Abstract
Jacob Wheeler provides insights into international adoption through a vivid documentation of his involvement with one adopted girl, her adoptive family, and their quest to reconnect with her birth mother. He offers different views on the adoption of Guatemalan children by Western families and explores whether this is an opportunity for children living in impoverished conditions to experience the safety and benefits of a childhood in the United States or a continued act of imperialism and exploitation of a country and her most vulnerable people. The assumption that the advantages of life in the United States outweigh the loss of family, culture, language, and identity is critically evaluated.
The book interweaves Bereníce/Ellie’s story within the historical and international contexts of adoption, allowing for a deeper understanding of the circumstances surrounding the existence of the privatized Guatemalan adoption industry. The text is divided into two parts. The first section chronicles the journey of 7-year-old Bereníce from her life in rural Guatemala with her mother and siblings to the hogar (orphanage) system in the faraway and seemingly foreign city of Antigua, where her mother ultimately relinquishes her. Throughout the process, Wheeler recounts the patronizing, and sometimes painful, manner in which a woman is convinced that she lacks the ability to care for her child. Bereníce’s future American adoptive family is introduced, along with the circumstances that led them to Guatemala and eventually to Bereníce.
The second section describes Bereníce, now Ellie, and her life 5 years later in the Midwestern middle class and life in the nexus of her two cultures. Wheeler initially travels to Guatemala alone and then with Ellie’s adoptive mother to search for Ellie’s family, armed only with limited and often inaccurate information from the adoption agency. He describes the delicate process of probing into the villages of Guatemala, sensitive to the perception they may have of the foreign outsider as a potential exploiter and child snatcher. Ellie’s subsequent meeting with her birth mother and brothers raises questions about the assumptions made regarding the capacity of assimilation to erase cultural ties and identity.
Wheeler presents the adoption of Guatemalan children without a black-and-white dichotomy, without a right and a wrong, but rather as a struggle of individuals within a complex system of inequality and injustice. It concludes with the end of privatized notary adoptions in Guatemala in 2007. The reader is left wondering whether the end of this era will result in more harm than benefit, and for whom. Questions regarding the definition of “good mothering” and the value of international adoptions are clearly set in the context of culture, class, and gender, and this study offers ample material for social workers and feminists to engage these issues. Wheeler attempts to reach beyond an academic audience and successfully incorporates the voices of those who are affected by and involved with Guatemalan adoption at the micro- and macro levels.