Vote For Adult Adoptee Access To Birth Certificates

I've been meaning to post this for a while. Please go over to Change.org if you haven't already, and vote in favor of restoring adult adoptee access to original birth certificates. (Why? See here.)

http://www.change.org/actions/view/restore_adult_adoptee_access_to_original_birth_certificates

Redacted Adoption Records In Illinois, Part II

Okay, this is really funny, in a gallows humor kind of way. Apparently some wag at the University of Illinois redacted the name of a famous local ballplayer in an overzealous attempt to redact information presented to the Chicago Tribune under the Freedom of Information Act. From the Tribune article:

It looks like the University of Illinois dropped the ball -- and violated the spirit of the law -- when redacting public documents connected to its shadow admission process for well-connected students.

...

The e-mail is dated March 2, 2005, the day Santo failed in another bid to enter Cooperstown. U. of I. spokesman Tom Hardy said the employee handling the redactions didn't know who Santo was and assumed he was a rejected student.

"I know it may surprise the Tribune and die-hard Cubs fans, but Ron Santo is apparently not a household name," Hardy said.

This is a wonderful example of how arbitrary and capricious the redaction process can be. Mistakes like this happen ALL THE TIME when adoptees and birth relatives try to access records. Except we typically don't have the clout (heh!) that an organization like the Tribune has to fight it.

We don't need uninformed office workers redacting stuff willy-nilly from adoption records, because when mistakes are made, there are often no second chances. We need transparency in access, a clear-cut mechanism that treats everyone equally whether adoption is involved or not. And guess what? We already have one: the same process everyone else uses to access birth certificates. Illinois should eliminate conditional access in favor of legislation like Maine's, which restores adult adoptee rights to unmodified, unredacted original birth certificates. Anything less is a strikeout against our civil rights.

Like Adoption Records, This Headline Redacted For Privacy

The Chicago Tribune has published numerous articles about what they refer to as the State Of Corruption in Illinois. One of their exposes is on clout-based admissions at the University of Illinois. To that end, they published an editorial about the attempts of their journalists to gain records under the Freedom of Information Act. Their experience will resonate with any adoptee, birth mother or other relative who's tried to gain access to adoption records.

The ongoing series, "Clout Goes to College," doesn't identify the applicants. Cohen didn't ask for their names, nor did she expect they would be released. The privacy provisions White alludes to require the university to redact identifiers such as names and Social Security numbers before releasing the documents.

But the 1,800 pages of documents eventually surrendered by the university went far beyond that. Applicants' test scores, grades and class ranks were blacked out, for example. That information wouldn't identify specific students, but it would show how far the rules were bent to admit them.

Names and positions of third-party players who lobbied trustees on behalf of an applicant also are marked out, as are references to people who are clearly public officials themselves. That information wouldn't compromise the privacy of individual students. It's not exempt.

In countless other instances, information is blacked out or pages are missing, with no explanation or clue as to what is being withheld. Asked to justify those redactions, the university flatly refused. "Your request would mean that the Illinois FOIA requires us, in response to any inquiry by a requesting party, to go line by line, word by word and explain why each redaction was made," general counsel Thomas Bearrows wrote.

Actually, that is what the law requires. The law says release the information or explain why it's exempt. There are two reasons for that: to ensure that the university is basing its denial on a good faith interpretation of the law, and to provide the requester with a basis to challenge the denial.

When I read this I could only give a cynical laugh. The Tribune is tasting the bitter pill that Illinois adoptees and their birth relatives have swallowed for decades.

When The Powers That Be want to keep things secret, they use the magic word "private." Information is redacted regardless of laws that specify what can and can not be revealed. I ran into this during my ill-fated experience with the Illinois Confidential Intermediary Program. As I described in my post, "Caveat Emptor On Confidential Intermediary Programs":

Just about everything is “confidential,” but what exactly constitutes “confidential” is equally unclear. Officially, it's what's in the Illinois Adoption Act, 750 ILCS 50, Section 18. But in reality it's whatever the [Illinois Confidential Intermediary] program decides it is.

For example, details were redacted from my birth mother's letters, such as my maternal grandfather's age of death, which are listed nowhere in the Illinois Adoption Act as being “identifying.” Similarly, I received mixed signals as to whether or not I was permitted to receive copies of the correspondence sent to my birth mother (redacted for identifying information). When contact was first made, I asked for and received the first letter [the program] sent to her. But later, when I asked for copies of additional correspondence (again, redacted for identifying info), it suddenly became “confidential.” Perhaps it's only “confidential” when you begin to question the process.

