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
Kelley Shinn & Jillian Kay
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Kelley Shinn was sixteen, a scholarship-level cross-country runner, when a rare bacterial infection took her legs. A decade later she and her toddler daughter drove a Land Rover from England to Bosnia-Herzegovina, sponsored by the Landmine Survivors Network, to bring attention to landmine survivors around the world.
Her memoir, The Wounds That Bind Us (West Virginia University Press), traces the whole arc. Losing her legs. Being adopted as an infant. Reaching, decades later, toward the woman who gave her up, and finding her at last through a pharmacy drive-through window in a moment neither of them will forget.
On this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, Kelley talks about what it means to reframe a life instead of just surviving it. About being, in her words, clay that can always be remolded. About walking through a door that might only open once. Paired with her story is a song that was selected just for this conversation. Jillian Kay, an Ohio University music student you may recognize from Donkey Coffee or The Union, wrote “I'm Okay If You're Okay” as a letter to her own childhood self.
After reading Kelley's story, she knew exactly where the song belonged. When she read about Kelley, she recognized the song immediately as belonging to this conversation. Jillian shares, in her own words, why lines like “roller coasters we have rode on, mountains we have climbed to the other side” felt like they belonged to Kelley's younger self as much as her own.
This episode asks a question worth sitting with: what happens when you stop editing your past for other people's comfort, and start editing it for your own healing instead?