Time Traveling to Befriend Grief

Explicit content warning

06/23/22 • 46 min

Labor of Love: A Podcast for BIPOC Adoptees Navigating Parenthood

Angela Burlile, Korean adoptee, joins us for a very intimate conversation about her journey from considering adoption to pursuing IVF in Korea. We time travel together to discuss befriending grief, loss, longing and healing, and her courageous process to remove herself as the site for unlearning racism with her husband.

Angela Burlile Bio:
Angela (she/her) is a Korean adoptee currently living in Lynnwood, Washington with her partner Chris, and their dog Penny. Upon completing her undergraduate degree, Angela returned to South Korea and spent six years teaching English. Returning to Washington in 2015, Angela pursued a Masters of Education degree with a concentration in environmental education, focusing on the intersections of identity, social justice, and environment. She currently works as facilitator and coordinator for an undergraduate conservation fellowship program at the University of Washington.

Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Frederico Soler Fernández
Artwork: Dalhe Kim

Listen on: iTunes & Spotify
Follow us Instagram: @laboroflovepodcast
Donate on Venmo: @laboroflovepodcast

Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Frederico Soler Fernández
Artwork: Dalhe Kim

Listen on: iTunes & Spotify
Follow us Instagram: @laboroflovepodcast
Donate on Venmo: @laboroflovepodcast

Previous Episode

Adoption in the Time of Love, Violence, and Fetal Microchimerism

Join us for an illuminating conversation with Dr. Kit Myers, Hong Kong transracial adoptee, father of two daughters, police abolition activist, and an old adoptee camp counselor friend. Kit would have been your favorite P.E. teacher, but he opted to immerse himself in academic studies, coming out on the other side as current Assistant Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Merced. We discuss Kit's process in becoming a professor, teaching his daughters about valuing love, anger and their mixed Hmong and Chinese American identities, the influence that fetal microchimerism had on his desire to continue his birth family search, and his research on the inherent love and violence infused in the the act and industry of adoption. You can find Kit on Twitter @MyersKit and follow his police abolition work at #AbolitionMay.

Kit Myers Bio
Kit was adopted from Hong Kong to Oregon when he was three years old. He enjoys family time, nature, being active, and eating delicious food. He is an assistant professor in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced. Kit received his doctorate and master’s degrees from the University of California, San Diego in ethnic studies and his bachelor’s degree in ethnic studies and journalism from the University of Oregon. Prior to his current position, he was a chancellor’s postdoctoral fellow at UC Merced. His research examines love and violence in adoption, family, and kinship formations specifically in the ways that they intersect with race, gender, sexuality, immigration, citizenship, nation, and indigenous sovereignty. Kit has published articles in Adoption Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Adoption & Culture, and Critical Discourse Studies as well as co-edited a special issue on adoption and pedagogy. He serves as an executive committee member of the Alliance for the Study of Adoption & Culture and served on the steering committee for the Society of Adoptee Professionals of Color in Adoption. He has also worked with the Adoption Museum Project and three summers at a camp for transnational and transracial adoptees. Kit is also passionate about police abolition, publishing online articles and working with faculty to get cops off campus. You can visit his website (ucmerced.academia.edu/KitMyers) for more information on his research.

Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Frederico Soler Fernández
Artwork: Dalhe Kim

Listen on: iTunes & Spotify
Follow us Instagram: @laboroflovepodcast
Donate on Venmo: @laboroflovepodcast

Next Episode

What Is the Story of Value?

Join us for a heartfelt and deeply reflective conversation with Isaac Etter, father of a 22-month-old son (at the time of recording), Black domestic adoptee, activist, and founder of identitylearning.co. Isaac generously shares some of his adoption story with us, his journey into fatherhood, and his reflections on some of the more challenging and even taboo feelings that often come up for adoptees in parenthood, as well as growing compassion for his birth mother at the same time. We touch on the notion of “information poverty” several times throughout the conversation, to expand on the question, “what is the story of value?” in adoption, and how can we continue to challenge conventional adoption narratives as a community to honor our losses, our birth families, and our intergenerational legacies.

Isaac Etter Bio
Isaac Etter is an activist and social entrepreneur. Isaac was transracially adopted at the age of two. He is the founder of Identity, a startup focused on providing accessible, diverse, and ethical adoption and foster care education. Isaac has used his story of being adopted and growing up in a white world to curate deep conversations about race in America. With his unique insight on racial tensions between the white and black communities, they have been able to curate impactful conversations where everyone learns to value each other and their experience, while learning about systemic racism, privilege and their role in it.

Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Frederico Soler Fernández
Artwork: Dalhe Kim

Listen on: iTunes & Spotify
Follow us Instagram: @laboroflovepodcast
Donate on Venmo: @laboroflovepodcast