Extraordinary Journey

Extraordinary Journey: The Lifelong Path of the Transracial Adoptee Copyright 2021, by Mark Hagland ISBN number: 978-1-7923-6708-3

Book and cover design: Saheran Shoukat

Extraordinary Journey The Lifelong Path of the Transracial Adoptee

By:

MARK HAGLAND

This book is dedicated to John and Yazmin, to the memory of my parents, Kenneth and Sylvia Hagland, and to all the transracial adoptees out in the world.

Table of Contents Introduction: Welcome to Our Journeys.............................................. 9 Chapter 1:.............................................................................................. 23 The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee— and the Parallel Journey of the Parent Chapter 2:.............................................................................................. 33 The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith............................................................... 47 Chapter 3:.............................................................................................. 59 The Enormous Danger of Binary Thinking, Or, It’s (Past) Time to Sit in Complexity Chapter 4:.............................................................................................. 73 Leaving Behind the “Rainbows and Unicorns” View of Transracial Adoption Adoptee Voice: Melanie Chung Sherman.............................................. 87

Chapter 5: ............................................................................................. 95 The Scourge of Unusualness Adoptee Voice: Sumitra Dorner............................................................ 109 Chapter 6:.............................................................................................. 117 The Narrative Burden: Lifelong, Immense, Unavoidable, Manageable Adoptee Voice: Susan Harris O’Connor............................................... 129 Chapter 7: ............................................................................................. 137 We’re Adaptive—and That’s Both Good and Bad Adoptee Voice: Lynelle Long................................................................. 147 Chapter 8:.............................................................................................. 157 Sorting It Out: Healing Trauma and Distress, Connecting to Heal Adoptee Voice: Angelica Bråten............................................................ 175 Chapter 9:.............................................................................................. 181 Tragedizing the Narrative—Or, How Some Adoptive Parents Learn How to Move Past Themselves, For the Sake of their Children of Color Adoptee Voice: Tony Hynes................................................................... 195

Chapter 10:............................................................................................ 205 Coming Out of the Transracial Adoptee Fog Adoptee Voice: Sandy White Hawk....................................................... 219 Chapter 11:............................................................................................ 227 Navigating Birth Culture: Olympian-Level Challenges for Transracial Adoptees Adoptee Voice: René Priyadarshan Beck Bjerregaard........................... 253 Chapter 12:............................................................................................ 257 Layers of Lived Complexity: Birth Search, Birth Parents, Birth Family Adoptee Voice: Lucía Rabadán Gómez................................................. 269 Chapter 13:............................................................................................ 273 Let’s Talk About Names / Why You Should Never, Ever Say “Caucasian” Adoptee Voice: Christina Romo............................................................ 289 Chapter 14:............................................................................................ 295 Multiple Journeys, Complex Layers / The Monstrous Demand for the Reflexive Expression of Gratitude

Adoptee Voice: Astrid Castro................................................................. 307 Chapter 15:............................................................................................ 315 Resilience and Accomplishment: Bright Lights on the Path Adoptee Voice: Elena DeWolfe.............................................................. 327 Chapter 16:............................................................................................ 335 The Broader Frame: Justice, Progress Appendix: Resources............................................................................. 349 About the Author.................................................................................. 358

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CHAPTER

Introduction

Welcome to Our Journeys T

he summer before I turned ten years old, my family took the first long trip of my life (apart from my having been flown to the United States from South Korea where I was born, as an infant): we took the train to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to see relatives of my mother’s (her cousin, his wife, and their extended family). It was an exciting and very enjoyable trip for me and my twin brother, and for our entire family.

Two years later, that cousin’s wife, whom we addressed as Aunt Elizabeth, came to Milwaukee to visit our extended family, and she had a very festive visit with our family, and the families of my mother’s siblings—her brother and sisters, and all of their families. And she brought a special gift for me and my brother—a children’s history of Canada, written for Canadian children.

All of my history education until the moment that I opened that book (which was quite beautifully designed and illustrated, by the way) had been presented to me from the American viewpoint, of course, particularly anything around the American Revolution. The Founding

Introduction: Welcome to Our Journeys

Fathers (and mothers) were heroes, it was our destiny as a country (the United States) to break away from Britain and become independent, etc.

So, I read in wonder about the United Empire Loyalists—the residents of the Thirteen Colonies who retained loyalty to Britain and did not want to become “Americans” in 1776, or afterwards. Astonishingly, historians estimate that between 20 and 30 percent of colonists in the 13 colonies wanted the place where they lived to remain British. Nearly all of the United Empire Loyalists were resettled in Canada (and, even more astonishingly, I learned recently through reading on the subject, that a small number imported their enslaved individuals with them— though that is a very complex sub-history).

Imagine my astonishment, as an 11-year-old American child, to read about the United Empire Loyalists, and to find out that, from a Canadian perspective, they were “the good guys”—people who became core members of the still-evolving Canadian society. That was one of my first experiences, in my absolutely lifelong study of world history, of suddenly finding out about perspectives different from the ones I had been taught in school (and, let’s be honest, fifth-grade U.S. history is quite basic to begin with, so it’s not as though we were being taught many nuances at that stage of our education).

I’ve begun with this anecdote to illustrate a key point about the entire book that you are about to read: this is a book meant to enlighten and to challenge (in a respectful way), to educate and to support. But I ask that every individual reading this understand its purpose—and that is to explicate, as best as one individual can, some of the aspects of the lived experience of the transracial adoptee, in the clearest, most digestible ways possible, even as the entire subject that this book limns 11

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is one involving endless complexity, countless layers of meaning and significance, and no postcard-like statements that can be regurgitated in the way that children are taught their multiplication tables. Every single thing about transracial adoption—every single thing—is complex and multi-layered. If there’s a single thing that I want the reader of this Introduction to understand, it is that this entire subject is one of the most complex personal-sociocultural phenomena one could tackle. Indeed, I’ve titled one of the chapters in this book, Chapter 3, “The Enormous Danger of Binary Thinking, Or, It’s (Past) Time to Sit in Complexity.”

I also want to explain here a bit about how and why I’ve written this book. First, as to readership, this book is meant to be read by adult transracial adoptees; by white transracially adoptive parents; by all those individuals with any connection to those first two categories of individuals; by allies; by adoption professionals; and of course, by anyone with an interest in this subject.

I want to make it absolutely, absolutely clear that I never attempt to speak for “all transracial adoptees”; my own lived experience informs much of this book, and other elements in it are informed by my having sat in forums around transracial adoption—in person and online—for over two decades now. But I always, always, always qualify everything that I say in this book; there are very, very few instances in which a statement can be applied to “all transracial adoptees.” In the extremely few instances in which I believe that might be possible, I say so; but throughout this book, you’ll see me state that “the majority of transracial adoptees I’ve interacted with, have told me that…” and, “in general, adult transracial adoptees have experienced…” and so on. I can tell 12

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you, as I state in Chapter 5, that every single adult transracial adoptee with whom I’ve discussed the huge issue of personal physical self-image, has told me that they’ve struggled mightily with that issue. That of course does not mean that every single transracial adoptee now living, struggles with that issue; it would be preposterous to say so. But where I can, I try to give the reader a sense of just how widespread an issue is, or just how important it appears to be, for adult transracial adoptees.

I also make broad, but qualified statements, about the experiences of white transracially adoptive parents—again, as always, with careful qualifications in each instance. I want the reader to understand what the big issues are, even as I make it clear throughout the chapters in this book that no one person on earth could ever speak for “everyone.”

That’s simply not possible.

Above all, I’ve purposely written this book as a series of reflections on some of the most challenging and/or complex issues in transracial adoption, from the standpoint of an adult transracial (and international) adoptee, who has been participating in in-person and online forums around transracial adoption for over 20 years now. And, to be explicit here, I’ve purposely chosen to avoid writing the book in any way in which it might be experienced as some kind of instruction manual or textbook. There is perhaps a place for such a book, written by someone (or more likely, “someones”), but this is not going to be that book.

Given that every subject in this area is complex and multilayered, the last thing that I wanted to do was to create some kind of manual. As I mention in one of my chapters (Chapter X), I understand, as a parent myself (in my case, a biological rather than an adoptive parent), that all parents at some point in time would like to read “top tips” types of articles, such as the classic women’s magazine article (which has 13

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now been written and published countless times over the years), “Top Ten Tips For Summer Skin Care For Your Family.” Well, transracial adoption is simply not the kind of subject to lend itself to that type of treatment, so I’ve chosen not to engage in it.

What I do offer here, besides the main thematically based chapters, are interviews with a dozen adult transracial adoptees from all backgrounds and living all types of lived experiences. Their voices should help the reader to have reading experiences that they simply could not have through reading about my own lived experiences. Per that, I have also chosen very purposefully not to make this book anything like an autobiography or a memoir. Why not? For one thing, there are many excellent, excellent autobiographies and memoirs written by my fellow adult transracial adoptees; all are valuable texts to read. I did not and do not feel that an exhaustive recounting of my own life story would provide the kind of value that I could provide in the way that I have here, in providing a series of reflections on the biggest issues, collated together with Q&A-based interviews with fellow adult transracial adoptees, some of whom I’ve known for many years.

In any case, there is definitely a need for books that examine some elements of the transracial adoption experience and the transracial adoption world, in more thematic ways. For one thing, the transracial adoption phenomenon is extremely widespread, in the United States and around the world. Indeed, while there are no hard statistics at all, some experts believe that there are currently at least 700,000 individuals—children, teenagers, and adults—who are transracial adoptees, in the United States alone—matched by at least that number in other countries. If that 700,000 estimate were correct (or even close), 14

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and if one were to extrapolate an estimate of all the family members connected to transracial adoptees of all ages, one could easily see how something like one out of every six Americans might have a personal connection of some kind to transracial adoption.

Yet until just two decades ago, the voices of adult transracial adoptees were virtually never heard in any discussion of transracial adoption: only the voices of white transracially adoptive parents and adoption professionals were heard, listened to, considered. Then came the explosion in the creation of a literature around transracial adoption, by adult transracial adoptees themselves. And that in itself has entirely changed the conceptual and rhetorical landscape in this extremely important area.

Still, even now, when the mainstream news media write articles or create broadcast segments touching on transracial adoption, the tendency is still, even, with remains in 2021, for mainstream-media journalists to try to get interviews with white adoptive parents and adoption professionals first, or even exclusively. It honestly has only been in the past couple of years in which adult transracial adoptees are being consulted, their perspectives sought. And a large part of that is due to our efforts ourselves, as adult transracial adoptees. We have demanded that our voices be heard in their authenticity and expertise, based on our lived experiences.

And in writing this book, I wanted to lift up the voices of all transracial adoptees—across numerous countries. Collectively, we are the experts in the experience of transracial adoption, as a lived experience on the part of adoptees. Adoptive parents will certainly have their own, legitimate experiences. But one of the profound shifts that’s taken place in recent 15

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years has been that creation of an entire literature—including books, documentaries, videos, articles, essays, blogs, podcasts, even art, music, and poetry—on the part of adult transracial adoptees themselves.

And the need for literature that we adult transracial adoptees have created ourselves, is patently obvious. Every day, I hear of situations in which white adoptive parents have failed to do the right thing, with disastrous consequences. Rates of suicide among transracially adopted teens and young adults have been documented to be higher than among non-adopted teens and adults. And every new adoptee who shares her/his story of poor transracially adoptive parenting on the part of their parents, adds to the weight of the truth of the need for adoptee testimony.

Here’s just one case in point. I’m sharing the opening section of a segment that aired on National Public Radio (NPR), on October 13, 2018. The title of the program was “Code Switch: Transracial Adoptees On Their Racial Identity And Sense Of Self,” and it was hosted by Shereen Marison Meraji of NPR. [https://www.npr.org/2018/10/13/657201204/code-switchtransracial-adoptees-on-their-racial-identity-and-sense-of-self ] Here’s that initial portion of the program: SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, HOST: And finally today, we’re going to take a listen to a podcast I host along with Gene Demby called Code Switch. It’s all about race and identity in America. And in our most recent episode, we talked about adoption, specifically transracial adoption. Most adoptive parents in the U.S. 16

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are white, and a lot of them are adopting children who aren’t. That’s according to the Institute on Family Studies. So we put out a call to those of you who are adopted. We wanted to know, how did adoption form your sense of racial identity and your sense of self? And here’s what you told us.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I spent the first 12 years of my life thinking that I was a little white girl. And when I found out that I wasn’t, it wasn’t just a revelation, it was an identity crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: So, really, I think it’s kind of a lack of identity that ties transnational adoptees together.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: The narrative about my adoption was really centered around my mom being a savior.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: My language, my mannerisms, my experiences are all informed by the white family I grew up with.

MERAJI: You told us you feel alone and want to know if there are other people like you out there.

GENE DEMBY, BYLINE: You asked us if you’re a bunch of posers those are your words, not ours - by trying to claim identities that you weren’t exposed to when you were growing up.

MERAJI: A Korean transracial adoptee you wrote to say, quote, “there’s no one I can let my hair down with or be Asian with because I’m not Asian - but I am, sorry, end of rant. Thank you have you actually read this email,” unquote.

DEMBY: We did read your email, and we read a lot of emails just 17

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like it. We reached out to y’all with some questions of our own. First question, what experiences do you have that your parents and other family members do not?

DEMBY: Well, there’s a lot of those.

MERAJI: That’s Melissa Guida-Richards. She’s 25 years old and lives in Bushkill, Pa. MELISSA GUIDA-RICHARDS: I found out that I was adopted when I was 19 years old. That is when I found out that I was actually a Latina. I was adopted from Colombia.

MERAJI: Melissa says she’s a lot darker than her parents. And for years, her parents said that was because they had darker family members. But people she came across out in the world were constantly assuming she was Latina and trying to speak to her in Spanish. It caused a lot of confusion for her growing up.

GUIDA-RICHARDS: I was raised to be an Italian, Portuguese, white daughter of Italian-Portuguese immigrants in the United States. And everybody in my life lied to me because they believed that they were making the right choice. Basically, my entire life was whitewashed. And since I have found out, at 19, I’ve been trying my best to learn about the culture. So it’s just been a journey. And it’s hard.

DEMBY: So white parents rarely talk to their kids about race. We know that, right? We know that from reporting we’ve done. And as so many of your responses show, that has a whole different set of consequences for transracial adoptees.

MERAJI: It does. And, Gene, we heard from several people who said 18

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their parents tried to minimize, if not completely erase, their racial difference.

DEMBY: Right.

MERAJI: Kendra Rosati was adopted from South Korea by white parents, and she says she was raised in a white suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. KENDRA ROSATI: My sisters are blonde and blue-eyed, kind of your all-American classic beauties. And my brother looks like my dad. All of my life, my parents have told me I’m just like my brother and sisters, but I wasn’t and I’m not. I have constantly felt uncomfortable in my own skin. And when I was young, at night, I would pray to God that I would wake up looking just like my sisters. My parents were definitely not ready or equipped to raise a child of color. They didn’t know how to or want to talk about race.

DEMBY: Question No. 2 that we asked adoptees - what’s missing from mainstream conversations about adoption?

REBECCA SEUNG-BICKLEY: What’s missing is the voices of adult adoptees like myself and birth mothers.

As can be seen just from that encounter, even in the present day, there is a vast gulf of lack of understanding out there, not only on the part of the general public, but more crucially, on the part of white transracially adoptive parents. The need is very intense for any and all literature created by those of us who are adult transracial adoptees.

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Every one of us who creates work that informs, educates, and supports those on either the lifelong journey of the transracial adoptee, or the lifelong journey of the transracially adoptive parent, is contributing to a phenomenon far bigger than any of us as individuals.

So, I would ask every reader of this book to do the following things: first, to the extent humanly possible, please set aside all your preconceptions about the subjects discussed here. Second, understand that this book has been written for multiple diverse audiences from across the transracial adoption constellation, including adult transracial adoptees, white transracially adoptive parents (and all transracially adoptive parents), all individuals in any way connected to those first two groups, allies of all kinds, adoption professionals, and the general public.

Third, as I’ve referenced above, I’ve striven to be absolutely transparent about my voice in this book. Whenever and wherever possible, I articulate explicitly the frame that I am using in a particular section of the book. I try to make as clear as possible when it is that I am speaking solely for myself, and when I can attest to my encounters with hundreds (and ultimately, a few thousand) of adult transracial adoptees, and their perspectives based on their lived experiences; and of course, my Q&A interviews with fellow adoptees offer the reader a chance to hear their perspectives and their voices, pure and unfiltered.

I never make absolutely blanket statements, except around certain very obvious concepts, such as the need for white adoptive parents to live in as much racial diversity, with daily mirrors of their children’s race and of all races of color (a point that I make throughout the book, and for good reason), and the need to use correct language around race. Otherwise, I am careful to frame everything in ways that can be understood, while avoiding rhetorical overreach.

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And of course, even with all those qualifications and caveats, my perspective on all the issues that I’ve limned in this book, is my perspective. I would wish fervently that every reader of this book would also read many other books, watch documentaries and videos, read blogs, etc. etc., etc., created by my fellow adult transracial adoptees.

No one individual can ever write the “definitive anything.” To the extent that this book can help my fellow adult transracial adoptees on their lifelong journeys into wholeness and integration, and can help white transracially adoptive parents to learn how to optimally parent their children of color, it will have proven successful, through forward movement on the part of the lives of those reading it.

I can only hope that, as much progress has been made in the past twenty years in the transracial adoption world in terms of the voices of adult transracial adoptees being heard, that the next twenty will be equally fruitful. To think that there are white transracially adoptive parents raising their children in the isolation and marginalization that we in the older generations of transracial adoptees grew up in, now, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, is absolutely heartbreaking.

On the other hand, so many resources are now available to transracially adoptive parents, and many are making wise, informed choices today, choices that can only result in the littlest transracial adoptees being able to find wholeness, integration, and yes, joy, that have come hard-won for many adoptees of my age. Let’s hope that, twenty years from now, the landscape around the lived experiences of transracial adoptees will have become far more affirming and far less challenging than it still is now.

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The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

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CHAPTER 23

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The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent • The journey of the transracial adoptee is a complex, lifelong one • The journey of the parent who adopts transracially also becomes a complex, lifelong one • Sitting in complexity, and accepting the journey, are key elements in mastering the journey

The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

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et’s start at the beginning, with a truth that is so large that I think that many individuals, across the constellation of transracial adoption—and that means adoptees themselves, adoptive parents, all the partners, family members, relatives, etc., of adoptees, as well as birth/first parents, allies, adoption professionals, and all others who interact with transracial adoptees—find it difficult to absorb. And that is this: the psychological, intellectual, and spiritual journey of the transracial adoptee is a lifelong one. It never ends as long as the adoptee is alive.

For us transracial adoptees, that realization can take a very long time to absorb and accept—years, even decades, in fact. And some never do; for some transracial adoptees, the weight of our implicit and profound differentness is something that they resist accepting and in some cases, even acknowledging. This is totally understandable. As I like to say, I grew up feeling like a Martian who had landed on earth in a spaceship. And it was only shortly before my fortieth birthday that I attended my first event with fellow adult transracial adoptees, in this case, 60-plus adult Korean adoptees (we refer to ourselves as KADs), in which something good exploded in my mind the moment I was in the presence of my peer group for the first time ever, and I was able to actively embrace the journey. That was twenty years ago, and I have gone through tremendous intellectual, psychological, and spiritual development since then. But for many transracial adoptees, the very fact of accepting our differentness adds to whatever trauma or challenges they’ve already experienced; so it is understandable that some transracial adoptees actually never do actively launch themselves on the path. After all, it’s hard to get onto a path that is inherently filled with challenge and surprises, twists and turns at every corner of the road, and tremendous cloudiness and uncertainty.

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Meanwhile, if there’s a single thing that I’ve observed about white transracially adoptive parents, it’s this: that it’s even more difficult for them to understand the two embedded truths here: that their children are on lifelong journeys as transracial adoptees, and that they, too, are now on lifelong journeys as transracially adoptive parents.

Having met in person several hundred white transracially adoptive parents and having interacted with numerous thousands of white transracially adoptive parents online, I see this as the rule rather than the exception: that the bigness of the journey for them, as well as for their children—twin journeys—can be overwhelming. After all, they only wanted to become parents.

And in many cases, indeed, in most cases, white transracially adoptive parents only came to transracial adoption after numerous steps on what had already been a journey. There are of course countless exceptions, but very often, the white transracially adoptive parent comes to transracial adoption after a series of steps. Let’s take the typical situation of the heterosexually married couple (and again, there are countless exceptions, of course): the couple got married, attempted to conceive biologically, had challenges, very often, went through in vitro fertilization, that didn’t work, turned to the idea of adoption, and ultimately came to transracial adoption, either domestic or international. So that heterosexual couple has already been on quite a long journey even before becoming adoptive parents.

For gay couples and for single parents by choice, the path is usually somewhat different. But, in most cases, for heterosexually married parents, transracial adoption was not the first choice, not where the journey started.

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The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

So I totally understand that for both transracial adoptees themselves, and for adoptive parents, this lifelong journey is surprising simply in the fact of its reality.

And in both cases, there can be resistance to the idea of the differentness of the lived experience of the transracial adoptee, because it is a lived experience that is so different from so many others. It certainly is a different lived experience from that of the typical white person in a white-dominant society; but it’s also different from the experience of the person of color (POC) in a white-dominant society, which involves tremendous challenges, but lacks the “extra” elements that freight the transracial adoptee journey.

So, the absolutely first step here, both for the transracial adoptee and for the white transracially adoptive parent is to accept that there is a journey here—or, more accurately, there are two journeys here, that of the adoptee and that of the parent—and that those journeys are both lifelong ones. I and realize that for someone contemplating this for the first time, such a revelation can feel overwhelming.

But the first step on any journey is awareness of, acknowledgement of, and acceptance of, the existence of the journey itself. Put very simply, there is no one-hour course on this, no single magazine article that will unlock all the truths and speed the adoptee or the adoptive parent on their journey with no further self-education, reflection, or identitybuilding. There simply is no shortcut.

In the Facebook groups that I participate in and help to moderate, around transracial adoption, I’m sometimes conscious of my awareness of the desire on the part of members of the groups to wish for simple 27

The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

answers to the complex questions—when there are none. And that desire is, of course, human nature—the wish for simple answers.

Sometimes my mind goes to the typical U.S. women’s magazines, with their “tips” articles, such as, classically, “Top Ten Summer Skin Care Tips for Your Family!” Yes, Mom—and usually, these are directed towards mothers—all you need to do is to read this one article and absorb these ten tips, and all the members of your family can protect their skin during the summer months! As a parent myself (biological to my daughter), I absolutely understand the psychology here. Frankly, all parents would love simple to-do lists. I’m also thinking of those books with titles like Eat This, Not That!—do eat garlic-roasted Brussels sprouts, don’t eat jelly-filled doughnuts. Would it were all so simple.

Or as they say in Spanish, ¡Ojalá!—I wish it were so!

So the “bad news” is that the learning, the personal evolution, never stops. I can tell you that my perceptions of everything are totally different now, at age 60, than they were at 20, 30, 40, or even 50. But that’s also the “good news,” because one’s evolution is always circling upwards. I am far more self-confident now than I ever was, more clear about my identity and lived experiences than ever. And that is very good indeed.

I will also note that I have had thousands of conversations with fellow adult transracial adoptees over the past 20-plus years, dialogues that have been gratifying for all of us involved. And my fellow transracial adoptees—most, at least—are embracing the journey and are figuring things out for themselves. And yes, we are all individuals; every single one of us is having a set of experiences unique to her- or himself, based on their earliest experiences, and then everything else that has come 28

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after that. But the two elements that set us apart are that transracial adoptee identity is separate both from white identity and also from the POC identity of individuals of color raised by parents of color, in families of color. And of course, it’s also separate from the identity of anyone raised by their biological parents. In that, I’ve discovered that same-race adoptees of color share some of the same issues that we do—as do, of course, white same-race adoptees, though they lack the huge element of race. But when one combines race and adoption into transracial adoption, the complexity immediately grows geometrically; thus, the complex, lifelong journey.

And if there’s a single message that I think is important to include in this chapter, it’s this: no one involved, whether transracial adoptees or transracially adoptive parents, should hope to somehow short-circuit the lifelong journey of learning and unfolding involved both for the adoptee and the adoptive parent, in transracial adoption. I often state in our Facebook groups that “I sit in complexity” around important issues. And the first complexity, the “Ur-complexity,” is this: accepting that the journey of the transracial adoptee is a lifelong one; and so is the journey of the transracially adoptive parent.

And one of the most challenging aspects of all of this, is this: the need for the transracial adoptee to develop a sense of self, an identity, that is necessarily designed and architected, one that does not simply “happen.” My own lived experience attests to that reality. Growing up in near-total whiteness in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I was raised along with my twin brother, adopted into the same family. And we knew a few—literally a handful—of fellow Korean adoptees around our age. But throughout our earliest years, from adoption at around age 29

The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

1, to the middle of our high school years, we grew up in near-total whiteness, with no access to birth culture and no racial mirrors apart from ourselves—and that was devastating. I will be writing about all that in subsequent chapters. The key point I wish to make here is a simple one: it took me several decades—yes, literally, several decades— to compose my identity, one that I feel confident in now. But honestly?

I was in my 50s by the time I felt truly confident in my identity as a person of color who is Asian-American and who is an adult transracial adoptee.

The event that turbocharged my forward evolution was attending that KAD dinner and mini-gathering in September 2000 in Minneapolis.

For the first time in my life, I had found an actual peer group—at the age of 40. As I like to say, I, as a lifelong Martian in a spaceship, had happened upon a convention of Martians in spaceships. And when we all sat down to dinner, we found ourselves finishing each others’ sentences, about our lived experiences. I think that it’s probably impossible for most people to even understand how mindblowing an experience like that actually is. But I can honestly say that that evening, my spirit launched into a new universe, and has continued forward since then, evolving forward at times very, very rapidly, and at other times, at a more measured pace—but always evolving forward. And I will be evolving forward until the day I die. That is both the complexity and the glory of having such an unusual identity. Because, really, it’s all complexity. All. And, in that context, I ask just one thing of my reader: that you read through this book with patience, with openness, and with a willingness to be challenged, on your journey—either as an adoptive parent or as 30

The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

an adoptee. And indeed, that you accept that the lifelong path that you are on is one that will require you to continue to sit in complexity, and sometimes challenge, pretty much forever.

But as complex as the lifelong journey is, it can also be filled with reward and even joy, amid all the challenges. It’s a bit like journeying through totally unexplored lands—the Terra Incognita of the lived experience.

As the Wikipedia entry on Terra Incognita puts it, “Terra Incognita… is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The expression is believed to be first seen in Ptolemy’s Geography c. 150. The term was reintroduced in the 15th century from the rediscovery of Ptolemy’s work during the Age of Discovery.

The equivalent on French maps would be terres inconnues (plural form), and some English maps may show Parts Unknown.”

Or, as an article in the Dead Media Archive of the New York University Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, puts it, “The term terra incognita meaning ‘unknown land’ in Latin, was coined as a concept during the Age of Exploration in the mid 15th century lasting through the 19th century. The naming in Latin for this concept was deliberate since, “The use of Latin as a universal language for knowledge was endorsed at the end of the Middle Ages, and so the term terra incognita perfectly captured both the spirit of the times and the character of unknown places.” Latin becomes a signifier for knowledge and legitimation, revealing exploration as above all else the search for knowledge. The exploration for terra incognita is a threepart process that begins with the map, which symbolically declares the points of the unknown, then there is the embarking and travel across the sea, culminating in the moment of visual contact and a claiming 31

The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

of the land through sight. Each part of the process is a moment of inscription: the map as rational inscription, the sea as irrational, and the gaze as legitimating. This process charts itself through increasing proximity to the physical land, the unknown becoming known, and thus the visual recognition as symbolic conquering of terra incognita.”

For us transracial adoptees, there is so often that sense of having to push forward, to keep moving through clouds and fog, and into our own unique light, step by step—and yes, across the space of our lifetimes.

Welcome to our world.

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The Lifelong Journey of the Transracial Adoptee—and the Parallel Journey of the Parent

2

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER

2

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects • The transracial adoptee experience is exceptional, and different from all others • The cognitive dissonance of growing up in white culture as a person of color • The essentiality of racial mirrors for adopted children of color • What transracially adopted children most need from their parents

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

S

ince all truth begins with experience, I think it important to share my personal experience here, and then to thoughtfully speak of the lived experiences of other adoptees, while absolutely demarcating what have been my experiences and what have been the experiences of others. But all these experiences lie at the core of the transracial adoptee experience.

So: I was born in 1960 and eight months later, arrived with my twin brother, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where we were raised by white parents of Norwegian and German descent. Our father was NorwegianAmerican, and our mother was German-American. Our father was originally from Chicago, and we spent Thanksgivings in Chicago with his extended family, but the rest of the year, we were surrounded by our mother’s German-American family, in a community that, in the 1960s and 1970s, still had a very strong German-immigrant cultural presence. We were the only children in the family.

We had very loving parents, and our relatives were loving as well. But none of that love translated into love from the outside world. And one of the things that inevitably happened (and here, I will speak solely for myself, as this book is mine and I don’t want to be perceived as speaking for my twin, whose experiences are separate and individual) to me was an internalization of the racism of the larger society. Allow me to parse that a bit.

So, throughout grade school, my twin brother and I were the only children of color (and certainly, there were no teachers or staff of color, either), and in junior high school (seventh through ninth grade), in a junior high with 3,000-ish students, we were among perhaps 10-15 students of color. The same was true for the first year of high school, 35

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

but then, following numerous years of fighting racial integration, the Milwaukee Public School System was forced to racially integrate, and beginning in our junior year of high school, some Black students began to be bused in from the predominantly Black North Side of Milwaukee; and many more arrived during our senior year; but by then, we were already taking a college course half of each day at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, so, were barely around. In other words, through all of my formative years, certainly until I was nearly 16, I grew up in near-total whiteness. Interestingly, in my junior year of high school (the second of my three years there), a Black female principal was appointed—something that I was very excited about. But honestly, I can attest to the fact that, growing up for 15 years in neartotal whiteness essentially means growing up in near-total whiteness.

As I often underscore to white transracially adoptive parents, the key years, relative to identity formation, for a child of color, are not 16-21, but 0-16. I would hope that that would be obvious, but believe it or not, my experience in online and in-person groups and forums has been that it is not obvious to everyone, so, I’ll reference it here.

In any case, growing up in near-total whiteness, my twin brother and I experienced a fair amount of racism, though, being Asian and not Black, it was not of the most intense kind, that Black children experience at the hands of white peers. Nevertheless, it was devastating in two ways. First, being teased, taunted, and constantly stared at, was intensely “othering” (I will use this word as a noun, and adjective, and a verb, throughout this book, to describe the distancing that people put between themselves and transracially adopted people). And second, outside of the school setting, whenever my twin brother and I went out in public with our parents in nearly-all-white South Side Milwaukee, 36

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

we were like a circus sideshow. I ended up developing a lifelong aversion to being looked at, one that has become ironic as an adult, since I do a great deal of public speaking as an adult, and obviously, if I am delivering a presentation or moderating a panel—something that I do very often both for my work and also in the transracial adoption world—clearly, it’s important for people to look at me while I’m speaking. Just another oddity of my lived experience.

In any case, the bottom line around all of this, is this: growing up in near-total whiteness and experiencing some level of racism and otherism, I ended up developing quite an extreme case of poor physical self-image. Put simply: I hated my face and body, but especially my face, and developed extreme alienation from it. At the age of 40, meeting all the other adult Korean adoptees at that first KAD mini-gathering in Minneapolis (it was not only my first, it was also essentially the first time that KADs had self-organized a gathering among themselves, in the United States), was a first event in a long process of healing.

But I had spent a lifetime up to that point being extremely alienated from my own appearance, and honestly, if one spends decades being alienated from one’s own appearance, shifting that psychological tendency doesn’t happen in a day. Or even in a year.

I also ended up having an aversion to Asian culture, because Asian-ness was associated with otherness, strangeness, weirdness, and wrongness.

As I like to semi-demi-joke, it was absolutely clear to me growing up in near-total whiteness, that not being white was a cardinal sin, a fatal sin, and some kind of high-level crime—but one that I was never able to correct.

And of course, that is despite the fact that everyone asserted that they 37

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

never saw race. Indeed, the dominant narrative in white American culture, when I was younger (well, and let’s be real: it’s still true even now), was that no one saw race, and that everyone was treated equally, and that race should never be discussed. Certainly, that’s the message I received every day, out in the world.

And yet it was clear that everyone did see race. All the children who taunted me and my brother, all the children and adults who in various ways excluded us—I knew implicitly that everyone saw race.

So a dominant experience for me was that of cognitive dissonance— what happens when a person is confronted with a reality that is not acknowledged.

Here’s what the Wikipedia entry says about cognitive dissonance: “In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.[1] The discomfort is triggered by the person’s belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein they try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.[1][2] In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make 38

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).”

Well, yes.

So that is what I grew up with; and it speaks to the toxic blanketing of silence that white culture imposes on people in white-dominant societies like that in the United States and Europe. The person of color, specifically here, the child of color, is prevented from being able to express what s/he is experiencing, by the broader society. Indeed, when I was child, there was a complete lack of concepts and vocabulary in this area. Racism was never discussed in the South Side-Milwaukee society in which I grew up, never discussed by white people, never acknowledged in any way. The near-universal view was that racism did not exist, and that anyone who brought it up was somehow a dangerous renegade. I have to insert here that my parents were remarkably nonracist for the time and place in which they lived—my mother especially.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that, in subtle ways, my mother was quietly anti-racist. But there was literally no support whatsoever for any kind of anti-racism, and because of that toxic blanket of silence around all things racial in white society, there was virtually no sphere for my mother’s expression of anti-racism. I saw it, but probably few others did, because it was like shouting into a sound-absorbing warp.

Added to that, being among the first wave of international adoptees, all of us Korean, my twin brother and I, in the 1960s and 1970s, had virtually no access whatsoever to Korean culture or even Asian 39

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

culture of any kind. There were no resources of any kind. And so the dominant message from the larger, white society, that not being white was virtually criminal, and that anything not-white was to be silenced, ridiculed, or othered, was reinforced constantly for me as a child. Nonwhiteness was, put simply, criminal. Of course, no one ever said that.

But I felt it incredibly strongly. It’s amazing I didn’t feel ashamed of being Asian—I didn’t feel that. But I certainly knew that being nonwhite was wrong—absolutely, incontrovertibly wrong—but also, noncorrectable. As much as I wanted to, I could not become white. I was a failure in the society in which I grew up, because I could not correct the fundamental crime of not being white. As I like to semi-joke, I had two dreams, growing up in the nearly-all-white South Side of Milwaukee in the 1960s and 1970s: to fit in, and to escape. And I absolutely, absolutely failed at the first one, but totally succeeded at the second: I left when I went to college (undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then graduate school at Northwestern University in Chicago), and never went back to live in Milwaukee—ever. So as I say, my first dream—to actually fit in—was a total failure—but my second, to escape—was a brilliant success.

I do remember two things, amid that sea of near-total whiteness. The first is that, once a year, my parents would take me and my twin brother to Toy’s Chinese Restaurant, a well-known restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. My parents came from extremely modest economic circumstances—we almost never went out to restaurants—not even to fast-food restaurants—so going out to Toy’s was a very special treat. My mother had briefly waitressed at Toy’s during World War II, when she was working to support her family; and “Old” Mr. Toy, the founder, had been her boss. His son and grandson welcomed us when we made 40

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

our yearly pilgrimage for dinner at their restaurant, and treated me and my brother like little princes. It felt very, very special. My other memory connected to non-whiteness was when the Korean Children’s Choir came from Seoul to tour the United States, and my mother got tickets for us to go. As I mentioned, my parents were of extremely modest means, so that was a splurge, and I was very aware of it being so, though my mother did not say so. But I realized even then that it was a way for her to show us racial and ethnic mirrors, and I did appreciate it.

My mother also told me that I was handsome, and that was a doubleedged sword, because I knew how much love was in such a statement; but I was also mortified by it, because it just reminded me how completely freakish I was for not being white. People have asked me whether I might have wished her to not have said so. I don’t wish that; I’m glad she did so. But it did remind me of how unacceptable I was in white society for my non-whiteness, and so it was an ambivalent experience for me.

So, this combination of zero access to any kind of Asian culture, and absolute lack of access to racial mirrors in my daily life, growing up, led to the double-whammy of a complete lack of positive Asian identity and identity as a person of color, and to that horrible complex around my appearance. Even meeting my partner and developing a lifelong relationship, beginning when I was 25, as healing as that has been, did not erase my complex around my appearance. It took connecting in person with fellow adult transracial adoptees—first, Korean adoptees, and then adoptees of all non-white races—to really help me to actively move forward on my journey of self-healing around my appearance.

41

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

And here’s the thing: while I am incredibly avoidant of making statements generalizing about other adult transracial adoptees, I have yet to meet a fellow transracial adoptee who has not expressed to me, when we’ve discussed the subject, some version of what I’m sharing here—that they’ve struggled mightily with physical self-image. Indeed, my own lived experience and my hearing from countless (literally, thousands of ) fellow adult transracial adoptees, that growing up in total or near-total whiteness (or in some cases, even in dominant whiteness that wasn’t near-total) ended up devastating them psychologically, has ended up being a core motivator for me in participating in forums around transracial adoption in person and online.

And I want to make something hugely, hugely clear here: when I share about this lived experience, I do so solely to educate. While there might possibly be individual adult transracial adoptees who might be tempted to milk sympathy or pity from white adoptive parents over this (and I’m not saying that there are any, only that I could see the temptation here), I absolutely and totally reject such reactions of pity or sorrow.

I share these things to educate, and solely that. I am on my lifelong journey, and it’s been going well. In fact, at age 60, I would say that I’m finally, finally—after several long decades of struggle—in a better place around this. But here’s the thing: why should transracial adoptees who are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, now, be struggling as I did? Why should a small child be enduring this, in the year 2021 (as I write this)? What’s that about???

So where this inevitably leads, is to this: if there’s a single thing that a white transracially adoptive parent can do for their adopted child of color, it is this: move into as much racial diversity as possible for their child, with daily—daily—mirrors of adults and children of their 42

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

child’s specific race (and even, hopefully, specific ethnicity), as well as adults and children of all races of color. This must be daily and it must be non-superficial, meaning, actual interpersonal contact. Translate: it doesn’t count that you have a Korean-owned drycleaner’s. Nope. That only counts if your drycleaner is one of many, many, many people of color your child will be seeing and interacting with on a daily basis (and how many children actively interact with drycleaning people, anyway? Just saying…).

And so this is where this is all headed: if you are a white transracially adoptive parent, what are you doing do provide your adopted child of color with daily racial mirrors? I so hope that your instinctive reaction will not be to recoil in defensiveness from this question, to begin to list the reasons that you can’t move, the reasons that you can’t do a single thing to support your child in this way. As I said in chapter 1, I absolutely understand that, for many white transracially adoptive parents, by the time they’ve adopted their children of color, they’ve already been on a very long journey into parenthood already. But the bottom-line reality is that if you choose to raise your child in total or near-total whiteness and without daily mirrors of your child’s specific race (and hopefully, even ethnicity as well—meaning, Korean, Chinese, Haitian, Mexican, etc.), your child will end up with a fair likelihood of the really bad physical self-image that I ended up with. And as I say— and I want my readers to read this calmly and unemotionally—it’s taken me literally 40-plus years to work out that issue of physical selfimage for myself. And I’m still working on it, but at least I’m in a place of a fair level of peace about it. But now? In 2021? No child should be going through this. And I want to make it clear that I in no way hold my parents responsible for what happened to me. As I explained above, 43

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

I was adopted in the first wave of international adoptees; I arrived in the United States in 1961. There were literally no resources of any kind—intellectual, cultural, social—for my parents at that time. They did meet a few other sets of parents who had adopted children from South Korea, but really, no one knew anything back then—anything.

There were no concepts, there was no vocabulary, for anything. And if the adoption agencies told my parents anything, it was simply to raise us as white Americans, and to forget that we had come from anyplace outside of Milwaukee.

Well, obviously, that didn’t work out for me, and it didn’t work out for any adult transracial adoptees that I know personally or have interacted with. But that’s what it was like in the 1960s. Parents adopted children, and if there was any narrative at all, it was simply that the adoptive parents should ignore that their children were not white, and keep moving. But the lived experience of all of us transracial adoptees over the past six decades has proven that operating theory to be absolutely wrong and disastrous. And that is why I participate in the transracial adoption world as a volunteer—and why I’ve written this book.

But now—now—there is literally no excuse for white adoptive parents to ignore race, racism, issues around racial identity, and their need to explore their own internalized ignorance around race, their white privilege, and their white fragility, in order to support and uplift their adopted children of color. Literally, there is no excuse.

So when it comes down to it, this is where I stand with all of this: my parents—who were wonderful parents—knew nothing, because no one knew anything (and indeed, they were amazingly intuitive about so many things), back in 1961. But we’re now 60 years on from 44

The Core Experience of the Transracial Adoptee: Some Aspects

1961, in 2021—and there are literally no excuses now for ignorance or unknowing. Back then, there were no resources of any kind.

Now? There are countless books, articles, blogs, documentaries, videos, even poetry and music, that have been produced by adult transracial adoptees of all backgrounds and types of lived experiences. And I am imploring all white transracially adoptive parents to ingest everything they can.

And to consume media of all kinds, produced by individuals of color of their children’s races and ethnicities, but also, produced by individuals of color of all races and ethnicities. As well, of course, to surround their children with mirrors in their homes. It’s so important.

And, speaking with fellow adult transracial adoptees, I say this: find ways to accept what you’ve experienced, and engage in resources— intellectual, conceptual, and social—in order to move forward on your journey. And a lot of that will involve connecting with fellow adult transracial adoptees, and create your own community. We adult transracial adoptees have so much to share with one another, and the very fact of hearing our stories shared by other individuals who are our peers, is immensely healing and helpful.

The experience of the transracial adoptee really is exceptional and set apart from those of other types of people. Accepting that fact and embracing the exceptionalism of that experience, will help any individual connected to transracial adoption.

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Adoptee Voice:

Scott L. Smith S

cott L. Smith was born in St. Joseph, Michigan in 1968 and raised in the Chicago suburb of Matteson, in Illinois. His father was a minister, mother an educator. He has participated for years in transracial adoption-related volunteerism, including adoption camps, on discussion panels, and in Facebook groups. Professionally, he works as an information technology professional and lives in Chicago.

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

How do you define yourself as an adoptee?

It depends on who I’m talking to. Obviously, I’m a Black man first. I need to, if possible, add to a positive narrative for Black males. And one thing I’ve learned is that if I say “biracial,” people’s biases come into play. It influences how they see me. People create expectations and I’ve found if I challenge them to that perspective, they will challenge my own experiences. So I start with “Black” first.

How would you describe your childhood and teenage years?

As a child, it was mixed, as any child’s experience I imagine might be. I was in a white family. I was the first child, and then came four children who were biological to my parents—three girls, one boy. I was always close to my sisters, especially the eldest. The youngest was born when I was already in the military, so we had to develop our relationship as adults. I’m over 50 now and even that is ongoing. My brother and I got along at first, but later on, I believed there to be some jealousy issues, and that complicated our relationship. Then in the teen years, things began to become more challenging because of identity crises, school issues & teen issues.

You told me a story about when you were 15 or 16?

I was at a party, and I left because I wouldn’t do the illegal activities, and the police arrested me. That was in Park Forest, and I was 14 or 15.

48

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

We had a situation in our main Facebook group, in a discussion thread shortly after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. In a discussion about how white transracially adoptive parents should prepare their children of color, especially their Black children, to manage (and survive) encounters with the police, one white transracially adoptive mother in the group said, “I have white sons and Black sons, and I tell them equally that if they respect authorities, they’ll be fine.” After she received, appropriately, intense pushback for making that statement, she immediately left the group. How do you explain the reality for adopted children of color whose white parents haven’t prepared them for these kinds of encounters with law enforcement?

I’ll explain in the context of how I believe my dad learned the truth after believing the kinds of things that that white adoptive mother had said in the group. My dad was rather conservative and we had a rift for several years; in fact, we didn’t speak to each other for about ten years. From what I heard him say, I believed he thought minorities were playing victim in encounters with law enforcement. But then he kept running into the same stories over and over, and was forced to ask himself; “all these POC’s have the same experience who are strangers to each other, without coordinating the same talking points with each other??”. He started to see that this wasn’t a coincidence as he was taught to believe.

So what happened that made him see the truth was an incident that occurred when my daughter was about one year old. My dad hadn’t yet met her and wanted to meet her on Father’s Day of that year. He wanted to meet me in one particular Chicago suburb, Orland Park, 49

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

and I told him that I was uncomfortable (I’d heard lots of stories about police encounters there by Black males), and he dismissed my concern, telling me not to pull that card on him. In any case, I conceded to go ahead & meet my dad there and have lunch. However as he was following 2 cars behind mine, another driver cut me off forcing me to slow down suddenly. To which a police car that was behind him, swung around & pulled me over. Without really telling me why, he then took my license and ordered “follow me” back to the police station and cited me for reckless driving & having an expired insurance card—on Father’s Day. My father followed & when we arrived, he got out of his car prompting the officer to ask, “What’s your problem?” My dad said, “I’m just concerned about the safety of my son and his daughter.”

