She Hid Her Oromo Identity for 30 Years. Then She Learned Why.

At 13 years old, Aselefech Evans told someone in DC that she was Ethiopian, but she was Oromo. They told her not to say that. She did not understand why then. It took until her mid-thirties to understand the political persecution behind that instruction, and to finally claim the identity that her own community had told her to bury.

Aselefech Evans is an Arsi Oromo psychotherapist, Ethiopian adoptee, community organizer, and co-editor of Lions Roaring Far From Home, the first anthology of stories by Ethiopian adoptees, told in their own words. She was raised by white parents in the DC metro area, home to the largest Ethiopian population outside of Ethiopia, and still spent decades searching for the part of herself she had been told not to name.