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Title We were once a family : a story of love, death, and child removal in America / Roxanna Asgarian.
Author Asgarian, Roxanna, 1987- author.
Publication Info. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.
©2023
Book Cover
Copies/Volumes
Location Call No. Status
 Fairview Shores  364.1523 ASG    Check Shelves
 North Orange  364.1523 ASG    Checked Out
 Orlando Public Library (Downtown) - Third Floor  364.1523 ASG    Check Shelves
 Southwest  364.1523 ASG    Check Shelves
Edition First edition.
Description xiv, 297 pages ; 21 cm
text txt rdacontent
unmediated n rdamedia
volume nc rdacarrier
Children lcsh
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-294).
Summary "The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children-and a searing indictment of the American foster care system"-- Provided by publisher.
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.
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.
Foster children -- Care -- United States.
Foster home care -- United States.
Genre True crime stories.
Added Title Story of love, death, and child removal in America
ISBN 9780374602291 (hardcover) : $28.00
0374602298 (hardcover)