Afterwards, my dad apologized, saying, “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I’m sorry, my grandfather taught my father, and my father taught me. And the way that cop treated you in front of me, it makes me wonder if I hadn’t gotten out of the car, how much rougher they might have been towards you, just over an expired insurance.” So what I would say to parents is that you’re setting your son or daughter up for failure if you do not recognize that race has different reactions and different consequences, pending who you deal with. I’d argue that it’s no different from a man raising a woman like a man, and not expecting that this would create confusion.”

Were you able to experience racial integration while in school?

I always integrated in junior high and high school, through sports. And my parents were supportive, but it was also annoying, because they didn’t want to recognize the difference when we were othered. Then 50

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

in the Army, I was an Airborne paratrooper, and I was dealing with Southern white men. Everything changed in the military. This was my first real experience making friends, rank or bonds as a Northern Black talking to Southern whites as equals, when they didn’t see it that way. I can’t tell you how many (whites) were amazed that I knew how to play chess, golf or even speak in complete sentences. All their preconceived notions about Blacks was challenged. So the only people I could really trust in the Army were other minorities who knew what it felt like to be a 3rd class citizen. Overall, I had to be really careful how I interacted with whites in the military. This was a huge challenge for me, I was not prepared. in the Army, I was an Airborne paratrooper, and I was dealing with Southern white men. Everything changed in the military.

This was my first real experience making friends, rank or bonds as a Northern Black talking to Southern whites as equals, when they didn’t see it that way. I can’t tell you how many (whites) were amazed that I knew how to play chess, golf or even speak in complete sentences.

All their preconceived notions about Blacks were challenged. So the only people I could really trust in the Army were other minorities who knew what it felt like to be a 3rd class citizen. Overall, I had to be really careful how I interacted with whites in the military. This was a huge challenge for me, I was not prepared. in the Army, I was an Airborne paratrooper, and I was dealing with Southern white men.

Everything changed in the military. This was my first real experience making friends, rank or bonds as a Northern Black talking to Southern whites as equals, when they didn’t see it that way. I can’t tell you how many (whites) were amazed that I knew how to play chess, golf or even speak in complete sentences. All their preconceived notions about Blacks was challenged. So the only people I could really trust in the 51

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

Army were other minorities who knew what it felt like to be a 3rd class citizen. Overall, I had to be really careful how I interacted with whites in the military. This was a huge challenge for me, I was not prepared.

Did Black people ever question you when you were in the military?

Absolutely, I was a northern Black in a Southern-dominated army. And many were Confederacy-supporting Southerners or poor. Here I was… articulate, well-spoken, educated, confident – I fit no Black stereotypes.

One Black person told me, “You’re going to confuse people when you go back into the world”—which is how they describe the experience of leaving the military & going back to the States. And one person volunteered that I had the anger of a Black man for a life I’d never lived and the arrogance of a white man that I’ll never be; and people won’t get you. That stuck with me.

And it turned out to be true, both in terms of interacting with Black people and white people. I think more Blacks “get” me than whites.

But when I tried to be myself, on the job, being a supervisor, whatever, and many times it didn’t go over well. And that was really confusing to me when I left the Army. I recall once when working as a supervisor in a factory, that a subordinate went and got someone “white” to dismiss a directive I gave. I was stunned. And from that point out if my authority was challenged, I’d mimic my father to make them feel more “appropriated”. He used a strong, silent, authoritative tone when addressing people, and they seemed to respond to it – so I then began to project a more “white man” demeanor to soften my approach, as opposed to being a strong Black guy.

52

Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

When you look back on your lived journey so far, what things most stand out to you?

Issues around education, opportunities…and policing, obviously. As much as you think you have a white son and a Black son, my brother could do work half-assertive and be fine. I’ve had to work twice as hard at every level of the game. As a bank manager, as a telecom manager, being an IT analyst or even as simply as a laborer. I’ve always had to work harder for less money, and it’s created a sense of insecurity, for which I was unprepared for. My parents hadn’t prepared me, racism was just for jerks, it’s not everyone, right? My parents raised me to believe I was equal in God’s eyes, but I quickly learned that was God’s eyes, and not all people’s eyes. Anyone not ready to deal with that reality, really shouldn’t adopt. And if you’re going to question your children’s experiences, you will handicap them. You have to raise POC children to be prepared for how society overall will see them, in terms of police harassment and social stigmatizations. Adoptive parents have to be willing to learn from their child and their child’s friends; when raising a child of color. My parents did that late in the game & it was an issue. They did have Black friends over, this wasn’t an issue. It was when they were told in honest that they weren’t addressing the racial issues, that I believe it was dismissed.

You were already a late teenager at that point?

They probably started that when I was 13 or 14, but it wasn’t until I was 15 or 16 that they started addressing race with me. I went to Christian camp, and one of the deacons of the camp petitioned to keep me out.

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Adoptee Voice: Scott L. Smith

He said openly, “Scott corrupts the white girls, because they like him.

I’m not sure we should encourage racial mixing.” I was about 15. And my dad confronted him. And my dad was the minister of the church.

I wasn’t criticized for attracting pretty girls of color, just those who were white. Ironically, I was shy with girls, I wasn’t used to be pushed to date one group over the other. Even being around so many white people (in church, etc), I’d hear things like “you’re good-looking for a Black guy, you speak so well”. I didn’t know any of this till I got into the military, and Southern Black girls seemed to love me. And then in Germany, the German girls. So I learned German just to keep up with those girls. So my life journey has been a constant learning experience, always learning the “racial curve” of whomever was trying to figure me out…based on attraction or curiosity. I’d argue this has followed me even into my adult years in the corporate world.

One enormous element in my sense of mission around my volunteering as a moderator and a participant in these forums, both online and in person, around transracial adoption, is my desire that the littlest transracial adoptees not have to experience what we experienced growing up—the racism, the marginalization, the aloneness. Do you agree?

I agree one-hundred percent! And I had behavioral problems growing up, mostly because we don’t feel like we fit in. And in the adoption camps, I identify with those kids, and I tell them, I’m you, only years later. That’s why I’m involved. I know we can do better, and adoption 54

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can work, but not if the white families don’t learn to do it right & recognize both their own racial differences, and the POC child.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I always call transracial adoption “the bonus plan.” You throw race into family structure, and you’ve got the full gamut. You can’t join the military and say, “I hope we don’t go to war.” And if you adopt transracially, you can’t say, “I hope we don’t experience racism.” And the thing is that if white people don’t want to see racism, they’ll find every excuse not to. When talking to white people, especially prospective adoptive parents, they have to acknowledge that they won’t always have all the answers. And they just won’t, they’re white people – this is not their experience. White people, you’re going to have to admit that you don’t know everything about Black people; and it should be badge of honor, in terms of any willingness to learn. I’m proud that I can interact in any social circle regardless of race, gender & social circle, so why can’t they do the same?

What has the experience of meeting many other adult transracial adoptees been like for you?

It’s been good. It’s human nature for all people to want to meet people like themselves. And it’s made things make sense, not just learning that you’re not the only one, but how people deal with things. And you learn your balance and your story; so that’s good. No one wants to believe it’s “just them”…so to hear it’s not, is life changing.

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Tell me about your birth family reunion story?

This started a couple of years ago now. My daughter, who was 15 at the time, has always felt that I’ve always given myself to people, but that no one ever gives to me. So she decided to give me Ancestry.com as a gift for my birthday. I sat on it for a while (no reason) until finally going ahead and did the test, and a few week later, I got my results back. The results indicated a few people had connections, but one had a very high likelihood of relationship. I left them an email message and waited for a response. This didn’t take but another week. To make a long story short, I got an email back that said “Scottie”…and it was one of my cousins on my mother’s sister’s side (son). My birth relatives were still living in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, Michigan, where I was born. Fastforwarding, that cousin was determined to arrange a reunion for me with my birth mother. He actually picked me up and drove me there so that I wouldn’t back down…because it just happened to be on Mother’s Day that year.

So I drove out to meet my birth mother, and they videotaped the moment we met. She was very emotional, and cried, and wouldn’t stop hugging me refusing to let go. I don’t know if I cried, but I did feel very emotional. I found out some really difficult elements when I heard the whole story from her, including the fact that I was the product of a rape. A lot of terrible things happened in the wake of the rape. I wasn’t relinquished right away; that happened later. I lived in two or three different foster homes before the Smiths fostered me and then adopted me.

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How do you feel about the experience of meeting your birth mother?

It was good; it answered a lot of questions. It was surreal in many ways.

And the irony is that she wants to talk all the time now, but I don’t feel the need for a close relationship. I tell her I love her, I call her “Mom,” and I accept all her apologies for how life turned out. Balancing just one family is challenging enough, but two is overwhelming for me.

Irony is, I then found out on Facebook that half of my extended family were very “Southern” confederate and Trump supporters. Obviously over their own political & racial beliefs, we do not speak. In fact, I’m sure they’ve “blocked” me. My adoptive parents are fully aware of everything. We didn’t have the greatest adoption, but we worked through it and are better people today for doing so. But honestly, being adopted may have saved my life. Almost all those in my birth family, Polish-Americans, have been to jail, prison or a hard life to talk about.

I shared this with my adoptive family, and my mother cried when I said after all the craziness, they saved me.

What would you tell adoptive parents about your experience of birth family reunion?

Do not fear the unknown. It’s very therapeutic for the adoptee because people (children or adults) want to know their origins. Whether you like what you find or not, it’s something that should be supported, and it’s a decision they as fostering or adoptive parents, can’t make for the adoptee. My own parents always wondered why I didn’t search, and I told them, well, I already have a family. Adoptive parents need to understand that you’re not losing anything by supporting your child’s desire for birth search, you’re helping your child fulfill their own identity, which is all of our own destinies, right? And had my daughter 57

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not pushed me to do it, I wouldn’t have done it. I was OK not meeting my birth family. But I’m glad I did…I am a different person with a new outlook on life. A void has been filled that I’d prepared myself all my life to keep closed, and now I’m opened up to being mor fulfilled or “whole” as a person.

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CHAPTER 59

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The Enormous Danger of Binary Thinking, Or, It’s (Past) Time to Sit in Complexity • An enormous problem in the transracial adoption world is the engaging in simplistic, binary thinking, on the part of so many • Why everyone should view the TEDTalk of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story” • The one-dimensionalizing of discourse in the transracial adoption world—and its opposite: sitting in complexity

The Enormous Danger of Binary Thinking, Or, It’s (Past) Time to Sit in Complexity

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s you saw me reference in Chapter 1, in the Facebook groups in which I participate (in three languages so far), I often am seen to make the statement that “I sit in complexity around this.” And I often do. Indeed, the very value of our Facebook groups is that they are discussion groups designed to facilitate the most complex, nuanced, and challenging issues facing the entire constellation of stakeholders around transracial adoption, which includes adult transracial adoptees, transracially adoptive parents, birth/first parents, all those individuals connected to those three core stakeholder groups, plus allies and adoption professionals. We are dedicated to being willing to do something inherently challenging: holding nuanced, sometimes extended, discussions around topics of great interest to all those in the transracial adoption constellation.

And one of the things that I am known to state very regularly is some version of this: that our greatest enemy is binary thinking. And I really believe that.

In fact, let’s pause right there to look at what binary thinking is, versus its opposite, spectrum thinking. “Binary thinking, also known as dichotomous thinking, happens when even complex concepts, ideas, and problems are overly simplified into being one side or another. The gray area in the middle is ignored or goes unnoticed,” Clay Drinko, an educator and author wrote in a December 1, 2020 blog. “Binary thinking helps us feel a sense of certainty…. The problem with binary thinking is that it isn’t accurate. Gray area does exist. All the time.” The opposite of binary thinking is spectrum thinking, which simply means, thinking along multiple dimensions, in more nuanced ways.

As I mentioned in Chapter 1, I fully understand, as a parent myself (biological, not adoptive, in my case), that all parents at least some of 61

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the time, want “easy” answers to their questions—as I mentioned, “Top Ten Summer Skin Care Tips For Your Family”—that kind of thing.

Make sure to bring sunscreen. Don’t go out in the sun at midday. Make sure to monitor how much time your children are spending in the sun at one time. Moisturize. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the conundrums of the transracial adoption journey could be so easily addressed for adult transracial adoptees and transracially adoptive parents? Unfortunately, it rarely works that way. Are there are a few questions the answers to which are very straightforward? Yes, on the surface. But even those most “obvious” questions end up having nuanced answers, once one begins to peel the layers of the conceptual onion—something that I’m always dedicated to in the Facebook groups, as well as in all the in-person forums in which I’ve participated and will continue to participate.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and “The Danger of a Single Story” I would urge every reader of this book, if they haven’t already done so, to view this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg This is the 2009 TEDTalk given by Nigerian-American author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, entitled, “The danger of a single story.

As of this writing, it has received nearly 8.5 million views—and Ms. Adichie has deserved every single one. In her TEDTalk, she discusses how the totality of the history of the continent of Africa—a continent of immense size, diversity, and complexity—has been reduced, in the minds of many around the world, to “a single story”—a narrative of poverty and desperation. In fact, there are countless narratives involving Africa, as there are involving any continent. But, as she 62

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notes, “Africa” has been reduced to a single, hyper-over-simplified narrative. As Chimananda tells her audience, her American college roommate was completely shocked by her—a middle-class Nigerian young woman who spoke English fluently and, yes, knew how to use a stove. “What struck me was this: she had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position towards me as an African was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.”

And, yes, when I viewed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDTalk, I instantly thought of the phenomenon of transracial adoption, and in particular, of how many transracially adoptive parents, adoption professionals, and members of the general public, view all transracial adoptees as pitiable victims, often as living lives of catastrophe, and always, as perpetual children. The flipside is the perception of transracial adoptees as poster children for rescue by white parental saviorism. We ultimately become lamentable caricatures in the eyes of so many.

The desire for a one-dimensional narrative I want to share two stories here. The first is shorter, and involves a request to speak. This happened about 16 years ago now, as I recall it.

At that time, I wasn’t as far along on my journey as I am—not quite as fully aware back then of certain dynamics as I am now. I would 63

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probably have reacted somewhat differently to the circumstances. In any case, someone referred an adoption agency director to me, and that director called me out of the blue to ask me whether I would be willing to address prospective adoptive parents during a prospective-parents day at the agency’s headquarters. I would only be on the program for about a half-hour or so. The agency director said in a rather strangely sing-song-y voice, “We would just love it if you would come and share your wonderful story of personal success!!” The way in which that director framed it rather took me aback, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. However, it did occur to me, even in that moment, that I needed to add one precondition to my acceptance of the speaking engagement.

I said, “Well, I would be willing to do so, but I do feel that it would be necessary for me to at least reference the issues of racial identity and racism, in talking about the transracial adoptee experience.” What followed was such a long pause that I thought for a brief moment that the call had dropped. But just as I was about to ask, “Are you still there?” the director said in a very halting, almost stuttering voice, “We-e-e-e-ll… Oh-oh-oh-kaaaay…..” I nearly laughed, but of course, did not. But obviously, what was clear was that this adoption agency director wanted me to be the “poster child of success” for transracial adoption. Even then (and my sixth sense for this kind of thing has since been sharpened like a gleaming machete), I realized in the moment that she was extremely uncomfortable with my mentioning anything uncomfortable, lest it discourage the prospective parents from rushing forward to pursue their adoptions of children of color (and I should note that that agency does handle some same-race white adoptions as well, but the majority of the adoptions they handle are transracial).

In any case, I did show up at the appointed day and time, and spoke 64

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for maybe 20 minutes. I did share my personal story—though I have to say, it was a rather superficial sharing, from my perspective, but there you have it—and I did very briefly reference the facts that many transracial adoptees struggle to develop their racial identities, and that it is the norm to experience racism. My references to those subjects literally fit inside about two sentences. Two sentences out of 20-plus minutes. Immediately afterwards, there were a few questions from the prospective parents, and a few parents told me after the question-andanswer session was over, that they really appreciated my presentation.

A few weeks later, a different individual from that agency called me, and we had what I found to be a slightly odd and discomfiting conversation.

The bottom line was that I guessed that I had somehow offended the director who had engaged me for the talk, though this individual was extremely polite and gracious, and never said so at all; I simply intuited it from what she said to me. Of course, I’ve never been invited back.

Meanwhile, a good friend of mine who is a fellow transracial adoptee and who lives in a distant state, has spoken to several groups of prospective and new transracially adoptive parents on her lived experience and personal narrative. And she told me after having done so several times for a locally based adoption agency, that one of that agency’s directors called her to tell her that they were upset, because she was perceived as being “angry” by some of the parents. Now, let me tell you something: this friend of mine is one of the most friendly, charming, engaging people I know, period. She is someone whom people never fail to like and enjoy. She can be candid at times, but I have never once heard her say something in an offensive way. If anything, she is far, far nicer than I am. So for her to be labeled “angry” really is outrageous. I have not 65

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participated in her sessions since she lives so far away. But there is no way that she could be described as an “angry” adoptee.

And yet, the binary thinking in the transracial adoption world so very often ends up classifying people—and especially us transracial adoptees—in binary ways. Nearly everyone who’s spent time in the transracial adoption world has heard the term “angry adoptee,” often weaponized and used against adult adoptees who speak out about some of the problems inherent in the adoption industry as an industry, as well as about racism and other issues in the transracial adoption world.

There are several really fundamental problems with this, because the term “angry adoptee” is most often used in its most hurtful, most weaponized form, to silence, marginalize, or derail individual adoptees who refuse to support what we in our groups call the “rainbows and unicorns” view of transracial adoption, so often reinforced in both online and in-person adoption forums. Indeed, some of the white adoptive parent-dominated groups are so firmly attached to their “rainbows and unicorns” stances that I’ve heard of countless cases of people ejected from those groups simply for pointing out some basic issues.

And what does the term “rainbows and unicorns” mean, exactly?

Simply this: it is a totally idealized view of transracial adoption, one that enshrines the white saviorism of white adoptive parents—the idea that white people adopting children of color are “saving” them from poverty and other life-challenges. And the “rainbows and unicorns” part refers to a perspective in which everything about adoption is idealized, and the transracial adoption experience, especially for adoptees, is a perpetually sunny, cloudless sky. And yes, it’s true: the vast majority of 66

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Facebook groups, as well as many in-person conferences and gatherings, are mentally organized around a 100-percent “rainbows and unicorns” image of transracial adoption, one that is absolutely idealized and allows no nuances of any kind whatsoever.

So here’s what I share with adoptive parents, in that regard: imagine if you, as a white transracially adoptive parent, were forced to accept one of two descriptions of yourself: you are either a “Happy Adoptive Parent,” or an “Angry Adoptive Parent.” And if you’re a Happy Adoptive Parent, you spend your days and nights in a state of perpetual, unalloyed bliss, dancing continuously through fields of daisies on a bright summer afternoon. In contrast, if you are an Angry Adoptive Parent, you live in a constant state of anguish, fury, and discontent, raging at the world like King Lear raging at the storm. Who would ever want to have to choose between those two extreme depictions? And honestly, is anyone on earth either perpetually blissful or rageful? Well, of course not.

And yet many adoptive parents have somehow created that binary frame around adult transracial adoptees, and find it impossible to think outside of that very narrow conceptual box. I have a theory about that, which is that many transracially adoptive parents fear the true emotions and authentic perspectives of transracial adoptees, and find authenticity to be threatening. That is true, really of any dominant group in relation to any marginalized group. It’s broadly true of many white people relative to people of color; of men in relation to women; of heterosexual people relative to gay people; of cisgender people in relation to transgender people; and so on and so forth. When one is a member of a dominant group that holds privilege over a marginalized group, it can be very challenging indeed to even consider what the 67

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perspectives of the members of the marginalized group might be.

And, until really the last decade and a half, the perspectives of white transracially adoptive parents, along with those of adoption professionals, were inevitably and nearly always those that were listened to in the broader public discourse around transracial adoption, with adult transracial adoptees rarely given the opportunity to share their perspectives. Indeed, nearly twenty years ago, I participated in a onetime gathering of international adoptees in Washington, D.C. We spent a day discussing issues of broad interest to all of us. At the time, the performer Madonna had made headlines with her first attempts to adopt from Malawi (she would eventually adopt several children from that southeast African country). Part of one discussion centered around the issue that, at that time, the only individuals interviewed by the mainstream media were adoptive parents and adoption professionals.

So the kinds of binary thinking that are so common around transracial adoption can be directly traced back to the fact that, until very recently, it was white adoptive parents and adoption agency directors who have been the main “experts” consulted on topics around transracial adoption. Thank goodness that in the past decade, that has really begun to change.

A photo on a shelf Now, onto my second story. Several years ago, in one of our Facebook groups, an adoptive parent posted the following question, which I’m paraphrasing here: “I have in my possession a photo of my daughter’s birthmother. What should I do with it? Should I put it into a box 68

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or a photo album that she could look at any time? Should I frame it and put it on the shelf above her desk in her bedroom?” While that question might seem simple on a surface level, once one begins to parse it thoughtfully, things become very complex very soon. Indeed, that discussion thread ended up with several hundred comments.

What I found memorable about the post was that the poster brought forward a question with a very big undertow, like an iceberg whose tip shows above the surface of the water, but whose vast bulk remains below the surface. That question really spoke to some underlying questions around how adoptive parents should frame their understanding of the birth parents of their adopted children, to those children.

And the reality is that that issue, too, is quite complex, once one begins to parse it. On the one hand, I always urge adoptive parents to speak of the birth parents of their children with as much respect as possible.

Sometimes, nothing is known; other times, a great deal is known. And yes, there are times when a child was relinquished because of neglect or abuse, in which case the adoptive parent needs to figure out how to thoughtfully refer to their child’s birth parents. I’ve had friends who are social workers share with me (totally anonymized, of course, with no identifying details whatsoever) that they’ve placed, for example, three siblings from a family, with the children spanning significant age differences, so that, for example, the oldest child has obvious memories of the abuse they experienced in their birth family’s home, while the youngest was pre-verbal or even an infant at the time they were relinquished and placed into foster care or their eventual adoptive home. Meanwhile, per this photo situation, my own feeling was that the parent should put the photo into a box or album for the child, and 69

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allow the child to decide what to do with it, but should not push the child to display the photo on her shelf, because of the potential that the child might feel emotionally destabilized if she gets the impression that her adoptive parents don’t see themselves as fully permanent.

And of course, the particulars of the individual situation, and the child’s personality and emotional development, will be tremendously influential in how to handle the situation.

Is your head spinning yet? Perhaps it should be. Fundamentally, my point here is that when white people adopt transracially, they find themselves entering completely uncharted territory, and that is of course mentally destabilizing. And then the parents eventually find online and in-person forums around transracial adoption, and when they first listen to the authentic voices of adult transracial adoptees, their world is turned upside down.

It can be extremely difficult to listen to the voices of adult transracial adoptees at first; it can be like entering a different world. And it is of course understandable that many white adoptive parents experience so much shock that they recoil and flee—an outcome that is inevitably damaging to their children. I get it: all they wanted was a cute little baby, and instead, they ended up with a gigantic set of issues and a reading list a city block long.

But in the end, what is most important? I would hope it would be focusing on the welfare and well-being of one’s child. And some parenting journeys end up being more complex than others. If one discovered when one’s child was one year old that the child had a very rare, life-threatening disease, wouldn’t the parent do everything in their power to help their child survive and thrive? I often hear adoptive 70

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parents say things like, “I would do anything for my little angel. I would crawl over broken glass, I would walk through fire.” But asked whether they might be willing to move to a part of their metropolitan area with greater racial diversity and mirrors for their child, the answer is so often, “Oh, that’s just impossible.”

But first, these parents need to put themselves on an active learning path. And on that path, they need to embrace complexity, nuance, and ambiguity. And that’s what I constantly ask white transracially adoptive parents—and what I’m asking here. Is it difficult? Yes, at times it most certainly is. But again, I ask—what’s important? If supporting and uplifting one’s child is the most important thing, then one really does need to commit to sitting in perpetual complexity—and embracing the complexity.

One final note: as the reader moves through this book, s/he will be hearing the voices of over a dozen of my fellow adult transracial adoptees. Every single one has their own vibrant, authentic, distinctive voice. Their testimonials, their witnessing to their lived experiences, should further clarify for the reader how complex and layered all of this is. We transracial adoptees are all individuals, just as the members of every identifiable group are. Let’s hope that reading those narratives will add to the reader’s clarity around the dangers of simplistic, binary thinking, and will in fact explode whatever simplistic, binary thinking they might still be engaged in.

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CHAPTER 73

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Leaving Behind the “Rainbows and Unicorns” View of Transracial Adoption • The vast majority of white transracially adoptive parents enter their lifelong journeys as transracially adoptive parents with naïve, idealistic expectations that can never be met • Even now on Facebook, the majority of groups around transracial adoption remain total “rainbows and unicorns” groups moderated and dominated by white transracially adoptive parents, in which any serious discussion of any of the serious issues around transracial adoption is absolutely rejected and dismissed • The willingness to sit in complexity and to leave behind any “rainbows and unicorns” view of transracial adoption will be an absolute minimum requirement for any white adoptive parent hoping to become a better and more successful parent to their adopted child of color

Leaving Behind the “Rainbows and Unicorns” View of Transracial Adoption

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think that it’s important to contexualize what I’m about to say here.

Readers should understand that, until about twenty years ago, the voice of the transracial adoptee and the perspective of the transracial adoptee, based on the adoptee’s lived experience, were largely ignored, dismissed, and thought to be irrelevant, by anyone not a transracial adoptee. Transracial adoption was seen largely as a messianic act (and certainly not as any kind of journey over time): a white, heterosexually married couple (that was the standard understanding of who should be adopting, in the first place) had love to give and a house to fill, and were doing good for our society, by taking in a “poor” little infant or child of color, and, certainly in the 1960s and 1970s anyway, raising that child in a Christian home. And that child would grow up to be “just like” their parents, and also deeply grateful.

Well, a lot of the assumptions of white transracially adoptive parents and adoption professionals began to be blown to bits once the first few waves of transracially adopted children grew into adulthood, and we began to share our stories publicly, and to insist on being heard. And that, in a nutshell, has been one of the key developments of the past two-plus decades in the United, Europe, Canada, and Australia: the emergence of the adult transracial adoptee voice, spanning time, place, culture, country, race, ethnicity, and individual experience.

For, as incredibly diverse as we all are as individuals, we adult transracial adoptees do share some broad commonalities. Most of us—certainly the vast majority of us who are older than 25 years of age—were raised in overwhelming whiteness, and in times and places in which any nuanced understanding of what that fact might mean for us, was entirely or at least largely absent. So that means that nearly three 76

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generations of transracially adopted children, adopted internationally and domestically inside their countries of birth, were raised in a context lacking understanding and awareness.

And while one could initiate a blame game by condemning the white people who adopted children of color transracially, the simple fact is that our entire society participated and in many cases, still participates in the blindness and ignorance around how transracial adoption takes place and what happens after the moment of adoption. In the Facebook groups of which I am a member—in several languages now—we talk about the “rainbows and unicorns” view of transracial adoption, meaning the idea that “love is enough” and it is a simple, uncomplicated act, with no future implications, for a heterosexually married white couple, whether religiously motivated or not, to adopt an infant or child of color, and then proceed to raise that child in the same way that they would raise a white child of theirs that they had biologically procreated. Or, as I stated in the previous chapter, an image of transracial adoption that is absolutely idealized and allows no nuances of any kind whatsoever—an image of a perpetually sunny, cloudless sky.

The arrogance of the “rainbows and unicorns” assumption—that “love is enough” and that nothing should be required of white transracially adoptive parents, post-adoption, other than loving and caring for their children in the exact same way in which they would care for and raise white children born to them—has over the past 30 years suffered a significant collapse, precisely because we transracially adopted children have become adults, and have individually and collectively insisted on being heard.

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And here’s the thing: whether or not we had loving, good parents, we still have suffered from the ignorance and racism around us. I often reference the fact that I was raised by deeply kind, loving parents, parents with good emotional intelligence and intuition, who did everything they could to support me and my twin brother growing up. Nevertheless, I grew up in the Midwest of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s in near-total whiteness, and as a result, ended up with severe damage, especially around my physical self-image (it really is difficult absolutely hating one’s face and wanting to be white every single day), as well as around my identity (which sent me on a journey of several decades’ length, to work out for myself ).

But the good news is that, just before my fortieth birthday, I attended my first gathering of adult transracial adoptees, and was set onto a heady path of self-discovery and integration both of self and in terms of a newly found peer group. And it is that peer group that has been, for well over twenty years now, producing an astonishing array of items in an ever-growing literature of the transracial adoptee experience. Adult transracial adoptees have been producing films and videos (both in the form of documentaries and of other types), books, articles, blogs, even poetry, visual art, and music, all to try to express our experiences, and to inform the world that we exist and that we demand to be heard.

And our expressions have been head-spinningly diverse. After all, we are individuals, as are members of every other socially defined group.

And our lived experiences have been diverse. But the single thing that unifies all of our expressions has been this: we transracial adoptees are living experiences that are extraordinary, unusual, and set apart.

We aren’t white (though some of us had parents who insisted that we 78

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were); but we also were not raised by parents biological to us, who were parents of color, inside communities of color. We experienced our journey into self-integrated racial identity, in a totally different way from the experiences of our peers of color who were raised by parents of color in communities of color. We experienced racism, but had no familial mirrors to turn to; we experienced a particular type of social marginalization and ostracism; and we experienced a search for identity that was and continues to be set apart from individuals of color raised by parents of color.

None of this makes anyone’s experience more worthy or more valid than anyone else’s. That absolutely is not what any of this is about.

Instead, what’s emerged over the past two decades is the expression of a broad collective voice of a totally extraordinary type—of a racialized identity of color that is set apart.

I was privileged and fortunate to be present in many discussions in the years from 2000 through 2020 in which we adult transracial adoptees struggled individually and collectively to find ourselves, to figure out who we were, and in which we interacted with one another to validate and affirm our individual experiences, and to check in with each other about what we had experienced and what we were experiencing. At times, some of the interactions have inevitably been awkward and even challenging. But there has also been a freedom in this that has been bracing and truly liberating.

One seminal event in all of this happened in 1999; I was not there, but the waves that rippled out from that event led to the creation of many of the earliest adult transracial adoptee-only gatherings. In that year, executives at the Eugene, Oregon-based Holt Adoption Agency 79

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gathered together around 400 adult Korean adoptees, hoping essentially to showcase them as adults in order to promote the agency’s success.

What happened once the adoptees gathered together in discussion groups that weekend surprised and shocked the agency’s leaders: instead of dutifully expressing the requisite gratitude to the agency for having brought them to the United States, the adult Korean adoptees (we soon referred to ourselves as “KADs”) wanted to talk about their experiences of racism, of social marginalization, and in some cases, of abuse at the hands of family members. I’ve heard from many attendees of that gathering that the agency people were absolutely shocked into silence.

And very soon afterwards, the adult Korean adoptees began gathering on their own, in KAD-only “mini-gatherings” that were among the first among adult transracial adoptees. I participated in several of those mini-gatherings and sponsored one myself. They were heady affairs: freed to express ourselves authentically in peer group-only gatherings, we discovered each other, and through that set of discoveries, discovered ourselves. I then also became involved in the annual KAAN Conferences (Korean-American Adoptee and Adoptive Family network), in which, virtually for the first time, adult adoptees and adoptive parents sat down together in the same rooms and together tackled some very heavy topics. The early years of the KAAN Conference involved some tricky moments, but over time, a type of dialogue began to emerge that was emerging almost nowhere else.

And then the Facebook phenomenon happened, and I was able to co-create together with Michelle Hughes, an adoption attorney and adoptive parent, and a personal friend of mine, a new kind of Facebook group, one in which we took it on as our mission to “sit in complexity” 80

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and facilitate the complex, challenging kinds of discussions across the entire constellation of stakeholders in transracial adoption: adult transracial adoptees, transracially adoptive parents, and smaller numbers of birth/first parents, relatives of all of the above, allies, and a small number of adoption professionals. More than eight years later, there are now many, many groups of the type that Michelle and I first premiered, and they are facilitating such discussions in several different languages (I myself participate in groups in Spanish and in Danish, so far, as well as adoptees-only groups in German).

At the time that Michelle and I created the original group on Facebook (we now co-moderate, along with an entire team of volunteers, its successor), there existed primarily two types of Facebook groups around transracial adoption. The first was indeed what we came to call the “rainbows and unicorns” groups. Completely dominated by white transracially adoptive parents, they are groups filled with adoptive parents sharing adorable photos of their babies and young children, and exulting at their good fortune, and in which any discussion of any serious issues around transracial adoption is strictly forbidden, with any individuals attempting to initiate such discussions, immediately banished, and any member of any demographic around the transracial adoption constellation immediately ejected for even attempting to raise any serious issues of any kind. Ironically, Michelle and I had both been put into such a group (without our consent), and when discussions blew up around racism, we were immediately ejected, which is what led to our initiating our first group (and, even more ironically, the moderator of the group we had been brought into, was an adult transracial adoptee, but one who, bizarrely, worked to silence the voices of other adult transracial adoptees).

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The second type of group out on Facebook at that time was the intensely anti-adoption Facebook groups. I actually believe that those groups have their place, at least in principle. The problem is that the members of those groups, primarily adult adoptees and birth parents, bring into their discussions a tremendous amount of unhealed trauma, to the extent that it is very difficult for discussion threads to be initiated and pursued that don’t end up in a lot of individuals retraumatizing themselves and traumatizing others, in the process.

There simply had to be a different type of group, which is why we acted to create our own.

And I’ve learned a tremendous amount from helping to moderate these groups, as well as adult adoptees-only groups, now in a few different languages. I’ve gained even more respect than I’d already had, for the incredible diversity of adult transracial adoptee experiences, which span an incredible spectrum of lived experience. And I’ve also come to see that many of the same questions, issues, and discussions crop up time after time.

And that is one of the main reasons why I’ve written this book: because some very clear themes have emerged, which have convinced me that gathering my thoughts together here, might be of use to some readers.

As I said in my introduction, I speak only for myself, though I will regularly reference areas that appear to be of great consensus among adult transracial adoptees. But I will be addressing themes here that emerge and reemerge with enormous consistency over time. Clearly, those themes are important to large numbers of individuals from among all the stakeholder groups in the transracial adoption constellation.

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Leaving Behind the “Rainbows and Unicorns” View of Transracial Adoption

Above all, I ask that my readers sit in continuous complexity with me; and yes, that at times, they agree to sit in discomfort, for the sake of learning. As stated in my introduction, my overarching goal here is to support the ongoing life journeys of my fellow transracial adoptees, while at the same time, sharing insights to help white transracially adoptive parents to move forward on their lifelong journeys as parents of transracially adopted children.

The simple fact here is that there can be no rainbows and unicorns in the authentic journey either of the transracial adoptee or of the transracially adoptive parent. Everything truly is complexity. There is every kind of experience in the experience of transracial adoption, from the very best to the very worst—but all of it is wrapped in complexity.

And thus, it is a subject that calls out for book-length treatment. Let’s agree to dispense with any images of rainbows and unicorns, and to embrace the complexity, challenges, and yes, joys, of the transracial adoption experience. We all deserve that authenticity.

What Happened to Alex Landau I always want to honor and respect the stories of fellow adoptees. In this case, that means simply briefly summarizing what has become a rather well-known story in the transracial adoption community involving the Black adopted son of white parents in Denver, Colorado. I’ll be sharing a link here in the notes to this.

As Chandra Thomas Whitfield reported it in her October 28, 2016 article “Beaten but not defeated—the fascinating story of Alex Landau” 83

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in the online publication The Undefeated, Alex Landau “was a 19-yearold Community College of Denver business student in 2009 when he was brutally beaten by DPD officers during what began as a routine traffic stop. He later shared on NPR the graphic details of the attack that left him with 45 stitches in his face, a broken nose, a concussion, a traumatic brain injury and the lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. His radio account was later used as narration for a short animated video produced by StoryCorps, a nonprofit agency that invites people of diverse backgrounds to record themselves sharing personal experiences for preservation. The Traffic Stop video, which has been widely shared online and has had more than 350,000 views on YouTube, snagged a trophy at the 37th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony in New York City.”

Whitfield shares the details of the appalling and life-threatening police attack on Landau in the article, followed by this quote from his mother: “Patsy Hathaway said had her own son not fallen victim to such a horrific attack, she, like many others, especially other white people, would have remained ‘naïve’ and ‘ignorant’ to the problem of police brutality. Minus a few speeding tickets, she said, all of her previous interactions with police officers had been positive. ‘I didn’t even know that this [problem] existed,’ said Hathaway of Denver, adding that Landau’s adoptive grandfather and great-grandfather were career members of the DPD [Denver Police Department] force. She said the attack that for a time left her son unable to see out of one eye has forced her to see law enforcement in a different light. ‘When I hear people say that [police brutality] isn’t a problem [in this country], I have to get past my anger,’ she said. ‘My son was 150 pounds and 19 years old when he was assaulted by three trained adult police officers.

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I know he would not have done something stupid like trying to fight back or resist. He’s a really bright kid.’”

What I sincerely appreciate is Patsy Hathaway’s awakening to reality, and her willingness to share her learnings with others. Meanwhile, Alex has become a racial justice advocate, and remains determined to help others.

Their willingness to share their family’s story is one element addressing a profound need. Tragically, there remain many white transracially adoptive parents totally unwilling to learn about race and racism, for the sake of their children. They believe that they love their children; yet their affection will not prevent their children from experiencing terrible trauma because of the parents’ blindness.

I’ll never forget a statement made by a white transracially adoptive mother in one of our Facebook groups, in the wake of the police murder of Michael Brown Jr., in August 2014. In a discussion about racism and police brutality, that mother said (and I paraphrase here), “I have both Black and white sons. And I tell them that as long as they’re respectful to authorities, none of them will ever have any problems.”

And then she immediately exited the group. I can only hope and pray that her Black sons are being given help, guidance, and support from someone, in order that they not end up as statistics. A “rainbows and unicorns” view of transracial adoption could literally be fatal to the adopted children involved.

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Adoptee Voice:

Melanie Chung Sherman, LCSW M

elanie Chung-Sherman, LCSW-S, was born in South Korea in 1977, and was adopted to the United States at the age of seven months. She grew up in Minnesota and in Texas, where she currently lives with her husband and her sons, aged 14 and 10. She has been a practicing licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist since 2009, and has worked in a variety of clinical settings, including private practice and other settings.

Adoptee Voice: Melanie Chung Sherman, LCSW

How has your personal journey as an adult transracial adoptee intersected with your professional journey as a professional therapist, as a clinician?

I started in child placement in international adoption, and back then, I had not yet emerged from the transracial adoptee fog. So I feel myself in a space of reparation and conciliation, internal and external, these days, because I was really complicit in the adoption industry early on.

Those experiences woke me up to the complexities of adoption, of race, class, privilege, disability. I grew up in near-total whiteness; my high school’s flag involved the Confederate flag and our school anthem was the Spirit of Dixie. But in the past five years, my identity has really shifted from being a transracial adoptee to much more being a woman of color, along with disabilities and a lot of other both marginalized and privileged identities. Working in mental health has opened up a lens of compassion and curiosity, and passion to be able to integrate all these interesting dynamics related to my own lived experience, and mental health. So it’s my life values that really frame the work I do now.

So what did that look like, to be moving out of the transracial adoptee fog when you were already an adoption professional?

I was licensed as an LCSW in 2009, and I obtained my LMSW in 2004 with my master’s degree. But I started in the industry in 1999 after The Gathering in DC [the 1999 gathering of several hundred adult Korean adoptees that was sponsored by the Holt Adoption Agency and held in Washington, D.C.] I met several other Korean adoptees 88

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who have remained good friends since then. So coming out of the fog was an incremental process for me, because I had to deconstruct my entire adoption narrative in real time, within my family and within my job, professionally. So I left the field for a while to do medical social work and child development research. The process was extremely challenging after I had my first child. And all that makes sense for us as adoptees, because there was no denying what I had experienced. In fact, I found that I had allowed myself to be used by the industry. But a lot of colleagues remain compartmentalized. I myself couldn’t reconcile things.

The reality is that the adoption agencies are totally focused on spiriting infants and children into the arms of prospective parents, and it can take some movement out of the adoptee fog for adoptees to understand the underlying dynamics, correct?

Yes, into the arms of white parents. I remember when an Asian adoptee had been rehomed within two weeks of arrival in the U.S., and I remember listening to the agency’s professionals, all white women, talking about how they could quickly get that child into a foster home, because they didn’t want to report it to the Chinese authorities.

And linguistically, you can trick yourself into believing almost anything, if you shove your soul down deep enough. But I remember sitting there at that table and thinking about that child, and the fact that the white mom had gotten rid of this little girl because her skin was too dark, and she smelled. And that kid could have been me or you, or anyone else. That was probably around 2000 or 2001, and that was impactful.

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The final straw for me happened in 2007. I was still deeply embedded in the evangelical church at the time, and was already questioning the homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, but was justifying that I could question families, but couldn’t question the system. But it was upholding harm and white supremacy and all forms of oppression, when I was working in the placement area.

The rhetoric around all this had been normalized to me when I was growing up. It was really a binary and harmful place to be. But the final straw came for me in 2007, when a white family who were kid collectors—the kind of people who will go from one agency to another to get more children—had adopted two children internationally, siblings from Africa, and rehomed those children on the streets of the country where the child was from, and left the children there. I called the FBI and CPS as soon as I found out what had happened. And the agency did everything they could to cover it up. It was a sibling set under the age of five. They literally flew them back and left them on the streets. And nothing happened to them—not a goddamned thing.

I’ll never forgive myself for my complicity in that situation. And that couple ended up rehoming another sibling pair, adopted domestically, to another state. These rehomings were happening in the evangelical community; and they’re still happening.

At the same time, when I was in the agency world, I saw instances involving wonderful adoptions of kids who had survived orphanages, and were adopted into wonderful families. So it’s a very conflictual place. And I’ve worked in every area around adoption and child welfare. And I’ve seen just about everything as a social worker and now as a clinician. And I know true evil and immense good. For me, trying to find that balance isn’t easy.

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One of my aspirations was to work with micro-family systems. I’m still out advocating, training, and teaching, to bend the walls and transform the system, to affirm the most vulnerable adoptees, fosterees, so they know they’re not alone, and to validate the experiences they’re having. And the pathologization of the adopted child really reinforces the oppression. Saying things like, “My child is a RADish” [a child exhibiting characteristics of reactive attachment disorder], when a lot of this is identity-based trauma, not being heard or seen, coupled with the trauma of being separated from their place of origin. And now I work with adoptees, adolescents through young adults. I also see adoptee parents reconciling their own history, so they can be more present for their children, particularly kids who have experienced trauma and harm. The majority of adoptive parents I meet have significant trauma themselves as well. There’s a reason why people come to adoption. So there’s a lot of work in terms of unspooling their own trauma and attachment issues.

And I have to do continuous work on myself as a professional. The reality is that we can end up bringing our own lived experiences to our work. And we can seek out modalities, training, and evidencebased research applied to the field. Because if it’s just my own lived experience, I can do harm to people. Meanwhile, the barriers to become a professional therapist are substantial. There are few BIPOC supervisors or mentors. The senior professionals are still primarily white, cisgender, heterosexual adoptive parents, without a lot of intersectional identity. So a lot of individuals are coming out of universities without a lot of access beyond the adoption agencies. What’s challenging is that there’s no training on this [helping to make adoption professionals aware of the adoptee perspective on many adoption related issues]. A 91

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lot of my colleagues are attempting to shift that, so that the adoptee voice is affirmed research-wise, and so that a lot of positions and perspectives can be shifted. When we look at the literature and the history, everything has been part of an effort to fix the adopted person to fit into the adoptive family system.

Some transracially adoptive parents will be completely bewildered by the discussion we’re having right now.

When we relinquish privilege, we have to embrace new ways of thinking; and our brains aren’t ready to do that as humans. Last week, I spoke on a national panel on race, trauma, and relationships. The focus was on transracially adoptive families, among adoption professionals, who are predominantly still white-cis-hetero. And it was just myself and another clinician, and while I was in the waiting room waiting to speak, a white adoptive mom identified herself as white adoptive mother with a teenage adopted daughter, and she said, “I hope my daughter can be like you someday.” People always say those things to me. So when we add on privilege, race, and adoptism, without understanding our own issues, our implicit bias, our junk, it comes out in this really odd way.

And so, so many of us who work in this field become avatars of some sort. And so this assumption about what they want their children to be, and the reality of the complexities behind that—I’m reminded of those elements when I speak. The need for family systems for parents to understand their motivation to adopt across racial lines, and the intentional will to understand the history behind that—those are two pauses that have to be made. We all have a trauma and attachment history. But we hear about the adoptee’s attachment to the family as equivalent to health adjustment. But I’m talking about the motivation 92

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to adopt across racial and cultural lines. And it has to go beyond “I was called to do it,” because that’s pretty generic, and deflects from the hard work. And if you can’t address it, your child will know you’re not safe.

