239 – Stolen From My Homeland

238 Moses Farrow - Stolen From My Homeland

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Moses: this is incredibly important. In our efforts as a society to normalize suicide, or at least talking about suicide, making sense of it,

[00:00:16] Moses: understanding that there's a desire not to live.

[00:00:20] Moses: And then there's a desire to not live with the pain. Anymore.

[00:00:24] Damon: I'm Damon Davis, and today you're going to meet Moses. Moses is an adoption trauma educator and therapist, but his own personal [00:01:00] journey as an adoptee is one of hardship and resilience. To use his words, Moses was stolen from South Korea at the age of two. by his famous mother to grow up as part of a transracial, international, and high profile family.

[00:01:15] Damon: However, beneath the surface of fame, Moses faced deep trauma, isolation, and tragedy. His story raises challenging questions about the adoption industry,

[00:01:26] Damon: this is Moses Journey.

[00:01:28] Damon: Moses grew up with a fabricated adoption story, a reality many adoptees face. As he later discovered, the truth of his origins may have been distorted or entirely fictional. realization deepened his understandings of the trauma that comes with being adopted.

[00:01:47] Moses: So as a child, I was told that I was found in a phone booth when I was just an infant and some passerby looking to use the phone came upon [00:02:00] me and brought me to the social welfare society, which I think has since been renamed And that is the place that places children in orphanages in Seoul, South Korea.

[00:02:15] Moses: And from there I was adopted to Mia Farrow, who is mostly known for her acting and humanitarian humanitarianism. And so I was about two years old when I was adopted. And I arrived in. New York all the way from South Korea. And I entered a family that Mia had already adopted three girls, two of them from Vietnam as war orphans post Vietnam war.

[00:02:48] Moses: And and then a girl from South Korea as well. It considered to be an older child adoption as she was

[00:02:56] Moses: I suppose about eight years old or so, I'm a little [00:03:00] fuzzy about that, but, so I was entering A family in which a adoption was already a part of that family. And yeah. Mia was recently divorced. She had three sons of her own with her former husband, Andre Previn renowned, classical composer and conductor. And so she had three sons. She had adopted three girls. And then as a single parent, she adopted me. And fascinating thing about that is that I came in to the family where the papers all called me the Farrow child. I was the first Farrow child of the family.

[00:03:43] Moses: And. You could say I was also the first one with a disability. So I have cerebral palsy and this is something that has become more, how should I put it? [00:04:00] Some, something that I have become more comfortable Putting out there as a significant part of my adoption story, because what I've come to find out through my adoption journey, as I've gotten older, become more inquisitive, I have realized that many adoption stories are fabricated, are made up and do I really know If I was found in a phone booth, do I really know any of that where, that really came to light after watching One Child Nation in which adoption workers over in China Had made it clear that they picked random spots in town saying that they found their, found these children here or there.

[00:04:52] Moses: So that piece, I don't know for sure.

[00:04:56] Damon: But so just for clarity, are you saying that in the film, it [00:05:00] was revealed that workers were making up that they had found a child here, found a child there when in fact that was not the case?

[00:05:10] Moses: Yes, that is.

[00:05:12] Damon: Yes. So that then calls into question your own personal story of being a child of South Korea, quote unquote, found in a phone booth, like You don't have any way of validating that. And based on what you saw in this movie about the Chinese adoption engine, that it's stands to reason that your story might not be real in that way either. Yes. Gotcha. Do you mind? I want to just go back for a moment. For anybody who's not familiar with cerebral palsy, do you mind talking a little bit about what it is and what challenges it presents for you?

[00:05:50] Moses: Yeah. Thank you for asking about that. And again, this is something that I've become more comfortable with in my own skin. And [00:06:00] more willing to put out there as someone with a disability. Cerebral Palsy as I know it and I'm always open to learning more about it for myself and for others.

[00:06:14] Moses: It is something that happens primarily during birth during the birthing process and that there are different types of cerebral palsy. in which it affects the physical growth of the body. So in, in my case I'm considered to have a mixed type, which means that it has affected the right side of my body and it has affected my speech, my ability to speak and certainly play sports and play music and things that I've wanted to do growing up.

