0:07

Previously,

0:09

on all relative, defining

0:11

Diego. This is

0:13

really very huge for the birth others

0:15

to give a child to relinquish a child

0:17

is very, very difficult. Other agencies

0:20

were charging fifty thousand to,

0:22

you know, seventy five thousand dollars

0:24

It's a huge red flag. It tells

0:27

me that this is

0:29

absolutely a business.

0:32

please let Isabelle know that if

0:35

if we had the money, we would be happy

0:38

to have the assisted

0:48

So, Diego, there

0:50

was this one night when you heard seven.

0:52

I think you were already asleep. I

0:54

got this phone call. and

0:56

it was about Isabelle.

0:58

Even if she was pregnant with We

1:00

knew that she was she was gonna have the baby

1:02

in August. She told us that Okay.

1:05

So that's our that's our best bet. Yeah. That's

1:07

your baby. It

1:09

was two thousand five. And Karen

1:11

McDonald had heard about us from a radio

1:13

story I'd done. She

1:15

was in the process of adopting Isabelle's

1:17

new baby. That's the baby Isabelle

1:19

had been carrying when we saw her a couple years

1:22

earlier. The baby she'd asked

1:24

us to raise. Isabelle

1:26

thought he'd be a girl, but he turned out

1:28

to be a boy. The McDonald's were gonna

1:31

name him Gavin. Karen

1:33

said they already had a biological sibling

1:35

of yours. Gavin would be their second.

1:38

The first time she reached out, I thought she

1:40

was not. I mean, I almost didn't

1:42

respond, but then she emailed

1:45

this picture. It was a photocopy

1:47

of Isabelle holding an infant who

1:49

looked just like you.

1:51

Yeah. That was Carter.

1:53

That was Carter. He was five

1:55

years younger than you. So

1:57

we started talking and emailing about

1:59

how much you were like boys and

2:02

how all of you love to jump and

2:04

climb. We

2:06

thought we knew your biological family.

2:09

But when Karen called from Georgia, I

2:11

didn't know what to think. But

2:13

Karen wanted to get together and we

2:15

said, okay. Yeah.

2:17

I remember when we met. I was in

2:19

fourth grade.

2:20

Yeah. Carter was almost four and

2:22

Gavin just about two. I

2:24

remember you guys picked me up from school,

2:27

and we

2:28

ended up driving to their hotel. And,

2:30

you know,

2:32

Dan wasn't sure about the whole thing, but that's

2:34

typical, Dan. It sure is.

2:36

I'm excited and nervous.

2:37

What if I don't like him?

2:40

Yeah. probably won't

2:42

bet.

2:44

You know, Diego, I was pretty nervous

2:46

too. And I remember Karen and

2:48

her husband, Paul, were at the hotel waiting

2:50

for us. And when we got

2:52

there, these two little boys peeked out

2:54

from behind them. I could see

2:57

right away there were many versions of

2:59

you. I mean, they had

3:01

sturdy builds and thick

3:03

dark hair and

3:04

dimples. And

3:05

the older one, Carter, he had glasses.

3:09

The two of them are wearing matching khaki

3:11

short sets. Hi

3:13

there. How

3:15

are you? Seeing them together, I just

3:17

can't get over hang of my excitement. A lot

3:19

of life is amazing.

3:22

You boys bonded instantly Up

3:25

in their room, you went tearing around like you'd

3:27

been doing it all your lives.

3:28

Wow. He's

3:30

looking harder. You

3:32

can't find you, Carter? Yeah.

3:35

Oh, he's pulling a trick

3:37

on you.

3:40

One

3:40

of the things is that it wasn't as random like

3:42

the dinner group. It was blood.

3:44

It was biology. So it was this

3:46

kind of intimacy I had felt with HUYA only

3:49

this time we could speak the same language.

