“Hey mom.”
What seems like an unusual greeting between mother and son is in this case.
Forty-two years ago, hospital workers took Maria Angelica Gonzalez’s son from her arms shortly after birth and then told him he had died. Now, she meets him face-to-face at her home in Valdivia, Chile.
“I love you so much,” Jimmy Lippert Thyden told his mother in Spanish as they hugged through tears.
“It knocked the wind out of me. … I was choked by the gravity of the moment,” Thyden told The Associated Press in a video call after the reunion. “How do you hug someone in a way that shapes a hug for 42 years?”
Her journey to find the biological family she never knew began in April after she read the news about Chilean-born adoptees who had been reunited with their biological relatives with the help of the Chilean non-profit Nos Buscamos.
Jimmy Thyden, right, hugs Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his birth mother from Chile, as they meet for the first time in Valdivia, Chile on August 17, 2023.AP
The organization discovered that Thyden had been born prematurely at a hospital in Santiago, the capital of Chile, and was placed in an incubator.
Gonzalez was told to leave the hospital, but when she returned to get her baby, she was told he had died and her body had been disposed of, according to the case file, which Thyden summarized to the AP.
“The paperwork I have for my adoption says I have no living relatives. And I found out in the last few months that I have a mom and I have four brothers and a sister,” Thyden said in an interview from Ashburn, Virginia, where he works as a criminal defense attorney representing “people who look like me.” who cannot afford a lawyer.
Jimmy Thyden, right, sits with Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his birth mother from Chile, as they meet for the first time in Valdivia, Chile on August 17, 2023.AP
He said his was a case of “false consumption.”
Nos Buscamos estimates tens of thousands of babies were taken from Chilean families in the 1970s and 1980s, based on reports by the Chilean Investigative Police that reviewed the paper passports of Chilean children who left the country and never returned.
“The real story is that these children were stolen from poor families, poor women who didn’t know. They don’t know how to defend themselves,” said Constanza del Rio, founder and director of Nos Buscamos.
This undated image provided by Jimmy Thyden shows Thyden as a child with Rusty the cat. AP
The child trafficking coincided with many other human rights violations that occurred during the 17-year rule of General Augusto Pinochet, who on September 11, 1973, led a Chilean coup to overthrow Marxist President Salvador Allende.
During the dictatorship, at least 3,095 people were killed, according to government figures, and tens of thousands more were tortured or imprisoned for political reasons.
Over the past nine years, Nos Buscamos has arranged more than 450 reunions between adopted children and their birth families, del Rio said.
Jimmy Thyden, right, hugs his brother Pablo Leiva Gonzalez as Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his Chilean birth mother, left, looks on in Valdivia, Chile on August 17, 2023.AP
Other nonprofit organizations do similar work, including Hijos y Madres del Silencio in Chile and Connecting Roots in the United States.
Nos Buscamos has partnered for two years with the genealogy platform MyHeritage, which provides free at-home DNA test kits to be distributed to Chilean adoptees and suspected victims of child trafficking in Chile.
Thyden’s DNA test confirmed that he is 100% Chilean and matched him with a first cousin who also uses the MyHeritage platform.
This undated image provided by Jimmy Thyden shows Thyden as a child. AP
Thyden sent her cousin an adoption letter, which included an address for her birth mother and a very common name in Chile: Maria Angelica Gonzalez.
Turns out her cousin had Maria Angelica Gonzalez on their mother’s side and helped her make a connection.
But Gonzalez wouldn’t take his phone calls until he texted her a picture of his wife and daughter.
Jimmy Thyden, left, holds hands with Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his birth mother from Chile, as they meet in Valdivia, Chile on August 17, 2023. AP
“Then the dam broke,” said Thyden, who sent more photos of the American family that adopted him, his time in the US Marines, his wedding, and many other memorable life moments.
“I’m trying to end the 42 years of life that was taken from him. Taken from both of us,” he said.
He traveled to Chile with his wife, Johannah, and their two daughters, Ebba Joy, 8, and Betty Grace, 5, to meet his newfound family.
Jimmy Thyden poses with his wife Johannah, and their two daughters, Ebba Joy, 8, left, and Betty Grace, 5, center, at Valdivia Airport in Valdivia, Chile. AP
Walking into his mother’s house, Thyden was greeted with 42 colorful balloons, each marking a year of missing time with his Chilean family.
“There is empowerment in popping that balloon, empowerment in being there with your family to take inventory of all that is lost,” she said.
Thyden recalls his birth mother’s response to hearing from her: “Mijo (son) you don’t know the ocean I cry for you. How many nights I lay awake praying that God would allow me to live long enough to find out what happened to you.”
Jimmy Thyden, second from right, sits with his wife, Johannah Thyden, right, his birth mother Maria Angelica Gonzalez, second from left, his brother Jonathan Gonzalez in Valdivia, Chile.AP
Gonzalez declined to be interviewed for this story.
Thyden, along with his wife and daughter visited the Santiago zoo where his American family first brought him after adoption.
This time their tour guide was his older sister.
Jimmy Thyden, left, meets his brother Jonathan Gonzalez for the first time in Valdivia, Chile on Aug. 17, 2023. AP
Back at the Gonzalez home, Thyden realized that he and his mother shared a passion for cooking.
“My hands are in the same dough as my mother’s,” he said as they made fried empanadas together. She vowed to continue using family recipes to stay connected to her family and culture.
Thyden said her adoptive parents supported her journey to reunite with her missing relatives, but were “unwitting victims” of the widespread illegal adoption network and were struggling with the reality of the situation.
“My parents wanted a family but they never wanted it like this,” he said. “Not for blackmailing others, robbing others.”
Through a spokesman, his parents declined to comment.
Although Thyden was successfully reunited with his biological family, he realized that reunification might not be ideal for other adoptees.
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“It could have been a worse story,” he said. “There are people who know some very unfortunate details about their origins.”
While in Chile, Thyden and del Rio meet one of seven investigators working to deal with thousands of false adoption cases like his own.
“We don’t want money, we just want human recognition that this horrible thing happened in Chile and a compromise that this will not continue to happen in the future,” said del Rio. “We are trying to make a difference. Not only with Jimmy and his family but we want to do that, change, in this country.”
Thyden also met with Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile’s ambassador to the United States, to seek government recognition of the extent of the adoption scheme.
He said there was no mechanism, financial or otherwise, to assist Chilean adoptees in their efforts to visit their country of origin.
He said he sold a truck to pay for his family’s plane tickets and other expenses.
“People should be able to decide … their name, where their nationality is. They should have access to both,” he said. “They should have all the rights and privileges of a Chilean citizen because this is what happened to them, not because they chose.”
The Chilean embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
