Response is still streaming in from our feature on adoptions in Vietnam.

Mail came from young Vietnamese throughout the country, now settled into American lives, apart from non-Vietnamese readers especially interested in welcoming orphaned toddlers into their daily worlds. Reaction was both positive and negative, with plenty of questions, sparking correspondence back and forth.

Reader Sandy Kelley wants to learn more about the costs for adoption per child in Vietnam.

Reader Jared Rehberg, who lived once in his homeland’s An Lạc orphanage and now based in New York, said, ''I’m glad you guys are discussing this topic.'' The singer and songwriter, formerly named Vũ Tiến Anh, is assisting with a film called 'Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam.'

A quartet of readers, spread across the United States, wrote by e-mail: ''We are just a few of many members of the first generation of Vietnamese adoptees who were flown out of the country to join families around the world during and at the end of the Vietnam War. So, it was with much anticipation that we wanted to read what a Vietnamese-American publication had to say about adoption from Vietnam. Unfortunately, the articles fell far short of any wide-ranging examination of both the history and continued practice of adoption from Vietnam.''

The letter, written by Kevin Minh Allen, Sumeia Williams, Anh Đào Kolbe and Khải Barfield, said they wanted to read ''about issues surrounding international adoption, specifically from the point of view of birth parents, adoptive parents and the adoptees themselves,'' linking ''debate about the social, economic and political factors that drive international adoption between Vietnam and the United States as well as the far-reaching consequences felt by birth families, adoptive families and society at large...''

''Although the series mentioned allegations of official corruption and the selling of infants on the black market, which forced the Vietnamese and American governments to briefly halt adoptions from Vietnam a few years ago, the articles appear to treat these crimes as nuisances by highlighting the prospective adoptive parents’ anxiety and anguish as they were forced to put their adoption plans on hold,'' they said.

''It would be great if you could do more,'' Allen, a technical writer, told me by phone from his home base of Seattle. Excitedly, we planned to. We plan to still.

A sincere thanks to all of our regular and newer readers. Your criticism, your encouragement, add fuel to our words and work.

Yours,
Anh Do