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2012 PHENOMENAL WOMAN

Nomination Form

* Deadline for Submission: January 27th, 2012 *

Event is on Thursday, March 22, 2012 @ 6:00- 8:00 pm

Please print all information clearly

Nominator Information:

Name: _Linda Stamato; Margret Brady and Faith Teeple_______________________________________________________

Address: 13-19 Franklin Place (LS); One Franklin Place (MB); and 13 Franklin Street (FT) , Morristown, 07960______________________________________________________

Telephone: _973-984-2230; 973-539-3005; 973-267-6169___________________________________________________

E-Mail Address: {lstamato@rci.rutgers.edu}; {faith.teeple@g.}; {MB1734@ }_______________________________________________

Nominee for Phenomenal Woman Information:

Name of Nominee: Pamela Hasegawa_____________________________________________

Address: ___29 Hill Street; Morristown, N.J. 07960___________________________________________________

Telephone: _973-292-2440-___________________________________________________

E-Mail Address: pamhasegawa@

2012 PHENOMENAL WOMAN

Nomination Form

* Deadline for Submission: January 27th 2012 *

Phenomenal WOMAN nominees are those who contribute to our Morris County community in exceptional ways. These notable women are phenomenal because through their commitment and contributions, they serve as role models, not only to young girls, but also to other WOMEN. Even in the face of adversity, they are creative, tenacious, unique and have a recognizable spirit.

Please provide brief statements for your nominee regarding the following areas that reflect why she should be recognized and honored as a Phenomenal Woman. Please feel free to submit a resume or CV only as supporting materials.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Please describe the scope and impact of this nominee’s influence on the community and/or an individual:

Where to start! First, Pam is an artist. At this site you see not only her postcards of Morristown but the way she captures our town; it’s a tribute to us and to her exceptional talent. () The series of images was the brain-child of The Morristown Partnership, in the early 2000s, the idea being to offer in postcard format a means to celebrate Morristown's history with residents and visitors alike, as well as to spread the word through a popular and modest means of personal communication. It more than succeeded. Those postcards are still found all over town and, prominently, on the circulation desk of the Morristown and Morris Township Library. Pam contributes them to the Library to raise funds for its programs.

Seeing Morristown, through her eyes, is to capture its historic and contemporary essence; at the same time, each and every image reflects her generosity.

Pam also did portraits of the seniors for the Morristown senior center, a series called “Celebrate the Temporary,” and, most recently, her collection of images from around the world was exhibited in several galleries, here, in town, and in Denville. As Marge Brady would put it:

“Her pictures never fail to make me stop to appreciate the beauty all around us.”

(Here is a link to view several of Pam’s photographs:

Pam takes photographs of her friends and her friend's families; she makes people feel comfortable as she chats with them, helps them relax, absorbs their reluctance, all the while making magic. She travels the world, capturing people in many countries, at work, at play, in repose, in grief. You can see her warmth and affection for people shine in their eyes. “Sometimes,” Faith says:

“I think I would like to put up a big map of the world and point to each country and ask Pam, "Okay, now who are your friends in this country?"

Why? Because when Pam takes your photograph, you become her friend.

When Linnea and Sergei, Pam’s daughter and son, were in elementary school, the family lived in Japan for three months and so they went to school there. When the family returned home, Pam created an exhibit of her slides, photographs, and Japanese objects. The exhibit was called Journey to Japan. Pam took it to elementary schools in the Morris School district to help children learn about life in Japan. (The Newark Museum invited Pam to show her exhibit at the Museum and, of course, she did that as well).

Her photographs always serve a purpose beyond her own; her photography opens up the world, a world she shares with anyone who is privileged to see it.

Pam is an advocate, par excellence. And much of her energy, her passion, her belief in “the right cause,” has been devoted to adoption, specifically the right of adoptees to have access to their birth records. (In many states, including New Jersey, that access is denied.) That Pam is adopted herself is central to this advocacy; it is at the core of her being. Her search for her own birth parents, for the information on her birth, led her to support the right of all others to have the same kind of information she was seeking. That sums up Pam in a nutshell. It is not for herself, only, or primarily; it is for others that she works so hard. All her reversals—just this year, when, finally the NJ Legislature approved the bill to allow the information to be given, and the governor vetoed it—add to her resilience. She has no time to be discouraged for she has to prepare for the next round. After more than two decades, most of us would accept defeat. Not Pam.

