A Wealth of Family: An
Adopted Son's International
Quest for Heritage, Reunion,
and Enrichment
by Thomas Brooks
Alpha Multimedia, Inc
When Thomas Brooks
set out to find his
biological parents, he had
no idea the journey would
take him around the world,
from the United States all
the way to Great Britain and
Kenya. He had no idea that
his odyssey would profoundly
change his life and the
lives of three very
culturally different
families.
In his inspiring book, A
Wealth of Family: An Adopted
Son's International Quest
for Heritage, Reunion and
Enrichment, Brooks writes
about his life growing up as
an African-American boy on
the north side of
Pittsburgh. Although money
was often tight, his
struggling single mother
provided her only child with
a loving home and devoted
extended family. Even the
shocking revelation by his
mother when Brooks was just
eleven that he was adopted
did not prevent the young
boy from following his
ambitions to go to college
and leave the ghetto behind.
Eventually, however, Brooks
sensed within himself a
growing need to know more
about his biological
background. Because he knew
nothing about his biological
parents or their heritage,
he began to feel that
something was missing from
his own identity. In 1992,
at the age of twenty-five
and in his final year of the
University of Maryland MBA
program, he set out to fill
in the missing gaps of his
heritage. It was not long
before he discovered his
birth parents were alive and
leading remarkable lives
overseas.
"I was taken aback to
receive any information at
all," says Brooks after
getting a letter from the
agency that handled his
adoption in 1966. "It was
incredibly fulfilling to add
pieces to the puzzle of my
own identity. I learned that
my biological mother was a
white American who had
descended from Lithuanian
Jews. She gave birth to me
at the age of nineteen. My
biological father was a
black Kenyan foreign student
and about twenty-six years
old at the time of my birth.
I was multiracial. Both of
my parents had attended
college." Brooks admits that
this was much more
information than he had ever
expected to receive and that
it gave him a good feeling
about the contribution of
both of his parents to his
heritage.
Brooks eventually found his
white biological mother
living in London, with his
previously unknown British
siblings. He then located
his biological father and
extended family in Nairobi.
His international quest to
locate his biological
parents and the resulting
reunions have profoundly
affected three radically
different families in the
United States, Great
Britain, and Kenya.
In summary, this true story
of adoption, reunion and
heritage provides a timely
and inspiring perspective on
multicultural families, and
provocative prescriptions to
address racism and poverty.