If you start with a simplistic idea or deflection, that won’t support the child—or any child, long-term. And that’s when I see young people coming with disordered eating patterns or self-harming. And the parent will say, my child has never self-harmed. And then, guess what?

The child is self-harming. The heightened suicidality among BIPOC, including transracial adoptees, is considerable. And why would I want to stay alive when my parents attend a Trump rally and come home and tell me they love me, and that I was meant to be with them? So a lot of the work I do with young people is reconstructing some of these really generic platitudes.

So I challenge families, do you understand the imperialist and colonial history of adoption in the U.S., and that family separation has helped to drive our society? That’s what slavery and indentured servitude were based on. And you can have a great connection with your child, and then identity moves into those spaces. And the vast majority of young people, particularly adoptees of color, I see have little or no real emotional relationship with their parents, because their parents refuse to do the hard work underneath the dialogue. So if you’re not willing to do the work in the beginning, when are you going to do it?

Every parent needs to do their own work around all of this, even to be able to understand that the parent her/himself has been harmed by white culture. Not many people can do that, because white culture is not set up to allow us to talk about this. And I tell parents, if you send your Black child to an all-white space, at what point do they 93

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become seen as dangerous? And some of these suburbs here in Texas, I don’t walk around. But white parents are raising their Black and brown children in those areas, and it’s a matter of time before someone calls the police on them or tries to shoot them. If the parents don’t understand the history and do their own work, it won’t help. Most are just reading the literature written by white adoptive parents. I pretty much discount that literature entirely. I try to elevate and amplify the voices of people of color.

How does it feel now looking back on your journey so far?

I will say this: I feel embodied at this point, and that will continue to expand. I feel more embodied in my voice, my positionality, and the recognition of my own privileges, particularly through adoption, and even my recognition that my alignment with whiteness, with body size, with immigration, as an Asian adopted person, all of those things have provided me privilege and agency. This isn’t about dissing adoptive parents. We hear about that all the time. I don’t hide my journey related to my adoptive family. But now, as a parent myself, the road to where I’m at today has been incredibly challenging. It’s also been incredibly rich. There’s been incredible joy and hope, and it is an honor to sit with clients, wherever they’re going to be on their journey. And through my work in adoption, and attachment and trauma, and it’s taught me that no individual is the worst part of themselves.

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5

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

5

“But Where Are You REALLY From???”: The Scourge of Unusualness • Growing up totally different, and having one’s difference constantly pointed out, can be devastating for transracially adopted children • While all children of color experience at least some (and often a huge amount of ) racism, children of color being raised by white parents in white culture in white society end up being almost disadvantaged in unique ways in terms of the lack of support for their identities • White adoptive parents need to consider how devastating the experience of exceptionalism in terms of racial identity, can be, for their children of color—and need to take action

“But Where Are You REALLY From???”: The Scourge of Unusualness

I

am always careful to demarcate my perspectives based on my own personal lived experience, and my observations of broad sentiments among adult transracial adoptees, all of whom have had individualized lived experiences. There are issues around which there is virtually no consensus among adult transracial adoptees; issues around which there is some broad consensus; and issues around which there is nearuniversal consensus.

And one of the most common experiences among us transracial adoptees is one that for so many of us has shaped our life journeys in extremely important ways. And that is this: the experience of unusualness, usually in the form of a negative experience.

Consider this video, which has been viewed more than 10 million times since it was created in 2013 by an Asian-American director. Honestly, I half-joke that the experience of this Korean-American woman in this created video, represents half of my life experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ&t=75s Most white Americans or Europeans will find it virtually impossible to relate to this video. And yet that is what I grew up with, along with countless other children of color. And as a transracial adoptee, I had no intellectual, conceptual, or social resources with which to come to terms with the experience, and as a result, I simply internalized all the racism towards myself.

Indeed, growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with my twin brother, in the 1960s and 1970s, in near-total whiteness, what possibilities were there for normalizing such experiences? We were among the first large wave of international adoptees, most of whom, like us, came from South 97

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Korea between the late 1950s and early 1970s, with subsequent waves to follow. And though we had deeply loving and good parents, we still experienced what most transracial, international adoptees did during that time period—which was a great deal of racism and ignorance.

People across the constellation of transracial adoption often ask me to summarize my lived experience as a child, so here goes: despite having loving parents, I experienced racism from a very, very young age (really, the moment I entered kindergarten, and probably before that, but I entered kindergarten at age four, and can’t claim to remember very much before that). Growing up in near-total whiteness (yes, even with my twin beside me) was immensely isolating and confusing. There were the usual teasing, taunting and ostracism from other children.

But most of all, when I think back to the transracial adoption-related experience of my childhood and teenage years, I think of what I call the scourge of unusualness.

American society is often thought to be one of the most individualistic in the world; and in some ways, it is. Yet even in American society, social conformism is very intense. And for children, being different in some clearly perceptible way is and continues to be, even now, extremely disadvantaging. The way I express it when asked about it, is this: being unusual—being noticeably different—was like an enormous curse growing up, as it was clear to me from my earliest childhood that being exactly like everyone else was the highest value in my social environment.

Often, people will ask me whether that sentiment was expressed very explicitly. It wasn’t; it didn’t need to be. Being like all the other children, matching them in every way, was clearly prioritized by adults 98

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and by the children themselves. And of course, this was the 1960s and 1970s, a time of the “Dick and Jane” readers, “Leave It To Beaver,” and every other form of educational and entertainment medium, all of which emphasized whiteness, sameness, and conformity. It wasn’t really until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the very first books, television shows, cartoons, etc., even began to portray people of color in a positive light and featured them in any significant way. I remember as a child that the only genuine Asian male I saw before I was in college was George Takei—“Mr. Sulu”—on “Star Trek”; he first appeared on screen in 1965. Apart from that lone example, I can’t remember any Asian males in entertainment media portrayed by actual Asians, apart from the very occasional supporting character. The main image I had of Asian males was that of “Charlie Chan” in the long-running series of Charlie Chan movies.

Of course, as everyone knows, Warner Oland and Sidney Toler were white men made up to look like Asian men, and putting on fake Chinese accents, and regularly spouting the phrase “Confucius say…”

I do remember (and I had to look this up while writing this) that Keye Luke, a Chinese-born American actor, played Charlie Chan’s son in a number of the “Chan” films. And I do remember as a very young child knowing the difference between a fake Asian and a real one—and wondering precisely what was going on.

In certain ways even worse was the “Kung Fu” television series that ran from 1972 through 1975, in which David Carradine, again a white actor, portrayed a biracial Chinese man traveling through the United States in the nineteenth century. That program was worse in its impact for me and my brother, as we were constantly asked whether we “knew” 99

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kung fu, and constantly presented with fake martial arts hand motions.

In any case, what was clear to me was that not being white was, despite the statements of all and sundry that they didn’t “see race,” essentially a social crime, and one that could never be forgiven. Like the majority of adult transracial adoptees I’ve discussed this with, I wanted to be white, and especially, to look white. Completely detached from any connection to Korean or broader Asian culture, and with Asian culture and Asian-ness consistently seen as alien, bizarre, and unacceptable there really was no way out, except to plan my escape. Not surprisingly, my twin brother and I left Milwaukee the moment we could—which was when we entered college—and never went back there again to live (nor would I ever). I often joke when introduced at conferences around transracial adoption, “Yes, I grew up in Milwaukee—but I escaped.”

The line inevitably elicits nervous titters of laughter.

So, here’s an interaction that I’ve had countless times over the years: when white transracially adoptive parents hear about my experience growing up in near-total whiteness as a child of color and transracial adoptee, the very first thing that they do—inevitably—is to rush in to try to reassure themselves that, well, “It couldn’t all have been so bad, could it?” Well, yes, it could. “But you had loving parents!” Well, yes.

“And you did well in school!” Well, yes. “And you grew up in a lowcrime, safe, stable community!” Well, yes. “And then you did well in your life after that!” Well, yes.

But none of those things, though true, changed the fundamentals of what I grew up with, which was extreme social marginalization and a fair amount of implicit racism, along with a near-complete lack of cultural mirrors or resources—all of which led to tremendous physical 100

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self-image issues and a very intense complex about my appearance, as well as a several-decades-long journey into figuring out, resolving, and integrating my identity, for myself, and a decades-long journey into connecting with and socially integrating with, fellow people of color— not only Asians, but POC of all races.

It really is impossible to over-emphasize how disastrous it is for a child to grow up in racial isolation, as the only child of color and/or child of one’s own race, or one of the few or in a very small minority of one’s own race or of POC in general. It is quite devastating on all levels. All children want to fit in, to feel that they belong in their social environment and are accepted by their peers, certainly at least on a basic level. To not be thus accepted creates a level of wounding that can take an entire lifetime to get over; and some transracial adoptees never do get over it.

There were other elements involved in my situation, including having an unusual personal-family situation, being uninterested in sports and largely incapable in sports, and being too intellectual in my social environment. Later on, when I came out as a gay man when I was a freshman in college, another layer of self-awareness around differentness was added as well. But when I dialogue with fellow adult transracial adoptees, I find that virtually all those with whom I discuss our early lives and backgrounds together with, share that the core fact of being transracial adoptees of color was a fundamental element for them, and hugely dispositive of their social fates. I really do hesitate to speak for other transracial adoptees, but I can say this: I have yet to meet a fellow adult transracial adoptee who did not suffer from being the odd person out, from being unacceptably unusual, from being unable to fit in on a very basic level.

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And that also separates us transracial adoptees apart from people of color raised by parents of color. I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in no way saying that either background is more or less difficult or challenging. Indeed, looking back now on my own experience and reflecting on dialogues I’ve engaged in with fellow adult transracial adoptees, most or all of us did benefit in certain ways from some secondary white privilege, at least when we were younger. There were spaces whose navigation was at least to some extent was navigated for us by our white parents, when we were young children; and we grew up learning white culture from the inside out, which doubtless in numerous contexts provides social and cultural advantage. All of that is clear to me.

But when I dialogue with fellow adult transracial adoptees about our experiences of differentness and apartness, it is also very, very clear that the vast majority of us grew up experiencing wounding that can take decades to unspool and heal; that certainly was true in my case. I really spent several decades struggling with these issues, and finally, gradually, coming to a certain kind of peace over them as I moved into middle age.

When it came to physical self-image, that certain kind of peace didn’t really happen in a full way until I was in my mid-fifties (I’m 60 now, as I write this). Should a child really have to spend 50 years working to resolve physical self-image issues and come to a place of self-acceptance around those issues? I would hope that most readers would agree that the answer to that question should be a resounding “no.”

Yet, devoid of racial mirrors or any kind of social reinforcement, completely detached from birth culture, and growing up in an intensely 102

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racist United States in the 1960s and 1970s, of course, I ended up with complexes, as well as with a huge amount of basic confusion around identity.

Several factors helped save me form despair. The first was being a part of a gifted program in junior high school and high school, with my brother. In that smaller-group setting, there was far greater social acceptance and an absence of “othering,” on a daily basis; being students in that program was also helpful, in that we were far too intellectual for the vast majority of children in our school social environment. The second was “escaping” to undergraduate college, and being able to flee 1970s Milwaukee. And the third came when I came to Chicago for graduate journalism school. The Medill School of Journalism, in the early 1980s, was not only considered one of the top three graduate journalism programs in the nation; it also, uniquely at that time, was home to several Black graduate program deans, whose presence and advocacy resulted in the admission of exceptionally diverse student bodies for the master of science in journalism (MSJ) program when I was a student there in 1981-1982. There was great racial diversity, but also diversity of social class and of place of origin (we had a number of international students as well). For the first time in my life, I was actually living in racial diversity on a day-to-day basis. The diversity at that time was primarily Black-white diversity; I was one of a very few Asian students in my class, and we had no Latinx students in my class; later on, that would change, too.

But it was incredibly exciting and satisfying to finally spend my days in racial diversity. And, in the years following graduate school, I began navigating the great diversity of Chicago, the city that I’m proud to call 103

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my adopted home, and to move forward on the decades-long journey of self-actualization as a young adult, and then middle-aged adult, of color. At first, it was extremely awkward and confusing moving out of mental and psychological whiteness; but it was clear to me from the very first moment that this was an important, indeed, essential part of my journey as a transracial adoptee. It took me decades to “place” myself as a person of color, because the early 1980s were still a time when whiteness was still the intellectual and cultural norm in the United States; and were also a period of time decades in advance of us adult transracial adoptees coming together to share our stories, support one another, and build identity and community together. But, it gradually came together for me.

Back to the bigger picture: what is it that white transracially adoptive parents should understand about all of this? My story is one of literally many hundreds of thousands of stories here in the United States, let alone internationally. Yet as I say, when I dialogue with fellow adult transracial adoptees, the same themes emerge over and over and over and over again—the themes I’ve mentioned here of social marginalization, ostracism, and isolation; of identity confusion; of physical self-image issues, and of immense struggles to find and develop one’s identity as a person of color. And pretty much every single adult transracial adoptee I’ve ever spoken with about this, has shared that they were scarred by the experience of being so unusual, so different, and of having to grow up navigating such difficult passages in their lives.

Indeed, my personal lived experience has fueled and continues to fuel, my sense of mission around all of this. It is why I participate in in-person and online forums around transracial adoption issues— now in multiple languages. And it has become very clear to me that, 104

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by and large, most white transracially adoptive parents still, in 2021, lack an understanding of just how devastating the experience is, of the transracially adopted child who is growing up socially marginalized (and often taunted and even bullied) and isolated. What I hear consistently is some sentiment to the effect of, “Oh, we love our little Susie! She’s just like the rest of our family. We don’t think of her any differently, or see her any differently, from any of our other children, or any children!” And, implied, “Aren’t we wonderful?” When in fact, little Susie is dying for their understanding of the immense challenges she’s facing as a transracially adopted child, especially if her parents are raising her in total or near-total whiteness and with zero or very little access to birth culture and birth society. Even now in 2021, I am constantly being told of situations involving children of color—in the United States, in Europe, in Canada—being raised in situations in which those children are having to support themselves psychologically and emotionally, without supports—in 2021.

When will all this stop? I fear that in some cases, especially given the ideological biases of certain types of white transracially adoptive parents, it will continue forward for quite some time. Which again, is precisely why I’m writing this book. I’m absolutely certain that there are individuals who will read what I’ve just shared here and will declare that their child is doing perfectly well, and that it is ridiculous nonsense to consider that they can’t raise their child in the exact same way in which they’re raising their white children who are biological to them. In 2021.

But my fervent hope is this: that any white adoptive parent reading this, will pause to consider the damage that they’re doing to their adopted child of color in maintaining such an ignorant attitude. Instead, I would urge all white adoptive parents to begin in earnest on that journey of 105

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self-education and discovery—and to heed the testimonies of all of us adult transracial adoptees who are imploring them to think about what it actually means to grow up in isolation and psychological harm.

And, incredibly importantly, white transracially adoptive parents need to move into as much racial diversity as possible, with daily mirrors of both their child’s specific race (and also ethnicity, if possible), as well as mirrors in the form of people of color of all races of color, in order to support their child/ren. That really is the only way to prevent one’s child from growing up profoundly scarred. It’s simple, really.

And for my fellow adult transracial adoptees: I hear you and I feel you. And I’ve also written this chapter (and this book) for you, so that you can boost yourself forward on your own journeys into integration, healing, wholeness, and peace. Yes, the journey is a lifelong one, and at times, can feel deeply onerous and burdensome (if not painful).

But it does honestly get better. And there’s a whole galaxy of us adult transracial adoptees out there. Tune in, join up, and find your place on your journey, with the support of others, and in self-determination.

It can be a bracing journey at times, but it’s been a very fulfilling one for me, over the several decades that I’ve been on it. And I’m hoping that any adoptee reading this will also feel mirrored, affirmed, and supported here. It matters.

And though the experience of the scourge of unusualness is never forgotten, it gets better in multiple ways, as transracial adoptees connect both with fellow transracial adoptees and with other people of color, build their identities, and, as needed, use social supports (inperson and online), and in some cases, psychotherapy (hopefully, with adoption-competent therapists, and ideally, with therapists who are 106

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fellow transracial adoptees, though those individuals are in tremendous, tremendous demand), along the way. It is a lifelong journey; but it needn’t be a lonely, isolated one. And the literature that’s been created by adult transracial adoptees should be considered an enormous resource for transracial adoptees and transracially adoptive parents alike. In the appendix to this book, I recommend numerous resources. Onward and upward.

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Adoptee Voice:

Sumitra Dorner, MSW, LICSW

S

umitra Dorner was born in 1970 in India, and adopted at the age of five to Winona, Minnesota, where she was raised by a single mother who adopted her and her sister (not biological to her, but also born in India) as a single parent by choice. She lives in Savage, Minnesota, a town 15 miles south-southwest of downtown Minneapolis. She is a mother of one son, and has been a social worker and/or therapist

Adoptee Voice: Sumitra Dorner, MSW, LICSW

for over twenty years. Sumitra is the adult international adoptee who coined the term “narrative burden,” which is referenced throughout this book, and which is the subject of Chapter 6.

How long have you been a therapist or worked in the social work arena?

I’ve been in social services for over 20 years, in all types of settings, whether working with little kids in residential or working with persistently mentally ill patients in residential, or working with the Somali immigrant population in mental health. I’ve worked in many settings, doing counseling, therapy, and social services. I obtained my MSW in 2001 and my LICSW in 2013. I think I was born to be a social worker.

Do you remember anything before your adoption at the age of five?

Not really; I have very vague memories.

You were in an orphanage, correct?

Yes. First, I was in the Missionaries of Charity orphanage in Calcutta, and then I was at the New Delhi Missionaries of Charity. I described it to my mom when I came as “the big house.” That’s where the adoptions were finalized.

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What are your memories of being adopted, and growing up?

I came at the age of five in 1975, on Mother’s Day, and grew up in Winona, Minnesota. It’s a very lovely town; it sits on a sand barge of the Mississippi River. With all that beauty, it wasn’t the best place for minorities. It was almost entire white. In my growing up years and going to school, what blocks in what areas were probably not safe for me. And I even remember the last name of a particularly family. I experienced some racism. I have an adopted sister adopted from India as well, and she came in 1979 at the age of six. And my mom was a single parent. She came from the International Mission of Hope.

Between 1975 and 1979—in 1975, I was a private adoption.

At that time, my mom had tried to go to agencies to adopt, and was turned down as a single woman, and even though she was Catholic, she wasn’t extremely religious. And she had some friends of hers who had adopted an African-American child domestically. And her friend gave my mom the name of a woman who worked at the State Department in Washington, D.C. And she facilitated the adoption through Missionaries of Charity; so I have a number of Indian adoptee friends who went through her.

And between 1975 and 1979 when my mom went through the process again—I always wanted a sibling who looked like me—by 1979, she didn’t have any problems as a single parent or who wasn’t very religious.

My sister doesn’t talk about it much, but she was with her birth family much longer than I was with mine. And I think because of the differences, it lent us to different perspectives. My sister is much more closed about it, even though they adopted as well. She adopted her son and daughter as well. And she and my mom went to India for that.

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I had planned to visit India, but haven’t done so. But I’m quite vocal and open and quite involved in adoption, and connecting people and resourcing people. And when I did DNA testing, I mentioned it to her, since I had no information. And I’ve connected with some distant cousins, and that gave me some comfort. And she was happy for me.

But she really didn’t say anything.

Many Indians don’t know their original language group or culture.

Do you know?

The DNA test confirmed that I’m Bengali. And I asked Indians in my college years, is Sumitra a Bengali name? Do I look Bengali? And they said yes. I don’t know my language, or my birth date, or where I was born. And for those of us Indian adoptees who are older, there just isn’t any information to help me search.

Are you at all interested specifically in Bengali language or culture?

Does that resonate?

I’m interested in a general way. And if one of my friends said, “There’s this Bengali gathering, would you like to go?” I would go. So I guess I would say that I have a general interest, but I don’t feel compelled.

How did you come up with the term “the narrative burden,” which you introduced to our international adoptee gathering in Washington, D.C., in 2002?

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When people ask the question, “Who are you, where are you really from?”—after you do that a number of times, it’s like, here we go again. And it’s my story, thus my narrative; and because it happens so much, it becomes a burden. So I was using it with friends. And it’s a great thing that people are spreading the term. And it’s like other terms, like white privilege; if a term is used enough times, then they can understand it.

What do you think that adoptive parents should do, when out in public and facing the narrative burden?

I think they should be factual, but give the bare minimum. “Yes, she’s adopted from India.” As my mom used to say, “It’s not my story to tell.

When my child is older and she can speak for herself, it will be up to her.”

And so you give the basics, and say everything else is private, correct?

Yes, absolutely.

Having sat in in-person and online forums around transracial adoption as I have, what key things would you like adoptive parents to know?

Understanding the narrative burden is very important, and adoptive parents should be aware that it’s not their story, it’s the adoptee’s story, and to keep it short and sweet. More broadly, even before the adoption 113

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happens, adoptive parents should be really aware of and self-reflective of, their own issues. I’ve worked in adoption agencies as a therapist, and knowing the issues in general, and there a lot of adoptive parents who should not have adopted. So prospective parents need to consider whether this is the right choice; and what issues do they have that could hurt or damage the child? And third, just to be aware of and open to the fact that the child came because of a loss; so there’s trauma. The child wasn’t “saved”; and the child will still have the desire and interest to know who they are and where they came from, and the parent needs to be open to that.

And about race and racism?

You hear that terrible saying, “I don’t see color.” And that’s white privilege talking. And of course, I’m a huge advocate for self-education around race. I was lucky that my mom was such a mama bear when I told her about the racism I was experiencing. She would talk to the principal or go to the home of the people bullying me, calling me the “n” word, or go to the playground. Love is not enough. When you discount or minimize the racial piece of it, you’re essentially minimizing and whitewashing your child.

And growing up in near-total whiteness is devastating.

Yes, it is. And there are other elements, too. People can’t understand the desire for birth search. And when I connected with a distant cousin through 23andme, and I told that person that I’d love to know more 114

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about my personal history and who my parents were, and she said, “Oh, why? You’re doing so well. Just let that be in the past, and keep going.”

That must have been discouraging.

Yes. And I know she didn’t mean it in a bad way. But people of a certain age or upbringing don’t understand the adoption piece of it, and don’t know what to say, so they say what they think will be helpful, and it’s not.

Was it helpful to connect with people through 23andme?

Oh, yes. I became reconciled, because of the circumstances of my adoption, that I would never find my birth family. And three of us [Kripa, Rebecca, and me] did 23andme all at the same time. For me, it was helpful; I got the ancestry part, and some medical information as well. And I did get some good medical information; it’s not a diagnostic, but it indicated I might have vision issues. And sure enough, that turned out to be true.

And are all the individuals you connected with, are they all Bengali?

The one mother-daughter pair I connected with, they’re mixed Bengali and Nepalese. And I’m hoping to meet the one cousin in San Diego.

And it’s given me some comfort to have connected to some distant relatives. It lessened a bit my longing for a biological link, and satisfied 115

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it. Having my son also helped, and that also was very purposeful on my part. I knew I wanted to become a parent in some form. So I had my son as a single mom. My son does have a relationship with his dad, with whom I had had a relationship. But it’s amazing how my son looked so much at age five as I did at age five. So my parenthood was very purposeful. And to satisfy that desire, to have a link forward.

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6

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

6

The Narrative Burden: Lifelong, Immense, Unavoidable, Yet Manageable

• What is the narrative burden? How does it work?

• How does the experience of the narrative burden reflect the social environment in which the adopted child is growing up?

• What are the best strategies for adult transracial adoptees and for transracially adoptive parents, in managing narrative-burden encounters?

The Narrative Burden: Lifelong, Immense, Unavoidable, Yet Manageable

I

t was in 2003, at a gathering of international adoptees, the vast majority of them transracial as well as international adoptees, that my friend Sumitra Dorner introduced to us—and thus the world—the term she had coined, the narrative burden. When she explained it to us in a group discussion, we all understand instantly exactly what it meant. Since then, I and others have been spreading the term “narrative burden” as broadly as possible, as well as, of course, educating on its underlying concept. (Please also read my interview with Sumitra, on page 109).

What’s so important about the term the narrative burden is that it perfectly encapsulates a very meaningful reality of the lived experience of transracial adoptees—as well as numerous others in society. In a nutshell, the narrative burden is this: the burden placed on certain individuals to explain their origins, identities, and life stories, when the vast majority of individuals in society do not face an equal or equivalent requirement. It is the “Where are you from? No, really, where are you REEEEEALLY from???” question, with its 1,001 variations. Individuals whose physical appearances and other visual and apparent markers (including speech/accent, language, etc.) do not appear instantly congruent with accepted archetypes of how people are “supposed to” look, act, etc., in society, face this burden.

My own situation is a perfect example: growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1960s and 1970s, with my twin brother, in neartotal whiteness, with a Norwegian name, white American parents of Norwegian and German descent, yet an obviously Asian face and body, subjected me constantly to the narrative burden, growing up. “Where are you from???” (when no other kids were asked that question) “But 119

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no, where are you REALLY from???” And some version of that question haunted me much of my early life, well into early middle age. Two things changed the equation for me. The first was that, as soon as I could (early adulthood), I moved myself physically into cosmopolitan, urban racial and cultural diversity, with mirrors of myself and other people of color, on a daily basis. And second, fortunately, U.S. society has changed over the past sixty years. I live in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, one with a dazzling level of diversity, and where every race mingles and where people speak at least a couple of hundred languages. I am no longer a “freak,” simply for being Asian.

Now, I know that some readers will instantly react by thinking something like, “Oh, that’s really not so bad, to be asked about one’s background a few times, right???” So, first of all, it’s not “a few times,” it’s countless times—and I do mean that, countless times. Thousands of times, for sure. Also, every single time that it’s happened, it’s added to my experience of being “othered”—of regularly being reminded that, as an Asian in the United States, I am regarded by many white people as never fully American, no matter how long I live in this country, simply because of my face. And I know people of color in many, many different countries—in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all of Europe, and many others—who have experienced this othering, this pointing out of difference. The impact becomes cumulative after a while, and for some people of color, it can become debilitating.

And here’s where the narrative burden-based othering is especially corrosive for the mental health of transracial adoptees: growing up with white parents in a white-dominated society, we already feel very 120

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different, and very othered. It adds to our feeling that we are never really fully accepted, that the next stranger who approaches could ask us where we’re “really” from, could make us feel “other.” Certainly, experiencing the narrative burden as a child and teenager, along with actual racial taunting and disparagement, gave me the feeling that somehow my very existence was contingent on my somehow being both as perfect in every way as possible, and also as conforming as I could possibly be, in order to earn at least a tiny smidge of acceptance for the larger society. It’s really no wonder that my desire to escape from the social environment of the South Side of Milwaukee in the 1960s and 1970s was so incredibly intense. I couldn’t wait to flee; and I’ve never looked back.

And this takes us back to the issue of living in diversity, with racial mirrors for one’s child’s specific race, as well as mirrors of all races of color. It’s become absolutely clear to me that the majority of white transracially adoptive parents, even in 2021, do not understand the significance of the diversity/mirrors issue. They grew up in whiteness themselves, have lived in comfort of being white in an all-white, overwhelmingly white, or even majority-white social environment, and have, at least up to the moment when they adopted an infant or child of color, never, ever had to think about being different, about being “marked,” about being othered, about being excluded. They’re thinking in extremely white ways, without mental access to the lived experiences of people of color.

But I can assure my readers that the nature of the narrative burden is such that it can become cumulatively crushing over time. Because it’s not the tenth time that a transracial adoptee is asked where they’re 121

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“REEEEEALLY” from—it’s the one-thousandth. Or even tenthousandth. Recently, I was trying to explain this to a white friend, and ended up at a loss for metaphors for it (and that in itself is a rare occurrence for me, as I am constantly metaphor-ing). And I think that’s because it is hard to find an experience to compare this to.

But what I can say is that the ability for an individual to navigate their day-to-day world without being constantly singled out, is both a privilege, and an incredibly important facilitator of mental health.

I know that my fellow adult transracial adoptees understand this at a visceral level; virtually all of them have experienced the narrative burden, have been regularly othered, have been made to feel strange, even freakish. And yes, that is a deeply corrosive experience, especially if it happens on a regular basis.

Yet so many white transracially adoptive parents fail to appreciate the significance of this. First of all, their children probably don’t even tell them how often it happens (my brother and I certainly never, ever mentioned to our parents—not ever). And second, when they do, they are often dismissed and told that the person who othered them was “ignorant” or “stupid” or “mean”—which they may have been, but honestly, if your 12-year-old is being asked where they’re from or what their background is, ten times a day every single day for years on end, you really need to question where you’re living and the people you’re interacting with on a day-to-day basis.

It has helped tremendously that American society has changed dramatically in the past 60 years. Even the South Side of Milwaukee is now slightly (only slightly) better than it was 60 years ago. But honestly? Why is “just barely acceptable” a perfectly acceptable social 122

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environment in which to raise your child? It isn’t. And if your child is informing you that their identity and background are regularly being questioned (and they might not even be informing you), you are raising your child in the wrong environment; and yes, you do need to move.

One would think, in the third decade of the 21st century, that adoption agencies would be doing a better job of matching prospective adoptive parents with infants and children, in order to place those children into social environments facilitative to their development; but, no, generally speaking, not really—the fees still seem to be the main motivation for the agencies, even now. And the education of prospective transracially adoptive parents remains largely appalling in the United States and even worse in Europe (where there’s basically none). So it falls on the shoulders of the prospective transracially adoptive parents to begin to educate themselves before adopting. But of course, in that, one comes back to the chicken-or-egg problem, because most white people raised in whiteness have no idea whatsoever what kind of social burdens people of color living in white-majority social environments experience on a day-to-day basis—so why would prospective parents even consider this? And in a sense, that issue goes to the heart of why I’ve written this book. If even a single prospective transracially adoptive parent reads this book and does some serious thinking about all of these issues before adoption, or at the very least, very soon after they do adopt, that would have made it worth it for me to have written this book.

In any case, if you are a transracially adoptive parent or a prospective transracially adoptive parent, please, please, please educate yourself about all of these issues; and understand that the narrative burden is real, and doesn’t go away. Indeed, you may already have experienced it, 123

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as you push your toddler in a stroller and get constant comments and questions about your child. Now imagine what that feels like for the transracial adoptee, having to deal with it their entire life. That’s what I’ve had to do. Fortunately, I was able to escape Milwaukee (yes, I really do describe it that way), and have been able to arrange my life so that, for the most part, I’m no longer having to navigate narrative-burden moments ten times a day. But I know many, many adult transracial adoptees adopted into environments in which they’ve been othered their entire lives—and are still othered, even now, as adults. It’s unfair to them, and honestly wrong.

What to say?

Meanwhile, every transracial adoptee develops strategies and tactics in this area, over time and with experience. Whatever strategies and tactics an adoptee employs are fine, as long as they work for them.

When it comes to adoptive parents with young children, here’s my advice (and yes, I have been asked this question countless times now): respond simply, clearly, and factually, and make it clear that you don’t want to engage in a long discussion in which you’re answering many questions posted by strangers.

In that, I see two huge mistakes that adoptive parents have reported to me they are making. The first is reacting in anger or exasperation.

What I tell parents about this, is this: it will be traumatizing for your child if, every time you’re asked by strangers where your child is from, you react in anger or exasperation; your child will experience a kind of compounded trauma about those experiences over time. Second, 124

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remember that you are modeling behavior for your child; s/he will have to learn how to manage these situations for her/himself, and the degree of skill you show will impact how s/he will handle these situations.

If you act in a weird, evasive, angry manner, it will at least somewhat disable your child. So keep this factual, candid, neutral, and brief. “Is she yours?” “Yes, by adoption.” “Where is she from?” “She was born in Ethiopia, but has lived here since she was an infant. And beyond that, we consider everything else to be private information—thank you for understanding.”

Honestly, the worst is reacting in a weird, evasive way, because it only invites further questioning, which will be excruciating for your child. “Is that your child?” “Why, whatever do you mean?” That’s an epic-fail answer. “Is he adopted?” “Yes”—that’s the correct answer—“Yes, he came to us through adoption.”

“Where is he really from?” “He was born in China. But that’s all we share. Everything else we consider private—thank you.” Occasionally, the stranger will identify themselves as a fellow adoptive parent, or perhaps prospective parent, and/or will want to ask a few additional questions. You’ll have to handle that on a case-by-case basis. But I say this based on years of lived experience: if you stretch out the encounter or react emotionally, it will traumatize your child over time, and it will disable your child from beginning to build their response inventory.

Trust me on that. Also—and it astonishes me that some transracially adoptive parents are unable to see this, but some apparently are, so I’ll say it directly: if you react with anger, agitation, distress, or bewilderment to the narrative-burden questioning, you will be sending your child the message that there in fact is something strange, wrong, embarrassing, or shameful about transracial adoption in general or even about your 125

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own child’s situation in particular. Don’t do it. Some adoptive parents will tell me that they do become exasperated after a while. I totally understand that. But center your child, not yourself. You need, literally, to be the adult, when your child is very young. You are the guardian of their narrative, but you are also their coach on their life-journey.

And yes, the reality is that your child is going to have to deal with the narrative-burden encounter for their entire life; that’s simply reality.

I’m still dealing with it now, at the age of 60, though first of all, as I referenced above, I live in a very diverse, cosmopolitan metro area, so on a day-to-day basis, it is a rare experience for me now. And second, because I navigate professional spaces in my worklife, the questioning is more sophisticated and nuanced—and honestly, that is better than being asked, as I was as a child, “WHAT ARE YOU?????!!!” Now, I mostly get hinted questions, in the form of, typically, something like this: “You seem to have such an iiinteresting background!” When I sense that the question is the “What are you?” question being asked in a super-polite manner, I immediately go to identity. Typically, I say, “Well, I’m an adult transracial, international adoptee. I was born in South Korea and raised by white American parents. That’s why I have a Norwegian name.” Usually, the response to that is simply, “Oh, how interesting!” And then it ends. Which is fine.

I’ve discussed this with countless fellow adult transracial adoptees.

Every single one of us has developed different strategies and coping mechanisms. Some do evade, which is their choice; some use humor, which is great, but I lack the comedian’s natural timing and wit. The key point is that each of us has to figure out for ourselves how to handle this, and we do largely figure it out for ourselves. I’m very content with 126

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my usual strategy, which is factual, candid, brief, and conclusive.

And yes, I’ve come to a peace with this, because the reality is that I know I’ll face the narrative burden my entire life. That’s simply how it is for me as an adult transracial adoptee. It simply is. But I feel satisfied with how I handle it myself, and am glad to share with fellow adoptees how I handle it, and always welcome their views and insights around their experiences.

To my fellow adult transracial adoptees, I say this: feel confident, feel proud, feel peaceful. Say who you are, in whatever way makes you feel comfortable; be you. To white transracially adoptive parents, I say this: recognize that you are the guardians of your young children’s narratives.

Handle this situation in ways that minimize your children’s distress and that model for them how they can handle it successfully themselves. It’s a long journey. Time to develop strategies that work over the long term.

Or long haul, which is how it often feels.

This YouTube video, “What Kind of Asian Are You?” was created

by Ken Tanaka and David Neptune. It has achieved over 10.3 million views in the past eight years. It honestly is brilliant. I’ve never seen or read anything that helps to articulate the experience of the narrative burden on the part of the person being burdened, than this. Please watch, thank you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ

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Adoptee Voice:

Susan Harris O’Connor, LICSW

S

usan Harris O’Connor, LICSW, was born in 1963 in Boston, relinquished immediately to foster care, and adopted at just past the age of one, and raised in Massachusetts where she currently lives.

She is a nationally recognized author and speaker. Her birth heritages are Black and Native American (father) and white-Jewish (mother).

She was raised by a Jewish white couple, who also had other children,

Adoptee Voice: Susan Harris O’Connor, LICSW

both biological and transracially adopted. After the deaths of both of her adoptive parents, Sue embarked upon a search for her birth mother, with whom she has been in reunion for over 30 years now.

Sue’s 2012 book, The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee, was a seminal work in the literature created by transracial adoptees. For the first time, an adult transracial adoptee had defined their lived experience as a transracial adoptee within the framework of self-perceptions and the perceptions of others, that shift from moment to moment, depending on the precise context. In the book, Sue discusses what she defines as the “genetic,” “feeling,” “imposed,” “cognitive,” and “visual” forms of racial identity—our actual genetic identities; how we transracial adoptees feel about our own identities; the identities others impose on us, which often contrast to the ways in which we perceive ourselves; our intellectual and conceptual understandings of our identities; and our identities based on purely visual identification by others and ourselves. She also writes about four “mind constructs,” connected to identities and roles.

And Sue presents in her book five narratives that she’s developed and that she has performed very widely at conferences and gatherings, to a range of audiences, some connected to transracial adoption, some to social work, etc. Her work has inspired many to consider racial identity and the transracial adoptee experience in deeper, broader ways. Sue spoke to me recently about the book and about her lived experiences, and how she explains racial identity, and racism, to a variety of audiences, in her public presentations.

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How did the book come about originally?

The book is a compilation five autobiographical narratives that had been written and had already been presented to the foster and adoption communities, starting back in 1996. I created the narratives in order to educate people. Each narrative was written at different times to educate the population on what I thought were some of the most complex areas within the foster- and adoption-related issues.

You decided to personalize this towards yourself in order to help enlighten people as to the complexities, correct?

Yes, it was so complicated; I wanted to make sense of these areas.

You were the first person I know who was able to articulate that racial identity is contextual. What helped you to conceptualize your racial identity construct?

Well, what I had read up to that point, and how I had heard people speak of racial identity, I could identify with what was being said, but didn’t think that it captured the totality of what I’d been living through. So I could identify with individual items, but I didn’t see the struggle or the depth or the intricacy of it all. And so what happened is that I had been asked what my understanding of racial identity was, as a transracial adoptee. And the way that identity was described just didn’t capture the complexity. So when I was asked, I would say, well, I’m really not sure.

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So with that, at some point, after being asked, my mind freed up, and in 1999, I did a six-month in-depth study of my identity around race: I’m a Jewish, multiracial, transracial adoptee. I studied that, and that then led me into understanding that this is complicated and that it’s dynamic. And so I understood within the first month of my self-study, that my identity was multi-dimensional and dynamic, so that I needed to create constructs to hold the dynamism of this. So I created the constructs, and then, I could dive in and see how my experiences had unfolded over the course of the lifetime.

Just as one example among many, you and I have often conversed about how you might define yourself as “Black” or “biracial” with different people, depending on the context of the discussion, correct?

Yes: when I tell you that I’m Black or biracial, that’s actually the top layer of complexity, in my identity model. For example, if you want me to get specific and technical, I can tell you that I’m triracial—Black, Native, and white—but I don’t feel that identity; I mostly feel the white part. And “biracial” or “Black” is just a superficial gloss on my identity, in any case, just as the label “Asian” explains very little about the totality of your identity.

Meanwhile, “Asian” represents your genetic and imposed racial identities. And it is the combination of your visual and imposed identities that brings on attacks of hatred as a person of color; it’s how society sees us. Yet that imposed identity doesn’t speak to my feeling racial identity, which has to do with the fact that, for me, I was raised by a white family in a white community.

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And how has all of this played out in the dynamism of your lived experience?

I started working in the Black community to become more connected to Black people. I was also hoping that being in a community of color would help my inside, feeling racial identity to match my Black external identity. But even though I was working in a Black community, I realized as I was creating this racial identity construct, that my feeling racial identity never really shifted to feeling culturally Black. Yet someone else might have that experience. Let me give you an example: one of our differences is that I’ve always been able to see Black people on TV; I know that for many Asian adoptees of our age, you didn’t have access to Asian people. There wasn’t an Asian community for your parents to take you to that was three miles from where you lived. So even though I wasn’t raised in a Black community, I could see Black people, and I could find the Black communities easily. I wasn’t isolated in the way that Asians of our age were.

So when I was writing this racial identity narrative, I was being honest, in that I was never able to get my inner feeling identity to match my genetic and imposed identities—the Black identity that society was imposing on me. I tried to become culturally Black, so that I could feel culturally Black, but never succeeded. So the uniqueness of that was that when I created my identity constructs, my internal and external identities did not line up. And that is the experience of so many of us as transracial adoptees.

The genetic, imposed, cognitive, feeling, and visual identities—they don’t line up for so many transracial adoptees. And it’s important to state that we shouldn’t be shamed for having our internal identities.

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We should be able to accept our identities without being judged. This model is a normative model for identity, so that we don’t have to feel deficient or defective or wrong, because our identities are different from the identities imposed on us by society.

What has the experience been like of enacting your narratives, and explaining your racial identity construct, in public settings?

I never expected the huge responses I’ve gotten when I’ve presented my narratives, of which I normally present one or two—they run about 20-30 minutes each. And what I learned is that I was creating a kind of performance art. What I’ve found is that, by performing the narratives, I’ve been able to smash through barriers of misunderstanding for people. The narratives make sense to them, in ways that simply reading a speech or presenting a PowerPoint presentation could never do.

The response has been wonderful. When I started out, I didn’t have professional or personal mirrors around my own experience.

What would you like the readers of this book to understand?

That each adoptee is different, and has their own experience. And you have to put each of us into context and understand our uniquenesses.

For example, you want to understand my age relative to this subject.

Our family was the only transracially adoptive family in my town of 60,000 people. This was in 1960, when my parents were among the first in Massachusetts to adopt across racial lines. So when I wrote my first narrative, I was trying to create a mirror for myself to see myself, 134

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and to share that mirror with others. Growing up, the only other transracial adoptees I knew were my brothers, and we didn’t talk about race or adoption. So in these narratives, I’m really trying to express these complexities inside my identity.

What’s been the most gratifying thing for you in the three decades you’ve been involved in the transracial adoption community?

Social media has really created spaces for us. If you want to find your community, you can find it now on social media. I also think that we are moving forward in better understanding the experiences of the adoption constellation. We’ve moved that far. Being a transracial adoptee—though much more work has to be done as far as providing supports and mirrors for the children, and even the adults—I think that there’s an opportunity now for children in these transracially adoptive families not to be raised in racial and ethnic isolation. And the parents don’t need to isolate themselves or their children; if they want to connect, they can make that happen. I also think that there’s been a move for adoptive parents to come together to better understand racial and ethnic issues beyond their own individual children. You and I are a part of that. So I have to believe there’s been a shift. It cannot be as bad as it was back in our day. And let’s not forget about our first parents, and how there’s opportunity for them to heal, to be in reunion with us, and to find community.

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7

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

7

We’re Adaptive—and That’s Both Good and Bad …And why we need to talk about saviorism, white privilege, and white fragility • The burden placed on transracially adopted children to adapt to their environments can be devastating, and certainly is life-shaping • Why it’s so very difficult for white adoptive parents to see and understand the true frame around their children’s lives—and the psychological burden placed on transracially adopted children • Why we need to discuss the relevance of saviorism, white privilege, and white fragility, to any discussion of the formative experiences of transracial adoptees and their parents’ support of them as adoptees

“But Where Are You REALLY From???”: The Scourge of Unusualness

I

t was fascinating for me to recently watch a short documentary that was broadcast on the German television network BR Fernsehen, “Sushila und ihre drei Mütter,” which was broadcast on February 22, 2021, and which focuses on elements of the life narrative of Sushila Sara Mai. https://www.br.de/br-fernsehen/sendungen/lebenslinien/sushila-undihre-drei-muetter-adoption-indien100.html The description of the Bavarian Television documentary on its website reads thus: “Sushila Sara Mai lives with her husband and their two sons in Bavarian Swabia and works as an actress. But it was a long way to get there. Because she actually comes from Calcutta, was taken off the street as a toddler by the sisters of the Mother Theresa Order and placed with a Bavarian adoptive family.”

The documentary’s German title means “Sushila and Her Three Mothers” in English, and refers to her birth mother, Mother Theresa (in whose orphanage she lived as a very young child), and her adoptive mother in Bavaria. Sushila is in her 30s and has gone through a lot, including her adoptive father’s imprisonment and the deaths of both her adoptive father and mother; and the documentary follows her on a short trip to Calcutta, where she was born, and to the orphanage where she spent her first few years of life.

What struck me in watching the program was how Sushila’s adaptations growing up were emblematic of those of nearly all of us adoptees who are both transracial and international. We are taken from our birth country and culture, those like Sushila who were already verbal, have to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture, and we face racism 139

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and discrimination—she certainly did, growing up in a small town in conservative Bavaria, as a dark-skinned Indian girl, and the only child of color in her environment.

Like so many of us, Sushila behaved perfectly and was a high achiever in school, and went to extraordinary lengths to try to fit in, all the while being teased, taunted, and discriminated against as a child of color and an immigrant. She expresses in the documentary how she felt great anxiety as well as sadness and anger growing up, but was hyper-conscious of the need to obtain approval from those around her.

She became hyper-verbal and hyper-accommodating, and an intense observer of the behavior and speech patterns of others. She ultimately became a professional actress, and has acted in TV films and in the theater. Yet when she goes back to India, she feels a sense of personal freedom and release that she could never fully achieve in Germany, though she finds a German man who loves her, and is raising two tenyear-old twin boys.

