Please join us in the Roy Park School of Communication’s Auditorium to watch the premiere of There’s No Place That’s Home.
What: There’s No Place That’s Home Premiere
When: May 4th, 6 p.m.
Where: Ithaca College, Park School Auditorium
The Process
When storytelling on such a sensitive topic, it was crucial that we did the right amount of research.
First we went to the experts:
Joy
An adoptee from Texas herself who is an advocate as well as tells her story through the Adoptee Rights Campaign and intends to fight all loopholes in the automatic citizenship law of 2000, considering it excluded thousands of Adoptees.
Sung
Another advocate through the campaign, as well as one of our anonymous sources in the documentary helped us connect with other adoptees. Between he and Joy we were truly able to see how many people are affected by this perceived citizenship that they later in life discovered was not actually a reality.
Renee Hettich
Renee is the AGAPE Southern Tier-Finger Lakes Director at AFFCNY; Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. She served as a vital and local source for the documentary. Being a transracial adoptive parent herself, she has a personal interest and knowledge in the necessary steps for adopting foreign-born children and serves as an educational source for those who may not know what to do.
Underlying Theme
We came to realize that the majority of our documentary would be focused around the Childhood Citizenship Act, passed into law in 2000. It states that foreign-born, biological and adopted children of US are then able to obtain United States citizenship automatically. The one big caveat being: it only apply to children born after February 27th 1983. For all those born before? They must apply for their citizenship, and or go through the necessary naturalization processes in order to obtain it. Many americans who adopted children prior to this date are unaware of these necessary actions, and unknowingly and unintentionally put their children at risk of incarceration or at the very worst deportation. Leaving many assumed to be US citizens in hiding from the government.
In case you would like to learn more, and educate yourself just like we did, here are a few helpful links!
- http://adopteerightscampaign.org/aca/
- https://affcny.org/
- https://www.thenation.com/article/these-korean-adoptees-grew-up-like-typical-american-kids-then-they-learned-they-werent-citizens/
- https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/Adoption-Process/us-citizenship-for-your-child.html
AFFCNY: Ithaca, NY
One way we’ve been preparing for the premiere of “There’s No Place That’s Home” by constantly re-editing our footage. We’ve filmed a range of subjects, some from AFFCNY right here in Ithaca, New York.
The AFFCNY, or Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition, provides resources for families that are adopting or becoming foster parents for children internationally.
“Founded in 1975, the Coalition unites adoptive and foster parent groups, concerned agencies and individuals throughout the Empire State. We represent the families’ viewpoint and work to improve and expand the services available to children and families.
Our goals are to:
- Educate and support foster, kinship and adoptive parents and the professionals who serve them through information-sharing, services, peer support and referral.
- Improve services available to children and families
- Increase citizen involvement in local service planning and delivery
- Educate leaders and stakeholders about the realities, challenges and rewards of foster, kinship and adoptive parenting
- Advocate for greater support of foster, kinship and adoptive families by federal, state and local agencies”
Take a look at their resources and work by clicking on this link.
Documentary Premiere
Please join us for the premiere of ‘There’s No Place That’s Home’ on May 4th, 2018 at 6 p.m.
There's No Place That's Home 