Author "You Should Be Grateful": Stories of Race, Identity & Transracial Adoption, CEO The Adopted Life, Executive Director Adoptee Mentoring Society

While studying Psychology at Seattle Pacific University, Angela began blogging where she publicly processed her emotions around growing up in a closed adoption. In 2013, at the age of 26, Angela found her biological parents and asked that it be filmed, simply as home video footage for her private use. However, her husband, Bryan Tucker, saw a need to publicize the remarkable story and (with Angela’s permission), turned what would be home video footage into his first documentary film, leading him to a career as a filmmaker. CLOSURE made the film festival circuit and then premiered on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. In 2015, Angela created The Adopted Life Episodes, a groundbreaking video project that features interviews with teen and pre-teen transracial adoptees to bring awareness and education to the public about complex issues such as racial identity formation, searching for and having open relationships with birth/biological families, and, in some cases, having little to no information about one’s biological families. In 2020, during the pandemic, Angeladebuted The Adoptee Next Door podcast, which takes the listener beyond the sparkly fairy tale of adoption, inviting adoptees from all backgrounds to share their rarely heard perspectives and shift societal perceptions about adoption. In 2022 Angelafounded the Adoptee Mentoring Society which supports adoptees to develop agency over their complex and sometimes traumatic personal stories. Between 2011 and 2020, Angela served as a domestic infant adoption caseworker at a large, private adoption agency and created the Post-Adoption department at a large foster care agency in Seattle, Washington. She has also worked to support students with disabilities to ensure equal access to higher education.