Sushila’s experience, as relayed in that documentary, made me think about how we transracial adoptees become hyper-adapters as children: many of us become hyper-people-pleasers (that was certainly true of me), and we become hyper-verbal, partly in order to prove that we fit in, linguistically speaking. We mold ourselves as much as possible to our dominant social environment, and we cling to the small number of friends we’re able to attract (a generalization, but a very common experience nonetheless). In short, we do everything we can to fit in and to be liked, and throughout our childhoods and teenage years, become hyper-vigilant about our differences and incredibly eager to find a social place for us that is comfortable.

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Some children are able to find a comfortable place through participation in sports, or music, or dance, or art, where like-minded children will more likely accept them. Those children who can’t quite find a niche often appear withdrawn and fearful (because they are).

All of this reinforces for me the added stress that transracially adopted children growing up in total or near-total whiteness, feel. Like all children of color, we experience racism and discrimination; but we come home to white parents, not parents of our own race, and usually we have no or little connection to our birth culture and to daily racial mirrors; that was absolutely the case for Sushila, growing up in a very small, all-white town in conservative Bavaria.

In short, we transracial adoptees are compelled to adapt, because no one will ever adapt to us. And while that forces us to develop extremely high levels of coping skills, our experiences also cause psychic damage over time. There is real damage in that, because we, the young children, are expected to adjust to our environments, with no accommodation of any kind, in many cases. It’s no wonder that so many transracial adoptees are super-stressed people by the time they’re adults.

This subject hits home for me and for so many transracial adoptees. One of the things that was most present for me in watching the 30-minute program was the extent to which Sushila’s lived experience reflected mine and that of the vast majority of adult transracial adoptees with whom I’ve dialogued about these kinds of things. We were thrown into situations in which we were the extreme other, and simply had to figure out for ourselves how to survive that kind of experience. And in my case, even had my parents wanted to help, there was not much they could have done, because I was among the large first wave of 141

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transracial-international adoptees, from South Korea, and in the 1960s and 1970s, there were literally no resources whatsoever for our parents.

Indeed, the one consistent thing that our parents were told by the adoption agencies was that they should raise us exactly as they would raise white children biological to them.

Of course, that was a total disaster, on an epic scale. But, as I say, no one knew anything back then—at all. My parents had amazing emotional intelligence, and handled so many situations incredibly well, in the face of zero resources whatsoever. Now, though, in 2021? As I’ve stated in other chapters in this book, it is the responsibility—indeed, a profound responsibility—of transracially adoptive parents, to educate themselves in all of these areas, and to intensively learn, and above all, to listen to the voices of us adult transracial adoptees. We are your small children, all grown up into adulthood.

And if there’s a single theme that courses through all of my conversations with fellow adult transracial adoptees, it’s this: that so much of our lifelong struggle comes out of our early isolation and marginalization, along numerous dimensions. For those of us in the early waves of transracial adoption, we were often the only child, or one of a handful of children, of color, in a sea of white, with white families, white classmates, white teachers and staff, inside white culture, lacking in racial mirrors and disconnected from birth culture, and, very importantly, without support for such a situation. As a result, so many of us internalized everything towards ourselves, experiencing significant damage. I certainly massively internalized racism, and, as I mentioned in the chapter “The Scourge of Unusualness,” the effect was such that I knew that it was virtually a cardinal sin, or a capital crime 142

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(or both), to be non-white; yet there was nothing I could do about that fact. But, most importantly, that experience internalized as its being my fault for not being white, for not being like the other children. That there was something profoundly, profoundly wrong with me—but also something I could do nothing about.

My twin brother and I knew a few other Korean adoptees, but even that didn’t help all that much, because of the weight of day-to-day experience. And what strikes me as very significant is the fact that, until it’s pointed out to them explicitly, the vast majority of white transracially adoptive parents, even now in the present moment, see absolutely nothing wrong with adopting a child of color and providing them with no mirrors whatsoever—until their child comes home from school sobbing over being The Only One. Even then, the instinct of the vast majority of white adoptive parents is to dismiss their child’s expression of distress out of hand—in other words, to pathologize their child.

The small number of adult transracial adoptees who are therapizing transracially adopted children report regularly that when those children’s parents come to them, the therapists, the parents frame the situation as being a problem that their child has—some kind of strange aberration or pathology. And several adult transracial adoptee therapists have told me that they routinely hit a wall, because the parents have brought the child to the therapist, essentially, demanding that the therapist “fix” the child, while making absolutely zero demands on the parents. Many parents in fact, bolt, and remove the child from therapy when the discussion about their environment comes up, because at that point, the discussion becomes about what the parents can do, not 143

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what the child can do. And I’ve spoken with friends who are transracial adoptee therapists, who have told me that they can predict from a mile off which parents will become hostile or will withdraw, literally or figuratively, once the child’s environment, rather than the child’s “behaviors,” begins to be discussed.

All of this is by way of saying that, even now as I write this book in 2021, the understanding on the part of most white transracially adoptive parents of these dynamics really remains quite primitive overall. And there are three main reasons, as far as I can see: the blindness of white privilege; saviorism; and white fragility. So—let’s talk about those.

First of all, the vast majority of white people who have grown up in total or near-total whiteness and fully ingested white culture, literally have no concept of the otherness of non-whiteness. This is something that I grew up being aware of, though I had absolutely no conceptual frame of reference for it, my entire life. Some have compared white people’s inability to see outside their whiteness as being akin to the existence of the fish that swims in water and has no idea either what water is or that they’re a fish. Sadly, interactions with many white adoptive parents have confirmed that the simple fact of adopting a child or children of color does essentially nothing to shift that perspective, particularly if the parents are living inside a socially, culturally, and yes, politically conservative culture, in which whiteness is intensively affirmed at every turn. As my adult transracial adoptee therapist friends have noted, inevitably, those transracially adopted children begin to “act out” as they move into the teenage years and experience more overt and harsher racism, even as their parents remain steadfastly in denial of the situation around them.

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The second major factor here is saviorism, [< In the designed manuscript, all these words appear to run together] which, sadly, still runs rampant in the transracial adoption world. White transracially adoptive parents, overall, primarily listen to their fellow white-adoptive-parent peers, and to no one else. They join “unicorns and rainbows” Facebook groups, in which white transracially adoptive parents expend 99 percent of their time and energy congratulating themselves and each other on their having “saved” their adopted children—from poverty, from shame, from irreligion, from their birth parents, from their original race. Most of the time, it isn’t explicit; but even when implicit, the saviorism is intense and overwhelming. Indeed, until about twenty years ago in the United States, the savioristic frame was the only socially accepted view of transracial adoption; and in conservative-religious circles even now, it remains the only acceptable and accepted frame. Many adoption agencies are still very actively promoting it in their marketing literature—even now. Many white transracially adoptive parents will never overcome their saviorism; and those who started out as saviors have an incredibly long path out of saviorism, if they desire to leave saviorism, one that requires a tremendous amount of self-education, as well as sitting with (in person or online) adult transracial adoptees, as well as birth parents, and also non-adopted people of color, to help reshape their thinking. I’ve seen countless white adoptive parents make tiny, tentative steps, and then run back inside the cocoon of saviorism, and shut the door—firmly and permanently.

And the third element in all of this is white fragility, combined with adoptive-parent fragility [please also read the sidebar in this book on Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (p. X)]. And both forms of fragility speak to the unwillingness of most human beings to even begin to 145

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examine whatever privileges they hold in society. There are countless forms of privilege and lacks of privilege that one can have. Among the important ones: white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, cisgender privilege, middle-class (and up) privilege, educational privilege, citizenship privilege, physical ability privilege, adoptiveparent privilege, and dozens of others. And all of those who hold any type of privilege, in any context, find it difficult to understand what the lack of that privilege is like, and become defensive at having to consider the element of privilege. And it is that defensiveness that is behind all forms of fragility—with the levels of white privilege, white fragility, and often white ignorance, on the part of some white adoptive parents, being immense in some cases.

In all of this, white transracially adoptive parents—and all those reflecting on the lifelong journeys of transracial adoptees—must consider the tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy required of transracially adopted children, the demands made of them to fit into social and cultural environments that they may not naturally be adapted to, and the emotional disruption, and many cases, trauma, involved in coping with their circumstances and their environments.

It strikes me honestly as mindblowing that, in the third decade of the 21st century, many white adoptive parents have absolutely zero comprehension of the emotional labor that they continue to subject their adopted children of color to, on a daily basis, for many years.

It’s no wonder that so many transracial adoptees end up self-isolating psychologically along numerous dimensions. We transracial adoptees are expected, always, to be the trees that bend in the wind. And there is inevitably a psychological cost to our being forcibly adaptive. But adaptive we are.

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Adoptee Voice:

Lynelle Vong Long L

ynelle Vong Long was born in 1973, and was adopted privately from Vietnam to Australia at the age of five months. Her adoption preceded the massive Operation Babylift, which brought several thousand babies and children out of then-South Vietnam in April 1975, just prior to the fall of the South Vietnamese government. She was part of the first wave of Vietnamese children adopted to Australia, where she grew up on a dairy farm in a rural region of the state of Victoria.

Adoptee Voice: Lynelle Vong Long

Lynelle Vong Long has spent over 20 years being involved in elevating the voices of adult intercountry adoptees and working for reform in that sector. Her group, InterCountry Adoptee Voices (https:// intercountryadopteevoices.com), or ICAV (which also manages a Facebook page and group), helps to connect activist adoptees and groups in numerous countries aimed at reforming international adoption practices. In some cases, these groups and individuals have worked to end adoption from or to individual countries based on corruption in adoption practices.

How did your parents end up adopting you from Vietnam?

They knew about adoption because one of the first Viet adoptees to arrive formally in Australia— who I’m still friends with —her father had created an adoption agency association. My parents were of the same religion, Seventh Day Adventist. My parents had fostered children before me and had been on the path of adopting one of those children and were heartbroken when it fell through at the last moment, and probably saw intercountry adoption as a more foolproof way to get a child on a permanent basis.

So you were among the first international adoptees in Australia?

Yes, it really started with adoption from Vietnam in Australia, and I was one of the earliest children adopted privately.

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What was your childhood like?

I grew up in the rural countryside and adopted to regional Australia.

My father was a dairy farmer and my mother was a teacher; I grew up on a dairy farm. They had one older boy, who was biological to them.

Then thought they couldn’t have more children but during the process of adopting me, which took two years, they got pregnant and had my sister. All in all, they had four biological children and I’m in the middle as the only adopted one. They were very religious and my mum always said she loved children. So it was her desire to rescue a child that really drove their intentions and motivations.

You must have felt very isolated growing up on a dairy farm?

Yes. Everyone around me was white except for a few Aborigines.

My parents had two Aboriginal foster children and one white foster daughter before adopting me. From as early as I can remember, I was always treated differently to the biological children. I know extended family members who said they saw me eating and sitting at the hearth while the others sat at the table, and when they questioned my adoptive parents, they said I preferred it.

So you did experience a lot of abuse, then?

Yes and I’m currently in the midst of a legal process to stand up for my rights. The impact of that trauma doesn’t affect me as much as it did because I did so much somatic therapy work on myself — at my toughest point after the last one of suicide attempts, I knew I had to 149

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choose to either die or live and thrive. And I can say now that I’m actually thriving and I’m liberated from much of that. You can see why I’m driven to do what I do with adoptees. For me, a part of it makes a lot of sense—if I can change the experience that future adoptees go through, my trauma might almost have been worth it.

Was there an element of white saviorism in how they framed their adoption of you?

Yes, absolutely; the saviorism mentality is all over the world.

There’s still so much saviorism, even in 2021. Is there a lot of savioristic attitude in Australia?

Yes, but it’s not openly talked about so much as in America; we only have 15,000 – 20,000 intercountry adoptees in Australia. But there are probably 2 million intercountry adoptees globally. Our small number is why it’s been easier to work together as adoptees here in Australia.

I was very struck by the Bavarian Television documentary on Sushila [see Chapter 7, “We’re Adaptive”]; it reminded me of the extent to which we international adoptees are like Martians, who have to somehow adapt to an incredibly wide range of different environments into which we’re plunked down.

I can totally relate and I always say about how we’re constantly inbetweeners. That’s why spaces like ICAV are so important. Adoptees 150

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join in and it’s like, “Ohmygod, finally, a space where I fit in.” It’s core to this experience, that we really lack a place of belonging. It’s why so many adoptees want to search, it’s not so much always for their families, it’s for a place to belong.

And many do birth search and never fit in. Have you done birth search?

I did birth search for 23 years but didn’t find anyone closer than a 2nd cousin. I was actually brought to Australia without paperwork and my parents subsequently only adopted me formally at age 16. So, four years ago through hiring a private detective, we found what looks like a copy of my birth certificate but I only have an out of focus photo of what looks like my birth certificate. At 44, I saw something concrete about my origins and it had my mother’s name and my name. Before that, I could only guess whether my birthdate was correct or not. If the birth certificate is genuine, my birthdate is accurate to what I’ve always known.

Has finding out your name been important for you?

The most interesting thing is that in terms of my name, Vong Ung Thanh, it’s an unusual Vietnamese name; in fact, my surname indicates I’m of Chinese origins. I haven’t been able to find my birth family but have made many attempts. I had a media company doing a DNA search for me and we got as close to a second cousin. Turns out she’s an old lady of 80 in America and her mother is actually adopted. So 151

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the trail stops there. Interesting how I married into the “Long” family here when my birth surname is Vong; my husband is third-generation Aussie Chinese, so my children are full ethnic Chinese.

How do you frame your identity now?

I shared a post about it in ICAV recently; I go by Lynelle Vong Long now. I’m combining my adoptive name, Vong is my birth surname, and Long is my married surname name. For me, it’s involved combining my adoptee experience, my birth journey experience and reclaiming my Asian origins, and then thirdly, having married into an Asian family system. If you’d met Anthony’s family, his father spoke in a broad Aussie accent. Anthony was raised fairly white Aussie but still comes from an Asian heritage. There are parts of him that I see a lot where he’ll be removing himself from that Asian heritage but connect to it when it suits him. I do the same thing too. So it’s a bit like how I’ve dealt with religion where I’ve taken the parts that I like and want and combine them to suit.

And it was thrilling for me to see the success of the film Parasite, even though I don’t relate much to Korean culture in general. In that regard, our identities as transracial and international adoptees are so complex and nuanced, aren’t they?

Yes. And it’s not like it stops evolving; it’s an ongoing thing. The more I go back to Vietnam, the more I embrace that element in me. And with COVID right now, so many adoptees are missing that.

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Have you learned some Vietnamese?

A Vietnamese woman is teaching eight of us adoptees. I had attempted to learn before that, using an app but this is the first time I’ve tried really learning it.

Are you making good progress?

I’m not putting in 100 percent trying to learn it at the moment due to being overloaded with work, but being exposed to the sounds still feels really good. The tones are very challenging! Imagine if I had your language abilities to run ICAV!

Have there been any big surprises with ICAV? The greatest satisfaction?

The greatest satisfaction for me in running ICAV has literally been being by the side of adoptees as they grow and come to terms with their experience. I’ve been around long enough to see the massive changes. For example, I have a longstanding friend here who was an alcoholic for 40 years. When he first came to the ICAV dinner he had no idea how meeting us would change his life —and he told me that he attributes his becoming sober to participating in ICAV, because he hadn’t realized before then where his root pain was from. So to have that validation and that support, to help propel adoptees along on their path—that’s what I love the most. And in the second decade, to see the momentum grow and change in adoptee advocacy. My first decade was really about my own personal journey. My second decade in this 153

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really became about advocacy, which led me to change the name from a support network to advocacy. I didn’t just want to share my story anymore, I wanted to change policy around the world. So to see this growing, swelling momentum from adoptees all over the world, who are connecting through ICAV and using it as a hub for growth, it’s been such an honor. When we were individuals doing advocacy individually, it was so hard. But now, when we’re connected, it’s profound to see the energy. And the adoptees, especially in Europe, are getting together and building momentum! They’re suing governments and trying to find legal pathways, and are demanding investigations, and so on.

Compared to 20 years ago when I started this network, we’ve grown incredibly.

It strikes me when I meet other transracial adoptees, how quickly we bond with one another, over our unique lived experience.

Yes, absolutely. And that’s why it’s important to challenge the narrative around the idea that if you have this family and they love you, that’s enough. That’s why I criticize that slogan, every child needs a family; I say, no, every child needs a place where they belong. And that’s why coming together with fellow transracial adoptees is so powerful for us, and why we push to make change.

What is your core “elevator speech” to adoptive parents these days?

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world, in terms of the education that goes on. But if they’ve already adopted a child, my core message would be, please connect your child and yourself to lived experience: we’re giving you a window into what could be your child’s experience, and it’s so much better to be prepared and to learn. I very much encourage they listen to our lived experience because we’re the expert source.

I do also constantly challenge adoptive parents to be curious and discover their own internal traumas and to reflect and learn about what that teaches them. I always say, you will be a much better and more effective adoptive parent, if you learn and come to understand your own traumas. That certainly has been my experience as a parent myself.

Being a parent can be wonderful, but you have to do your own work, right?

Yes, absolutely; adoptees can actually relive their trauma.

It sounds like you’re in a real place of peace in your own life, now?

Yes, I really am, but it’s taken me a long time. In my 20s, I was attempting suicide, and I was in very dark places; it was a real battle. But I always say, per the time I spent in hospital after the last suicide attempt, I knew had a choice over whether to make a conscious decision to change how I was thinking, so I could survive and thrive. I had to make a conscious decision to choose to live and live fully, and ever since then, I’ve put in 150 percent into that, and it’s been absolutely worth it. I now have the ability to raise my family and it’s been such a great reward to know 155

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that I can parent from a place of health because I’ve dealt with my own traumas. At one point in therapy, I realized that my pain was not just my own but that of my past generations—and that I was the honored one to stop that trauma, for myself, and my family. It’s meant getting a fresh start and a really profound change to our lineage. That was the icing on the cake, when I had that epiphany in my most recent stint in therapy. I am very much in a place of peace and I have a real sense that I’ve achieved a lot—so I’m of the place I’m at and I have a lot of joy in my life.

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8 CHAPTER

CHAPTER

8

Sorting It Out: Healing Trauma and Distress, Connecting to Heal • On their lifelong journeys, transracial adoptees move through great complexity in managing and healing from trauma and stress • A key element for transracial adoptees is connecting with one another individually and in groups, in order to heal damage caused by experiences of isolation • While every adoptee is individual, common themes of stress and distress emerge in dialogues among transracial adoptees

Sorting It Out: Healing Trauma and Distress, Connecting to Heal

H

ow do we adult transracial adoptees move into healing? The level of trauma varies individually to a tremendous extent, but there’s no question that transracial adoptees are subject to a variety of stresses, as adoptees, as people of color, and as transracial adoptees. Many books have been written about these issues, and I would not attempt any professional-level analysis of the constellation of issues involved; that, I will leave to the psychological and therapeutic professionals with insights in this area, and to the adult transracial adoptees themselves who have experienced various types of trauma.

I have to say that I had no idea the extent of traumatic experiences until I joined the rapidly evolving adult transracial adoptee community in the year 2000, as I was approaching my fortieth birthday. As I’ve referenced previously, I first came together with fellow adult Korean adoptees (KADs), as we began to gather in numbers following the initial gatherings in 1999. What I learned through observation and interactions was that perhaps as many as one-fourth of the KADs whom I’ve met who were adopted before 1980, had been abused in some way—physically, sexually, and/or emotionally. That was, and remains, deeply distressing to me.

I sit in privilege in that regard, having been raised by deeply loving, caring parents. But I want to acknowledge, respect, and honor the testimonies, truths, and lived experiences of all my adoptee sisters and brothers who have experienced abuse, either in their adoptive families, or in their families of origin—or both. And yes, I have met adoptees who were abused by their birth parents, and then by their adoptive parents. Many have triumphed over their early experiences, while others, understandably, continue to struggle as their lives move on.

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Substance abuse, physical self-abuse, even suicide attempts and suicide, have resulted.

One huge sign of hope in recent years has been the education, training, and entrance into practice of psychological professionals— therapists with clinical social work and psychology training—who are themselves adult transracial adoptees. Those adult transracial adoptees have insights that no one else has, though white same-race adoptees, same-race adoptees of color, and other individuals of color, often have very significant insights as well. The predictable challenge is that adult transracial adoptee therapists are in tremendous, tremendous demand.

They find that they literally cannot find enough slots in their schedules to meet the needs of the children, teens, young adults and mature adults seeking their services.

Meanwhile, we adult transracial adoptees, whether or not we experienced abuse, and whatever types of trauma we might have experienced in our lives, can and should advocate for more therapeutic and psychological resources for all transracial adoptees. A hope-inducing element in this is that more and more transracial adoptees are pursuing careers in therapeutic and psychological areas, with many of them aspiring to care for and serve fellow transracial adoptees, of all ages.

What does trauma look like? To the unaware, nothing At this juncture, I’d like to share an except from an interview that I came across that was published online in the online publication Augeo Magazine, a Dutch magazine published by the Augeo Foundation, and which “Update[s] professionals and policymakers about the latest developments, studies, dilemmas and decisions regarding the safety of children.”

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https://www.augeomagazine.nl/beter-in-beeld-augeo-magazine-22/ interview-nanda-de-bruin?s=09&fbclid=IwAR3RX0pEqYNmXNP3 CIYtfN9j5w5dbMyaVDxDqH66TZLhqaZWR9kZy6eN9X4

The title of the article is “Children from unsafe families are often wrongly labeled,” and it consists of an interview by journalist Ditty Emers with Nanda de Bruin, described as “an independent behavioral scientist and trainer at Behind Behavior. She works in youth care and education and developed the Behind Behavior Talk Cards about trauma and survival mechanisms that play a role in trauma.”

The article begins thus: “Child behavior resulting from domestic violence or neglect is by no means always recognized as a survival mode, says remedial educationalist Nanda de Bruin. ‘Once these children have the wrong label, other causes are sometimes no longer addressed.’ ‘Children from unsafe families are often wrongly labeled.” Asked, “What survival mechanisms do you see in children with an unsafe home situation? ask: ‘Many children cannot concentrate at school, they quickly become over-stimulated and cannot sit still for a moment. That looks like ADHD. But their behavior is often a logical response to insecurity at home. A child who knows that his father could burst into anger at any moment becomes vigilant: what happens just before such an outburst? How does Daddy’s voice sound, what words does he use? How does mom get out of work, how does she close the door? These children protect themselves by being hyper-alert. ‘ After a while, their survival mode doesn’t go out. Even if they are in a safe environment, such as at school.”

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What struck me about this article was how so much of what de Bruin discusses in the context of trauma emerging out of abuse by parents, also applies to the lived experiences of children relinquished and then adopted, regardless as to whether they’ve experienced actual abuse or not. So much of the behavior of many adopted children emerges out of trauma, as therapeutic professionals and experts have concluded— again, regardless as to whether adoptees have experienced abuse in any direct sense.

The complexity here is that, if we posit that all children relinquished and adopted have experienced trauma, it becomes very easy to then pathologize all adopted children and all adult adoptees. I have an extremely strong opposition to the pathologizing of adoptees— transracial and same-race—and therefore, am exceptionally careful when discussing trauma and any other sensitive subjects. But I did want to create a small space here to at least acknowledge the trauma of adoptees, while adamantly refusing to participate in their pathologization solely based on their identities and lived experiences. I hope that that statement will be read and understood clearly. Psychological and therapeutic professionals with competence in adoption-related issues could certainly make that statement far more eloquently and precisely than I can; but I wanted to create that space in this chapter of this book, speaking as an adult transracial adoptee and a layperson.

Connecting—to heal Now, looking more broadly at this subject, even those of us who have not consciously experienced major trauma have found that connecting to fellow adult transracial adoptees has been immensely affirming and healing. Indeed, every single adult transracial adoptee with whom I’ve conversed about our “great convergence” in the past 20-plus years, has 162

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expressed great satisfaction and delight over connecting with fellow adult transracial adoptees.

And speaking for myself, it’s been immensely healing to connect with fellow adult transracial adoptees—first, adult Korean adoptees, and then, adult transracial adoptees of all races. Seeing myself in them has been incredibly validating and affirming. It has normalized my experiences for me. As I mentioned elsewhere in this book, it was positively mindblowing when, on the first evening of my first Korean adoptee mini-gathering, when I sat down to dinner, all of us at my table almost immediately began to finish each others’ sentences, validating each others’ lived experiences in real time.

And that experience, and countless experiences following it, have moved me far along on my journey into healing and integration. Finally locating my peer group—some would say “tribe” (though I want to be respectful of those who feel that that word should not be used outside specific indigenous contexts)---was immense for me.

So, how about both? Meaning, adult transracial adoptees making use of therapeutic and psychological services, as needed and as available to them, while at the same time making use of opportunities to find fellowship (and yes, fun) with fellow adult transracial adoptees? I’ve literally had hundreds of conversations with fellow adult transracial adoptees about the healing, therapeutic aspects of such gatherings.

What’s more, now, with the Internet, including such phenomena as Facebook groups, online hangouts, and other vehicles, the opportunities to connect are bigger and broader than ever. And they’re happening in many different countries and in different languages.

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A broader look at healing There are countless opportunities for the healing from trauma that transracial adoptees experience, and many of them are necessarily unrelated to transracial adoption per se, as we transracial adoptees have to search the known universe to find pieces of truth and discovery that we can use in order to move ourselves along.

One thing that has helped me immensely my entire life has been the fact of my being a passionate reader. I am constantly reading books (as well as, of course, articles, blogs, and every type of written content, as well as viewing documentaries, videos, etc.), and over the years, I’ve found many little shards that have pointed my way forward, even as many, even most of them, have not been directly related to transracial adoption at all.

One area of particular interest has been reading biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs, which has been a source of both enjoyment and enlightenment for me for several decades, ever since I was a teenager. Reading about how individuals have figured out who they are, where they fit into the world, and what kind of path— professional, personal, every kind—could take them where they needed to go, has always been of interest to me.

And what’s particularly interesting, when reading about the lives of high-accomplishing people in the world, from every demographic, is to read, either in biographies about them, or in autobiographies and memoirs, they’ve written themselves, about the moments of discovery along the way that have helped to chart their paths. Most of those who have had real impacts as social justice, cultural, and other 164

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groundbreaking figures, have had to figure things out by themselves.

In that regard, I’ve just finished reading an amazing memoir, Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America, by veteran broadcast journalist María Hinojosa, who single-handedly created a place for herself as the first prominent Latina journalist in the United States to reach a broad, mainstream audience. Maria Hinojosa has been a fixture on radio and television for three decades now, but she had to create an entire space for herself, and had no established path to follow whatsoever. In her book, she recounts the long, complex narrative that led to her becoming the trailblazing media leader she became. Every page crackles with revelation and meaning.

I absolutely loved reading this passage, about a moment when she was a high school student: “It was a Saturday afternoon. At home, all was calm. I was in my bedroom finally taking down the life-sized Elton John poster that I had been too lazy to remove since eighth grade. I climbed down from my dresser and carefully rolled up the poster, kissing goodbye another moment in my American preteen life. I had borrowed my mami’s old radio from the kitchen, a brown plastic one we had during our first Chicago years, the one that always sounded scratchy no matter what station it was on. And then, suddenly, I landed on a station—it must have been WBEZ 91.5 FM—and heard a voice like the ones on Mexican public radio. It wasn’t an announcer or DJ, but a journalist.

Instead of yelling, he was speaking to me. Intelligently. My mind was exploding…. They were talking about Latin America, a phrase I had only heard before in Mexico on the news in Spanish. It was like hearing Radio Educación-style radio in English in the United States and to my 165

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surprise, they were reporting about Latin America. The experience was a revelation of sorts, perhaps spiritual. Two very different parts of myself had suddenly awakened and found themselves braided together, and now I knew what that sounded like.”

And of course, it goes without saying that María Hinojosa is a woman of color and the child of immigrants, and someone who has experienced racism, xenophobia, and sexism her entire life. That’s exactly why such narratives can be so valuable to transracial adoptees, in our highly racist, xenophobic, sexist society. “Figuring it all out” is inherently complex when one holds one or more marginalized or oppressed identities.

While I can’t pinpoint a single revelatory experience like that one, my entire life has unfolded across countless gradual realizations; and I find that other adult transracial adoptees have had the same kinds of experiences, figuring out elements of identity and integration over time and experience.

And the revelations can come at any age—and are still happening for me. One example: shortly after he had initiated the television series “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” chef-author-raconteur Anthony Bourdain (who sadly ended his life in June 2018) traveled to the New Koreatown area of Los Angeles and interviewed local chefs and others for that program. One of the chefs he interviewed was Korean-American Roy Choi, who at the time was gaining national notoriety for having created a Korean-Mexican fusion cuisine (think: kimchi tacos) in his food trucks and later, restaurants. I was absolutely riveted, at the age of nearly 53, to finally see someone on television who looked like me: a mature, husky Korean-American man with facial hair. Even now, one sees few Asian-American men in the news and entertainment media, 166

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and those one sees tend to be young, slender, and clean-shaven. I talked about seeing Roy Choi on Bourdain’s show for weeks—weeks—with anyone willing to listen. Is that any way for a fiftysomething person to act? Well, that just goes to show how impactful it is to go for fiveplus decades never having seen someone who is a true physical-image mirror, in the media, and then to see such a person.

That Roy Choi experience has been one drop in an ocean’s-worth of lived experiences for me as a transracial adoptee; but it speaks to the complexity of the transracial adoptee journey, and the complex dynamics of that journey. Every single transracial adoptee I’ve ever met and discussed these issues with, has shared with me their feelings of challenge, and often of confusion, over moving forward on their path to wholeness, integration, and peace.

One incredibly important, indeed, essential element along that journey, for most adoptees, involves connecting with fellow transracial adoptees.

I know that I’ve expressed this already in other chapters in this book, but the reality is that the transracial adoptee identity is an exceptional one, on a very fundamental level. It different both from the identity of white people raised in white society, and from the experience of people of color raised by parents of color. Finding one’s transracial adoptee identity necessarily involves a journey into the unknown, and a path not laid out for one in advance.

What’s absolutely terrific now are two key elements here: first, as I mentioned above, the opportunity to meet and engage with fellow transracial adoptees, in person and online; and the opportunity to explore the exploding literature created by adult transracial adoptees for fellow transracial adoptees. Along with engaging, as needed, with 167

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professional therapists with lived experience as transracial adoptees (with the challenge in that area being that the small number of adult transracial adoptee therapists are absolutely overwhelmed by the demand for their services, and they are still very few in number, even in the United States and practically nonexistent in most other countries), engaging in the transracial adoptee-produced literature can be lifechanging. We adult transracial adoptees have now created many books, documentaries, videos, articles, blogs, and even visual art, poetry, and music, to express ourselves and to enlighten others about our journeys.

And that literature is incredibly varied, because our voices are individual and are incredibly varied. The one thing that unites this ever-growing body of literature is this: when literature around the transracial adoption experience is created by transracial adoptees, it comes out of a place of authenticity, lived truth, and knowledge, that simply cannot be replicated by non-adoptees. For numerous decades, the only voices available to readers/viewers were those of white transracially adoptive parents and adoption professionals. No matter how well-informed those voices were, they were not our voices, and did not represent our lived experiences. And sometimes, what was written or said about us has been distorted, pathologizing, and/or simply downright wrong. It’s like men writing about the lived experiences of women, white people writing about the lived experiences of people of color, able-bodied people writing about the lived experiences of disabled people, and so on and so forth.

And I suppose it shouldn’t have to be said explicitly, but I’ll say it nonetheless: when white transracially adoptive parents search the web for books to read, they should be prioritizing literature written by adult transracial adoptees over anything written by white adoptive parents 168

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and adoption professionals. It really as simple as that. Would you really want to read a 300-page book about the lived experiences of women, written by a man? I wouldn’t think so.

In any case, the first very well-known book in the literature was Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin, published in 2006. I was honored to be asked to contribute a small essay to that book. For many readers, Outsiders was a revelation; never before had an anthology sharing the perspectives based on the lived experiences of numerous adult transracial adoptees, been published. Many, many more pieces of literature have been created since then, all of them providing us with perspectives from our peer group, we, the transracial adoptees who have lived the transracial adoptee experience.

The totality of the literature that we have created amounts to an invaluable collective resource for us transracial adoptees. This is something that has only come into being in the past two decades. I am absolutely certain that this literature will only grow richer, broader, and deeper in the coming years. Its growth parallels the growth of all literatures created by marginalized groups—and can contribute tremendously to the healing and development processes for us as adoptees.

To all white transracially adoptive parents, I say: please begin to explore this literature now. Its many entries will help you to become a far better parent to your child. And to adoptees, I say, please begin to explore this literature now. You will find it in tremendous support for your journey as an individual, and essential conceptual mirrors going forward.

And with regard to that literature, I am an absolutely “glass half-full” person: imagine what that literature will be like another 15 years from 169

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now, how rich and supportive it will be. And imagine how much farther our collective experience of gathering together and interacting with another will be, 15 years from now. We are still early on in all these areas. I look forward to the coming years as very exciting ones, filled with promise.

And I am profoundly grateful to have been supported by these phenomena in my own personal journey, and, in my small way, to have participated in and contributed to them, myself. As in every area of activity and endeavor, it takes a village. And this is our village. May the foundations and building beams become ever stronger and more supportive. And may the road rise up to meet us all, individually, and collectively, going forward.

What So Many of Us Are Healing From I’ve been asked countless times—both by fellow adult transracial adoptees and by white transracially adoptive parents—what some of the issues that we transracial adoptees commonly face, are. And I want to state clearly that broad generalizations are always fraught, and sometimes, even dangerous. But I also feel a moral obligation to share some broad generalizations here, in order to help my fellow adoptees and also to help adoptive parents. So here are some of the themes I see over and over in my interactions with fellow adult transracial adoptees : 170

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

Earliest experiences of trauma

Our earliest experiences shape us, even if we have absolutely no conscious access to them. Initial traumas affect transracial adoptees even though in many cases, we have no ability to access or address them consciously. 

Fear of rejection, fear of abandonment

These two fears are not the same, but tend to go together. I know that I experienced this as a child, and continued to experience them through most of my adult life as well. Together, fear of rejection and fear of abandonment are the single most common phenomenon I’ve heard of from fellow adult transracial adoptees as part of their experience. That totally makes sense to me. Not only do we experience rejection because of our racial identities, particularly as so many of us grew up socially marginalized and isolated in overwhelming whiteness; we also felt, as children who were relinquished or abandoned and then brought into new families, the precariousness of personal connection. 

Intense personal perfectionism

This is another phenomenon that has cropped up over and over again in my discussions with fellow transracial adoptees. I certainly felt somehow, at some very deep subconscious level (and perhaps even notso-subconscious, at times) that I could perhaps partly redeem my utter unacceptability, not being white, through absolute perfectness. I have met countless fellow adult transracial adoptees who have expressed the exact same sentiment to me. Indeed, though I grew up thinking that this was some bizarre personal quirk, I’ve found that compensatory personal perfectionism is the norm among the adult transracial adoptees I know.

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

People-pleasing and conflict avoidance

Yet another adaptation to constant fear of rejection and abandonment on the part of transracial adoptees is a tendency to become people-pleasers and conflict-avoiders. Again, this seems absolutely understandable to me. For those of us who grew up feeling utterly marginalized and isolated, we also grew up feeling that we had zero room for error in terms of even the most marginal acceptance, that many of us would grow up to become hyper-people-pleasers and conflict-avoiders. That is precisely what happened to me. And before anyone immediately raises their rhetorical hand and says, “Well, isn’t it nice to please people?” I will immediately add that people-pleasing, as a maladaptation, can end up becoming extremely psychologically and emotionally damaging. It certainly was for me. And I’ve met countless fellow adult transracial adoptees who also have had to process and work through their set of maladaptive thinking and behaviors, in order to emerge on the other side as more healthy and integrated individuals. Just as the battered spouse has created a mindspace that is self-sabotaging, the extreme people-pleaser ends up extending what in certain contexts are socially expected behaviors, into the realm of psychological unhealthiness. 

Rages and proactive rejection of others

Many adult transracial adoptees have also shared with me and have written and spoken about an opposite reaction to people-pleasing and conflict avoidance, and that is social rages and the proactive rejection of others, based on fear of rejection and abandonment. Sometimes, the proactive rejecting alternates dramatically with the people-pleasing; they are in fact two sides of the same coin, based on fear of rejection and abandonment. This pattern, too, can become very maladaptive; 172

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but it should be understood for what it is, a response to one’s rejecting environment. Many transracial adoptees go through alternating periods of people-pleasing and rejectionism during certain periods in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, before finding their way to a healthier psychological balance; others struggle across their lifetimes with these psychological crosscurrents. 

Mistrust of others/difficulty in relationships

If there’s a single witnessing that happens when adult transracial adoptees gather together socially in adoptees-only encounters, it’s difficulty with trust in friendships and relationships of all kinds.

This, too, is absolutely understandable. Having experienced social marginalization, isolation, and rejection growing up, and having experienced racism in our social environments, it becomes extremely difficult to move into healthy psychological spaces as adults, in which we can easily connect as friends, partners, and spouses, with others.

Inevitably, we adult transracial adoptees will also share with each other that our journeys out of the transracial adoptee fog (see Chapter 10) also cloud the development of our relationships and friendships. It is impossible to overstate how complex it can be to evolve forward in one’s identity as a transracial adoptee, at the same time as one naturally enters into friendships and relationships as an adult. It all becomes hopelessly tangled for many transracial adoptees. One terrific element for so many of us in the past 20-plus years has been finding spaces in which we can share with fellow adult transracial adoptees about these challenges. Many also appropriately seek out psychotherapy, though the complication here, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, is the extreme shortage of transracial adoption-competent therapists and especially of 173

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adult transracial adoptees who are working as therapists with fellow adult transracial adoptees. One would hope that the number of such individuals will continue to grow significantly over time; they certainly are desperately needed.

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Adoptee Voice:

Angelica Bråten

A

ngelica Bråten was born in Colombia in 1984, and was adopted to Norway at the age of five. She lives in a small town in central Norway. She has been in birth family reunion with members of her birth family for a number of years. She owns her own small business, and is also married and the mother of four children.

Adoptee Voice: Angelica Bråten

Tell me about your personal story?

I lived with my mom in Colombia until I was around four. I lived with her my first years. During that time, she put me in different homes, including in a Kloster and one for domestic refugees, and mostly at one children’s home in Bogotá. And in that home, my mom had me and my sisters for a couple of months, and then retrieved us and then gave us back. So I always thought she would come back and get me.

But at the age of 5 and a couple of months, she didn’t come back, and the children’s home never explained why she didn’t come back. Or, they just explained “she’s not coming back, stop waiting for her”. And for me, it was very strange, not getting any explanation. And one day, I got the message that I had new parents. So some weeks later, these white people came and they took me to Norway with two of my sisters.

I came in July, in midsummer, but for us, it felt freezing cold.

How old are you now?

I’m 36. I have four children. I’ve been married seven years now.

You’ve spent months-long visits there, right?

Yes, I’ve been there several times. The first time I went back, I stayed there almost six months. My son was five when I came back with him.

I was 23 then. So it was an emotional rollercoaster. And I had missed my country from the day they took me from it, until the day I came back. And the first years in Norway, I would close my eyes and imagine the country and try to remember the smells and the feeling of touch of 176

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the people there. My family didn’t want to talk about Colombia; they talked about it as though it was some kind of fairytale place.

You were able to retain your Spanish, though?

No, I wasn’t. They didn’t want me to speak Spanish. I spoke it for about six months. It only took me this months to forget everything.

I knew this guy who worked at the kindergarten I was placed in. He was Chileno. He was gone for a few months and came back, and I had already forgotten my Spanish. I could see it in his face that it was choking for him. Looking back, I think it was kind of brutal.

Some people have theorized that there’s a PTSD emotional reaction that causes international adoptees to suddenly forget their first language.

I can relate to it; for me, language was an issue. For several years, I just pretended to understand a lot of words in Norwegian, even though I didn’t. People kind of noticed that something was different because of that; but I spoke perfectly, so they didn’t fully grasp that.

How do you feel now about Colombia and about being Latina?

I’ve always felt Latina. I’ve never felt like a Norwegian girl. In Norway, a lot of adoptees feel very Norwegian, and are proud of their Norwegianness. I’ve been the opposite: for me, my Colombian background has been very important.

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How do you feel about being in birth family reunion?

That is such a complex question; there’s no simple answer to it. And it took me three or four years to even understand how complex it was.

In one way, I was happy to be able to find some answers. But when I realized I found my family, I got really, really depressed. I was very shocked I guess. It was very strange, and then I moved in with them and they were acting like I was family for some times, and even though I wanted it, there was still culture shock. For me, it felt more like they were trying to control me. And it was a bit violative. In Colombia, there is that emotional closeness in the family, and everyone pretends there are no secrets, and everybody talks to everybody. And there’s a lot of gossip, and they do it with love. Meanwhile, in Norway, everyone’s very, very reserved. So from that culture back to Colombia, it almost felt as though people were attacking me. So I was happy to finally be a part of something, but there was also sorrow because the cultural differences made me a stranger to them. Today, I know that I’m welcome when ever I come back. But it will never be as I had dreamed of when I was young. I came back and looked exactly like my mom, and that was also difficult for them to be around at times.

Do you feel between cultures? Not really either?

For a while, I did. But now I have come to terms that I’m Norwegian culturally. And Colombian in my soul and heart. For a while, I wanted to show the world that I was so Colombian. But without my consent, I just turned more Norwegian. And I realized I just had to accept that that’s how it turned out. I’m not happy about it, but I can’t live my life chasing a “could been.” I need to form my “have become.”

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What would you like adoptive parents to understand?

Just think of the cultural language. The spoken language is one thing, but the cultural language is another thing altogether. When I came to Norway, what was hardest for me was not to learn the language, but to learn the culture. And it’s still difficult for me to read the body language.

It’s difficult because, in Colombian culture, I can read between the lines and feel what’s in their minds. So the language is not only linguistic but cultural. And knowing how to make empanadas doesn’t help, if I don’t know the cultural background. I don’t want to be an other tourist to my country. I’m a part of my country, even though I was taken for it and it from me.

Do you feel more or less at peace with your identity?

As a transracial, international person, yes. I don’t know how to say it, but I don’t identify as an adoptee as much as before. I have found my identity as Angelica. Mother of four, wife and coworker, and activist. I have no contact with my adoptive parents any longer. I have a mother in Colombia, and even though it’s a complicated situation, I have her in my life. And my Norwegian family is my kids and husband. And our dog.

How long have you been estranged from your Norwegian parents?

About six years.

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Should adoptive parents reflect on the idea that they could alienate their children?

I actually was estranged from them as a teenager. I lived with them for eight to nine years. And then I moved into a teenagers’ group home.

We tried to have some relationship as a grownup, but it hasn’t worked out. So in many ways, I feel I haven’t had parents since I was 14.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

The things that have been important for me to talk about, not only as a transracial adoptee, but also, the importance of having positive ethnic mirrors. That’s the most important thing.

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9 CHAPTER 181

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9

Tragedizing the NarrativeOr How Some Adoptive Parents Learn How to Move Past Themselves, For the Sake of their Children of Color • So many white transracially adoptive parents experience an existential crisis when they finally realize that racism is real • Why it’s incredibly important to move past that moment of realization, for the sake of one’s child • Talking with one’s young child of color about racism: the why and the how

Tragedizing the Narrative— Or How Some Adoptive Parents Learn How to Move Past Themselves, For the Sake of their Children of Color

I

f there’s a flipside to adoptive parents’ steadfastly maintaining a “rainbows and unicorns” narrative around their adoption of children of color, and throughout their transracially adoptive parenting, it is what I call tragedizing the narrative. Allow me to explain.

I’ve seen a pattern play out countless times now in my interactions with, and observations of, white transracially adoptive parents.

That is not to say that this is a norm, or that there are not countless exceptions; but it is differently a clearly observable pattern. Let’s look at a composite example, so I’ll call the parents John and Jane Smith, and their child Jeannie. John and Jane come to transracial adoption after exhausting all the other avenues open to them, and start out in that very well defined “rainbows and unicorns” headspace, in which they believe they’re simply completing their family by adopting Jeannie, and have given virtually no thought to the racial aspects of their daughter’s identity or their family’s identity, or the journey forward as a family created through transracial adoption.

Fast-forwarding a bit, and Jeannie enters preschool and the first thing that happens to her is that she is racially teased, taunted, and marginalized. She comes home from preschool one day, weeping because the other children have told her that her skin looks like mud or dirt or dog poop, or whatever—and she is devastated (and also, per my chapter on my “traffic safety story,” her parents haven’t in any way prepared her for that first moment of experiencing racism directed at her). Suddenly, John and Jane realize that racism is real.

And then, something happens to John and Jane that I’ve seen happen countless times to white transracially adoptive parents: I call it “collapsing into an existential heap,” followed by “tragedizing their 183

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child’s narrative.” What I mean is this: so often, white people raised in white culture are literally unprepared to face the reality of racism, the day-to-day reality that we people of color live. And so when the sudden revelation that racism exists, hits them—one thinks here of the Japanese word “satori,” which means a sudden epiphany—it hits them like a ton of bricks.

