How do we understand the histories that adoption interrupts—and the relationships, cultures, and possibilities that remain? BGHRA has added resources for adoptees, families, descendants, and adoption researchers exploring these questions.
Grounded in Black German histories and lived experience, these pages bring historical context into conversation with identity, belonging, records, and citizenship. They can be read together or explored wherever your questions begin.
Black German postwar adoption history
Our Black German Postwar Adoption History page introduces the circumstances in which children born in postwar Germany were adopted abroad. It considers the varied experiences of children and families, the role of racial ideas and institutions, and the later work of searching, reconnecting, and building community.
For adoptees and relatives, the page offers context for personal histories that may have been difficult to explain. For researchers, it encourages attention to the diversity of adoptee experience and to the community knowledge through which these histories have been preserved.
RCTA–TRACE: adoption, culture, and belonging
Peña’s RCTA–TRACE framework offers an introduction for adoptees and their families. Racially Coded Transcultural Adoption (RCTA) examines how a shared broad racial classification can obscure significant differences in language, culture, nationality, history, and kinship.
Developed by Dr. Rosemarie Peña, the accompanying TRACE lens invites reflection on transfer history, racialization across contexts, adoption disclosure and records, cultural continuity and reculturation, and extended kin and emotional meaning. These are areas for inquiry, with the adoptee’s own choices and pace at the center. The framework is conceptual, not a diagnosis or validated assessment.
German citizenship and transatlantic possibilities
Our German Citizenship resource introduces questions that may matter to Black Germans in the United States, including adoptees and their descendants. It outlines the kinds of family and legal records that can help clarify an individual history and provides links to official information and qualified legal counsel.
Adoption, immigration, and naturalization histories can raise different questions for different families. The page provides educational information; individual citizenship status and eligibility require an assessment of the relevant facts and law.
Records and family tracing
Our Postwar Family-Tracing Records and Research Resources page points to collections that may offer clues when a family history intersects with wartime displacement or separation. It explains their scope and limits and suggests ways to bring archival findings into conversation with other records and family testimony.
Explore at your own pace
Questions about origins can coexist with love for an adoptive family. Finding information does not require a person to search, make contact, or pursue citizenship. We hope these resources support informed choices, thoughtful scholarship, and conversations that honor adoptees as interpreters of their own lives.
Please share these pages with adoptees, relatives, educators, practitioners, and researchers who may find them useful.
Original Series “SAM – A SAXON”
Inspires Landmark U.S Educational Tour from Leading Cultural and Political Institutions
Los Angeles | New York | London | Berlin, 6 September – “SAM – A SAXON”, based on the incredible true story of Samuel Njankouo Meffire, East Germany’s first Black policeman, will be at the center of an historic U.S Educational Tour hosted by leading political and cultural institutions this September.
Spearheaded by the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA), in association with the German Embassy Washington, Goethe Institute, and Fremantle-backed Big Window Productions, a label of UFA Fiction, the U.S Educational tour is a landmark cultural event to help highlight the groundbreaking impact the series has had on the Afro-German and Black communities – and the opportunities it sets out to create for underrepresented and underserved voices in the industry.
Visiting several states, the U.S Educational Tour will commence in Davidson, North Carolina, before moving onto Chicago, and concluding in New York, where some of the country’s leading institutions will host an exclusive week-long series of student masterclass workshops and exclusive screening events including:
- DAVIDSON UNIVERSITY, Monday 18 September – Duke Family Performance Hall
- UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO, Wednesday 20 September – Goethe Institute Chicago
- COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, Friday 22 September – Goethe Institute New York
The seven-part series available to stream exclusively on Hulu follows “Sam” (Malick Bauer) who joins the police force after his father’s murder. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he becomes the face of an anti-racism campaign and a media sensation, catapulting him into a newly formed police squad with the mission to squash the rising tide of neo-Nazis in the post-communist East. His fame and success as a Nazi-hunter is not appreciated by everyone. His journey takes a dark turn, and he eventually finds himself framed as an internationally wanted criminal and branded Germany’s ‘public enemy number one’.
Through Sam’s eyes, the series allows audiences to experience his fight for recognition, justice, and a place he can call home in the wild years following German reunification.
“Sam – A Saxon” combines an outstanding and diverse team both behind and in front of the camera with the following talents confirmed to participate on the U.S educational tour:
- Samuel Meffire
- Malick Bauer (as Sam Meffire)
- Ivy Quainoo (as Jenny) also star of “The Voice Germany”, and Germany’s “Hamilton”.
- Paula Essam Baumert (as Sabine)
- Jörg Winger – Creator, showrunner, head writer, executive producer
- Tyron Ricketts – Creator, actor, executive producer
- Chris Silber – Creator, head writer, executive producer
Rosemarie Peña, Ph.D., President of the BGHRA & Emily Frazier-Rath, Ph.D, BGHRA Executive Director of Education Initiatives, and Visiting Assistant Professor of German Studies at Davidson College, commented:
“It is indeed with honor and great pride that the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA) presents the cast, production team, and the real-life inspiration for the groundbreaking Hulu series, “SAM – A SAXON”. We hope that the U.S. university tour will provide students as well as faculty, staff, and community members a memorable experience meeting and learning from some of the talents behind this groundbreaking show. In the spirit of transnational community-building and fostering mutual respect and support, we hope this tour promotes the exchange of ideas and flow of creative work.
In the telling of Sam Meffire’s powerful story, Hulu sheds a brilliant light on a multicultural Black diaspora community that has long been underrepresented in German media. Importantly, the series has significant implications for the U.S. community of Black Germans, who have been rekinning with their families and counterparts in Germany over several decades. It’s a joy to be finally seen.”
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For more information on tour, including screeners, talent requests, and / or tickets for the screening events please contact: James Rickard, TPF
Jamesrickard@tpf-london.com
+44(0)792154011
Rosemarie Peña’s essay, “Black Germans: Reunification and Belonging in Diaspora,” opens the edited volume released in paperback and for Kindle Reader on November 1, 2016, just in time for National Adoption Month on Amazon.com.