Blog – Page 5 – Transracial Journeys

July Freedom: Exploring our Unique Identities

July Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for July. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

July Pro-Tip for Parents: Do your research on the complexities of July 4th and be ready to steer confidently into the conversation with your child/children. Create space to process the emotions that may come up as you prepare to have the conversation about freedom and enslavement with your child. Even if it is hard, don’t shy away from moving in the direction of openness related to hard topics like this. It is only when we are confident and centered in the truth of our histories both collective and individual that we can be truly FREE!

This post is from our July, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

Travels with the Tax Preparer

by Avril McInally

It’s summer and April 15 is well behind us. It’s a blip on the deadline radar, a distant memory (the more distant, the better). So, why am I talking about taxes and my tax preparer in a transracial adoption newsletter? Read on to find out.

Once upon a time, I needed an expert to help me navigate a tricky situation with my local tax authority. After asking my friends for CPA and tax professional referrals, I ended up in Mr. D’s office on the near East Side. There, I was greeted by Mr. D’s second-in-command, Ms. B. While waiting for my appointment, I soon came to see Ms. B’s management of the office. For all she did, it seemed to me that she must have had eyes in the back of her head, two brains and perhaps, three hearts! She sat at the helm of a smoothly run, busy operation. In awe of Ms. B, I soon forgot the trouble that had landed me in her domain.

After a while, I was seen by Mr. D. He promptly took care of my tricky situation and earned not only my undying appreciation but my eternal patronage. For the next several years close to tax time, I spent a few hours in his office. It was really supposed to be a one hour appointment, but I didn’t just get my taxes prepared on these visits. At these annual appointments, I listened to Michael (for Mr. D soon became Michael) relay his experiences as a Black man, husband, father, businessman and community member. I listened intently to Michael, not just for me but also for my Black daughter. He straight up told me that it was important I knew how to raise a Black child and I was thankful for his honesty and in sharing parts of his community and culture experience with me.

One day, while sitting in his office, he asked if me and my daughters had any vacations planned that year. I said yes. We were planning on driving to Chincoteague Island to see the wild ponies. He then went on to talk about what it had been like for him driving to the South as a Black man and as a Black father with his wife and children in the car. He taught me to be more careful and alert driving (sometimes rurally) through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

Every year I had my appointment with Michael, he offered something significant to me as a parent of a Black daughter. He reminded me often that I had a member of his community and extended family in my care, and that it was my privilege to take good care of her. But he didn’t just leave the conversation there, he went on and “filled me in” with personal stories from his own parenting journey.

After several years of working with Michael, he became gravely ill and passed on. I visited him in his decline and often thought of all of the Going Home pamphlets he had lovingly shared with me of his former clients. Soon, Michael had his own Going Home.

Ms. B ended up obtaining the credentials needed to run her own tax preparer business and now, my daughters and I visit her to have our taxes done every year. She’s got a framed picture of Michael in her office. We always talk about him and his legacy. Sometimes, we sit in her office waiting for our appointments rubbing elbows with women construction workers, salon workers and more. Now, my children have grown to cultivate their own relationships with Ms. B. They know that not only will they have their taxes prepared, but while doing so, they’ll get to support someone who is not only part of their community of Blackness and womanhood but also of humanity.

Happy trails, safe travels, take help where you can get it and be alert on your journey!

Black Excellence: Victor Hugo Green

Victor Hugo Green and The Travelers’ Green Book

“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.”

Born in Manhattan, New York City in 1892, Victor Hugo Green grew up to become a postal carrier with the U.S. postal service. He married Alma Duke, a woman from Richmond, Virginia, and they settled in Harlem at the same time the Harlem Renaissance was blossoming.

Mr. Green had spent most of his life in Hackensack, NJ and in New York City, but after his marriage, he began to travel to Richmond with his wife. He then realized the need to find safe places to stay, eat, use the toilet and put gas in his car while on his travels, and he realized a lot of other people had this same need too. It was then, he had the idea of creating a small guidebook to not only support Black-owned businesses, but also to support the safety of Black travelers and holiday-goers in the United States.

