Episode Transcript
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Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space to
delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth Syverson. I'm
an adoptive mom of a vibrant and insightful 20-year-old son,
Joey. I'm walking beside him while working on my own personal
growth and healing. Joey and I are committed to helping anyone impacted
by adoption, and we want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities
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better too. I'm also a certified coach helping seekers who
want to move forward in their life. So as
a mom of an Asian American adopted son, my son is from
Japan, I am always eager to hear and get to
know other Asian adoptees and especially guys. So
today's guest is Nathan Nowak, a Korean adoptee,
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a professional photographer, a Lego aficionado, a leader
in KAN, the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family
Network. And he's a dad with three little kids and
a husband and a co-host of a podcast called
The John Chi Show. His collaborators on that show are
also Korean adoptee young men, Patrick Armstrong and KJ Roelke.
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I enjoy their banter and their explorations of their own identity very
much. So let's talk with Nathan about how he understands his
own identity, what challenges he's encountered along the way, and
what tools and resources he's found to be helpful. So
Well, I'm so glad you're here to share your story. I am all
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ears. I want to know everything about Asian American identity.
I know you have all the answers for every Asian American. Well,
why don't you just start with your story, your adoption story, your origin
Thank you. Yeah, I was adopted from Korea when
I was five and a half months old. I was raised
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by white parents in Oklahoma and the mostly
white neighborhoods. I had my adoptive sister. She
was also a non-biological adoptive sister. She was adopted about
a year and a half before me and she's three years older than me. But
other than that, not much Asian representation in my hometown,
(02:14):
Ooh, that's small. Okay. So you're like the two Asian kids
in the whole town. Oh boy. Okay. And
Yeah, I feel like it was a very standard Midwestern childhood.
I mean, I grew up loving steak and potatoes and
going on family vacations and just doing everything that a normal boy
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would do, played soccer, sports and things, but very little
culture. As far as my Asian culture, I didn't really dive into anything
Korean related. I didn't even have sushi until I was in college.
So there was a few Chinese restaurants, but that was about it.
Okay. And you knew you were from Korea though. I mean, it's hard to
hide transracially adopted kids usually know they're
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adopted and you knew it was from Korea. What was the narrative
A lot of what I learned was actually from the Encyclopedia Britannica. So
that was a lot of what I read. And so a lot of that had things about the
Korean War. Little did I know that a lot of that was the reason
for Korean adoptions and how that all started. But at
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the time, that was my knowledge of Korea was that there was a war
and that there was a North and a South. That was all I knew. I didn't know
anything else. And most of the stuff that I learned was probably more about
OK, OK. And it sounds like your adoptive parents were
loving and great parents. If you were to give them a grade about the
transracial piece, I give myself an F.
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So I'm not throwing all adoptive parents under the bus, but I
give myself like a D. But you don't have to grade your parents. But what
did they do well? What did they not do well about the transracial piece of it?
Yeah, I mean, as far as raising me, they were, I think, wonderful. And
I hold a lot of my parenting skills from what I learned
from them. But as far as the transracial part, I don't think they had a
roadmap. They didn't have any information to, I
(04:03):
guess, include in my upbringing other than what the adoption agency
said. And as far as I know, they were very minimal about any material,
which is interesting because I was adopted from the Dillon Agency, which
is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I know they have camps. But
as far as I know, I was never asked if I wanted to
go to one of those camps. And I don't think my parents even really knew about
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it. So maybe they got a newsletter, maybe they got a few pieces
of mail, but I never knew about that. And who knows, as a kid, I might not
Yeah, you might have been like, I don't need that. You're younger than me, but I
know that the ethos probably when you were growing up was like, oh, rainbow
coalition, you know, kind of like everybody's the same and
we don't see color and we're trying to be unracist and
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stuff like that. Do you feel like you're kind of a product of that melting
Very much so. Yeah, I think my parents, they have said to me before
in the past that they never saw race. They didn't see that I was of Korean descent,
even though, you know, I saw myself that way. But even though I was
raised that way, sometimes I would forget. I can remember multiple times
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saying to people that I guess sometimes I forget that I'm Asian unless I
Yeah, my son has said that he gets shocked sometimes when he looks in the mirror. Oh,
really? Can you help us understand? I really want to learn
now. I know it's a little bit late for me, but maybe other people listening
have littler kids or haven't adopted yet or can
switch a little bit quicker than I did. Why is
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Yeah, I mean, the fact that they didn't see that I was Asian, everybody
else does. And so going out
into the world later as a teenager off on his own and in