[00:06:57] Moses: It affects my [00:07:00] agility, my, my mobility muscle tone other types involve contracted muscles. When I arrived when I was about two, two, I couldn't put my heel down of my right foot. So that tendon in my heel, my Achilles tendon was so contracted that I couldn't put my heel down.

[00:07:24] Moses: And and also my right arm, both my leg and my arm are smaller. There's less muscle mass. Has affected me quite significantly. And the other aspect of cerebral palsy or my case of cerebral palsy is that it has affected me both physically and psychologically, mentally and emotionally because I am not bound to a wheelchair.

[00:07:56] Moses: I don't have the spastic type, [00:08:00] so I'm not always moving around. And so it's not apparent to people. At least at first. So it's added onto that layer of where do I fit in? Cause I'm, I am a disabled person, but in, in some people's eyes, I'm not disabled enough. I'm able to do things that people with more severe disability aren't able to do.

[00:08:30] Moses: But shall I say I was always the last person to be picked on the baseball team.

[00:08:37] Damon: Yeah. I'm thinking about how you're describing it. I have a friend. I'm at a conference right now and my friend MC is another disabled person like yourself. And she has a similar challenge of appearing more able bodied than she actually is.

[00:08:56] Damon: And she's very vocal and [00:09:00] shows herself on social media when she's having tremors. And she has a service dog with her at the moment. And as she walks around. It just looks like to everybody else. She's just walking with a dog. If you're ignorant to what a service dog is actually there to do.

[00:09:17] Damon: And she is able to walk around fairly comfortably when she is not in a physical crisis. And I'm hearing what you're saying that to the outward appearance of any, but to anybody else, you don't necessarily present as being disabled enough, but you are and there's an ignorance in the consideration of what you're doing.

[00:09:38] Damon: What your needs might be and what your challenges might be. It's, and they, then the challenge of fitting in. I understand where you're coming from. I appreciate you illuminating that. Do you recall two years old is an interesting time. You have some memories, but not a lot, but I can't help thinking to myself that as a two year old coming from South Korea [00:10:00] to the United States.

[00:10:02] Damon: That there may have been some memories that you would have of that transition being fairly stark, right? You were in South Korea seeing a bunch of people that look just like yourself going to the United States, where probably almost nobody looked like you, except for perhaps the adoptees in your family who similarly have an Asian appearance, I would imagine.

[00:10:24] Damon: Tell me, do you recall anything from that time of this major transition as an adoptee from an international country into the United States?

[00:10:33] Moses: It's it's funny that you say that there, there's memories I can't tell you that I do carry memories of my life, my time back in South Korea at that time, of the orphanage that I had stayed in the Intermediary placement before traveling to New York and even as you pointed out the plane ride or any of that, but [00:11:00] what I've learned since.

[00:11:01] Moses: is when it comes to trauma and this is straight out of best of medical books book body keeps a score that trauma is stored within all of ourselves and our bodies. So while I may not have conscious memories of that time I think that I carry those memories. That those, let me put it this way, that those memories are carried through in all of my cells.

[00:11:34] Moses: While I don't have active memories, What I do have are the after effects and the knowledge. So this is a good segue into the way that I'm understanding what happened to me during that time and not to of. Fluff it up with something that might have happened simply that I was taken from my [00:12:00] homeland.

[00:12:00] Moses: So that is pretty significant trauma, I would say. Be taken from someone's place of origin and then to create a narrative around that, and for myself and for so many that we go through this process. of seeking out the truth of what really did happen. And I might be jumping ahead to the fact that it is an inherent yearning for that connection to be reestablished.

[00:12:39] Moses: Yeah. So all the questions and all the losses, all the layers, of what did happen, being taken away. It does stay with you.

[00:12:53] Damon: Absolutely. It's, this is one of the things that I'm sensitive to as I speak to international [00:13:00] adoptees is The adoption experience itself is the separation of the child from the biological family members that it was, that the child was born to, right?

[00:13:10] Damon: If the child was separated at birth, that's a major trauma right there. If for some reason there was a family dissolution and the child was a little bit older, but the family falls apart and the child has moved on. Hopefully they had some level of connectivity to their biological family, even if it may have been a traumatizing time for them, but for the international adoptee, especially somebody like yourself, who perhaps was found in a phone booth as an infant.

