
Amazon Prime Free Trial
FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button and confirm your Prime free trial.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited FREE Prime delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
$16.00$16.00
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Save with Used - Very Good
$12.57$12.57
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Jenson Books Inc
1.76 mi | Ashburn 20147
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth Paperback – Illustrated, May 15, 2012
Purchase options and add-ons
Over the last decade, nearly 200,000 children have been adopted into the United States, 25,000 of whom came from Guatemala. Finding Fernanda, a dramatic true story paired with investigative reporting, tells the side-by-side tales of an American woman who adopted a two-year-old girl from Guatemala and the birth mother whose two children were stolen from her. Each woman gradually comes to realize her role in what was one of Guatemala’s most profitable black-market industries: the buying and selling of children for international adoption. Finding Fernanda is an overdue, unprecedented look at adoption corruption—and a poignant, riveting human story about the power of hope, faith, and determination.
- Print length312 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBeacon Press
- Publication dateMay 15, 2012
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100807001856
- ISBN-13978-0807001851
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

Customers who bought this item also bought
Mamalita: An Adoption MemoirPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Monday, Dec 16
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Oh, what a story. It is hard to believe that such things go on in this world of ours, but Erin Siegel has woven a lively, well-researched and cautionary tale that is a must-read..."—Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, Author of New York Times best seller, Carved In Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife
"Erin Siegal peels back layers of deception to reveal a twisting and engrossing saga of two deeply wronged mothers and the girl they both claimed. Her brave account is chilling, and should be required reading for policymakers and anyone who cares about children."—E. Benjamin Skinner, 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Author, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-To-Face With Modern-Day Slavery
"Fernanda's story carries us into the darkest regions of the human heart... Erin Siegal has written a saga of seduction and betrayal so sinister that anger pushes you from page to page. Rarely has an investigative reporter unveiled so compelling a narrative of motherhood from Guatemala to Tennessee."—Wayne Barrett, investigative journalist and author of Trump: The Deals and the Downfall and Rudy!: An Investigative Biography Of Rudy Giuliani
"Really will tug at your heartstrings... A moving story."—Dan Raviv, CBS Radio News
"Heavy-duty investigative reporting and compelling personal testimony..."—The Miami Herald
"Finding Fernanda is an incredible piece of investigative journalism. The amount of time, depth of research and commitment to this story is evidenced on every page of this book. The book is a page turner and a jaw dropper as the evidence of corruption runs deep and the story unfolds. Siegal should be commended for her bravery in bringing this story to light in the hopes that adoption processes will be improved to protect both children and families. Siegal took a courageous step to bring this story forward. It is my hope that with this story available for every government official, prospective adoptive parent and anyone involved in adoption to see positive changes can be made to protect children. Finding Fernanda is a must-read."—Adoption Today
"Finding Fernanda may be the most illuminating book about abuses in international adoptions yet written. This is not just fearless public service journalism, but also a moving, acute, gracefully-written work of story-telling. Erin Siegal is an extraordinary young journalist."—Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name and The Art of Political Murder
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The first time I set foot in Guatemala was December 2007. My sister and I were visited the country as tourists, wandering to the usual places of interest: the teeming markets of Chichicastenango, Antigua’s famous cathedral, the beautiful National Palace. At the trip’s end, we waited for our flight home in Guatemala City’s gleaming, modern airport, surrounded by over a dozen American couples. Each pair was leaving the country with a Guatemalan child.
As a photojournalist, I found the image arresting. Back in New York, I began skimming through press clippings about adoption, trying to find a compelling story angle that would enable me to return to Guatemala to photograph an adoption story. I imagined a human-interest piece touching on cultural blending, or the love and generosity that seemed intrinsic to adoption. Instead, the news articles I found were anything but uplifting. Many were downright shocking. In June 2000, nearly a decade earlier, the Miami Herald had reported that Guatemala was “the fourth-largest exporter of children in the world, a ranking sustained by often ruthless means.” The piece noted, “Child robbery is extraordinarily commonplace here” and described the experience of a young, poorly educated woman from the countryside who had been tricked into giving her baby up for adoption after a C-section. A year later, in 2001, the Los Angeles Times published a substantial feature by Juanita Darling entitled “Little Bundles of Cash,” which said Guatemalan children “have become a major export. . . . There is growing evidence that the profits and demand for babies have become high enough to foster child-trafficking rings.” Darling mentioned that the rings relied on various kinds of intimidation and financial incentives to induce impoverished women to give up their children. “Law enforcement officials believe that demand has become so intense,” she wrote, “that some traffickers are stealing babies from their mothers.”