Her pursuit is not a narrow one; it is on behalf of all those who have motivated her, all those who have joined her. All those who, she believes absolutely, have a right to know who they are. She has turned the aching need she has to discover her own roots into a crusade to help others.

She has been a tireless and passionate voice for the mothers who seek to know their children and for the children who seek to know their birth mothers. While she has been seeking a change in New Jersey state law to allow access to actual birth records, she hasn’t stopped her efforts at our state lines but has assisted people all over the country who seek a similar solution in their states.

Pam’s work on behalf of both the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education (nj-) and the American Adoption Congress () has been nothing short of extraordinary. This link offers a telling picture of Pam and her forceful, and always respectful, advocacy: )

Pam is at the center of every effort in this compelling campaign. She testifies; she supports; she speaks; she organizes; she even helps film-makers! She takes and creates every possible avenue to get the message out, including writing reviews (e.g. “Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution Is Transforming America”). Here is Pam, in one such review, in her own compelling voice:

“Most of us tend to gravitate toward books that either affirm or stretch our deepest beliefs. I read Adam Pertman's ADOPTION NATION because I met him early on in his research for the 1998 Boston Globe series, watched him thoroughly explore the many facets of this complicated and bittersweet social institution, and knew that finally someone was working on a book that looked at the big picture of the "adoption revolution" that is truly transforming America.

That book is here, and put into the hands of policy-makers who truly care about the best interests of children, it can make an enormous difference in the future -- and the integrity -- of adoption in America. A charming aspect of this brilliant examination of adoption's impact on our society is that through personal vignettes, Pertman eloquently illustrates how the revolution has been shaped not by professionals but by people who have lived adoption. His respect and compassion for all the voices in the adoption experience make this an unforgettable book.”

Faith tells this story:

“About 5 or 6 years ago, a young man knocked on the door of a woman in the Franklin Corners neighborhood and told her that he thought she might be his mother. The woman assured him that she was not his mother but suggested that he visit Pam, who lived nearby and might be able to help him in his search. So this stranger then knocked on Pam’s door and within one week, with Pam's help, he found his mother! He sent the woman he originally thought might be his mother a photo of him and his birth mother and a lovely thank you card for leading him to Pam.”

Pam has suffered much of her adult life, it’s clear, because she was unable to identify her heritage or locate her birth records but, she finds her voice, not in knowing who she is in the way that she has sought to know, but in her own unique voice, the voice she has developed. And so she uses her considerable skills and passion to help others similarly situated. She is part of yet another major organization with objectives she shares. Indeed, she has been a vital force in the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association, (ALMA) since it was founded 40 years ago. According to ALMA’s web site:

“The denial of an adult human being’s right to the truth of his origin creates a scar which is imbedded in his soul forever. ALMA, the Spanish word for “soul” has a special meaning to all adoptees, for they have been hurt in the same way.”

Here is Pam on UTube:

A colleague of Pam’s, Peter W. Franklin, RPh, when asked if he would like to contribute to this nomination, responded this way:

“Pam Hasegawa is the “Martin Luther King of Adoption Reform” in New Jersey! She has battled powerful and unscrupulous special interest groups for over three decades with the utmost grace and dignity.

A simple goal; to restore the civil rights of adoptees to know their true identities, has led Pam on an amazing quest where she has given voice to birth mothers and adoptees across the globe. Her efforts reach far from New Jersey and in the end will make adoption a more transparent and safe process for young mothers. As the leader of New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education NJCARE, Pam has grown a legislative team of three or four to over thirty individuals dedicated to the truth in adoption. She has an uncanny ability to find the strengths of others and inspire us to use our talents to achieve a common goal.

On a personal note, years ago, driving home from Trenton after our adoption reform bill was defeated; Pam opened up to me and cried. She was worried that she took too much time away from her children and grandchildren. I could only assure her that passage of our bill was the goal but her body of work is what will be remembered and valued by her family. They will be proud to know that they have the same blood pulsing through their veins as this amazing civil rights activist. Pam may wonder where she personally fits into the human continuum, never having knowledge of her true origins, but those of us lucky enough to know her, know she fits in here.”

Pam has a second “cause” to which she devotes considerable time, energy and heart.