[00:13:38] Damon: There's that separation of you from your birth mother at that time. Then, you were raised in your culture, albeit in a foster home. Culturally, you were at home. And then, you were yet again separated from that cultural home and placed in a new home in the United States. Alien territory. If [00:14:00] you were learning the language, Of South Korea at that time.

[00:14:04] Damon: I make the assumption though. I don't know this. I doubt that Mia spoke South Korean such that she could welcome you into the home in a way that would have been comfortable. For example, again, the mirroring presumably missing as you entered the United States where not everybody had a South Korean appearance to them, but there's a diverse array of appearances.

[00:14:26] Damon: And I presume in Mia's world that it was predominantly white. This is a woman who was in. Hollywood, and it's not typically known for being a, major area for people of color, especially Asians to be prominent. So yeah, I could definitely see how there is a significant level of trauma and alienation and the way you phrased it being taken from your homeland, I think is an important foundation for how you think about your adoption.

[00:14:56] Moses: I appreciate you holding in on that point about so [00:15:00] there, there's a couple of different layers to this in terms of transracial adoption as well. So There's genetic mirroring in which being separated from biological family I in more ways than one have been separated and removed from, taken from There is no chance for me to know where my eyes came from or where my nose came from.

[00:15:29] Moses: And at some point in our development. In, the formation of our identities, we do knowing and hearing and seeing who made us, where our features came from. And then in terms of being transracially adopted, it's important to have racial representation, racial mirroring. And as an Asian American, in recent times [00:16:00] during COVID this became a national social justice movement, and I'm very pleased with how strong the Asian American community came to the forefront.

[00:16:14] Moses: in terms of making it something that America has needed to address for a very long time. So in terms of being Asian

[00:16:26] Moses: at this point for me, it's not enough. to say I'm Asian. It's not enough. Even say that I'm South Korean. I've come to respect and understand locality and community. It's very important with how people develop, how people make sense of their worlds make sense of the world. And it's, come increasingly I've become increasingly aware of also being [00:17:00] sensitive to wanting to know the local communities, the local cultures.

[00:17:08] Moses: So say for example I could say that I was born in Seoul, which is very different than other parts of South Korea. Say Busan, for example, I'm from Busan. Or more local village, in the outskirts of one of these major cities, so it's recognizing.

[00:17:31] Moses: We need to, understand each other on a deeper level and not. And not settle for, oh yeah, it's enough to be called Asian. And even with, I'll take this a step further, even within the Asian cultures, the Asian identities. We do distinguishing ourselves. We've, we actually, we may not like doing this, but we do [00:18:00] the difference between being East Asian and South Asian or Southeast Asian being the Pacific Islander,

[00:18:08] Damon: right?

[00:18:09] Damon: Because the, you want to distinguish, you don't want to present as monolithic, right?

[00:18:13] Moses: Identity is very important.

[00:18:16] Damon: And sticking with that, I've spoken to other, International adoptees, specifically some Asian adoptees, have told me that in being adopted into America, they feel American, but Asian American.

[00:18:32] Damon: And and especially given the sort of social justice challenges that alluded to earlier, you are reminded of your Asian ness in America and therefore other than separated. But then in any attempt to go home, reestablish connection to a culture. They've told me that they felt too American to feel comfortable in their country.

[00:18:55] Damon: They don't speak the language when they do speak the language. It's with an American accent. [00:19:00] That's doesn't demonstrate their cultural awareness, , not having grown up in the. In that home country. And so more than one person has told me that they felt like they were in limbo between two countries.

[00:19:11] Damon: Not quite American because they're Asian and not quite of the country that they come from because they're so American having been raised here. Is that something that resonates with you?

[00:19:22] Moses: It has as part of my my own identity formation. I grew up with a sense of what we understand to be internalized racism and What that means, at least for me, is that I didn't see myself as.

[00:19:42] Moses: person of color. Growing up. I did and I didn't. And the racism part is that I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like like the people around me. I wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be different [00:20:00] and I have a couple of different layers to this being a person with disability and also being a member of a minority group.

