Why this blog?
Imaginary mothers is a 90-minute documentary that hopes to give a voice to Latin American mothers and children who have been victims of child trafficking to the US. In doing research for this film I have found very little online communities for Latino adoptees and Latino Natural Mothers. I hope this blog inspires other adoptees to tell their stories and other readers to rethink their perceptions of adoption, the third world and its people.
When I turned 28 I found out I had been illegally adopted in Costa Rica. I lived in Ohio for 20 years thinking my natural mother was a careless underprivileged person who couldn’t raise me. After more research, I learned that I had been illegally taken and given to my American parents by corrupt officials. The more I looked into it the more I realized, my case was not unique; there was an entire generation of children that had been taken from their Latin American families to “better homes in a better country” as an attempt to improve their lives.
This film is an attempt to find the unheard voices of the mothers and children who were victims of this process. It is an invitation to question the general assumption of what “is best” for a child and mother. Would Americans allow another country to adopt their poor by the thousands with the notion that they could offer them a better life? Why are poor mothers and children in the U.S. more cherished than mothers in poor nations? Children are taken from their mothers under the claim that they are irresponsible, inhuman and uncaring.
I am in the search for the truth behind our separation from our family. How has the prevalence of international adoptions perpetuated these illegal transactions? I am interested in the complexity of these issues, and in a time where we are re-thinking the efficacy of relief methods to third world countries, I hope to begin a dialogue about the social and emotional costs surrounding transnational adoptions. How might we service these communities better?