SSS Brown

“If you're adopted, you have rights. We tend not to share our stories because we've been taught that whatever problems we encounter are our fault. We've been the scapegoats for the 1%. If we want to flip the script, then we must share our stories and listen to others outside the scope of what was traditionally acceptable.”
― Janine Myung Ja, Adoption Stories

“It's easy to side with the top dogs? But, we gain credit/karma points for siding with the poor. And just because some of us are poor, does not mean we are poor in spirit.”
― Janine Myung Ja, Adoption Stories

“If we remain positive and accept what is, if we tend to pay attention to the beauty of the practice but not examine the insides, we will be less likely to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, and we will forgo the potential beauty of our birth culture, and if we forgo the potential of our birth culture, it's harder to see the beauty within ourselves.”
― Janine Myung Ja, Adoption Stories

“There comes a point in time when we must acknowledge that we are more than our nationality, and we are bigger than our ethnicity. There comes a time when we have an aha moment. What is that aha moment? It's sort of like a revelation. A revelation is when we put all the pieces together to see the bigger picture. When we see the bigger picture, we can see ourselves through the realm of reality and truth. The truth is we belong to a blood family that is connected to a tribal community, and this community is big and bright and bold with life, and we should be proud of the ties to blood that each of us has. We should not play small and reduce our human nature—for we are all connected. We belong to something bigger and more expansive. We belong to life itself. Always remember that you are more than an American (as wonderfully dramatic as that can be). Together, we make up the collective of great. ...And this is good.”
― Janine Myung Ja, Adoption Stories