3:52

My brothers looked up to me and

3:54

I had a lot of fun with them just horsing

3:56

around. remember

3:57

one day, we took you

3:59

to a

3:59

park by the river,

4:01

and you and Carter saw those

4:04

giant cottonwood trees and

4:06

you didn't just climb them, you

4:08

scale them. And Carter was

4:10

just following you around. He wanted to do

4:12

everything that you did. just

4:14

like you used to do with Julia. Do

4:16

you notice how much you guys look

4:18

like each other? Ian

4:21

Carter would have him look a lot like except

4:24

for the glasses of h. Same

4:26

hair, same eye color,

4:27

same face basically.

4:31

Look. not made in the same DNA,

4:34

but Similar.

4:37

Similar.

4:37

A lot similar. Climate

4:39

DNA. Same.

4:42

I guess

4:44

we see the McDonald's about as often

4:46

as we see Isabelle. every few

4:48

years. And it's

4:50

cool to be like an older brother to Carter and

4:52

Gavin. I feel protective of them

4:54

and I want to be a good

4:56

role model. And

4:58

we even know Isabel relinquished another

5:00

sibling after you, a boy,

5:03

but his family hasn't wanted to stay

5:05

close like the McDonald's have.

5:07

all of this is just another way

5:09

adoptive families

5:10

aren't like most other families.

5:12

I'm an only child with

5:14

siblings all over the place. including

5:16

Georgia and Santiago at Elan.

5:18

But we all look alike and I

5:20

love every one of them. You

5:22

know, you guys were lucky to find each other the

5:24

way you did. It wasn't so common

5:27

for

5:27

Bio siblings to meet like that at

5:29

the time. But also finding

5:31

my siblings all over the map was

5:33

a sign of what was going on with Guatemala

5:35

and adoption. You boys were

5:37

part of the boom, but

5:39

right around the time we met the McDonald's, things

5:42

were starting to change in Guatemala. In

5:45

ways that would threaten international adoption,

5:48

maybe forever.

5:49

Yeah. Because when there's a boom,

5:52

there has to be a bust.

6:05

I'm Diego Chicago, I'm

6:07

Laurie Stern. And from something else

6:09

in Sony Music Entertainment, this

6:12

is our relative. Defining

6:14

Diego,

6:16

episode four, The Fall

6:19

of International Adoption.

6:26

So

6:26

at the peak of the boom, one

6:28

of every hundred Guatemalan babies

6:30

was joining a US family. And

6:33

actually, by that time, the Guatemalan government

6:35

already knew adoption was out of control,

6:37

and they were trying to do something about it.

6:40

In

6:40

two thousand five, Guatemala made

6:42

a new law that called some adoptions

6:44

out for what they really were. Human

6:46

trafficking. and the

6:48

government assigned lawyers to investigate.

6:51

Prosecutors like Julio Prado.

6:54

and the democrats who is to scare your to m you

6:56

got it

6:57

where on draw the own

6:59

that are seeing a seal and it'll be done

7:01

His last case involved

7:04

trying to track down a baby born at

7:06

Rosefeld Hospital in Guatemala City.

7:12

liberia three

7:13

He

7:22

said someone dressed like a nurse came into the

7:24

hospital. They told the mother they were

7:26

taking the baby to get vaccinated. but

7:28

the fake nurse grabbed the baby and

7:30

ran away. And the mother never saw

7:32

her baby again. The

7:37

cameras in the hospital were so bad.

7:39

Julio Prado and his team couldn't identify

7:41

anymore. The mother or the fake

7:43

nurse.

7:57

He told us he still thinks of this mother.

7:59

and whether she's wondering where her child

8:02

is.

8:06

The

8:06

two thousand and five law in Guatemala treated

8:08

adoptions as crimes if their

8:10

paperwork was faked. And that

8:12

meant Julio Prado and his fellow prosecutors

8:14

had some evidence to collect.

8:17

rate

8:25

He and other prosecutors led dozens

8:27

of raids at children's homes and orphanages.

