filling the cup, you know, with like oh, that's me, you know that's someone I'm connected to, or you know that's not someone I'm connected to, because there's all of those you know, you could, you know, when you're walking down the street and you're just like, oh, one of these people could be my mother, like that is terrifying.

Speaker 1: 17:53

And just narrowing down and finding all of those pieces that were missing, that I hadn't even allowed myself to acknowledge were missing, just collecting that and I was like obsessed, as so many people are when they do this, but I was absolutely obsessed. I became Nancy Drew. I was like solving this mystery and I just was writing down each and every step of it. You know I made this call at like 3.28pm, you know, and I was just every little detail was mine and it didn't matter that it led to anything or whatever, but it was such a huge step of kind of taking back my life from adoption, from the ill parts of adoption, the traumatizing and undermining and difficult and impossible push of adoption. I was like pushing back and I felt like Wonder Woman.

Speaker 1: 18:46

I felt like so empowered, and every time I got a little peace and understood oh, that's me and I've made this identity in this totally fake, false way of adopted person Suzanne, adopted person Suzanne Bacner is all of these things that I've constructed and some of them are real.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Some of them have to do with the core, inherent core person that I am, but some of them don't. And then that influx of material of like oh, that's me and I'm going to claim that and that's me and I'm going to claim that, and maybe I'm not going to claim that, but now I have better understanding. So every time I went through that process I felt like there was more me and I felt like I could connect with the people I loved and have more to share with them and more to for them to see and to really see me. And that was a whole other, you know, sort of self-pushed, self-created sense of belonging. I mean, that was, those were all of the wonderful things that happened when I searched, that have nothing to do with even actual reunion yet. But right.

Speaker 2: 19:55

You know that's the thought that keeps running through my mind as you're talking is your evolution of your identity and how the person you were as you were growing up, who knew which was your undercurrent to the life story? But then, as you were growing up, who knew which was your undercurrent to the life story? But then, as you started the search and picking up information which I believe you are indicating is critical right. Those are critical pieces, even if they are not useful pieces, and how that started evolving your identity and how you felt about you, which then allowed you to give out more. I really like that perspective. I don't know if I've thought of identity in that way, but I really do like that perspective Because we are consistently changing when we're in this portion of the journey around search and reunion. Very nice, very nicely said.

Speaker 2: 20:56

All right, well, let's go ahead and start getting into a little bit of reunion and you know kind of some of that and tagging it into your evolving identity that we just, you know, kind of touched upon.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Reunion was challenging, I mean, and so I during reunion I felt so underserved by pop culture and I mean it's not safe out there, you know, exploitative, without you know really realizing that. And they were so they so did not serve me when I actually went and was doing that for myself and I thought that I had kind of gone and said, okay, if I'm going to do this and I might find real people, and I mean I had to do a big shift. I always felt like I wanted to find both of my parents, because I think that I had that Louise Wise narrative that my birth father was such a big part of me being there, so I would constantly look at rabbis who were the right age and say, oh, could that be my father? It's just crazy, crazy, crazy making. I thought, oh, maybe he's still in New York and what have you, I didn't find him in that anecdotal, weird way of that. Well, I didn't have to, but I decided to hire a professional to help me because I had my first mother's maiden name was Smith and she had changed, changed her name, like the name that she was out in the world with did not match the name that she had when she gave birth to me. So it was just like such a beyond me being Nancy Drew, I finally I finally had to go and hire, search.

Speaker 1: 23:07

I did find my birth father first and he had passed and I was very I knew that this could be a possibility because I didn't search when I was 16. I knew that this could be a possibility because I didn't search when I was 16. So I knew that even if you're 16, you could also have lost someone you don't know. But I did find, like, the first person who I am biologically related to, that I had encountered in life, was my birth uncle, my first uncle, my birth father's brother, and he was not incredibly welcoming. And I think what I was, you know, in going and preparing for all of these different possibilities like if it's not going to be an Oprah reunion, then what kind of possibility is it Then you know you kind of have to create all these scenarios, you know, in this control freak way of like being like, oh, I can handle this because I thought about it ahead of time and I just didn't think about this uncle.

