I never feel enough.

Our family drove to Minneapolis this weekend on a quest to find out more about my adoption. The mood was jolly as we road tripped. I was excited for our first adoptee conference outing as a family.

We settled in with our Doubletree cookies and name tags for the KAAN 2014 conference. “Nice,” I thought.

For dinner, we split off: me to the adoptees-only dinner; the rest to the community dinner. I had been anxiously awaiting the dinner. As you know, I enjoyed the Adoption Policy and Reform Collaborative Conference in November. I found my family in the women of the Lost Daughters. My visions of my family and I finding our niche were on the verge of validation. 

Fitting, assimilating, blending … my entire life, I have wanted that acceptance. But my own notions scare me. I briefly said hello to a few adoptees and then sank into solitude as the young adoptees around me talked and reconnected. I was finally the majority race on this shuttle to dinner.

What should have been gratifying and fulfilling soon became oppressive. I suddenly began to feel less comfortable surrounded by so many Asians. I felt the panic I felt as a child when I was paired with the only other Asian boy.

I didn’t feel a part of this group of adoptees. I frantically texted and posted to my husband and my Lost Daughters’ sisters. I was aching. Many on the bus were Minneapolis adoptees who knew one another. Others were well-known in the KAAN circles; they had their connections. They all seemed so happy and well-adjusted. Laughter and conversation filled the bus. 

Something inside of me felt cancerous. I was consuming myself in panic; my eyes were welling with tears. I felt less Korean … less Korean adopted. 

Luckily, I found two friendly faces from the Adoption Policy and Reform conference at the restaurant and began to relax. 

Sometimes, I feel my background of Southerner, Puerto Rican, Asian and white conflate and confuse me. It is as though I cannot decide what identity to wear or where I fit. I never feel enough of anything. 

This morning, I met up with my Lost Daughter sister, Kripa. She became my anchor and helped me realize that sometimes, the best thing is to be who you are in that space and moment. I’m trying!

 

A Dictionary on Adoption

In researching the Korean language for my next ceramic piece, I have learned that all words are not quite equal.

Time has altered the ideas of words. There are the words written by Koreans, the words in an old Japanese publishing of a Korean dictionary, and the words of an American published Korean dictionary.

Pause and consider these interpretations of the language.

This dictionary was given to me today by my daughter’s friend’s Korean mother.

This one was given to me early in my life by my father. He bought it during the Korean War in the 1950s, before the flood of Korean adoptees in America.

Lastly, pages of the two together. Notice that the 1950s version only mentions an adopted son. Curious about that one …

I wonder if adoption in the 1950s was an honor only granted to sons. Would no respectable Korean family adopt a daughter?

Rhetorical Roots

I am leaving on a jet plane to the District of Columbia.

In my carry-on, I have some of the most precious pieces of my life.

Art feeds me. It regenerates. It invigorates. It educates.

If you have followed me, you know I am a photographer. I capture the lives of those I love and the issues that impact our world as women, people of color and adoptees.

Lately, as I struggled with the lack of history, I began to work more intensely on my ceramics. I began throwing what my hubby likes to call “door stoppers” in the fall of 2009. It was new, and I saw that form as a way of making dinnerware.

As I began to throw more creatively, I still struggled with my need for perfection. All pieces must be symmetrical. I joke that I hate mugs with handles for this reason, but secretly, I just dislike pulling handles.

My work progressed to flowers this fall. They had more meaning to me. Growth and reproduction.

But this winter, the news of no records and the potential of not knowing my original family began to take a toll. So, I locked myself away in music and clay. What emerged were these expressions of emotion tied to my adoption experience.

With each cut to the roots, I felt progress. While it wasn’t the progress I wanted, it satisfied my needs.   Each cut became deeper, but I never seemed to cut through … I wanted to cut through and create a break to the other side. As I worked, I realized that perfection just wasn’t in the cards. My last work was a deconstruction. Even though I was going for imperfection, it still was balanced and symmetrical. Some things just cannot be cut out of a person.

Some of these pieces are accompanying me to Washington, DC, and the Living Loud event at Busboys and Poets at 1025 5th St. NW, this Sunday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. I will be meeting up with many of my Lost Daughters sisters.

Please come and listen to the voices of adoptees as we explore our rhetorical roots.

The Lengths of Loyalty

At this moment, my father is intubated and riding in an ambulance to Knoxville, Tennessee. This is the man who I highlighted in this tweet.

Seriously, I have THE. BEST. DAD. EVER. What you say? You do? Uh, NO. Te amo, Papito. #adoptee
— mothermade (@mothermade) May 21, 2014

This tweet came about after my last conversation with my father about my adoption search. As always, he reassured me and punctuated my right to know about my original country and family.

Loyalty is a legacy. While I had discussed my search with my father many times, my husband wanted me to discuss my open search with my father one more time. My husband feared that such actions would hurt my father.

