SHADES OF
BELONGING
DAVID MCCARTY-CAPLAN
#WHATSYOURWHY
Born in Bogotá and adopted and raised in a Jewish family in the U.S., Dr. David McCarty-Caplan created a groundbreaking national research study and initiative exploring the experiences of Jewish adoptees of color. A researcher, educator, writer, and consultant, he’s been Jewtina y Co.’s director of research and evaluation since 2023
Jewish families adopt at twice the rate of the general population in the U.S., and families of more than 500,000 American Jews have been directly impacted by adoption. It’s estimated that 66% of Jewish American children adopted between 2000 and 2009 were born in another country. By the 2010s, 76% of these adoptions were non-white children adopted by white parents
On Sunday, May 5, all are welcome to join Shades of Belonging, a community festival celebrating the study, the initiative, Jews of color (JOC), adoptees, and their families and allies. Come explore the creative expressions of JOC artists, learn more about David’s findings, and enjoy a vibrant gathering at the Skirball
I’d love to start with you and your work — how you see your work and what you’re interested in doing with it
I've gone through a pretty huge career shift over the past couple of years, which has really come from finding space and belonging in Jewish community, and from exploring my own complex identity in a way that I hadn't been able to until a few years ago.
What I mean by that is that I was raised in Judaism, by a white family, in predominantly white, reform Jewish congregations in the midwest and on the east coast. And I loved my Jewish community. I was always engaged in youth groups, I did the whole NFTY thing, I was the president of my temple youth group as a high schooler, bar mitzvahs and confirmations and all that. It was very much a community that I reached out to and wanted to be a part of.
And yet, somehow, simultaneously, it always felt like I wasn't fully a part of it or accepted in it, due to adoption — the sense of being seen as somebody who was brought into the community. I often had my Jewishness questioned, not always maliciously, but, like, tons of microaggressive comments. Like, where are you from? Or, oh, so you're not really Jewish? Or, oh, those are your parents? Even looks, or glances, or the way they interacted with me in Jewish spaces would often signal to me that I'm not what they expected Jewishness to look like.
That was really hard for me to grapple with, especially since at the same time I was realizing that adoption — I think for all adoptees — is a traumatic experience. That's a hard perspective for many people to accept. In Judaism specifically, adoption has often been characterized as a benevolent act, a mitzvah, a tikkun olam kind of thing where you're helping to heal the world by taking in a child in need.
As a kid, I very much internalized that narrative around adoption, and looking back it didn't allow me to really express the hurt of losing my family of origin. From being taken from my family of origin. Because to bring it up — or to be upset about something most people told me I should be happy about — felt like I was being ungrateful. Or that I might threaten the relationship I have with my family who adopted me.
“Being so intent on looking for a place of belonging, finding a community — I think all adoptees seek that. And then at the same time realizing that in Jewish communities, I often felt not Jewish enough. In Latino communities, I often felt not Latino enough. In white communities, I often felt not white enough. In all spaces, I often felt like not enough.”
It wasn't until I was in my late thirties, in 2019, that I did a fellowship through Bend the Arc — the Selah fellowship leadership program for Jews of color. It was the first time I ever sat in a room that was 100% Jewish and 100% people of color, all with very different, complex stories of who they were and how they're trying to find belonging. And it just felt like I could breathe for the first time. It makes me emotional, because it was an awakening — I can be fully Jewish, I can be fully Latino, and I can be fully adoptee here. And people aren't questioning me.
Analucía, who founded Jewtina y Co., was in that fellowship with me. We met on the first night. We had a long, long conversation about really hard stuff — about being Latino and Jewish, about Israel, about America. And it was so awesome to find somebody who looked at me in a way where I felt valued in everything I was coming from, who also shared very different perspectives and experiences. And she is fully Latina and Jewish, and it was just, like — oh — I’ve never had this before.
So it started a process of me looking for more and more of that. I'm a researcher. I'm an educator. I'm a consultant. I have a Ph.D. in social work. How can my skills be used in this new arena of JOC led organizations and JOC focused Jewish community change? How can I use my voice and express my story and personal experiences in a way that resonates with others? That allows for doors to be opened to them — so that they can have those moments of feeling seen and heard that I now know is possible.
