Events

Join us on Saturday, September 19th, after the Adoptee Film Fest’s screening of Between Here and Home 🎬, for a local Happy Hour at Houston Hall from 6PM-8PM🍻. Come connect with fellow adoptees, friends, filmmakers, and members of the adoption community as we gather to continue the conversation sparked by the festival and celebrate the power of adoptee stories.

Whether you’re attending the screening or simply want to meet up with the community afterward, we’d love to see you. All are welcome! Grab a drink and spend the evening connecting with others. And the very next day, Sunday, September 20, join us for the  BIPOC Adoptees VOICES Storytelling Event 💬, a continuation of our Kick-Off Weekend and a powerful afternoon of connection, community, and reclaiming our stories in NYC.

Join us on Friday, September 18th from 5PM-9PM, for a community celebration in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month at the Sunnyside Night Market & Plaza Party!🎉 Expect the plaza to be packed with sabrosura, música🎶, comida🫔,  baile💃, and local vendors, bringing the sounds of cumbia, salsa, bachata, merengue and more! ✨🔥  Adoptees and friends are welcome!

Come hang out with the community and help us close out the 2025-2026 term at one of our most popular events every year (and our very last for the season). Catch up with friends, make new connections, and enjoy free eats, raffles, and fun. Newcomers, friends, and family welcome!  

Together we’ll discuss our experiences of being adopted and neurodivergent; what it’s like to live with ADHD, be a person on the autism spectrum, or otherwise have a brain that works differently; and explore the links between adoption, neurodiversity & mental health. (Optional: For those in person, we’ll head nearby for pay-your-own food/drinks after.)

RSVP in person: https://alsoknownas.wildapricot.org/event-6709644?mc_cid=f9160d8830&mc_eid=UNIQID

‍Virtual attendees ONLY, register to attend here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-0rWig5N2P43KZlh2QcOkyJpD7eAmEf04Q9NtSD357c

Queens, we’re coming for ya! 👀🍴

Didn’t get a chance to crawl with us during the 30th? Here’s your chance! Join us for a Queens food crawl at 12PM on Saturday, May 16th!

We’ll be hopping to some of our favorite neighborhood spots (final lineup coming soon ✨all RSVPs will receive the full lineup).

Come ready to eat, explore, and hang with us all afternoon.

💵 Bring cash (some spots are cash-only!)

👟 Wear comfy shoes… you will be walking AND snacking

A reflective workshop for adoptees, exploring the impacts of microaggressions & misunderstandings while moving toward shared language, repair, and collective care.

Through guided reflection, somatic practices, and conversation—with support from an adoptee LCSW—we’ll recognize shared patterns, name what has been difficult to articulate, and listen across differences in identity and lived experience.

We encourage participants to bring any journals or comfort items that would make the event more easeful. Activity supplies and additional care items will be provided on-site.

Join us for a pre-anniversary community briefing and legacy conversation designed to prepare us ~ collectively ~ before our large-scale 30th Anniversary celebration.

Ahead of our milestone gathering, we invite leaders, members, and longtime supporters into a shared space to connect, reground in our roots, strengthen internal alignment, and build a living bridge between legacy roots and future directions.

Together, we’ll revisit the origins of Also-Known-As and honor the many leaders whose vision and labor built something that did not exist before. Founding and past organization leaders will reflect on formative moments in the organization’s history from early growth and recalibration, to big milestone celebrations and what adoptee joy looks like. This conversation will also create space to name how the organization is expanding, and what community care for its growth looks like.

We will answer questions folks have for what the 30th anniversary will look like, and offer an exclusive in-person offering. We look forward to building shared excitement and understanding ahead of the full anniversary experience.

The fourth session of our Cryin' with Ryan: Exploring the Masculine Self Through Adoption series again aims to confront the often hidden and painful truths that many male-identifying adoptees face: intense feelings of loss, identity confusion, depression and anxiety, suicidality, and substance use.

These challenges are often ignored or silently suffered in isolation. This session intends to create a safe, supportive space where male-identifying adoptees can come together to share their stories, find understanding, and exchange observations. It is a call to acknowledge the severity of these struggles and to ensure that we are not overlooking the urgent mental health crises impacting our community.

You do not need to have attended previous sessions to join this event.

Also-Known-As is able to provide free/discounted events through the generous support of our members. Please consider making a donation by clicking HERE or (Venmo) @also-known-as (search businesses)

Also-Known-As, Inc is thrilled to welcome Dr. Juli Fraga to NYC, visiting from San Francisco to share insights from her new book Parents Have Feelings, Too, which is a deeply practical guide to identifying, naming and working with emotions to teaching emotional intelligence to the next generation. Juli will be lovingly cared for and in conversation with Heather Schultz Gittens, who currently serves on the Also-Known-As Advisory board and has a knack for creating a warm, welcoming environment to explore hard conversations.

This much-needed discussion, "Adoptee Parents Have Feelings, Too" will demystify and center "feelings" as the key to unlocking the overwhelm of the parent identity with the added complicated, and at times conflicting/competing layers, of the adoptee identity. We’ll explore real-life strategies for parents to process their own feelings, break cycles of guilt, and cultivate emotional resilience in their children. This conversation is a continuation of last year’s Also-Known-As event on the unique lens of parenting as a transracial adoptee.

While we’re excited to give adoptee parents space for their voices to be heard, all adoptees are welcome. This event is really about emotional intelligence, breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and how understanding your feelings and regulating emotions will make you a better human being.

As conversations around citizenship and immigration enforcement continue to surface complex emotions within adoptee communities, Also-Known-As is offering a virtual space to come together in care and solidarity. This call is not intended to provide legal advice, but rather to acknowledge the emotional weight many adoptees are carrying and to create safe-space for shared reflection and support. This call will be facilitated by Alisha Bennett (LCSW) and CS Wright (Adoptees United).

Adoption documentation and legal status differ significantly depending on country of origin, era of adoption, and individual circumstances. While we will do our best to share high-level resources and emerging best practices gathered from adoptee-led organizations who are experts in this space, these resources may shift as policies evolve. Above all, this gathering prioritizes holding space, community connection, and mutual support.