Filmmaker Noel Anaya takes a hard look at America’s broken foster care system in the thoughtful documentary Unadopted. Beginning with his own story of growing up in foster care for 20 years, Anaya recalls how he lived with several families for long periods at a time, yet none ever adopted him despite his requests they do so. Anaya’s perpetual limbo status made him feel like something less than a wanted child, especially as he got older. Looking at the issue more broadly, the film discovers that “older youth,” i.e., children over 12, in general, have an extremely narrow chance of getting adopted in the U.S.
Why is that? What went wrong in Anaya’s case, and what are the experiences of other kids going through the same thing? Anaya meets and interviews several teens who faced the adoption quandary in a variety of ways, including one young man who felt it was in his best interest not to be adopted by his foster family, and a young woman who powered through her nebulous situation until she was emancipated and could take control of her life.
There’s also a success story: a teen girl whose adoption by her foster parents is granted just in time for her 16th birthday. But the most compelling material concerns Anaya himself, as he unravels his life story and gets some answers as to why he ended up in foster care to begin with. The answers, steeped in outrageous cultural and racial biases that separated Anaya from his Latina, non-English-speaking mother, when he was a small boy, will leave one brooding over our treatment of vulnerable minorities. Strongly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.