Certainly, I thought, trafficking and kidnapping problems from almost a decade earlier would be cleaned up by now. But as I continued reading press clips from 2006 and 2007, the same transgressions kept popping up. Babies were taken, by force or coercion. Birth mothers, largely disempowered, were tricked or paid.
By 2007, the Associated Press was reporting that Americans were adopting around one in every 100 babies born in Guatemala each year. Other articles referred to Guatemala’s international adoption program as “unregulated, profit-driven, and much-criticized” and “believed to be rife with corruption.”
Photographing a straightforward human-interest piece no longer seemed appropriate. In fact, the issue felt better suited to detective work than to visual storytelling. In spring 2008, I applied to the Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, pitching an examination of adoption fraud in Guatemala as a potential thesis topic. By August 2008, I was one of a dozen Stabile fellows receiving specialized training in investigative reporting. Some of the reporting contained in this book began at Columbia under the guidance of Stabile Center director Sheila Coronel and veteran investigative journalist Wayne Barrett, who was my advisor. At first, the project seemed to be a dry kind of historical documentation, tracking legislative evolution and lobbying efforts. I wasn’t sure how my own reporting would effectively serve the public interest, since I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested enough to actually read through such dense subject material. I asked Wayne repeatedly if I should change subjects. He told me to keep digging, and I did.
On December 8, 2008, I found an e-mail that had been written month before by a woman named Betsy Emanuel. I’d been reading the archives of a popular public email Listserv, the Adoption Agency Review List (AARG), learning about how different American adoption agencies operated and how clients compared and contrasted them. In her email, Betsy offered stark advice to a list member who’d asked how to choose an agency. “Ask strong questions about exactly who any agency is dealing with in-country,” she instructed. “If you get ANY feeling that you are annoying the agency with these types of questions, then dig deeper and DO NOT ignore your feelings. These measures would have helped me if I had known to do this.”
I was instantly curious. That same afternoon, I sent Betsy an email explaining that I was a graduate student researching adoption and asking if she’d feel comfortable sharing her experience with me. She responded vaguely, saying she’d had four great adoptions and then a “nightmare” with a Florida agency that she “would not recommend.” She didn’t provide additional details.
I asked if we could set up a time to speak on the phone.
“I don’t have a lot of spare time,” she responded. “But if I can help you, I’ll try. I have a daughter who’ll be in grad school soon. “She mentioned that she knew it was hard to get people to “take the time to share information.” I expected a brief, ten-minute phone call.
Our conversation the next day lasted for three hours. Betsy summarized what amounted to a decade of adoption experiences as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that this down-to-earth, honey-voiced Southern woman had eight children. At that time, I didn’t understand how adoption hooked some families — and not just celebrities like the Jolie-Pitts. In a piece published in Good Housekeeping in 2000, journalist and mother of nine Melissa Fay Greene recounted her first adoption experience and “the feeling I can’t save all the children, but I can save this one.” After adopting four more times, in 2011, she told Publishers Weekly that “it wasn’t a humanitarian act. We simply wanted more children, and the children needed families.”
That day, when Betsy Emanuel first recounted her experience with the Florida-based adoption agency Celebrate Children International to me, the story seemed too strange to be true. Afterwards, Betsy e-mailed me a few articles from Guatemalan news-papers that supported her account, involving a young woman named Mildred Alvarado and her children.
A week later after our first conversation, I left the U.S. on the first of what would be multiple month long reporting trips to Guatemala City. Although I planned to do general research, speaking to a variety of diverse sources, Betsy’s complicated story remained in the back of my mind. I decided that I’d start looking into what had really transpired if, and only if, I could find Mildred Alvarado without too much work.
I found her within days.
Product details
- Publisher : Beacon Press; Illustrated edition (May 15, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 312 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0807001856
- ISBN-13 : 978-0807001851
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,799,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #706 in Foreign & International Law
- #1,307 in Adoption (Books)
- #1,800 in Emigration & Immigration Studies (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

For nearly a decade, investigative journalist Erin Siegal McIntyre (esmcintyre.com) has worked in radio, TV, and print. Her work blends narrative non-fiction with deep-dive research and classic investigative reporting. She's a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Her books include "Finding Fernanda," which was awarded an Overseas Press Club Award Citation for Best Reporting on Latin America, and "The U.S. Embassy Cables: Adoption Fraud in Guatemala, 1987-2011."
Currently based in Tijuana, Mexico, Siegal McIntyre's writing and photography have appeared in various outlets and magazines, including the New Yorker, the Christian Science Monitor, O Magazine, Playboy, the New York Times, and U.S. News and World Report. Her work has been the subject of a variety of radio and television programs, including on NPR and Univision. In 2015, the episode of 48 Hours Mystery on CBS that featured Siegal McIntyre and "Finding Fernanda" was awarded an Emmy.
