Labor of Love: A Podcast for BIPOC Adoptees Navigating Parenthood Nari Baker & Robyn Park

In this episode, Jenna Corriveau takes us on her journey out of the fog of internalized white supremacy, adoptee “fawn response”, isolation, and harmful familial relationships, and into personal authenticity, self love, adoptee community, and empowerment as a BIPOC adoptee mother. She generously shares her belief in brain science, learning nervous system regulation, and giving oneself daily grace, especially as an adoptee parent. Jenna is un-schooling and eclectic homeschooling her three children, and is deep in the process of de-schooling herself, as an extension of reclaiming her identity around her intelligence and personal autonomy.   
https://synergeticplaytherapy.com/https://mindsightinstitute.com/
Jenna Corriveau BioJenna Corriveau is a 39-year-old Colombian Transracial Adoptee, raised in CT. She and her partner Tucker have 3 children: 7, 5 and 1-year-old. In addition to being a parent she has over 15 years of experience working with children and families. Her work spans from preschool teaching, foster care system, practicing Synergetic Play Therapy, parent coaching and Adoption Mosaic. She practices gentle brain/body-based parenting. Currently, she can be found de-schooling and secular home-educating with her family. 
Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn ParkMusic: Mike Marlatt & Paul GulledgeEditing: Federico aka mixinghacksArtwork: Dalhe Kim
Listen on: iTunes & SpotifyInstagram: @laboroflovepodcastVenmo: @laboroflovepodcast

Join us for a beautiful conversation with adoptee mother, Astrid Castro and daughter, Maya Papaya Castro Dabbeni. They generously share about their tremendous love and bond, and shed light on how intergenerational trauma and painful legacies of adoption have affected their relationship, perspectives, and behaviors. We also discuss the importance of mirroring and how unique it is for adoptees and children of adoptees; their unique birth family reunion story; birth language acquisition within adoptee families; creating adoption fluency; and moving from isolation as adoptees into community together with our children.   
https://www.adoptionmosaic.com/
Astrid Castro BioAstrid  Castro (she/her/hers) is the founder and CEO of  Adoption  Mosaic. Adoption Mosaic is a BIPOC adoptee, woman-led business that seeks to build an inviting adoption conscious community by providing innovative adoptee-centered programs and support.Including a monthly virtual panel series called We the Experts: Adoptee Speaker Series. Astrid has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in adoption. For twenty plus years, she has traveled the country to lead youth groups, present workshops on  transracial parenting, talking with children about adoption, and various other workshops focusing on adoption. Prior to creating Adoption Mosaic, Astrid worked in both the private and public sectors of various adoption organizations such as the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center (ORPARC), Holt International and Rocky Mountain Adoption Exchange.
Astrid co-authored Adoption in the Movies, which takes the reader on a guided tour of 27 movies and documentaries that are ‘dripping with adoption’ which are asking  questions that encourage viewers to engage in ongoing dialogue and discussion. She also developed an innovative, evidence-based, 27-minute training DVD titled, Adoptive Parent Training:Developing Communication Skills. The training demonstrates how adoptive parents can communicate openly and honestly with family, friends and especially children. Astrid is a former member of the board of directors of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the author of many articles on the subject of adoption and contributed a chapter to the book Parenting as Adoptees.
Astrid’s personal experiences as an adoptee, a woman of color, and growing up in  a white family and community, fuel her professional path to helping others. Astrid  is aware of the benefit  of post-adoption services for individuals and their families  and seeks to bring these services to the adoption community. Her life-long interest  in adoption is rooted in her own adoption at the age of four from Colombia (along  with her older sister). Astrid has been in reunion with her birth family in Colombia since December 2011. Read about Astrid’s journey of searching and finding her birth mother in The Oregonian.
When Astrid is not working she loves to spend time with family, friends and  enjoying the adventures of life as the mama of an amazing daughter.
Maya Papaya Castro Dabbeni BioMaya has grown up hearing and talking about adoption as a child of an adoptee. She is biracial, Colombian and Italian, as well as trilingual, Italian, Spanish and English. At a young age, Maya was a driving force in finding her maternal birth family. To this day, she is still uncovering connections to her Colombian roots, in addition to exploring how generational trauma and epigenetics affect children of adoptees. Maya is excited to share her experience of being a "child of an adoptee" and to bring this topic to light. Maya is currently a third year student at San Jose State University majoring in International Business with a double minor in Spanish and Italian.
Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn ParkMusic: Mike Marlatt & Paul GulledgeEditing: Federico aka mixinghacksArtwork: Dalhe Kim
Listen on: iTunes & SpotifyInstagram: @laboroflovepodcastVenmo: @laboroflovepodcast

Dr. Kimberly McKee joins us in a lively conversation that touches on her experiences with her blended family through the pandemic, relationship with her birth family, and upcoming research on API adoptee women and girls in the media. Kim generously shares her perspectives on the challenges and privileges of being a working mom, an adoptee in reunion, and in partnership with a fellow Korean adoptee. She is a fierce advocate for Asian Americans and adoptees through her academic work and teaching, the philosophy of “fed is best”, and taking the time and space to be very intentional about cultivating her ever-evolving relationships with her young son and two step-children.

Book Recommendations:
I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont
Who’s Knees Are These? by Jabari Asim
Who’s Toes Are Those? by Jabari Asim
Kimchi, Kimchi Everyday by Erica Kim
Mr. Watson’s Chickens by Jarrett Dapier
Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. by Jenny Heijun Wills

Jessica M. Luciere, Colombian adoptee in reunion, generously shares her unique perspective as a long-time professional adoptee mentor/advocate and mother of two young children. An only child with adoptive parents who passed away, Jessica has the complex experience of witnessing her children forge life-long relationships with her Colombian family and not the Italian American parents who raised her. She reminds us of the importance of letting our kids have their own experiences outside of our losses, projections, and grief from adoption, and that the lines of healing across and through relationships are often not linear or exactly reciprocal. Jessica models deep commitment to the adoptee community through her professional work while balancing the sacred work of mothering, partnership and self-care.

Today we sit down with Dr. JaeRan Kim, a fierce advocate, researcher, social worker, blogger and needle savvy knitter. Over many years, JaeRan has been very influential in the adoptee community through her academic publications and well-known blog, Harlow’s Monkey, where she connects transracial adoption to the larger forces of white supremacy, racism and colonization. She continues to be a vast resource for adoptees and adoptive parents alike. In this episode, JaeRan generously shares how she helped build her childrens’ racial and cultural identities, critical thinking skills, and sensitivity to the lives and experiences of adoptees. She sheds light on which areas of adoption need more research and publication, and her commitment to fostering community connections among adoptees. Other poignant moments include JaeRan sharing about her singing the Annie Musical song “Maybe” to her child, and pushing back on the idea of adoptive families as always being a “forever family” for adoptees. Please find more of her incredible work at www.jaerankim.com and www.harlows-monkey.com, and her colleagues Rich Lee, Heewon Lee, and Xiang Zhou.

Join us for a heartfelt and deeply reflective conversation with Isaac Etter, father of a 22-month-old son (at the time of recording), Black domestic adoptee, activist, and founder of identitylearning.co. Isaac generously shares some of his adoption story with us, his journey into fatherhood, and his reflections on some of the more challenging and even taboo feelings that often come up for adoptees in parenthood, as well as growing compassion for his birth mother at the same time. We touch on the notion of “information poverty” several times throughout the conversation, to expand on the question, “what is the story of value?” in adoption, and how can we continue to challenge conventional adoption narratives as a community to honor our losses, our birth families, and our intergenerational legacies.