Interestingly, program policies and procedures are also “confidential” – to the public as well as to participants. If you're not allowed to know what steps have been taken in your search, how are you supposed to know if you're getting what you paid for?

I'm glad to see the Tribune experiencing the same sorts of ridiculous redactions the rest of us have, because maybe it will encourage them to respond to complaints concerning adoption records access. So far, the Trib's stance on transparency in Illinois government has not included adoption records. Questions on their public forum concerning adoptee birth certificates went unacknowledged by their editors. So, too, have requests for some sunshine to be let into the dark recesses of Illinois adoption politics. The Tribune has invited Illinois citizens to inform them where this state of corruption needs to be cleaned up, and has made a point of supporting causes that might seem like small potatoes. I would like to encourage them and other Illinois-based media to examine how adoption records access works, or doesn't, in this state. And if you believe in equality, I would like to encourage you to contact the Tribune and others and urge them to support unrestricted adoption records access.

Those affected by adoption should have the exact same access to records as everyone else. Equality for all is the only equitable solution!

Danegeld: Severing Adoptees From Their Cultures

A thousand years ago, my Celtic ancestors were routinely attacked, often violently, by their Viking neighbors. England enacted a tax upon its citizens, called Danegeld, to finance protection from these sea-borne invaders.

I think about this sometimes because I am a modern-day Celt captured by Vikings. My adopted father, the attorney who sealed my adoption records and lied about my origins, was profoundly proud of his Scandinavian roots. He was half Swedish and half Danish, the son of first-generation immigrants. When I was growing up we had books about Scandinavia littering the entire house. In fact he was appointed honorary counsel to Denmark for our tiny little corner of the Midwest, and was even knighted by the Danish monarchy for his contributions to his culture. We went to Denmark for the ceremony, and although I didn't participate in it, I recall my adoptive mother being very keen to try to set me up with the Danish prince. (No, REALLY. She was, shall we say, kinda wacky.) My childhood was spent listening to my adoptive father expound upon his heritage while he was simultaneously, and unbeknownst to me, denying me mine. My Danegeld was paid in the stripping of my Celtic roots. What an ironic repetition of history.

There are tons of great books, articles and blogs from transracial adoptees out there, which I enjoy reading because they enhance my understanding of my own adoption experience. I especially like Harlow's Monkey, John Raible's and Yoon Seon's blogs, Gang Shik's over at the Korean Adoptee Nexus, and the fantastic book "Outsiders Within: Writing On Transracial Adoption" by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah and Sun Yung Shin. I wonder, how does being severed from our cultures affect adoptees in the long term? What can be done to preserve the heritage of adoptees?

Because being "American" or "whatever your adoptive family is" isn't enough. Our transracial adoptee friends have their heritage stamped across their faces, which too often causes them grief they don't deserve. I have an idea what that's like because I was the only adoptee in our neighborhood, so I was often held up as the prime example of adoptees or, more accurately, bastards. (As in, "this is our adopted daughter," emphasis on the adjective, or "look, there's that weird adopted kid," as if the two automatically go hand-in-hand.) Some adoptees return to their roots by learning the language and traditions of their missing culture, or even moving back to their countries of origin. Check out GOAL's Homecoming program. Kickass!

For adoptees like me, who were adopted into families of similar race, it's a simple matter to deny that we have any culture at all, to assume that we can be assimilated at whim. But we are also stripped of our cultural roots, as distant as those roots might be. I think cultural roots run far deeper than most people want to believe. You can't just take a Irish lass like me and dump me in with a bunch of Vikings and expect it to magically work out. We still KNOW, to the core of our being, that we are out of place... even if we're not supposed to.

For example, as a teen I became strongly interested in everything Irish, although I had no way to know I was actually exploring my own heritage. This interest was severely curtailed by my adoptive parents. The more I became interested, the less they liked it. In retrospect I hope it shook my adoptive father to his balding Danish pate, the fact that I somehow knew I was Irish despite never having been told. And he definitely knew because, as I later discovered, it was one of the things he wrote down from the initial conversation with his good ol' buddy the delivery doctor. Admittedly, our rocky relationship was due to more than just culture clash, but I have to wonder how my adoptive father could be so proud of his own heritage while actively hindering my attempts to know mine. (My adoptive mother was Irish, actually, as well as English and Welsh. She seemed to have little interest in her own heritage and certainly none in mine.)

Why are my cultural roots considered less valid because I'm adopted? Why is it okay to pursue genealogy unless you're adopted, in which case you must be a psychopathic potential stalker? I think all adult adoptees deserve the full and complete truth of our origins. No one should ever have to pay the Danegeld of their cultural heritage.