high school, as a college student and as an adult, I
run into people who they first see me as Asian. And
I don't know how many times I've been told, you speak very good English and
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things like that, where it's because they see me as Asian and
then they don't understand that I was raised in Oklahoma. I
That'd be more likely. Plus you're walking around with a German name. So
when maybe they see your resume and then you show up
and they're like, Oh, we were looking for someone else. Do you get that kind of mismatch
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Oh, many times as a professional photographer, when I was running my
business, I had clients come in and they didn't see my
portfolio online. They didn't see that I was Asian. And
some of them had said, Oh, I'm surprised, actually, we thought
you were white by your name when they came in. But sometimes that actually
helped to my advantage because I did some biracial couples for
weddings and stuff. And sometimes it was great because I could relate to the
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Caucasian side of the couple and then the Asian side of the couple. I
Yeah, I bet you get it both ways. And I believe that you married an
Yeah, she was my first Asian that I had dated, actually. Everyone before
her was Caucasian. And so she's half Japanese, half Chinese,
third and fourth generation. So, yeah, always been raised
Yeah. So you both probably get questions of, oh, you speak such
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good English. And you're both like, we were faced with goodness.
It's terrible. I really minimized the racism
that is present all the time for Asian people. I thought,
well, they're practically white. Aren't they like pretty much white?
And I'm ashamed to say that now, but I say that out loud so other people that
are thinking that can rethink that and come
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to terms with that. And I've done a lot of reading and listening, and
especially after COVID, I'm sure you know, that Asians
have really taken a huge hit and lots and lots of microaggressions. Is
it possible for you to mention a couple of recent times where
Oh, yeah, many times. I mean, it's unfortunate, again, that it
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happens because you get judged by the book of recovery. It's like,
well, you're Asian. And so people will ask you questions about Asia or
about Korea or ask if you speak the language or things like that.
And when someone like myself doesn't have
any information on that, it makes me feel not worthwhile.
Like my self-esteem is knocked down a level when they ask me these
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questions and I don't understand them or I don't know the answers and
people don't realize that. That a simple little question about, oh, have you
gone back to Korea? Have you tried to meet your family? Those are
very personal questions that can really affect the
mental health of an adoptee. So, yeah, and those are things that
I definitely have dealt with and been asked many times and We
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also get into that emotional feeling where we're like, OK, well, we're
not the whole we're stuck in the middle of we're not quite Asian. We're
not quite American. We're just right in the middle. And that
Yeah, my son has said that many times. I don't feel Japanese. I don't feel American. I
feel like I don't belong anywhere. And that must feel just horrible for
intercountry adoptees in general and interracial adoptees. That
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Yeah, it does. And that's why I feel so comfortable around other
adoptees, because in a way, I know what they've been through. And
granted, a lot of adoptees have gone through different situations and different experiences, but
there's a lot of similarities. And it's just kind of comforting when
Yeah, you don't have to explain yourself or you just take a
shortcut and go, Oh, I get you. I get you. And you're very involved with
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Khan. Would you like to explain a little bit about the organization and
Yeah. Speaking of a community that I found, that's
definitely been amazing. It's something I only found, I
mean, I started the podcast during the pandemic. So that was four
years ago now, but then I found Kahn probably three years ago,
it was shortly after, and we did a little collaboration and I hadn't
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ever heard of Kahn actually. We learned about Kahn actually
from one of your past guests, Glenn Moore, and he told us
about it. And I started doing research about it and we connected
with them and did some interviews. And after
that year, I couldn't make it, it was virtual. So I attended the virtual conference. But
then I just started helping out. I joined one of their committees, and
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one thing led to another. And I'm on a committee, then I'm on the advisory committee,
and then I'm now a co-planner of the conference. So it's been
great to see all the people that come to it and
That's amazing. I've heard wonderful things about it, seen the pictures. And
I understand that you don't have to be Korean or an adoptee
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Yeah, the majority are Korean adoptees, but there are,
I mean, especially lately, the numbers of adoptees
have increased from all over from different countries. We had this year, we even had
two Russian adoptees. We have had Colombian, South
American, Mexican. there's adoptees from all over and
the Chinese adoptee population had I think this year doubled in
(10:48):
The conference is always held in June and it travels across the
country so last year it was in Chicago and then next year
Okay Atlanta in June of 2025. Yeah June 20th through 22nd. Okay,
awesome. I'm going to try to hit one of your conferences. If I can't
get to Atlanta, I'll hit it the next year, but it sounds amazing. Is
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most of your programming around racial issues, inter-country
issues, or is it just all across the board, like all types of topics?