“He found a model for his publication in the guides for Jewish travelers that appeared in Jewish newspapers.” His first installation of the “Green Book” appeared as “The Negro Motorist Green Book” in 1936. The first edition was a small, 15-page booklet which listed businesses that were Black-owned and/or friendly to Black travelers and diners. It included places to stay and places to eat. “By the early 1940s, thousands of establishments nationwide - identified as either black-owned or verified to be non-discriminatory - were listed in the Green Book.”

Over the years, the guide grew to cover much more territory in the United States as well as as places in Canada and Europe. Using the nationwide help of fellow postal carriers, he used their input to expand and promote safe travel for Black people in the Jim Crow era.

“By the early 1940s, thousands of establishments nationwide - identified as either black-owned or verified to be non-discriminatory - were listed in the Green Book.” Although the guide ceased publication during WWII, it was re-started and eventually grew to have a print run of 15,000 copies per year. Mr. Green died in 1960, but his wife continued as editor publishing the guide until its cessation in 1966.

You can watch a short video about the impact of The Green Book and some of the experiences of Black travelers in the 20th century here: The real story of the Green Book.

June Fathers’ Day: Claiming Family Realities

June Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for June. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

June Pro-Tip for Parents: As with May it is important to spend some time reflecting on how you hold Fathers’ Day for yourself and how you might be better equipped to hold your child/children as they experience their own version of the holiday. Best to have planned time for conversation with trusted loved ones and/or community members before, during, and after your family conversations.

This post is from our June, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

Fathers’ Day, Making Space for Fathers Absent and Fathers Present

by Avril McInally

A few years ago, while writing about Mothers’ Day for our monthly TRJ newsletter, I made the decision to move the apostrophe over to commemorate my child’s reality of having two mothers. This is no accident and not an error in punctuation. It’s my way of elucidating that my child has more than one mother, as well as my way of making space for and acknowledging my child’s mother of origin. I choose to move the apostrophe over for fathers too.

If only it were as simple as moving an apostrophe to signal these intentions in conversation. It can be exhausting and intrusive having to explain my family's makeup. It’s an exhausting, repetitive experience for all of the members of our family. When I do choose to have “the talk”, I’ve come to think about the people in my extended family of adoption as being present to hear what I’m saying, and to speak as if my child is listening too. How do I honor my child’s story and her right to privacy? How do I honor her birth parents' same rights?

The adoption journey and its coinciding conversations don’t get any easier as our children age. They continue to be complex in new ways. Should I attend that funeral service for Grandma or Uncle? If I do go, where do I sit and where do my kids sit? Am I a painful reminder of a painful separation? Is our daughter a painful reminder of a painful separation? Do the visiting family members even know an adoption in the family happened? I have to keep coming back to ask myself the most important question which is “am I being a healthy support to my daughter”? The answer begins with me asking her the question, “Darling, you’ve got to let me know, should I stay or should I go?”. A little of the Clash’s lyrics can go a long way ;).

Moving the apostrophe is simple, these crucial conversation usually aren’t. It’s my way of saying I recognize all of the parents who helped bring our child into and raise her up in the world. So, maybe someday, instead of asking me all of the usual, mundane questions about race or adoption, ask me about my punctuation.

As June is the month which holds our national holiday for celebrating Fathers’ Day, I’d like to invite you to move the apostrophe over in consideration of all of your children’s fathers and father figures. In order to make that space for more than one father, April’s conversation prompts for June are a good place to start not just on Fathers’ Day but whenever you or your children feel the need. Happy Fathers’ Day from me and from everyone on the TRJ board!