Jewtina y Co.’s staff and advisory board
How did you begin the process of the study? What is it bringing to light?
It's very connected, obviously, to my personal experiences. As a researcher, one thing I feel very strongly about and like to push back on is the idea that research is objective. And I think that that's okay. I actually think there's great value in owning your positionality when asking complex questions and doing rigorous inquiry. Of course that includes biases and limitations. But we should own those and still walk proudly into exploring new content areas where maybe those voices have not been heard before.
For me, the study really came out of my own process of exploring adoption and what that’s meant to me as a dad. My perspective on adoption drastically changed the minute I had my first child. The first thought that came to my mind was what it would take to have to give this child up? What kind of dire straits must I be in? For that to be a choice? You'd have to kill me three times to take my kids. And it got me thinking immediately about how much loss it must have been for my birth mother to give me up.
That moment just flipped everything in my head. My perspective about adoption became much more critical. And I started trying to learn more about it. To explore it. To open myself up to asking questions I hadn't asked myself before. To have conversations with my adoptive parents — who I love and appreciate beyond measure. And it’s hard. It’s just hard healing that I think adoptees need to go through.
David and his family
At that same time, I was also finding other people who were adopted. And I started hearing more stories that seemed similar. I met more and more Jewish people of color who were, like, we love our religion and our Jewish community. And also we don't feel comfortable in it, and that sucks.
That's where the study started coming from. I was exploring these things in my own life, and I started looking in literature to see what I could learn about adoptee trauma and religious identity. What are the things their parents struggle with having adopted kids of color?
I found almost nothing related to Judaism in those spaces. Which was kind of shocking to me, because there were a few bits of evidence suggesting that adoption is incredibly common in Jewish communities in the United States. We're disproportionately likely to adopt within Jewish communities — I think it's something like two times more likely than the general population. And yet there are no studies about what that experience is like for the people who are adopted. Generally speaking, adoption research tends to focus on the experiences of the adoptive parents and often doesn't give much attention to the experiences of adoptees. And certainly gives very little attention to the birth families, the first families.
So I saw a glaring gap, and it was a gap that was my lived experience. At the same time, I happened to learn about the Jews of Color Initiative, and I started talking to people about this idea. And they were so eager to talk about it. And I thought, this is happening naturally — let's make it a thing. What would it look like to make it a thing?
David, his family, and Jewtina y Co. leaders Dr. Analucía Lopezrevoredo and Kimberly Dueñas
For me, I think the real value is in the complex and nuanced experiences of adoptees themselves. In two months, we got more than 115 respondents for a quantitative survey. I'm still going through that data. There's a lot in there. The quickest thing that became apparent to me, which kind of blew my mind, was that at the end of the survey, I had a question — if you're interested in participating in a qualitative interview, an hour long interview, let me know.
I was expecting maybe 20 people. That we would maybe do 15, 20 interviews. And out of 115 people who took the survey, more than 85 people asked to do an interview. I'm still floored by that. Because what that tells me is that the people who saw the survey really want to talk. They really want to share their stories. So far I've completed 30 qualitative interviews, all with adoptees of color, most of them adopted from foreign lands, all raised in Judaism, specifically by white parents. So there are transracial and transnational angles to it as well.
And I've spent the past month doing 30 interviews with people who feel like my siblings. The adoptee people feel like my people. I used to literally introduce myself in Jewish circles as the only Colombian adoptee you'll ever meet. I thought I was the only one. As a kid, to feel like you're the only one, in some ways you're proud of that. But it’s sad to feel like you're on your own. I felt isolated. And while I haven't done all the qualitative analysis yet, I can tell you that it's very clear that there's a desire for community. There's great tension and discomfort and isolation in Jewish community as they've experienced it, in most cases. And more than anything, there's a sense of excitement that they have somebody to talk to about this. The amount of people who were visibly and emotionally touched by the process of talking about this — it feels incredible. And it's therapeutic for me, too, because I have the opportunity to see myself in them as much as they see themselves in me. And to have their voice lifted up feels like I'm being able to lift up mine.
What’s in your thinking behind bringing this to the larger community with a festival?