8:29

They found a lot of messed up paperwork,

8:32

but

8:32

it was difficult. often impossible

8:35

to find the people responsible. Julio

8:38

Prado and his team never

8:41

solved most of the cases they investigated

8:43

He told

8:44

us no one knows how

8:45

many irregular adoptions might

8:48

really have been crimes.

8:54

After fifteen years, he quit

8:56

working for the government and opened a private

8:58

practice. In

8:59

twenty twenty two, he published a

9:01

book. It's a novel, but everything

9:03

in it is based on things he actually

9:05

saw. In the

9:07

book, there were two things I can't

9:09

forget.

9:10

Doctors in a

9:11

hospital would convince a mother to

9:13

relinquish, then tell her she needed a

9:15

c section and give her

9:17

anesthesia before she could change her mind.

9:20

then they cut her open and

9:22

take the baby while she was knocked out.

9:25

Other times, traffickers would

9:27

pose as nurses or doctors in the hospital.

9:30

they would steal the newborns and

9:32

then tell the mothers that their babies

9:33

died in childbirth. The

9:36

hospital would keep dead babies in the

9:38

freezer to show the birth mother in case she

9:40

wasn't convinced.

9:44

When I

9:44

first read that story, I had

9:47

to read it over and over

9:49

because it seemed so

9:51

grotesque,

9:51

so unreal that it was

9:53

hard to imagine. let

9:55

alone that it happened more than once, but

9:58

it did. You know,

10:00

that means the idea of bringing

10:02

new life into the world, it

10:05

kinda got turned into its opposite. I mean,

10:07

it got turned into this perverse

10:09

thing. And I really don't know

10:11

what to do with that.

10:13

it's

10:13

so fucking bleak. The

10:16

only thing I think you can do

10:18

is to make sure people never forget. so

10:21

that it never happens again.

10:25

And actually, there was a

10:27

group of Guatemala activists who are

10:29

determined not to let anyone

10:31

forget.

10:32

in

10:32

me

10:38

That's

10:38

i am a painting

10:41

Claudia Maria Hernandez. She

10:43

runs an organization in Guatemala

10:45

City called stope Rivientes. or

10:48

survivors. Originally,

10:50

sobering Vivientes helped survivors of

10:52

domestic abuse, but starting in

10:54

two thousand seven, they took up another

10:56

cause. Mothers

10:57

who had their toddler's kidnapped were

11:00

asking for their help.

11:04

it doesn't work for example

11:07

how is t last season the neil

11:09

patel film is it a mile

11:12

Claudia Maria

11:14

Hernandez could see that thousands

11:16

of kids were being adopted every year

11:18

by foreign parents. She

11:20

wondered Where are all these children coming

11:23

from?

11:23

She

11:32

said foreign adoption treated poor

11:34

women like criminals just because

11:36

they were poor. powerful attorneys

11:39

used tricks and lies to take

11:41

children. They bribed

11:43

judges to rubber stamp adoptions.

11:45

The system was rigged against these

11:47

mothers. So

11:50

by the mid-2000s, the government

11:52

had tried a

11:52

few ways to fix the problems with the adoption

11:55

system. They tried

11:56

a second DNA test starting

11:58

in two thousand three, and

11:59

the prosecution of some adoption

12:01

workers starting in two thousand five.

12:04

But

12:04

it wasn't enough. There was

12:07

always

12:07

another way to outsmart the system.

12:09

pay someone off or fake some more paperwork.

12:12

It

12:12

wasn't just a few bad apples.

12:15

And so, Sabadell Vivientes

12:17

organized a series of actions and

12:20

they got the attention of the press.

12:22

They worked with prosecutors to go

12:24

after criminal gains that kidnapped

12:26

children and sold them into adoption.

