Van Steen, Gonda,   “‘Are We There Yet?’ The Greek Adoptees’ Road of Return–An Essay.” In  Ergon: Greek/American Arts and Letters , edited by Y. Anagnostou (7 July 2018, online, 10 pages): Author’s Note:  In the second half of May 2018, I traveled to Greece with four Americans who, when they were children in the 1950s, were dispatched by Greece for adoption in the United States. Marianna, Linda, Jay, and Lori come from all corners of the States, but their common roots lie in or near the port of Patras. We visited various places that were important landmarks of their earliest days and months. For all four of them, the trip was a direct encounter with Greece and its people and also with their adoption history. The participants also spent ample time getting to know each other. I observed them and kept a travel journal. I encouraged them, too, to write down their own impressions and to share pictures. The essay below reflects our collective effort capturing and reli...

BLACK-MARKET BABIES SEARCH GREEK RECORDS FOR BIRTHRIGHT By Nikos Konstandaras, Associated Press Published 1 September 1996 in the Houston Chronicle ATHENS, Greece - Forty-one years ago a frightened Greek child of 5, stolen from her mother, landed in America to begin a new life. Raised in an orphanage and by foster parents and told her mother had died in childbirth, young Amalia Balch and dozens of other children that October were herded aboard an airplane in Greece. When the plane landed in New York City, adults streamed on board to claim the children they knew only by photographs, the kids they had adopted by proxy. ""I remember being very sick, and a plane full of children . . . and being very scared," she said. Today, at age 45, Amalia Balch still doesn't know if she was a black-market baby, if her adoptive parents paid money for her. She hasn't pressed the point, but she suspects they did. Over the past 10 years and five trips to the coun...