An Extraordinary Time

International adoptions first began in this country after WW11 with the advent of American soldiers fathering children abroad. They became more common after the Korea War when the Holt family of Oregon adopted eight Korean children and started a formal international adoption agency.

 

According to the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics published by USCIS Office of Immigration Statistics there were 637 foreign adoptions in Washington state in 2003. China is the most popular country for adoptive families here, followed by Russia.

 

Also in 2003, 1,771 children were in foster care and legally free for adoption in Washington, 1,204 were adopted from foster care.

 

Last month, Mark LaFond,51, and Vickie Riley, 38, of West Seattle adopted Grace Aisel LaFond Riley.

 

The 21-month-old girl was born in Russia.

______________________________________________________________

 

Vickie, 38  /   West Seattle
“It was a very natural thing for us to adopt because I was adopted.

“(Adopting internationally is a) horribly long process. And it gets so unbelievably stressful. When you’re in it you have no idea that its going to work out. You have this enormous amount of hope and faith that you’re going to have this child. And then after a year you just think there’s always this level of stress.

“I looked into a bunch of adoption agencies . I just heard enormous fees involved in private adoptions and we just couldn’t afford that. Then you go into the foster-to-adopt (option) in this country. Bottom line either way, the biological parent (can) comes back and say “Hey, I’ve cleaned up my act or I’ve changed my mind. I want my baby back.” And we could not handle having to give up our child to a biological parent because in this country the courts support biological parents and adoptive parents become long term baby sitters and that’s what we get in the media here. We hear about those children taken away from the adoptive families and that is hands down the reason most people go international adoptions.

“And here it seems like open adoption, is pretty much the way. In other words that biological mother is choosing how much she gets to visit that child. I didn’t want two mothers in my child’s life. I want to be her mommy. And that’s it.”

AIDS was first reported as an outbreak of a rare type of cancer in homosexual men in New York and California in 1981.

In that first year 159 cases of the new disease were recorded in the United States.

Today, the estimated number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country is 1.05 million people. Public Health -Seattle and King County estimates 8,400 people are living with HIV/AIDS in King County. Nationally, 22% of those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. are women; in King County, 10 percent, or 539, of recorded cases are women.

To date, 3,956 people have died of complications from AIDS in King County.

Thousands of people will walk this Saturday Sept. 10 to help raise money for services provided by the Lifelong AIDS Alliance in Seattle. For more information www.aidswalk2005.org

Eric Rocker, age 48, taking a peat bath at Bastyr University has been HIV positive for 22 years and has lived with AIDS for 10 of those years:
Mind, body and soul. It really does take all there is to survive this. I’ve been (HIV/AIDS) positive for 22 years. (At Bastyr University) they put you in a really hot bath. We’re in there from 15 to 20 minutes. I’m at 108 or 110 (degrees).

We’re very lucky here in Seattle. The western medicine people respect the eastern medicine folks. The eastern medicine folks respect what you need from your western medicine. So they really work as complimentary care.. A lot of western meds are very toxic to your system. For us, the hot (peat) baths really clear that out. As well as the herbs and vitamins that they give us.

I am a salvage patient. I am in the last ditch efforts as far as western medications are concerned. I’m on some new amazing meds which is amazing but then they’re difficult too because its an injectable so I’ve to give myself shots twice a day. And because they bruise, my body image is not as good as it used to be. But its OK because its saving my life.

When I first became positive in the early days, there were no women. I had two young baby nieces. And I decided that for the time I had left I would help in the research department. That’s what I could give to the world. And so every research project that they were doing I tried to get into.

So they figured I had become exposed from him (my husband) at some time. But because he was already so low to them it was obvious that he had brought it to our relationship. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know that he was positive. But it really isn’t a blame thing anyway. It doesn’t matter. Unless someone is going out purposely infecting other people, people have to be careful because less than a third of the people who are positive know that

(The)…research has to continue. Continue, continue, because the virus is out smarting it. Actually its mutating out from under those drugs so the newly diagnosed person is often resistant to drugs in much the same way as I am because they got a virus from someone who has been on medications.

We’re lucky in Seattle because the stigma has changed some. The community in Seattle is more open to people of all kinds. And they’re very aware in this city. But in the rural areas, and I mean just a little bit away, you end up in the same thing as in the old days. We still have to be careful.

You’re in such a low, low place. Your identity, your job, your everything is gone all at the same time. And then you have to fight your way back.

People who aren’t positive can help and they can try and understand but until you really face you’re immortality, you can’t really understand it. You can understand it on an intellectual level. But you can’t understand it on a soul level until you’ve been there.

Last month Forbes ranked Seattle as the most overpriced city in the country citing a huge gap between income and housing costs.

Consider these statistics from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service: in 1990, the average price of a home in King County was $166,270; in the first seven months of this year, the average price reached $394,783 – an increase of 137 percent.

Back in 1990, the median household income in Seattle was $29,353; by 2003 it had reached $49,469 – an increase of 69 percent.

When a 105 – year-old fixer-upper recently listed for $329,950 on Northwest 61st Street in their “hot” neighborhood, residents shared their thoughts on the changing face of their block.

