Coming Out of the Fog of War and Adoption Trauma: Central American Adoptees and Social Media Support Groups

Abstract

By looking at the intersections between social media networking, affect theory, and digital meaning making, this article considers the ways in which children adopted from El Salvador and Guatemala to the United States during a period of war and political instability have used support groups on Facebook to build community and find acceptance for their hybrid identities. Drawing on 16 interviews with now young adult adoptees, I establish how Central American adoptees use online community building as an aid in suturing online and offline worlds in their efforts to create visibility and belonging for transnational/racial adoptees. Still, I argue that these are contested spaces, which may be better suited for individual rather than collective healing.