12:28

They posted flyers with the faces of missing

12:30

kids. And in two thousand

12:32

seven, a group of mothers protested at

12:34

the public prosecutor's office

12:36

armed with empty baby strollers and cribs

12:38

to symbolize their kidnapped children.

12:41

Do you know Julio Prado's

12:43

prosecutions and the pressure from

12:45

Sovere Viviente and others,

12:47

all of that did have an impact.

12:49

Yeah.

12:49

And international pressure had built

12:51

up too. Spain, Sweden,

12:54

Canada, and Germany all stopped

12:56

approving adoptions from Guatemala by

12:58

two thousand two. So

13:00

by two thousand seven, the US

13:02

was one of the very last one

13:04

standing.

13:05

Here's President George w Bush and

13:08

Guatemala and Oscar Berger at

13:10

a press conference that year.

13:12

We also

13:13

talked about adoption. I

13:15

don't know if my fellow citizens

13:17

understand this, but there are a lot of US

13:19

families who adopt babies from

13:21

Guatemala, thousands of babies.

13:23

Just a few months later in

13:26

December, Guatemala voted to

13:28

stop international adoption

13:30

completely. That law went

13:32

into effect on

13:32

January first two thousand eight. International

13:35

adoption from Guatemala was

13:37

shut down. I

13:39

mean, we didn't understand how

13:42

big of a change that was even

13:44

though we were in Guatemala the year

13:46

it happened. I was ten years

13:48

old. And we were in our own little

13:50

world. My own little

13:52

world. Santiago, Atinlan,

13:58

More in

13:58

a bit,

13:59

stay with us.

14:01

Hi,

14:01

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14:04

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Crooked Media's hysteria is a weekly

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15:34

When I look back

15:36

on those trips to Guatemala when I was

15:38

a kid, I was just so clueless

15:40

about the big picture, you know?

15:42

I had no idea that the trip

15:44

over winter break when I was ten. Was that

15:46

the exact same time international adoption

15:48

was shutting down for good. You

15:51

know, I was clueless too, and I

15:53

report on this shit, but I wasn't

15:55

reporting that time. It was

15:57

a total vacation.

15:59

We were

16:03

with our friends from the Guatemala dinner

16:05

group. We were just

16:06

gonna have a good time. Show him Santiago

16:09

at Titlan. But

16:10

of course, whenever we visit the village,

16:12

we go see Isabel.

16:14

So as always, we asked Dolores,

16:17

our friend and translator, to

16:19

help us find her.

16:20

But Santiago, Titlan, is a small

16:23

town. we were in for a surprise.

16:25

I

16:25

remember we were in our room and then all

16:27

of a sudden you told me to hurry up and get

16:29

down in the hotel restaurant and

16:32

when I went down there, there were all

16:34

these women and kids staring at me.

16:37

Come come and meet these people.

16:42

That's She's saying she's your

16:45

aunt. That's

16:50

her grandmother. It was

16:59

Christobel's mother. your

17:01

biological father. And two

17:03

of

17:03

his sisters

17:05

and their kids, it was our

17:07

first meeting with anyone from your

17:09

father's

17:10

side. Everybody

17:13

cries every time they see.

17:16

They'd heard that we were visiting and they'd

17:19

come to meet you. The

17:21

women were crying. One

17:23

by one, they came over to you and

17:25

stroked your wiping away their

17:27

tears. The oldest one, your

17:29

grandmother, she went last.

17:31

She kissed both of your cheeks,

17:33

and blue on your forehead with this little

17:34

whistling sound.

17:36

I

17:43

had a dream like that once where people kept

17:45

greeting me and they were just like One

17:48

of the sisters

17:49

took a picture of you on her

17:52

flip phone. And I thought to

17:54

myself, now your birth

17:56

father will know about you. Maybe.

