Rhonda M.
Roorda
Award-winning author, speaker, executive coach, consultant, and internationally recognized voice on transracial adoption, identity, belonging, and the power of lived experience.
A life of experience became a body of work.
Rhonda M. Roorda is an Award-winning author, speaker, executive coach, and consultant whose work has helped shape conversations about transracial adoption, race, identity, family, belonging, and the lived experience of Black adoptees.
From lived experience to lasting impact.
Rhonda M. Roorda is the author of Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee, published by Temple University Press.
She is the Award-winning author of In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption. And the co-author of a trilogy of groundbreaking books examining transracial adoption and the experiences of Black adoptees. All books published by Columbia University Press.
Her work bridges scholarship and lived experience, bringing depth, honesty, and humanity to some of the most complex questions surrounding adoption, identity, race, family, and belonging.
With more than three decades of professional leadership experience, Rhonda brings a distinctive perspective to organizations, universities, families, and communities seeking meaningful dialogue and lasting change.
Work that reaches far beyond the page.
Rhonda's work makes a substantial impact across academia, adoption agencies, family-support organizations, and the entertainment sector. Her insights are valued by organizations and families throughout the United States and around the world.
Scholarship
Bringing lived experience and intellectual insight into conversations about race, adoption, identity, and belonging.
Advocacy
Working with adoption professionals, agencies, families, and organizations to deepen understanding of transracial adoption.
Connection
Helping families and communities engage difficult conversations with greater honesty, compassion, and understanding.
Storytelling
Bringing authenticity and expertise to national conversations through television, media, and storytelling.
When scholarship meets storytelling.
Rhonda's expertise and lived experience have taken her beyond the pages of her books and into national and international conversations about adoption, identity, race, family, and belonging.
Her work and perspective have been featured in major media outlets and connected with millions of viewers through television, podcasts, and public conversation.
A career marked by meaningful recognition.
Rhonda's contributions have been recognized by leading organizations in adoption, child welfare, family support, and the broader community.
Judge John P. Steketee Adoption Hero Award
Recognizing Rhonda's contributions to the adoption community and her advocacy for children and families.
Friend of Children and Youth Award
Presented by the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) in recognition of her work on behalf of children and youth.
Richard K. Ransom Award
Presented at the Adopt America Network Gala for exceptional work supporting children and families and for Rhonda's role on the Emmy-winning television series This Is Us.
Vanguard Adoption Award
Presented by Adoption Knowledge Affiliates in recognition of Rhonda's enduring contributions, leadership, and influence in the field of adoption.
Changing the conversation through the written word.
Rhonda's literary work has helped expand the national conversation surrounding transracial adoption and the voices of Black adoptees.
Torn from the Root
A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee
Rhonda's deeply personal account of growing
up as a Black girl adopted into a white
Evangelical family and the lifelong journey
of understanding identity, family, race,
and belonging.
In Their Voices
Black Americans on Transracial Adoption
A groundbreaking collection centering the
voices and experiences of Black Americans
connected to transracial adoption.
A Foundational Body of Work
Rhonda is also the co-author of a trilogy of influential books examining transracial adoption, helping establish a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the experiences of adoptees and families.
Torn from
the Root.
A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee
After decades of writing, speaking, researching, and advocating about transracial adoption, Rhonda M. Roorda turns inward to tell the story she has carried for a lifetime.
Torn from the Root is an intimate, courageous memoir about race, family, faith, identity, belonging, and the complicated journey of becoming fully seen.
Explore Torn from the RootThe story continues.
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