And one of the challenges involved that is that most white people raised in whiteness find it very difficult to conceptualize the experience of racism for themselves in terms of “range” and “scale.” Having never experienced it themselves, it feels like an amorphous and potentially enveloping kind of monster. And I want to be absolutely clear that the experience of racism is both lifelong for people of color, and devastating.

It is so difficult to deal with at times that it literally creates or intensifies mental health issues for people of color.

That said, on a day-to-day level, most people of color find ways to manage their experiences of everyday racism—they simply have to. As a person of color myself, I’ve dialogued with countless fellow POCs about this. We all agree that we find ourselves employing a range of strategies and tactics around the experience of racism, including avoidance, practical acceptance, and sometimes, engaging in direct challenges—but certainly not all the time. But it is a reality that we simply have to live with. It is literally impossible for people of color to totally avoid experiences of racism, though most of us do what we can to avoid as many experiences with it as we can.

But, back to white parents. An interesting case in the media recently involved actress Katherine Heigl. Well-known for her acting roles on television and in the movies, Heigl said in a recent interview that 184

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growing up with an adopted Korean sister, had actually blinded her to the reality of racism—until she herself became the adoptive mother of a girl whom she adopted from South Korea and a Black American girl whom she and her husband adopted domestically. “Because I was raised with adoption, looking beyond skin color was the norm for me and I just believed that love is love — it doesn’t matter what we look like. But then when I asked my sister, Meg, if she had been treated one way when she was out in public with our parents and a different way when she was out by herself without them, she said, ‘Oh yeah, all the time!’” Heigl told Parents Magazine in a March 2, 2021 interview. That made me realize that I had been so naïve. At first, I got very angry. But I had to calm down and realize, okay, this isn’t about how it makes me feel. It’s about how I need to protect my daughters and prepare them for the world, because I can’t change society in one fell swoop.”

So, deliberately setting aside the entire issue of celebrity/fame/her being a public figure, Heigl’s satori is particularly interesting, because she grew up with a transracially adopted sister. And yet even so, she saw nothing of her sister’s experience as a transracial adoptee.

In any case, I give Heigl credit at least for not collapsing into an existential heap (or if she did, at least she’s kept it quiet). Now, here’s the thing: as I’ve said in previous chapters, becoming a transracially adoptive parent involves embarking on a lifelong journey, just as being a transracial adoptee involves moving forward on a lifelong journey.

And one huge element of that journey is learning about race, racism, including systemic racism, as well as white privilege, and white fragility (more on white privilege and white fragility in Chapter X). And that means learning how racism actually works, and how to become an effective guide, support, and advocate for one’s child of color.

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And in that context, I feel the need to tell the story of X (I’m not even going to make up a fake name for her). X is a white transracially adoptive mother whose daughter of color was just turning 18 at the time that we had a contentious set of interactions over online chat (we had actually met in person not long before that). There is a rather long and tangled backstory to the chat that I’ll simply leave out here, except to reference that there was a point of origin for this chat.

In any case, at a certain point, we fell down into an online chat rabbit hole, X and I, getting tangled up in issues around what white adoptive parents need to tell (or not tell) their adopted children of color. And here’s the key nugget from that chat. I was trying to explain to X that all young people of color need to learn what the potential boundaries are for their behavior, boundaries that are inevitably circumscribed than those for white young people. As in, literally, a Black or Latinx or Asian or Native teen simply cannot get away with what a white teen can; the two landscapes are simply, fundamentally different.

Well, X became rather incensed at me for trying to explain that reality to her, and she lashed out at me in the chat, saying, “My daughter is silenced in every sphere of her life! I could never possibly put any limits on her! That would be so wrong!” OK. So here’s the thing: X had come to realize that racism, including systemic racism, exists; but she was still sitting in ignorance/unknowing, based on her white privilege. What she refused to accept was the reality that her daughter, as a young woman of color, would never have her freedom as a white woman, to say or do certain things. And she remained steadfast in our controverted chat, that she, as her daughter’s mother, absolutely refused to ever indicate to her daughter, that her daughter 186

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would need to think carefully about the potential consequences of her words and actions in school, in the workplace, in social spaces. And you know what? The impact of that refusal to understand, will have been a racialized one. I certainly hope that X’s daughter never has to learn through harsh experience, that she cannot get away with what a white young person her same age, could get away with. But, honestly, if X remains resistant to learning—and let’s hope she’s moved forward since that chat with me more than five years ago—then her daughter will have to figure it out on her own.

So the plain reality is that the vast majority of white transracially adoptive parents start out on their lifelong journeys, once they’ve adopted their (first) child of color, completely unprepared to parent transracially. One hopes that they begin on the path of authentic and intensive self-education. And most of all, one hopes that they find themselves building one success upon the previous success, and most of all, avoid falling into the trap of tragedizing their child’s narrative, once they’ve come to the realization that racism is real and that their child of color will be experiencing racism on a day-to-day basis. The truth of the situation is that, at that juncture, just like X, many white adoptive parents end up totally recentering the situation on themselves, focusing on their feelings of tragedy and loss, their distress at having to navigate a society that, probably for the first time ever, they realize actually is racist, and whose systems are racist. I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly important it is for white adoptive parent who reaches that stage—the moment at which they finally understand that racism, including systemic racism, is very real, and that it will impact their child throughout their child’s life—for that parent to resist turning that revelation into a white adoptive parent-recentering 187

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moment, as they collapse into an existential heap. The temptation to do so is incredibly large and intense. And I’ve seen it happen countless times. But really, when it comes down to it, refocusing on one’s child is the only mature, responsible option. And just as I’ve seen countless white adoptive parents collapse into that existential heap, I’ve also seen countless parents pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and move forward, for the sake of their child, and begin the long, sometimesarduous process of reengineering themselves into an authentic ally and advocate for their child of color. Because that’s what this all—all—is really about, isn’t it?

Breaking it down: the white fragility behind fear of explaining racism to one’s child of color In the Facebook groups in which I’ve been participating for a number of years now, I often tell my “traffic safety story.” Before I tell the story here, let me explain how it came about.

Over and over and over again, I hear white transracially adoptive parents bemoan the fact that they have to explain race and most especially racism, to their children of color. The complaint I’ve heard countless times now, goes something like this: “Oh, my little Susie is so sweet and innocent, and she’s only five years old! How could I explain a phenomenon as ugly as racism to her? It would break her little heart. I want to keep her innocent for at least a few years still. Isn’t that reasonable?”

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Well, actually, no, it’s not reasonable. It’s a form of white fragility that really speaks to the parent’s fragility rather than the needs of the adopted child of color.

But let me plunge into my “traffic safety” story here; it’s a story I came up with in order to help white transracially adoptive parents understand a key concept. Here goes.

So, let’s imagine this scenario: your little daughter Susie is five years old. And you say this: “I think it’s utterly tragic that children and other people are killed in traffic accidents all the time. And I’m so terrified that little Susie will be traumatized to know that, that I’m not going to explain traffic safety to her at all. I couldn’t possibly hold her hand to keep her from darting into traffic in the street or in parking lots. So I’m just going to let her run right out into traffic, and let her get hit by an oncoming car, and after she’s been hit by that car and is lying in the ICU with all her bones broken and all her internal organs crushed, I’m going to pull a chair up to her hospital bed, and we’ll have a nice little chat about traffic safety and how important it is. Doesn’t that sound perfect???”

Well, of course it doesn’t. No parent who has any sanity or common sense would neglect to explain about traffic safety to their child, and nor would any parent fail to hold their child’s hand as they cross a street or walk to their car in the parking lot of a shopping mall, etc., etc. All parents know that young children are totally unaware of the dangers in their environment.

But the reason that I tell my “traffic safety story” is this: racism is a reality; and your child of any age is experiencing racism, whether s/he 189

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realizes it or not (and at very young ages, s/he may not realize it at all).

But s/he is experiencing it. And your deciding that you’re not going to explain racism to your young child of color means that your child is going to experience racism as a profound and potentially irreversible trauma, the first time your child is teased, taunted, harassed, or even physically attacked, because of their race. That’s what happened to me.

I had wonderful, loving parents, but though they explained my race to me, they had no idea to explain racism, or how to explain it (and that was in the early 1960s, and I was in the first wave of transracial adoption, so I do not hold them responsible for that fact; no one did that at the time), so I experienced racism as a profound trauma. Had they known to explain it to me, and how to explain it, my earliest experiences with racism would not have been so profoundly traumatic.

Really, preparation is incredibly important--across one’s child’s childhood and teenage years.

But what I’ve found countless times in dialogues with white transracially adoptive parents is that many somehow believe that their choosing whether or not to explain the phenomenon of racism to their children of color will determine whether or not their children are traumatized.

That’s absolutely backwards, of course. The reality is that white transracially adoptive parents have the opportunity to prepare their children of color for the inevitable experience of racism. Choosing not to explain racism is the damaging choice, not refraining from doing so. There is an analogy here, to the experience of navigating the world as a woman. All females in the world--in all societies--need to be prepared to potentially experience sexual harassment and/or possibly, sexual violence. Not explaining those issues to one’s daughter would be negligent parenting. It’s the exact same with regard to racism and one’s child of color.

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And there’s an additional element here that I’ve been pondering in my mind for some time, and that is the white fragility involved in all this. After having this dialogue about when and even whether to introduce the topic of racism to their children of color, with white adoptive parents, I’ve come to see that their own white fragility is highly operative in so many instances around this phenomenon. They themselves, the parents, are afraid to talk about race and racism, afraid even to say the words. Their having grown up in white culture has made them unable to discuss the concepts with any confidence or even understanding. And so it is deeply threatening to think about race and racism, and feels self-harming.

I get that, I really do. But white adoptive parents simply have to get over themselves in that regard. This is about their children, not themselves. I am a father, but it is absolutely my obligation to prepare my daughter to experience the world as a female. Indeed, I can explain certain things in certain ways to my daughter, speaking as a man, that can be invaluable to her. In any case, it’s my obligation. And any discomfort I have over talking about safety with her redounds absolutely to me, and is my issue.

Meanwhile, it’s no surprise that white adoptive parents who are very early on in their lifelong journeys as transracially adoptive parents, are often (even usually) extremely uncomfortable discussing race and racism, and even referencing race and racism. It’s natural. White culture throws a blanket of silence over all authentic, meaningful, honest discussions around race and racism, and the vast, vast majority of white people simply aren’t equipped, at least not at first, to discuss race, or even to fully frame race and racism for themselves, in their own minds.

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So of course, the absolute key here is self-education. Tons and tons and tons of self-education. White adoptive parents need to read books, watch documentaries, read blogs, view interviews, around everything connected to race and racism—and they need to develop authentic, deep, broad friendships with people of color. And no, your KoreanAmerican drycleaner doesn’t count. Nor the Latino in the deli section at your neighborhood grocery store. Unless you ultimately end up developing real friendships with those individuals.

How to Begin to Talk About Racism With Your Child (Even Though You’re “Not Ready”) In the twenty-plus years in which I’ve been participating in in-person and online forums around transracial adoption, one of the questions I get the most often, is this one: “OK, I’m not quite ready yet, but I know I have to begin talking with my young child about racism. How do I even begin?”

So, let’s begin at the beginning. Here’s what I tell white adoptive parents: all children who are verbal can understand some things, and by the age of four, the vast majority of children (perhaps with the exception of those with severe learning delays) can understand the basic concept of fairness.

So here’s a classic tip I’ve given countless times. You’re talking with your four-year-old, and you say something like, “So let’s imagine if Mrs. 192

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Smith” (please insert the name of your child’s preschool teacher here) “came into your classroom one day with a bag full of candies. And she said, ‘I’m going to give out candies now. But I’m only going to give candies to the white children, not the children of color.’ How would that sound to you? That would be unfair and mean, right? So that’s kind of how some people are. They don’t want to be fair to people, just because of how they look—their race. And that’s unfair. And that’s called racism.”

Of course, I’m assuming here that you’ve actually already explained your child’s race to them. If you haven’t, clearly, you need to do that first.

And honestly, you should begin even before your child can understand, or before you think your child can understand, race. Begin when your child is still a young toddler—18 months or so—by showing your child pictures and images in children’s books, magazines, etc., showing the contrast in different types of physical appearance, between very light-skinned white individuals, and darker-skinned Black and brown individuals, for example, in the most neutral way possible. And of course, use yourself, your child, and other family members—in the most neutral yet caring way possible. And yes, many white people are very hesitant to do this at first, somehow thinking that their child will be damaged by having different racial features pointed out. The opposite is actually true. Not acknowledging—and affirming—your child’s appearance will send your child the message that they should feel embarrassed or ashamed of how they look, or at the very least, that the subject itself is too sensitive to discuss. Normalizing different physical types—skin, hair, eyes—is absolutely essential to affirming your child of color.

Also, as early as humanly possible, you need to begin using the most correct racial terms possible. If your child is of the Black race, they 193

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are Black. Of course, only a small minority of Black people have skin tones that could actually be described using the color-word “black,” but you’ll need to begin explaining very early on to your child that s/ he is a Black person with brown skin. And whatever you do, DO NOT use food words! “Vanilla,” “chocolate,” etc., should never be used with young children. Much, much later, you can introduce to your child how some people do use terms like “mocha” or “cinnamon,” for example, to describe skin tones; but those words, when used appropriately by people of color, are not meant as definitional; they are descriptive only.

Far too often, I’ve heard of white adoptive parents saying things like, “I’m vanilla, you’re chocolate!” to their three-year-olds. No. Nope, Not. Just don’t do it. Your child will end up being ridiculed in preschool if s/he tells her/his classmates, “I’m the color of chocolate!”—especially if s/he doesn’t know the correct racial term (Black, Latino/a, Asian, etc.).

And make sure that you don’t confuse race and ethnicity and nationality, all of which are very different. Each concept is distinct. Please educate yourself on the differences.

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Tony Hynes Tony Hynes was born in Washington, D.C. in 1989, and raised in Takoma Park, a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. He was raised by white lesbian mothers, and grew up in an open adoption, with complications. He lives in Washington, D.C. Can you tell me about your adoption story?

Yes, I was relinquished to the child welfare system at the age of one and was technically adopted when I was five. I was fostered at three by the family that adopted me.

Adoptee Voice: Tony Hynes

And it was an open adoption?

Yes, it was. My story gets a bit complicated. Technically, I was adopted at five, but after three or four months, that adoption was overturned by a panel of three judges who decided that a white same-sex household was not the appropriate household for a Black child. That case went up to the Supreme Court, which knocked it down to a lower court. I was technically made a ward of the state but given residency with Mary and Janet, my two moms. And an informal agreement was made that I would visit my birth family on certain days on certain weekends. And it would be Saturday or Sunday, and sometimes I would stay overnight as well. And in addition, I found out that my birth family were the ones challenging the adoption, specifically, my birth grandmother; and then I found out that she was actually not my grandmother, but my step-great aunt who was a friend of my birth mother’s mother, and who had claimed she was my grandmother in order to gain custody of me much more easily. My birth mom who appealed is my birth mom, and my birth dad who appealed was my birth dad. So the birth family I was visiting was not technically my birth family; they were her family. And my birth sister lives with my grandmother—the person I thought was my grandmother.

The courts did not know that, though?

No, they didn’t. Also, I do think that, the child welfare system in general, there was, and still is bias against LGBTQ families, which I believe also played a role in the judge’s decision not to uphold my adoption, and the social workers’ decision to feed misinformation to my birth family.

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How do you view all of this now as an adult?

That’s a great question. I know that transracial adoptions involving white families adopting children of color are going to happen; and that, in realistic terms, because of how the industry of adoption has been built, this will inevitably be the case in some circumstances.

However, those numbers could be much lower than they are. And some of that has to do with the systemic racism embedded in the child welfare system itself. And in the article I wrote recently, I mentioned MEPA, the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994, was put in place to help white parents adopt children of color, but then the birth parents weren’t able to choose the race of those adopting their children. And people will question the cultural impact of white families adopting Black and brown children. And when white parents are not educated around race, bad things happen: the children’s self-esteem is affected, they develop imposer syndrome relative to others of their race; they feel othered in their environment as well, sometimes even in their own families.

I heard of a Korean adoptee a little bit younger than you who told me that when she was a child and her white mom got mad at her, she would tell her, “I wish I’d shipped you back to Korea!” And over the years, I’ve heard of more stories like that as well. So I wouldn’t say I’m for or against transracial adoption. But I want us to ask what can we do to protect those children as best as we can. And how can we better support the birth families of those children, helping the families to stay together when they can, and provide open adoptions, whenever possible, as a best practice?

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How do you feel, having lived an open adoption?

Well, you know, living an open adoption for me was helpful, and it was also hard; it was something that forged me. For me, being in an open adoption meant that I existed in two family structures—my two adoptive moms, and my birth first family. But both of those families saw themselves as two distinct families, and I was the only one in both families. So it created a sense of dueling loyalties that a lot of adoptees experience. I was always feeling conflicted: am I being disloyal to my birth family, by feeling close to my white parents? Am I being disloyal to Black people because of that? And I didn’t have a lot of Black people in my neighborhood growing up. One of my best friends was Black, but he was one of the few Black kids in school. It was really as a teenager that I learned a proper handshake, which Black people call a dap. I was already listening to hip-hop, but learned about R&B and other styles as well. But for me, what was helpful was realizing that I didn’t have to “just be Black.”

I think that transracial adoptees—we tell white adoptive parents that they need to have kids who look like them, and they’ll feel more comfortable being Black, Latinx, or Asian. But they’re growing up in white households; so we should tell them that it’s OK to take on some of the cultural aspects you’re experiencing in your parents’ home as well. So I realized that it was OK for me to have grown up not knowing what the right thing to put on grits was, in the way that many Black individuals who grew up in Southern homes knew from what might have seemed like birth to them. That it was important to educate myself about Black American cultural histories and traditions from various regions, but that not having some of those experiences growing up did not mean I was less authentically Black than anyone else.

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So for me, growing up in an open-adoption situation allowed me to grow into the individual that I became, and continue to try to become.

So having that peer group was helpful, and continuing to read about my history was helpful as well. Even when I was young, my moms provided me with books about Malcom X and Sojourner Truth, and I loved the VHS tapes of the series “Eyes on the Prize,” too.

Have you resolved your identity so that you feel “Black enough” now?

I feel good about my identity now, but there have still been times when I feel it’s been questioned by both Black and white people. Which again is a reflection of how they feel about themselves and their own racial identities as well as the prejudices and stereotypes they’ve built in their heads for the things they’ve defined as being authentically Black. At the same time I remember working with a Black man from an impoverished, inner city background, a background those same people often define in their heads as a “true” Black American background. We formed a good friendship and I remember him telling him how much he respected me as a man, and how real I was. He knew about my family background, and not only accepted me, but stated that he respected the way I carried myself, which I took to be this kind of…recognition of my racial authenticity in addition to his general respect for me. I appreciated that, and feel a lot of Black people I’ve interacted with in adulthood from different backgrounds have said similar things to me.

I’d be lying if I said my being raised by white parents hasn’t been used against me. And you know, for those individuals, I’d say that they’ve 199

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had some insecurities on their part. They have their own insecurities about their Blackness, and have pushed those on me. I would say for me, I’ve gotten to a place where there are probably sometimes where I feel a bit of conflict over whether I should codeswitch or not.

At least you can do it, which is terrific. Many Black and Black/ biracial adoptees feel they lack full fluency.

Yes, it’s very helpful. I’ve heard one adoptee say that transracial adoptees are chameleons. I think that’s true, but it also has to do with adaptability. And I don’t feel I’m not Black enough. I will never be a Black American who was raised in a Black household, so therefore, to some people, I will never be “Black enough.” And if I were to become President of the United States—and my birth name is Jones, and I was a descendant of slaves—even then, some people would say, well, he was raised by white people.

Elsewhere in this book (see Chapter 11, “Navigating Birth Culture”—sidebar, “The Dialectic of Authenticity”), I talk about the dialectic of authenticity. You’ve come to a very healthy place around that, I think.

I’m 31 now. I would say maybe from 24 on, I began to come to more of a place of peace. I was trying to dress in ways that had been aligned with ideas of Blackness, talk in ways that were associated with Ebonics (dialects used by Black Americans that have now been adopted by other racial groups). As I got older, I realized that it was unnecessary

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to “try to be Black” because there was no true definition of Blackness.

Black people are not a monolith. However, that is something I had to learn and a place of understanding I had to come to in my later teenage years.

As I got older, I began to like how unique I was. I began to like being the Black adopted son of two white moms. I still have yet to meet someone my age who is a Black male my age raised by two white lesbian moms. There are a lot of younger people having that experience now. I like talking about my experience. But I have heard negative judgments against my moms for their lesbianism, or people questioning my authenticity. And were I not at this point in my life, those things would really bothered me; they once did. So I’ve accepted my experience, and I’m still Black at the end of the day, and no one can take that away from me. So I answer the questions honestly and truthfully. But I also try to lift up Black people in my work, as well as adoptees, as well as people from same-sex households as well.

So those kinds of things are not particularly upsetting to me. And my moms were not perfect, nor were other white people around me.

But, hearing the stories of other adoptees, I know that I had valuable experiences tapping into some resources that affect how adoptees feel about themselves. And it’s not that I have no identity struggles at all.

But it was around 24, 25, that I began moving actively towards more of a place of peace. And I’m further along in that sense. And the way I see it, you’re on a lifelong journey as a transracial adoptee, anyway.

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And so your moms did the right thing in connecting you with your birth family and Black people, they provided you with books and other resources, and made you feel supportive in your identity?

One of my moms passed away when I was 12, so was just been one mom raising me after that. And even to this day, I do not feel comfortable sharing with her about the Black Lives Matter movement.

And when George Floyd died, I didn’t reach out to discuss it with her.

I knew I would be doing some educating in sharing, so it stopped me from discussing that at that time. And a lot of adoptees understand that feeling. So even with them providing those resources, I wouldn’t necessarily say that they totally “got it.” And that’s why it’s important for your children to have adult resources who are people of color whom they can talk, when they don’t necessarily totally get it.

I was raised by pretty progressive White parents by the standards of the time, they gave me books by Black authors as we watched documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement. But I still experienced microaggressions from their White friends, from my White friends. I still experienced racial profiling from police officers who pointed guns at me and then told me they had the wrong guy after all. There were still things my White parents said once in a while that rubbed me the wrong way as a Black person. Being a transracial adoptee does not protect children from racism, from their communities, and from the families that adopted them.

Any final pieces of advice or wisdom to offer readers?

Again, it’s really important for parents to have open adoptions when it’s possible, because birth parents are always in the minds of adoptees 202

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whether they bring them up or not. So giving them permission to talk about the birth parents, and honoring the birth culture, and having people in your home and friends of your own from those cultural backgrounds as well, and educating your children about your own heritages—all of those things are important. It will also help them to make connections, of course. And when it comes to their education, going over their school curriculum, making sure it reflects important elements from their birth culture—all of that is important. And letting them know it’s OK to be Black and to be bicultural. And to help them to be able to interact with other adoptees of color as well.

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Coming Out of the Transracial Adoptee Fog • Many transracial adoptees struggle with even the most basic issues around who and what they are, and how to find a space for their identity • Events out in the world, as well as their experiences as young adults and at other stages in their journeys, can shake transracial adoptees to the core • White transracially adoptive parents largely remain unequipped to support their adopted children of color around this core issue

Coming Out of the Transracial Adoptee Fog

O

ne of the topics that we adult transracial adoptees talk about a lot with one another—a lot--is the subject of the “transracial adoptee fog,” and our coming out of it.

And what is that “transracial adoptee fog”? It is the disconnected reality that so many transracially adopted children grow up in as they grow up in total whiteness, near-total whiteness, or majoritarian whiteness, detached from birth culture and from members of their race and ethnicity, and inside white culture, which casts a toxic blanket of silence over any authentic discussion of race, and which dismisses the lived reality of people of color. For most transracial adoptees, certainly for most adoptees who are now adults, both in the United States and in all receiving countries, the result is a profound level of intellectual and psychological confusion and an inability even to understand how detached and isolated one is, as well as a deep confusion about one’s identity, and an acceptance of a surface culturally and psychologically white identity, even as accepting a white identity for oneself a white identity is inherently deeply damaging to the child of color, and can delay the self-actualization that individuals of color need to achieve for themselves. It can take many transracial adoptees decades to begin to move out of the fog; some never do.

I have to share here that, speaking of my own lived experience, it took me several decades to pull myself out of the transracial adoptee fog, and to come into my own as a person of color. I grew up in neartotal whiteness, and intensely internalized racism towards myself, ending up with a massive complex about my own physical appearance that I’m still actively working on healing, even now, at the age of 60.

Fundamentally, growing up in near-total whiteness, and experiencing 207

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the devastation of racism internalized towards myself, and without any model for successful identity integration as a person of color, meant that the only thing that I fully understood as a child and a teenager was that I absolutely needed to flee the social environment that I was growing up in—to totally escape it and to never, ever return to it as a daily lived experience, ever again. That much, I did figure out by the time I was a young teenager.

The challenge beyond that was a challenge that I see now reflected in the lives of countless transracial adoptees like myself, especially as they emerge into young adulthood: how to somehow connect to communities of color and to identities of color, when they’ve been given absolutely zero resources for doing so.

In that regard, in my life, I ended up being incredibly lucky in one respect: when I came to Chicago for graduate journalism school, I was admitted to a school that was run by deans, a significant number of whom were Black journalists, and who were committed to diversity and to the empowerment of young journalists of color. So for the first time, I actually found myself in an environment in which I wasn’t one of only a couple of or a few people of color, and I began to “get it.”

And, over time, I found friends of color who would accept me. I was lucky in that regard, too, being a young gay man, because it is easier in the gay male subculture to meet people of color and to socialize across races.

Through my 20s and 30s, I began to create for myself a social environment that worked for me, and then when I was 40, I was brought into the transracial adoptee community, and my head exploded, and my development accelerated dramatically. I was able to begin to truly 208

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embrace an identity as a person of color through interacting with fellow adult transracial adoptees, all of whom had also struggled as I had, to find our identities, given that we were all raised in significant whiteness, and had had to figure things out entirely by ourselves.

Over time, I was able to build my own social environment, and to learn how to interact successfully with fellow people of color. It took decades, but I managed to do it. And now, finally, at the age of 60 as of the writing of this book, I have a proud, integrated sense of identity as a person of color in the world.

I have to admit that I have no “magic formula” for achieving this.

What I can share with my fellow adult transracial adoptees, is this: do everything you can to figure out how to connect to other people of color, both of your own specific race and ethnicity, as well as to all people of color. My own bias here is that it is as important to develop one’s overall sense of identity as a person of color as it is to develop one’s specific racial identity, though both are incredibly important (and other adult transracial adoptees will have diverse views on that point). I speak, in that regard, as an American, someone who interacts daily with POC of all races, rather than interacting primarily with individuals of only one’s own race.

Why putting one’s child on the path early on is essential I’m absolutely committed to mission, and that means supporting my fellow adult transracial adoptees on their journeys, and educating white transracially adoptive parents, so that they can learn and can help their 209

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children of color to move forward successfully on their journeys.

And in that context, I am constantly, constantly urging and imploring white adoptive parents to move into diversity for the sake of their children. I do not want the littlest transracial adoptees to experience what I’ve experienced.

I do not want them to have to spend literally 40 years before they begin to feel comfortable in their identities as people of color.

Above all, I want everyone to understand that raising a child of color in total or near-total whiteness is profoundly devastating to that child. It means that that child will grow up inside an intense transracial adoptee fog, and will inevitably spend years struggling to begin to build a successful identity as a person of color. And that is tragic.

I want white transracially adoptive parents to think about this subject— really think about it. What are the implications of this reality? The biggest one for adoptive parents, in my mind, is the need for them to accept the responsibility of ongoing, lifelong self-education. White transracially adoptive parents need to realize that they can either boost their children’s progress along their (the children’s) lifelong journeys, or they can hamper and frustrate their journeys and making them far, far more difficult. But this kind of learning requires commitment, a willingness to set aside white fragility and adoptive parent fragility, and real discernment. I want white transracially adoptive parents to listen to the voices of adult transracial adoptees (as well as, of course, the voices of their own children), but with discernment, always carefully evaluating what they’re hearing, seeing, and reading. Far too often, white adoptive parents go for the “quick fix,” often in the form of listening to or reading one small thing, and not making the requisite connections to other elements in the landscape.

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Now, as I was writing this chapter, something happened in the United States that had a specific impact on many transracial adoptees, especially on many Asian adoptees in the U.S. On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long drove to three different massage parlors/spas in the Atlanta area, shooting to death eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Long told police that he suffered from a “sexual addiction” that had caused him emotional distress, and denied that the killings were racially motivated, even though he had driven many miles in his committing the murders (30 miles between the first and second spa attack, alone).

To all of those who are people of color, it was clear that racism was involved, along with misogyny, a twisted psychology around sexuality, and other elements. In relation to this book, one of the after-effects of the terrible mass killing was that, for many Asian-born adoptees, this, along with enormous rise in anti-Asian violence across the United States (with several thousand attacks in 2020 and early 2021 alone), was a stark reminder that those of us who are Asian are vulnerable to physical and verbal violence in specific ways, as we continue to be perceived by many in this country (the U.S.) as “perpetual foreigners.”

Now, here’s the thing: huge numbers of white people who have adopted Asian children have been fairly open in stating the idea that they believed that in adopting Asian children, that those children would never be the targets of racism. I myself have had the experience numerous times of white adoptive parents making such assertions to me directly. At some level, most white people realize that Black people, and perhaps Latinx, are subject to racist aggressions and microaggressions, but somewhere along the way, some white people in the 211

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U.S., as well as in other countries, allowed themselves to believe that Asians are not subject to racism. And the most conservative, religious, and rural white adoptive parents have been among the most deluded in that regard. As a result, many white parents have raised their adopted Asian children without in any way helping them to develop identities as people of color and as Asians, and have sat in total or near-total ignorance about anti-Asian racism. It’s no surprise that many Asian adoptees in the U.S., as well as in some other countries (in Europe and in Canada and Australia as well) have totally failed in this element of transracially adoptive parenting. So many Asian adoptees have grown into adulthood with a poor or even virtually nonexistent sense of their identities as Asians and as people of color.

In the wake of the Atlanta mass murder, Asian adoptees wrote blogs, sat for interviews with the mainstream media, and turned to each other for support and understanding.

Here’s an excerpt from a March 24, 2021 article in Yahoo!News, by Julia Munslow: “After the shootings, Patrick Armstrong, a 31-year-old Korean American adoptee, turned to social media to grieve with others in the broader Asian community. But for Asian adoptees raised by white parents there is an added complexity, Armstrong said, because of the pervasive feeling that their personal ties to the white community make them too whitewashed for Asian spaces. One adoptee recalled being taunted as a ‘yellow Oreo’: Asian on the outside, but white on the inside.

So Armstrong, who hosts a podcast about adoption, began hosting Clubhouse rooms specifically for adoptees, where many said their 212

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parents weren’t reaching out to them after the Atlanta shootings. Many adoptees who spoke to Yahoo News said they were the ones to initiate conversations about anti-Asian hate with their parents. For some, even if their parents responded positively, the lack of contact led to intense feelings of loneliness.

‘I’m not in a space yet where I think I can explore [race] with my parents, who I love dearly,’ said Maria Robinson, a 33-year-old Massachusetts state representative who was adopted from South Korea. ‘It’s just a tough conversation to have because — not because I think they’ll be cruel about it or anything — it’s more of the not understanding that’s really hard, and not wanting to put myself out there, to have my concerns brushed off.’

When Robinson told her mother about the Atlanta shootings, her mother said, ‘Oh, that’s so awful,’ and then the conversation moved on.

‘We’ve had much longer conversations about who’s marrying whom back home,’ Robinson said.

While Baker [Cherokee County, Georgia Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jay Baker, who, in a press briefing made the comment that the suspect, Long, had had “a really bad day”] described his adopted brother Tony as an ‘instant playmate and friend,’ Deborah Johnson, a social worker who works with adoptive families and is herself an adoptee from South Korea, believes a close sibling relationship with a person of color doesn’t mean an individual isn’t racist.

‘Some really racist people have people of color [as] siblings, and they really believe they can say or do whatever they want and get a pass because of their proximity to a person of color,’ Johnson said.”

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Here’s the link to the full article: https://www.yahoo.com/now/asianadoptees-raised-in-the-us-describe-the-challenges-of-forging-a-racialidentity-200205665.html Meanwhile, on March 27, 2021, Ashley Westerman of National Public Radio (NPR) reported on the same phenomenon, writing, in part, this: “Bethany Long Newman says she saw herself in the victims of last week’s shooting outside of Atlanta, when a gunman rampaged through three spas and killed eight people. Of the eight victims, six were women of Asian descent. ‘When I first heard about it, I was immediately scared,’ says Newman, 32, of Chicago. ‘You kind of put yourself in their shoes a bit and think: This would happen to me — or my daughter.’

Newman was born in South Korea, then adopted as an infant and raised by a white family in a small, predominantly white rural community in eastern Kentucky. She says she doesn’t really have anyone close who looks like her to help her process the tragedy. Her parents, siblings and husband are white. Most of her Asian friends are adopted. ‘I feel heartbroken and scared, and I don’t know how to express it because I don’t know if people around me, if they necessarily think of me as Asian’” she says. While her mom did reach out after the Atlanta shootings, Newman says she mostly asked if she felt safe and if there had been any violence against Asians in Chicago. ‘And that’s where we kind of left it.’

Newman is not alone. Many Asians who are adopted say they can’t quite figure out how to process and talk about the uptick in antiAsian violence since the beginning of the pandemic — even to parents who’ve been generally supportive in the past. And while adoptees 214

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experience the same racism as other people of color, many feel left out of the national conversation right now because they’ve never truly felt like they belong in either the Asian American community or white America.”

Here’s a link to that entire article: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981269559/am-i-asian-enoughadoptees-struggle-to-make-sense-of-spike-in-anti-asian-violenc Honestly, these reports from Yahoo!News and NPR speak to a core aspect of our experience as transracial adoptees: we are people of color who for the most part have grown up detached from birth culture and people who match us racially, and at the same time isolated in white society, including often in the white-parent-headed families in which we grew up. And all of that contributes to the intense fog out of which we transracial adoptees have to find our way over time.

To leave the fog, one must first see the fog And one of the challenges there is that many transracial adoptees don’t even realize they’re in a fog, which is a core element in the problem to begin with. How can one walk out of the fog when one doesn’t even realize that one is in the fog?

I’ve met countless transracial adoptees of all non-white races who have struggled tremendously in this area. Speaking for myself, it took me several decades to find my way out of the transracial adoptee fog. But now that I’ve done it, it seems very clear how befogged I had been, and how absolutely essential it was for me to get out of the fog—and how cringeful it is for me to see fellow transracial adoptees still stuck in it.

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I remember in 2016, at the height of the 2016 presidential election, in which one of the two candidates for president was hurling racist and white supremacist rhetoric every single day, a debate arose among some transracial adoptees over whether we were immigrants or not. In one Facebook group for Korean adult Korean adoptees (KADs), numerous members of that group disputed that they/we were immigrants.

Hello??? I was aghast that there were adults who had not resolved this basic question of fact for themselves—and yet not at all surprised.

Sadly, white adoptive parents are, overall, woefully unequipped to help their adopted children of color, because they themselves, raised in white culture and with no referents of color whatsoever, literally do not understand how whitewashed their lives are; and when they adopt children of color, they assume that those children will grow up like white children—which can never happen. Most white adoptive parents have zero desire to get outside their snuggly comfort zones and explore what it means to have an identity of color.

So, most often, transracial adoptees begin their journeys out of the transracial adoptee fog through painful experiences—the experiences of racism, of social marginalization and isolation, of extreme difficulty integrating into social spaces with members of their own race and with people of color of all races, in general. I know countless transracial adoptees who experienced shock when they entered the wider world and were no longer John and Jane Smith’s son or daughter, but, to strangers, they simply appeared to be random people of color—who, further, were expected to act like members of their specific racial communities.

What’s more, transracial adoptees, especially those of college age and those who are young adults in general, are met with bafflement by 216

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those in the wider world, when they share that they don’t know some very basic things about their race’s culture(s), because they were raised by white parents in whiteness. Sadly, that is a narrative playing out constantly for transracial adoptees of all races of origin, all around the world.

Since transracial adoptees who are still in the fog are unlikely to read a book like this to begin with, I cannot help those who are completely befogged. But for any who are reading this book, I would urge them to accelerate their learnings and personal development, in order to move into the clear day of Maslovian self-actualization. All of this will be part of the lifelong journey, of course; but moving out of the transracial adoptee fog is the single greatest gift that a transracial adoptee can give her/himself. I want my fellow adult transracial adoptees reading this chapter (and of course, this book overall) to find their selfempowerment zones, and to move forward into self-acceptance, the fullness of identity, personal fulfillment, integration, and peace.

And I truly and sincerely hope that the white transracially adoptive parents reading this chapter begin by opening a window into the light in their minds, as early on in their journey as possible, so that the littlest transracial adoptees will not have to struggle mightily as I and countless other transracial adoptees have had to do, just to find a space in the light. Life should not have to be so difficult.

The good news? As of the writing of this book, in 2021, the opportunities in the United States for connecting one’s adopted child of color with their birth community and with communities of color more broadly, are greater than they’ve ever been. The situation is more complex in other countries; yet here we are, in 2021 (and beyond).

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Moving forward is not only doable, but necessary. And in my dream of a world for transracial adoptees, someday, none will have to work to get out of the transracial adoptee fog, because none will be raised inside the fog to begin with.

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Adoptee Voice:

Sandy White Hawk

S

andy White Hawk was born in South Dakota in 1953. She lives in Minnesota. Her story involves removal, abuse, and ultimately, through to healing and integration of identity, as a Native American adult adoptee. She has spent years as an adoption educator and activist.

Can you share your adoption story?

Yes, certainly. I was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota in 1953. I was the third of nine children. All of us either ended up

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being adopted out or cared through foster care. There was a targeted, systematic removal of Indian children happening back then. You know how today you have a social welfare checker making a call, to check in on a family? That didn’t even happen then. So as far as I know, it’s unclear whether my mother had an official residence of her own or not.

The story that I was told by one of my uncles is that a social worker came when we were playing outside at a relative’s home, and the social worker literally came up and took me away. There are countless stories of people of my age group who had similar experiences. Many were wary of white people simply driving up into your driveway, and knew to hide their kids.

How old were you at the time?

I was 18 months when I was taken. I remember being placed. So I had three-second pictures popping into my mind until I was about 37 years old; I never knew what they were, but when I was in a survivors’ group at that time, seven of us were in the group for having suffered mother-daughter sexual abuse. And during the work, which was three hours a week; and that’s when my adoption came up, through that process. My recall is sensory and visual, and I had the sense of being lifted up into a red truck and placed between two individuals. My memory then is me standing in the bed of the truck looking into the back window at the little brown girl between these strangers. I can still see the dashboard and the two people who put me in between them, what they were wearing, and everything. And at 18 months old, I had an out-of-body experience. And my second memory was hiding over and over again under the table from my adoptive mom, who started 220

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abusing me as soon as I was adopted. And I confirmed the appearance of the pickup before my adoptive mother passed. And I had complex trauma on top of complex trauma. I went through a lot of therapy, some of it voluntary, some of it forced. But no one thought to even ask about me any questions about being adopted and being the only brown girl in our small town.

So it wasn’t until I was in that survivors’ group, at the age of 37, that I shared my story in an intimate setting, with people of color; two of the women in the group were Puerto Rican. I had lived in Puerto Rico for a year when I was in the military. And so I shared about my sensations and observations. And I remember that the skin of my adoptive mom was so weird to me, and her scent was so different. And one of the Puerto Rican women, both of whom were social workers, said, well, Sandy, you had been held by people with brown skin. And that opened the door to the reality of what I was recalling. And then it expanded, and I ended up with full recall. I have a recall of being in the driveway and being picked up, and recall of being with my birth mother’s cousin who used to take care of me when my mother was gone, and it turned out that I was remembering her backyard.

My adoptive parents were missionaries from Illinois, and after they adopted me and my brother, they moved to Wisconsin, where I grew up in Reedsburg, until I moved to Madison, Wisconsin as an adult. I’m married, I have two now-adult children from my first marriage, and my husband, my second husband, brought four adult children into our marriage.

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Your first marriage was to someone white?

Yes, I married to a white guy for 13 years, single for 16 years, and married my second husband. in 2004. And he’s Native American— Omaha. I’m Lakota.

What was it like growing up in whiteness?

The emotional isolation is crippling. Don’t put Native children into white homes. We don’t need you to our adopt our children. If you want to be helpful, you must help our families. I don’t want to see it any longer. We’ve got to stop that shit. We have got to start saying, if you’re going to adopt, this is what we want. We know full well that most white people can’t understand what our experience is. Why are we working so hard to help them raise our children? I’m done with it.

And I recently spoke at an adoption conference, and I said, if you’re going to adopt a Native child, are you willing to move to where we live, and surround yourself with brown people? If not, don’t do it. I’m just done with it. We did a study, and 23 of the 95 adoptees experienced sexual abuse, and 43 experienced physical abuse, and 47 experienced emotional abuse. That was Native children adopted by whites.

Did you convey your experience to your children, as they were growing up?

I eventually did, as they got older. And they heard me speak publicly, so they would hear both the public version and the private version. And you tell them things that are age-appropriate.

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You were abused and then struggled with alcoholism.

Yes, I got sober in 1980. And back then especially, the focus in Alcoholics Anonymous was that they didn’t focus on the past, at least initially. So it took a while. And I went through twelve-step groups, and that saved my life. An old white retired man saved my ass!

What would you like to leave as your main message to the transracial adoption community?

My main message is family preservation. And I know that when I’m in discussions with others, they’ll say, “But Sandy, adoption will always happen.” Do we know this? I don’t think we do, because we don’t push enough for family preservation. Currently, there’s no money in family preservation, only in adoption and foster care. And we devalue women as soon as they’re labeled addicts, or are seen to “abandon” their children; these are all value judgments on women experiencing wounds. No matter how long it takes, we know that the child would fare better remaining with their parents or with relatives. And adopted individuals of all races are four times more likely to take their lives than non-adoptees. So I’m tired of how we make adoption better. I don’t think that’s the conversation; the conversation is how we make things better for families.

How long have you been in birth family reunion?

Since 1988. I always knew that I was born on the Rosebud Reservation, though I didn’t know what the reservation meant. But in the one incest 223

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survivors’ group in 1988, that’s what encouraged me to search. And because of the work that I do with adoptees, listening to hundreds and hundreds of experiences, helping individuals reconnect—we’ve done this for 17 years now, and helping tribes welcoming their children back—that’s why I’m so tired of this conversation about making adoption better. I’m happy to talk to an individual family asking me how they can make things better for their child. So it’s not like I’m a militant, but I’m so tired of us trying to fix the adoption process for adoptive parents. If we’re going to fix anything, we need to fix things for families. Do you know that women can lose their children because they don’t have a place to live? It’s 2021, and a mother can still lose her children. That grieves me. And the average individual doesn’t have any understanding of what it’s like to be adopted, what adoption is, how much money is in adoption; they don’t know that we’re a commodity.

We need to talk about this.

Do you feel connected to your Native identity now?

Yes, the minute I was on my homeland, I felt like I was breathing fresh air that I’d never breathed before. It was the first time that I was around brown people, where I could walk into the store and no one stared at me. I felt immediate connection. And my family was very open. They knew about me, they remembered me. Like my mom’s cousin, she just cried when I got to her, and she held my hand and patted my arm, and was so excited. My aunt was so helpful in meeting relatives and sharing family history. That’s the way it generally is. Sometimes, the mothers are in shock. In my case, my mother had already passed about two to three years before I made it home. She was the oldest of 20, so I had 224

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a lot of aunts and uncles to get to know. And that’s who I connected in my first journey home, my oldest uncles and aunt, and my brother.

You ended up taking back your birth name, correct?

My mother’s name was Nina Lulu White Hawk (York, Renzelman).

My eldest granddaughter’s name is Nina, because I told my son and his wife and my daughter and her husband, if you have a girl, you have to name her Nina. I had wanted to name my own daughter that name, but my ex was not going to have it. And my second granddaughter got my mother’s middle name. And my oldest granddaughter, I’ve told her and retold her why she has her grandmother’s name. She’s proud of it.

She carries the family legacy of removal, return and healing.

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Navigating Birth Culture: OlympianLevel Challenges for Transracial Adoptees • For transracial adoptees, encountering and navigating birth culture—whether they are domestic or international adoptees—is one of the most challenging elements in the lifelong journey • For international adoptees, visits to the birth country—especially the first visit—can be absolutely fraught with psychological pitfalls and challenges • A key concept: The Dialectic of Authenticity

Navigating Birth Culture: Olympian-Level Challenges for Transracial Adoptees

I

have to say that one subject that I find seems to be one of the very most challenging for white transracially adoptive parents to grasp at anything more than a very superficial level, is the entire, large topic area of birth culture—what it’s like for transracial adoptees to have to navigate it, what the challenges and opportunities for discovery are, how they live with their adoptee identities in relation to birth culture, and, if they are international adoptees, how they navigate visits to (and in a small number of cases, even moving to) their countries of birth—and how they’re treated. I’m going to be introducing a couple of concepts here, too, that I’ve not spoken of widely until now, but which I’ve been pondering for a very long time now.