17:59

You know, at that time, I was

18:01

just confused. trying to take it all in. You tried to

18:03

explain it to me in the moment, but how do

18:05

you explain something like

18:07

that? It's because they thought you were

18:09

dead because death what

18:12

the man says. The whole

18:14

thing is they're related to the

18:16

man. To death? Who is your

18:18

biological father? I

18:20

think just until that moment,

18:23

Cristobal had been this

18:25

enigma and someone that

18:27

didn't really exist. but then

18:30

there I was looking at

18:33

his mother. Your

18:35

eyes were so wide and

18:38

Like, just trying to explain that to you.

18:40

It was, like, we didn't

18:42

even understand what was going on.

18:44

Yeah. I mean,

18:45

it was so quick and random,

18:47

but Dan ended up asking

18:49

me about it later. They said they

18:51

thought you were dead.

18:53

Yeah. What was that

18:55

like for you? Was it?

18:58

weird. It

18:58

was kinda weird because I thought

19:00

everyone got that I

19:01

was alive. I because I've

19:03

been like, and my aunts are really

19:06

happy to see me because they didn't

19:08

know if Israel was

19:10

home too about me

19:12

being dead.

19:13

because she gave me a way that the

19:16

next day I was born. She

19:18

just wanted to protect me.

19:20

Man, it's kind of painful

19:22

to hear that. I

19:24

mean, how did that strike you?

19:26

I don't

19:27

know. I think I've always told myself

19:30

that, you know, whatever she did,

19:32

she did to protect me. And, you

19:34

know, I guess, I'm

19:36

not really sure

19:39

who's telling

19:39

the truth and, like,

19:42

how many truths there actually might

19:45

be?

19:47

So,

19:47

Dan and

19:48

I and you, we were clear

19:50

that Isabelle was family, and so

19:52

we

19:52

felt a responsibility whenever

19:55

we visited, we pulled together whatever money

19:57

we could spare, and we'd give it to

19:59

her in consolays. What are

20:00

we gonna do when we find Israel? Well,

20:04

we have money. We saved money,

20:06

and then we're gonna take find

20:08

them Isabelle and give her

20:11

the money. because she

20:14

tried to do the best thing for

20:16

me. But this time,

20:17

you brought something of your own to give her.

20:19

Do you remember that? yeah

20:22

i'm

20:23

he has out of

20:25

here diego as see him a sweater

20:29

So a freaking napkin holder. I

20:32

made in school. A napkin holder. Out

20:34

of blue construction paper, it

20:36

had green feathers and a white snowman

20:39

glued on. I remember Isabelle

20:41

thought it was a clown. Yeah. I mean,

20:43

they don't even have

20:45

snow there. You

20:51

know,

20:51

that trip was supposed to be

20:53

just a fun trip. but when all

20:55

these hard things came up, Dan

20:57

asked me about it. He was sitting by

20:59

the lake. He asked me

21:02

questions to kind of help me figure

21:04

stuff out. So it

21:06

must be very hard for you

21:08

to feel like You

21:12

have a family in Minnesota, but you

21:14

also have a family here.

21:16

Not that art. No.

21:21

Do you ever

21:22

think what it would be like if

21:24

you had stayed here?

21:27

Well, she probably couldn't have

21:30

taken care her only?

21:32

That question

21:34

Dan asked me, do I ever think what it

21:36

would have been like if I'd stayed in Guatemala?

21:40

At the time, it said maybe I'd be hauling wood from

21:42

the mountain or picking coffee, but

21:44

I don't really know. But if

21:46

I had been born ten years after

21:49

was. We wouldn't be here talking about

21:51

it because adopting me would have been

21:53

illegal. Starting January

21:55

first two thousand eight, you couldn't adopt

21:57

a baby like me.

21:59

And I really don't think I would be

22:02

here alive today if I had

22:04

been born post shutdown We'll

22:08

be right

22:09

back.