Kellie Holzer, age 31
“I rent a room from my boyfriend who owns a house. Its down the street from the house that I live in and I’ve always admired it from the outside and I would LOVE to be able to buy it myself and renovate it because I think it’s a great fixer-upper. Not a chance in hell (can I buy it). Not on my own. I don’t have a down payment and I definitely don’t have the motivation and the know how to fix it up myself. I’m sad. I love this house. Absolutely love this house. I really hope that a nice person or people buy it and fix it up the way it should be fixed up because I think this house deserves love.”

Gwen Weinert 25, and Steve Roberts, 30
Gwen: We just live across the street and we just wanted to see what the market was like over here. We just figure there’s going to be condos going up here. Right now we’re just renters. I’d like to buy but I don’t think we ever would be able to in Seattle.
Steve: It’s too expensive here. The housing market is ridiculous.
Gwen: I actually was just talking to my neighbor yesterday, and he’s looking to buy a house. (He’s) a first time owner, and he’s right at about the level where this is the place he would get. Either fixer-uppers or really small. And usually you just get outbid right away by someone who’s funded, and who can just come in and pay cash for the property and tear it down and build condos and sell them and turn them. It happened a block over last summer. They sold their house at this time and there’s already people living in new condos.

Don Black, age 51 and Cindy Black , age 45
Don: We live in the neighborhood and we were just checking out the house. We’ve seen the elderly lady that used to live here and we thought this is our opportunity to take a look at her house.

The neighborhood has changed in that older folks are dying, younger families are coming in, and there’s a lot more condominiums. Lot of 4-packs,and 6-packs,and 8-packs. It is changing the face of the neighborhood. Nobody wanted anything to do with Ballard 20 years ago. We were the brunt of everybody’s jokes. but Ha! Ha! Now we’re not.
Cindy: I think it would be difficult to afford a house like this with the incomes that people are making right now. Everyone’s guessing. You hear people saying it’s going to bust any time now.

Patti Shaw, age 54
“I came to look at this house because my dear friend Rose lived here (Ballard) for 60 years I think. I used to kind of look after her. I guess I came for one last visit. She was so proud when she bought this house though on her own. She was a single Mom. She worked at the Bon. It was a big deal for her to be able to buy this house.

“When we first moved in here there were little old ladies. There was an old lady Martha, Rose, and Martha next to us, and Ethel across the street, and Alice down the street. I think most of them were widows. There’s one more. There’s Betty across the street.”

At Rainier Avenue South and South Garden Street, a shrine was erected for James Monroe, 28, shot and killed by Kent police on July 23 after trying to speed away from a traffic stop. A block away, a neighborhood that prides itself on its diversity is struggling to shed its crime-tainted reputation.

National Night Out, an annual effort to help neighbors get to know each other and fight crime, resulted in 790 block parties across the city. The 98118 ZIP code, which includes Brighton and other neighborhoods in Southeast Seattle, is among the most diverse in Washington, according to state and city data.

Brighton resident Matt Hendel, 36
We’re trying to improve our neighborhood. We’re trying to do it through knowing our neighbors, going on neighborhood walks . . . trying to improve especially (the) Rainier and Othello area. There’s been a lot of problems down there – a lot of crime, drug dealing. We’re trying as a group of neighbors and as ROSA (Rainier Othello Safety Association) to make it a nicer place to live. . . . “The first day we had a ROSA meeting and I came home from a trip and there was a car flipped over in my front yard. Some guys had stolen a car, there was a high-speed chase in my neighborhood, and it landed in my front yard. That was really a wake-up call. Like, wow! We gottado something! None ofmy kids were out playing in the yard, thankfully. “When we do our biweekly walks, the police officers always come with us. It’s a fairly diverse group of neighbors. It’s an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I’m not Jewish but there’s a variety of different people here from different climes.

Sgt. Cindy Granard, 44, a Seattle police officer with the South Precinct Community Police Team
We did this (National Night Out) last year. It was the first year, and everybody was amazed that there were so many children because people sequester themselves away in their houses because of some of the stuff that’s been going on. And this gives them power to come out, block off the streets, get to know each other, talk about issues, and start looking at ways to resolve them. What we’re seeing is more families with young children coming into the area, buying affordable housing. It’s a very diverse and attractive area culturally. You see everything from different cultures, religions, ethnic backgrounds, age groups, longtime residents and then new ones that are moving in as well. “They want to establish a sense of community identity and pride and that’s what they came up with. ‘ROSA, curbing crime one street at a time.’ Crime prevention through environmental design. We talk about beautification, looking at things and designing them so positive . . . groups come into the area instead of negative ones. How do we bring kids, how do we bring people into this area and make it attractive for them but not so much for the drug dealers and the criminals and the prostitutes?

Brighton resident Jeremy Valenta , 36
A subject was involved in an incident with another police agency and was shot and killed and so some of the local gang members erected a street shrine and there was real concern about gang activity, any escalation of violence, and concern that we don’t want our dear community friends being background to shots fired or at the wrong place at the wrong time being an innocent bystander. So we were very cautious and postponed an initial neighborhood cleanup. That to cleanup around the street shrine might be construed …some of the gang members have taken exception to that because it was a police involved shooting. Justified or not, they don’t care. That’s kind of where we are.