Constanza del Rio is an adoptee. A Chilean adoptee adopted in the 1970's during the country's difficulties with being led by military dictatorship. But, this story is not just about Constanza this story is about the social attitudes within Chile to the problem of father's that abandon paternity and a ruling class that views it as their moral imperative, within a catholic country, to rehome said children regardless of the means or method undertaken.

It is particularly striking in this book that Constanza speaks to the process of rehoming children breaking down among existing social class lines. With fatherless children from higher classes behind rehomed within the country (albeit often still illegally) and fatherless children from indigenous and lower economic class families being sent abroad to the United States, Sweden, Italy and other parts of Europe with no to limited regard for the adoptee's enduring safety.

Indigenous families of origin were taken advantage of and children had their essential right to know where they came from stripped from them as people panicked to cover what they perceived as the biological mother's sin.

Interwoven in the story of the political and psychological elements of the national crisis of how to manage "huachos" is Constanza's own quest and case to find her own origins. She does not shy away from the deep and painful elements of the adoptee reunion process either.

A phenomenal petite volume covering a topic that does not have much adoptee-led content written about it. I hope to see a future of increasing acknowledgement by the government of Chile at how wrong these "irregular" adoptions were to create.

Also, on a personal level, knowing many Chilean adoptees in the United States and Sweden I hope for an English edition of this book as many Chilean adoptees were stripped of their Spanish knowledge/language proficiency. Deeply this book was a book that NEEDED to be written. ( )