League City, Texas, Dec. 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Self-discovery is invaluable, empowering individuals to truly understand where they come from and how their past has shaped the people they are today. It also provides answers to the many existential questions that keep us up at night: Who am I? What is my purpose? Why do I struggle to fit in? After finding these answers at nearly 40 years old, Tyler Graf established Connecting Roots, a nonprofit on a mission to reunite the thousands of children kidnapped in Chile in the 1980s with their biological families.
Though the sentient sense of self-understanding is invaluable, there is a price for it: $3,000 for every adoptee. On February 19th, the nonprofit plans to reunite seven to 10 more adoptees (from California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota) with their families. The necessary cost includes return flights to Chile, transporting the adoptees’ families into the capital, and additional activities, such as visiting the Civil Rights Museum and other places that illuminate history. While previous years have been kinder, allowing Connecting Roots to build up funds before these reuniting meetings, inflation has taken its toll, with Tyler disbursing his savings to maintain the organization’s phones and computers. He calls upon the hearts of people globally – investors, nonprofits, businesses, mothers, fathers, and those who realize the importance of family – to contribute to Connecting Root’s mission.
For Tyler, one of the nearly 20,000 Chilean babies kidnapped under the Pinochet regime, that motivation is personal. At three months old, after spending his first weeks at a state orphanage, Tyler’s adoptive parents felt a calling to embrace him into their then-family-of-two. After going through a lengthy process comprising arduous documents, home visits, and thorough interviews, he was officially adopted – a decision his parents never kept secret.
Adopted into a loving and honest family from Minnesota, Tyler’s childhood, though joyful and free of worries, has always been filled with questions: Where do I come from? What is my real story? Why was I given away? Was I not good enough, or was it just financial? These doubts crept into his mind around the age of eight, during a heritage school project that left him with a harrowing emptiness. “I realized just how much I didn’t know,” he shares. “I had no idea who my parents were, what my grandparents looked like, or if I had any siblings. Even when the doctors would ask about family medical history, I always had to put a question mark. Life just felt like an empty check box, and I was getting no answers.”
A life-defining moment happened in 2011 when Tyler, a member of the Firefighters Brotherhood, met another Chilean for the first time in his life. Filled with a sense of pride, he shared a piece of himself with Juan Luis Insunza Fernandez, current Vice President of the Connecting Roots Chile office. After telling his story of adoption, explaining why he spoke no Spanish and embraced a different culture, the brothers – volunteers who worked government jobs back in their home country – offered to look into Tyler’s adoption. The next decade was filled with silence. Tyler met his firefighter brothers annually in Houston, but there was no sign of progress. Until one day when he received a call saying, “We found your biological mother and three sisters. You will speak to them in a few days to find out your real story.”
With the ominous real story resounding in his mind, Tyler joined the most memorable Zoom call of his life. The first words that his youngest sister, Claudia, said were: You are alive! “I asked her what she meant. Alive?” shares Tyler. “Then she told me my real story. I was kidnapped from my mother shortly after birth. She was told she had to have a C-section, and when she came to, she was told I passed away. My mom and my older sisters thought I was dead for nearly 40 years. It was barbaric, but the relief I felt when I found out cannot be compared with anything else.”
Tyler’s story is not an isolated one, as an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 children had been kidnapped in the 1980s in Chile. As part of his efforts to eliminate the poor population, Pinochet and his mafia targeted single mothers, indigenous families, and the less fortunate, leaving thousands of mothers and fathers in despair. While adoption sparks millions of existential questions, knowing that one’s biological family had thought their child had died for decades adds another layer of complexity for both the adoptee and the parents.
For him, the day he found out felt like a movie plot, completely unbelievable and unlike anything he had heard before. For his mother, the experience struck her with grief. “I was told she simply laid on the floor in tears for several days. She had all these questions about my childhood, if I was raised by good people, if I had a good life, food on the table, was I out of clothes?” he shares. “It was all those things that mothers want for their children, and she couldn’t be the one to provide that.”
When Tyler found out, his empathy was fueled by his newly started adventure – fatherhood. In a full-circle moment, his son at the time when he found out the truth was three months old, exactly the age Tyler was when he was adopted. “It never made me love my adopted mom any less, but I just had this immense empathy for my biological mom. I had just become a parent, and I could understand what she’s been through. When I met my biological family, my youngest sister said, ‘Mom always said she could feel you were out there,’” adds Tyler. “That broke me. I believe it all happened for a reason, and I found out at the right time.”
At Connecting Roots, Tyler fulfills his mission of connecting the two worlds – uniting adoptive and biological families to find the missing pieces. A witness to many heartwarming reunions, he realized one thing: there are three victims. “The biological family and the child have been separated, deprived of a chance to nourish their bond. But the adoptive family is a victim, too. I’ve seen how much they grapple with the stigma, with people assuming they knew that the children were kidnapped, which is just not true,” he stresses. “It’s a healing process for everyone, and at the end, we see tears of gratitude, mothers embrace lovingly, and families come together.”
Cristina Prisco, a Chilean adoptee and Vice President of Connecting Roots, says, “We are all volunteers here in the United States and in Chile. We use our donated funds to cover expenses that we incur while traveling to the mother’s or family homes in Chile to deliver DNA test kits and to support them during the Zoom reunion call. Therefore, one of our biggest challenges is finding the time and funds to provide the in-person support that is so important and necessary for both the adoptees and mothers.”
Speaking of the nonprofit’s future, she adds, “ During our last trip to Chile in February, we received a lot of media coverage. This media coverage allowed us to share our mission and work with the people of the country, and we were able to explain how important it is for biological mothers to receive mental health counseling. We had a few therapists reach out to us to volunteer their services and now, they are part of our team. For that, we are very grateful. In the United States, while we do not have any therapists who have volunteered their services to counsel our adoptees, we have connected a number of our adoptees who speak to one another and share their experiences. We have created a support network among us and we know we can count on each other for support whenever any of us are in need. We are also still actively looking for a therapist who would be willing to volunteer their time to counsel our adoptees, as needed.”
For Tyler, the urgency of Connecting Roots cannot be understated. With children born in the 1980s, their parents are aging, some have already passed, and the time to help others find the missing parts of their history is running out. Without Connecting Roots, there will be nothing but grief, an emotion Tyler understood recently. “When my adoptive mom came to Chile with me, she was so supportive. She was keen to share her story and her emotions with other families going through the same experience, always ready to help others,” he recalls. “She left after a few days, I was staying behind to connect more with my biological family. We said goodbye, said we loved each other, and we’ll see each other on Christmas. She passed away that November. Sadness hasn’t left my heart since, but I don’t feel the sense of emptiness I used to. Now, I’m grateful I was loved by two mothers, grateful we got to have our happy ending, our clarity.”
Inspired by the profound impact of self-discovery he felt on his own skin, Tyler founded Connecting Roots, promising to bring the stolen children home. With parents getting older, Tyler calls upon the hearts of others, those kind-hearted people he believes exist and want to be part of this story, a story of unity and finding the last part of the puzzle.
Perhaps what best describes the immense impact Tyler’s mission has on the lives and hearts of others is a passage from his late mother’s journal, words she wrote during their first and last journey to Chile:
I am amazed at my son and what he has done. His organization and the people on his board all have the best intentions. He has grown and is comfortable with who he is now.
If you are interested in supporting Connecting Roots, click here.
Media Contact
Name: Tyler Graf
Email: t.graf@connecting-roots.com