22:10

when

22:12

visionary leaders capture the imagination of

22:14

a nation. We choose to go

22:16

to the moon in this decade and do

22:19

the other thing, not

22:21

because they are easy, but because they

22:23

are hard. When disciplined

22:25

communicators speak truth, to

22:27

power. Itlan knows

22:30

that he will have to break us in this

22:32

island or lose the

22:34

wall. if we can stand up to him or

22:36

Europe may be freed and the

22:38

life of the world may move forward.

22:42

humanity has been shaped by moments in

22:44

which one person approached a crowd

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was something important to

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say. I'm John Meacham, and

22:50

this is, it was said, season

22:52

two, a creation and production of

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c thirteen originals, a cadence

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thirteen studio, in association

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with a history channel. It was said

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season two. Listen and

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believe freedom over

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is a right. Even when your religion is

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a little unconventional. I am

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the mystic mother of the

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Phoenix goddess temple. But what

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happens when your beliefs? Sexuality

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23:42

Diego,

23:44

you know, your adoption paperwork had

23:46

more than a couple problems.

23:48

A lot of things that were called irregularities when

23:51

you were born, you

23:52

know, listen ten years later, those same

23:54

things were called crimes.

23:57

When

23:57

I was there in nineteen ninety nine,

23:59

I heard that it

23:59

was against the rules for birth mothers to

24:02

relinquish more than one baby. and

24:04

I just assumed that you were

24:06

Isabelle's one and only adoption. That's why

24:08

I was so shocked when I heard

24:10

about Carter and Gavin, your birth

24:13

brothers. So we asked

24:13

historian, Richard Nolan, about that.

24:16

She said she didn't know of any rule, but

24:18

she had looked at thousands of adoption

24:21

records. and almost all of them

24:23

said it was the birth mother's first

24:25

child. So that tells

24:27

me the

24:27

records were wrong. because just

24:29

in the interviews I did, maybe

24:32

half the

24:32

birth mothers had relinquished more than

24:34

one baby. Isabelle had relinquished

24:36

four. That

24:38

could

24:38

mean that tens of thousands of

24:41

records were wrong. But if it

24:43

was

24:43

a regular, wasn't necessarily

24:45

corrupt? I

24:46

wasn't clear. Yeah. I

24:48

mean, to get you home, we paid a lawyer to

24:50

clear up the confusion about your birth

24:52

certificate, and we're not sure exactly

24:54

how we did that. And we

24:55

didn't ask We were just so relieved to

24:58

have you. You didn't ask

25:00

then, but lots of other people asked

25:02

in the years that followed, including

25:04

Julio Prado and Claudio and Maria Hernandez.

25:07

and an American investigative journalist,

25:09

Aaron Siegel McIntyre. Yeah. A couple

25:11

years

25:11

after the shutdown, she wrote a book

25:13

about a Guatemalan birth mother whose

25:15

daughter had been kidnapped and put up for

25:18

adoption. And

25:18

she exposed the whole network of

25:21

fraud and illegal activity.

25:23

That book was a

25:23

game changer, not only for how

25:26

people in the US thought about Guatemala,

25:28

but for international adoption as

25:30

a whole. there

25:32

was absolutely an outspoken lobby

25:34

at work. You know, local

25:36

ministers churches adopt an orphan

25:38

help widows. There was a

25:40

huge movement towards adopting as

25:42

this beautiful, godly

25:46

endeavor that people should

25:48

embrace and take on and feel wonderful

25:50

about that helped everyone. And

25:52

there wasn't

25:53

a lot of critical thinking

25:55

around, well, how does this actually happen

25:58

and why? And who's on

25:59

the other end of the spectrum?

26:02

She's

26:02

pretty unsparing in her criticism.

26:05

Honestly,

26:05

my opinion is that it's just a

26:07

bit cringeworthy that American parents

26:10

would sort

26:11

of place their own self

26:14

interest as what mattered most

26:17

over literally

26:20

I I don't even

26:22

have

26:22

the words to describe it. It's

26:25

it's

26:25

a

26:27

devastating human rights crisis

26:31

in a

26:33

very small, very

26:35

impoverished very not powerful nation

26:37

that they

26:38

in part created.

