How it began.
For those who don’t know, I was born here. In a small kampung in central Jakarta in the end of the 70’s during the early part of the New Order Era. According to the sparse information that I have in my documents, it states that my mother relinquished me the day after I was born. The document is thin and brownish, like parchment paper, and marked with 3 purple thumb prints.
I accepted this as my birth story as my own narrative for most of my life, willingly and unwillingly. As adoptees, especially those who have been shipped from various “poor” countries from across the world, we more than often don’t have no records of our past. We learn early on that whatever we’re told is presented as the only truth.
In 2020, I started to look behind the narrative of my birth story. With the help of the Dutch-based Mijn Roots organization, founded by two Indonesian adoptees Ana and Christine, I started to understand that there was much more behind the story I had been told and much of the information that was listed in my documents were fabricated.
I traveled here in 2022 for 4 months to search for my first family, as well as learn about Indonesia’s culture. It was the first time I dug my feet in the soil of a paddy field. Rooted out on that field, in soil that my body was indigenous to opened up a completely new sensation in me. I remember sitting in tears that night realizing that I hadn’t travelled to Indonesia-I had returned home.
While the search for my first family was nearly impossible, I found myself becoming intrigued by the historical landscape that had shaped international adoption from Indonesia at the time I was adopted. Who were these women also known as “baby brokers”? Who were the birth mothers? What were the conditions in Indonesia for women at the time that they ended up selling their babies?
After my trip in 2022, I started to dig into the history and the relationship that Indonesia had with the world. Regardless of the amount of reading and information I took in, I knew I had to return one way or another. It felt like a calling. And so, here I am.
It’s easy to forget that adoption is just as political as it’s personal. That people like me are product of war, political chaos, and hardships that are rooted in indirect powers and systems of the world. I may never be able to find my first family, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t part of the Indonesian history. I’m not here to point fingers. I’m here to simply try to give context to a history beyond three purple thumbprints.
You can read the official title and summary of my Fulbright research project HERE.
You can follow my stories on my Instagram account @agrundstrom411