Speaker 1: 23:59

And this uncle had actually been, he was in the Louise Wise paperwork because he was like with my birth father and birth mother when they were having the baby and she had come from Virginia to New York to where he was to have this baby me and I think she was trying to, you know, keep me at that point and it didn't work out because of the orthodox thing and several other factors, and he was like this figure in this paperwork, that it was like he was part of my little mini Louise Wise narrative or Spence Chapin narrative, that he was there and it's not that I thought he would be so excited to hear from me.

Speaker 1: 24:39

I mean, he just I didn't know, but I've somehow and this is a weird thing, but somehow I was I was prepared to have like the door slammed in my face and be cursed out and you know all of this kind of stuff, but I wasn't prepared to be handled in this sort of weird lawyerly way of sort of sharing some information but not and just sort of getting the door elegantly gently closed in my face. I just didn't know what to do with it.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Yeah, I think when we were talking previously, suzanne, we kind of referenced it as the soft rejection, almost silent rejection, without saying you're rejected, but saying you're rejected and I don't know. I'm with you when going through the what if? Scenarios, because I want all the control and I overthink. I don't know if we think of that one, we think of all of the other stuff, like what if they don't answer the letter? If you send the letter? What if they don't answer the call? What if they're deceased? What if I upset their world because I've never told anyone? What if they think I'm a bad person? I mean, I know we go through those as adoptees and you and I have talked about that a little bit. But yeah, that silent, soft rejection and just the skill of that that you and I talked about, it's kind of phenomenal when you think about that.

Speaker 1: 26:03

Yeah, yeah, and I mean he's a family attorney in Miami and it makes sense because my adoptive dad is a lawyer. I know we have lots of lawyers in all of my branches of family, so I understand kind of how lawyers work to an extent. But there was this compartmentalization that was so, so odd, and I mean not so odd, but you know where, somehow in his writing, because I had this all in a letter and somehow, like I was his brother's daughter but he was not my uncle, and you know how does that, how do those two things exist? And I think that he was really the gatekeeper. And so you know, he didn't share with me any of my siblings I think there are five and he didn't sort of share anything about them. So there was just so many questions that came up and he kind of took it that I was trying to find my birth mother, who he knew from back then but hadn't seen since then, and I really wasn't writing to him for that. I, you know, I really want to talk to him and I would never have found any of this family if it weren't for the genius of my searcher.

Speaker 1: 27:18

But you know, my searcher made that first call to him unbeknownst to me and without my permission, and so it's like she actually spoke to this uncle of mine. I'm going to claim him, even if he doesn't want me. She actually spoke to him and have not had that pleasure. I'll keep it on pleasure and I have not had that pleasure.

Speaker 1: 27:39

What's interesting is that my dad, both my parents, have really evolved from. Oh, if your child is looking for their original family, that must be a rejection on you or you know, it has nothing to do with their identity and needing to know these things and what have you. They had the unhappiness of being fed that as they were growing up, as they were growing up as adoptive parents. So, you know, we had to like, really work on that together and they really evolved Probably not as much in conversation from conversation with me as seeing my plays, but you know where it could be, like third hand almost to them. But my dad actually offered to write to my uncle and tell him. You know how much he and the rest of the family were missing out by not knowing me.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Well, that would have been sweet to some extent. Now, did you take him up on that offer?

Speaker 1: 28:33

I did not because, honestly, just the fact that he offered that, I felt so supported and taken care of by that. But I was just like I have to be the one to try to reach out if I want to do that myself. I was just like I'm too much of a control freak to then, like, put that in his hands. It's just, it's not going to be good for me, even if it turns out well.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Yeah, I mean that's just crapshoot on the on the table in Vegas at that point Right.

Speaker 2: 29:05

I don't know any other analogy to put with that. I mean it could go any direction. Well, I want to. I want us to move a little bit here. And you've mentioned two different things, and they're actually part of you evolving your identity and who you are, and they are tied to your search and minimal reunion. And you've touched on adoptee rights, the lack thereof, and I am a playwright For the listeners. Let's bring those two concepts together adoptee rights, playwright and tell us how they connect you together as a person.

