Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Adoption: The Making of Me. An Oral History of Adoptee Stories
Episode: Santo: The Journey to Belong
Description: Dr. Santo D. Marabella, born in a Catholic orphanage in Aosta, Italy, and flown to the United States just one week shy of his first birthday, was one of over 3700 Italian-born children adopted by Italian American parents between 1951 and 1969. Known as the “Baby Scoop” era, tens of thousands of Italian unwed mothers were forced to give their children up for adoption, leaving behind generations of children devastated by their perceived abandonment.Though he was the treasured only child of his adoptive parents, Santo was bullied by his peers and struggled from an early age to fit in a...