Her work on behalf of the Asia Rural Institute, ARI  ari- and the Friends of ARI: friends-  have inspired her trips around the world to help others and, through her photographs, to educate those of us who may not understand issues or appreciate the environment beyond our own backyards. ARI’s mission is to build an environmentally healthy, just and peaceful world, a world in which each person can live to his or her fullest potential. ARI teaches sustainable agriculture, servant leadership and community development; it places an emphasis on reaching the most marginalized--the poor, the oppressed--especially women, tribal minorities, and those of low caste, often called “the untouchables.”

Pam learned about ARI on site and she has been its advocate ever since. Located in Northern Japan, ARI has a training center for the education of rural leaders. Each year about 30 people from all over the world come together to take part in the training program. ARI seeks those who have demonstrated a commitment to serve people, and, particularly to act as conduits for positive change in their own communities to which they will return.

Pam has involved her church and her neighbors and friends, from all over, in this effort. She has raised funds; she has provided housing to visiting ARI advocates. She has made ARI’s cause her own.

Pam advocates for many other causes as well, from safe and healthy foods to environmental protection, to fighting political corruption, to mobilizing people on behalf of town and state, and, on behalf of “neighborhood issues,” and always, she is on “the right side.” She is a precious friend and a valued colleague.

Finally, we come to what a wonderful neighbor she is. She provides new meaning to the word.

Pam is a neighbor in the best and fullest sense of the term, the community’s conscience, its organized voice and its community center, all wrapped up in one. She organizes neighborhood Christmas Caroling for the annual Franklin Corners Christmas party; she created an e-newsletter called “Flyyourkite,” to inform neighbors of local events, such as happenings at the Morris Museum, to make neighbors aware of local musical events, to connect neighbors who might be looking for a good plumber, a car, and so on. She'll send out an email saying, among other things:

“I have some free flats of flowers. Stop by my house and take what you like.’ ‘Do you have hazardous materials, leave them at my house and I'll take them to recycling on the appointed day.”

Or, there is frequently this:

"I have two free tickets to a wonderful concert, let me know if you want them.”

The neighborhood knows that if “word” has to get out to call Pam. The word, the notice, the “whatever-it-is” will quickly appear!

When Hill Street was paved a few years ago, Pam organized a party for all the workers to thank them for the great job they had done. She asked for contributions from neighbors--food, drink, a tent, their time, their participation--secured Ford Park for the event, and, with her helpers, prepared the food. The workers said they had never experienced anything like this. And, neither had the neighborhood. It was hard to tell who enjoyed it more.

Pam was one of the founders of the Franklin Corners Neighborhood Association back in the 1970s. She initiated the idea of having tea parties at neighbors' homes so that young moms could get to meet the older women in Franklin Corners. More recently, she was the lead voice in starting and sustaining Franklin Fridays, a weekly Friday night neighborhood gathering in the summer.

Pam has been known to bring soups and dinners and chocolates to neighbors; to cook for them if they are ill; to plants flowers on their decks when they are recovering from surgery.

On one occasion, Pam met a family in Japan and she invited the son to stay at her house in the US. He accepted and stayed for a year so he could learn English; she arranged for him to attend Morristown High School. He became part of the neighborhood too!

By creatively using her email lists, she organized focus groups for Acorn Hall for the Morris County Historical Society. She makes her neighborhood/our neighborhood one of the town’s best assets!

And her old and comfortable, rambling home is the place to be, for talk, for fun, for organizing, for tasting, for providing comfort and support, a veritable hive of activity, for good, for peace, for people.

And, not just for “immediate neighbors.” Not by a long shot. She has had a visitor, a good friend from Kenya, visit her on several occasions: Kamene Mutambuki. Her story is attached, but here are snippets of it:

“I remember the day I first saw Pam; at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. I had been asked b my boss, to go meet and pick her up from the airport, and take her to Kitui, where she was going to photograph community development activities sponsored by a Canadian organisation….I spotted a woman, with no luggage but only a camera in a bag and a pillow! Yes, that was Pam and that was all she was carrying. I asked her if she had any luggage and she said, ‘This is all I have,’ pointing to the pillow, the small camera bag, and her multi-pocketed jacket, which held all she would need!

After driving several hours to Kitui, and completing their work, they decided to stay the night in Mwingi, resolving to put Pam in a guest house. But Pam resisted, insisting that she would go home with Kamene, to her mother’s house. Kamene continues the story:

“I remember many thoughts going through my head: “where would she sleep?”, “how would she react to the poverty of our rural home?” “what would she eat” etc as my mother’s home had no electricity, guest room, running water nor did we have an extra bed? I often shared my mother’s bed whenever I visited.

