There’s a dark side to adoption that it is not often talked about. Historically, poor women have often been exploited into giving up some of their children. In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet’s regime led to one variation of this in the 1970s and '80s in an attempt to reduce poverty. This illegal adoption operation saw 8,000 to 20,000 babies taken out of the country and given to families in America, Europe, and beyond. Jimmy Lippert Thyden was one of them.
His adoption paperwork says he had no living family. His birth mother, Maria Angelica Gonzalez, was told her son died at birth. Forty-two years later, the pair reunited in Valdivia, Chile, on August 17, 2023.
The reunion was emotional for both of them. “It knocked the wind out of me … I was suffocated by the gravity of this moment,” Jimmy said. “How do you hug someone in a way that makes up for 42 years of hugs?”
"It's a miracle from God," Maria said. "When I learned that he was alive, I couldn't believe it."
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Jimmy worked with the nonprofit Nos Buscamos to reunite with his birth family. “The paperwork I have for my adoption tells me I have no living relatives. And I learned in the last few months that I have a mama and I have four brothers and a sister,” Jimmy explained.
Jimmy first took a MyHeritage DNA to confirm his Chilean ethnicity. Jimmy’s test results indicated that he was 100% Chilean and also revealed a first cousin. This would set him on a course for the emotional reunion.
Jimmy and Maria’s meeting is one of many happy reunions taking place to right the wrongs of Pinochet’s regime. Elan and Micah Nardi reunited with their birth mother in 2022 after their adoptive mom saw a news report about Tyler Graf.
Tyler was also stolen via illegal adoption from Chile and now runs Connecting Roots, an organization dedicated to helping families reunite. "Seeing the happiness that this creates when these two families meet for the first time, to know that there was a lifetime of pain that is now going to be patched, it's incredible," he explained.
