Adoptee Rights come to the Grand Rapids Asian & Pacific Festival.

Michigan Adoptees Advocate for the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024.

Michigan adoptees were invited by the Grand Rapids Asian-Pacific Foundation to be part of this years Grand Rapids Asian & Pacific Festival (GRAPF) this past weekend. This is our first public booth experience and some of our first volunteers.

Performances at GRAPF 2024

The festival was an amazing experience to be a part of. Wonderful performances from a variety of Asian cultures and the food was incredible.

It takes a crew

We had multiple people volunteering so that some of us could sneak off and enjoy the festivities (and bring back food / drinks for others of course)

Our AAOM Mascot

Tucker enjoyed hanging out with adoptees and inviting the crowd over with all of his charm and cuteness.

It was a hot weekend!

We learned that the wind isn’t always your friend at a booth - and the substantial breezes were just enough that we had to learn how to secure our materials so they didn’t fly away. This was great training ground for future booth opportunities.

The beauty of culture

We saw many adoptive families there making sure their young Asian children were getting exposed to some of their culture. Some stopped by to learn more about what we were doing while others read our signs from afar.

The Adoptee Game of Life Wheel

The wheel provided a great way to talk to the public about the randomness of adoptee experience - how we all end up in different situations that require greater understanding by the public.

Cooling off

Nothing like a little break in the shade.

Adoptees can relate

We had many asian adopted people stop by the booth and thank us for being there. Some even played “The Adoptee Game of Life” and landed on “Looking for my birth parents may incriminate them since I came from a country with a one child policy,” and they shared with us that this was also true in their own lives.

Doing great Ladies!

The wheel did great for it’s first time out, but so did these amazing volunteers!

June 15-16, 2024
We had a great experience advocating at the Grand Rapids Asian-Pacific Festival. Thank you to everyone who came out to help! We met a TON of adoptees, and many thanked us for being there and were very glad to connect. We talked to people about the adoptee citizenship act and how it is currently in congress. It is possible that 50,000 or more adoptees were brought into this country by American citizens, yet due to an oversight by the parents or agency, their citizenship was never secured. Some adoptees we met already knew about this reality and questioned whether or not they had citizenship. Can you imagine being brough here as an infant without any say in the matter, then 18+ years later after you build a life in the U.S., you find yourself at risk of deportation due to someone else’s negligence with your paperwork! Unfortunately this is true for many adoptees and 50 have already been deported. AAOM wants to help advocate for a change to that law and we hope you will help us do that.

We also talked about how adopted people who are even born in Michigan lack rights that they have in 15 other states, and many were surprised that adopted people don’t have the same rights as non-adopted people when it comes to their own vital records. We asked people contact their U.S. Representatives and ask them to vote yes for Adoptee Citizenship Act 2024 and sign up to help us when we try for another bill to fix things for Michigan adoptees. Our coalition partner, Adoptee Rights Law Center, provided a board so that we could direct people through the use of a QR code for an easy way to contact their rep. We handed out business cards and a bunch of stickers- all in all a great experience! It is hot, exhausting, but we are changing hearts and minds and it is awesome to be a part of this.