Miami — Kyle Adler’s discovery that he was stolen from his Chilean mother as a child came as a shock, sparking an identity crisis that lasted years and led to his reunion with his biological mother earlier this year.
“It was interesting to learn who my people were,” Adler said. “I feel love, compassion and care – it’s nice to have a family again.”
Adopted by an American family when he was 9 months old, the 36-year-old is one of thousands of children stolen from Chilean families during General Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship, and among hundreds who have been reunited with their families thanks to DNA tracing and organizations that help Chilean adoptees investigate their past. Others are also working to bring justice for torn families.
The American family that adopted Adler in 1990 raised him in an affluent suburb of Chicago.
“My parents didn’t steal me, and they didn’t name me Kyle out of spite. They saw me as what they wanted me to be, and there was a lot of love put into it,” Adler said of his adoptive parents, Mike and Connie Adler. Adler believes that neither of them knew the circumstances surrounding his adoption. He said neither of them initially supported his decision to find his mother before they died in 2022.
He said he grew up to be an overachiever, and in adulthood wanted more meaning to his life.
“And now suddenly I found myself where I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was adopted, and at that point, I was like, ‘I need to find my mom.’
Adler’s biological mother, Ana Maria Navarrete, was 19 and worked nights at a fish shop in the coastal city of Coronel, about 533 kilometers (331 miles) south of the capital. She named him Marcos Antonio Navarrete.
She could only afford a room for herself, so she hired a woman who took Adler into her home when he was a child and cared for him. Navarrete told the Associated Press that she would visit him when she was not working.
One day, her caregiver told her that he had been taken in by an American couple after a local priest had made arrangements for a child “in need of a family.”
“I let them have it,” Navarrete told the AP, angrily and ashamed. The AP was unable to independently verify all the details of what happened.
The police investigator told her that the child had likely been taken as part of a vast fake adoption network involving adoption agencies, immigration officials, judges, nurses and even doctors.
No one was held accountable, and “those years that followed were some of the worst years of my life,” Navarrete said.
Because of her lack of family support, she said she eventually gave up on the idea of getting her son back.
“Justice for the poor did not exist in Chile, and it still does not exist,” said Constanza del Río, founder and executive director of Nos Boscamos, a nonprofit with online data for thousands of cases. The government estimates that more than 20,000 children have been stolen from their families.
Poor and indigenous children were targeted during the Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1990, said Jimmy Liebert Thaiden Gonzalez, who was also illegally adopted and became a human rights lawyer.
“It was an attempt to eradicate and eliminate the poor class. It was a way to eliminate the indigenous population, the uneducated population,” he said.
In early 2017, Adler came across the Nos Buscamos Facebook group while Googling the term “Chilean mother search” online, he said. That’s when he sent a message to Del Rio.
Within three months, del Rio confirmed Adler’s origin story and organized a virtual meeting.
At first, Adler felt crushed when he discovered he had been illegally adopted, sending him into an identity crisis that led to years of therapy.
Then last year, Adler finally felt ready to get answers.
A DNA test provided by genealogy platform MyHeritage, a global family history company based in Israel, confirmed a match between Adler and Navarrete, 56, of Santiago and “made it official,” he said.
MyHeritage is partnering with Nos Buscamos and Connecting Roots, and other nonprofits doing similar work, to provide free at-home DNA testing kits for distribution to Chilean adoptees and suspected victims of child trafficking.
Tyler Graff, founder and CEO of Connecting Roots, traveled with Adler.
Graf also met his mother, Hilda Quezada Godoy, decades after he was kidnapped from her, and said his mission now is to track down others who were taken from families in Chile.
“Now is the time to fix these families and bring everyone back to their homes so they can know where they came from,” Graf told the AP.
Human rights lawyer Libert Thayden Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the Chilean government three years ago and hopes to take the fight to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He also founded Grafting Hope, a non-profit organization focused on educating US lawmakers and fighting for the rights of survivors of fake adoptions.
The Chilean government did not immediately respond to several messages seeking comment from The Associated Press.
“I want justice. Not just for me, but also for him because I don’t know what kind of life he lived,” Navarrete told the AP days after she was reunited with her son.
Navarrete is working with a law firm and hopes those involved will get prison time.
“My mom wanted me to be alive,” Adler said before boarding the plane from Miami in February.
They reunited two days after her 56th birthday on Valentine’s Day and the AP team was with them in Miami and Chile.
Tears flowed as Adler exited the international arrivals gate into Chile. Both mother and son were dressed in white as Navarrete ran to hug him. The tall, dark-haired son leaned down to bury his face in his mother’s hair.
“I’m so happy to finally meet him. My dream has finally come true,” Navarrete said.
An emotional reunion led to a productive week together visiting the beach at Coronel, the hospital where Adler was born, and the house from which he was taken. They recovered a copy of his original birth certificate, and he met one of his four brothers. In Miami, he had previously met another sister and her daughter.
Back in Santiago, the two enjoyed the mementos Adler had brought with him as gifts: a framed graduation certificate, childhood photos, and a pair of baby shoes that his adoptive parents had kept.
Adler is not a Spanish speaker so Connecting Roots provided a translator. These days, translation apps help them keep the conversation going.
Navarrete said the time she spent with her son was enjoyable, but it also made her relive a lot of the pain of the past 35 years.
“It took a long time to find him,” Navarrete said, crying. “And then we spent a week together and then I would let him go. It was like I had found him but now I lost him again.”
She said she hopes to reunite the family in December. For Adler, the road to forgiveness continues but he hopes Navarrete can move on from the trauma.
“I’m not just the son you lost, I’m the son you found. I’m back to be your son,” he said.