“A Forever family”
In 2013, I was selected for an all-expenses paid internship experience in Washington DC. The program was sponsored by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), between May - July 2013.
Little ole’ me was selected from a nationwide pool of applicants, as one of thirteen in our year’s cohort. Not only was this a huge achievement for me, it was a full 180 from the life I was living. I had already survived foster care, and was living in what would be my last foster home before emancipation. I met my foster mom in November of 2012 and by April 2013 I had moved out to DC for my internship.
Now, I had not planned on getting the internship. I had learned about the internship about 24 hours before the deadline, and decided to dedicate an all-nighter to writing a persuasive essay about the policy changes I wanted to bring to the child welfare system. It was therapeutic to rage-write my dreams and wishes for a system that I felt had failed me. As I wrote, I found my inner self talk was convincing me that I would be lucky if they even read my application. Since I love writing, I will typically use any prompt as an excuse to self-explore and journey on in my mind. So it always feels like a gain for me, as processing is my favorite hobby. Anyway, I wrote about emancipating foster youth as a crisis in our nation as there are hundreds of emancipating youth per year who end up homeless, incarcerated, pregnant and drop out of college. At the time, I was speaking from a place of desperation, wanting so badly for the supportive structures and protective mechanisms that would insulate me from the horrors of emancipating without family, kin, supports, or money.
In my panic, I told my foster mom about my delusional idea to apply to this all expenses paid summer internship in DC. Luckily for me, she decided to pull the all-nighter with me, sharply criticizing my wording, working hard to edit my work. She’s my first real editor whose approach made a real difference in refining my typos that gave me away as a Spanish native speaker. My hope was that my little errors would not hinder my impact, so much as to be disregarded for what I can bring to the table. I wanted my words to hold space unto white eyes, and in corporate spaces where decisions get made and changes get implemented. Luckily, she was able to help with that gap in my literacy. Despite the stressful endeavor, I was able to submit my paper about 3 hours before the deadline.
When I got the call that I had received the internship, I was in my community college. I had to stand to the side and cry and shout with joy all at once. I felt like I had won the lottery. I immediately thought about my name, and wondered if it contributed to my success. I had lived as Athena for a year, and had seen how overnight I received better treatment, better services, better regard.
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Throughout the internship we were suppose to be learning about policy changes from our member’s offices, that we could learn from, or be inspired by, for our policy recommendation publications. These recommendations would be presented to the Administration of Children and Families in a Congressional Briefing at the end of the summer.
All summer I struggled to hold space, deliberating between my identity, my value to the conversation, my skill as a young writer and my intent. I was the youngest in the program, and found I was frequently comparing myself to former foster youth who were well into their late 20s. For context, my roommate was a law student, and I was still in foster care under AB-12 back in my home state of California. To me, the pressure was ON.
In general, I was very much afraid of how I would be received by the members of my cohort. I was nervous of speaking my truth as it was so fresh, and of being perceived as too dark or too honest to be worthy of respect or of being heard. I frankly was accustomed at keeping sweet, and diplomatic and politely maintaining a stiff upper lip.
But somehow, this summer was about shedding the shame. It was the first time I was around peers who were also ambitious survivors. It was inspiring and overwhelming. The summer of 2013 ended up being a chapter in my healing, a chapter I look back on often. As policy planning came together, I found myself deeply upset by the limitations to the adoption community. Frankly, I was deeply triggered by my own circumstances. Here I was in DC trying to recommend policy changes to policymakers when I was on the brink of homelessness. I knew that as soon as this program ended, I would be back in LA, back to my real life. Suddenly all the foster parents who had told me along the way, “I would adopt you in a heartbeat” and “I looked into adopting you” and “I’d love to adopt you” came rushing back. Suddenly I yearned for safety in a deep impossible way. In a way only a decade of drifting could describe. I remembered hearing these words and feeling like petals were falling from my flower. It was worse than hope. It was agonizing. Because as loving as this intent was, there was nothing for me in their intent. Those words were for them, to hear themselves say it. Not for me.
I had a new foster mom every year in care. Attachment did not come easy for me. I was standing walking around the tunnels of Congress, and thought to myself “If only Dwana could see me now”, remembering my beautiful lawyer who had these lovely dreads and a nimble but firm gait. She had a little bounce to her walk, a little pep in her step that felt like she was ready to get down to business anytime anywhere. And I absolutely loved her directness. I remembered how many times in my childhood, she would allow me to curl into her lap and cry my eyes out before each court hearing. Back before I was diagnosed with PTSD. She allowed me to crumble. She allowed me to crumble safely every single time we had a hearing and session. Often she acted as a physical shield between my father and I. Sometimes she’d play with my hair and pour all her love and life advice into me. I wanted her to adopt me so badly. I wanted so badly to be safe in her life forever. I secretly wished that I would be that kid, but I never dare ask or even imply such an honor. I was just happy to see her, and so very grateful that she would make the time.
Dwana never became my parent. But the way I wished I would have been adopted by her, did inspire my policy recommendation that was published by CCAI. It was a plea for salvation, baked with grief for the forever family I never got to have and the unfortunate circumstances that were coming my way as a result of emancipation. I decided to focus my energy on seeking alternative avenues for emancipating youth to still achieve a sense of a forever family through adoption, even as adults. Even if I was never going to get this form of stability myself.
The policy recommendation is not my best written work. Frankly I was young, and triggered. l found myself conflating two separate traumas, and hoping to produce one solution for both: sexual trauma and permanency. In my naïveté, had I been adopted early and young, I would not have been raped. Had I been rescued, I would not have suffered. As idyllic as this sentiment is, I know it’s not true. Plenty of kids who had stable traditional home lives experience devastating traumas. Notably, the piece was cowritten by my assigned advisor who wanted a religious exemption to be included in the piece, as the organization is religiously affiliated. I was not so plugged in politically as to understand the incompatibility between my recommendation and the values of the organization sponsoring me. Despite the difference, my advisors heard the plea in my words, and made a point to help me argue an alternative approach to reducing emancipating rates through adoption. My paper argued that LGBT couples are likely to adopt at higher rates than heterosexual couples and that therefore we should be targeting recruitment efforts that encourage LGBT adoption in order to increase the pool of forever homes for foster youth.
As I was writing this policy recommendation, advocating for youth to find their forever home, it was like permission feel the extent of grief. As if that little corner in my heart, had been leaking and was now bursting a floodgate of newly-realized needs and deep desires. As somone who had a very fragmented identity, I saw this thirst as a deep well of hope. For only a person that holds space, and exists can desire, which meant I must be somebody. And I was determined to learn all about who that somebody is and was. So although I was grieving, I was proud to know this new little puzzle of me. And for me it was showing up in my writing, my drive, and my desperation to pen a policy recommendation. This new little piece of me I did not yet quite comprehend, where I was positively enraged at my circumstances, of not being adopted, fueled this recommendation. I didn’t realize this was something I really wanted, that I too could be deserving of such a concept as a forever family, and that there was language for this concept that exceeded the traditional nuclear family.
I’ll leave you with the closing words to my congressional pitch, “I would not have cared if my parents were gay, I would’ve been happy to just have parents.”
Photographed by Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute at The US Capitol Building, posted via Facebook, 2013.
Athena Garcia-Gunn is photographed answering a question following her presentation on her research and policy recommendation in a Congressional Briefing during the Summer of 2013.
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