[00:20:11] Moses: So it's it's something that does resonate with me. In my own adoption journey, this inherent conflict of where do I fit in, where do I belong between two countries, between two peoples, between two cultures, and so on and so forth. And you presented it really on point being a foreigner in your own country of origin, in your own native country, because either you don't speak the language or you speak it as a foreigner, and another dimension to this is missing out on all the goings on for myself back in the 80s and [00:21:00] 90s and 2000s of the goings on back in South Korea, back in my hometown of Seoul.

[00:21:10] Moses: And instead I have the cultural references and experiences from. America from New York, so the kinds of things that I grew up with watching movies like the Lone Ranger and Superman and New York, going to the Big Apple Circus type of thing, going down to Rockefeller Center, the, these are the the references, the experiences for me growing up in a big city like New York.

[00:21:46] Moses: Now I do want to recognize that New York is a cultural hub for the world. It's an international hub. There is a lot of diversity in New York, so I do [00:22:00] appreciate that and I did in high school, at least the high school that I went to New York I had joined the Asian culture club and it was it was run by my my history teacher who is Chinese.

[00:22:18] Moses: We took a trip down to Chinatown. We took a tour around the Asia Society building. So in a way that was a really nice shall I say tip of the hat for me to at least to be in touch with My Asian self.

[00:22:37] Damon: Yeah, that's really cool. You alluded to these experiences of going to Rockefeller center and, big apple circus and some of these other things.

[00:22:45] Damon: And I couldn't help thinking that you actually have a very unique adoptee experience in that you were adopted by a celebrity. And I'm wondering how that was for you. [00:23:00] This is, and I'm not trying to sensationalize it. What I'm trying to get to is. Other adoptees are adopted into families of various socioeconomic strata.

[00:23:10] Damon: There are challenges in every single one of them, but they're typical sort of suburban America kinds of families. But I would love to know from your perspective what it was like to be an adoptee in essence, a celebrity family, because it's, that's a different experience that most people don't

[00:23:27] Moses: I'm wanted to take this in a couple of different directions or at least my mind is split between two two trains of thought here. And I think I want to go with this one because I've heard you use. The word dot D a number of times, and I have decidedly not to use that term as a way to identify myself.

[00:23:53] Moses: I'm going to try to weave this into answering your question, by the way, so sure. Bear [00:24:00] with me, but adoptee, adoptee, I don't know where that came from, but the way that I put it out there is it's driven by the adoption industry. It centers our identity as being someone who was adopted. And the struggle that I have with this is that good.

[00:24:23] Moses: Many of us are bringing attention to, but there's so much more that happens before we're adopted. And there are people who identify themselves as I have, as being taken, as being relinquished, as being abandoned, all of which happens before being adopted. And yet this is how we identify ourselves.

[00:24:51] Moses: This is how the world now identifies us as adoptees. That this is the one major event in our [00:25:00] lives that we identify with the other struggle that I have with this is in the mental health world that I'm in, survivors like to say, We are not our traumas and yet adoptee is doing just that.

[00:25:20] Moses: This is a great point because there are many of us who say adoption is trauma. I've gone as far as saying there is such a thing as adoption trauma. Certainly. And fortunately many others have propelled that as well, have amplified that point as well. Adoption is trauma at the same time.

[00:25:41] Moses: There's something called adoption trauma. Adoption trauma is real thing is a real experience for us. So in any case, getting back to this point about adoptee, I'm now writing about and making the point that [00:26:00] we need to get beyond the adoption industry and having the adoption industry drive the narrative.

[00:26:08] Moses: So let's get to the real truth. Let's call it out for what it really is, whether you were taken or stolen or trafficked or relinquished or abandoned or, let's just call it for what it is. Let's get right into the story. So in terms of my early childhood experiences. And I appreciate your point not to sensationalize, but there's no way of getting around that when you bring up, I was raised by a celebrity couple.

[00:26:43] Moses: I was raised in a celebrity family. And what I want to say about that is that there are many others who are adopted into. wealthy families into high profile families [00:27:00] in their own right, in their own industries. And there is something about when it comes to Hollywood and the entertainment industry, that kind of celebrity seems to get a lot of attention in our society, in our culture.