Related products with free delivery on eligible orders
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book fantastic, well-researched, and powerful. They describe the writing quality as good and it reads like a mystery novel. Readers find the content insightful, compelling, and educational regarding corruption. They also describe the content as heart wrenching, devastating, and depressing.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book fantastic, well-researched, interesting, and powerful. They also say it's an excellent documentary.
"An extremely well-written and powerful book...." Read more
"An incredible thriller, moving and depressing and definitely worth the read. The author is a great storyteller and thorough journalist." Read more
"Excellent read; very eye-opening. Lots of good info. about adoption corruption AND a touching story, too!" Read more
"This book was amazing. It should be read by many. It made me cry. And see the adoption world in a different way." Read more
Customers find the writing quality of the book to be well-written. They say the narrative non-fiction writing is pretty good and reads like a mystery novel for a fair portion of it. Readers also mention the book is well-documented and well worth reading.
"...What's interesting about this book is how it reads like a mystery novel for a fair portion of it...." Read more
"...It was well worth the read and I'd recommend it to others who have an interest in international adoption." Read more
"...It's a journey, well-written and documented, you just can't wait to turn the page. A true story with many characters you wish were fictional." Read more
"...No doubt Ms. Siegal chose a compelling topic. Her narrative non-fiction writing is pretty good, but is inconsistent...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful, eye-opening, and educational regarding adoption corruption. They say it's compelling, interesting, and has good information about it. Readers also mention it's a touching story.
"This was a great story with all the interesting facts that kept you reading on...." Read more
"This was a very compelling account of the search of a mother for her children...." Read more
"...I found it to be extrememly eye-opening and educational regarding the corruption in Guatemalan adoptions...." Read more
"...I read this when starting our international adoption. Very insightful. Hard to read about these happenings." Read more
Customers find the content heartfelt, devastating, and depressing. They say it's a fabulous read that makes them cry.
"An incredible thriller, moving and depressing and definitely worth the read. The author is a great storyteller and thorough journalist." Read more
"This book was both heart wrenching and eye opening. It's what adoptive parents have tried to ignore for years...." Read more
"This book was amazing. It should be read by many. It made me cry. And see the adoption world in a different way." Read more
"Well written and well-sourced. A fabulous and devastating read!..." Read more
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2012
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2019
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2013
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2012
This book will come as a shock to some in the international adoption (I.A.) community. To others, it will not. Ms. Siegal exposes two ugly undersides of I.A.
The first is how children are obtained for "placement". Replace Guatemala with Vietnam, Cambodia, Eithiopia, China, Russia, Bulgaria, Korea, India, Nepal and I hate to write it, but these countries do not differ in how [many] children were obtained. Multiply Mildred Alvarado by thousands.
We may want to believe our children were "abandoned", but I no longer believe that anymore. Most AParents will argue differently and with good cause [especially those who adopted from Russia] about their childrens' origins. "Finding Fernanda" at least puts a face to the biological source of [many] of our I.A. children.
The second underside, the portion we lived through in our own adoption(s), was the abject horrible treatment by self-appointed "adoption agency directors" (are you listening Sue Hedberg? Snow Wu? Nina Kostina? Denise Hubbard? Margaret Cole-Hughes? Linda Perilstein?). Although I and Betsy Emmanuel are vastly different, she and I share one huge thing: the living hell that dealing with a Narcissistic, control freak agency director can wreak over you life. The hoops jumped through so you can bring your child home.
Having been though the state complaint process like Mrs. Emmanuel did with Florida's state licensing commission, I know the shock and sadness that accompanies the "slap on the wrist" these "adoption professionals" receive.
HOWEVER, there is nothing individual states can do because the adoptions are foreign, outside of state jurisdiction. After thinking you've done the right thing by filing a complaint, it is a tremndous let-down knowing the Narcissistic Control Freak Agency Director got away clean.
I truly respect Mrs. Emmanuel for taking a stand and doind the RIGHT thing in telling her story and by extension, that of Fernanda and Mildred Alvarado.
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2013
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2016
It is a sad story.
My only regret was that I didn't read it on a Kindle because there are SO many people introduced in the course of the book I wish that I had been able to "click" on their names and search the book for the first time they are introduced.
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2011
It's the tale of two Mom's and their love for Fernanda. It's a journey, well-written and documented, you just can't wait to turn the page. A true story with many characters you wish were fictional.