I knew this to be untrue. Too many times, my father and I had discussed the possibility of my search. Books on Korea, his Korean dictionary, his affinity for Korean food were shared with me. I have never felt that I was not his or he mine. But loyalty works its way into my entire family.

Earlier this year, as my daughter was lamenting how far we are from family, she sighed and said, “Mom, I wish I had cousins.” I, of course, began rattling off the names of my sister’s daughter and my sister-in-law’s children. My daughter said, “No, I meant genetic cousins, like in Korea.”

And yet, after our visit to Puerto Rico, my daughter’s loyalty began to show.

“I want to know the heritage (Korean), but I don’t want to know my genetic family. I have cousins already. You can’t neglect the family you have. I don’t need to be blood-related to have family,” she told me.

I asked her how she felt in Puerto Rico.

“I felt out of place at first … as a different race. But then, I realized they (the Puerto Rican family) are enough. What if they (my original family) don’t want to find you? What if they don’t like you or are bad? I don’t want to see you hurt,” She continued.

Obviously, the media, adoption agencies and some adoptive parents reinforce this idea of “being loyal.” Adoptees are asked why we can’t be “grateful.” We are told that our adoptions are “gifts.” Perhaps it is a level of guilt that all families have. Guilt, loyalty and love are all wound up in the fabric of family.

Take for example, the movie, August: Osage County.  I saw the pervasiveness of guilt and loyalty spill out in these quotes:

“Mama was a mean nasty lady. That’s where I get it from.”
“Smug little ingrate … ”
“Your father was homeless for six years!”
“Stick that knife of judgement in me. You don’t choose your family!”

I am realizing that we all have this level of loyalty. My father’s loyalty to me is that he wants to shield me from hurt too. Just before my mother and my grandmother died, both my mother and my father withheld their medical conditions from me. They wanted me to enjoy my life and not stress about things they felt were out of our control. But in the end, the white lies hurt more. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t tell me. 

Now, I realize so much more. I have that loyalty. The loyalty to lie. The loyalty to protect. The loyalty to love.

Motherless Daughters & Childless Mothers

Two days sting me … the day of my mother’s death (February 2) and Mother’s Day (May).

Another Mother’s Day. Adoptees struggle with this day. Some feel only loosely connected to their adoptive mothers; some feel the opposite and shun the idea of a first mother. Those who are connected with their first families must dance that delicate loyalty dance. Two mothers … two cards.

First mothers must struggle too. Like Philomena, they may grieve for their lost child. They are the childless mothers, the ones who gave birth but have no child to call or cuddle on that day. It’s just a day, but notice the cards, the brunches, the flowers, the jewelry commercials.

The years since my mother’s death have caused anxiety and grief on a day I would prefer to celebrate with my own children. The grief from her death has consumed me, but this year is different.

If you have followed my path this year, you must understand. My grief is doubled. Finally, I grieve the loss of another mother, and I question myself.

“Why did it take me 46 years to acknowledge the loss?”

“Why did I never want to return to Korea?”

“Why did I push my first mother back into the recesses of my mind?”

“Why did I not grieve for my first mother and the loss I must have felt here?”

“Why do I cling to the grief over the loss of my adoptive mother?”

Perhaps the latter can be answered. My adoptive mother was tangible. She was known, and she loved me. When we lose, we grasp tightly to what is left. Yet now, she is gone too.

So, I am left with sparse papers that tell me how little is “known.”

I am left with the words “no record.”

I am left with a photograph of a one-year-old in her element.

That said, I am also left with two beautiful children who share my DNA and a deep connection. We are still connected by an invisible umbilical cord that I suspect is also connected somewhere with another family in Korea. Perhaps that family has a childless mother who silently sits and wonders about the little girl she lost 46 years ago on a day in May.

The Box

Our family ditched the dull, dreary weather of Wisconsin for the sunny smiles and pleasant primos of Puerto Rico. A much needed break and connection with my family was long overdue. We had visited briefly with my cousins and their children last summer, but that was a fleeting day at Dollywood.

This was a full week of relaxing and reconnecting. Our broken Spanish and their broken English meshed well. Outside, I could overhear my children and their cousins trying on the language of the other. It reminded me of my days with my cousins and learning those words that children need … “mira, oye, cuidado … ”

My children came back to Wisconsin with a new-found confidence in speaking Spanish. The time with this side of my family always rejuvenates me. Their love is more than I could ever express in typewritten words. Simply, I am a “Gonzo girl.” My children are engulfed by the infectious love of the Gonzos.

This joy stays with us, but when we return, the reality of our identity sinks in.

This week, the boy and I had our annual physicals. They correspond because since his birth, my physical has been timed with his birthday.

There are numerous forms, but I was very excited about this box.