[00:27:19] Moses: In any case, in that context, All that has done has created for myself a burden where there's no privacy and everything that happens behind closed doors. That is typically, to your point, that is typically private, is not. And that has been a very big challenge and also has presented opportunities.

[00:27:52] Moses: One of which is getting to the truth.

[00:27:56] Damon: How do you mean?

[00:27:56] Moses: And getting to the [00:28:00] truth, for me. is being able to make sense of my childhood in terms of how I was raised, how I was treated, not just by Mia, but by the others that I had grown up with. And understanding that, I'm sorry, Damon, I'm used to telling my story.

[00:28:24] Moses: It's just, it's hitting me emotionally.

[00:28:26] Damon: I understand. You don't have to apologize.

[00:28:29] Moses: That I was a child and I was mistreated.

[00:28:32] Moses: I'm really sorry to hear that. As was as we all were,

[00:28:37] Damon: are you saying that you and the other adoptees in Mia's home were mistreated?

[00:28:43] Moses: We all were,

[00:28:44] Moses: and coming from the perspective of a mental health professional as a family therapist I've come to understand it as this is intergenerational trauma. This is what I learned, in family [00:29:00] therapy terms, the intergenerational transmission of family patterns.

[00:29:05] Damon: What she learned from her family and her experience growing up translated into her parenting, your experience as a child under her parenting.

[00:29:16] Damon: Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely. Wow. I'm really sorry. That's, you don't have to go into it, but I detect and you've said it's an emotional soft spot for you and I'm I don't want to push on it, but I'm sorry for what you lived through.

[00:29:32] Moses: I I also appreciate you saying, I don't need to apologize and that's an important message to put out there to all survivors.

[00:29:44] Moses: It was giving myself a moment as that moment is continuing, for the inner child in me, for the little boy in me. It's important that we allow ourselves to take that pause, to take a moment, recognize that [00:30:00] child in us.

[00:30:01] Damon: Yeah, you have to, one of the things that we tend to do is push down our emotions cause they're uncomfortable.

[00:30:10] Damon: They hurt. That's why it's called hurt, right? It's called pain because it's uncomfortable and it's a thing that we get really good at. You build a callous over the pain and. when you don't take time to sit in it, acknowledge it, mull it over and try to figure out what it has done to you and what you have taken from it that you have built on to create something better in yourself.

[00:30:39] Damon: Then it just continues to be painful all the time and you just keep trying to push it down. And eventually, unfortunately, people will explode, right? Because the pressure builds. And so you're absolutely right. If you don't take time to sit in it and think about it for a little while, let it be what it is, check yourself and then, find your path forward, [00:31:00] it will eat you from the inside.

[00:31:01] Damon: There's no question about that. Again, no, no need to apologize. You have every right to be in this world and do everything that set out to do. And and I think you should, hold on to that power and keep pushing for it. You know what I mean? So may I ask you then Moses, usually when I speak with an adoptee, I will ask them about a catalytic moment that made them decide they wanted to search for their biological family.

[00:31:26] Damon: I would imagine you probably lived with that catalytic moment on an almost daily basis in your life. But I'm curious, did you ever make an attempt to return to South Korea to try to find whom you come from? Tell me about your Attempt at a reunion at all.

[00:31:45] Moses: I want to say, Damon, that from the moment that we're adopted, the moment that we're relinquished or the moment that we are taken, it puts us on that journey, that quest. So in terms [00:32:00] of. Having a moment in which that got flipped on or I would, I was, I want to say that

[00:32:09] Moses: if trauma is held within the body and this kind of trauma is a traumatic loss, separation, it is like every cell of our body wants to get back to. Where it came from,

[00:32:24] Moses: where it all started. And I remember being in a presentation by Adam Pertman, who at the time was the head of the Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York. And he constantly shared about, Longitudinal study that they had done in which he indicated or the study indicated that as we got older in life, searching for our roots became more important to us [00:33:00] and it makes sense in terms of the lifespan and in terms of life events in which from a teenage hood.