“I told her the facilities were very wanting but she begged me to take her with me; that she would not mind. And so I did. I think I shared a bed with her that night, and I do not remember what we had for supper. When I woke up the next day, Pam was not there, nor was my mother (I do not remember this all too well). She had woken up to accompany my mother to the river, about a km away. I woke up when they came back and Pam was busy photographing my mother and I unloading the water containers off the donkey’s back. We had our breakfast – probably tea and bread - and were on our way back to Kitui.”

Kamene relates how their relationship has developed--Pam’s trips to Nairobi, Kamene’s here; how Pam took great care to introduce Kamene to Morristown, and, indeed to her country—and how Pam helped Kamene to reunite with her uncle (who lives in the U.S.) and more. This is how she concludes her story:

“My one desire is to take my mother to New Jersey and to Morristown this spring, and enable her to experience Pam’s home and surroundings as Pam did that night in 1988. Then, our friendship will have gone a complete three generations! My mother, myself, and my daughter, and I hope that Pam will find time in her many travels to stop at an address in Houston one day and meet my unborn grandchild, Adrian Jabari Denman, who by the grace of God will be born in late March or early April 2012!”

Please describe how this nominee’s contributions are unique:

Pam may not be unique in being generous, but, in our collective judgment, the scope, depth and earnestness of her generosity would have few equals. She gives time and money to many, many causes (those named above and others, including her church) and she has been a consistent, constant supporter of all the efforts we’ve engaged in to preserve our historic and residential neighborhoods in Morristown. From efforts to clean our streets or parks or organize campaigns, to those that celebrate our neighborhood, Pam is right up front, donating what she thinks is needed, from soup to photography. Pam is always first up and last to leave.

She is such a vital part of the life of our neighborhood, from making sure everyone knows news that is important for them to know (using her considerable computing skills to make that happen!), to making sure we care about what she is sharing, and, when it comes to asking others for help, it’s absolutely clear, she never asks of anyone what she will not do herself, several times over.

Faith recalls going to a protest march with Pam and being amazed at how many people in the march knew Pam. (She had done something, at some point, for each and every one of them, or for a person or a cause they cared about).

Pam gives, boundlessly, and she is always looking to do more. She has helped Faith many times by driving her disabled son, Jason, to see doctors in New York City and Philadelphia. Jason goes to the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, every 4 months for a two-day stay. Once, when Faith and Jason didn't have a ride there, Pam said, she’d take them and off they went.

She welcomes the many people who come into her life; she lives and breathes inclusion, in every conceivable form it could take: immigrants, adoptees, young people, older people, seekers, all. And, when you form a relationship with Pam, it’s permanent. Stories abound:

. She had kept in touch with her first grade teacher, Rose, for example, visiting her in New York, two to three times a year, for lunch, until she died. Rose was in her eighties;

. Pam took in a former neighbor who was dying of cancer, who had no place to go, and she nursed him until he died.  There is simply no end to her capacity to extend love and caring to people she sees who are in need.

Pam is a living force for building and sustaining a community. She embraces those she knows and who live close to home (Morristown) and those she doesn’t know, but who she comes to know about, who are far away (Kenya; Phillipines). None are strangers to Pam. It’s really a matter of degree. Knowing a person exists somewhere who has a need--to be a better farmer; to become a more skilled worker; to learn effective advocacy; to capture a child’s image; to protect the environment; to help the world—Pam will do what she can to help. And these people she will see as her friends, not, by any measure, as recipients of her generosity.

Please describe how this nominee serves as a role model for young girls and other women:

Pam’s daughter, Linnea, is certainly where we’d start first. This young woman is her mother’s daughter. Linnea credits her mom, Pam, for demonstrating what it means to be a community and environmental activist. 

When Linnea first heard that Morristown would be accepting plastics numbered 1-7 for recycling, she, along with Jennifer Carcich, the founder of “Morristown Moms and Tots and More,” petitioned the town to agree to accept infant and child car seats for recycling.  They not only collected and disassembled over 100 car seats at their "Car Seat Recycling Day" in 2009, but they also helped to make the public more aware of car seat safety and the fact that all child and infant car seats have expiration dates.  People from as near as Chatham and as far as New Zealand have contacted Linnea and Jen for help with their own car seat recycling initiatives.  Pam's generosity with her time and energy in community activities encourages Linnea and others to follow her lead. 

