The Anna Jinja Show
The Anna Jinja show focuses on the stories, issues, and questions connected to adoption and foster care experiences.
The host is an international adoptee with biological roots in Korea and adopted roots in the United States. As you can imagine, her journey and experiences as a transracial adoptee are multifaceted. Her experiences have been with the pain of discrimination and rejection as well as the joys of self-discovery and learning to embrace all aspects of her identity.
Along the way, she has discovered that she is not alone. We’re all – in some ways – adopted into or out of homes, cultures, communities, and relationships as we grow and evolve. This show illuminates the theme of adoption, in all ways, in our lives. And how those experiences create who we are and who we are yet to be.
Her hope is that through engaging with the guests and creative content, we are welcomed home in this world, cradled in the belief that we belong, that we are worthy, and that we are loved.
So stay tuned, and you may discover your own adoption story.
The Anna Jinja Show
Amba Elieff & Anna Jinja
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What if a poem could hold every part of you — even the parts you've been afraid to name?
On this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with poet Amba Elieff, a woman who has reinvented herself more times than she can count — wife, daughter, mother, stepmother, massage therapist, corporate survivor, and above all, a poet who gives language to what most of us are too afraid to say out loud.
Amba and Anna explore three of Amba's poems — each one a window into identity, the body, and the shadows we all carry.
Together, they dive into questions that will stay with you long after you finish listening: Are you still the original color you were born? Or have layers of life — loss, love, trauma, reinvention — changed you into something new? And is that okay? Is your body a scrapbook? Who has been writing the pages — and when do you decide to take the pen back? Have you ever found comfort in the darkness? What are the "shadows" that keep you tethered to the earth?
Anna also reflects on what it means to grow up as an international adoptee — to be placed into a box of crayons that wasn't designed for you, to feel compelled to complete a story that began without you.
This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt like they're living in the "both/and." The beauty and the grief. The belonging and the searching.