Yesterday, my son wore this shirt from the Uniqlo’s Pharrell Williams line “I am other.”

We also talked about my check up report. It states that I am white and Hispanic. It reminded me of the time in college when an admissions researcher had changed my designation from Asian to Hispanic. My son was appalled! He knows I would never check the box that says “white.” “You should get that fixed, Mom,” he said.

We had a nice visit with my son’s Chinese pediatrician, and he printed his check up report …

Our response? “¡Ay, Dios miyo!”

Only two pieces of paper

Forty-five years ago in Japan, my parents began and finished their adoption experience while living in Tokyo.

Today, I finally received word back from Holt. A couple of months ago,  I received a few pages from my American Holt file. Since that time, I have waited to hear from Korea. The email today said this:

“Attached is a copy of all the information about you from your file in Korea.  A copy will remain in our files for future reference.  Let me know if you have any questions about these documents.  

Unfortunately, the staff of Holt Children’s Services of Korea was unable to locate enough information regarding your background to begin a search for your birth family.  We regret that Holt Children’s Services Korea and Holt International Children’s Services cannot assist you in a search but will be happy to help you plan an independent search.  We received the following email: 

According the child report from you, and also the release paper in the file, the adoptee was placed in CBH from the Chong Yang ri police station on May 24, 1968.  She was later referred to Holt adoption program by CBH on the same day which was in cases of abandonment.  

I am afraid that there is no addition information to learn more about the background. Cheongyang ni is the correct spelling now, and it is a neighborhood located in Dongdae mun gu, Seoul city. 

Once admitted to Holt, 숙현 was placed in the care of a foster home, but there is no information about the foster mother in the record. 

The attached is a copy of the adoption file (only 2 pages). The adoptee’s current contact information will be updated in our file, and she may feel free to leave photos in the file for the future reference. 

I’m so sorry that we aren’t able to assist you with your search.  Because we want to support you any way we can, please feel free to contact us to talk about this assessment with one of our post adoption counselors.  Having a good support system, through friends and family, as well as Holt, is very important.  There may be many terms or references that are unfamiliar to you within the assessment, so please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or if you’d like additional information regarding the history, culture, or record keeping practices of the time.”

While Holt may have some sympathy for how I am feeling, I am baffled by an adoption that occurred primarily overseas but leaves only two small sheets of paper. See for yourself.

How can an agency place a baby with a foster family and have no record of said foster family? I like to think Holt vetted its foster families, and if so, that they had a record of what babies lived with which foster families. They had an address and names, because the couple who kept me those months before my adoption, took photographs of me, fed me and loved me. They cared enough to take photographs of my first birthday and portraits of me in my hanbok. They sent these photographs via the adoption agency to my parents … and yet, there is no record.

I am saddened by Holt’s response (and that I paid $25 for so little information), but I am determined now to seek more answers without Holt’s assistance.

Rwanda, Inshuti

Tomorrow marks the twentieth anniversary of the genocide. In the summer of 1995, newly married, my husband and I made the long journey from Tennessee to Rwanda.

I have so many memories that it is difficult to type them out. (I have journals but am afraid to read them and face the naiveté of my youth.)

As a photographer, my ambitions were to capture life in Rwanda, post-genocide, but in reality, I could not. The stories and faces of Rwanda are forever imprinted in my mind, where they should be. Their stories should be theirs.

The people of Rwanda had lost so much … something I could never fully grasp and capture. So, instead, I spent my time connecting with people and listening to their stories. The Rwandans gave me joy and grounded me in a way I would never learn in the US.

With my Rwandan acquaintances, we created our own way of recording their truths … their lives, their losses and their triumphs.

In those days, I was able to have disposable cameras mailed to me. I handed them out to my Rwandan acquaintances and friends, and they recorded their lives. These images became precious to them, and some had never used a camera.

I am only in contact with three Rwandans from that time. Two have email, and one I am only able to contact him through an expat. Of the Rwandans I originally knew, two were murdered before we left the country and one died of AIDS in 2000. The other stories are silent except for the messages they wanted me to pass on to the world.

I failed them. Returning in 1997, I contacted Granta, Doubletake, the Guggenheim Trust, the Smithsonian … none took their causes. Today, I am reminded that the internet has afforded me a forum. Perhaps it is time to publish their words and struggles, but first, I will try to connect and ask permission again. Twenty years is a long time to wait.

As you reflect on Rwanda tomorrow, please don’t watch Hotel Rwanda, Hollywood’s glossed over account. If you want to know the truths, see HBO’s Sometimes in April.

For reading, try Fergal Keane’s Season of Blood. In it, you can understand the complex history behind the genocide. While race was a factor, there were other things at work … politics, power and class, enacted by the early Belgian colonists and based on the pseudoscience of phrenology.

“Breaking the Illusion of the World”

This week, the flyer for Old Navy arrived.

