Running Head: Daily Writing #9 Addition 1

Daily Writing #9- Addition

After viewing the photo for a second time, many of my feelings have remained the same.

I am still very glad that I had my mother to raise me. However, now I feel more dejected. This

photo shows hundreds of orphaned children after the Vietnam Conflict. The thought of orphaned

children is already depressing, but now I know that they were not abandoned by their parents;

their parents are all either dead or missing. I still wonder about the adoption statistics for the

orphaned children though. When we first talked about this photo, I shared that adoption rates

within the United States during that time period were at a record low, so I wonder how this

affected the number of South Vietnamese children that were adopted. Records indicate that over

ten thousand infants and children were airlifted to the United States and their allies. However,

records also indicate that over 2,500 children were adopted by families within the United

States and their allies. Does that mean that over seven thousand children were not adopted? Or is

there a missing piece of the puzzle? I also wonder if it was more or less likely for the children to

be adopted in other countries, as opposed to the United States. Lastly, this photo is sad for many

reasons, but for me, I believe that it saddens me because many of those children never knew their

parents at all, so they have a lost family history.