You,

[00:33:12] Moses: you're wanting to understand who you are and where you're going in life to graduating college if you do that, but when you get married, when you become a parent yourself, these are natural transitions of identity that asking more and more about where did I come from? Who are my ancestors?

[00:33:39] Moses: Where am I rooted? It becomes more and more important and with more people in your life as well, as your life expands, there's others who present those questions to you.

[00:33:50] Moses: And, even if like me, I hadn't given it much thought because those kinds of con [00:34:00] conversations. Didn't come up very often and I, wasn't necessarily raised to have my own thoughts. As many of us are told that this is what's happened to you. This is what you should believe.

[00:34:17] Moses: So I, I want to say that rather than looking at a catalytic moment, that my whole life has been a search.

[00:34:31] Moses: And I'll take this, I'll take this in another direction, because in terms of the physical needs and desires to reconnect, to reunify, to seek out. For all the reasons that we presented earlier about genetic mirroring and biological connection, I bring up, I bring it to a point of

[00:34:55] Moses: knowing oneself in the eyes of our [00:35:00] ancestors, that it's about family legacy and what that means. The way that I'm presenting it is if we think of ourselves as the present day historian for our families that go back thousands of years, and we can go as far back as ten, tens of thousands of years, that each generation was presented with their own set of struggles and challenges and obstacles to survive, to live.

[00:35:33] Moses: To carry on their bloodline. And it didn't matter what class you're in or socioeconomic segment you're in every life matter. Every decision to carry on new life matter. And for generations, really. generation upon generation. I exist [00:36:00] because those in my biological family chose to carry on the, their family legacy.

[00:36:07] Moses: So beyond the immediate need to reestablish a connection with biological family members. I bring it all the way back to the generations upon generations of my family's legacy, what they had to overcome and what they had to achieve in order for me to exist today. And I'm constantly questioning how important or how many people really think about this in today's world and recognizing truly how important they are, and this is not about ego at all, it's just knowing your place in the universe and time and space in human history that through the ages.

[00:36:59] Moses: [00:37:00] My family survived, how, however they did for me to be here.

[00:37:05] Damon: I have this, I always think of metaphors as my guests are speaking, and I couldn't help but think of this image of your ancestry. and, I've had this image of a tree that's growing on a river bank.

[00:37:18] Damon: And it has been growing there for eons, right? That it has survived floods and storms and all kinds of, heat waves and everything. But that tree survives. This is your ancestral tree. But that one day the violence of a storm, lightning strikes. And your branch drops in the river and goes sailing off into another place.

[00:37:41] Damon: And it's a unique tree. It's only your family tree. So it's unique to the bank on which it was growing. But now your tree is found somewhere way down river and everybody's wondering how did this branch get all the way here? Where's this tree, right? You're the severing of your family tree was the image that came to mind for me.

[00:37:59] Damon: [00:38:00] And the, especially because of the violence of the lightning strike creating the separation between you and your ancestral heritage, but also the river taking you somewhere else. And the fact that your tree was unique to where it grew. And is totally different from where you were raised. I just, I wanted to express that.

[00:38:22] Damon: Because I, I don't like to let these metaphors go away. And I wonder how that resonates with you.

[00:38:27] Moses: Well, To go off of what came up for you, the way you described it I'm, part of me is wondering if there's a little bit of play on the story of Moses.

[00:38:38] Damon: It may have been in the back of my mind. I hadn't really thought about that, but that's a really good.

[00:38:42] Damon: That's a good point.

[00:38:44] Moses: He was sitting on the roof.

[00:38:45] Damon: That's a really good point. Moses, this has been wonderful. I would love to hear a little bit more about your current work. I know that you're an advocate. You advocate. I was familiar with you prior to this [00:39:00] recent calling of adoptees to come online and talk about the murders of adoptees.

[00:39:07] Damon: And so I sat and paid attention to this call that you were on. But I know that you have been an advocate for the adoptee community, specifically in the areas of trauma, suicide and attempts on the lives of adoptees. Can you just talk a little bit about your work as a therapist? And what you hope to accomplish in your

[00:39:26] Moses: work.

