Chris was adopted around age of 4 – 4 ½ years old, number “3” of 4 kids in the adopted family. 10 months after he was adopted the adopted father suddenly died at age 30. He was removed by the county and eventually ended up with the adopted father’s younger brother (Chris’s uncle) for 2 or 3 years. When Chris was 10 that uncle was killed in a plane crash with his oldest biological son and he went back into foster care. When Chris was 11 ½ his adopted mother had remarried and this enabled her to take him and his younger adopted sister back. The man she had married was very violent and he ran away a lot. By age 15 Chris was working in a hospital kitchen washing trays and had a girlfriend. Her parents suspected what was happening with his adopted family and invited him to stay with their family which he did for most of high school. Chris credits 5 different families and 6 mothers to get him to high school graduation. He recently graduated from Calstate LA and currently is a case worker in social work. He was able during those first few years in the support group “Concerned United Birthparents” to recognize how unhealthy all of the secrets and lies that he had kept and been taught to keep as a child were to his life and finally after decades of hiding ‘came out’, along with many other secrets he had been hiding. Chris has been in reunion for over 20 years with his entire birthfamily and credits finding his birthfamily as ‘saving his life’. Chris is a recent graduate of California State University Los Angeles; he has a BA in Sociology, emphasis on race & diversity, a minor degree in Social Work and a minor degree in Pan African Studies. He has been involved and helped facilitate Concerned United Birthparent (CUB) monthly support meetings in Los Angeles over the past years. Chris has been in reunion with his birthfamily since 1999. Currently he works with immigrants and citizenship applicants as a translator in Spanish. He is a part of the LGBTQ community. Contact: [email protected]