I think it's so valuable, particularly for the larger Jewish community, to understand that adoption is not all roses and sunshine. It's a traumatic experience that needs to be addressed with integrity and consciousness.
My first plan was to essentially do a traditional presentation of the data. But then I thought, what if we just needed a celebration, not just research? Right? What if it was a celebration of adopted community? So many JOC adoptees love and adore their white adoptive families. So it's not just an adoptee celebration. I want to celebrate the family.
And then I started talking to all of these other non-adopted Jews of color who I work with and know as dear friends. And there are so many similarities — unique differences, too — around being a biracial Jew, around seeking belonging. And so then all of a sudden this is about JOCs broadly, and this is about adoptees, and this is about families.
And then I'm talking to my white, non-adopted, Jewish and non-Jewish friends, and they're so excited to see me so excited. And I'm, like, this is about allyship, too. Who wants to show up for us, to learn more, and to hopefully carry forward some of these stories in their own communities? So we, the ones most impacted, don't have to be doing all the lifting.
“And so, instead of just a research presentation, I thought, let's throw a giant festival and bring as many people in as we can. Center the voices of JOC communities, specifically adoptees, so we can know we are valued in Jewish community. And we can share our stories in a way that hopefully will change people's perspective of what Jewish is.”
With the Jewtina crew in Colombia
I’m curious about your methodology — how you found these people, how they found out about this, and what went into your thinking about how to collect these experiences
The recruitment was always going to be the hardest thing. Because you're finding a very disconnected, somewhat hidden population. That's why the interview part is so important. The survey data is valuable to show big picture stuff, trends, significant statistics. But the interview is where I really felt I could let people know that their story mattered as an individual story.
A lot of it was finding Instagram handles, people focused on adoptee issues and JOC community, and reaching out many, many times to remind them that this was happening. I was literally calling synagogues — hey, would you put this in your newsletter? It was a lot of me hustling and trying to find places where there might be a few Jewish adoptees who wanted to talk. It took a lot of work. I'm really proud that I was able to get the sample that I did.
With the survey, I was really purposeful to try and be as inclusive in language and options as possible. Even how you ask about race is really important, because people really feel some kind of way about how they're asked those questions. I know I do. I'm trying my best to have a survey that’s reflective of the complexities of the population I'm trying to reach.
One thing I thought was so fascinating, that somebody wrote in a comment on the survey, was, like, “Hey, I really am excited you're doing this work. But just so you know, it was hard to answer some of these questions. I'm a person who started in foster care and was adopted once, and then that adoption fell through, and then I was adopted a second time.”
And I hadn’t created an option for people to demographically identify their path. I missed that. It was that one person who really helped me understand that even knowing what I know about adoption, I have my blind spots. And I was really happy that that person was able to express that in a way that hit me and in a way that I was able to absorb.
With any quantitative research, you're going to miss unique experiences like that. Some. But hopefully you learn from that. And then you can go back and do better next time, which I hope to do.
The interview stuff, that to me was all about — how do you create a space where people can quickly feel like they can share some deeply personal information? That often is upsetting? That certainly is not easy to dig into? Why would somebody want to tell me about racial harm or adoption trauma when they met me five minutes ago? Why would they open up to me? And so I took it as a challenge.
A phrase I use a lot with the way I approach these things is radical vulnerability. I try and present in a way that is hopefully vulnerable to the point that it encourages other people to share in that human vulnerability themselves. I think that capacity, for adoptees, is often referred to as a superpower. It's empathy grounded. We have deep hurt from our earliest memories. And I think that allows us to feel deep, big emotions in a way that allows for compassion and empathy to be more quickly present in how we conduct ourselves. When we find each other, it's, like, oh — we have a similar shared trauma bond. Let's see if this opens up our communication.
I would say it was remarkably successful with regard to how open people were. I wanted to make sure that they knew that if it was upsetting to them, or activating to them in any way, that we could stop. That the conversation was fully under their control. That my goal was to create a warm, welcoming, kind space to allow them to share. And if I wasn’t meeting that mark, I wanted them to tell me, because the last thing I want is for them to feel burdened or hurt through the conversation.