I had two simultaneous reactions. First, “Wow! A transracial family!” Second, “Whoa. A transracial family.”

Let me explain. But before I do, listen to this segment of This American Life. Listen for the cues on “breaking the illusion of the world.”

(You can also hear this on This American Life’s site here if the link is not loading.)

At first appalling, with Elna Baker’s description of Nubbins and his FAO Schwartz Lee Middleton Doll orphanage adoption ward, the story meanders through the hierarchy of our real life society … our society, where white sells to the affluent crowd, where wealthy parents can support their children in adopting dolls that look like them, and when white dolls are not available, we can move on to Asian, Latino and Black babies. But wait, Nubbins, the special needs doll who is white can be purchased by the entitled, young girl who will not love him and wants to call him “Stupid” … and is … before the Black babies.

This is not to say that these are the parents who become adoptive parents. However, I do believe that it speaks to the illusion of race and adoption.

My parents loved and cared for me. My family (both white and Puerto Rican) has embraced and forgotten that I was different. Yet, deep inside, I have always known I was different. My mother hoped to help me with the struggle. She did the best she could and bought this doll, my most cherished childhood toy.

While the ad for Old Navy reaffirmed my place in my family, it also scared me. I feared that others might want that little “China Doll” for their family. The Asian girl might become the trophy child … the child in the advertisements.

As I mulled over the meaning of this flyer in my mailbox, two dolls on Ebay were shared with me.

The first, was the White Swan Hotel Going Home Adoption Barbie, complete with her very own Chinese adoptee. All for $475!

The second was the 1984 “Rice Patty” baby, with her very own Hong Kong passport! She, of course, is a bargain at $78!

These images broke the illusion of my world. While adoption has complex meaning to me, the children of transracial adoption are viewed as fodder in the toy world.

Shame vs. Trauma

In my home state of Tennessee, a federal judge granted an injunction on the state’s gay marriage ban. It was a small victory in my eyes, and I gleefully posted an article by a local news agency on Facebook (FB). In my post, I asked out-of-state friends to read the comments so that they could understand the level of discrimination.

This brought a flurry of comments, utter disgust from non-Tennesseans, and confusion from Tennesseans. A cousin and two schoolmates felt I had misrepresented our hometown, where they still live.

My cousin was the most upset. She interpreted my comments as a sign that I was ashamed of my family and where I grew up. I understand her confusion. My days in my hometown seemed idyllic. I loved time with my family and did well in school. But there was trauma.

My mother knew it from my first day at the local elementary school. I was nine-years-old. The teacher had directed me to the lower parking lot where my mother was parked. My sister was little, so it was difficult for my mother to walk and meet me. As I walked down the hill, a group of children gathered around me. They encircled me and began chanting, “Me, Chinese. Me play joke. Me put pee-pee in your Coke!” All I remembered were large faces with eyes pulled to slants, laughing and looking down at me. I curled into a ball. 

Within seconds, my mother, toddler slung on one hip, rushed up and began screaming at the kids. She wanted names, but they scattered and screamed back, “Come get us, you big, fat hippopotamus!”

My face was wet with tears, but my mother’s was red and hot. Her anger was frightening. 

From that moment, I wanted to protect her. I kept my shame silent. Shame was knowing my family and I faced discrimination because I was different. I wanted my family to be buffered from the hurt I would endure each day, as someone would pull their eyes or make a ching-chong reference. 

So, I must admit, I was taken back by my cousin’s question of my shame. Was I ashamed of my hometown and family? No.

Traumatized by the racist comments? Traumatized by the marginalization? Traumatized by the hatred? Yes.

When I read the hate-filled comments on the recent same-sex marriage decision, it brought back the trauma of victimization. I felt the trauma of losing my friend, Patrick, to gay bashers. I felt the trauma of being discredited because of my Hispanic name. I felt the trauma of never being “normal” enough to date. 

Many do not believe this to be possible. The two classmates assured me that I would be surprised at the progress made in our small hometown. I agreed to go out with them when I returned for a visit to see it in action. But even today, I know Asian adoptees in Tennessee who suffer the same trauma I did. When you are white and local, it is difficult to see the hurt and hatred that lurks in the school bathroom or a nook in the library. I do not fault them for this blindness, but I do ask them for consideration and understanding that my lens was different from theirs.

While the conversation also meandered around a rural versus metropolitan theory, I just listened. Perhaps it may appear that racism and same-sex marriage discrimination occur primarily in rural areas, but if you are a person of color (POC) or a gay or trans person, you know differently. 

This is the year where my Twitter activism and my personal FB page have intertwined. With that, there will most likely be more discussions of race, gender, sexual orientation and adoption. My FB page will no longer be a celebration of a perfect life; instead, it will be a realistic view of my life. 

As adoption loyalty has fallen away, my shame will no longer be silenced.