Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth

By Erin Siegal

A compelling, dramatic narrative of how an American housewife discovered that the Guatemalan child she was about to adopt had been stolen from her birth mother, shedding light on the alarming and growing problem of international adoption fraud.

Over the past five years, over 100,000 children were adopted into the United States, 20,000 of whom came from Guatemala. Finding Fernanda, a dramatic true story paired with investigative reporting, tells the side-by-side tales of an American housewife who adopts a two-year-old girl from Guatemala and the birth mother whose two children were stolen from her. Each woman gradually comes to realize her role in what was one of Guatemala's most profitable black-market industries: the buying and selling of children for international adoption. Finding Fernanda is an overdue, unprecedented look at adoption corruption--and a poignant, riveting human story about the power of hope, faith, and determination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780807001431

Reviews for Finding Fernanda

[lisamunro · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow...

Having lived in Guatemala off and on since 2004 (right now, on again!), I don't know anyone here who (Guatemalan or American) who would say that the adoption process has ever been entirely transparent. Its scope, as Siegal points out, is staggering and has remained shrouded in considerable mystery. I used to routinely see two or three Guatemalan babies with their new adoptive parents on every flight I took to the U.S. until 2007. Until the publication of this book, however, its been difficult to try to piece together through news stories the complexities of international adoption and the ethical issues that surround the practice.

Siegal has produced a well-researched journalistic work that reads like a mystery novel. It is all the more gripping to realize that the events she describes actually happened. This book features both heroes and villains on both sides of the border. Siegal refrains from making sweeping judgements about the adoption process and leaves these prescriptions to the reader to decide.
The book does get complicated in parts, with overlapping agencies, confusing justice systems, and a slew of corrupt people who all appear to be in cahoots with each other. A glossary or a list of characters and agencies would have been helpful.

My only criticism of this otherwise fine book (besides the numerous typos), is that Siegal does not address one of the core issues that creates the corruption that she describes: the U.S. demand for adoptable children. I am in no way suggesting or advocating that unwanted Guatemalan children are better off in orphanages, foster care, or on the streets rather than with loving adoptive families. Nevertheless, the rising U.S. demand for Guatemalan children creates the ideal conditions for the growth of corruption and the commodification of children. The astounding amounts of money that American couples pay for international adoptions remain nearly unimaginable to most people in a country where fully half the population exists on less than two dollars a day and socio-economic inequality remains among the worst in the Western hemisphere, if not the world.

Overall, a compelling read for anyone interested in human rights, human trafficking, international adoption, Guatemala, or justice.