First of all, to frame this entire discussion, I’m going to remind readers of my own background. Born in South Korea in 1960 and adopted in infancy, along with my twin brother, I was raised in near-total whiteness in the Midwest of the United States (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), in the 1960s and 1970s. We were members of the first large wave of international adoption, and there was virtually no understanding whatsoever that any of us children would in any way want to be connected to our birth cultures. The majority of our first wave consisted of babies and children adopted from South Korea; next up were large waves from Vietnam and India. Large waves came later on from such countries as Ethiopia, China, and various countries in Latin America, as well as small numbers from elsewhere (and a large wave of children came to the United States from Russia: though international adoptees, they were white, and therefore not transracial).

The key point in all this is that, in the group of Korean adoptees in which I arrived, precisely zero thought was given to even the idea that any of 229

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us would want to visit South Korea someday, let alone live there for any period of time. Now, one does have to understand the sociocultural and socioeconomic context of the times. At the time that I was born in South Korea, that country had been absolutely devastated by the Korean War (1950-1953), and still in 1960, hundreds of thousands of children lived in miserable poverty, with many of them living on the streets, desperately scrounging for food; many were not true orphans (meaning, without any living parents), but rather, semi-orphans, or simply deeply impoverished. What’s more, travel in 1960 was totally different from now. Airplane technology was very different then: it took four separate flights to get me and my twin brother to Chicago’s Midway Airport (O’Hare Airport had not yet been built): a chaperone (a South Korean woman who accompanied us infants in exchange for a free roundtrip ticket to visit her adult son in Chicago) accompanied us on a flight from Seoul to Tokyo; another from Tokyo to Anchorage, Alaska; another from Anchorage to Seattle; and finally, a fourth flight from Seattle to Chicago-Midway. It took more than two full days, and, relatively speaking, was extremely expensive. Discount fares simply didn’t exist between East Asia and the United States at the time, and it was about a decade before the immense postwar international boom in air travel and tourism.

Of course, the consumer Internet was still nearly four decades from being architected; and only a minority of Americans had the means to travel internationally with any regularity; and my parents, who were of extremely modest means, certainly were not in that group.

Also, one doesn’t need to be a professional historian, sociologist, or anthropologist to recall that only a very small percentage of Americans had any real interest in Asia or Asians at that time (despite our massive involvement in the Korean Conflict).

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So, at the time I was growing up in Milwaukee in the 1960 and 1970s, there was simply no consideration among adoptive parents or adoption professionals that any of us international adoptees would want to “go back” and visit our birth countries; or, at the very least, such visits were perceived as extraordinary and abstract.

As a result, like so many transracial and international adoptees, I grew up completely detached from my birth culture. It wasn’t until my thirties that I had the first serious encounters or interactions with any aspect of Korean culture; and I didn’t actually set foot on South Korean soil again after leaving the country at the age of eight months, until I was three months from my 42nd birthday. Like most Korean adoptees adopted to the U.S. in the first wave, I was entirely American, culturally speaking; and I had and have fellow adoptees adopted to various countries in Europe, or to Canada, or to Australian, who grew up entirely European, Canadian, or Australian.

Since then, things have definitely changed; and the average international adoptee who is, say, ten years old in 2021, has had at least some minimal, superficial interaction with their birth culture. And of course, domestic transracial adoptees have potentially much more immediate access, at least geographically speaking, to their birth cultures—Black, Latinx, Native American.

Even so, even now in 2021, the average transracial adoptee is growing up at least broadly detached from birth culture. And even the minority of adoptive parents who do what they can to connect their children to their birth cultures, are still mostly largely raising them in whiteness, in white American (or white European or white Canadian or white Australian) culture.

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As a result, we transracial adoptees end up having to navigate an extremely complex and challenging path into and around birth culture.

Even as we are racially and ethnically part of our birth societies, not growing up in them, we can never become “insiders” to our cultures— even if we learn our birth languages, travel to our birth countries or communities, and meet significant numbers of individuals raised in those countries and cultures. We are people apart.

I have several things to say about this situation. First of all, yes, transracially adoptive parents need to do whatever they can to create some level of connection to birth culture for their children; that seems obvious, though after twenty-plus years in in-person and online forums around transracial adoption, I find, even in 2021, that many, many white transracially adoptive parents fail to understand this basic concept.

And even those who do attempt connections, often find the barriers to any sort of integration to be very high indeed. I’m going to reference here the situation for many/most Korean adoptees in the United States.

Many adopted Korean children in the United States are growing up far geographically far from any direct connection to Korean-Americans; and even those growing up in large metropolitan areas with significant Korean-American communities (Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Washington, D.C. among them) find it very difficult to make connections. The obstacles are far from purely geographic, or even linguistic; traditional Korean culture, as lived in South Korea, has historically been extremely clannish and closed to outsiders, and East Asians (Koreans, Japanese, Chinese) are exceptionally wary of people from outside their cultures. And first-generation Korean-Americans, 232

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meaning those born in South Korea and who have immigrated to the United States, generally have very little desire to welcome those not culturally Korean into their social circles. Second- and especially thirdgeneration Korean-Americans tend as a rule to be far more open and inclusive, but many of those individuals, especially third-generation Korean-Americans and beyond, are also already somewhat distanced from traditional, full Korean culture themselves, and, being very Americanized, tend not to be able to be the “cultural Sherpas” who could help Korean adoptees fully understand Korean and KoreanAmerican culture.

Some white adoptive parents of Korean children have gone the route of joining Korean church congregations and enrolling their adopted children in Korean-language classes, usually held on weekends, and sometimes on weeknights. And then they discover that the language education in those schools is totally geared towards children whose parents are speaking Korean on a daily basis at home, not towards children whose parents are white Americans with no language knowledge whatsoever.

What’s more, even apart from the language barrier, the simple, devastating fact is that many Korean-Americans simply will not accept adopted Korean children as members of their immigrant communities, even though we Korean adoptees make up perhaps nearly one-tenth of all Korean-Americans. We are simply seen as too different, too alien, and not worth accommodating. There is, to put it plainly, no “exception clause” for Koreans who are not embedded in Korean or Korean-American culture from birth—no accommodation for that differentness. There is also the simple fact that not everyone feels 233

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predisposed to try to connect to Korean-American culture through church membership. The parents may not be Christian, or even if they are, may not be particularly religious, or may not be socially conservative, as the vast majority of Korean-American church congregations are.

To be fair, I have met literally a handful of adoptive parents of Korean children who have, through tremendous effort and determination, broken through to some extent, and whose adopted children have been accepted into Korean church congregations, who have learned some Korean language, and who have been able to forge genuine friendships with other Korean-American children and teens. But that number is literally a handful.

Meanwhile, I also know a small number of adult Korean adoptees who either have traveled “back” to South Korea numerous times, or have lived there for some period of time, who have somehow made “the leap,” and who have achieved some level of connection with the culture and society, in practical terms. I am absolutely thrilled for them to have achieved some sort of accommodation between their own authentic selves and their/my/our birth society. The percentage of adult Korean adoptees who have created a space for themselves in interacting successfully with South Korean society is extremely small relative to the huge number of Korean adoptees worldwide (somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000). The very fact of the smallness of the number who have broken through the barriers, relative to the very large size of the Korean adoptee diaspora, speaks to the enormous challenges involved.

From what I understand, members of other immigrant cultures are more welcoming. I’ve heard positive reports about Ethiopian adoptees 234

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being welcomed by Ethiopian-Americans, for example. And those Latinx adoptees able to establish regular contact with Latinx immigrant communities have in many cases been able to grow up with a sense of Latinx identity, in real time. Of course, it goes without saying that Spanish, being an Indo-European language closely related to English, and the most studied non-English language in the United States, is a language bridge far easier to walk over than those of Korean, Amharic, Hindi, Tagalog, or Chinese.

In any case, one of the great opportunities now for adopted children lies in the World Wide Web, with the ability to “tune into” programming of all kinds, now possible from inside one’s home. In that sense, technology has been an absolute godsend for transracially adopted children.

I also want to say just a few words about birth culture for domestic adoptees, while being careful in how I frame this, as an international adoptee myself. I have privately advised many white adoptive parents of domestic adoptees—primarily Black, Black/biracial, and Latinx— around integration into birth culture; and I’ve helped some of those adoptive parents sort through situations in which their children, having turned into young adults, became devasted as they’ve tried to navigate their birth cultures. One situation has particularly stayed with me.

I’m going to keep this extremely vague, to protect the privacy of those involved. But it is rather a typical example, honestly. I’ve interacted a great deal with one white adoptive mother whose Black daughter spent several years struggling tremendously to socially integrate into young, urban, hip Black culture, having grown up in a smallish, nearly-all-white community. Without sharing any details, that daughter experienced 235

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tremendous embarrassment, shame, and awkwardness as she plunged headlong into her birth culture, and was at first tremendously othered

by Black peers her age. I first met the mother when the daughter was already a young adult, so obviously, there was nothing I could do to advise her about what was already in the past at the time she approached me. Suffice it to say that the young woman’s parents are deeply regretful that their daughter was not exposed to Black culture as a child, and struggled a great deal for several years—and also, of course, that they themselves had not learned any rudiments connected to Black culture, so that they were relatively helpless in advising their daughter, as she moved forward on her journey. The good news is that, after several years of struggle, their daughter has made up for lost time. But it didn’t have to be that way.

The first birth country visit: a personal earthquake?

Now, I’d like to address the broad topic of birth country visits, for transracial adoptees who are international adoptees. For purposes of reference, I’ve visited South Korea three times since leaving at the age of eight months: in 2002, 2006, and 2008. In 2002, I went on my own, and visited adoptee friends living in Seoul. In 2006 and 2008, I was there as a member of a group of adoptees, families, and KoreanAmericans, visiting the country with the KAAN organization (KoreanAmerican Adoptee and Adoptive Family Network); in 2006, KAAN held its annual conference in Seoul, and then about 110 individuals went on a weeklong “motherland tour” of South Korea, while in 2008, KAAN held its annual conference in Chicago, and about 28 or so individuals flew together or in groups to Seoul and began a motherland tour right after the conference.

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I am extremely glad that I’ve been back to South Korea three times; indeed, I consider my three visits back to have been one very important element in my personal evolution and my lifelong journey as an adoptee. That said, while I’ve enjoyed all three visits “back,” I’ve also experienced many alienating experiences. Because of my facial hair (which even in 2021 remains exceptional among South Korean men), and lack of Korean language skills (I had memorized a small number of set phrases in Korean and could read the Korean alphabet, Hangul, but that was and remains the extent of my language ability), each time I’ve been “back,” I’ve been asked constantly—as in, numerous times a day—in Korean, whether I was Japanese.

Fortunately, fellow adult Korean adoptees (KADs) warned me that this would happen, so one of the first things I did was to memorize how to explain that I was an adult adoptee and not Japanese (“Ie, choneun ibyang-in imnida”). That phrase sure came in handy. When I say that I was asked the same question, in exactly the same way, one or two dozen times a day, it’s true. The amount of othering involved was rather spectacular, honestly. And also, there’s a slightly complicated story about the word for “adoptee” in Korean, which was originally “ibyang-a”—literally, “orphan child,” but which has gradually morphed to “ibyang-in,” “orphan adult,” under pressure from the hundreds of adult Korean adoptees from the U.S., Canada, and Europe living in South Korea at any one time, and who got really tired of constantly describing themselves as “orphan children” to every new stranger they met.

That said, even describing oneself as an “orphan adult” inevitably elicits a rather awful pity/shame response from South Koreans, who 237

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consistently express sorry for the adoptee and shame that Korea could not take care of “its” children. It really gets to be rather too much, sometimes.

I was fortunate to have been prepared for my visits “back” to my birth country, but I have personally witnessed the experiences of adoptees who have melted down during our motherland tours. Without disclosing any details, during our 2008 motherland tour, one adoptee became so distressed that it took all my powers of persuasion—plus pineapple-on-sticks treats brought to her hotel room from an outdoor food stall—to get her to agree to be willing to pack up the following morning and get on the train with the rest of us, during our countrywide tour.

That adoptee had become devastated by the constant othering on the part of the Koreans in South Korea. I was deeply empathetic. The reality is that so many transracial, international adoptees, having grown up being othered and marginalized, growing up in the U.S. and Europe, somehow come to the conclusion that, the moment that they arrive in their birth countries for their first visit, they will be welcomed with open arms, and above all, that they will for the first time in their lives, “fit in.” That simply does not happen, and many adoptees are utterly shattered by that experience. In my case, I was fortunate not only over having been warned by fellow KADs, but also, growing up, I imagined, as I like to put it, that I would be pelted with rotten tomatoes in the streets, if I ever visited South Korea.

I can happily report that no one pelted me with rotten tomatoes in the streets. At the same time, I instinctively knew that I would not be accepted, and that largely was true. I and my fellow adoptees did 238

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experience great kindnesses on the part of numerous individual South Koreans; but overall, speaking for myself at least, I certainly have never felt accepted by Koreans in South Korea, or by Korean-Americans. It is what it is. I do want to provide a special shout-out to the wonderful people who run KoRoot, a special center for adult Korean adoptees in Seoul—a place filled with warmth and welcome for us adoptees, as well as Inkas, the volunteer group that helps Korean adoptees traveling to South Korea or living there. Both groups have been wonderful to me personally, and to our KAAN group during our 2006 and 2008 motherland tours. I cannot thank them more for all the amazing work that they do. May they be blessed.

But back to the broader issue: one absolutely essential thing for adoptive parents to understand—and I’m going to focus here on international adoption—is that birth country cultures overall are not going to welcome adoptees from those countries with open arms—with, of course, individual exceptions. That is simply now how all of this works.

What’s more, adult international adoptees, once they do visit their birth countries, or even interact with immigrants from their birth countries, quickly come face to face with another tough reality: all the negative aspects of their birth cultures. Let’s be clear here: every single culture on the face of the earth has positive and negative aspects. That’s just how it is. There are many things I love about American culture, for example, but there are also elements of our culture that I find deplorable. And every single culture contains those pluses and minuses—and of course, they’re all different pluses and minuses.

And that’s why I strongly encourage internationally adoptive parents (and of course, this applies to domestic transracially adoptive parents 239

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as well) to evolve forward intensively around their children’s birth cultures, and to avoid falling into what I call the Postcard Culture Trap.

Indian culture is so much broader and more complex than learning to wrap saris and eating samosas; Chinese culture is far more complicated than eating filled dumplings and hanging decorative posters of the Great Wall; Korean culture involves far more than rolling kimbap and fan-dancing.

Yet there is huge danger for adoptive parents in grasping only the most superficial aspects of their child’s birth culture, and repeating those superficial elements forward to their child. So yes, it is challenging, but here’s what’s required: every adoptive parent needs to begin at the earliest possible moment to learn their child’s birth culture, from the most superficial, to the most complex, challenging aspect of that culture, over time (of course; this takes a lot of time, there’s no question whatsoever about it).

And where the rubber really meets the road is right here: as the transracial adoptee begins to grow from a young child into a teenager and then a young adult, the child is going to ask for, nay, demand, explanations about their birth culture, from their parent. And postcardlevel explanations are simply not going to cut it, not beyond the age of five or seven. So parents need to learn, learn, learn, learn, and learn some more.

I’m seeing this playing out now in real time among the parents of Chinese adoptees, around the terrifically challenging topic of the One Child Policy that impacted literally hundreds of millions of families in China for three decades, beginning in 1979. There is an immense amount of complexity in that policy and in how it was implemented, 240

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and how families responded to it, and that complexity lies far, far beyond the scope of this book. But here’s where it’s relevant: the oldest Chinese adoptees to the United States and Europe are now in their mid-20s, and they are asking questions. They want to know how they personally were impacted by the policy, and they want to understand, to put it bluntly, how they should feel about their birth country because of it. And I’m seeing countless adoptive parents of adopted Chinese children, more than 90 percent of whom are female, struggling to explain it, because those parents only got as far as the first page of the first chapter of the first book in their self-education on China and Chinese culture, and they can (maybe) talk about fandancing and qipao and buckwheat noodles. Who ever knew that their daughters would ask them what they thought of the One Child Policy and whether their relinquishments were a form of human rights abuse?

And I’ve seen female adoptees born in India become deeply distressed upon visiting India for the first time as adults and having to face the reality of a level of misogyny in that society that is difficult for people in the West (myself included) to full comprehend.

And I have countless other examples.

But even on the less-controversial side of things, having spoken now to a couple of thousand adult transracial and/or international adoptees over the past two decades, a theme has clearly emerged, and that is this: few were prepared by their parents, or anyone else, to encounter their birth cultures full-on for the first time, either through birth country/ birth culture visits/encounters, or through encounters with members of their birth cultures in their own communities. I fully recognize that most transracially adoptive parents thought that “all” that they were 241

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doing years ago was creating a family by bringing an infant or child from a different race and/or culture into their home, but ultimately, what parents all end up with is not children, but adults.

And so the bottom line is this: it is the intellectual, moral, and cultural obligation of every transracially adoptive parent to learn— really learn—about the birth culture of their child, to the broadest and deepest extent possible, over time, so that they can truly support their child at the age not only of five, but 15, 20, 25, and beyond, as that child interact with birth culture and members of their birth culture, and visits their birth country and/or encounters their birth culture, in its full authenticity and dizzying complexity. And yes, that is a challenge. It is far more challenging than learning to roll kimbap or wrap a sari or hang a poster of a panda or the Great Wall. But it also is one key element in the glossary of transracially adoptive parent that cannot be ignored or dismissed.

Over the years, I have thought fairly often about that encounter with the Korean adoptee who melted down in her hotel in South Korea in 2008; I have also reflected on the PBS documentary “Daughter From Danang,” featuring a Vietnamese adoptee who completely melted down, on camera, no less, during a visit with birth family in Vietnam.

That 2002 documentary sent shockwaves through the international adoption community, and was probably the most talked-about documentary for years, among adult international adoptees. Since the story of Heidi Bub, as narrated in that documentary, is totally public, I have no qualms about commenting on it. I do not particularly judge Heidi Bub, though I literally gasped at various moments, watching her stumble terribly in her first visit back to Vietnam—which was also 242

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her first visit with birth family (and one couldn’t possibly think of a more highly charged encounter). But my overriding reaction was, why didn’t anyone—not even the Vietnamese-American social worker who accompanied her on the trip over to Vietnam—do anything to prepare that young woman for what to expect?

I sincerely hope and believe that no adoptive parent wants their child to have the young-adult experience that Heidi Bub of Danang, Vietnam and Pulaski, Tennessee, had. But how do adoptive parents prevent that kind of experience from happening? They’ve simply got to get past “postcard culture” and accept the supremely important responsibility of learning their children’s birth culture, so that they can help their children not only to survive, but to thrive.

Meanwhile, to my fellow transracial and/or international adoptees, I feel you. I absolutely feel you. And I am one of you. Learn how to be patient with yourselves, as you navigate this lifelong, mountainous trail. But prepare yourselves well, as you prepare to navigate and do navigate your birth culture; it’s a bear. And ultimately, wherever you come out in terms of your sentiments around your birth culture, is totally OK. It’s incredibly complex. For myself, I’ve come to a place of real piece about the reality that Koreans in South Korea and KoreanAmericans—at least, first-generation Korean-Americans, anyway, will never accept me for who I am. And that has to be OK.

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The Dialectic of Authenticity I want to introduce a concept here that I’ve not read anywhere else as having been framed in this way. The concept is one I’m introducing myself, and which I call the Dialectic Authenticity. It is both simple and complex at the same time.

Here is the gist of this: we transracial adoptees are confronted throughout our lives with challenges to our identities, from everyone.

Those of us who grew up in whiteness with Black and brown faces, have been challenged countless times to explain ourselves, our backgrounds, and our identities. I am a Korean-born person with a Norwegian last name, raised by a Norwegian-American father and a GermanAmerican mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1960s and 1970s.

Throughout my life, I’ve faced the narrative burden [see Chapter 6: The Narrative Burden], which is the demand placed on us transracial adoptees, and some others, to constantly explain ourselves. “But where are you from? Where are you REEEEEALLY FROM???” Every adult transracial adoptee will know what I mean with my reference to that question.

White people want to reduce my identity to my race and ethnicity—a process of reductive essentialism that is oversimplifying and dehumanizing. Reductive essentialism robs me of my personal agency and my right to define myself. And it happens all the time.

But even more impactfully in certain ways, people who share my birthsociety origin, will often challenge me even more intensely, challenge my belonging in my birth-society group. Speaking of my own lived experience, I can share that Koreans in South Korea and Korean244

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Americans can be particularly harsh in that regard. I grew up in the United States with white parents, internalizing white American culture and not learning the Korean language or participating in the Korean culture. And therefore, for most Koreans in South Korea and KoreanAmericans, I’m “not really” Korean, or somehow not fully, legitimately Korean. My experiences visiting South Korea in 2002, 2006, and 2008 reinforced that experience a thousand times over, as I was constantly questioned by people there about my identity; and a Korean-born person who does not speak flawless, absolutely perfect, native-level Korean, is immediately set aside as a foreigner and inauthentic.

Not all societies are quite so clannish, narrow-minded, and exclusionary as South Korean culture is; but virtually all transracial adoptees experience the dialectic of authenticity as they attempt to navigate birth culture, whether they are domestic or international adoptees.

There really is no “solution” to this problem, because no level of cultural fluency will prevent the dialectic from being engaged in. But to the extent that adoptive parents can prepare their children with cultural knowledge and understanding, through interactions with members of their children’s birth culture, as well as through learning about this phenomenon and preparing their children proactively to experience it, at least some of the hard edges can be softened or rounded a bit.

Put another way, it was inevitable for me as a Korean adoptee to experience this lifelong dialectic of authenticity, this challenging of my identity by Koreans and Korean-Americans. There really is no way around it; even if I were to choose to move to South Korea full-time for a number of years and were determined to reach an impeccable level of language skill in the Korean language, I would still be marked 245

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as an absolute outsider by dint of my growing up outside of South Korean culture and society, and therefore not having the same mindset as people inside that country. I would still be suspect and relegated to semi-alien status.

Yet there is an interesting wrinkle here: I remember having a conversation with a restaurant owner in Seoul during my first visit “back,” in 2002.

I asked him what he thought of this “insider-outsider” issue, and he told me that I was a Korean by virtue of my birth and ethnicity. So I am an inside-outsider, or an outside-insider, or some such thing. Yet despite his kindness and inclusiveness in that conversation, I know that I will never be accepted by Koreans or Korean-Americans, and simply have to accept that non-acceptance. I will always be an extreme semioutsider to them—and will always have to endure that questioning that represents the dialectic of authenticity, in interacting with them.

I have personally witnessed numerous adult international adoptees experience distress and trauma upon their first visits back to the birth countries in which they were born. Some individuals imagine that they will be welcomed with open arms, and members of their communities; essentially, they won’t be. The best they can hope for is some level of confusion and bafflement. And that has to be OK. My own conclusion, after having experienced this close questioning countless times, is to conceptually shrug my shoulders and accept it as reality, and to move on with my life. But I want other transracial adoptees to be able to anticipate these kinds of experiences and to find ways to mitigate the psychological damage from them. So many transracial adoptees experience profound marginalization and rejection over not fitting into their adopted social and cultural environments, and then 246

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experience the “second wave” of rejection, as they interact with their birth cultures—whether they are domestic or international adoptees.

I so hope that adoptive parents can learn about this and prepare their children, and that adoptees can find ways to support themselves and to find support from fellow transracial adoptees, over these kinds of experiences. They may also find some support from members of their birth communities, but one simply cannot assume that such support will emerge. And learning how to navigate the dialectic of authenticity will be a lifelong challenge for us, and one we will simply need to find ways to accept and accommodate in our lives.

The “Ibyang-In” Problem I’ve often spoken about what I call the “postcard culture” problem— the phenomenon in which transracially adoptive parents believe that exposing their children to little bits of simplistic culture satisfies their needs around exposure to birth culture. No amount of exposure is unworthy, but the reality is that learning to roll kimbap does not mean that one has “learned” Korean culture, nor does learning how to wrap a sari mean one has “learned” South Asian culture—there are countless such examples. And yet so often, adoptive parents content themselves with connecting to tiny bits of culture, thinking that that’s “enough” to prepare their children’s needs; it’s not.

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And yes, it might seem like an insurmountable mountain to tell adoptive parents that they have to study their child’s birth culture and become at least fluent enough in it to be able to guide their child through its nuances and complexities. I can hear some parents right now, wailing, “All I wanted was a baby! This is all too much!” I really can.

But I’ve seen countless adoptees struggle with birth culture—whether they are international or domestic adoptees. In interacting with members of their birth cultures, they find themselves confused, embarrassed, ashamed, unprepared. And most of all, so often, their parents have painted a picture of their birth culture is so simplistic as to be childlike. One easily walks away from many culture camps with such a view. To be clear, culture camps absolutely have their place, and can be valuable as part of a broader tapestry of experiences. But they are not substitutes for deeper, broader study and learning.

Now, I want to share one example of what it can be like to interact with birth culture. I’ll call this the “ibyang-in problem.” As I mentioned in the chapter on birth culture, historically, the Korean language didn’t really have a full-fledged word for “adoptee”; instead, speakers of Korean referred to adoptees as “ibyang-a,” with “ibyang-a” meaning “orphan child.” Which means that every adoptee, when asked their identity, had to say, “I am an orphan child.” That was so infantilizing and offensive that the Korean adoptees raised in the U.S., Canada, and Europe who were living in South Korea essentially revolted and demanded a linguistic change, demanding that Korean speakers instead say “ibyang-in,” which means “orphan adult.”

At first, South Koreans were rather baffled by the term; but over time, it caught on, and is now widely understood, at least at the lexical level 248

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(if not always at a deeper level of understanding). Even so, what I’ve experienced almost continuously every day that I’ve been back to South Korea to visit as an adult (in 2002, 2006, and 2008) is an encounter involving extreme othering. I am constantly asked, over there, whether I’m Japanese (having facial hair and not really speaking Korean, most South Koreans will assume that I’m Japanese). When asked in Korean whether I’m Japanese, and I explain that I am “ibyang-in,” I inevitably get the exact same response. A look of shock appears on the Korean person’s face; they gasp, and then make a horrible, downward-sliding “Ahhhhhhhh!” sound filled with pity and sorrow. And then they express deep sorry and shame that the Korean people failed to take care of me and the other babies who floated away like leaves, or some similar sentiment.

It’s incredibly off-putting, I can tell you—especially when it happens many times a day. I don’t think most people can really understand how off-putting it is to grow up being treated like an alien in one’s adopted country, and then to go back to one’s birth country to visit, as an adult, and to experience multiple times a day the same tiny drama involving the extreme expression of pity and shame from a stranger, simply for explaining, as demanded, one’s identity. But I can tell you that experiencing it multiple times a day, every day that I’ve been over there on trips, is intensely alienating. Do I really need to visit my birth country, only to be constantly pitied, exclaimed over, and othered???

This is the kind of experience that few adoptive parents are even aware is in store for their adopted children. Korean culture is at one end of a spectrum, but the reality is that some version of the constant narrative burden (see Chapter 6: Narrative Burden) is inevitable for adoptees visiting birth culture.

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Few adoptive parents have this level of knowledge, that they have learned about such phenomena, and can prepare their adopted children in advance; and that’s a problem. But at least now, as more and more adoptees share their stories in all kind of media, such realities are becoming better known.

I will repeat what I’ve said many, many times now in forums around transracial adoption: I am deeply grateful for having visited South Korea three times as an adult. I had some great experiences while over there, and the three birth country visits (so far) have been instrumental to my progress along my lifelong journey as a transracial adoptee.

But I want adoptive parents to get beyond the “rainbows and unicorns” level of naivete (see Chapter 4 for a discussion of the “rainbows and unicorns” phenomenon) around this subject, and understand that adult adoptees’ experiences with birth culture inevitably bring some level of culture shock and often, deep disappointment, or at least momentary destabilization: we are generally not fully accepted by our birth cultures, and having an experience of sequential social rejection—in our adoptive countries/cultures and then later, in our birth countries/ cultures, can be traumatizing for many adoptees.

And it’s these very experiences that no one prepares one far, that are often at the core of the adoptee’s experience of birth culture or birth country. Of course, many adoptees have excellent experiences of birth culture/birth country; as with everything, there is a full spectrum of experiences. But even those adoptees who have overwhelmingly positive experiences, still experience some culture shock, and find that they hadn’t prepared for everything.

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I just want to make sure that my fellow adult adoptees are prepared for their first encounters with birth culture; and that their parents do everything possible to prepare them, in nuanced, sophisticated ways.

The pendulum has swung bizarrely from one extreme to the other.

When I was a child, birth culture was largely trashed or dismissed, not only by many adoptive parents, but definitely by the adoption agencies and adoption professionals. Indeed, when I was a child, the idea that any of us Korean children would ever even consider visiting our birth country, was considered totally unthinkable. Swinging wildly to the other end, there is almost an assumption now that international adoptees will want to visit their birth countries. At both ends of the spectrum, there is a lack of understanding of the complexity of the adoptee’s path.

And in any case, that first encounter can be jarring, destabilizing, even shocking. Above all, the adult adoptee has to be prepared to be “othered” at every turn. It won’t always happen, but it can. And I’ve seen adoptees be utterly shattered.

Every adoptee’s first experience of birth country or birth culture is different. But I hope that adoptees will find ways of preparing themselves emotionally and intellectually, and supporting themselves and reaching out for support from fellow adoptees and others. And I want every adoptive parent to think reflectively and practically about how they can prepare their child, so that the shock is minimized and the adoptee is truly prepared—well, at least as much as one can be—to have—and survive—that experience, and additional ones to come.

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Adoptee Voice:

René Priyadarshan Beck Bjerregaard

R

ené Priyadarshan Beck Bjerregaard was born in 1984 in Sri Lanka and adopted to Denmark at the age of four months. He currently lives in Odense, Denmark, and works as a residence for children and young people who have experienced neglect.

Adoptee Voice: René Priyadarshan Beck Bjerregaard

Can you tell me a bit about your adoption story?

Yes, I was born in 1984 in Sri Lanka. I was adopted to Denmark at the age of four months. I was relinquished and adopted because my biological mother had given birth to me without being married, which is a huge taboo in Sri Lankan society. Have a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies, and work at a residence for children and young people who have experienced neglect.

What was your experience like as a child and teenager, growing up as a transracial, international adoptee in Denmark? And how did you come into your identity as an adult?

My experience of growing up as a transracial adoptee in a white adoptive family and in white communities is that I clearly lacked racial mirror images. I had a clear perception that what I was (the look I had) was wrong. Not because people directly went and told me that what I was, was wrong, but because I often experienced that what I was (dark, southern, foreign, minority) was directly and indirectly perceived and described as something wrong - either objectively show or as a critique of minorities in society. The people I resemble were then, and still are, described in a negative way.

On your question regarding. my development of my racial identity, I will refer to the article, “Dear Adoption, You Gave Me Racial Identity Issues,” published in November 2017 (https://dearadoption. com/2017/11/28/dear-adoption-you-gave-me-racial-identity-issues/).

Several of the questions you have are described there.

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Most of the readers of this book will be in the United States, but many will be in Europe and elsewhere. What should people understand about the experience of transracial, international adoptees in Denmark, in Northern Europe, in Europe in general? How have your experiences with race, racism and racial identity been, and when you connect with other South Asian adoptees, do you find that you have all had similar or different experiences?

People need to understand that as a transracial adoptee and racial minority, it is not enough to have caring and loving adoptive parents to take care of one. People need to understand the importance of and the need for racial mirror images and role models.

People need to understand that just because you were adopted and raised in a white-majority family does not mean that your past, your origins, your appearance and the associated minority identity have disappeared. Part of you as a transracial adoptee has to do with coming from another country and being a minority.

People need to understand that just because you were adopted and raised in a white majority family and a white majority society does not mean that you will not be exposed to racism. People need to understand that as a transracial adoptee, just as much as non-adopted minorities, one can feel and experience racism. People need to understand that racist insults, racist jokes, racist prejudice, and racist discrimination also affect the transracial adoptees.

Per your question about my meeting other South Asian adoptees, very few of those whom I’ve met have had exactly the same perceptions and experiences as I have. However, there are some who have experienced 255

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a number of things, but there are also many who say that they have never felt or experienced any of what I describe. The problem here, however, is that there are many transracial adoptees in general who are “whitewashed,” and who as a result, get used to racism and so cannot see racism at all when it is there. There are also many who do not want to offend their white surroundings (white family, white friends, white colleagues, white partner, etc.) by telling about the racism they have experienced.

I’d like to give you the opportunity here to share your insights and perspectives in any area related to transracial adoption, especially related to what you would like to share with other transracial adoptees, and also with adoptive parents.

Many of the things I would like to share with both other transracial adopted and transracial adoptive parents are described above. I especially want to share my narrative as it is described in the “Dear Adoption” article.

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CHAPTER

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Layers of Lived Complexity: Birth Search, Birth Parents, Birth Family • While many transracial adoptees choose never to search for birth family members, those who do search inevitably encounter layers of complexity • Adult transracial adoptees in birth-family reunion are navigating very complex personal landscapes • There are nuances for adoptive parents to contemplate around birth search on behalf of their adopted children, with differences between birth-family search and racial-identity search

Layers of Lived Complexity: Birth Search, Birth Parents, Birth Family

I

can think of no subject more complex and less understood in the transracial adoption realm than that of the entire area of birth search, birth parents, and birth family. There is literally not a single statement that could be made in this area that would not arouse contention or controversy, or at the very least confusion.

So let’s start here by providing a historical context around all of this. When I was a young child in the 1960s, in the bad old days, adopted children and adult adoptees were strongly discouraged from even thinking about birth search, and birth parents were routinely dismissed and trashed by adoptive parents and especially by adoption professionals. Virtually no one even attempted to refer to them with any level of respect or understanding, and for those of us, both international and domestic adoptees, adopted through closed private adoptions, were discouraged from even thinking about the possibility of birth search. That was the world in which I grew up.

Fast-forward sixty years, and the pendulum has in certain respects swung to the opposite end, for a number of reasons. The first has been the massive adoptee rights movement, spearheaded primarily at first by white same-race adoptees in the United States, who have spent decades demanding that records unsealed and that adults be given access to their full birth and adoption records. Because of the federal legal system in the U.S., things have necessarily been complicated, with progress moving forward in some states while blocked in others. Meanwhile, international progress has been even slower and more fragmentary. But the dramatic shift towards open adoptions in U.S. domestic adoption, along with the broad expansion of the foster-to-adopt system, has changed the landscape of adoption in the U.S. The situation is cloudier 259

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and more complicated in other nations, but overall, even abroad, there are more open adoptions than there were a few decades ago. So the very fact of open adoption and increasingly open records has shifted the landscape in this area, as the vast majority of both same-race and transracial adoptees want openness whenever possible.

All that said, among those of us, especially international adoptees, who were adopted through closed systems, a perception has taken hold in some circles that all international adoptees want to do birth search and want to be reunited with birth parents and birth family. First of all, many fail to understand that those are two different things; some adoptees want information but have no particular desire to connect with their birth parents or other birth family members; in many cases, as international adoptees move into adulthood, they naturally want medical information, regardless as to whether they want birth family contact.

And the reality, based on interactions with thousands of adoptees over the past twenty years, is that my observation is, very unscientifically, that perhaps about half of adult transracial, international adoptees want to do birth search with the goal of birth parent/birth family members.

Because readers will want to understand my own personal situation, I will disclose here that I have no desire to do birth search. And yet it strikes me now, in the third decade of the 21st century, that the old assumptions of 60 years ago have been totally reversed. When I was a child, strangers assumed that I should have no interest whatsoever in birth search; now, the assumption is almost universal that I would or do want to do birth search and connect with birth parents and birth family. Neither assumption is fair to me or to any other adult adoptee.

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Let me put this very simply: every adult adoptee is an individual. Each of us has the right to want what we want in our lives—and no desire is more legitimate than any other. I absolutely, absolutely, robustly and enthusiastically support the desire of any adoptee to do birth search and to connect with birth parents and birth family. My support of other adoptees is completely disconnected from my own personal choice in my own personal landscape. And yet, somehow, many people— adoptive parents, adoption professionals, and the broader public— remain very confused about this, partly, I have to say, because most people assume that all adult transracial adoptees are alike and want the same things. We aren’t and we don’t. And, I should add, we respect each others’ choices. I have yet to come across any situation in which any adult transracial adoptee has attacked another for their choice or their desire or their mindset in this area. What’s continually disappointing to me is the failure of so many adoptive parents, adoption professionals, and members of the general public, to sit in complexity around this, as around so many subjects (please read Chapter X, “Sitting in Complexity”).

For one thing, we adult transracial adoptees are talking to each other all the time. I know personally of hundreds of situations involving birth family reunion; and there is not a single situation I’ve heard of—not a single one—that doesn’t involve deep and broad complexity. That’s another thing I find continuously disappointing: the failure of so many adoptive parents, adoption professionals, and members of the general public to understand that birth family reunion is inevitably extremely complex. I have many adult adoptee friends, both transracial and samerace, who are in reunion. Every single one of them has experienced every kind of complexity—joy, pain, frustration, the entire spectrum of 261

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emotions. Also, many of my adult adoptee friends have been in reunion for very long periods of time now; I have several friends who have been reunion for 20 and even 30 years. They’ve already had decades of experience with birth family reunion; and, not surprisingly, those who are 20 and even 30 years in, have far more complex narratives to share in that area than those who achieved reunion one or two years ago. Again, I can’t say it more strongly or clearly: there is immense complexity here—let’s all please sit with that complexity.

Per that, I’m going to share two composite case studies here. I want to make it absolutely clear that these are composites, based on the narratives of numerous situations that I’m very familiar with. I am absolutely committed to the privacy of those involved. Indeed, I’m going to refer to the two adoptees here—again, they’re composites of several each—as X and Y, just so that no one can possibly think I’m talking about someone they know.

First, there’s X. X is a 13-year-old transracial Latino adoptee who was adopted through open adoption. He has known his birth mother and birth father his entire life. Both birth parents have made deeply unfortunate choices in their lives, and both have been incarcerated at various times. X has extremely ambivalent feelings about both his birth mother and his birth father, based on his observation of their behaviors and characters (and, to be clear, not because of their past incarceration or other issues, but based on interacting with them). What’s become extremely problematic in the past two years is that X’s birth father has revealed himself more and more to have a strongly violent mentality— with corresponding behaviors. X is trying to navigate an ongoing relationship with his birth father, but honestly, is frightened by him, 262

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and is trying to figure out what he wants from the relationship longterm. The challenge is that his birth father, right now, is his core connection to his birth race. X has also met his birth father’s family, including extended family. There are some real issues there as well.

Second, there’s Y. Y is a 40-something female transracial adoptee who has been in reunion with her birth mother, whom she searched for and found more than 15 years ago now. She was thrilled to reconnect with her at the time, but has repeatedly found herself disappointed in her birth mother, for a variety of reasons. She has reluctantly concluded that her birth mother has some form of narcissism; she came to that conclusion very, very reluctantly; yet her birth mother’s behaviors towards her have been the source of a great deal of pain and disappointment for her. She is very glad that she reconnected to her birth mother, but, 25 years on, she sees the entire situation through a lens of far greater complexity than at the start of that adult journey with her birth mother.

Again, just to re-emphasize, these are composite case studies; and obviously, no one is named “X” or “Y.” But I wanted to share these case studies in order to help readers understand the complexity. I don’t know a single adult adoptee who regrets having pursued birth search; but I do know many who sit in profound complexity around their birth parents.

On a broader level, we also need to separate the adoptee rights movement—which I wholeheartedly support, on every level—from our perceptions of individual situations. On a certain level, I suppose it’s inevitable that there would be confusion over this, but honestly, people from across the constellation of transracial adoption and 263

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beyond, need to de-personalize this area. Far too many see this area through an intensely personalized lens, and fail to see the forest for the trees. To reiterate, not only do I support all adult adoptees who wish to do birth search; I absolutely and wholeheartedly support the adoptee rights movement, along all dimensions. My decision to not choose to do birth search does not preclude me from supporting the rights and desires of other adoptees. Somehow, many people seem to be unable to separate personal situations from the broader picture.

Birth search and its complexities for adopted children Now, let me discuss one element of all of this that is also shrouded in confusion: that is whether or not adoptive parents should engage in birth search on behalf of their young children. As I said above, 60 years ago, there is no idea among most people connected to adoption that adoptees would ever want to search for their birth parents, so this issue wasn’t discussed at all. Fast-forwarding to today, many adoptive parents are now beginning to do full birth search on behalf of their adopted children, or at least the search for information. And the issue arises as to whether that is ethical or not. And it’s complex.

Fundamentally, I have always believed, and still believe strongly, that adoptees at all ages must be given agency over this set of issues. Had my parents told me, when I was seven years old, for example, that they were doing birth search on my behalf, I would have gone along with their choice in order to please them. But I wouldn’t have had the agency or maturity to make any decisions myself, at that age. It would have been coercive on their part. And, as I referenced above, I’ve made the permanent decision to not search; and therefore, any decision on my parents’ part to pursue birth search—or even the search 264

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for information—on my behalf, would have robbed me of my agency.

And that is important.

Of course, the immediate reaction of many adoptive parents is to say, “Well, if we wait to do any searching, the trail will go cold.” There is some legitimacy in that argument, but I would ask adoptive parents to think very carefully about that subject, and to think about how they can most fully empower their adopted children. And in that regard, I very strongly urge adoptive parents to think very, very carefully about their discussions with their adopted children. Many adoptees very passionately want to do search, and their desires should be acknowledged and satisfied. Other adoptees have no interest in search; their wishes should also be respected.

One option that speaks to the situations of certain individual adoptees, is this: there are adoptive parents who have no clear idea of the full racial makeup of their children. Typically, what has happened, is this: the birth mother had intimate relationships with two or more men at the same time, and at the time that she gave birth to the baby, she could not say for certain whose child the baby was. In fact, there are instances in which the birth mother was not even certain of the racial makeup of the men with whom she was involved. In such cases—in which the adoptive parents cannot say for certain what races their child is, I do support doing DNA testing, for determining ancestry alone. It is a truly difficult experience for a child not to be able to know and affirm her or his racial identity; not only does it lead to potentially a very high level of emotional stress and distress; it also prevents the child from being able to bond through self-identification, with her or his multiple racial identities. So in that case, I absolutely support DNA testing, for the purpose of definitive racial identification.

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While being very careful to protect privacy, I know of individual situations in which an adoptee’s being DNA-tested has really made a difference, and in which the resolution of the questions involved led to those adoptees finally learning their true, full identities.

A long journey in itself The last thing I’d like to touch on here, is this: the intense complexity of the birth-search and birth family-reunion journey in itself. As I said above, I absolutely support the desire of any transracial adoptee to find and to connect with birth family members. But I also know, after having had literally several hundred conversations with fellow adult transracial adoptees about this specific subject, that the complexity really is endless here. Some adoptees are devastated to not be able to find their birth parents and other family members; others sit in complexity following their reunion with those birth family members.

Indeed, every single adult adoptee whom I know who is in birth family reunion, and with whom I’ve discussed their situation, has shared with me their feelings of complexity. Most (not all, but most) are glad that they found birth parents and/or other birth family members; but inevitably, they’ve also been plunged into the true narratives of their lives, narratives inevitably involving trauma, loss, and difficulties. Also, it should go without saying, but once adoptees connect with birth family members, they’re now connected to people—to individual human beings, with all the pluses and minuses of all individual human beings. I don’t know a single adoptee in birth family reunion and with whom I’ve interacted about this subject, who hasn’t expressed a range of complicated emotions and perspectives. Many adoptees find that 266

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they don’t even like their birth parents. Yet most of the time, they’re very glad to have connected to them, no matter what they think of them. Meanwhile, birth parents have their own perspectives as well, of course. And they, too, are on their own journeys. There are no simple stories here; nor even a lot of truly clear ones. Yet this remains an area of intense interest and emotional significance, for all those involved.

And I would ask all readers to honor the intense complexity of the issues in this important area.

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Adoptee Voice:

Lucía Rabadán Gómez Lucía Rabadán Gómez was born in China in 1998, and adopted to a small town n Spain at the age of 14 months. She lives in Granada, and is currently a university student.

Can you share about your adoption experience?

Yes. My adoption took place during the time of the one-child policy in China, during which so many relinquishments and abandonments of

Adoptee Voice: Lucía Rabadán Gómez

babies and children took place without justification. After discovering more information about that period and about what was going on in china at that time, I believe that my paperwork is false. It states in my documentation that I was left at the door of the orphanage, but I’m certain that that was false.

What was your experience like as a transracial, international adoptee, including as an Asian adoptee, growing up in Spain?

When I speak about my experience as an international adoptee, I need to differentiate between two broad phases, the first one in which I had no awareness of my identity as a transracially adopted person, and the second, during which I came to realize that I was and am a Chinese woman. I grew up in a totally white environment, without any racial mirrors of any kind, raised to be entirely Spanish.

