Blog entries here might be scarce for the coming week or two, as I knuckle down to finish up some work and also prepare to host some houseguests who arrive this week. But before I scat to take care of business, I wanted to call attention to a very important issue that you may have already seen on some of my friends’ blogs.
When I reunited with my Korean family four years ago, our situation was certain enough so that a DNA test wasn’t necessary. The family resemblance and the facts matched up so clearly that none of us had any doubt that we were related.
Today, thanks to the Internet, I can talk face-to-face with my third sister and my umma — all the way in Korea — more often than I get to see my American adoptive family. Distance works in unusual ways.
Third sister and I continue to build our relationship and look forward to next summer, when we can spend more time together than the lone afternoon we had at our first reunion. Each time we talk, I feel closer to her, and she confides in me her sisterly tenets, wishes and dreams — including living abroad, perhaps even close to me.
Thanks to a particularly discriminatory aspect of U.S. immigration law, however, should she or any other immediate members of my Korean family wish to immigrate to the United States, I have no right under current U.S. law to sponsor my own blood-related family members’ immigration. This strikes me as fundamentally unfair and, increasingly as intercountry adoptees come of age and reunite with our families, a violation of citizenship rights under which we should be — but are not — given equal treatment.
If you think families are more than just surnames, too, I encourage you to visit, sign, and spread the word about Jane Jeong Trenka’s petition for equality under immigration law.
I’m not an adoptee, but I think that is extremely unfair. But from what I’ve heard, sponsoring a sibling is possible, but likely to take decades. Parents, on the other hand, are another matter, they are processed much more quickly. You should be able to sponsor your blood relatives regardless.
I mean siblings take decades even in cases unrelated to adoption. That wasn’t quite clear.
I’ve been meaning to sign that petition. Will try to remember this evening. Have fun with your guests!
On a related f’ed up note; here in Canada, IA adoptees are not given citizenship automatically ; the parents have to apply for it and not all do – this means that some adult adoptees who commit serious enough crimes can (and I believe have – though I don’t have the facts on this)be deported to their birth country
I had no idea that this was the case with U.S. immigration law, but of course, I know next to nothing about it. Thanks for linking to the petition!!
I just found your blog via the anti-racist parent website. I just want to thank you for your honesty and bravery. I read that you do not want this to be an “adoption only” blog – though I am reading you from the perspective of an adoptive parent. I appreciate your experiences and thoughts and hope to learn more from them in parenting my own children.