And then I could share that I know what it feels like when people ask questions about adoption that are insensitive. It's very common for adoptees to be asked deeply personal, potentially harmful questions, with no recognition on the part of the person who's asking why that might be upsetting to us. So I wanted to make sure I started by letting them know that I know that, and hopefully we could have a conversation that didn’t feel that way.
Hearing you talk about the eagerness of people responding to the survey, expressing so much desire to sit down and talk about their experiences and to find community — will this be the first time they’re all going to be invited to the same place together? Have you been able to convene them, to connect them, in any way already?
All of this — the study, the festival — has led to creating the Shades of Belonging Initiative, which is now a website and an Instagram handle, and I've invited all the research participants and other people who are interested in this topic to join a virtual community. When I publish something, I want to make sure they can all get it easily. When there's an opportunity for us to come together and show support for something, I want to have a way to reach out to them. I want it to even be a place where it's, like, hey, we're doing a Zoom hangout. Or there are people in Chicago who want to meet up for dinner — who's around?
My wife asked me, are you creating a nonprofit? And I don't know. It could be. Right now, it just feels like we're in this nascent stage of building something. I don't know what that's going to be 100%. But it feels good. It feels aligned with where I am currently. And there’s a lot of overlap with organizational spaces that have ties to Jewish adoptee communities. Jewtina y Co. is one. Lunar, which is Asian Jewish focused, is one. Places like Nefesh, Ikar, Be'chol Lashon, The Braid, SIJCC. And NuRoots, of course. JOCI has been a huge supporter of this work. The Foundation for Jewish Camp has been really supportive. It's so exciting that all of these groups and organizations, among others, are eager to sponsor the event and sponsor the research. It's just been really cool to lean into something that means so much to me and find other people who also see value and want to support it.
You spoke beautifully about your realization of who belonged at this festival. How invited should the wider community feel? What are some things you might recommend or encourage them to know or think about?
It's a hard thing to answer, because I have concerns and worries, and dreams and hopes, and they're not always in line with one another. I'll use my own family as an example. My adoptive family has been immensely supportive and kind and loving to me my entire life. And I'm very fortunate because I know that's not always the case, particularly with adoptive families. And at the same time, I know talking about adoption as an experience grounded in trauma, or one that has caused hurt and upset in me, is still very hard for them. And I often worry about their feelings if I express a critical or conscious reflection on my adoption experience.
Basically, I'm worrying about upsetting my parents, because I know they love me and they care for me. And they did what they thought was right to the best of their capacity at the time. And I think it is very likely that my appraisal of adoption now could make them feel sad or upset. But I need them deeply to stand with me as I go through the process.
With regard to this event, what I hope is that white, non-adopted people see that as their charge being present. Come with the intention to listen. To maybe feel uncomfortable. And also to know that we adoptees and Jews of color need people who are in other communities to know about our experiences and to stand next to us and fight with us for the things that we see are valuable.
David and his sister Julia
For those who might be thinking about coming to this — I want everyone there. I just want it to be a joyful celebration of JOC and adoptee experiences. Every artist and musician who’s participating is a JOC or JOC adoptee. Every activity is centering those voices and experiences. We’ve got a theater performance. We’ve got a film screening that's grounded in this. I feel honored that I found all these great artistic and brilliant minds that are coming together to celebrate.
That’s the focus. And I know that sometimes when there's Jewish gatherings, JOCs don't feel as comfortable as if it was just us with us. But for me, for this event — it's important that families that may not be JOC also feel like they're part of us, too. My sister is white and non adopted. And she's always been my greatest ally and champion. I want her to feel like this is an opportunity for her to celebrate our family. My kids are Irish, Jewish, Colombian. Their mom is white and Irish. I want it to be a place where the true breadth of multicultural Jewishness is on display, centering the voices of the JOCs, and with true consistent allyship grounded in listening and a desire to learn.
SHADES OF BELONGING
COMMUNITY FESTIVAL
SUNDAY 5.5
SEPULVEDA PASS
All are welcome to join our friends at Jewtina y Co. for a community celebration of Jews of color, adoptees, and their families and allies. Explore the creative expressions of JOC artists, gain insights into the JOC adoptee experience, and enjoy a vibrant gathering at the Skirball