As a result, I was completely unaware of any concepts around racial diversity that I should have known about, growing up. My social environment was completely white. And because I never suffered racism directed at me by family members, relatives, or friends, I grew up happy. But all that changed once I began to understand that racism and the denigration of foreigners or immigrants was everywhere in my environment. The hard realization came that I was loved as someone who shared my parents’ last name, but not for the entirety of who I was; and it was painful to realize that their love for me did not extend to their treatment of other immigrants. Living in a small town conditions a person to accept this kind of thing. I never suffered, except for a few incidents. And when I left my town to move to the big city, and the social conditions had changed somewhat.

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What has your experience of race and racism been like in Spain?

Over time, my experience of racism became clearer. As a young child and a teenager, I didn’t experience a lot of racism, but my awareness of racism has grown over time. There is an element of racism and also classism in day-to-day life here.

As you think of your journey as an adopted adult, how would you describe your sense of identity now, in particular, your identity as an Asian and Spanish woman?

I’m in a better place than I’ve ever been before, in terms of the building of my identity as an Asian Spaniard, though it wasn’t always so. Spanish society makes it very difficult to understand and accept that one can have multiple identities at the same time. If you don’t feel proud of being Spanish, of identifying with Spain, you are seen here as ungrateful or not self-accepting. This struggle around identity is one that has dogged me the most in my life so far, feeling pressured and questioned, and has made me feel manipulated and controlled by others, in my pursuit of identity.

What would you like adoptive parents to understand about your experience and those of other transracial adoptees, particularly in Spain and Europe?

That identity can never be erased, and that if they accept their children as they are, they must also accept all immigrants and foreigners.

Adoptive parents cannot express racism or xenophobia towards other 271

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immigrants, because they will be sending the message to their adopted children that they don’t really accept the fullness of their identities.

Selective racism is like doubled racism, only worse. And adoptive parents need to provide their adopted children with mirrors of their children’s origins.

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Let’s “Name Names”— and Naming, Shall We? • The subject of names and naming is an endlessly complex one: what adoptive parents need to understand about the significance of names and naming in terms of their adopted children • The racist origins of “Caucasian”—and its tremendously problematic usage as a racial euphemism • What happens when there is no consensus among communities of color, around terminology and usage: the cases of the Native American and Latinx descriptors

Let’s “Name Names”—and Naming, Shall We?

O

ne thing that I’ve been aware of my entire life has been the utter artificiality of personal names in the world, and of naming practices. All of my life, I’ve been questioned about my name in relation to my face, and the fact that they do not match (Norwegian family name, general white-western first name, Korean face). And that is one of the many unresolvable paradoxes in the life of the transracial adoptee, because there can never be a resolution to a broad societal confusion about identity, one that involves identity essentialism. Allow me to explain.

Ever since I came to the United States as an eight-month-old, I’ve had the same name, and have been called by it. Indeed, I was essentially given a place-holder name in the orphanage in Seoul, so it has even less meaning to me than it otherwise might have. And yes, because of my Korean face and Norwegian last name, which was my father’s, I will be answering questions about my name until the day I die; and that’s OK. What’s more, I loved my father (many years now deceased), and am happy to bear his name. And as for my first name, honestly, it was a life-saver not to have a Korean first name growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1960s and 1970s; in that time and place, carrying a full Korean name would have been an immense added burden growing up.

Looking a bit more broadly at this, the reality is that everything paradoxical here is wound around the fundamental contradiction— for others, anyway—in my identity. I was born ethnically Korean and racially Asian in my birth country of South Korea, but was adopted at a very early age to the United States, and raised by white parents of Norwegian and German descent. So I really have no connection 275

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whatsoever to the name given to me in the orphanage. What’s more, once I had actively come into the adult Korean adoptee community, I learned about traditional naming practices in Korea and realized that, having been given up close to birth, I never would have been named “normally” there, anyway. Every culture has different naming practices, and in traditional Korean culture, naming is a very big thing, indeed.

The parents, often coached by the grandparents, will name a child a name that interconnects with all the other children in the family (thus, Kim Wong No, Kim Wong Bo, Kim Wong No, Kim Wong Jo—I’ve made those up, but you get the idea); and, the name will often have been passed by a naming consultant for approval, with the naming consultant making sure that the Chinese characters assigned to the name are beneficent for the baby. Anyone not named in that intergenerational, often professionally assisted, manner, will never have the legitimacy in Korean culture that someone named thus, will have.

And in that sense, none of us Korean adoptees can be fully legitimized by our birth culture.

Let me be absolutely clear that I totally, totally support whatever name choices any fellow transracial adoptees make, of any kind. That is their absolute right, and I support it. For myself, being completely detached from Korean culture and society, and having to navigate western, specifically mostly American, society, there’s no way to resolve that “name issue” that does not itself create contradictions and tensions.

Indeed, were I to take a fully Korean name, as some of my fellow adult Korean adoptees have, I would face a “reverse narrative burden” (see Chapter 6 for a discussion of the narrative burden), which can be particularly intense among culturally Korean Koreans. Why do I have a Korean name if I wasn’t raised by Korean parents, don’t speak 276

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flawlessly perfect Korean, don’t live in South Korea, and don’t identify culturally as totally Korean? You get the idea. Honestly, having grown up with an intense narrative burden, at this point in my life, I see no point in taking on a newly intense narrative burden (and once again, I speak only for myself here).

Meanwhile, as I said above, the artificiality of names and naming has always been strongly present for me all of my life. Yes, for strangers and acquaintances, my name will always strike them as “strange” or “abnormal,” but there really is no remedy whatsoever for that. As a transracial, international adoptee, my identity will always involve contradictions. I remember that, more than 20 years ago, when I was a freelance journalist and began writing for a professional publication based in Minneapolis, the editor of that magazine expressed surprise when she met me in person. She later said, “You know, I really had expected you to be tall, blond, and blue-eyed!” She knew my name was Scandinavian, as are so many of the family names in Minnesota. Well, yes. But for me and so many transracial adoptees, there simply is no resolution to that contradiction in identities.

Having shared that part of my own narrative, I want to go back to two issues. First, as I said above, I absolutely support the right of any transracial adoptee to make their own choice about their name— whether they keep the name given to them by their adoptive parents, or modify it in some way, or even simply create a totally new name for themselves. All are legitimate and understandable possibilities.

The second element here is to address some of the name concerns of adoptive and prospective-adoptive parents. There are countless potential situations here, but I have often been asked about naming, 277

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renaming, etc. It is impossible to address all possible situations; and usually, by the time someone asks me, it’s too late to act on, anyway, at least for the moment. In other words, the infant or child has been adopted, and whatever choices were made, that child’s legal name is their name, at least for the time being. Still, many adopted children decide at a certain point that they want to modify their name in some way. Perhaps they’ve learned what name they were given at birth by their birth parents; perhaps they already knew it; perhaps they’ve come to feel constrained by a name (or both first and last names) that they feel doesn’t fit them and who they want to be.

Since it’s impossible to speak to the limitless possible situations, I’ll say this: in general, depending on age and stage of development, adoptive parents need to honor their adopted children’s sentiments, and need to engage in serious discussions around names, if their children express the desire to change or modify their names. Now, a child of three or four is not mature enough to make a decision that could affect them their entire life; but what about a teenager of 17? Somewhere in between those two ages is a point in that adoptee’s development at which they are mature enough to make such a serious choice; and when that is will depend on the age and stage of maturity and processing of that child.

What’s more, I’ll just add here that, when it comes to international adoptions, now in 2021 and beyond, the broad consensus is that a child who is no longer an infant doesn’t need to have their first name changed unless there is some very specific issue with it—such as, for example, that their name has a terrible denotation or connotation in the language community in which they’ll be growing up (I remember reading many years ago about how a diplomatic family from the U.S. who were posted to Indonesia had to stop addressing their young son as 278

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“Bobby” while they lived in Indonesia, because “babi,” pronounced the same way as his nickname, means “pig” in Indonesian; they addressed him as “Robert” while they lived in that country). For the most part, in most cases, given how much more cosmopolitan much of the world is, the landscape around names for internationally adopted children has shifted dramatically, so that the default in most cases should be to retain the child’s name when they come to their adoptive country unless, as I say, there’s some very specific problem.

Of course, if a child simply wants to be called something without a legal name change, that is a different matter altogether. In general, a child’s wish should be honored, unless there is some extremely obvious reason not to—such as that the name they want to be called will invoke gales of laughter and ridicule (and really, few children, even the youngest ones would insist on being called a name that would produce ridicule).

Obviously, parents need to be sensitive and to honor their child’s need for self-expression and self-determination.

There is another element here, of course, and that is that the transracial adoptee’s relationship to their name can shift dramatically over time.

At 15, the adoptee may feel their legal name to be oppressive or constraining for any of a number of reasons. But what about at age 45?

The landscape around one’s name can feel very different at that age.

Of course, this is a situation in which gender is a significant element.

Many female adoptees who get married choose to change their names, and welcome the opportunity to avoid some of the narrative burden by being able to state that their name is their married name; we male adoptees never get that opportunity. But I know numerous male adoptees who have changed their names nonetheless, and of course, I 279

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totally support them.

For me, the fundamental point here is this: my name actually does reflect who I am; it reflects the complexity and contradictions inherent in my personal narrative. In a sense, it tells a story. I will never be the plain white American guy named John Smith. And honestly, as a mature adult, no matter what name I had, I would still have to deal with the narrative burden around my background and identity. Like so many elements in the transracial adoptee’s life narrative, this is one of those “It is what it is” situations. But I repeat: I’ve been highly conscious my entire life of how artificial names actually are. And that’s OK with me; and really, it has to be, anyway. As I’ve expressed to many in conversations over the years, I cannot rewind my life and rerecord; nor do I wish to. And every advantage and disadvantage connected to my name simply reflects my life as I’ve come into it and have lived it.

Meanwhile, let’s honor all transracial adoptees, whatever name choices they make—and honor their journeys around their names, as around every other element in their lives.

Linguistic Usage: Why You Should Never, Ever Say “Caucasian”  The term “Caucasian” is not only profoundly racist and white supremacist in its origins, its usage also involves the euphemization of race, which is both morally and conceptually wrong 280

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 It’s extremely important to use correct, clear, simple terms for race, both in terms of “white” and “Black” races—while understanding when and how “African-American” is correctly used  There is much complexity in the use of the terms around the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and around those with Latin heritage; one needs to educate oneself in the hows and whys of such usage If there’s a single short lesson I might be able to impart here in the most succinct way possible, it’s a three-word one: NEVER SAY CAUCASIAN. Yes, really. Never. Allow me to explain.

So, let’s start with a wonderful article published online on February 1, 2017 on the SAPIENS website by Yolanda Moses, professor of anthropology and a former associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and excellent at the University of California, Riverside. The article is entitled, “Why Do We Keep Using the Word ‘Caucasian’?”

Dr. Moses’ article began thus: “The word ‘Caucasian’ is used in the U.S. to describe white people, but it doesn’t indicate anything real. It’s the wrong term to use! My colleague and one of my longtime writing partners, Carol Mukhopadhyay, has written a wonderful article, “Getting Rid of the Word ‘Caucasian,’ that is still relevant today for how it challenges us to critically examine the language that we use. It’s obvious that language shapes how we perceive and see the world. And we know how powerful the concept of race is and how the use of words related to the notion of race has shaped what we call the U.S. racial worldview. So why do we continue using the word ‘Caucasian’?

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To answer that question, it is helpful to understand where the term came from and its impact on our society. The term ‘Caucasian’ originated from a growing 18th-century European science of racial classification. German anatomist Johann Blumenbach visited the Caucasus Mountains, located between the Caspian and Black seas, and he must have been enchanted because he labeled the people there “Caucasians” and proposed that they were created in God’s image as an ideal form of humanity.

And the label has stuck to this day. According to Mukhopadhyay, Blumenbach went on to name four other “races,” each considered ‘physically and morally ‘degenerate’ forms of ‘God’s original creation.’’

He categorized Africans, excluding light-skinned North Africans, as ‘Ethiopians’ or ‘black.’ He divided non-Caucasian Asians into two separate races: the ‘Mongolian’ or ‘yellow’ race of Japan and China, and the ‘Malayan’ or ‘brown’ race, which included Aboriginal Australians and Pacific Islanders. And he called Native Americans the ‘red’ race.

Blumenbach’s system of racial classification was adopted in the United States to justify racial discrimination—particularly slavery. Popular race science and evolutionary theories generally posited that there were separate races, that differences in behavior were tied to skin color, and that there were scientific ways to measure race. One way racial differences were defined was through craniometrics, which measured skull size to determine the intelligence of each racial group. As you can imagine, this flawed application of the scientific method resulted in race scientists developing a flawed system of racial classification that ranked the five races from most primitive (black and brown races), to more advanced (the Asian races), to the most advanced (the white, 282

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or Caucasian, races). Even though the five-race topology was later disproven, ‘Caucasian’ still has currency in the U.S.” Even more horrifically, Dr. Moses points out, the term “Caucasian” has been used in the context of eugenics, with “Caucasians” categorized by eugenicists into four ranked subraces: Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean, and Jew (Semitic). And some of the core of that hierarchy easily made its way into the racial classification system created by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis under the Third Reich in Germany in the middle of the 20th century.

Here’s a link to the full article by Dr. Moses: https://www.sapiens.org/column/race/caucasian-terminology-origin/ There is, of course, one actually correct usage of “Caucasian,” and that is to describe residents of the Caucasus Mountains, which encompasses Armenia, Azerbaijan, and (ex-Soviet) Georgia. One can correctly describe an Armenian as “Caucasian,” and can describe the languages of that region (though they represent several different language families) as “Caucasian.” But of course, that’s not how the word “Caucasian” is normally used in the United States; it is used primarily as a euphemism for “white” (and yes, it is still being used on Census and other official forms; that is a problem that needs to be fixed, but it in no way justifies the use of the term in everyday speech).

Now, here’s the nub of this issue: what I find in 99.9 percent of cases, is this: white people use the term “Caucasian” as a euphemism for “white.” They use it because, raised in whiteness inside white culture, they were taught, coached, trained, to be afraid to name race and races in simple, clear, identifying ways. They were taught to be afraid to say 283

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“Black,” and to say “white.” They were even taught to be afraid to say “Asian,” and ended up saying “Oriental”—a horrifically insulting term, unless one is discussing rugs or lamps—instead.

So, here’s the deal: it is important to use correct terms for race. The correct term for white people is, simply, “white.” The correct term for Black people is, simply, “Black” (yes, capitalized to honor race).

Now, is “African-American” correct? Yes, it is, though the majority of Black people in the United States primarily use the term “AfricanAmerican” when discussing politics, public policy, and sociology. There are exceptions (there are always exceptions); but usually, most Black Americans describe themselves as simply “Black.” Also keep in mind that there are people living in the United States who were born in Africa or have recently arrived from Africa; correctly speaking, they are African-Americans. But many Black Americans avoid the term in general use, and many who have layered identities, such as those from the Caribbean, also tend to find it problematic, in terms of everyday use.

Yet over and over again, when I meet white people raised in white culture, I find that they are terrified to use simple terms of racial identification: “white” and “Black.” This is an artefact of white culture, which throws a smothering blanket of silence and ignorance over authentic discourse around race. Everything becomes charged and undiscussable. Thus, many white people will say “Caucasian” simply because they are afraid to say “white.” And that is absolutely wrong.

I want all white transracially adoptive parents to say “white” when describing themselves. I absolutely want them to stop saying “Caucasian” in a euphemistic attempt to avoid naming whiteness as 284

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a race. And, in general, I want them to say “Black” for “Black,” unless they have a good reason to do so (and they might) What’s sad is that white adoptive parents already raising Black children, so often do not know the most basic, correct racial terms. They come into our Facebook groups or participate in in-person conferences around transracial adoption, and continue to say “Caucasian,” when it is racist and euphemizing. So, really, could we please simply stop saying it??? Thank you. You are white. Your child is Black. Your friend is Asian.

What happens when no one agrees? “Native” and “Latinx” Now, we need to address two separate situations here, and those have to do with two demographic groups in the United States (and yes, the usage is very different around all racial terms in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia; that I know). Let’s address them one at a time.

How to describe individuals who were the first people in North America?

Historically, most people said “American Indian.” However, in the past fifty-plus years, an ongoing discussion has been taking place among the first peoples as to what people should call themselves/each other, and no consensus has been reached. Some who are of that demographic refer to themselves as “Native Americans”: others as “indigenous”; others as “American Indians.” In Canada, “First Nations” and “aboriginal” are used. Because no full consensus has emerged, either in the United States or Canada, the best advice one can give is to adopt the usage of the person or persons one is with in the moment. And if there is no consensus among the group, it’s best to express, if one is not indigenous, that one has been generally asked to use “X” term, and will 285

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use it unless someone present objects. So yes, there is complexity there.

I personally know people who use any one of the above terms; and the simple truth is that one should accept the diversity of self-identification in this situation, and should respect the individual(s) with whom one is interacting. It isn’t really that hard.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about the people of Latin American origin and/ or descent, in the United States. There again, there is no universal consensus. In states like Texas and Florida, many use the term “Hispanic”; but in other states in the United States, Latino/Latina is more common. And, a couple of decades ago now, the term “Latinx” emerged, in order to provide a gender-neutral term in English (and even that is complicated, as, in Spanish, grammatically speaking, the male term is also the overall correct term; thus, speaking to someone in Spanish, if one were to speak of all the Latin persons in one setting, one would say, “todos los latinos”—and that would include people of both/all genders).

Now, many Latinx object to “Hispanic,” including its Spanish equivalent, “hispano/hispana,” because to them, it centers Spain, the country that conquered the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Many Latinx in the United States want to de-center Spain and Europeanness. Still, that objection is not universal, and as I referenced above, more Latinx in Texas and Florida tend to say “Hispanic” and “hispano”/”hispana.” Again, one should accept the usage of the individual or individuals with whom one is interacting in the moment, while also understanding the complexity here. Personally, I believe that “Latino”/”Latina” is the far more woke term. But there are Latinx who insist on “Hispanic”/”hispano”/”hispana,” and they also need to have their usage honored.

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There is additional complexity with “Latino,” because there is disagreement around whether the term can also be used to describe Brazilians, who are Latins in South America, but who speak Portuguese rather than Spanish. The very short answer to that question is that there are certain contexts in which such application is correct, but that overall, “Latino” refers to people with Latin American heritage with origins from Spanish-speaking countries in North and South America; though again, there are exceptions.

In the end, it is important both morally and socially to get all of this right. As I said above, when it comes to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, one should follow the usage of the individual(s) with whom one is interacting, in the moment. When it comes to “Latino”/”Hispanic,” please understand that there are regional and other contexts for usage. Still, I would hope that those who are not of either of these heritages—indigenous or Latin—would not dismiss the legitimate desires of those with these identities to have their identities and their terminologies respected. And, it goes without saying, that white parents who have adopted children of any of these heritages, need to fully educate themselves in the correct terminologies, with a full understanding of why one is using particular terms at particular times, in order to fully support their children’s identities and life journeys.

And, let me repeat one more time: please, please, please, do not say “Caucasian.” Just don’t. Thank you.

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Adoptee Voice:

Christina Romo

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hristina Romo was born in South Korea in 1982. She was found abandoned in Seoul and was adopted at the presumed age of 2 to Minnesota, where she’s lived a majority of her entire life. She has worked in the field of child welfare and adoption for over 15 years.

She is married; her husband is Mexican-American, and they have two teenage sons. She is well-known on as the author of an ongoing series of blogs on Facebook under the name “Diary of a Not-So-Angry Asian Adoptee,” in which she shares her perspectives and advice on a broad

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range of topics related to adoption.

Can you share about your adoption story?

I was found abandoned in Seoul; I was around the presumed age of one when that happened; I didn’t have any identifying information. I was adopted at the presumed age of two. Meanwhile, my older sister was also adopted from South Korea, a few years before me; we’re not biological sisters. And I have a younger brother three years younger than me, who’s my parents’ biological son.

What made you decide that you wanted to blog regularly and speak to parents about transracial adoption?

I had been working in the adoption field for a few years; I was very much in the adoptee fog, and had reached the point where I felt I didn’t have a voice, and needed to explore what it meant to be an adoptee.

So, writing being the outlet that it is for me, just naturally navigating in that direction. So I started a blog for myself, to process and tell my story. And there was one post that went semi-viral, and then it kind of morphed and became a resource, primarily for adoptive parents.

When did you start the blog?

I started in early 2012. And I think the viral post maybe happened a few months after I started. It was called “An Adoptee’s Perspective: Ten Things Adoptive Parents Should Know.”

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What things most caught people’s attention in that post?

I think it was formulating the messages and truths about adoption from my perspective, and sharing some perspectives from young people I’d worked with, and sharing them in a succinct way. Lists were pretty big at that time. So to be able to put it together in a ten-things list, that kind of sealed the deal.

What do you find that transracially adoptive parents understand the least?

I think one thing is that some parents don’t quite understand the need for them to be the bridge into their child’s racial or cultural community, as opposed to using their child as that bridge. I think that some parents have a hard time walking that line between honoring their child’s racial and cultural identity and appropriation. Some parents really aren’t comfortable with race at all; I’ve found that there are also parents who seek to find any ‘outs’ rather than doing the work around their child’s racial and cultural needs. Things like, ‘My child isn’t interested in race, or culture, right now’—and they see that as a free pass. I think it takes time for some parents to learn that the formation and development of one’s racial and cultural identity are not linear. Because they do not have lived experience as a person of color, it can be difficult for some parents to understand that it’s not as though their child wakes up one day and says, ‘I’m Asian! And I’m so proud!’ It’s hard for them to grasp that and it’s difficult for them to support their child’s needs around something they can’t identify with or haven’t experienced themselves.

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much work needs to go into it… There are parents who are doing what they believe is the right thing for their kids; and they focus so much on racial mirrors and representation that they fail to focus on the importance of meaningful and lifelong connections for their child and for themselves. And if you’re a transracially adoptive parent, you need to be OK with being uncomfortable in order to meet and be responsive to your child’s racial and cultural needs.

How would you describe the process of moving out of the adoptee fog, for you?

My perception of adoptee fog is adoptees learning to let go of the misconceptions and the things that they were told by their parents and society that made adoption OK and relieved their parents of the guilt and any unpleasant feelings around adoption and the losses that are inherent in an adoptee’s life. And so many of us were raised in an era in which parents weren’t given any information and were just told to take their child home and love them, and everything would be OK. So it is that process of shedding the layers of misconceptions and misnomers that exist around adoption that were so deeply ingrained within us.

When did you realize you really were a person of color?

My family didn’t talk about race or adoption when I was younger, but having an older sister who was Asian and a younger brother who was blond-haired and blue-eyed, made it evident. I was also raised in a predominantly white community, so there was no denying that I was 292

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different. High school was a huge turning point for me in that respect.

We had a group in high school that called themselves the All-American Boys. They were white supremacists and would literally burn crosses on people’s lawns. And I went to a very large high school, and was just one of a handful of students of color there. And to survive it, I really had to strip away my race, and assimilate as much as I could, knowing that being Asian wasn’t safe. So the point at which I was able to start really claiming my Asian identity, was when I went off to college, and went to a diverse school. While in college, I encountered the issue of not being Asian enough, because I wasn’t raised by Asian parents, I didn’t know my language, and I didn’t have connections to other Koreans.

So that was the beginning of wanting to explore my race and culture.

That desire to know more only heightened when I became a mom, as I wanted to instill at least what I knew of my race and culture.

How would you describe where you’re at in your journey now, as a transracial adoptee and a person of color?

I’m at a point where I’m still very much exploring; I always will be exploring. But I’m at the point where I’m really focusing on the healing aspect more so than ever before, and being less worried about how what I share will be perceived by others, and more focused on what I need to process and work through. I’m feeling the most comfortable I’ve ever been to not hold back as I had previously. So it’s being at a crossroads of feeling somewhat liberated, and also working through that healing element.

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Is there anything that you’d like to add?

I think my work in adoption has really helped this process that I’ve needed to go through, of exploring what it means to be an adoptee. And I haven’t always loved it; it’s often been very hard and very triggering, especially in some of the roles I’ve been in. But it’s also really given me an opportunity to develop a multifaceted perspective and lens on adoption, because I’ve learned from other adoptees. And I’ve learned from young people who weren’t able to find permanency in the system, but later created their own definition of permanency and found it on their own. And I’ve learned from adoptive parents as well. And just being an adoptee and hearing about the adoptees’ experiences, has been triggering and difficult at times, but has also helped me to understand adoption beyond my own personal experience. And it’s helped me in trying to educate parents, from an adoptee lens, in terms of where they need to do more work, and what they need to do to understand and better support the needs of adoptees.

It’s also made my journey of exploration more difficult and challenging.

At times, especially when you’re living and breathing adoption, it can be challenging. But it’s also forced me to go deeper in that exploration as well, because it’s hard to be doing this work from an authentic place, when you’re not also doing your own work as well, and exploring some of those dark places that you’ve buried in the back of your mind. So it’s been good in the sense that it’s pushed me further in that exploration, but it’s also been a challenge as well, in heightening those feelings that adoptees can experience throughout their exploration.

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14 CHAPTER

CHAPTER

14

Multiple Journeys, Complex Layers • White transracially adoptive parents need to educate themselves to support the fullness of their adopted children’s journeys, including when those journeys involve multiple, complex, layered identities of all kinds • Acceptance of the fullness of one’s child’s identity is the only option • Self-education is incredibly important • Complex identities can be rich and rewarding identities • Sidebar: The Monstrous Demand for the Reflexive Expression of Gratitude

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I

fully understand that the vast majority of white transracially adoptive parents begin with “rainbows and unicorns” perspectives on transracial adoption (see Chapter 4), and that even educating themselves on the core racial and adoption aspects of transracial adoption can quickly become overwhelming for them. And those are core elements in this book.

But the reality is that there really is no end to the potential complexity of the lifelong transracial adoptee journey. Not only do significant numbers of transracial adoptees have to work through personal trauma, navigate the racism of our profoundly racist society, figure out how to build identities as people of color, connect with birth culture, and navigate immense complexity in friendships and relationships; many also find themselves navigating significant additional journeys besides those.

There is some debate as to whether the percentage of LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual) individuals is higher among transracial adoptees; there is absolutely no solid data either way, but some experts and observers believe that there is some likelihood of it. In any case, even if the percentage of LGBTQIA individuals among transracial adoptees is the same as in the general population, it would mean that there are a whole lot of transracial adoptees who are LGBTQIA. I myself am one, having come out as gay at the age of 18, as a freshman in college. And those of us who have some version of LGBTQIA identity have multiple journeys to navigate, journeys that overlap with one another and sometimes cause additional confusion, complexity, and challenges—but which can also end up supporting each other, as we work through our identities and develop strong, individualized identities over time.

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Some adoptees are also members of the disability community, or members of the community of little people (the correct, self-identified term; the term “dwarf ” is now considered incorrect and insulting).

Further, in the United States certainly, transracial adoptees being raised in non-Christian faith traditions (Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, animist, wiccan, and other traditions) also face complex, multilayered journeys.

All of these elements of identity involve layers beyond the two core elements that all transracial adoptees have to evolve forward around, with regard to the intersection of race and adoption. And each additional element adds complexity. There is nothing “wrong” with the additional complexity; but all transracial adoptees need to accept any added layers in their journeys, and all white transracially adoptive parents need to honor the layers and honor and support their children.

In my own case, when asked about my dual journeys as a transracial adoptee and a gay man, I always explain that in both of those lifelong journeys, I’ve spent decades creating and evolving forward my identities, with basically zero help from the larger society. Indeed, that’s the commonality I find in having had to navigate those two journeys: the necessity of architecting identities with no established path or pattern that I could follow for myself. Both as a transracial adoptee of color and a gay man, I’ve had to forge a sense of self entirely by myself. And in both cases, it’s taken several decades to solidify my sense of identity with regard to both identities.

There are also complex identities of other types, including, for a number of younger transracial adoptees, being raised by white parents who are LGBTQI, even as the adopted children identify as heterosexual and cisgender. That is another potential element.

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One thing that is incredibly important here is for the white transracially adoptive parents who do not share the additional identities—meaning, for example, that they are heterosexual and cisgender, while their children are not—to do additional, crucial self-education, in order to support, honor, and celebrate all of who their children are. It is simply not acceptable to accept one aspect of one’s child while rejecting another aspect. Rejection of one aspect is rejection of one’s child as a full, fully dimensional, person.

And here we come to a topic of extreme sensitivity, around white transracially adoptive parents’ political, religious, social, and/or cultural identities. In fact, the truth is that the racism of their white adoptive parents causes many transracial adoptees to cut off all contact with their parents as adults, or at the very least, to severely limit contact, because of the hurt that their parents’ racism causes, and the same thing happens around LGBTQIA identity. I know countless adult transracial adoptees who, as they navigate their complex-identity journeys, have had to cut off or distance themselves from their parents, because of their parents’ homophobia, transphobia, or other bigotry, regardless as to whether their adoptive parents are racists (sadly, most often, the parents are both racist and homophobic and/or transphobic—the bigotries almost always go together). Without belaboring the point, I want to make it absolutely clear that no form of bigotry is acceptable; and if white transracially adoptive parents adopting assuming that their children would end up being heterosexual and cisgender and some other outcome becomes true, any sign of rejection on their part will cause immense damage to their children and will likely ultimately result in distancing or separation when their children become adults.

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So, the message for parents of children who are evolving forward towards LGBTQIA identities as transracial adoptees, is that the same total acceptance must absolutely be the rule—and the same requirement for self-education in the pursuit of full allyship. Just as white parents of children of color must absolutely educate themselves to become total allies around race (and adoption), they must educate themselves to become total allies around their children’s LGBTQIA identities.

Indeed, there is a close parallel here for parents whose children have some from of disability or a difference in size. I’ve had extensive interactions with transracially adoptive parents of children with disabilities of all kinds and with parents of children who will be little people. The requirements on the part of parents are the same: fully accept your child in their totality, and educate yourself as to your child’s lifelong needs in terms of support and allyship (and in many cases, advocacy), just as you must do for them as a person of color and an adoptee.

We’re in 2021 now (as I write this book); and, as I’ve said in other chapters, there’s no longer any excuse for ignorance, as there are countless resources out in the world—on the web, in media of all kinds, and in terms of in-person groups. I’ve posted a variety of resources in the Appendix at the end of this book. And while I am always, always opening to dialoguing with adoptive parents around any issue, I will not accept anything less than their full acceptance of the full humanity of their children. That is something that adoptive parents must understand. I’ve seen too many tragic situations out in the world. If white transracially adoptive parents cannot honor the totality of their children, they should never have become parents in the first place; and that applies to parenting biological as well as adopted children, of course.

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And, to my adopted sisters and brothers, I want to share my absolute support for you, as you navigate complex, multilayered lifelong journeys.

Based on my own lived experience across decades, I will say this: you can do this. Seek out support from any and all sources in the world that can offer you heathy, sound, stable support and encouragement, and move forward with pride and joy, and in personal resolution. As I can attest to myself, having a complex identity means that one’s life can be even richer than not having a complex identity—one simply has to accept the reality of dual or multiple journeys at the same time.

Namaste.

On The Monstrous Demand For the Reflexive Expression of Gratitude, and the Saviorism in People’s Minds So here’s an experience I’ve had countless times over the course of my life, but also one that, I’ve learned, every fellow transracial adoptee I’ve talked with about this, has also had. A stranger or acquaintance will ask me about my background (often, it starts with the fact that I have a Norwegian last name from my adoptive father—certainly, it’s not an Asian-presenting name), and I’ll explain that I’m an adult transracial adoptee, born in South Korea and adopted by white American parents, and raised in the United States.

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And the very first thing that pops out of the person’s mouth is— inevitably—“Oh, how lucky you are! You’re so lucky you were adopted!”

Now, I’d like to parse this and peel it like an onion, because there are layers here, and this encounter, which I’ve literally had happen probably a few thousand times in my life—is definitely worth parsing for value of doing so.

So, let’s just begin with the adoption part, separated from race. I know that white same-race adoptees have also regularly experienced this, when they disclose that they were adopted (though this happens less often to them simply because they fit in visually and don’t as often trigger questions around identity from strangers and acquaintances).

And as I’ve said countless times in in-person and online forums around adoption, no one ever says to individuals raised by their biological parents, “Oh, aren’t you SO LUCKY that your parents HAD SEX and you were created out of sex!!!” Really, they just don’t. But there are societal assumptions around adoption that are multi-layered, and that impact us adoptees all the time.

Indeed, from the beginning of the appearance of human beings on earth, human beings have had sexual intercourse that led to the creation of other human beings. And until the late 20th century brought about new reproductive technologies, that really the only way of being born.

But there is an assumption of saving, and thus saviorism, built into how adoption is framed in the minds of the general public. There was a baby or child who needed “saving” and someone “saved” that child. And that assumption pops into people’s heads without any consideration for how the adoption might have taken place or under what circumstances. So there is the element of saviorism and “saving” that is built into how society frames adoption and adoptees.

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And second, and this is what distresses and often angers adoptees, is the assumption that we should or must feel gratitude for having been adopted. First of all, I know many, many, many adoptees who were adopted by parents who subsequently abused them—physically, sexually, and/or emotionally—or at the very least, treated them terribly. And this experience of being told by a stranger that they must be grateful, can be distressing, angering, even enraging. Because not all parents treat their children well (adopted or not), and to assume a psychological state on the part of an adoptee is just very wrong, and tremendously presumptuous—and ultimately, arrogant.

I call this “the demand for the reflexive expression of gratitude”—and it is an experience that every adoptee I know has had—and hates. I had very loving parents, and I hate it. And for what it’s worth, I am grateful to my parents for adopting me. But it is absurd that the vast, vast, vast percentage of strangers assume that they can impose that demand on me—the demand that I reflexively express gratitude for my adoption.

I did not ask to be relinquished, and I did not ask to be adopted.

And I really won the lottery by ending up with loving parents; I know countless adoptees who did not win that lottery. And they, above all, should not be subjected to this demand.

Now, on a practical level, if a stranger in an airport, someone with whom I will have no further interaction once our one-minute conversation is over, says this—how “lucky” I am that my parents “saved” me— 99.999 percent of the time, I’m just going to nod, add a curt “yes,” and try to end the conversation as quickly humanly possible. Because on a very literal level, I lack the energy to educate total strangers about this issue. And to even open it up as an issue, in the context of a very brief conversation between two total strangers, seems pointless.

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But I want to express total solidarity here with all the adoptees out there, because we’ve all experienced this, many of us countless times.

And I’m sure I will still be experiencing it if I live to be 100 years old.

Now, the flipside of this is the statement made by strangers and acquaintances, to adoptive parents. My parents, especially my mother, experienced this countless times in my presence, as well as outside of it. Pointing at me and my twin brother, the stranger would ask my mother, “Whose children are THOSE?” and my mother would bravely say, “Well, they’re ours, of course!”—though in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1960s, no one perceived us as a family, so actually, the “of course” part could not be assumed.

In any case, the stranger would then immediately pivot to some version of “Oh, how wonderful of you and your husband to save those babies!”

And my mother would bristle and, to her credit, would absolutely refuse to accept savior status. She would say simply and plainly, “We wanted to have children and weren’t able to have children, so we adopted.

We’re the lucky ones.” And, given that my parents were deeply devout Christians and our social environment growing up was a very religious one, the expressions of congratulatory saviorism were ever-present. I give my mother immense, immense credit for never once accepting the savioristic congratulation. She absolutely rejected it, and that was huge, especially for the time and place in which we were growing up— nearly-all-white Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1960s and 1970s. My parents were raising us with absolutely zero intellectual, conceptual, or social resources of any kind, but had great emotional intelligence and great common sense—and somehow knew that it would be damaging for us to constantly hear the affirmation of their savior status.

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So as I say, my mother never once—not once—accepted the savioristic congratulations, and instead, rebuffed the attempted compliment every single time. And looking back now, several decades later, I have to say that her response was absolutely perfect, and one that I recommend to all adoptive parents—simply this: “We wanted children, so we adopted children. That is all.”

And I feel tremendous empathy for all the adoptees out there who had to go through this countless times, both when they were young children in their parents’ presence, and then later on, directed towards themselves as the recipients of their “salvation.” Honestly, how hard is it for people to understand that no one should be forced to express gratitude for having had a family, a home, a life? As a parent myself now, I recoil even more at all of this. And I have never once demanded that my daughter be grateful to me or to her mother for having brought her into the world. Doing so would be unjust, and frankly, abusive.

I did tell her while she was growing up, that she should be grateful that she was growing up in a wealthy country and could enjoy all the benefits of a middle-class life; but that is very different; I never once tried to force on her the expression of gratitude towards her parents.

And it boggles my mind that so few people are thoughtful about all of this. No parent should ever demand gratitude from their child for parenting their child—whether they gave birth to that child or adopted that child.

And, though I fully realize that I will be pelted with the reflexivegratitude demand until the day I die, I am at least at peace about what it means, and does not mean. And yes, am deeply grateful to my parents for never once demanding gratitude from me and for every single time 305

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they were offered savioristic congratulation, rejecting that praise. That’s how one raises a healthy adoptee. That.

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Adoptee Voice:

Astrid Castro A

strid Castro’s birth certificate indicated she was born in 1970, in Bucaramanga, Colombia, and was adopted to Wayland,

Massachusetts at the age of four-and-a-half, along with her sister, who was six at the time. When she reunited with her birth mother in 2010 , at the age of 40, she learned that she and her sister had been kidnapped.

Astrid is extremely involved in the transracial adoption world; she runs Adoption Mosaic (https://adoptionmosaic.com), an organization that

Adoptee Voice: Astrid Castro

“provides a platform for compassionate, informed education, training and resources to the adoption constellation/community.”

As the organization states on its website, “In one way or another, we all have adoption in our lives. And regardless of what role we play or the resources we’ve been given, each of us deserves a healthy lifelong adoption experience. Here at Adoption Mosaic we focus on families and individuals by supporting them in making the most educated, informed and unbiased decision when it comes to their adoption needs. We provide space where the adoption constellation/community feel valued, heard, understood and accepted as a full member of society, family and community.”

Tell me about your personal story.

When I reunited with our birth mother, I learned that my sister and I were kidnapped from the person we were temporarily staying with; I was four and my sister was six, and that was in October, and by February, we were on a plane to the United States to be adopted.

What did you learn about your story once you reunited with your birth mother?

Our birth mother had left us with an interested friend, while she went to another town, she was sending money to this woman while our mother got settled in the new town. Within two weeks of her leaving, we were taken by this “trusted friend” and sold on the black market of adoption.

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Did you have any idea of what was going on at the time, as a very young child?

Since I was only four-and-a-half years old, I have very few memories of our time in Colombia. The only clear memory I have is one from the first orphanage. In this orphanage they separated the children by ages. Since my sister and I were one and a half years apart, my sister went into the six-year-old room and I was sent into the four-year-old room. We had been separated, and obviously, we were scared. All of the children were kept in cribs at night. Our first night at the orphanage my sister snuck into the 4 year old room to sleep under my crib. My whole life, my sister had been a mother to me, in a gentle, loving way so when I saw her, I shouted with excitement her name, “Mia!”. Scared we would get caught Mia got mad at me and said “callate!” (shut up!). Scared and confused, I laid back down and began to cry until Mia put her hand through the bars of the crib to hold my hand until I fell asleep.

Did you lose your Spanish, and did your sister also?

Yes, my sister and I both did. I attribute some of my memory loss and my struggles to learn English had a lot to do with not only the loss of language, but also to the state of mind my sister and I were in when we lost our language. There’s research around that, around the idea that memories are embedded in language. My theory is that one of the reasons I think I had such severe dyslexia, when I learned English at four-and-a-half, is that we had lost our first language through trauma.

Like so many adoptees I have proven to myself that I have the skills 309

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and desire to learn other languages, as I speak Italian fluently, but when it comes to re-learning Spanish, I really struggle. I believe there is an emotional block around Spanish, over having learned English in a trauma state.

There is very solid research now that’s found that, for international adoptees, the experience of very suddenly and dramatically shifting into a different culture and a different language creates a type of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) experience in adoptees, and it’s that experience that causes them to very quickly lose their first language, even if they were adopted as older children.

Yes, I believe that’s correct. Well, because of my Italian, I can speak to my birth mother in this choppy, broken-up version of Italian-Spanish, and she understands nearly everything I say. I tell people, I don’t speak Spanish well, but I speak “birthmother Spanish” really well!

When did you find your birth mother?

I found my birthmother eleven years ago this December. I found her because my daughter said, I want to go and see where you were born. I wanted to raise my daughter with the things I was lacking, and one of the things I lacked was cultural awareness and understanding, language, all of those things. So, Maya and her Italian father and I would alternate vacation to Italy with trips to Colombia, every other year. Since kindergarten, my daughter was in a Spanish immersion program, and speaks Spanish fluently. My goal was to make sure she 310

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was comfortable with her Colombian culture, something I lacked growing up. In December 2010. when my daughter said, “I want to go to Bucaramanga to see where you were born.” We decided, after a little convincing, that going to Bucaramanga would be a good idea. At the last minute of packing for our trip I decided I would grab the original passport photos from 1975 when we were adopted with the thought that maybe we could get a lead on finding our mom. We had no idea we’d actually find her, but we found our mom.

And what was that like?

When an adoptee asks me that question, I have an answer, but when a non-adoptee ask me the same question I really struggle on how to answer. We adoptees have a baseline of understanding. Honestly, I wasn’t prepared to meet a woman who had lived for 36 years in an active trauma state, who was looking for her babies. She had put her life on hold. Her whole family lived in Bogotá, and her husband frequently suggested they move to Bogotá, however, our mom refused. Every time he suggested moving, she would say “This is the town where I lost my girls, and this is where they will go to find me when they come to look for me,” refusing to ever leave Bucaramanga.

That’s like the narrative of the movie “Lion”!

Yes. When I first met our mother, I couldn’t see myself in her. My daughter kept telling me that we looked like the same person, but I still couldn’t see what she saw. I believe I was in a numb state hearing our 311

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mom recount the story of what had transpired 36 years earlier. At that time I had been working in the adoption industry for over 20 years and still I was not prepared for how our reunion would affect my life. It was not until a few years later, after our reunion, that I started unpacking what the impact of our separation did to all of us (my sister, our mom and myself ). After all, how does one make sense of learning they had been kidnapped? It was hard.

What helped you to heal?

Realizing how much my daughter still needed her mama to be strong and present. Our kids can be some of the most powerful agents of healing for us. Here I was, 20 years in my career, resourced and connected, and yet I still had the experience of having the rug pulled out from under me, I think this speaks to how truly isolated we adoptees are.

You’re still in touch with your birth mother?

Yes.

Obviously, you’re glad you found her, despite the upheaval?

Absolutely. You know, when I came back after finding our mother, I experienced a level of survivor’s guilt. We hear about survivor’s guilt in war, when soldiers who return and ask, “Why did I live?” “why me?”

And how is it that our birth mother had lived for 36 years, desperately looking for her babies? Being a mother myself, I related that to my own 312

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experience. I questioned myself: why didn’t I look for her sooner? No matter how many therapists would say, “Astrid, don’t beat yourself up over that” —yet, I couldn’t help to think “I was the resourced person who could afford to fly down to Colombia with my daughter for a fun beach vacation and so on and then to find out we had been kidnapped.

I felt so much guilt over that, when I found out.

I had started looking for our mother15 years prior to finding her. Like so many adoptees, I put our big toe into the boiling pot, and said, “Wow, that was hot, I think I will take a break from searching.” I did that for 15 years; so when I found her and learned the story, I said to myself, why did I not find her sooner?

When I look back at how simple it was, all we did was that we went to the newspaper and shared our stories and photos, they put in a classified ad, and by the 10am the next day, four different women had come forward as they too were legitimately looking for their girls who had also been kidnapped.

What would you like adoptive parents to know, and adoptees, to know, about your lived experience?

Whenever I’m asked this question, I think, imagine if you and I had had this adoption community when we were little, and imagine if our adoptive parents had been learning from the lived experiences of the voices of adult adoptees. What I want adoptive parents to hear is that making informed decision around your child, is no easy task, and yet it’s a bare minimum. Never stop being a seeker of knowledge when it comes to being adoption competent. It truly is a lifelong journey 313

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that even at 50 years old I am still learning so much about how my adoption has impacted my life. And for the adoptee community, find your people, find your community.

Adoption Mosaic might or might not be your community, but whatever your needs are, find your people, find your community, get resources.

I think that one of the things this pandemic has allowed us to do has been to connect individuals who are very isolated. So that’s my life-goal at this point, it’s this: how do we get individuals connected to us, to each other and to places where they can grow and continue growing?

We’re out here, and we need to support each other.

You’re wonderful, really.

Thank you. And I don’t think in general that we compliment or support each other enough in our community. As you know, there is a lot of talk about the harm that can be done in some of these adoption groups online, and people are saying things in ways that come out in traumastate or painful ways. So, how do we start having conversations about not pitting each other against each other? We’re powerful in numbers.

We have power as a community. And we need to honor each others’ perspectives.

