Relief from Relief?: Greek-Born Adoptees “Talk Back”

Abstract

When the first waves of Greek children reached the USA in the early 1950s, to be adopted by American parents, this overseas adoption movement was presented as the US humanitarian relief effort of the postwar days. It was also the feel-good story that captivated western public opinion for years to come. It was one of the central narratives of Cold War US aid to Greece. But when the Greek-born adoptees, as adults, started to speak and write for themselves, as they have done since 2011, a different narrative emerged. This new narrative destabilizes the purported humanitarian “rescue” of “Greek orphans,” and it merits our close attention. The adoptees’ own memoirs drive the ex-centric, the extra-ordinary, the de-centering narrative on US relief of the past twelve years (2011-2022). Their testimonies help to power the field of critical adoption studies, which itself emerged around the year 2000. This article presents a critical analysis of adoption stories written by Greek-born adoptees: two book-length memoirs and a collective volume of shorter essays, all published between 2019 and January 2023.

Keywords

• adoptee testimonies
• cold war greece
• critical adoption studies
• international adoption
• us aid and relief efforts