“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you. You should be grateful!”

Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors.  She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily. Tucker centers the experiences of adoptees through sharing deeply personal stories, well-researched history and engrossing anecdotes from mentorship sessions with adopted youth. These perspectives challenge the fairy-tale narrative of adoption giving way to a fuller story that includes the impacts of racism, classism, family, love and belonging. 

with Steve Inskeep & Michele Norris at Politics & Prose (Washington DC)

with Steve Inskeep & Michele Norris at Politics & Prose (Washington DC)

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with Ken Nsimbi at Jazz Alley (Seattle, WA)

with Ken Nsimbi at Jazz Alley (Seattle, WA)

with Marcus Harrison Green at Elliott Bay Bookstore (Seattle, WA)

with Marcus Harrison Green at Elliott Bay Bookstore (Seattle, WA)

with Rachel Noerdlinger (Brooklyn, NY)

with Rachel Noerdlinger (Brooklyn, NY)

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with Steve Haruch & attendees at The Porch (Nashville, TN)

with Steve Haruch & attendees at The Porch (Nashville, TN)

Book Launch Party. Seattle, WA.

Book Launch Party. Seattle, WA.

with Kevin Henry at Village Books (Bellingham, WA)

with Kevin Henry at Village Books (Bellingham, WA)

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with Joni Bovill at Vroman's Bookstore (Pasadena, CA)

with Joni Bovill at Vroman's Bookstore (Pasadena, CA)

with Catherine Choy and Samira at Town Hall (Seattle, WA)

with Catherine Choy and Samira at Town Hall (Seattle, WA)

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  • "With clear-eyed and sometimes bracing honesty, Angela Tucker brings powerful insight, nuance, and sensitivity to the complex issues faced by adoptees and their families—all their families.

    Elan Mastai, writer & co-executive producer of This Is Us

  • "You write about your mom, Deborah, with such palpable love — trying to understand her trauma, but never infantilizing or diminishing her."

    -Culture Study, Anne Helen Peterson

  • "Tucker emerges as a promising and determined voice poised to lead the change she calls for in the adoption industry."

    Kirkus Review

  • "... a positive around the complexity of the identities of transracial adoptees is that our experience offers a beautiful perspective on the intersections of economic class, religion, nationality, citizenship for transnational adoptees specifically, power relations."

    • The Seattle Times

  • "You Should Be Grateful is a powerful mixture of personal and professional, academic and anecdotal, scathing and hopeful."

    Marilee Jolin, Developmental Editor

  • "Angela Tucker has written her heart out here. Get in, adoptees, we’re going for a ride. Tucker hits every emotional note in this honest and necessary debut."

    Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder

  • "With deft candor and keen insight, You Should Be Grateful looks beyond the political and pop cultural myths about adoption to consider, instead, what adoption looks for those who must live it. In my years of studying adoption, this is the book for which I have been waiting."

    Gretchen Sisson, PhD, Research Sociologist at UC San Francisco

  • No matter your role in child welfare, Tucker teaches us that we all have the opportunity and obligation to help preserve family ties and relationships.

    Laura, @Foster.Parenting

  • “This deeply personal story is also a passionate call to rethink the way we manage and talk about adoption in America.”

    -Booklist