Lakeisha goes shopping for her new bedroom in her new home.
Justine gets herself ready for yet another adoption party.
(1 × 48’) Channel 4
Narrated by: Paul McGann
Filmed, Produced & Directed by: Sunandan Walia & Yugesh Walia
Film Editor: Bernard Pearson
Executive Producer: David Pearson
In America if you want to get adopted, you’ve got to get yourself noticed.
Justine and Lakeisha are two 14 year olds who are doing just that. They take part in uniquely American marketing techniques, including adoption parties and TV shows, to attract interest in themselves while they search for families who will give them a lifetime commitment – something they didn’t get from their parents.
Justine lives in a small town in Massachusetts. A bubbly personality, she was taken into care when she was eleven. She’d lived in various ‘bridge homes’ until her best friend persuaded her parents to foster her. Although Justine appears to have settled in, she feels like an outsider. “I feel weird going into the fridge, it’s not really my house, what am I doing going into their fridge, eating their food”.
Lakeisha has moved from one foster home to another in and around Boston since she was a baby. Her unruly behaviour has made adoption difficult – until the Jones family spot her at an adoption party. They are a successful black family with high expectations of Lakeisha. “They have their own rules set up for me and I have my rules set up for them – doesn’t mean we’re each gonna follow them, of course everybody breaks the rules. That’s life.”
This film follows the girls’ search for unconditional love within a family, but this doesn’t come as easily as they think.
You can watch a clip here