[00:39:26] Moses: Certainly,

[00:39:27] Moses: Damon. And thank you again for this opportunity. As what I refer to myself these days as an adoption trauma educator and therapist, is that I am an educator first. In that I recognize, everybody, the whole world, needs to understand the complexities and the layers of what This particular experience of trauma, put on adopted people.

[00:39:55] Moses: And again, moving away from the adoption aspect [00:40:00] the kind of trauma put on the people who are stolen and taken, trafficked, kidnapped forcibly removed, separated, and there's, there is a lot of coercion. And in fact, a colleague of mine, I've taken her. Her term that we live in a culture of coercion.

[00:40:22] Moses: It's everywhere at this point, we're being born into this culture of coercion that, that says adoption is an option that adoption is in the best interest of the child. It's about giving them a better life. So the points of education for me, when I work with my clients is to help them unpack that and realign it with.

[00:40:50] Moses: The truth and helping them start their journeys or continue their journeys into seeking out their [00:41:00] truths of what really did happen and then work towards making sense of that and accepting what is, because to your earlier point, it is painful, it is an overwhelming amount of hurt that goes beyond our capacities.

[00:41:18] Moses: So it is many layers of trauma that we're burdened with

[00:41:23] Moses: in a large way. We're

[00:41:25] Moses: We're burdened with that. We're left to figure out and manage for ourselves.

[00:41:32] Moses: So getting to my advocacy, which I. I see myself more as an activist who's advocating for a number of different, and I just recently posted about what is the most important message the world needs to know about the adoption industry? And I, I chose those words carefully. My first point adoption is [00:42:00] a criminal industry. The buying and selling of people for profit is human trafficking. The second point is that adoption is modern day slavery.

[00:42:10] Moses: Women are trafficked into baby mills and baby factories. And that's something that isn't often thought of or brought up, but it's happening all over the world that their children are then used to monetize fundraising campaigns and social media platform. So it's common practice now to see YouTube channels popping up about adoption journeys and adoption experiences, and primarily coming from.

[00:42:42] Moses: Those who are doing the adopting

[00:42:45] Moses: and that is part of the reclaiming the narrative that I'm seeing the adopted people, other adopted advocates are reclaiming those spaces by creating their own channels and tick tock accounts and speaking to their [00:43:00] experiences, their firsthand experiences, rather than having it be. someone else.

[00:43:06] Moses: So modern day slavery.

[00:43:09] Moses: Let's sit on that one for a second that both our mothers and ourselves are being trafficked, and exploited for profit. Adoption is Thank you. a crime against humanity. And I keep it in the forefront for people that we have unearthed mass graves of Children, and ongoing cultural genocides of indigenous peoples around the world.

[00:43:39] Moses: And present day war crimes, which has been named in the Russia, Ukraine war going on today that Ukrainian Children are being again adopted into Russian families and going through a process of propaganda pro Russian [00:44:00] propaganda to brainwash them, to re educate them, to being pro Russian.

[00:44:05] Moses: And this last point about adoption leaves women and their children vulnerable to commodification and dehumanization.

[00:44:12] Moses: With reports of homicides of fostered and adopted Children worldwide.

[00:44:20] Moses: So these are the areas that I have found to be most important that the world needs to stop denying, stop silencing and

[00:44:34] Moses: The, the one that I am most outspoken about these days are the murders of Children in foster care and adoptive placements.

[00:44:48] Damon: Yeah. Did you, do you want to talk about your own personal? Challenges that you've overcome

[00:44:55] Moses: where that came from, for me, because [00:45:00] people may want to know why is this so important to me?

[00:45:04] Moses: And I, when I was sharing about my childhood, I left out

[00:45:10] Moses: the fact that I have three, three of the people that I grew up with who are also adopted. Who are also Asian, also disabled. Three of them have died. That Tam, who was adopted from Vietnam, who was blind, she overdosed in 2000 and then my sister. Lark, also from Vietnam, war orphan, she had died from an an age related lung infection.

[00:45:46] Moses: And I make the point because it hits people differently that she had chosen not to be resuscitated.

[00:45:56] Moses: And I, I can understand where [00:46:00] people don't want to see that as also giving up on life.

[00:46:05] Damon: She elected not to return intentionally.

