CASA
Help me Support Court Appointed Special Advocates !
"Today, approximately 500,000 children in the US are caught up in the court and child welfare maze because they are unable to live safely at home."
Ever since I started working at CASA or Court Appointed Special Advocates, I realized how lucky that I really have lived. All throughout my life, I could not have asked for more generous and loving parents. However, for too many children in the United States, this is just not the case. Therefore, I urge you to research this truly noble cause. I never even knew what a court appointed special advocate did until I began as the administrative assistant at my local CASA office. Within a day, I completely understood the dire need for volunteers to give children a voice in court. Please help support your local CASA and help a child’s prayer be answered.
At the end of the testimony I said: "To give a child a CASA is to give them a voice. To give them a voice is to give them hope, and to give them hope is to give them the world." I believe that with all my heart.
COMMENTARY: LIFE AS AN INTERNATIONAL ADOPTEE- DEFENDING ADOPTION
Along the lines of Court Appointed Special Advocates, I decided to include my own personal experience. I know that the challenges faced within the United States foster care system never touched me, but I do know that there is a fair amount of discourse regarding the social aspects and adjustments, etc revolving around adoption. Being at the heart of this as an Asian girl adopted into a small town Southern-bred all-white family, I have yet to experience any MAJOR psychological crisis beyond the normal teenage angst that makes puberty that "oh so unforgettable" time of our lives (more to follow with my thesis). Thus, I hope this post provides a short, yet valuable sense of how adoption has affected my life.
As an adoptee, it is hard to not live any day without realizing how different my life would be at any given moment if I were not adopted. As a child, I fantasized about a romantic past–being a long lost princess for example, as the explanation to my adoption. Beyond trying to become the social envy within my childhood circle of friends, the idea of being adopted never bothered me at all. Even as an eight-year-old girl I knew that realistically, it is unlikely that my life would be happy with my biological mother–the most probably scenario ending with me as shunned outcast born to an impoverished single-mother. To me, it seemed to be the unique identifying feature that little kids love to use to highlight themselves. However, adoption is more than the grasp of a second-grader, it’s growing up just like everyone else around you. So, what if my mom has blonde hair and green eyes, my dad has brown hair and blue eyes? It was normal to me. On May 25th, 2009, exactly 22-years ago, a baby girl entered the United States because her biological mother decided that life with an American would be a better life. With that said, I know my life simply could not be the same as it is today without her ultimate sacrifice of witnessing my rise to adulthood. It remains the greatest act of love and courage that I have ever known within my own life.
So, as an adoptee, I don’t blame her at all. In fact, I commend her decision. I have been given the greatest and most attentive parents ever and I would never hesitate to change her decision at all. I know some adoptees complain about the identity issues (more to come on this topic with my thesis) that often accompanies adoption, but for me, it has made my identity, not destroyed an integral component that never (to me) existed in the first place. I do wish I had my medical records and just a picture–so I could know, do I resemble my biological mother or my biological father?
That concern is just surface level… my REAL parents are the mom and dad that I run home to when I’m having a bad day, need to get away, and molded me who I am today. In the end, my life isn’t different at all–in fact, it’s truly blessed. Just remember to the outsiders who only see a blonde mom, all-American dad, and then the Asian kid…the differences exist ONLY at the surface level. We’re a truly close-knit family and I would not trade them for the world.
In closing, I am an exception. I am an international adoptee. But as an adoptee, I feel obligated to speak out. Everyday children within the United States are shuffled from foster home to foster home. Every child deserves a safe and loving home. Please remember to support your local CASA program and help to advocate for these forgotten children that do not have a voice.
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