The Jacob Shapiro Podcast The Geography of a Missing Daughter
Dec 2, 2025
Barbara Demick, a journalist and author renowned for her narrative nonfiction on East Asia, dives deep into the harrowing effects of China’s one-child policy in her book, *Daughters of the Bamboo Grove*. She explores the heart-wrenching stories of separated twins, illustrating their contrasting lives—one grows up in Texas, the other in hiding. The conversation touches on the emotional turmoil of reunification, the complexities of international adoption, and the cultural dissonance faced by families torn apart by policies that aimed for societal control.
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Search That Found A Missing Twin
- Barbara Demick discovered a remote Hunan family where one twin was missing and later found her years after initial interviews.
- She ultimately reunited the twin with her birth family and brought her back to visit, fulfilling a promise made on her first visit.
Policy Created Incentives For Adoption Networks
- China staffed family planning at massive scale and enforced the one-child policy brutally in rural areas.
- Orphanages and international adoption became financially entwined with enforcement, creating perverse incentives.
Scale And Shift Of Chinese International Adoption
- About 160,000 Chinese children were adopted abroad, roughly half to the U.S., peaking around 2005.
- By the 2010s supply dwindled and many later international adoptions were for special-needs children.