Speaker 1: 29:45

Well, I have written about adoption. They were searching pieces and not clearly about adoption, but when I look back at them now. But when I was eight, I wrote a piece about these three odd space aliens who were coming to Earth and trying to find their way home, and it was called Creatures from an Unknown Planet. So if that isn't a tell, I don't know what is.

Speaker 2: 30:11

Intriguing for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:22

Yeah, and they encounter a human child on earth. So clearly I got that I was. You know, I didn't fully, truly belong. I started writing and really doing a lot of healing and searching work where I felt safe, exploring issues of adoption and putting in adoptee themes and all of the stuff in my work as a playwright. And then I really, when I started searching, I actually wanted to write a play that was totally real because I was so obsessed with.

Speaker 1: 30:45

You know all of the facts and when you're doing fictional or even fantasy type playwriting work you're not talking about. Oh, my birth mom's original name was Smith. So if you're making it Jones, then you're not capturing. You know what you're searching and fighting for. And I say fighting for to bring in the Adopt Me Rights piece because as this adult, I was like shocked to, as I said, to find out like, oh, I couldn't go and get my file. How, what? How is that right? So I wrote the play the Good Adoptee, which is totally true. I changed one first name in it but otherwise totally true and so it was a totally different experience of creating a theater piece, a totally true story and just reflected the inner struggle and the search as we were talking about and the fight for being able to have my file and have and I can't have my file.

Speaker 1: 31:46

But since you know, writing the play, we ended up as a theater company partnering with all of these amazing adoptee organizations and access organizations, and it turned out because the play was so much about the right to find yourself and know who you are. There was just adoptee rights baked into this. Without me getting up on a soapbox over it, it was just inherently in the dramatic material. It's really focused on the search, and so we started partnering with organizations such as Access Connecticut and Access Massachusetts and, more recently, adoption Mosaic and the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition and Adoptees United.

Speaker 1: 32:32

When we've done these partnerships, there've been different aims and different things, but since we've done the play, there's been a real momentum of opening up access to adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificate. They're in our 14 unrestricted states and so while we were doing all of this work very strategically in partnership, it was wonderful because there were these incredible victories. So we're always looking to partner with, particularly coalitions we love partnering with, but any grassroots, on the ground organization that is fighting for this in their state we want to support, and we found that the show can really impact people on this visceral way. We always hope that it has helped, support and service to particularly adoptees in terms of adoptee rights.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Suzanne, you've mentioned frequently here now, in this last little bit of dialogue, two words came to mind essence of truth, and then the desire to be highly connected to those organizations that are pushing forward some of our concepts, right the advocacy of that, and so I would really like it if you could share with the listeners some of your thoughts and some of the activities that were going on or have been going on over the last couple of years along those lines and how it's influenced potential congressional non-adoptees or non-adoptees in general.

Speaker 1: 34:05

Well, with this play the Good Adoptee, this was like the first time that I felt like it was directly impacting and attracting adoptees. So that's sort of what happened first. But then as we did the play and then specifically did the play as an advocacy piece, so we did tours in Connecticut, we did a mini tour in Massachusetts and then they became virtual projects as well and we were also doing it in New York as the fight for adoptee rights in New York was raging. So all of that kind of happened at. You know, at the same time. But like sort of the more we got involved with adoptees and people in the adoption community as our audience, it then sort of broadened into bringing the play to a larger general population to influence in a positive way the adoptee rights fights that were going on and the struggle for equality in different states. One such time was in our tour in Connecticut where we had a senator who was someone who was running actually for senator and then he got in, thankfully, and he came to the show and he was invited and he it really opened his eyes because he had not thought about adoption and adoptee rights in that way and he then got in and he became one of the senators who was like the main senator pushing, you know, sponsoring the bills as they. You know this took many years, but he was there fighting alongside us for a while.

Speaker 1: 35:49

Sometimes you just have that thing with a play where it can have a visceral impact. It transcends all of the noise of, you know, the rainbows and unicorns, you know narrative or the reunion narrative and all of these things that people are kind of come into it with. But if they're sitting in a theater with one fabulous actor because we always have an incredible actor, you know we've been really lucky to have amazing performers doing the show it really just can have that impact on an audience where they get it Like you can just get your message across in a way that you could be screaming on a mountaintop for decades and you can't get that same message across. So that is the magic of theater.