26:41

That

26:41

may seem pretty harsh, but

26:43

Professor Nolan actually said a similar thing

26:45

that ultimately

26:46

international adoption in Guatemala

26:48

didn't have anything to do with the

26:50

best interests of the child.

26:52

even

26:52

though that's what everyone said they cared

26:55

about. Howard Bauchner: I

26:55

know I should be able to say it was a

26:58

terrible thing that international adoption

27:00

was closed or it was a wonderful thing given all of the abuses and

27:02

all of the fraud that came before.

27:04

I think if you are trying

27:07

to honestly take into account the best interests of the

27:09

children, which is what

27:09

everyone says that they are doing, it

27:12

is a little

27:12

bit unclear. what

27:15

is true and what I'm comfortable saying is that the

27:17

way that international

27:18

adoptions boomed at

27:21

their

27:21

height in Guatemala is not

27:23

something that I think anyone who has intimate knowledge of it

27:26

would care to repeat, given the high

27:28

levels

27:28

of fraud and coercion of birth

27:30

mothers.

27:32

We can't

27:32

forget that international adoption came

27:35

straight out of the Guatemala civil war

27:37

in the eighties and nineties when the

27:39

army began coaching children from

27:41

mostly indigenous communities. During

27:44

the war, government

27:47

forces targeted villages like Santiago

27:49

at Dinan. They burned some

27:51

down, and they raped and massacred people

27:54

who lived in them. Sometimes the

27:56

soldiers that massacred entire

27:58

villages were the same people who took

27:59

Orphan's home and raised them as

28:02

their own.

28:04

The civil war lasted for

28:07

thirty six years. When

28:09

it

28:09

was finally over, a UN

28:11

backed commission

28:12

looked into the damage. The Truth

28:14

Commission found that five thousand

28:16

children

28:16

were forcibly disappeared during

28:18

the war. Five thousand

28:20

children. and

28:22

the Truth Commission was able to trace

28:23

at least five hundred of those

28:26

children to adoption.

28:29

Professor

28:29

Nolan made a link between adoption

28:32

and genocide. She said

28:34

historians

28:35

started using a point definition of

28:38

genocide after World War two.

28:40

The first act that could be defined

28:42

as genocide is familiar to everyone, but just

28:44

killing members

28:45

of a certain group. What

28:47

is less well known is that the fifth

28:49

act that qualifies

28:50

for genocide is forcible

28:53

adoption of children from a certain group to

28:55

another group. In

28:57

other words, the forced adoption of

28:59

children out of their culture is an act

29:01

of genocide. And according to

29:04

this commission, that happened in Guatemala. So

29:06

what does that mean for the thousands

29:08

of Guatemala and children adopted under

29:11

dubious circumstances? One

29:19

Diego, that is a hard one

29:21

to sit with. I mean, we know that

29:24

Isabelle relinquished you

29:25

knowingly. Right? Right.

29:27

But, you know, when you adopted

29:30

me, People didn't think

29:32

very deeply about what it meant to take a

29:34

kid from one culture to another. It

29:36

was kind of just assumed if the

29:38

kid was loved, everything would

29:40

be okay. I mean, that

29:40

was you too. Right? Kinda.

29:43

Yeah. But the cultural

29:45

lens has shifted in the last twenty

29:47

three years. and

29:49

now we see the cost to communities

29:51

and cultures. I mean,

29:53

I couldn't and wouldn't do it again

29:56

today. For me, I've always felt like I

29:58

sort of missed out on what it

29:59

means to grow up to suit the

30:02

hue. What would it have

30:03

meant for my birth family to keep

30:05

me? I think for me part

30:07

of it is, obviously, I felt this guilt.

30:09

Like, I'm not a contributing member

30:11

to the superhero community.