Book Corner – June 2023

Our Transracial Journeys families regularly seek out books to share with their children and to read for themselves, as white parents of black children. We are fortunate to have a resource in the Transracial Journey's Board of Direcors Secretary, Avril McInally. With a Master of Library Science from Kent State University and over 35 years as a public librarian, Avril and her colleague, Vicki Richards, collaborate to curate phenomenal book recommendations for our children and parents. The Book Corner is a regular feature in our Transracial Journeys monthly newsletters. If you would like to receive monthly book recommendations via email, please subscribe.

Black Excellence: James Weldon Johnson

One of his most famous writings is the lyric to the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which he wrote in 1900 to commemorate President Lincoln’s birthday. In 1919, the NAACP claimed this song as the Negro national anthem. Now considered the Black National Anthem, it was initially written as a poem. When put to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson, it became the hymn we now know it by today. Recently, the hymn was sung for the first time at a Superbowl (February, 2023) by African American performer Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Over the course of his life, Johnson accumulated many achievements as an author (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man), a statesman in international politics, a leader in the ranks of the NAACP, as the first African American professor at NYU, as the first Black lawyer admitted to the Florida state bar after the Reconstruction era and as a lifelong advocate for civil rights.

He tragically died in a railroad accident in 1938 while on vacation in Maine. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Mother, May I?

- authored by April Dinwoodie,
Part-time Executive Director of Transracial Journeys

As a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person, do I need permission to love more than one mother? This May, I am once again faced with the “mother” of all holidays. It is a big one that warrants attention because of the complicated emotions that come up for so many adopted persons and members of the extended family of adoption. On top of the emotions that may already be present, there are the marketing messages that flood in from brands reminding us to celebrate the women in our lives that care for us.

As a kid, Mother's Day, was about my mom Sandi, the only mom I really knew. I was usually caught up in creating the PERFECT gift for her -- something to honor her, make her feel special and something I thought she’d really love. At some point though during the time leading up to Mother's Day, or on the actual day itself, thoughts of my biological mother crept in. I did not have the language to articulate them, so they came and went, or so I thought. What happened in reality is that my pain, grief, and loss, stayed present and unaccounted for, creating deep emotional confusion that would take years to unravel.

While I knew that I was adopted and there was another woman that I was connected to, there was no open door for me to consider or have a conversation about what that all actually meant and how I was to hold that information factually or emotionally. No one around me at the time had two mothers. It made sense for me to have only one, Sandi was a great mother, did I really need another one? Did I need another one that did not keep me? To be clear, my mom did not ever try to deny there was another woman that I was born to but she never encouraged me to think about her and we never really talked about her until I was a young adult and started to search.

Throughout my search I never thought about being mothered by anyone else but my mom, Sandi. I was not looking to replace my mom but I did have a deep desire to know and create some kind of connection to the woman who gave birth to me. At one point, early in my search, someone close to me asked me if my searching for my birth mom was weird for my adoptive mom and would I then have two mothers? While I was not looking for the two women to co-mother me, I did immediately wonder why having two moms under any circumstances would be a problem. At this point in my life, I had many examples of two families where two women were caretaking children so why is it that in adoption, there is often the either or versus the both/and?

After years of personal healing work, running a research institute for adoption and foster care, working in schools, and being part of a community where I am connected to thousands of members of the extended family of adoption, I have come up with a few things for adoptive parents to consider and actions to take when navigating the both/and of Mothers’ Day.

● As a starting place, think about how you hold Mothers’ Day and how you were mothered. For some, these are not easy reflections to have. For others, there is only joy and beautiful feelings. And likely for many, there is both love and joy, and complexity and pain. If these mix of emotions around mothers can be true for you it stands to reason that a mix of emotions can be present for the child you parent through adoption. Start with you and investigate how you truly hold this most sacred relationship.

