Latest / Is Your Way In Your Way? / Embracing Heritage: Judy Fambrough Billingsley's Journey of Identity and Resilience

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Embracing Heritage: Judy Fambrough Billingsley's Journey of Identity and Resilience · Is Your Way In Your Way?

0:25
Cassandra: Goday out there to all my listeners and I'd like to welcome you to it Is your Way In your Way podcast and I'm your host, cassandra Crawley-Mayo, and for those new listeners out there, let me share with you what this podcast is all about.
0:40
Cassandra: It's for individuals who are stuck.
0:42
Cassandra: You know, in your heart of hearts there's something else hat you like to do, something's nudging you to do it Like I don't know.
0:49
Cassandra: Be an entrepreneur, work in a salon, be a coach, get a job promotion, forgive somebody, I mean, it's a whole gamut of things.
1:01
Cassandra: So this podcast, we talk about topics related to personal and business development, and it also will enable you to do some self-reflection over here.
1:13
Cassandra: So, in other words, we'd like to empower you to mitigate those self-imposed barriers that's preventing you from living your best life on your terms.
1:25
Cassandra: And you know what?
1:26
Cassandra: And today I'm featuring a young lady by the name of Judy Fambrough Billingsley and I'm not afraid to share with you.
1:34
Cassandra: She is my sorority sister, Alpha Kappa, alpha sorority, and some of my listeners may not even have heard her episode to say I was an AKA, but I'm telling it now on this session.
1:45
Cassandra: So I'm here to introduce you to Judy Billingsley.
1:49
Cassandra: Hey, soror.
1:51
Judy: Hey, soror, thank you.
1:53
Judy: Thank you for the opportunity and it's a pleasure meeting you.
1:57
Cassandra: Yeah, same here.
1:58
Cassandra: Same here Now, before we delve in, and first of all, listeners.
2:04
Cassandra: This topic today, today is called Discovering Identity Navigating Through Life as a Biracial Adoptee, and I know I have some listeners that have been adopted.
2:17
Cassandra: There's some that have adopted someone, so this is going to provide you a lot of insight, so I encourage you to.
2:26
Cassandra: As we get into our conversation, you're going to know somebody else that's been in her shoes and in your shoes, and I ask that you share this podcast.
2:34
Cassandra: Ok, now, what I want to do now is I'm going to read a little bit of her background before we delve into these questions and, as I indicated, I'm featuring Judy Fambrough Billingsley.
2:46
Cassandra: She's an educator and community leader.
2:50
Cassandra: Judy Fambroug.
2:50
Cassandra: Billingsley.
2:51
Cassandra: She's an educator and community leader.
2:52
Cassandra: She's driven by a lifelong quest to answer who am I?
2:53
Cassandra: With a BA, a California lifetime teaching credential and a master's in education administration.
3:01
Cassandra: Judy is a retired teacher, mother of two and grandmother of four, and I remember her saying now she's a great grandmother oh, my goodness.
3:11
Cassandra: So, but she continues to give back as a member of Alpha Kappa, alpha Sorority and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.
3:20
Cassandra: So join us as we explore this inspiring it's going to be inspiring journey of a self-discovery and community impact.
3:29
Cassandra: She is an author and she wrote Too Brown to Keep.
3:36
Cassandra: I know you can't wait to figure out where that title is coming from, so we're going to find out.
3:43
Cassandra: So, judy, I'd like to know and my listeners we want to know about your backstory.
3:51
Cassandra: It's kind of like up until the age of 20, what was life like for you?
3:55
Cassandra: What was going on back in those days?
3:58
Judy: Well, life for me began in Germany and I was born shortly after World War II and born to an American US Army soldier, African-American, and my mother was German and they did not marry but did kind of live together periodically.
4:26
Judy: And so out of that union came my sister older sister and her name's Imgart, and I was Uta, and we both have German citizenship and both had German birth certificates.
4:41
Judy: My birth father went back to the United States, birth father went back to the United States and my birth mother sent us off to the Kinderheim which is known in.
4:57
Judy: America as an orphanage and we were there and we were blessed by being adopted together, my sister and I.
5:04
Judy: We both have a dad and same mom, and we were adopted and brought to the United States.
5:10
Judy: So, that's the biracial international adoptee part.
5:17
Cassandra: OK.
5:18
Judy: My story.
5:19
Cassandra: OK.
5:20
Judy: As we all recall in in our history, that that's World War Two was, you know, hitler and nazi germany and the aryan race was the only good race around.
5:33
Judy: And so, um, I knew that I was adopted, um, and my dad and I when I talk about daddy and mommy, I'm talking about the parents that raised me, and I was blessed to have great parents who raised me.
5:57
Judy: I knew that we both knew, my sister and I, that we were adopted In the day.
6:04
Judy: Being biracial was very unique Nowadays it is not Okay, pretty unique.
6:11
Judy: During that time period, and I always had, even though I had, great parents, I always wanted to answer the question, which is a basic human question, and that is who am I?
6:27
Judy: And I knew that I didn't look like my adopted parents.
6:33
Cassandra: I want that information.
6:34
Cassandra: Judy, let me ask you what age were you adopted?
6:41
Judy: I was two, my sister was five and I have a half sister who my birth mother also abandoned, and she was eight, but all three adopted together, just my sister and I.
6:55
Cassandra: OK, and your half sister was somewhere else.
6:58
Cassandra: She didn't come with you, guys, or you didn't know her at the time.
7:02
Judy: No, we knew, we all.
7:03
Judy: We all lived with my birth mother.
7:06
Judy: What happened is that my sister, Emgart and I we're full sisters we were sent to the Kinderheim.
7:17
Judy: My older sister, Helga, was sent to the babysitter in our village.
7:23
Judy: We grew up in Bingenheim, Germany, which is 45 minutes from Frankfurt.
7:27
Judy: My birth mother dropped her off at the babysitter who was right across the street, lived across the street in the village, and she went to work and never returned.
7:38
Cassandra: So she grew up in Germany, okay, okay, when did you find out?
7:45
Cassandra: Because at two, I don't think you kind of understood what adoption was.
7:50
Cassandra: So when did you find out that you all were adopted?
7:56
Judy: Well, it started off that way.
7:57
Judy: You know my birth, my adopted parents, especially my dad, who's really had the influence on us, because my sister was five and she was actually turned six and was fixing to.
8:13
Judy: We came here on March 10th 1953, and my sister started school in September, so she had already turned six.
8:27
Judy: So what I'm saying is OK.
8:29
Judy: That was something that was explained in an elementary form.
8:33
Judy: You know, you have to explain it.
8:37
Judy: They met us in New York, flew us to California and that's where I grew up.
8:44
Cassandra: Wow.
8:44
Cassandra: So at that young age, how did that make you feel?
8:49
Cassandra: At that young age, how did that make you feel, or do you?
8:53
Judy: recall a feeling.
8:55
Judy: You know I don't have a memory.
9:00
Cassandra: Okay.
9:01
Judy: My sister who was five dead.
9:04
Cassandra: Yeah.
9:04
Cassandra: However, I have a subconscious memory and I wet the bed for a long time.
9:13
Judy: And I also, even as I got older older meaning started school, you know kindergarten and stuff through elementary school.
9:21
Judy: I finally was able to adjust to that Also.
9:24
Judy: The thing that got me is on rainy, cloudy days, even now um.
9:29
Judy: I get, uh, depressed and I and I know now what it is, but I didn't.
9:36
Judy: I lived for much of my life not understanding what that meant.
9:39
Judy: But as I'm doing my research and going back to Germany, um, I discovered that it was a rainy, cloudy day when we were put in the orphanage car in the village and driven out, never to see anybody ever again.
9:58
Cassandra: Mm, hmm, I was reading something about your family, your sister, and your sister does not look like you.
10:08
Cassandra: Is that correct?
10:09
Cassandra: Is she fair skin or?
10:13
Judy: Well, are you asking how I got the two brown to keep?
10:18
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she wasn't too brown, was she?
10:23
Judy: No, I'm the only brown skin of all six of us, my mother out of my birth mother.
10:28
Judy: out of all six of us, my birth mother.
10:29
Judy: Out of all six of us, four of us were abandoned.
10:32
Judy: But I always felt guilty, and that's another thing.
10:38
Judy: I love your title of your podcast, because how we think or perceive things can get in our way.
10:45
Judy: One of the issues I always had was One of the issues I always had was until discovery many years later is I always felt like there was something wrong with me, that then she gave all of us away.
11:02
Cassandra: And.
11:02
Judy: I didn't know.
11:03
Judy: There were six at the time.
11:04
Judy: I only knew about three of us my sister and Helga, who was in Germany.
11:09
Judy: So my sister, to answer your question directly, all of them are white skinned.
11:15
Judy: They are not biracial, except my sister who was adopted.
11:22
Judy: We together had the same African American father.
11:24
Judy: My sister had blondish hair, green eyes.
11:28
Judy: My sister had blondish hair, green eyes, fair skin.
11:38
Judy: It's only when I showed up, or my adopted parents, who were African-American showed up that anybody thought she was black, so the title of my book I just want to clarify for the audience and everyone is.
11:53
Judy: I was doing research going back to Germany, found my babysitter, the village and I got rejected by my older sister Helga, who said in German to someone who translated for me I was the reason why our birth mother gave us up, meaning my skin was dark, our birth mother gave us up, meaning my skin was dark.
12:10
Judy: So, hey, and I felt so horrible and I was, went to bed in the village at Hannah Laura's house, and all of a sudden I just was like the title of my book that I had began writing.
12:24
Judy: Yeah Too Brown to Keep.
12:25
Judy: And that's how that came about.
12:27
Cassandra: Yeah, I love that title.
12:28
Cassandra: I love that title.
12:30
Cassandra: I also, as I was doing my my, I don't want to say research, but just learning more about you, your, your father.
12:43
Cassandra: Birth father.
12:50
Cassandra: No, yeah, the adopted Right Daddy.
12:57
Cassandra: Yeah, your dad gave you a box of information in it about your adoption.
13:04
Judy: Yes, ok.
13:06
Cassandra: What, what, what do you think made him do that?
13:09
Cassandra: What propelled him to do that, you think?
13:12
Judy: Me Okay, in the book I talk about, I mean the book is only 147 pages, but I do want to say it was a lifetime of searching and back and forth.
13:27
Judy: You know, things got in my way not only from my head, but also from you know, I was a teenage mom.
13:34
Judy: I got married, raising kids and family.
13:36
Judy: I wasn't going to do my research, but my dad and I would talk about me being adopted.
13:42
Judy: And I said, well, I want to know more.
13:46
Judy: And he said, oh, you're not old enough.
13:48
Judy: And when I turned 25, one day I was sitting in the family room at my parents' house with my little boy and my dad took a chair and I talk about describe this in the book.
14:02
Judy: He took the chair, stood up in the kitchen I'll never forget pushed up the panels and pulled out the shoe box.
14:10
Cassandra: Oh wow in.
14:11
Judy: German, but of course had to be translated in English and so I had everything.
14:14
Judy: I had my birth father's last known address in the United States.
14:41
Cassandra: Oh really, okay.
14:42
Cassandra: Okay, did you go see him.
14:44
Cassandra: Well, I guess, is this in the book too.
14:49
Judy: You know I'm not going to tell you everything because it is in the book.
14:53
Judy: Okay, All right, but yes, let's put it this way, it was a very emotional experience To remember we didn't have internet okay, way back in the day.
15:08
Cassandra: Right.
15:09
Judy: So I don't know.
15:10
Judy: Some people old enough like me remember that you got on your home phone and dialed 411 to get the information operator, and so that's got me started finding him.
15:24
Cassandra: OK, OK, OK.
15:26
Cassandra: Well, let me ask you in the box, you found out a lot of information.
15:31
Cassandra: Yes, and you went to Germany after that Is that correct.
15:37
Judy: I went to Germany years later.
15:40
Judy: I actually went in 1986, but I had been given the box about five or six years prior.
15:52
Judy: Five or six years prior, okay, and and actually what happened is I remember this vividly because my mother died Talk about my adopted mother died in 1981.
16:05
Judy: And talking about things that get in your way.
16:09
Judy: One of the things is excuse me, my adopted dad daddy was okay about me researching and finding my birth parents.
16:18
Judy: My adopted mother mama was not, and so I found my birth dad, but I did not do anything out of respect for her.
16:32
Judy: I didn't hurt her and I tried to assure her but that's very common as I was doing my research and talking to other adoptees that it is common that one parent they're kind of fearful about you finding your birth parents.
16:52
Judy: You know they're feeling like, hey, you know, are you going to go to them and not stay with me?
16:58
Cassandra: you.
16:59
Judy: And so when my mom died in February 12th 1981, I talked to my dad and I said I'm going to really push this, and so that's how I really then got started.
17:13
Cassandra: Oh, okay, okay, was your sister curious like you?
17:22
Judy: No, and that's what's interesting when you talk about what gets in your way it is all so individualized, you know very much individualized.
17:34
Judy: Uh, my uh sister, uh, it devastated her throughout her entire life and she died.
17:42
Judy: She just died in uh 2021.
17:44
Judy: Oh, wow, but all of her life she didn't handle uh being very well and I and I do say that for me I was able to do it one.
18:02
Judy: I have a different personality than she did yeah.
18:05
Judy: so I sought counseling well, counseling, and that really helped me and at least talking to someone and talking things out and turning the mirror, looking at myself what can?
18:19
Cassandra: I do.
18:21
Judy: My older sister didn't want to live her life that way, and I was sure, sure.
18:31
Cassandra: So when you got the box and she was still living when you, you know, went to your dad, she didn't want to hear anything about it, nothing, okay.
18:38
Cassandra: So it was just on you.
18:40
Judy: Yes and yeah, and it always was.
18:43
Judy: And um, that's just kind of how sure I never know that I wasn't going to allow her biases to interfere with my research that I love.
18:57
Judy: But I needed to do this for me and that's, you know, letting people get in your way and let her do that.
19:04
Judy: So I tried to assure her throughout the process, and it was a lifelong process.
19:08
Cassandra: Sure I didn't want.
19:09
Judy: I don't want anyone to take the joy from my life.
19:10
Judy: I don't want anyone to take the joy from my life.
19:14
Cassandra: Okay, good, good for you.
19:15
Cassandra: Good for you Because of your brown skin, did you say?
19:21
Cassandra: This sister had blonde hair?
19:23
Cassandra: Yes, just passed.
19:46
Cassandra: Okay, what was your world like?
19:50
Cassandra: I mean, you all lived in the same home, probably, maybe went to the same school at times.
19:56
Cassandra: I know she was older and what I said, what the world was like for you, like the issues of race and belonging and you know how did you navigate this, what I call biracial person.
20:26
Judy: You know that's an excellent question and I actually talk about growing up.
20:28
Judy: I was adopted in Bakersfield, california, which was one of the centers for the KKK, and my father was a very successful businessman.
20:33
Judy: He bought a home in an all white neighborhood and they burned the KKK cross on our front yard.
20:39
Judy: So, even though we are not in the South, you know what I mean.
20:43
Judy: Yeah, in the middle of California, my dad was extremely instrumental in helping us to navigate both worlds.
20:59
Judy: Being African-American, we went to an all African-American church In fact, most of the people in the church were our relatives, because my mom had 13 brothers and sisters and I went to.
21:14
Judy: And then my dad being a businessman, he would go to because he had money during that time period.
21:22
Judy: You know white people would invite him because they they wanted, you know, investment, partnership money, and my dad made sure we understood Don't get it twisted, it's not like they like me for my brown skin, for my money.
21:37
Judy: So we navigated both worlds, learning to code, switch, learning to fit into the norms of where we were, whether it was at an opera thing or whatever.
21:54
Judy: Know, we would go to, yeah, yeah to, uh, being able to hang, uh, you know, in family picnics which are all african-american.
22:02
Judy: Our church was african-american yeah parents were lifetime naacp members.
22:08
Judy: They also were very political in politics, so I learned from them I also want to do, state that one of the things that biracial people don't necessarily talk about but do is it wasn't just about white people.
22:26
Judy: I got rejected because I was not white enough to be white and I was not black enough to be black, so I got bullied in school, especially middle school.
22:39
Judy: My dad pulled me out when I graduated from middle school, put me in an all-white private Catholic high school.
22:49
Judy: And the best thing he did for me, because I could focus on my education and not be fearful about fitting in because all of us want to fit in Right.
22:59
Judy: So I biracial people we live and I'm writing my second book on this live in the middle.
23:05
Judy: We live in the middle.
23:08
Judy: And even today, when there's even more biracial kids and it being acceptable, we still have that, you know, still have that dynamic.
23:20
Judy: So, I navigated was doing the best I could at any given moment.
23:28
Cassandra: Yeah, you know what I find fascinating and obviously your dad was an educated man that they would adopt you, both of you, knowing the challenges that they would have.
23:45
Cassandra: Yes, did they ever talk about why they did that, or that just wasn't a discussion of theirs?
23:52
Judy: Actually it was One.
23:54
Judy: My dad did not finish the eighth grade.
23:56
Judy: Okay, he was educated through experience and common sense and his mom died, so he quit school and worked with his dad.
24:10
Judy: He lived in Los Angeles, California, came to Bakersfield but they adopted us.
24:17
Judy: My mom had three miscarriages because they were trying for kids and of course of course, remember that's way back in the day where we didn't have all the medical stuff that you know could have happened.
24:31
Judy: And what happened really is that during World War II for Germany, there were 5,000 of us biracial kids who were left behind due to war, and out of the 5,000, about 500 to 600 of us were chosen by Miss Grammer Miss Mabel Grammer you can Google her up and she was determined to have us adopted by African-American parents in America.
25:10
Judy: So my sister and I were two adoptees out of about 500 that went to the United States.
25:19
Judy: And my parents adopted us and she encouraged my parents don't just take one, take both.
25:26
Judy: And she encouraged my parents don't just take one, take both.
25:29
Judy: Because in the orphanage my sister, when people came through looking at the kids and she would take me and put me in a closet and close the door, she was so fearful about being separated.
25:42
Judy: So that was, and I'm glad she did that, because she was my mama in the orphanage and we were and that was.
25:51
Judy: Ms Graham, ms who, mabel Grammer, m-a-b.
25:55
Cassandra: Okay so she's the one that put you in the closet.
25:58
Judy: No, my sister, your sister put you in the closet In the orphanage.
26:02
Judy: Mrs Grammer I talk about her because she's very well known.
26:07
Judy: Back in the day that she was, she lived in Germany and her husband, Oscar, was in the military.
26:15
Judy: So she began visiting orphanages and seeing all of us biracial kids, you know being dumped in the orphanages.
26:24
Cassandra: Wow.
26:24
Judy: Yeah, so she's.
26:25
Judy: She decided, and so we were advertised in the Baltimore Maryland Afro newspaper.
26:32
Judy: Yeah, actually, I have.
26:34
Judy: I think I have a picture of it in my book.
26:36
Judy: And that's how African-American parents who are looking and just reading the newspaper, and I, our pictures are in there, I have and just reading the newspaper, yeah, and I, our pictures are in there.
26:48
Judy: I have a copy of the newspaper.
26:51
Cassandra: Oh, my goodness, Wow, what a story.
26:53
Cassandra: I also read that Jewish, you have a Jewish heritage.
27:00
Judy: Yes, my grandmother was Ashkenazi Jew full.
27:04
Judy: She came from Poland and married my grandfather, who was German, and of course, you know, during the war they were rounding up Jews and they came by and pulled her out of that house.
27:18
Judy: Somebody told on her and she died in the concentration camp.
27:23
Judy: Wow, and so when I did my DNA, 23 and DNA.
27:29
Judy: I, my birth mother is 50 percent and I'm 25 percent Ashkenazi.
27:38
Cassandra: Oh wow, when you go around speaking, am I correct?
27:46
Cassandra: You do speak.
27:47
Cassandra: Do you speak about me being black, too brown to keep, or what are some other topics you speak about?
28:07
Judy: mention, certainly mention it and talk about how I came about titling the book because it is a unique title and I got a bit pushed back by publishers who said that I should not, you know, make that cover my book, and I was like I'm going to publish my own book.
28:20
Judy: So I do talk about abandonment which is a very common human trait of all of us, because we can all be abandoned.
28:29
Judy: I was abandoned through my birth, mother and father, but you can be abandoned even living in a house where a person abandons you from love, and you can be abandoned through death, through divorce, through divorce, and it's simply about you know, not having that connection with people for one reason or another.
28:54
Judy: Yeah, so that's a real common theme.
28:56
Judy: I find that people can relate to my audience when I speak.
29:01
Judy: Predominantly is not adoptees or foster, but people who are interested in it, and so we hit, I hit the gamut of themes.
29:12
Judy: I don't dwell on one particular.
29:13
Cassandra: Okay, okay, okay.
29:15
Cassandra: So when you are filling out an application, they ask you your race.
29:21
Cassandra: What do you put as your race.
29:24
Judy: What do you put?
29:26
Judy: That's cool.
29:29
Judy: Well, I'm laughing because it really should.
29:32
Judy: I've been.
29:32
Judy: I've been around here a long time.
29:39
Judy: I'm not stuttering to answer it, I just want to explain.
29:41
Judy: Way back in the day, you only had a few choices.
29:44
Cassandra: I do relate as African-American.
29:45
Judy: I do relate as African-American whether I check the box or not, but nowadays it depends A lot of times.
29:51
Judy: I'll just leave it blank.
29:52
Judy: Sometimes I'll say other, but most of the time it's African-American.
29:58
Judy: There's no doubt in my mind who I am.
30:00
Judy: I'm very confident in myself now and who I am.
30:06
Judy: I do have to say that I really like that.
30:11
Judy: I have acknowledged that I'm both.
30:14
Judy: You know, when you look at my DNA, I'm 51%, you know, european, but I don't look it okay.
30:21
Judy: And my dad has always taught us look, you're African-American, you are biracial.
30:27
Judy: You do have this component in your life and people are going to see you as an American, just like my sister.
30:35
Judy: I look more like my mother.
30:36
Judy: My sister has my dad's features, african-american features, but because of the color of your se e you are.
30:42
Judy: How people by your skin color, not by your features.
30:48
Cassandra: I'm.
30:48
Judy: African American.
30:49
Judy: I'm a proud African American.
30:53
Cassandra: Okay, okay, Now.
30:55
Cassandra: What lessons have you learned from your quest?
31:00
Judy: You know, I I learned that and speaking for your podcast as well.
31:06
Judy: You know, I was in my own way for many years because I Iacked self-worth.
31:13
Judy: I was grateful that I had a dad who saw that in me and therefore would call me little brown uh, girl, and you're okay, and and when I would get rejected, especially by African American students and stuff, I'd go home and tell him and he'd give me a pep talk I needed.
31:35
Judy: I was driven to find both of my birth parents, which I did, accepting them for who they were and the decisions they made at the time.
31:52
Judy: What it brought me to is my chapter on love, forgiveness and healing, and that, for me, I discovered who I was.
31:59
Judy: I'm comfortable in my own skin and I'm not going to allow anyone who hurts me to take away the joy in my life.
32:12
Judy: I'm going to be joyful.
32:13
Judy: Forgiveness for me is not forgetting.
32:16
Judy: I'm never going to forget.
32:19
Judy: But, forgiveness for me is not allowing my birth mother, my birth father, but mainly my birth mother, because my birth father was in the United States when she gave us that I'm not going to allow that her actions to take the joy from my life and for me to be the best person that.
32:38
Judy: I can be.
32:40
Cassandra: Good, that's excellent.
32:41
Cassandra: Okay, I'm going to ask you this yes, what was dating like?
32:46
Cassandra: Did you date both races, or your preference was African-American?
32:54
Judy: You know, I didn't have a preference.
32:56
Cassandra: OK.
32:56
Judy: I tend to, and I taught sociology and psychology for years.
33:00
Judy: We tend to date people that we have common interests with regardless of race.
33:08
Judy: I lived.
33:10
Judy: I dated a lot of African-American guys.
33:17
Judy: I also dated I didn't date too many white guys, although I was at an all white school and all of that.
33:26
Cassandra: When you went to college.
33:29
Judy: It was just, you know, my interest was track and field and studying.
33:34
Judy: I did not hang out.
33:35
Judy: I was in the library.
33:37
Judy: I was always a good student.
33:39
Judy: So, predominantly African-American.
33:44
Cassandra: Okay.
33:45
Judy: Okay.
33:46
Cassandra: Okay, so what's your why for telling your story?
33:54
Judy: Well, I didn't start off with telling my story to anyone except my very, very close friends.
34:02
Judy: I'd say guess what?
34:04
Judy: I discovered, you know, and my little my.
34:07
Judy: I have a younger sister who was adopted.
34:09
Judy: She was adopted 15 years later than I in the States.
34:14
Judy: But as I began sharing my story, people would say you need to write this down, you need to write a book.
34:23
Judy: And so I began writing.
34:25
Judy: And then, as I continued to write, I realized that I wanted to leave a written legacy to my kids, versus oral, because oftentimes oral stories they get changed.
34:43
Judy: That's just the natural process of communication.
34:46
Judy: And also because I I had also.
34:51
Judy: I had married a white man who I have my two kids by my, my two sons, and I wanted them to have my written legacy, those pictures, because I didn't know who they would marry.
35:09
Judy: And I wanted my grandsons.
35:12
Judy: I have four grandsons.
35:13
Judy: I want them to know who I am, even when I'm gone, and now I have a great grandson.
35:18
Judy: So for me it was more about leaving a written legacy for my kids.
35:35
Cassandra: I didn't think much of it until I began doing my book tours, realizing that, hey, a lot of people can relate to the things that I have.
35:38
Cassandra: So you understand it with your children, because would you say they're biracial.
35:41
Cassandra: So you understand it with your children because would you say they're biracial?
35:45
Cassandra: Yes, they are, and so because of your experience and things have changed from back then, but then some things haven't not really really changed.
35:57
Judy: That's right, and I want to interject so this may give you another question.
36:10
Judy: Um, another question to ask, I have a son that's blonde hair and white skinned and I have a son that is brown, like me, and both of them have the same father, okay?
36:17
Judy: uh-huh and um yes, what happens is in bakersfield, where I I grew up.
36:26
Judy: Of course they would see my kids and everything.
36:29
Judy: There was a rumor that my blonde headed son, who's the youngest, was really my oldest sister.
36:37
Judy: You know, my sister.
36:39
Judy: They were that.
36:40
Judy: Oh, she gave, she gave him and gave him to her.
36:44
Judy: People don't really understand the dynamics of genetics and DNA, but they are both, you know, like my sister and I were.
36:55
Judy: And that, of course, makes me teach them.
37:01
Judy: They are great domino players, each them.
37:06
Cassandra: They are great domino players.
37:07
Judy: They can hang with the best of anybody black and they can hang with the best, because they golf with anybody who's white.
37:12
Cassandra: And yes.
37:12
Judy: I want them to be able to navigate the world because, regardless of what we think, this world is ran by white people.
37:20
Judy: And for me and I'm not saying it in a negative, please don't misunderstand me, listeners what I am saying is the dominant culture in America is white, that any other of us, whether we are black and white, biracial, whether we're Japanese and black, or Japanese and white all of us minorities we have to live in two worlds.
37:44
Judy: I saw that with my students as well.
37:47
Cassandra: They live in two worlds.
37:48
Cassandra: I saw that with my students as well.
37:49
Cassandra: They live in both worlds.
37:50
Cassandra: Okay, okay, did your sister ever marry and have children?
37:56
Judy: Yes, yes, she did Okay.
37:59
Cassandra: And so they're biracial.
38:02
Judy: Yes.
38:05
Cassandra: Wow, yes, okay, good, good.
38:09
Cassandra: So I remember when I, when I was doing my research and my studying, the main thing that struck me was who am I?
38:26
Cassandra: That's what you wanted to know.
38:29
Cassandra: Who am I?
38:30
Cassandra: So I ask you now, on the August, the 26th 2024, different time zone in your area, different than mine, who are you now?
38:44
Judy: Oh, that's a great question.
38:45
Judy: You know, I am a lot of things.
38:52
Judy: One I'm at peace.
38:54
Judy: I'm at peace with myself, I am in harmony with myself, I am confident in myself.
39:04
Judy: I am a mother.
39:06
Judy: I am a grandmother.
39:08
Judy: I am a great grandma now.
39:10
Judy: I'm an educator.
39:13
Judy: I'm an American and I'm proud to be an American, regardless of the faults of America.
39:19
Judy: I am proud to be here.
39:20
Judy: Just came from Germany last Saturday, flew back home to the United States.
39:27
Judy: I am a woman.
39:30
Judy: I'm an African-American woman.
39:33
Judy: I'm a biracial woman.
39:55
Cassandra: I'm an international adoptee woman.
39:56
Cassandra: I'm a composite of a lot of things, and more important for me than anything is that I am truly happy with who I am.
39:59
Cassandra: That's awesome, thank you.
40:00
Cassandra: That's awesome that you're in a great, great place.
40:04
Cassandra: You know your quote about Mario Bellatele.
40:07
Cassandra: Yes, bellatele, yes, they say that abandonment is a wound that never heals, but I say only that an abandoned child never forgets.
40:19
Judy: That's right.
40:20
Cassandra: Yeah, that's right.