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15 CHAPTER

CHAPTER

15

Resilience and Accomplishment: Bright Lights on the Path • White transracially adoptive parents often ask adoptees what can make adoptees’ lives manageable and even enjoyable— and a key concept involved is that of resilience • Accomplishment and achievement are essential to the mental health and well-being of the transracial adoptee, and to creating resilience—but they can be defined in endless ways • For white transracially adoptive parents to be able to provide their children with resilience, they need to self-educate around all the issues described in this book

Resilience and Accomplishment: Bright Lights on the Path

O

ne of the phenomena that I’ve observed countless times in inperson conferences and gatherings, and in Facebook groups, on the part of white transracially adoptive parents, is this: a sort of conceptual throwing up of the hands, when confronted with information and insights around the challenges facing their adopted children of color, and especially around their own journeys as transracially adoptive parents.

To begin with, as I’ve stated several times in this book, most white transracially adoptive parents come into transracially adoptive parenting with a total “rainbows and unicorns” perspective (see Chapter 4, “Leaving Behind the ‘Rainbows and Unicorns’ Perspective on Transracial Adoption”)—further, one very often suffused with pure white saviorism. And many parents never leave that mindset.

Then, some who do, once they discover that racism, including systemic racism, is real, and that their adopted children of color will experience it their entire lives, “collapse into an existential heap,” as I like to term it, and go through a phase (which, again, some never leave) of tragedizing their children’s narratives: in other words, they get stuck in seeing everything in a very dark, tragic frame, the obverse of the rainbowsand-unicorns-y, white-savioristic frame they started out with.

And many turn to me and to other adult transracial adoptees, and throw up their hands, wailing, “Well, it just seems as though my child is doomed to a life of 24/7/365 misery, doesn’t it???!” Which is not what we’ve been telling them at all.

Here’s the simplest way in which I can state this: the absolute point of transracially adoptive parenting—parallel to the point of parenting in 317

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general—is for the white transracially adoptive parent to intensely and broadly self-educate, so that they can truly come to understand race, racism, racial identity, white privilege, white fragility, core adoption issues, and everything else, and as a result, become the best guide, ally, and advocate possible for their child. And where this all, all leads is to one concept: resilience.

We people of color will always experience racism; that is inevitable in our society. And we transracial adoptees face unique, complex journeys in our lives. But we are not victims; not at all. Many/most of us become resourceful survivors, and indeed thrivers. How so? We develop levels of resilience that allow us to navigate our worlds successfully and with satisfaction, and yes, joy. Like all other human beings, we face challenges, suffer setbacks, experience devastation, and sometimes even tragedy. But, like all other human beings, we also carry inside us the capacity to survive and thrive.

And, when it comes specifically to our journeys as transracial adoptees, what we need from our white adoptive parents, is this: that they educate themselves, deeply and broadly, so that they can provide us with the knowledge support to navigate our lives successfully. And that means neither denying the reality of racism and all other forms of discrimination and othering that we experience, nor the adoptiveparent-recentering of collapsing into an existential heap. We need parents who are at least a few steps ahead, who can affirm and validate our experiences without denying them, but who can also connect us to the intellectual, conceptual, social, cultural, and psychological resources we need in order to live whole, integrated, successful lives.

That’s it: that’s the absolute key.

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Now, in theory, everyone understands what resilience is: the ability to withstand stresses and issues, to thrive in one’s life. But it has specific dimension when it comes to transracial adoptees and the lifelong journey of the transracial adoptee. Growing up with white parents and outside of birth culture, and often, in overwhelming whiteness and without adequate racial mirrors, transracial adoptees struggle mightily to find their place in the world. I’ve interacted with a few thousand adult transracial adoptees, and almost universally, one of the biggest themes that’s emerged in these dialogues has been the challenge and complexity of finding ourselves.

And in that context, resilience becomes an essential theme. I’ve seen for decades now in my participation in in-person conferences and in online groups, white adoptive parents struggle to figure things out, often seesawing wildly from rainbows-and-unicorns-y naivete and gloomy, existential heap-y resignation. Obviously, neither stance is a good, healthy, useful one. But in order to find the path forward, white adoptive parents must commit to absolutely lifelong learning around race, racism, white privilege, white fragility, and all related subjects (also including learning about birth culture, in a profound way), and must commit to bringing into their lives and the lives of their children, the people of color (of all races), so that they can give their children that inestimable gift of resilience.

The tricky thing, of course, is that resilience is not something that someone can mail-order; it’s not “a thing.” Instead, it is a psychological and even spiritual practice. It means fully recognizing and acknowledging injury and trauma, and adapting in health ways to survive it and to thrive. It must be modeled. And it can only be 319

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modeled by individuals who understand it. It cannot be modeled by individuals who don’t understand it. And, unfortunately, white people raised in white culture have never had to become resilient in surviving the experience of racism, as have adults of color in their lives.

So yes, this requires a lot of learning and a lot of work. It means starting out in a position of absolute humility. Anyone who’s read in medieval European literature knows about the archetype of the “Pure Fool.”

Please do not misunderstand and read in this the idea of a stupid, foolish person; instead, the “Pure Fool” begins his journey at the outset of a fable or myth, and along the way, learns what he must do to become a seasoned hero who vanquishes monsters and triumphs in the end. White adoptive parents need to become humble and start from the beginning, peeling back their layers of white privilege and white ignorance, and learning to understand what the lived experience of people of color is, and then imparting to their children of color that lived wisdom, even though they themselves have never had to experience the wounds and harm that people of color have experienced, that has led to that wisdom. Does that sound difficult? It should.

But over time, as adoptive parents move forward on their path, they begin to assemble all the conceptual equipment needed for this journey: they read (or view) in the literature created by adult transracial adoptees; they ingest countless articles, blogs, etc., created by people of color, around race and current events and related subjects; they meet adults of color, of their child’s specific race and of all races of color, and develop, deep, broad, long-lasting friendships with those adults of color, who will become mentors to their adopted children; they educate themselves on trauma and child development among adopted children; 320

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they educate themselves on their child’s birth culture, far beyond “postcard culture” (see Chapter X), so that they can support their child as their child grows and develops an appropriate understanding of the complexity of their birth culture (and that applies to domestic and international adoptees alike); and they develop a Weltanschuung, a worldview broader than their own personal frame of reference around their own family’s individual narrative.

And here’s the really good news: I can testify to the fact that I’ve met and interacted with countless adult transracial adoptees who’ve developed the resilience needed to manage all the experiences they’ve been having in their lives, and who have learned how to thrive, holding their complex identities in a complex world. It’s absolutely possible. In most cases, the adoptees I know personally have had to figure all of this out for themselves. But that is precisely why I’ve written this book. I and some other adult transracial adoptees sit in these spaces with white transracially adoptive parents, precisely in order to give them the gift of our collective wisdom, so that they can give their children gifts that we, the older adoptees, had to give ourselves. And for those of us driven by a sense of mission, that is our gift to adoptive parents, so that the youngest transracial adoptees will not have to struggle as we have.

Resilience is such a fascinating concept, because everyone instinctively understands it on an abstract level; and yet for the white transracially adoptive parent to be able to give it to their adopted child of color as the gift of a lifetime, involves the work of a lifetime. Which means that it’s time to begin on that journey now.

Integration and accomplishment: the alternative (and successful) model for transracial adoptees 321

Resilience and Accomplishment: Bright Lights on the Path

And now, in that context, I want to talk about accomplishment in life.

Accomplishment can come in every potential form. I want to make it clear that I do not want to present a classist, exclusive vision of what accomplishment is. It need not require a college degree, an advanced degree, professional licensure, or any of those elements. But what it does need to include is an adoptee’s personal sense of accomplishment, their feeling that they have achieved something (or numerous somethings) of which they can be proud.

Let me context this so that the reader might understand where I’m coming from on this. I’ll begin by once again referencing my own lived experience as a child, teen, and young adult, growing up in neartotal whiteness, experiencing social marginalization, and experiencing racism in the Midwest of the United States. Of course, those elements made for a difficult, challenging and unpleasant experience. But I was very fortunate to receive an excellent public school education, and to be enrolled, along with my twin brother, in a gifted-students program, and to be a part of an excellent classical music program in grade school, junior high school, and senior high school (and then to be able to continue to participate significantly in classical music training and performance as a college undergraduate).

In any case, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had an excellent education, all the way through my master’s degree program in journalism, and the launching of my career as a professional journalist, which has now spanned nearly 40 years.

And, speaking out of my own personal lived experience, I have derived tremendous satisfaction from my career as a journalist. Not only have I had the privilege of finding a niche in the journalism world that has 322

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been extremely enjoyable for me; I have also received a certain level of recognition both in the publishing world and in the industry that I cover. I’ve become respected both as a journalist per se and also as a subject expert in the industry that I cover. And that has been immensely gratifying.

And I share that experience in no way to boast, but rather, to point adoptive parents towards a revelation that I myself took years to come to, and that is this: the more that a transracial adoptee can achieve in some area of endeavor, the stronger s/he will feel relative to the slings and arrows of their lived experience around racism in their life. Whatever area or areas they can accomplish and achieve in, will ground them and give them a space or spaces that will support their full identity and will provide them internal support as they navigate society. Now, I want to make something immensely clear: when I say “career,” I am not limiting that definition to any specific type of professional career, or indeed even to professional careers. I am not saying that your child must become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a scientist, a journalist, or any of a nearly infinite number of professional careers that involve specific academic and other credentials. Indeed, your child could become a superstar in an area outside of their profession or work; they could become a great acrobat, or an interior decorating whiz, or, wonderfully, a political activist. My entire point here is that I’ve seen reflected not only in my own experience, but in the lived experiences of literally many hundreds of adult transracial adoptees I know, this reality: to the extent that we can accomplish something out in the world—whatever that area of endeavor or activity is—our accomplishment girds our sense of selfworth.

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And just to break it down a bit more granularly, the key is the chain of connections involving developing a skill (any skill) or set of skills, developing competence or mastery in any area, organically receiving recognition in that area, and having self-confidence build up naturally around that set of processes. Transracial adoptees deserve to be supported in whatever endeavors they pursue that have any positive or affirming outcome for them as children, youth, and young adults, in order to build a level of self-confidence that will sustain them over the long term (along, of course, with the development of a very healthy racial identity, ethnic identity, etc.)

The point is this: if your child can develop in such a way that s/he can grow in maturity and accomplishment in at least one area of their life, the satisfaction and enjoyment involved in their development in at least one area, will translate into a truly satisfying kind of psychological grounding for them. Yes, they will still experience racism; but they will be able to ground themselves in a way that I’ve seen be deeply stabilizing for countless adult transracial adoptees.

And of course, your child could find accomplishment in multiple areas, over time. They could become an admired trombonist and a great biology teacher and a respected human rights activist and the organizer of online communities. As with any child, the transracially adopted child faces limitless possibilities.

And of course, it goes without saying that such activities as sports, martial arts, dance, and all similar activities, can provide great satisfaction, enrichment, and focus as well. They, too, involve accomplishment and achievement.

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Meanwhile, there are two other elements of this. Not only does accomplishment engender a kind of psychological grounding; it also connects the adoptee to a professional or activity community. Fellow trombonists, fellow furniture-makers, fellow human rights activists, fellow chemical engineers—the possibilities are endless. And, one can well hope, in those communities, the adoptee is not constantly identified by race or adoptee status, but rather in reference to their area of endeavor and activity, and their history and level of accomplishment in that area.

That is not to say, of course, that a person of color won’t experience racism even in those contexts. One has to anticipate that one could experience racism in virtually any context. But I can speak from personal experience in stating that my experience of pursuing a career in journalism has not only been immensely fulfilling in itself; it has also grounded me psychologically in profound ways.

What’s more, over time, I’ve come to meet fellow professionals— primarily in the industry that I cover—who are professionals of color.

And that has been absolutely wonderful. The connections can be very powerful, and certainly satisfying.

And that leads to the corollary idea here, the concept of personal integration. Accomplishment is to integration what participation in a fitness regimen is to enhanced health: one phenomenon feeds the other. And helping one’s child to achieve a “rounded” life should, of course, be the goal of every parent of every child. For those of us who are transracial adoptees, the dynamics are more complex than for many other individuals, because of the layering of our backgrounds, identities, narratives, and lived experiences. But, as I’ve advised 325

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countless white transracially adoptive parents, the fact of complexity in no way precludes joy, happiness, satisfaction, or integration. It simply makes the journey more complex, is all.

I also want to add a third element here, and that is non-professional interests. The more well-rounded any person’s interests are, the stronger that person’s set of resilience strategies will be. Having a full intellectual, social, or cultural life is absolutely a gift one can give oneself over time.

And in that context, transracial adoptees can advantage themselves by creating rich intellectual and cultural personal lives for themselves.

Music, art, literature, physical fitness, sports, leisure activities, also contribute to well-roundedness, and also help to ground the adoptee and to help the adoptee to build a stronger foundation of resilience.

Life presents challenges to all people. Creating a rich interior world and architecting personal networks through healthy and engaging activities can help to build foundations that not only can provide comfort during moments and phases of personal stress, challenge, and even devastation; being a richer person in terms of interests and lived experiences is inherently conducive to mental and emotional health.

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Adoptee Voice:

Elena DeWolfe E

lena DeWolfe was born in 1969, and raised in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. She works as an attorney in Chicago. When adopting as a single mother, she had expected to adopt a child who was Black/white biracial as she is, but much to her surprise and to the birth mother’s surprise, she has a white son—another element in her journey. Like so many adult transracial adoptees who are now parents, she has a complex set of perspectives on adoptee identity.

Adoptee Voice: Elena DeWolfe

Can you share your origin story with me?

Certainly. I was adopted at birth, and my dad was a clinical psychologist, as was my mom. And my dad had heard about transracial adoption, through the university. They already had two biological sons, and wanted a girl, so they gender-selected. It was through an agency that no longer exists, on the South Side. The facts I know to be true today are different from those that were reported to my parents through the agency.

I searched for my birth mother when I was in law school, when I was 25. I was raised in Evanston; there was one other transracially adoptive family in Evanston, and I was connected to them, but other than that, I wasn’t aware of any other families like ours. I grew up in northeast Evanston, which was very white, and I went to Roycemore School, which was very white, and the private school had before-and-after care, so that’s where I went to grade school. But I asked to go to Evanston Township High School, public school, and I thrived there. I wasn’t really fully accepted by either the white or Black students, so I ended up kind of floating in between the two. But I definitely had Black friends. I remember a Black friend teaching me about hair and skin care; there were a couple of people helping me along the way.

My mom would seek out advice from one single person, and rely on it as if it were representative of the entire Black community. But to her credit, she also sought out a Black doctor, and that was wonderful.

Back then, that was very rare. I went to the University of California Berkeley undergrad and then to Northwestern University for Law School. I chose Berkeley sight unseen because it was most like what my high school experience had been.

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How did your racial identity evolve over time? I’m sure that’s been a major element in your journey.

It definitely did. I had an Afro in the 70s, but in the 80s, it was not as accepted. I remember a Black guy saying that I needed to get a hairstyle At one point, I remember getting a relaxer for the first time, in high school, and didn’t ask permission. My mom was so mad.

Did it feel like an internal conflict to navigate the hair issue?

I definitely had low self-esteem around my appearance. I didn’t think I was ugly, but the guys weren’t attracted to me, and part of it was the hair. I didn’t date in high school.

Was it complex for you in terms of race, too?

I was mostly attracted to white guys; I was attracted to some Black guys, but they weren’t attracted to me.

How did your identity come together over time?

College helped a lot. Cal is highly international—people from Europe, Asia, everywhere. And I had never been to a school that was so Asiandominant. And in grade school, my best first was half-Asian, halfHungarian. And perhaps we gravitated to each other as females of color? There wasn’t a Black girl in my class; there was one boy. But a lot of my identity development happened in college. I had a social science 329

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major, and I wrote about transracial adoption for my senior thesis. I went to the social work college and got books on transracial adoption.

This is where I found the statistics on the number of transracial adoptees adopted in Illinois, in 1969. I was either one of 11 or 13 transracially adopted that year in Illinois.

Race and class in ethnic America was the focus of my major. I studied Asian-American Studies, Native American Studies, Black Studies, and Eastern European studies. And there was a Professor Litwak, a white guy who was amazing teacher of Black Studies. He showed the “Eyes on the Prize” series in class. I found out about the Japanese internment camps from my friend Laura, whose dad had been in the camps. I sought it all out. My best friend in college was half-Black and halfJewish. I was one of the co-founders of the Multi-Ethnic Interracial Students’ Coalition, MISC. We were all sitting around talking about race and multiethnic, including biracials and multiracials, so this would have been back in about 1988. All of a sudden, I was talking about race with other multiracials. I even met one other biracial transracial adoptee raised by Quakers, like me.

Given your perspective based on your lived experience, how would you share that can parents support their children’s identities?

I would tell them that they need to be more open-minded than they think they’re already being. There’s this presumption that “I know what I’m doing”—but they really don’t. They need to listen to the privileged voices in our groups—the adult transracial adoptees. You now have the opportunity to learn from our perspectives. They have the resources 330

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now that our parents never had. You can do the work , and you need to listen when people tell you something. You have to consider that maybe my way is not the right way. And so often, white women especially don’t want to take advice from Black women.

So there’s some white fragility involved in how white parents respond to input from adoptees?

Not just some fragility, but a tremendous amount. The white fragility is blocking them from becoming better parents. It’s ego. Why can’t you accept advice from a Black person, even though your own child is Black? Now, I’ve met some who are very woke. I have a friend in the U.K. who’s got two daughters from Ethiopia, and she’s all over this. She’s actually doing all the right things, including naturally having Black friends. And yes, being on this path can be hard; but it’s incredibly important. And embracing this is leadership when it comes to parenting—it can be done! But you have to want to do it. And it takes work, and it takes change, and it’s hard.

So, when you chose to adopt, yourself, you were open to all races when you adopted, correct?

Yes, in fact, I specified that I wanted a part-white, part-Black child.

I was tired of talking about transracial adoption! I’ve been on panels talking about this for 25 years. And I’ve been speaking at camps and everywhere else, for 25 years now.

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What was it like to choose to be an adoptive mom?

Well, I had hoped to be married, but that didn’t happen. And by age 41, it was time, and I didn’t want to not be a parent. At the time that I began the process, there were two agencies that had good reputations for working with single parents. Originally, I was looking for a biracial baby girl. So what happens is that you match with the birth mom.

Three months before my son was born, I met his birth mother. She told me she was carrying a biracial baby boy, and she was scheduled for a c-section. Then I was stunned that my son was white. I actually thought, oh my gosh, are they going to let me keep him? Because I hadn’t prepared for that. And then the birth mom talked to her mom, and they worried, because she got the father wrong. But all’s well that ends well. She chose me and wanted me to have him; she had believed the baby would be biracial, and she chose me for that reason.

What has the experience been, in terms of the racial aspect?

It’s been difficult at times, when I’ve taken him to the park, and I’m called the nanny. And people will say, “My gosh, you’re so good with him!” And they’ll say, “What does his mother think? “And I’ll say, “I am his mother!” They see a Black woman with a white child, and they assume that I must be the nanny, and I have to correct them and educate them.

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Was there anything surprising being an adoptive parent, even though you were an adoptee?

Well, I was a new parent, so I had nothing to compare it to. But I have more empathy for my parents now, because I now know some of what they were going through, having no guidance or support. So I have more empathy for them. Just because I’m a transracial adoptee, doesn’t mean that I’ve been a flipside adoptee. One thing is that—culturally, I have a white background; I didn’t grow up in the Black community.

So there’s no cultural gap between me and my son in terms of culture; I know his culture, because I grew up in it. But there have been times when I’ve noticed conservative white people somehow trying to bring him over to their side. And I’m like, no, he’s got a Black mama. And I’ve chosen to want to expose him to what it’s like to be Black in America.

I want him to understand the differences.

Do you feel there’s a bit of complexity in his journey as well?

Oh, for sure. He’s going to face things as a white child with a Black mother. And there are times when I would loudly shout “Mom!” and “Dad!” so that people would know our relationship. And he’s doing that sometimes now. And so am I. But to a lot of people’s credit, they can figure it out. And I realize it’s not typical; it’s unusual. And I try to remember how my family wasn’t typical, either. So I try to give people some grace. I’ve been his mom since the moment he was born. I’ve earned the title, and want to be recognized as his mom.

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Does it give you a kind of interesting perspective on white transracially adoptive parents’ journey?

Yes, though I get frustrated with white adoptive parents, because there are resources now, and sometimes they’re not using them. I didn’t have those resources. Also, because my son is white and male and American, there are times when I feel when we’re in a restaurant that it feels as though I’m getting better treatment because he’s white. But it sucks when people think I’m not his mom. We just want to be acknowledged for who we are. And sometimes, I say, hey, you want to talk about things? And sometimes he’ll open up. I try to be open and to be a really good listener, and to show empathy. But I don’t know what it’s like to be him. And sometimes it feels like a social experiment, but I never planned it—it just happened!

Is there anything you’d like to add?

I’d like people to know that we flipside families are out here. And this is not a sitcom; it’s reality. Why is it normal to accept white parents with children of color, but the flipside is so surprising—especially when it comes to foster care? DCFS [the Department of Children and Family Services] places kids, and a lot of people of color are fostering. People don’t realize that Black people adopt. And so the idea that Black people might adopt white children is just mind-blowing to people. ?. The Black community and other communities of color understand genetics much better than white the white community as a whole, in terms of skin color and other issues.

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16 CHAPTER

CHAPTER

16 The Broader Frame: Justice, Progress

• Having reflected on the chapters of this book, I would ask the reader to consider the broader frame of racial and social justice, and adoption process reform • There are many opportunities for volunteerism • For me, a passion for racial and social justice is an inevitable outcome of my lifelong transracial adoptee journey

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I

have focused in this book on the personal journey of the transracial adoptee across the adoptee’s lifetime, and on what elements of that journey are the most challenging, problematic, difficult, and complex; and what adoptees can do for themselves, as they move forward on their personal journeys, and on what white transracially adoptive parents can and must do to support and uplift their adopted children of color.

I hope that the chapters in this book will have been helpful to adoptees of all ages and to adoptive parents (as well as to spouses, partners, relatives, friends, and all others connected to transracial adoptees)—as well as to anyone else connected to the transracial adoptee journey and to the transracial adoption world.

Now, I believe it’s also important to look at the bigger frame around all of this, from a number of different perspectives.

Here are the main broader frames:  The broad movement for racial and social justice, in the United States and all over the world  The movement to reform international and transracial adoption practices and processes, and to uncover unethical practices  The movement in the United States to obtain citizenship for international adoptees whose parents failed to obtain citizenship for their children at the point of adoption  A broader journey for all those connected to transracial adoption into wokeness and overall enlightenment, and towards action, including anti-racism volunteering, advocacy, and activism

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First, it’s important simply to speak up for broader self-education, enlightenment, and awakening. Throughout this book, I’ve asked white transracially adoptive parents to commit to intensive self-education around race, racism, racial identity, white privilege, white fragility, adoption issues, and all issues affecting their children. I’ve stressed that element of self-education as one essential to supporting and uplifting one’s adopted child of color on their journey—and it is.

But now that a white adoptive parent has immersed her/himself in all those issues, what’s next? Let me put it this way: now that you’ve come to realize that racism is real and that racism is systemic, are you willing to try to make the world a better place for anyone beyond your own child of color? Are you willing to become an ally to people of color who are not in your immediate nuclear family? Are you willing to turn your awareness into action? And are you seeing the world differently now, not just for the sake of your own child/ren, but for all people of color? And what are you doing with your recently gained knowledge and insights? Because if you really can see racism now, that means that you also have the moral obligation to do more than simply making your own child’s life easier (though that is an essential obligation as a parent).

And that leads to the fight, in the United States and across the world, for racial and social justice. Think of Black Lives Matter. Think of the intense fight taking place right now in the United States over attempts to suppress the vote of people of color. Think of the connections between U.S. foreign policy and the well-being of people in countries all around the world. It is beyond the scope of this book for me to recommend very specific actions that readers can take; and in any case, there are 338

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literally countless possibilities out in the world. But I will put it this way: all white people who can see racism and other forms of injustice, have the obligation to act as allies to people of color. Once one sees racial and social injustice, one loses any argument based on ignorance or unknowing. And people of color in every country on earth face challenges that white people can ally with them to address. As I say, it’s beyond the scope of this book to recommend specific actions. But I sincerely ask anyone reading this book to consider what they personally can do to make a difference in the world, beyond the lives of those in their immediate family.

Reforming adoption around the world Meanwhile, adult transracial adoptees are involved in several very broad movements in the present. In the international adoption world, transracial adoptee-led groups are advocating either for comprehensive reform in international adoption processes, or in some cases, for an end to international adoption from certain countries and/or to certain countries, depending on the individual situations involved.

Meanwhile, some domestic transracial adoptees are involved in the broader movement inside the United States to force open birth and adoption records, in order to allow adult adoptees either to do birth search, or to search for medical records and information, or both.

And some transracial adoptees are involved in the current movement to get citizenship granted to older international adoptees whose parents had failed to secure citizenship for them at the time they were adopted; that legislative advocacy push involves international adoptees adopted before the year 2001.

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There is no universal consensus around the closure of international adoption from or to individual countries; for example, some adult Korean adoptees have pointed out that, because South Koreans continue to refuse to adopt children in large numbers (because of East Asian cultural norms that cause South Koreans to avoid adopting outside bloodlines), the reality is that thousands of children are now languishing in orphanages in South Korea, even as willing prospective adoptive parents would be glad to adopt them to the United States, Canada, and Europe. Adult Korean adoptees are divided over whether ongoing pressure to try to force the South Korean government to end outbound international adoption altogether (the South Korean government, under pressure from adult Korean adoptees living in South Korea, has been drastically reducing outbound international adoptions now for a decade and a half, and has stated that ultimately, outbound international adoptions will end), is helpful to the youngest children who have already been relinquished by their birth families.

The debate rages on in that regard.

But adult international adoptees have forced a broad reckoning, with results in numerous cases.

For example, on February 8, 2021, in a report in NOS Nieuws, under the headline, “For the time being no new adoptions from abroad,” the Dutch government announced an end, “for the time being,” to international adoption. https://nos.nl/artikel/2367782-voorlopig-geen-nieuwe-adopties-uithet-buitenland.html?fbclid=IwAR1_qh2-Wt0WyB6_cYFCFl-wdB2O KxlhjcEsnuYuvMARduHpxMcxOKh9T3E

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“The Netherlands will immediately suspend adoptions from abroad,” the article reported. “The outgoing Minister for Legal Protection [Sander] Dekker announced this in response to the report of the Joustra Committee on the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government. Ongoing adoption procedures will still be completed, after an additional test. The State will also no longer rely on prescription in adoptees’ proceedings. According to the committee, the Netherlands has acted too passively in the adoption process in the past. As a result, the supervision of procedures was insufficient and no action was taken in the event of abuses that came to light. This includes child theft, child trafficking and unethical acts of civil servants. Such abuses had been known since the 1960s. Minister Dekker acknowledges this. ‘The Dutch government has failed for years by looking away from abuses in intercountry adoption and not intervening,’ he says. Dekker apologizes to victims. He says adoptees deserve recognition for past mistakes and help in the present.”

The article went on to note that “Dekker explains the abuses because for a long time it was felt that an adoption was a form of ‘doing good’ for adoptive parents who wanted to have children and the children, who often came from poor countries. ‘That is an explanation for the abuses, but no justification,’ said Dekker…. The report of the committee led

by Tjibbe Joustra was presented this morning, but the conclusions were already leaked on Friday. Minister Dekker says that the cabinet will adopt all the recommendations from the report. For example, there will be an independent national expertise center for adoption, which will bundle knowledge about identity formation and aftercare. The committee further concludes that over time measures have been taken to improve supervision and regulation, but that “the system contains 341

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inherent vulnerabilities”. Joustra says the committee doubts whether a system can be designed that removes these vulnerabilities, but leaves that to politicians. Dekker agrees with this. “Although there is no longer any question of looking away and supervision has been tightened. The system is and will remain vulnerable. That is why we have to reconsider adoptions from abroad.” The outgoing minister leaves a decision on a future adoption system to the next cabinet.”

As Lynelle Long, president of Intercountry Adoptive Voices (ICAV) stated in group’s Facebook group on February 8 when the Dutch government’s announcement was made, “Congratulations to the Netherlands adoptees - all those who have contributed to the advocacy over years to get to this decision!! Finally recognition of the wrongs in intercountry adoption, a decision made at the heart of the intercountry adoption system - The Hague and all the signatory countries will not be able to ignore this latest development!! It will be an interesting Special Commission meeting in June given this latest outcome and including the recognition by the Swiss govt last month!! One of the two topics is the illicit adoptions.”

Lynelle Long had articulated one of the key reasons that international adoptees are engaging in advocacy right now, in a blogpost on the ICAV website, on October 22, 2019. https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/2019/10/22/what-is-in-ourbest-interests-as-intercountry-adopted-people/ In that post, published under the headline “What is in our ‘Best Interests’ as Intercountry Adopted People?” she wrote this: “I find it interesting to ponder why the concept Best Interests 342

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of the Child in intercountry adoption is discussed and decisions made without substantial research on the long term outcomes in intercountry adoption. When I say long term, I mean decades to show how intercountry adoption impacts us through the various stages of life. Most of the existing research focuses on a short window of time at adolescence to early adulthood, but not much beyond that. Having lived my life now to later-middle adulthood, and reflecting on the changes I went through as a younger adoptee coming to terms with my life, my identity, where I fit, having children of my own, there is no doubt in my mind that the way adoptees view adoption and its impacts, changes over time as we age and experience life.”

Further, Lynelle wrote, “There is also little input at professional forums on Best Interest of the Child from those who are experts of the lived journey — intercountry adoptees! Intercountry adoption has been happening as a modern phenomenon for more than 70 years if you consider the waves of German, Greek, then Korean intercountry adoptees and beyond. It remains an assumption couched within international adoption conventions and laws, that it is in our best interest to place us with strangers — racially, culturally, spiritually, emotionally and biologically but yet no longitudinal evidence exists to confirm that intercountry adoption IS a positive solution for the children themselves, nor input from those who live it across a wide spectrum of experiences. At the recent US Department of State Intercountry Adoption Symposium, one of the 5 issues I raised for consideration as an improvement for policy discussion, was the Best Interest of the Child concept to be discussed from the perspective of those who live it. JaeRan Kim also recently wrote a fantastic article asking the pertinent question of why American adult intercountry 343

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adoptees until last month, had not been proactively approached to attend policy discussion forums. My guess is, maybe it’s inconvenient to hear our truths? It might mean the industry needs to listen and change!”

There is also a movement taking place right now in the United States to help achieve citizenship for the approximately 46,000 adult international adoptees whose parents failed to acquire citizenship for them when adopting them. All those children who were under 18 years of age as of February 27, 2001, obtained citizenship through the Child Citizenship Act of 2002; tragically, however, tens of thousands of adult international adoptees were not covered by the CCA. As of the writing of this book, a bipartisan bill has been introduced into Congress, the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021. Here is the link to the announcement made on March 26, 2021, by the office of Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri: https://www.blunt.senate.gov/news/press-releases/blunt-hironocollins-klobuchar-murkowski-duckworth-introduce-adopteecitizenship-act-of-2021#:~:text=announced%20that%20they%20 have%20introduced,being%20raised%20by%20American%20 parents.

And here is a portion of the press release from Senator Blunt’s office: “Today, U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.), Mazie K. Hirono (Hawaii), Susan Collins (Maine), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) announced that they have 344

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introduced the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021. The bipartisan bill would close a loophole in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA), which has prevented internationally-adopted children, who are now adults, from receiving U.S. citizenship despite being raised by American parents. ‘Adults who were adopted from abroad as children and raised in the U.S. by American parents should not be penalized because of the arbitrary age cutoff in the Child Citizenship Act,’ said Blunt. ‘For many of these adults, the United States is the only home they have ever known. They have built their lives, contributed to their communities, and raised families of their own. It is simply unreasonable for them not to be able to obtain U.S. citizenship and the rights that come with it. I urge our colleagues to join us in fixing this loophole in the CCA.’

‘Children adopted from abroad and raised in America, by American parents, are no less American than anyone else,’ said Hirono. ‘But because of a loophole in the Child Citizenship Act, thousands of adopted individuals do not have access to the same rights of citizenship.

Our bipartisan bill closes this loophole and provides citizenship automatically to all adoptees.’

‘It is simply not right that international adoptees who were legally adopted in the United States are being denied citizenship due to a loophole in current law,” said Collins. “Our bipartisan bill would address this loophole to allow these individuals to finally become American citizens. I encourage our colleagues to support it.’

‘Minnesotans have a long and proud tradition of adoption, providing loving homes to children from around the globe,’ said Klobuchar. ‘Too 345

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often, international adoptees are not granted citizenship, though they were raised in the U.S. It’s time to pass this legislation to close this citizenship loophole and support our nation’s families.’

‘Many adults who were adopted as children have lived in America their entire lives, but lack U.S. citizenship because of a loophole in the Child Citizenship Act. Stories of adoptees who faced deportation and were sent back to their country of birth as a result are absurd,’ said Murkowski. ‘Children who were adopted by a U.S. citizen, regardless of when the adoption was finalized, should not face fear of deportation.

And, previously deported adoptees—forced to return to an unfamiliar place, separated from their families and community—deserve a path to U.S. citizenship and to be reunited with their loved ones.’

‘Because of a technicality under current federal law, thousands of American children who were adopted from abroad are being denied citizenship to the only country many of them have ever known— needlessly putting many families at risk of being separated for no good reason,’ said Duckworth. ‘Our bipartisan bill would fix this unfair and harmful technicality and prevent needless heartache for many American families, and I’m proud The CCA guarantees citizenship to most international adoptees, but the law only applies to adoptees who were under the age of 18 when the law took effect on February 27, 2001. The loophole denies citizenship to adoptees who were age 18 or over in February 2001, even though they were legally adopted as children by U.S. citizens and raised in the United States. The legislation introduced today fixes this problem by making citizenship automatic for international adoptees who were legally adopted by U.S. citizens as children, regardless of how old they eventually were when the Child 346

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Citizenship Act took effect.

Without citizenship, these international adoptees face many barriers, such as having trouble applying for a passport, license, or student financial aid. In some cases, they have been deported to the country in which they were born, where they may have no known family and little chance of succeeding.

In addition to the bipartisan congressional support for the Adoptee Citizenship Act, the legislation has garnered widespread praise among the nation’s leading adoption advocacy organizations.

‘Children adopted into American families grow up on principles of productive work and independence,’ said Joy Alessi, Director, Adoptee Rights Campaign. ‘Without Citizenship, adoptees grow into adulthood, unable to pursue their dreams and lack a sustainable way forward. The Adoptee Citizenship Act is a simple solution to ensuring that all adopted Americans are treated equally. We thank Senators Blunt, Hirono, Collins, Klobuchar, Murkowski, and Duckworth for prioritizing an early introduction, and look forward to advancing support for the bill.’”

I’ve now referenced three broad areas of potential activity: volunteer work to advance racial and social justice in the United States (or in any country); support for, and potential involvement in, the international adoption reform movement; and, specifically, support for the passage of the Adoptee Citizenship Act in the United States.

My profoundest hope is that the Adoptee Citizenship Act can pass during the current session of the U.S. Congress.

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In any case, anyone reading this book can answer the call: the call to working for racial and social justice, and societal advancement of all kinds, in the United States or wherever one lives.

And my encouraging the readers of this book to do something on a broader scale comes precisely out of my own lived experience as a transracial adoptee. Having lived the life that I’ve been living, having experienced both marginalization and privilege of various types, having moved forward on my own personal journey of awakening across a lifetime of experiences, I literally cannot separate my sharing of my insights and perspectives in this book from my profound passion for racial and social justice in the United States and everywhere. Once one sees with open eyes, one cannot unsee. And it is my profoundest privilege to have been given the opportunity to grow personally along my life journey as a transracial adoptee, and to now share with the readers of this book my passion for change—not only on behalf of the littlest transracial adoptees in all countries, but on behalf of all people of color and all marginalized people, in all societies. I sincerely hope that the readers of this book will have found the experience of reading this book to have been useful, meaningful, and perhaps even transformative. My desire is sincere.

“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.” –traditional Irish blessing

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Appendix: Resources

Books Books by Adult Transracial Adoptees Parenting As Adoptees: Adam Chau and Kevin Ost-Vollmers, editors (2012) https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-As-Adoptees-Adam-Chau/ dp/0988585804/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=parenting+as+adoptees&qid=1618114249&sr=8-2 Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption: Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, Sun Yung Shin, editors (2021) https://www.amazon.com/Outsiders-Within-Writing-Transracial-Adoption/dp/1517910536/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=transracial+adoption&qid=1618115862&sr=8-15 Black Anthology: Adult Adoptees Claim Their Space: Susan Harris O’Connor, Diane Rene Christian, Mei-Mei Ellerman, editors (2016) https://www.amazon.com/Black-Anthology-Adoptees-YA-Project-ebook/dp/B01M7VB06R/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Susan+Har-

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ris+O%27connor&qid=1618114449&sr=8-2 In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption: Rhonda M. Roorda (2015) https://www.amazon.com/Their-Voices-Americans-Transracial-Adoption/dp/0231172214/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Rhonda+Mae+roorda&qid=1618114603&sr=8-1-fkmr1 The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee: Susan Harris O’Connor (2012) https://www.amazon.com/Harris-Narratives-Introspective-Transracial-2012-11-28/dp/B01FEKW3PU/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=The+Harris+Narratives&qid=1618113696&sr=8-3 The Son With Two Moms: Tony Hynes (2015) https://www.amazon.com/Son-Moms-Tony-Hynes-2015-11-15/dp/ B01N8UAJUG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Tony+Hynes&qid= 1618114936&sr=8-2 All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir: Nicole Chung (2019) https://www.amazon.com/All-You-Can-Ever-Know/dp/1948226375/ ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nicole+Chung&qid=1618152193& sr=8-1 Killing Karoline : What Happens When the Baby They Buried Comes Back?: Sara-Jayne King (2017) https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Karoline-happens-buried-comes-ebook/dp/B0862F7KZQ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords 350

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=Sara-Jayne+King&qid=1618114740&sr=8-1 La Couleur de l’Adoption: Alix Suprenant-Nanu (2018) (in French) https://www.amazon.com/La-couleur-de-ladoption/dp/2924787378/ ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=La+Couleur+de+l%27Adoption&qid=1618113633&sr=8-2 The “Unknown” Culture Club : Korean Adoptees, Then and Now: Janine Myung Ja (2015) https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Club-Korean-Adoptees-Then/ dp/1512331538/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+unknown+culture+club&qid=1618114321&sr=8-1 Growing Up Black In White: Kevin D. Hofmann (2019) https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Black-White-Kevin-Hofmannebook/dp/B07PRWRPTM/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=kevin+hoffman&qid=1618115036&sr=8-2 See No Color: Shannon Gibney (2020) https://www.amazon.com/See-No-Color-Shannon-Gibney/ dp/0823445682/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Shannon+Gibney&qid=1618115739&sr=8-1

Books by Other Authors White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism: Robin DiAngelo (2018):

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Appendix: Resources

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=white+fragility&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism: Don Lemon (2021) https://www.amazon.com/This-Fire-Friends-About-Racism/ dp/0316257575/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Don+Lemon&qid =1618115423&sr=8-1 Caste: A Brief History of Racism, Sexism, Classism, Ageism, Homophobia, Religious Intolerance, Xenophobia, and Reasons for Hope: Isabel Wilkerson (2020) https://www.amazon.com/Caste-Homophobia-Religious-Intolerance-Xenophobia/dp/B08CGDMP6K/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=Isabel+Wilkerson&qid=1618115487&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFDN0o0WkQwOVlXMlMmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxNDUxNzYxMFJFSkJCMVhYQzRRJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyMjI3OTQzT1VURFNOSkIwUlJDJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ== The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration: Isabel Wilkerson (2011) https://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/ dp/0679763880/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Isabel+Wilkerson&qid=1618115583&sr=8-4 Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race: Beverly Daniel Tum, Ph.D. (20th Anniversa352

Appendix: Resources

ry Edition, 2017) https://www.amazon.com/Black-Kids-Sitting-Together-Cafeteria/ dp/0465060684/ref=sr_1_16?dchild=1&keywords=transracial+adoption&qid=1618115926&sr=8-16 Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights: Kenji Yoshino (2007) https://www.amazon.com/Covering-Hidden-Assault-Civil-Rights/ dp/0375760210/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Kenji+Yoshino&qid=1618115663&sr=8-1 Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America: Michael Eric Dyson (2020) https://www.amazon.com/Long-Time-Coming-Reckoning-America/dp/1250276756/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Michael+Eric+Dyson&qid=1618116157&sr=8-2 Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America: Michael Eric Dyson (2017) https://www.amazon.com/Tears-We-Cannot-Stop-America-ebook/dp/ B01KFX66SQ/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Michael+Eric+Dyson&qid=1618116258&sr=8-3 Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America: Maria Hinojosa https://www.amazon.com/Once-Was-You-Memoir-America/dp/1982128658/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Once+I+was+you+Maria+Hinojosa&qid=1618116324&sr=8-1

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Appendix: Resources

My Beloved World: Sonia Sotomayor (2014) https://www.amazon.com/My-Beloved-World-Sonia-Sotomayor/ dp/034580483X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Sonia+Sotomayor&qid=1618116412&sr=8-1 The Making of Asian America: A History: Erika Lee (2016) https://www.amazon.com/Making-Asian-America-History/ dp/1476739412/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Asians+in+America&qid=1618116482&sr=8-1 On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family: Lisa See (2014) https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Mountain-One-Hundred-Year-Odyssey-Chinese-American-ebook/dp/B00M60S3II/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=On+Gold+Mountain&qid=1618116625&sr=8-1 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West: Dee Brown (2012) https://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart-Wounded-Knee-ebook/ dp/B009KY5OGC/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Native+American+history&qid=1618116841&sr=8-3

Documentaries “Side x Side: Out of a South Korean Orphanage and Into the World” (2018) http://sidebysideproject.com/ 354

Appendix: Resources

“Adopted, by Barb Lee” (2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKoAVdpXq_4 “Girl, Adopted” (2013): https://itvs.org/films/girl-adopted#:~:text=Girl%2C%20Adopted%20is%20a%20contemporary,the%20aftermath%20of%20 her%20adoption “Approved for Adoption” (2012): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNZ2vOM-cQ “Daughter from Danang” (2002): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AU_VUe2HX0 “Happy Girl” (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3k_jN0gfxQ “First Person Plural”: (2000) https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/first-person-plural “In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee” (2010) https://www.kanopy.com/product/matter-cha-jung-hee “Twinsters” (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66mVCwlL8Os

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Appendix: Resources

Blogs Harlow’s Monkey: An Unapologetic Look at Transracial and Transnational Adoption https://harlows-monkey.com/2019/07/04/welcome/ A Birth Project: Transracial Adoption From One Black Girl’s Perspective https://birthproject.wordpress.com/about/ EthioAmerican Daughter https://ethioamericandaughter.wordpress.com/author/aselefech/

Facebook Groups Transracial Adoption Perspectives (please request membership in TAP’s introductory group, TAP 101, first) Transracial Adoption: Skandinavien (in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) Adopción: familias de colores (in Spanish) ICAV (InterCountry Adoptee Voices) Facebook page: KAAN

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Appendix: Resources

Other Links ICAV: InterCountry Adoptee Voices: https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/ Pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021: https://www.adopteecitizenshipact.org/ Heritage Camps for Adoptive Families: https://www.heritagecamps.org/ Pact, an Adoption Alliance: https://www.pactadopt.org/app/servlet/HomePage KAAN, the Korean American Adoptee and Adoptive Family Network: https://www.wearekaan.org/

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About the Author

M

ark Hagland is an adult transracial, international adoptee, born in South Korea in 1960 and adopted as an infant to the United States, where he was raised by American parents of Norwegian and German descent. He has spent more than two decades volunteering in and participating in spaces around transracial adoption, both in person and online, in order to support and educate around all the important topics in the transracial adoption area.

Mark has been a contributing author to several anthologies written by teams of adult transracial adoptees. He has contributed to Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (2006; Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia

About the Author

Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin, editors; updated edition, 2021); Parenting As Adoptees (2012; Adam Chau and Kevin Ost-Vollmers, editors); and The “Unknown” Culture Club: Korean Adoptees, Then and Now” (2015; Janine Myung Ja, Jenette Moon Ja, and Katherine Kim, editors). He has also participated in two transracial adoptionfocused documentaries: “Adopted, by Barb Kim” (2008; educational supplement); and “Side X Side Project: Out of a South Korean Orphanage and Into the World” (Glenn Morey and Julie Morey, 2018).

Mark has also participated in more than 16 conferences presented by KAAN, the Korean American Adoptee and Adoptive Family Network; has participated in the Colorado Heritage Camps; and has spoken at a number of other conferences and gatherings. He also helps to moderate several Facebook groups around transracial adoption, currently in English, Spanish, and Danish. He has written a variety of articles and blogs published in several different publications, including Korean Quarterly.

In his professional life, Mark has been a professional journalist since 1982, and has been a health care journalist since 1989. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He has published more than 10,000 articles, and two books, in the healthcare field. He lives and works in Chicago.

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