Missing Mila, Finding Family : : An International Adoption in the Shadow of the Salvadoran Civil War / / Margaret E. Ward.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Ward, Margaret E.,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.) :; 8 b&w photos

In the spring of 1983, a North American couple who were hoping to adopt a child internationally received word that if they acted quickly, they could become the parents of a boy in an orphanage in Honduras. Layers of red tape dissolved as the American Embassy there smoothed the way for the adoption. Within a few weeks, Margaret Ward and Thomas de Witt were the parents of a toddler they named Nelson—an adorable boy whose prior life seemed as mysterious as the fact that government officials in two countries had inexplicably expedited his adoption. In Missing Mila, Finding Family, Margaret Ward tells the poignant and compelling story of this international adoption and the astonishing revelations that emerged when Nelson's birth family finally relocated him in 1997. After recounting their early years together, during which she and Tom welcomed the birth of a second son, Derek, and created a family with both boys, Ward vividly recalls the upheaval that occurred when members of Nelson's birth family contacted them and sought a reunion with the boy they knew as Roberto. She describes how their sense of family expanded to include Nelson's Central American relatives, who helped her piece together the lives of her son's birth parents and their clandestine activities as guerrillas in El Salvador's civil war. In particular, Ward develops an internal dialogue with Nelson's deceased mother Mila, an elusive figure whose life and motivations she tries to understand.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue:Dalila’s Hammock: San Salvador, El Salvador, February 2005 -- Part One. Our Story -- One. Adoption: Tegucigalpa, Honduras, May– June 1983 -- Two. Rediscovery: Massachusetts, August– December 1997 -- Three. Reunion: Heredia, Costa Rica, December 1997 -- Part Two. Their Stories -- Four. Putting the Pieces Together, 1952– 1992 -- Interlude. Mi fl or favorita/My Favorite Flower -- Five. Imagining Mila: New Hampshire, Summer 2007 -- Interlude. La Guerra verdadera/The True War -- Six. The Disappeared Children of El Salvador -- Interlude. My Perfect World -- Epilogue. One Story -- Appendix I. Abbreviations and Acronyms -- Appendix II. Family Names -- Notes -- References and Suggested Reading -- Index