BIPOC Adoptee Poetry Writing workshop with Alanna Fagen

Event Time:  July 3rd from 2-5pm
Event Address: Desert Island Studios (1316 Southeast 12th Avenue, Portland, OR 97214)

This poetry workshop will focus on using writing and poetry as a tool for adoptees to express themselves and the underrepresented adult adoptee perspective. After beginning with time to share participants’ communal experiences as adoptees, they will then be lead through poetry writing exercises and prompts meant to help explore, understand, and share their identities. (There will be no mandatory sharing of participants’ writing, inside or outside of the workshop.)

Please bring something to write with (notepad, laptop, etc.)

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Thank you to VOICES, a BIPOC Adoptee Community, Theatre Diaspora, MediaRites, and Metro’s Community Placemaking grant for making this possible. And thanks to Steeplejack Brewery for the space!

This is a BIPOC Adoptee only event. Due to space, attendance is limited to 20 participants only.

Adoptees are too familiar with these clichè platitudes: Adoption is beautiful. Love transcends all. Race doesn’t matter. Adoptees should be grateful. These words are often weaponized against us when we speak our truths because, for too long, adoption narratives have been dominated by the limited perspectives of adoptive parents or the multi-billion dollar adoption industrial complex.

Rooted in the idea that writing can be a political act of resistance and solidarity, this session combats this erasure and puts BIPOC adoptees at the center of our stories. The goals of the workshop are:

To help participants understand some theoretical underpinnings around narrative change/culture shifting and role of storytelling in social change movements, particularly through the Marshall Ganz “public narrative” model.

To provide a safe, community space for participants to explore their personal experiences with adoption and to practice telling their own stories and using their own voices

To help participants feel a stronger connection to the larger BIPOC adoptee diaspora and feeling a sense of belonging to our unique community

To help participants explore the role of their voices and experiences in the larger socio-political context of mainstream adoption narratives

What to Expect

No writing experience necessary! Activities are geared toward all levels of writers. We will write independently and also do small group/pair sharing activities to help writers develop details. Sharing activities will be structured around positive feedback only (Think: “This image stuck out to me. That sentence was powerful! I would love to know more about X, Y, Z.”) No one will be forced to share what they are not comfortable sharing.

Participants should be aware this workshop is intended to challenge mainstream adoption narratives from a reform or abolition perspective. Though some details about positive adoption experiences may arise, this workshop is not about celebrating adoption.

Please bring something to write with – laptops, journals, notepads, etc. are all acceptable. Whatever makes you most comfortable writing is the best tool to use.

This is a no-host event regarding food and drinks, but you can order your own food and drinks directly from the server anytime during the workshop. Here is the menu:

https://www.steeplejackbeer.com/location/steeplejack-broadway

Inclusion & Accessibility

This is BIPOC adoptee-only event. We are a diverse community that embodies many different intersecting identities. We intend for this to be a safe space for adoptees just coming into adoptee consciousness, for our queer and trans family, those of us with disabilities, and more.

Steeplejack has an accessible entrance on the Broadway St side of the building and ADA bathrooms. There is room for wheelchairs and scooters. Please contact organizers with questions or to communicate other accommodation requests.

This is an indoor, in-person event. We strongly encourage all participants to be vaccinated and boosted against the spread of COVID-19. Mask-wearing is optional. Please stay home if you are feeling unwell and protect our community from communicable diseases. We will be eating together. Please take precautions not to spread germs.

Organizers & Facilitators

This workshop is in partnership with VOICES, a BIPOC Adoptees Community, Theatre Diaspora & MediaRites, Theatre Diaspora and MediaRites, and BIPOC Adoptees. Theatre Diaspora is Oregon’s only professional AAPI theatre company, committed to portraying authentic AAPI perspectives and fostering inclusion, social-awareness, and open conversations on race and cultural diversity. MediaRites is dedicated to telling the stories of diverse cultures and giving voice to the unheard through the arts, education and media projects.

Joon Ae Haworth-Kaufka (she/they) is a Korean adoptee who was born in Seoul and grew up outside of Detroit. She holds a BA in English, an MA in Conflict Resolution, and a MFA in fiction writing. With nearly 17 years in higher education, she held numerous teaching positions and taught a diverse range of students. Her work on diversity and student engagement has been published in various academic journals, and her creative work has been published in The Portland Review, Mid-American Review, Poets & Writers, Colorado Review, Kartika, Hyphen Magazine, among others. She is currently working on a novel. She is a Tin House and Anaphora Arts alum, a co-founder of Yeondae, a social justice collective of Asian adoptees, co-founder of Constellation: A reading series, an organizer for Income Movement and for BIPOC Adoptees, a small business owner, and an adoptee rights advocate. She lives in Portland, OR with three kids, three dogs, two cats, and a very supportive partner.

Lila Yang (she/her) is a Chinese adoptee who grew up in Portland, OR and has spent the last several years trying to navigate her identity as a queer transracial adoptee. She has been working with Theatre Diaspora since 2017 and is so excited to co-lead this workshop with Joon-Ae. She has often struggled to find a way to articulate the struggles she has faced as a transracial adoptee so when offered the chance to help lead a workshop to help other adoptees who may have stories they want to tell but have trouble finding the right words she was ecstatic.

Special thanks to Theatre Diaspora funders: