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We were once a family : a story of love, death, and child removal in America / Roxanna Asgarian.

Summary:
"On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children's birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America's most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families."

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780374602291
  • ISBN: 0374602298
  • Physical Description: xiv, 297 pages ; 21 cm
  • Edition: First edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-294).
Subject: Murder-suicide > United States.
Children > Crimes against > United States.
Children > Institutional care > United States.
Adopted children > Crimes against > United States.
African American children.
Interracial adoption > United States.
Genre: True crime stories.

Available copies

  • 19 of 22 copies available at SPARK Libraries.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 22 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Abington Community Library 364.152 ASGARIA (Text) 50687011820936 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Albright Memorial Library 364.1523 ASGARIA (Text) 50686016282134 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Alexander Hamilton Memorial Free Library 364.152 ASG (Text) 37268003183639 AHMFL Adult Non-Fiction Available -
Altoona Area Public Library 364.152 ASG (Text) 33240005158038 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Annie Halenbake Ross Library 364.152 Asg (Text)
Memorial: In Memoriam of Charles M. Flaig
00157420 ADULT Non-Fiction Available -
Cambria County Library 364.1523 A818w (Text) 85131001875443 CACM New Book Available -
Carbondale Public Library 364.152 ASGARIA (Text) 50688010858133 Adult Nonfiction Checked Out 04/29/2024
Degenstein Community Library NF 364.152 ASGARIAN (Text) 35031301254050 Adult Non-Fiction Available -
Exeter Community Library 364.1523 ASG (Text) 33249025528658 Non-fiction Available -
Gettysburg Library 364.1523 ASGARIAN (Text) 35740635932791 Nonfiction Available -


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