"You Should Be Grateful"

Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption

De: Angela Tucker

Narrado por: Angela Tucker

An adoption expert and transracial adoptee herself examines the unique perspectives and challenges these adoptees have as they navigate multiple cultures

“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you! You should be grateful that you were adopted.”

Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors. She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily.

In “You Should Be Grateful,” Tucker centers the experiences of adoptees to share deeply personal stories, well-researched history, and engrossing anecdotes from mentorship sessions with adopted youth. These perspectives challenge the fairy-tale narrative of adoption, giving way to a fuller story that explores the impacts of racism, classism, family, love, and belonging.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A captivating memoir that also offers an important counterpoint to voyeurism and saviorism in the adoption process.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“This deeply personal story is also a passionate call to rethink the way we manage and talk about adoption in America.”
—Booklist

“Tucker’s story and the stories of the adoptees she features gives readers access to thoughts adoptees have but might too afraid to tell others or what they talk about amongst themselves.”
—International Examiner

“With deft candor and keen insight, ‘You Should Be Grateful’ looks beyond the political and pop cultural myths about adoption to consider, instead, what adoption looks for those who must live it. Tucker grounds her own story in broader discourses on history and legacy, race and racism, and inequity and privilege to explore not just the complicated meaning of transracial adoption but the meaning of family connection. In my years of studying adoption, this is the book for which I have been waiting.”
—Gretchen Sisson, author of Relinquished: The American Mothers Behind Infant Adoption

“This book is so necessary. Angela is well respected among adoptees because of the way she unabashedly advocates for them—whether she’s encouraging adoptees to own their own narratives or coordinating adoption agencies to go back into their files and uncover buried information. I am a fan of hers as a fellow adoptee, but I’ve also had the privilege of covering her work in news stories. Angela teaches us all to live boldly.”
—Michelle Li, cofounder of The Very Asian Foundation

“Angela Tucker brings to the forefront what so many adoptees, specifically transracial adoptees, are feeling and thinking or, to some degree, may have experienced. As an adoptive mother, I am always learning ways to better assist my children through our experiences with adoption, as we know that it is traumatic even in the best of circumstances. Tucker has given my children a hero in their own community, their own village, to look up to, that they can relate to. I’m so grateful.”
—Keia Jones-Baldwin, founder of Raising Cultures

“With clear-eyed and sometimes bracing honesty, Angela Tucker brings powerful insight, nuance, and sensitivity to the complex issues faced by adoptees and their families—all their families.”
—Elan Mastai, writer and co-executive producer of This Is Us

“Angela Tucker has written her heart out here. Get in, adoptees, we’re going for a ride. Tucker hits every emotional note in this honest and necessary debut.”
—Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder

Eye opening

Thank you for this wonderful insight. I am enriched buy your story that I will carry with me.

This incredible book gives voice to the voiceless.

As a transracial adoptee, with a closed adoption, I know too well the journey Angela shared. Truly heartening to hear I’m not alone in my vast emotions for my birth and adopted family.

Riveting Autobiography of a Trans Racial Adoptee

Everyone and their grandmother should read this book. A consice yet thoughtful exploration of the stories that connect us all interweaving realities of poverty, disconnection, and the small steps it takes to bring us closer to healing.

You SHOULD read this

Eye opening, heart opening, mind opening look into adoption. Centering the adoptee and birth mother while shining a light on a system that needs recalibrating. Angela’s story and scholarship is a master class in humanity.

Unexpectedly Healing

As a transracial adult adoptee, raised without the resources to process my experience, I didn’t know what to expect from this. Not only did I uncover the intricacies and complexities of feelings I never knew how to describe but found new agency to explore my journey. After reading this I found some resources for BIPOC adoptees raised by white families and feel like maybe as a 29 year old, I finally have the chance to meet people like me. Thank you Angela.

Must read!

Great read for all foster and adoptive families. ‘Sondersphere’ chapter 15 is so important for blended families.

A Good Start

This provides a foundational understanding of the complex world of transracial adoption in American. This book provide anecdotal insights and contemporary research on transracial adoptee as a cultural phenomenon.

A mind opening book

As an adoptive mom of a transracial adoptee, this book gave me so much insight and thought provoking dialog for my family. I believe this will make my daughters life a bit less challenging.

phenomenal.

As a transracial adoptee and an adoptee in reunion in my 20s this is so spot on. So much I found words for and relatable on different levels. So intricately and beautifully written.

Recommend

This was a beautifully written book with modern knowledge about adoption. Easy read, was eager to hit play every day.