Yeah, all types of topics. Every year, there's a theme. And usually
we try to get speakers and proposals that follow
that theme. And so last year is representation and visibility. And
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Okay, very good. Well, that sounds really amazing. Can you
talk a little bit about how connecting with
other particularly or other Korean adoptees has helped you on your healing
So as you mentioned before, the community for me is
not feeling alone and having those connections and
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just listening to stories that have some
similarities but also have differences. Knowing that my story
is not a monolith, you know, I know I have a situation where I've
had a good upbringing. I have a sister. I've even met
my biological family now. So there's a lot of parts
of my story that are not parts of other people's stories. So the thing
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I like to do is when I talk to other adoptees is it reminds me
that my story is not the only one, that there are some unfortunate stories
out there. There are some stories that have not so great
family relations. And listening to those is,
I think, very important that, you know, get stuck thinking that one
Yes, yes. There are really great adoption
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stories out there. And then I often see them kind of trying to
defend adoption as a whole entity, because theirs was
so great. I'm like, Oh, but there's so many other stories. And
I don't know, I think even if you have a great childhood, there's still this
kind of disconnect, this what you were talking about feeling like you
don't belong and racially and it's just inherent that there's going
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to be pain even if you had a fabulous childhood,
even if your parents were great with the transracial piece. I think no matter what
Yeah, for sure. And the loss continues. It's not something that is
ever just, oh, you figure it out and it's done. There's always
more parts of the loss. There's more unpacking of the loss. There's
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unpacking of emotions. I mean, adult adoptees go
their whole life finding new things out or tucking it under
the rug or going to therapy or finding new
information about their adoption that they didn't know prior. So there's always
Yeah, it's no small thing, that's for sure. And you are kind of unusual for
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a Korean adoptee in that you are in reunion with a
couple of your siblings. How did that happen? And why is it
Yeah. It's unfortunate that it's rare,
but when I started the birth search, I was told that there was a 10% chance
of success. And I had to go through this whole paperwork on
all these different outcomes of, you know, to be psychologically ready
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for what I could find or might not find. So
I went through all of that and sent in the paperwork. Unfortunately,
also, I had to pay for that, which is something that is another issue
with adoption agencies is making adoptees pay for
finding their own records is ridiculous. But I did find
out that within a month after sending in my application that they
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had found something. And it was actually one
of my siblings who lived in the same location, and they sent
a letter back. So I can remember that day
like it was yesterday where they even told me like, are
you ready? Do you want to sit down? All this information. And
I found out that I have six siblings. Oh my goodness. So I was
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the seventh and youngest of the siblings and my
parents had passed away already. Yeah. This is the part where,
you know, like we were saying, you're unpacking your trauma, finding those things
out. Yeah. difficult. Finding that it was three years
prior to when I did the search is also trauma because I was
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Yeah, right. But you just don't know what you don't know or you're not
ready or whatever. And out of the six siblings that you
This is another part of it that I don't get the best communication
with them because they don't speak English and I don't speak Korean. So we
have to go through a translation app. And as we know, translation apps are
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just not very accurate. So the dialogue is
very simple. It's like third grade level or, you know,
what are you doing? Here's some pictures, a lot of emojis. I'd
say the most common thing we do is wish each other happy birthday and things like that
and just share photos of our recent trips. But I have met
with them. My brother I've seen four times now
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and my sisters I've seen twice. Once when
I went to Korea to meet the entire family. But
more recently I actually met my brother and his family in
Hawaii. So we kind of made a halfway destination spot.