40:22
Judy: Even though I say I'm at peace, I'm.
40:24
Judy: I'm working on, you know, because abandonment affects your relationships with people, and I have great leadership skills.
40:34
Judy: I'm not bragging, that's just the truth.
40:37
Judy: I have great leadership skills, but I don't have as good one-on-one relationship skills.
40:45
Judy: I'm working on those because one of the things that I discovered through research and then turning the mirror on me is that we abandon folks.
40:57
Judy: We don't want to get too close to people because we're afraid that they're going to leave.
41:02
Judy: Yeah, and so I am working on things.
41:05
Judy: So, please, when I say I'm at peace, I am at peace, but I'm working on things.
41:10
Judy: I want to be the best person that I can be and to me, I will continue doing that till the day I die.
41:18
Judy: I'm not going to ever be perfect, but I'm trying.
41:22
Cassandra: We're all a working process, right?
41:24
Cassandra: Yes, judy, how can my listeners get in touch with you?
41:33
Judy: Ah well, if you Google me, judy Fambrough, and you don't have to spell the name right, it'll come up.
41:39
Judy: Or just Judy Billingsley.
41:41
Judy: I have a website, I am on Facebook, I have a personal Facebook page, I also have an author Facebook page and that'll pop up as well, and you can email me.
41:58
Judy: And I am on Amazon.
42:02
Judy: com for my book.
42:04
Judy: It is a good read and I'm very proud of the book.
42:09
Judy: I am not an English major, okay, and I heard one of your podcasts, the indie lady.
42:20
Cassandra: Yeah, the indie author.
42:22
Judy: Yeah, the author and I laughed because I didn't, you know, if somebody had said write a book when they did earlier, I was like ah, I can't stand English Right.
42:33
Cassandra: Exactly.
42:36
Judy: Um, I, um, I.
42:38
Judy: That's one of those things of not letting things get in your way, and, uh, that was one of them, and I began just doing a little research and starting in and, um, so you know, writing, uh, I'm okay with it now.
42:55
Cassandra: Good, good, I'm going to get your book.
42:58
Cassandra: I'm looking forward to reading it.
43:00
Cassandra: And my book?
43:01
Cassandra: I don't have that many pages either.
43:03
Cassandra: I understand how authors are proud of their books, and I hear you have another one in you.
43:10
Cassandra: Yes, and so do I.
43:12
Cassandra: Um any parting words for my listeners?
43:16
Cassandra: Anything that that's in your gut or you think is something they need to hear?
43:25
Judy: Well, I would say that what gets in oftentimes, what gets in our way, is fear, that's.
43:33
Judy: I was reading a book, I'm getting ready.
43:36
Judy: I was invited as the guest speaker for our foster parenting conference here in California, an annual conference in.
43:44
Judy: October and I was doing some research and they were talking about the two basic components of our emotions are fear and love, and I would say, not only to myself but to everyone, that fear really is the piece that gets in our way and we've got to um, just work on it and build confidence and know that you can do it.
44:15
Judy: You can do it and my dad always said the word can't, we could not use the word in our house.
44:23
Judy: If ever I can't.
44:26
Cassandra: Good Okay.
44:29
Judy: Is your dad still living?
44:30
Judy: No, he isn't, unfortunately, he died in 1995.
44:35
Judy: But my sister and I my younger sister and I were talking um the other day about how great an influence he had yeah, on all of us yeah, yeah I was gonna say that he really did, and I talk about it in my book.
44:52
Judy: Okay, we can all do it, everybody listeners, we can do it, that's right.
44:58
Cassandra: That's right.
44:58
Cassandra: Well, Ju dy, thank you so much; I know my listeners were inspired.
45:02
Cassandra: I know that many of you can relate, and have friends that certainly can relate so I ask that you share this.
45:13
Cassandra: This podcast will be on all podcast platforms.
45:15
Cassandra: The title is discovering identity and again navigating through life as a biracial adoptee.
45:28
Cassandra: I also ask that you hit like when you listen, and alos hit publish.
45:33
Cassandra: This podcast will also be on my website.
45:36
Cassandra: www.
45:37
Cassandra: cassandracrawley.
45:37
Cassandra: com.
45:38
Cassandra: So again, judy, thank you to my listeners, as I always say.
45:51
Cassandra: Bye for now, and God bless you.