Speaker 2: 36:36

Yeah, I would agree. I love theater. I don't think we actually talked about this. I love theater and it is. One of the benefits of live performance is that you are pulled in a little bit more emotionally. Now I can cry on a dime, so I should say that to the listeners. I can probably. If you talk another 10 minutes and tell me something that is, you know, really a heart string, I'm going to be crying. That's just me, right, and I've I've accepted that part of me. But you are absolutely right. There is something about live theater and when you're telling stories like the ones we're talking about in your story, it is really hard. I mean, I've got to believe if you don't come out of there a little bit changed, you're just flat out cold-hearted and maybe I don't want you advocating for me anyway.

Speaker 2: 37:27

so you know, just yeah, just absolutely a different experience. But what I'm, what I'm liking about some of the advocacy in the fine arts area is that it is changing and so we we are seeing in our community more engagement from that type of medium of expression. So writing, blogs, memoirs, theater, monologues, music, the narrative changing in you know the Hollywood context in television and movies as well, and so that that momentum that you're talking about, it's still growing and it's still changing and expanding. So, with that said, I believe you were highlighting some wins in advocacy. So, if you don't mind, when you were starting and going through this, what was the status in New York specifically, and what's the status now and then? What do you know about statuses in other areas, other States?

Speaker 1: 38:41

Well in in New York. When we were starting out, it was, I mean, new York looked like a completely hopeless case and and people had been trying to chip away at New York for over 40 years. So and I mean there was wonderful elements that just came together. You know, the perfect storm in a good way. But our friends at NYARC, the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, did some groundbreaking and incredibly crucial work. There's also sort of a national groundswell to help support the vetoing of a really bad bill that came the session before and that really focused things in.

Speaker 1: 39:33

But it was sort of against all odds that New York happened, just, and you would think that New York would be at the forefront of equality for all and rights for anybody. There were some complicated stuff that was really in the way of that. So New York just celebrated four years of the record. The opening, like the opening day, was January 15th 2020. So we just had the four year celebration of records being open. And not only that, but they just streamlined the process. Somehow it just someone can get their records much quicker than they could. I mean, this all happened like right at the beginning of the pandemic, like right before the pandemic, so it was really hard to actually go and get your. You know it was a wait to get your original birth certificate.

Speaker 2: 40:21

Yeah, and I want to make sure we're kind of clear you do mean access not only to adoption records, but you really mean access to original birth certificate.

Speaker 1: 40:31

That's exactly what I mean. It's the original birth certificate so I always have on my fantasy, I have my file in my hand, but that is not a reality yet. So the fight is focused on original birth certificate and that is miraculous that this has happened in New York State and I think it really has helped with momentum in other states.

Speaker 2: 40:53

So, to your best knowledge, how many states have adopted pun intended to some right have actually changed their laws that are allowing for original birth certificate requests and fulfillment?

Speaker 1: 41:12

That is, it's 14 states that are right now unrestricted and in about a year another one, but it's that's unrestricted. There are other states that have like restricted access. So you know, it's just like you're sort of more looking at unrestricted. So you want, whatever your non-adopted cohort can go and do in terms of getting their original birth certificate, aka their birth certificate you want the adoptee to have the same right.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Yeah, the same level of equality.

Speaker 1: 41:46

So that's, 14. Right, yes.

Speaker 2: 41:48

Yes and no redaction. That's really what we're talking about no redaction on the material that you're asking for Now. This does not solve, for when a birth mother or birth father are using pseudos, pseudonym names.

Speaker 2: 42:09

Does not solve for that and it doesn't overcome if there's no birth father listed, but it's a start right. It might jumpstart some other activities that you can go and look through and look for. And as we all age, myself included, more of federal records become public anyway. Records become public anyway. They're right, as what is it? Every 10 years, I think, we get more census data from the you know 20, 30 years prior. Well, let's kind of start bringing this together a little bit and tell me what and how you want to continue to engage in the community and what the future holds in your mind for you as the playwright, for the good adoptee or something next and bigger.