It was a spur of the moment trip too, but it was really nice just to see
him and actually bring my six-year-old son with me at the time. So
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he got to see them and play with his cousin. She's
in her twenties, but they got to kind of play and it was just kind of neat to
Yeah, my next oldest sister is seven years
older than me. And then my oldest sibling is about 22 years
Whoa, big gap. Were you one of those surprises and
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As far as the narrative goes with them is that there was financial issues
and they had to put me up for adoption. My youngest sister remembers
saying that she was hungry a lot and, you know, they were definitely in
times of poverty. So, so yeah, they, they
And I bet your siblings, because of that age range, I bet many of
them remember your birth and you being relinquished and
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It was traumatic for them and that's a part of the trauma that a
lot of people don't just instantly jump to is that they're like, oh, the
trauma of the adoptee, but there's trauma for my siblings because
my oldest sibling remembers that I was given up and
she normally probably would have taken care of me. at
the time, but she was pregnant with her firstborn. And so her
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firstborn was born 10 days after me. And so she
couldn't take care of both kids. And so there is definitely some
trauma there because when I first met her, she was crying so
much. And the only thing I can realize or understand is
that she was probably crying because she's seeing me, but she felt
guilty because she couldn't take care of me and they had
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These are the complexities we're talking about, about adoption. There's nothing
simple about any of this for anyone. It's just so
complicated and it ripples. And now you have three little kids. They're
what, like half Korean and then a quarter Japanese and
a quarter Chinese. Is that the ratios? And like
all those countries hate each other. They did at certain points and
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like, well, how are they supposed to reconcile that? So what
do you do for your kids to understand their racial identity? And
being the child of an adoptee and, oh, that's a lot of layers there.
It is. There's definitely, you know, they're still young, but they know
everything about my past. They've asked questions, you know, for example,
why my parents don't look like me and and things like that. So there
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are even in their little minds questions. And we've answered as
many as we can and we're as open as possible. We have books for
their identities in general. We try to have books that have more Asian
characters in them as well so that they can see that they can
Representation in the books and stuff. So we do a lot of that.
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And then we celebrate different Asian holidays. And so, you know, we will
go through all three of them, honestly, you know, we'll do a little, Chuseok is
actually coming up soon. And so we'll do stuff for that,
for the Lunar New Year. And then we also do the Chinese New Year. We
And so, you know, we try to incorporate a little bit of everything so
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that they have that exposure. And I don't want them to forget who
Of course, of course. I've been thinking lately about how mixed
marriages and mixed kids are becoming more common.
And, you know, in a couple of generations, there's going to be fewer and
fewer people that are just one race. I'm sure you've thought about that
because you have kids that are mixed. My wife that is mixed, too. I
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don't even know if that's the right word to say. Is that rude to say mixed? What do you say?
I say multiple ethnicities. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, they have, you know, a little bit of everything. I feel like they're stronger because
of that. Of course. Yeah. I love that they can kind of relate to
each one. And especially with foods and stuff, we make
sure that they know which foods come from which countries. And so we introduce them
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Ah, nice. I love that about Janchi Shoyu. You often end with trying
some sort of Korean food, and I guess you're the one that knows about
the Korean food. You've educated yourself as an adult, not from growing
up with it or something, but the other guys, some of them are like, I've
Yeah. I was privileged to have been in California for
20 years. And so during my time there, I definitely got
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exposed to a lot more ethnic foods than I had in
Oklahoma. So I ran with it. But yeah, I mean,
I research recipes, I cook stuff. I'm happy that
it's kind of opened my eyes to a lot of the culture through the recipes and
Oh, definitely. And it's so great that you're sharing that with your children. It sounds
like you're doing an awesome job as a parent and trying to
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help them with their own identity. I'm sure that that's no
easy task when you had no connection to your own Asian
identity as a kid. So I wonder if you're kind of living it
through them, not in a bad way, but like you're watching your kids grow up fully
Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love seeing the things that they lean
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towards. I mean, for example, my oldest son is in taekwondo, and
he's been doing that for almost three years now. And, you know,
I didn't have a chance to do taekwondo. I know I was in
karate, I think for a little bit when I was younger, but It was never
really explained to me why or what. It
was just like, oh, there's a martial art. Do you want to join it? And it was the only option.