 

As described in numerous examples elsewhere, Pam doesn't give up.  If one avenue is closed, she searches endlessly for one that is open or she creates one!  So, here is Linnea on that quality in her mother:

“I believe that my mother's tenacity helped me to have more confidence as a young girl and teenager, believing I could do anything as long as I set my mind to it.  One example of this was instilling in me the belief that girls could do anything boys could do, despite opposition from coaches and the boys themselves.  My mother and father cheered me on as I raced the boys in bicycle motorcross (BMX) as a pre-teen and played as the only girl on the Little League and Junior Varsity baseball teams….  Another example of my mom's influence occurred many years later when I experienced one of the most demoralizing events of my life: I failed my doctoral oral exams.  Although I considered leaving the program, I am, after all, “my mother's daughter,” and so I decided to re-take the exam.  A year later I passed and went on to finish my dissertation to earn the degree.”

Pam marvels at the fact that Linnea had enough concentration to complete such a task, and yet it was she, Pam -- all along -- who demonstrated to her daughter what it means to persevere.   In this way, as in so many other ways previously described, Pam serves as a positive role model for young girls and women. 

 

Ask the many women who gather at her home to talk about their lives, lives made more rich from knowing Pam. Alison Larkin, the author and performer, immediately comes to mind. She was able to write her book, “The English American,” she says, because Pam provided her with a room and support to give her the privacy she needed to get it written. (She is now preparing the script for the movie!). And the subject, also a “Pam connection,” has to do with Alison’s own experience with being adopted and seeking to know her birth parents. (She was born in America, adopted by a British couple--who raised her in South Africa—thus the curious book title).

Pam is active politically. She hosts "meets and greets" for candidates and displays election signs prominently on her lawn. But, there is so much more. One young friend and neighbor, Brenda Mirley, had this to say:

“I have been with her a number of times in Trenton when the Open Access to Records Act has come before the Senate and the Assembly subcommittees for a vote and as soon as it passes (the Senate) or doesn't (the Assembly), Pam goes directly to speak with the press and visit many of the legislative and press offices…  She also works tirelessly with other adoption advocates and has literally advocated for this bill for many thousands of hours.

This has gone on for 25 years and she has been undaunted and visionary in her effort to bring this violation of the civil rights of people who were adopted to the public’s attention.  She is the terrier of the underdogs...her teeth are in and she doesn't let go.  She has done all this even though she knows that she will never know the truth of her own adoption story. 

I live in admiration of Pam.”

 

Please add any other relevant information or examples of this nominee’s phenomenal character, including any challenges they may have faced:

It’s here that we would emphasize, once again, the impact of Pam’s seeking for her birth parents, that, we think, has shaped her life, led her to meet the challenges that came, and continually come, from this gnawing gap in her self-knowledge. She has profound empathy for others in need. And, she rises to care and to act as a result.

As Marge sees it, and here she prefers a quote from Charles Raven:

“Most people have at sometime or another to stand alone and to suffer, and their final shape will be determined by their response to their probation; they emerge either the slaves of circumstance, or in some sense captain of their souls.”

Pam is not only the captain of her soul, she is the soul of our neighborhood, and, her neighborhood, veritably, is the world. She is a woman who represents the best we have to offer. The three of us asked ourselves, how can Pam be one person, have so many friends, care so profoundly, and accomplish so much? And, then, how can we capture it all? Well, we concluded, we don’t know how she does it and we can’t capture it all. We’d never be done. So, this application, this nomination of Pam Hasegawa, is a beginning. But, what a beginning! What a phenomenal woman!

Signature: Linda Stamato; Marge Brady; Faith Teeple

Date: January 20, 2012

Attached:

Kamene Mutambuki’s story about meeting and coming to know Pam Hasegawa

Kamene Mutambuki’s story about Pam Hasegawa (sent from Nairobi, Kenya: January 16, 2012)

I remember the day (not the date, in 1988) I first saw Pam; at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. I had been asked by my boss, to go meet and pick her up from the airport, and take her to Kitui, where she was going to photograph community development activities sponsored by Cordel?, a Canadian organisation.

I think I must have carried a placard with her name, because I was able to identify her at the airport: a tall not so young “mzungu” – white (in the Swahili language) - woman, with no luggage but only a camera in a bag and a pillow! Yes, that was all she was carrying. I asked her if she had any luggage and she said, “This is all I have”, pointing to the pillow, the small camera bag, and her multi-pocketed jacket, which held all she would need! And there was my second myth about “wazungu ” and their wealth busted! (My first was that all white people were very clean! When I was young I would refuse to leave the bathroom fearing to step on soil and dirty myself!)

