Guatemala 2009

Juan Carlos Albarrán visited our class on February 19th to speak about immigration. This is an issue that affects not only people in Latin America and the United States, but all over the world. Juan Carlos first divided us into groups and then gave us a recent article about a specific issue in Guatemala. My group received an article about controversial adoptions that were taking place in the countryside of Guatemala. Many of the children that have been adopted from Guatemala in recent years have been handed over to citizens of the United States with little knowledge of the children’s backgrounds. There are reports of men paying overburdened mothers for children, and then selling them to parents who are desperate for a child. This issue struck me personally because a close family friend has recently adopted two boys from Guatemala. A great documentary about Guatemala, called Discovering Dominga, also touches on this subject. Dominga was born and raised in Guatemala, however her immediate family was killed in the civil war that was raging in the 1980s. She was sent to a state orphanage and later adopted by a couple from Iowa. Dominga was not aware that she had aunts, uncles, and cousins who were still alive and could have taken her in and raised her. There is no easy solution to the poverty and other issues that force mothers to give up their children for international adoption, however it is important that adoptive parents discover as much about their potential children as possible before changing the child’s life forever.