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Now, having him in Taekwondo, which is a Korean martial
art, I love seeing that. I love seeing that they count in Korean. And
I love seeing that they say things and they do a
I got myself involved in a Taiko group,
They do. My wife did it actually. She was in taiko groups
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So fun. And I'm one of the few white people there. So I get to feel what
it's like to feel like a minority, which is very good for me. And I
love the ritual. We have to clean the studio every night and
the bowing in and all the Japanese phrases that
I've learned. And I had hoped my son would have done it with me, but then
as soon as your old mother does it, it's no longer cool. Then
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he's like, no, mom, that's your thing. Shoot. Dang it.
It's very sad, but maybe he will do it someday. It's really fun.
Oh, yeah, yeah. We played that at an event lately. That was really fun. Yeah,
that would be fun. That'd be fun. And it's so therapeutic. I love the
drumming and it's so just like, ah, you can get
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all your energy out. It's so great to find those connections. That's wonderful. Well,
I've enjoyed getting to know you, Nathan, and you're doing great work out in the world in so
many different ways. Is there anything else you would like to mention that I
No, I just appreciate the work you're doing and helping to share my
perspective and my voice. I mean, that's the number one thing why I do a
podcast and why I'm part of Kahn is because I want my
(22:55):
voice to be heard to other adoptees, because it's best to
hear from adoptee voices, not from, no offense
to your podcast or to you, but you know, because you're, but
from my perspective as my podcast, it's hearing from
adoptees to adoptees and things like that. And I'm sure there's a lot of
adoptees that listen to your podcast and adoptive parents that listen to your
(23:16):
podcast. And that's, I think, also amazing and great. I
just I appreciate that you're opening the channels for
Yeah, of course. Whenever an adoptive parent asks me what they should
do, my number one thing I have two things I say, go
listen to adult adoptees. Just go listen to their podcast, read their
memoirs. Just listen. Just listen. And then secondly, go
(23:38):
work on ourselves. But I love elevating adoptive voices. I
hope that people like my son can find those adoptive
voices that match at least partly to what he's going
through. And there are so many adoptive voices out there and, you
know, from many different perspectives and stories and histories. And
I'm grateful for all of you and keep going, keep going, keep doing it
(24:01):
Thank you. If people wanted to get ahold of you, how would they best do that?
Sure. They can get ahold of me on my Instagram account, which
is nnoak, and the last name is N-O-W-A-C-K. They
can find our podcast, which is John Chi Show on all the
Spotify, Google, Apple podcasts and
things like that. And Khan is just K-A-N. So
(24:24):
for those who say, well, the name of Khan is so much longer.
That's so funny. Everyone just calls it con, though. So it's
funny how language evolves like that. I'll put links to all of those things down
below. And yeah, I love you guys' show, The Janchi Show.
You guys are funny and you sometimes get into deep topics,
but it's a lot of lightness and goofy guys talking. And it's
(24:49):
You mix it. You do. You do a great job of mixing it up and you guys all
are really talented. So thank you and good luck with all of that. Thank you so much.
Well, listeners, after you check out the John Chi show and Nathan's Instagram account,
go find Unraveling Adoption at unravelingadoption.com. We
have a lot of really exciting events coming up, so if you go to
unravelingadoption.com slash events, you'll find really
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wonderful opportunities to be in community with each
other and learn and grow. On December 22nd, we have our
next adoptee-only medicine circle with Miyoke
Ikuro. And on January 11th,
2025, we have a film screening of Crystal Park,
one of our previous podcast guests, her documentary, Because
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She's Adopted. That's on January 11th. And heads
up on February 8th, if you're anywhere near Southern California, we're
having an in-person all day event on February 8th
in Seal Beach. Please find out all about all
of our events at unravelingadoption.com slash events.
Thank you, everybody, for listening. Please share this episode, rate
(25:55):
and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Thank you all for your support. And Nathan and I