● Once you have a sense of how you feel about your connections to mother, think about your holding of your child’s mother of origin. Are you in touch? Do you know her name, birthday, what she is good at? Do you know about her medical history? Do you know if she held your child? These are all things for you to think about and act where you can to gather up some of this information. You don’t have to jump in and do the most, but even taking a few minutes out over the next week or so to have some quiet time to reflect could go a long way. And remember to even mark your calendar to give yourself time to think about your emotions connected to this throughout the year. Make sure you are not tucking your thoughts, feelings, and emotions away. Demonstrate that you can be open with all that comes with adoption and understand this can be a gateway to important healing.

● With some of your emotions in check, you can work to be in even better conversation and connection with your child centered on the topic of mothers. Too often I hear parents transactionally asking their child “do you think about your birth mom? Do you ever want to try to meet her?”. Those big questions can be too much to negotiate with some children and youth. I love it when parents that have grounded themselves and have a sense of how they feel. They can open up a healthy conversation with the child they are parenting by first sharing their thoughts and feelings. Something like…”Today I thought about XX/your birth mom, I wondered how she was and I was sad that we don’t know more about her. Do you ever wonder about her too? Do you want to sit down and talk with me about that?” Remember, you know your child better than anyone so use your personal style to communicate, just don’t miss an opportunity to communicate and keep a door open.

● As you create the conditions at home for open and healthy dialogue and connection to mothers of origin and extended birth family, remember outside of the home your child can be challenged by having more than one mom to consider. This is the time of year when school projects in celebration of Mother’s Day are happening. If you’ve had the conversations about your child’s birth mother and they wanted to create art for them too, teachers and caregivers need to know that your child may need some extra time. If you are not there yet and your child does not want to share their family structure for a school project, you can create something together at home. Even if you are not in touch with the birth mom, you can create something special for the time you might have a connection. There are usually complex circumstances at the root of adoption. There will be a lot of work that will go into creating and keeping connections to family of origin but it does not mean you can’t keep an open conversation especially when the world around us is reminding us of the special people of our lives.

Who says we can’t have more than one mom? Why can’t we have love for two significant women in our lives and be connected to them in different ways? Do we have to ask for permission to love the people we care about? As mothers and as parents today entrusted with children through adoption, you have the amazing opportunity to actively expand your hearts to the people connected to your child. Even when it’s highly complex, there are ways to have open and caring conversations about and real connections to extended family.

Book Corner – May 2023

Our Transracial Journeys families regularly seek out books to share with their children and to read for themselves, as white parents of black children. We are fortunate to have a resource in the Transracial Journey's Board of Direcors Secretary, Avril McInally. With a Master of Library Science from Kent State University and over 35 years as a public librarian, Avril and her colleague, Vicki Richards, collaborate to curate phenomenal book recommendations for our children and parents. The Book Corner is a regular feature in our Transracial Journeys monthly newsletters. If you would like to receive monthly book recommendations via email, please subscribe.

Black Excellence: Maya Angelou – April 4, 1928-May 20, 2014

Poet, author, singer, dancer, activist, playwright and director Maya Angelou nee Marguerite Ann Johnson was born April 4, 1928. Over the span of her life and career, she accomplished many things, but the list of her extraordinary accomplishments may have started in San Francisco where, as a girl of 15, she became the first female African American streetcar conductor! Close to the end of her life, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by President Barack Obama.

One of her most notable works was her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” which begins with the story of her life in Stamps, Arkansas where she was raised with her brother Bailey by their grandmother for part of their childhood. Angelou overcame almost insurmountable hurdles in childhood throughout her life to become one of the most important voices of American history. She is thought by many to be a “symbol of strength and leadership for the plight of women and the underprivileged.”

Exploring race, adoption, and identity in a family setting

July Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

Victor Hugo Green and The Travelers’ Green Book

June Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

Second Dad Summer

Book Recommendations for Families Created in Transracial Adoption

Book Corner Posts

Lift Every Voice and Sing Lyrics

Letter to My Daughter

Book Recommendations for Families Created in Transracial Adoption

Book Corner Posts