The Juggernaut: The Missing Stories of South Asian Adoption
For decades, thousands from the subcontinent were adopted abroad, mostly by white famlies. Why have they been forgotten?
by Siobhan Neela-Stock
Utah Governor Huntsman holds Indian child Asha Bharati as his wife Maryand their adopted Chinese child Gracie Mei look on at The Matruchhaya Orphanage in Nadiad, Gujarat, December 19, 2006 (SAM PANTHAKY/AFP via Getty Images)
When Charly B* was in kindergarten, her classmates often teased her about her darker skin and told her that her biological parents had thrown her away. It didn’t stop there. “My adoptive mother would often say things like, ‘You’d be a prostitute on the street if we hadn’t adopted you,’” Charly B*, who is ethnically Sri Lankan, told The Juggernaut. (We’ve anonymized her name because she believes her adoptive parents would be hurt if she shared her story publicly.) “It took me years to unlearn the belief that I owed them something just for being adopted.”
Transnational /Transcultural Adoption Project 