Tariuwa Lemma writes her story with international adoption. She reports that she and her sister were brought to the US from Ethiopia as the victims of a corrupt adoption agency, when her biological parents were alive and willing to care for her and her sister.
“But we adoptees didn’t sign those adoption papers – we had no choice as to whether we wanted to go on an education program, let alone be adopted," she says. "Many of us were adopted at a very young age and don’t even have memories of our families, homeland or the cultural expectations that go with both. Instead, we grew up in a Western culture, in which we are taught to take care of only ourselves, while Ethiopian culture teaches its people to take care of their family.”