After introductions, we set off on the two and a half hour journey (160 km from Nairobi) to Kitui, the home of the Catholic Diocesan Development offices where I worked. After she met the Development Coordinator and others, myself and the then agricultural activities’coordinator were assigned to accompany her to an area near my home, where she was to meet project beneficiaries and see their activities.

I remember that we visited several activities where Pam was met by poor, but happy women who sang and danced to welcome her. I was relieved when she did not decline the meal offered, as had many other white visitors who claimed to be vegetarians without even sparing a thought about how and where the resources to avail such delicious and luxurious meals had been resourced.

By the time we were done with the women, it was late and we decided to stay the night at Mwingi. My colleague and I quickly resolved to put Pam in a guest house. I bid Pam good night and promised to be back the next day, upon which she enquired where I would spend the night, and I told her “at my mother’s home”. She asked whether she could come with me and I remember many thoughts going through my head: “where would she sleep”, “how would she react to the poverty of our rural home” “what would she eat” etc as my mother’s home had no electricity, guest room, running water nor did we have an extra bed. I often shared my mother’s bed whenever I visited.

I told her the facilities were very wanting but she begged me to take her with me; that she would not mind. And so I did. I think I shared a bed with her that night, and I do not remember what we had for supper. When I woke up the next day, Pam was not there, nor was my mother (I do not remember this all too well). She had woken up to accompany my mother to the river, about a km away. I woke up when they came back and Pam was busy photographing my mother and I unloading the water containers off the donkey’s back. We had our breakfast – probably tea and bread - and were on our way back to Kitui.

Later, when she was ready to leave Kitui, she thanked me and asked me to give her appreciation to my mother for allowing her to stay at her home and experience so much. She had had a wonderful time (according to her).

Pam and I continued communicating by “snail” mail and she send back the photographs she had taken, with copies for my mother. She was to come to Nairobi a second time, by which time I had moved from Kitui and was living in Nairobi. She met my brothers, and even later sent 100 USD to help pay for my brother Isaac’s education. Glad to report that Isaac now lives and works in Nairobi; has a wife and two children.

During our interactions, I had mentioned to Pam that I had an uncle who lived in NY and whom I had never met as he had not returned to Kenya since he left Kenya in 1960, before I was born. Pam was very disturbed by my never having met my uncle and tried many times to call him and tell him she had met me and my mother. Time passed and my daughter Sheena also went to the USA to study in 2001, and we called Pam from Houston. My next visit to Sheena was in 2007, and I once more talked to Pam on phone. In 2009 I returned to the United States again to see my daughter, and both Sheena and I decided to go to New Jersey to visit Pam and my Uncle. Before we left Houston, I talked to my uncle and his wife and they invited us to visit them. Pam met us and picked Sheena and me from the Newark airport, drove us to Morristown and the next day to New York; took us through the tourist circle, starting with the Statue of Liberty and spent the day with us at my Uncle’s home in the Bronx, taking photographs and witnessing an emotional reunion of an estranged Uncle (father in my culture) and a daughter; as well as the second generation, in the form of my daughter Sheena.

I did not initially understand Pam’s need to reunite my uncle and I, but as I spend time with her I started to realize why: Pam had been adopted and had never met her birth parents; a quest she has devoted her life to. She has championed the fight for adoptees right to know their birth parents and I am amazed by her energy and devotion to this struggle. She has shared with me most of her efforts to meet her birthmother and other landmarks in this struggle, and I am proud to know this American sister from another mother. Her life story motivates her relations with me, I think, and I am proud to have met and gained her friendship. I have met her family, and they are as warm and charming and caring as she is. From my interactions with her and a few of her friends, I notice that her friends are her also!

My one desire is to take my mother to New Jersey and to Morristown this spring, and enable her to experience Pam’s home and surroundings as did Pam that night in 1988. Then, our friendship will have gone a complete three generations! My mother, myself, and my daughter. And I hope that Pam will find time in her many travels to stop at an address in Houston one day and meet my unborn grandchild, Adrian Jabari Denman, who by the grace of God will be born in late March or early April 2012!

--

wini Kamene

POB 35402-00200

Nairobi, Kenya.

Cell: +254 722 962241 (Nrb)

Cell: +254 734 751 159 (Nrb/Sudan)

cell: +249 91 553 5579 (South Sudan)

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