Speaker 1: 43:02

Well, first of all, I just want to say that just being able to be in community with adoptees in any way is to me life-changing, like it's its own thing.

Speaker 1: 43:16

It's its own, it's its own phenomenon. That for me, is super healing and lets me feel grounded and connected and have that sense of belonging on a level that is I don't know if non-adopted people have that same kind of lightning bolt sort of feeling. I mean I guess the other side of the coin, right. So, like you know, I mean right now, in communicating and having this chat with together, you know we're in our own little pod of adoptive community and so I feel more myself. You know you're, you're, you've invited me and allowed me to feel connection with you, to feel like more myself than I get to sort of every day. So just having that adoptee contact and connection is to me crucial. So I will seek it out everywhere, like I have an amazing adoptee group in New York and, you know, sort of nationally, I love being part of Adoptees United and Adoption Mosaic and being in community there. It's just a gift.

Speaker 2: 44:24

I would agree it is. It's very humbling to have those opportunities. But, more importantly, I do not ever feel in any of these conversations that I have to explain myself when I make a comment about search or reunion or struggling with identity or struggling with emotions that are hard sometimes for others to understand, why they can be literally consistently hovering at the surface. Right, those are, those are obviously the massive benefits of being in community. You just don't have to explain it, you just don't.

Speaker 1: 45:03

Yeah, yeah, and it's, and it's the nod, it's the knowing nod and you can even feel the power of that nod, even if you don't see the person in the space between you. Feel this knowingness, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:18

I would absolutely agree. Well, what about the future? What are you thinking about? What's up next?

Speaker 1: 45:25

Well, in terms of the Good Adoptee, we are headed back to Connecticut for a special run of shows over Mother's Day weekend and we are just sort of teasing that and we're going to announce all the details soon. But we're working with our kids, who we've worked with before and we actually have have did we did, like a thing at the Schubert, but online, you know a virtual presentation with them a couple years ago, and so this is like very much of a treat to be able to be live in the theater and work with them again.

Speaker 2: 46:02

Yeah, well, how do you want to close out today? We're coming to the end, and is there anything that I haven't touched on that's really important to you in terms of the communication to the community?

Speaker 1: 46:17

I mean, what's wonderful is that having a conversation like this brings up, like so many you know, different ideas and thoughts and things to explore. So I love leaving with that and feeling like, oh you know, like we could, we could, we could have, we could have 20 more talks and explore 20 more things and and that feels great, you know, because you don't get to feel that and explore that every day it really is a huge treat.

Speaker 2: 46:51

Yeah, I mean I agree we could. We could talk for another two, three hours. I feel that many, many times I really do want to say from our conversation, as we're closing out, the essence of truth. I really kind of like that concept. So I know from this conversation what I'm going to take away and I'm so thankful for is just that those two words that popped into this conversation, and maybe exploring that more and helping utilize something as simple as those two words to bring others, who are not adoptees, into this conversation. It would be very hard. I think it's a theory. My theory would be it would be hard to argue against. I just want the essence of truth.

Speaker 1: 47:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:40

Right yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:42

I love that. Yeah, no, it's, it's circling back to the top of our conversation. It's. It's the essence of truth is you know sort of what starts there. You know that you, you do have an essence of truth. Even if you don't know certain things about you, and even if you're trying to fit in in a family, there still is something that that guides you. That is there If you acknowledge and look for it. I love the essence of truth, yeah me too Well.

Speaker 2: 48:11

I want to thank you for being on today's show of truth. Yeah, me too Well. I want to thank you for being on today's show. It's been a pleasure, and I leave every guest with this comment it truly is my honor to have this opportunity to spend time with you. I sometimes think it comes across as fawning, but it's not so we're clear, and I don't take this lightly. I know sometimes it's hard for adoptees to speak their truth or to speak their experience, and so for me, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1: 48:43

Thank you so much for having me, and I don't want to be fawning either, but it is a true honor.

Speaker 2: 48:50

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Wandering Tree Podcast. Please rate, review and share this out so we can experience the lived adopted journey together. Want to be a guest on our show? Check us out at wanderingtreeadoptingcom.