[00:46:07] Moses: Yeah. And this is incredibly important. In our efforts as a society to normalize suicide, or at least talking about suicide, making sense of it, understanding that there's a desire not to live.

[00:46:24] Moses: And then there's a desire to not live with the pain. Anymore.

[00:46:29] Moses: And then there is Thaddeus. That was Lark in 2008 and then eight years later, Thaddeus he shot himself

[00:46:39] Moses: there. There is no denying, that is how he ended his life.

[00:46:45] Moses: And he did. So he died and. 2016. Sorry. So with their lives and their deaths as well as my own my own attempts at [00:47:00] suicide, I identify myself not only as a child abuse survivor, but a survivor of suicide, a suicide attempt and suicide loss.

[00:47:10] Damon: Yeah. Wow. That is a triple impact. And I'm glad you raised that because that would have been lost.

[00:47:18] Damon: And it's important, one, to acknowledge their lives, but two, to acknowledge their intentionality in not continuing in this life, as you've alluded to, the fact that they decided that it was not, they did not want to continue with the pain. And I want to say I'm glad that you're here because your advocacy, your education, Your work is incredibly important.

[00:47:45] Damon: These are voices that deserve to be heard. There are stories that deserve to be told and acknowledged for what they actually mean. Not just telling the story for telling the story, but actually analyzing. This is [00:48:00] four children adopted into one home, three of whom took their own lives. One who is still here, but also made an attempt.

[00:48:09] Damon: And it's indicative of the trauma that is adoption that you have today. educated us on. And I just want to say one, I'm glad you're here to continue that education and that hard work. But to that you were here to talk with all of us about what it is that you are empowering everybody to realize, the challenge of trauma.

[00:48:29] Moses: Thank you again for the opportunity. And thank you for the acknowledgement of the importance of life. And I do want to say a couple more things about this. Is that I realize I'm just one voice. among a growing number of others, and that thankfully because others have chosen to advocate, to raise their voices before me, I am then just simply, amplifying [00:49:00] what has already been brought up that needs to continue to be brought up.

[00:49:04] Moses: And my hope is that as I lend my voice, others will be inspired to do so as well. That this is going into my second point,

[00:49:15] Moses: point about adoption or the adoption industry creating an enslaved race, an enslaved class of people. That is, it is, imperative that we do speak up for ourselves, meaning our people, not just for ourselves, but for all of our people. And it's with this perspective that every life counts, every voice counts.

[00:49:49] Moses: And it's imperative because There are these very real outcomes of death and death, whether by suicide or death by [00:50:00] murder,

[00:50:00] Moses: that we have to speak up, we have to raise our voices, we have to raise the alarm that not only are we being trafficked, that we're being bought and sold, that we're being commodified, we're being dehumanized, just so the people who, adopt us, can then treat us however they want, which goes as far as torturing us to death.

[00:50:28] Damon: Thank you again, Moses, for raising the alarm on behalf of everybody who's not able to do it for themselves. You've created a megaphone for yourself and it's super important. So I want to thank you for being here, man. .

[00:50:38] Moses: Thank you for being an amplifier.

[00:50:41] Damon: Absolutely. Absolutely. My pleasure. You take care, man.

[00:50:44] Damon: All the best to you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Bye bye.

[00:50:47] Damon: Hey, it's me. Moses's story is one of immense complexity and pain, but it's also a [00:51:00] story of resilience and advocacy. He has lived through tremendous trauma, stolen from his homeland, living with the loss of his identity, resulting cultural disconnection, and living with the physical challenges of cerebral palsy.

[00:51:14] Damon: All of this piled on top of losing his siblings. His journey reminds us of the deep, sometimes unseen scars that adoptees carry and the importance of acknowledging the full picture and dark truths about adoption. Moses is not only advocating for the adoptee community, but also for a broader conversation around the adoption industry and the importance of exposing the facts of adoptee trauma.

[00:51:41] Damon: His message is clear. It's time to reframe the way we think about adoption. To hear the voices of those who have lived through it, and to support adoptees in their journey toward healing. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Moses journey that inspired you, validates your feelings about wanting to search, [00:52:00] or motivates you to find the strength along your journey to learn. Who am I, really?