30:15

like, I won't really

30:17

pass their traditions down, but

30:19

I'm really happy and

30:21

proud to know that

30:24

in something about Elon, they're

30:26

still maintaining their

30:28

traditions. They're still passing down the

30:30

language. They're still doing all

30:32

these things. So regardless

30:34

of whether or not I can or can't contribute

30:36

to this community, the

30:39

community will be there long

30:41

after I'm

30:42

gone. Diego,

30:45

sometimes I feel like the shutdown was like a

30:47

judgment about our family. on

30:49

how I got you from Santiago at

30:51

Tijuana to St. Paul

30:52

and whether any of it should have

30:55

happened. The

30:56

shutdown was such a big finals thing. It

30:58

felt like an answer, like a big

31:00

fat no. I mean,

31:02

it

31:02

kinda was. Right? I know

31:05

you feel this thing and I do too,

31:07

but I can see why it

31:09

happened. I can see it

31:10

too. but I can

31:11

also see that maybe with better

31:14

guardrails

31:14

and more regulation,

31:16

it wouldn't have

31:17

had to happen. you

31:19

know, no country in the world is sending its babies out for

31:21

foreign adoption anymore. Most people

31:24

agree that the best interests of the child

31:26

are keeping them in their own communities.

31:30

Meanwhile, my generation was growing up wherever we

31:32

happen to land because of who adopted

31:34

us. Like,

31:35

my life and our family didn't

31:37

shut down in two thousand and eight. And

31:39

I

31:39

was just the fourth grader.

31:41

Yeah. And in fourth grade, you were doing

31:44

Minnesota things like hockey and

31:46

fishing and stuff.

31:47

But when you became a

31:50

teenager, all our questions about where you

31:52

belong, they were challenged in

31:54

ways we couldn't imagine. and

31:56

the fact that I happened to land in the

31:58

US and didn't stand at

31:59

Guatemala like my older siblings. Well,

32:02

that was about to make the difference

32:04

between life and death.

32:39

Next

32:40

time, on all relative,

32:42

defining Diego. My

32:45

birthday was the stupidest, dumbest

32:48

birthday that sucked Like

32:51

and I'm always gonna remember.

32:54

And when I can't feel it,

32:56

but When you say you can't

32:58

you can't feel what? The kidneys,

33:00

like, going. Right.

33:03

So Thank you

33:05

guys for coming in today. We

33:07

do have some information back on the

33:09

biopsy that we had from the

33:11

lymph nodes. that's when

33:12

it hit me. It's like, oh my god. He

33:14

could die, and this could be the end of his

33:17

life.

33:20

Don't wanna wait for that next

33:23

episode, you don't have to. Unlock all

33:25

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33:27

Diego ad free right now by

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subscribing to the binge. our new

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your podcasts.

33:45

All relative Defining Diego is a

33:48

production of something else in Sony Music

33:50

Entertainment. It's written and hosted

33:52

by me, Laurie Stern. And

33:54

me, Diego Shikai luke. Mio Warren is

33:56

our senior producer. Associate

33:58

producers are India Whitting and

33:59

Cairo Assapebonds. Executive

34:03

producers are Lizzie Jacobs, Jude

34:05

Campner, and Tom Koenig. Lizzie

34:07

Jacobs is our editor, and we had

34:09

additional editorial help from Meghan Ditri on

34:11

episode. engineer. And we had additional

34:14

mixing by Sam Bear. Our theme

34:16

song was composed by

34:18

Galthem Shriikashant. production

34:20

management help from Iike Ibatola and Lilly Hambly,

34:22

fact checking by Natsumi Agisaka.

34:25

Our adopti consultant

34:27

is Eric Mann, special

34:29

thanks to my dad, Dan Luke. We couldn't have done it

34:32

without you. You did so much to

34:34

help us.

34:36

If you love the show, follow us

34:38

on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, or

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wherever you get your podcasts.