Léa Roback: Quebec Social Justice Activist
A biography (June 24, 2025)
Léa Roback (1903-2000) was well-known for her seven decades of activist work in Quebec, especially her union and women’s rights activism. This biography provides readers with an opportunity to read about Roback’s activist life and work from the perspective of one of her great-nieces, who is an activist herself. At a time when the geo-political moment has produced polarized views and a lack of dialogue, Roback’s ability to cross-borders – linguistic, religious, cultural, and class borders – to work towards social justice needs to be documented and shared. The biography will be of interest to educators and social justice activists around the world.
Home of Her Heart:
A novel (May 27, 2023)
At age 10, Luisa is separated from her birth country and family when she is adopted and transported from Colombia to Canada. Seven years later Luisa still has questions. Why did her mamá die of pneumonia when antibiotics could have saved her? Why did her papá disappear? When a long-awaited trip to Bogotá is suddenly cancelled, Luisa leaves Toronto without permission to return to the orphanage she last knew as home. Determined to find answers and reconnect with her birth family, Luisa risks alienating her adopted family to make a place for herself in Bogotá, the home of her heart.
At age 16, Nana Lottie flees Nazi Germany through the Kindertransport Program, where she comes to England to wait for her parents to rejoin her. Caught up in the brutal violence of the Shoah, they never come. After losing her entire family, Lottie needs to find a way to carry on.
Spanning borders from Colombia to Canada, Germany to England, a grandmother and her granddaughter, both survivors of state violence, search for family and a place to call home.
Advance Praise for Home of Her Heart
I really appreciate the inclusive and empathetic lens Tara Goldstein shares in this story. It means a lot of us adoptees to be represented with complexity-including the anger, grief, and sadness that we often feel unable to share.
I sat down with Home of Her Heart and didn’t put the pages down until the end. I couldn’t bear to leave Luisa and her life. Tara Goldstein has woven a multi – generational story told by Luisa a young woman who has a thirst for the truth, an appetite for love, and a spirit driven by both blood and chosen family. Tara transports the reader to other continents, different times in history, linking 17-year-old Luisa with her adoptive 102-year-old Grandmother Lottie. Luisa and Lottie’s stories remind us of how war and conflict affects children, and how their young spirits can find hope for new lives. I was transported into these women’s stories.
Home of Her Heart Audio-Book
Listen to Home of Her Heart BELOW↓
Home of Her Heart Audio-Book Credits
| Author | Tara Goldstein |
| Actor/Narrator | Diana Barrero Jaramillo |
| Actor/Nana Lottie | Audrey Lowitz |
| Director | Jenny Salisbury |
| Audio-Book Recording | Doug Friesen and Yue (Ray) Sun |
| Audio-Book Editing | Doug Friesen |
| Home of her Heart theme | Written by Kael Reid & Lisa Patterson |
| Produced by | Lisa Patterson & Kael Reid |
| Engineered & Programmed by | Lisa Patterson |
| Musicians | Doug Friesen-Bass, Tara Goldstein-Clarinet, Lisa Patterson-Saxophone and keys |
| Visual artists | benjamin lee hicks |
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the Jackman Humanities Institute for funding the audio-book project from their Marquee Fund.
Transnational/Transracial Adoption
Boluda, Anna, dir. and prod. Queer Spawn. New York: Anna Boluda, 2005. Documentary.
Bonkowski, Basia. Jesse’s World: A Story of Adoption and the Global Family. Milsons Point (Sydney): Random House Australia, 2005.
Demby, Gene, and Shereen M. Meraji, hosts. “Transracial Adoptees on Their Racial Identity and Sense of Self.” Code Switch. National Public Radio, October 13, 2018. Audio podcast episode.
Opper, Nicole, dir. and prod. Off and Running: An American Coming of Age Story. New York: Nicole Opper Productions, 2009. Documentary.
Register, Cheri. Beyond Good Intentions: A Mother Reflects on Raising Internationally Adopted Children. St. Paul, MN: Yeong and Yeong, 2005.
Trenka, Jane Jeong. Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea. St. Paul, MN: Borealis Books, 2009.
Trenka, Jane Jeong. The Language of Blood. St. Paul, MN: Borealis Books, 2005.
Trenka, Jane Jeong, Julie Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin, eds. Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. Cambridge: South End Press, 2006.
Kindertransport
Harris, Mark Jonathan, dir., and Deborah Oppenheimer, prod. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. Sabine Films and the United States Holocaust Museum, 2000. Documentary.
Harris, Mark Jonathan, and Deborah Oppenheimer, eds. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.
Samuels, Diane. Diane Samuels’ Kindertransport: The Author’s Guide to the Play. London: Nick Hearn Books, 2014.
British Women’s Forces in the Second World War
Barrett, Duncan, and Nuala Calvi. The Girls Who Went to War. London: Harper Element, 2015.