Transracial adoptee voices of love and trauma

[Applause]

my journey

as an adoptee and thus the story of me

finding my birth family

starts with this photo this is the only

photo i had of my birth mother for

nearly two decades

growing up this photo made me feel

unavoidable and unfathomable grief

it was this overwhelming and profound

sense of inexplicable loss

and i couldn’t understand why

you see i was a newborn when i was

adopted so these feelings of separation

and loss i was feeling

it didn’t make sense to me but

after going through therapy for a lot of

years thank you mom and dad for paying

for that

but also talking with other adoptees i

learned that these feelings

i was feeling were called trauma

responses to my

experience with adoption i learned that

these trauma responses may come in waves

or feelings of grief

and loss and separation but also anger

and abandonment curiosity confusion and

more

these trauma responses may percolate

into work and professional life

relationships both intimate as well as

with family and friends

and mental and physical health and

well-being

studies have shown that adoptees are

more likely than non-adopted individuals

to experience psychological distress be

diagnosed with some form of mental

illness

struggle with substance abuse and in a

staggering statistic i learned that

adoptees

are four times more likely than

non-adopted individuals to attempt

suicide at least

once in their lifetime that’s a shocking

statistic to me

i like so many adoptees had unanswered

questions about my home country

my culture my language my identity and

my lost heritage

and these deep-rooted emotions i was

feeling only magnified this curiosity

within me

but i am not alone in wanting answers

many adoptees want answers

in a study of american adolescents the

search institute identified

that 72 percent of adoptees wanted to

know why

they were adopted 65 wanted to meet

their biological parents

and 94 wanted to know which biological

parent they looked the most alike

in 2018 i was blessed enough that my

parents were so supportive of me

that we wanted to go to vietnam and so

we braved the intense heat

and humidity of vietnam in the

summertime and let me tell you it is

hot and we walked through these

beautiful temples and landscapes that

were so

intricate in design vibrant in color and

rich

in history we first landed in hanoi

which is in the north of the country of

vietnam

and we descended south stopping in

cities along the way and spending a

couple of days

in each one i ate so much food

i drink so much vietnamese coffee but i

also

basked in this oddly comfortable glow of

the vietnamese sun that just felt like

i was hugging an old friend needless to

say

vietnam was a comfortable space for me

it just felt like i was catching up on

lost time

vietnam was also an interesting

experience for me for two reasons

the first was that for the first time in

my life i was no longer a minority

i was no longer the only asian person in

the room i was no longer the only

vietnamese person in the room

but i was surrounded by people who look

like me and that was exciting and

refreshing

the second reason was that i had this

very real and funny experience of

thinking that every person i passed on

the street was a relative

i figured that maybe a 50 or 60 year old

woman might recognize me as her daughter

and we would have one of those epic

movie moments of like slow motion

running and hugging so i spent a lot of

time

feeling very hopeful time being

discouraged and a time

searching for a lot of faces for

recognition i’m sure

they thought i was a bit creepy when we

first landed in hanoi our wonderful

translator ben had told us about this

private investigation agency

whose services i learned had a high

success rate

of connecting people once disconnected

by circumstance

i was so nervous at the thought of

hiring somebody to help me find my birth

family

because i wasn’t ready for potentially

bad news

you see for the longest time my parents

used to send

my birth mother or the address on my

birth certificate

photos and memories and letters of me

growing up so she could know that i was

safe

and that i was doing okay they also sent

her return posted so that she could send

something back

so that we knew that she was getting

these photos and not just some

random family somewhere but we never got

anything in return so we stopped sending

them

and i in my mind there existed three

alternatives for this

the first was that she could have moved

away

she could have given us the wrong

address

or she could have passed away and i

wasn’t ready for that potentially bad

news i wasn’t ready to learn how to cope

with that kind of devastation

so i didn’t know if i should hire them

or we should hire them

but we did anyway because like when else

are you in vietnam when else

am i that close to my birth family

and we waited two weeks later we were in

ho chi minh city

or the city of my birth it’s also known

as saigon

and it was late at night and my parents

and i were sitting in our hotel room

kind of packing up because we were

supposed to be leaving within the next

two days and we get this email

on my dad’s computer and my parents rush

over to his laptop

ready and eager to open it to see the

contents of what’s inside

and the hotel room filled with this

hopeful and dense

silence that my mother ultimately broke

when she exclaimed

they found them they found your birth

family

they did in fact find my birth family

i learned that my birth mother mai

had five other children including me

she was also living with her husband

which was surprising to me because

he was unnamed on my birth certificate

he was una

identified so i didn’t know who he was

but i also learned that i had siblings

which was really surprising and

beautiful and shocking to me

the eldest was a boy he was married and

living elsewhere at the time

and then there was a girl she was

adapted to france

in the late 80s and then mai

had another boy he was only a couple

years older than me

and he sold lottery tickets on the

street

unfortunately a year after we met my

birth family

he was taken into enslavement and we

haven’t heard from him since

and then there was me adapted to the

united states in the early 2000s

and called causing a lot of trouble ever

since

and then i had a little sister i didn’t

know i had this little sister so you can

imagine my shocked

when there’s a little girl that looks

exactly like me

so we canceled all of our plans the next

day

my parents and i are in this car driving

up this busy

and bustling street in ho chi minh city

and we see her

the woman in the photo i had grown up

staring at all my life

standing on this street on this busy

street corner with motorcycles and

mopeds passing by

and she was pacing anxiously waiting for

our arrival

when we get out of the car she hugs my

mother first

and recognizes her immediately and they

have one of those epic movie moments of

slow motion running and hugging it was

beautiful

and then she hugs my father and then me

and she grabs my hand and we walk

through this narrow street

among these tall houses

when we get to her house my birth

mother’s house

we’re sitting on these little stools and

i don’t know if you can picture this but

my dad is like six

two and he was crouched down on this

like little baby doll stool and it was

really funny

but i turned around and i noticed that

we have gathered quite a crowd

there’s people from the neighborhood

that gathered just trying to

get a glimpse of what was going on and

they some were eating noodles

others were facetiming people elsewhere

in the city and some were trying to talk

to my parents and i but because we

didn’t share a language

i had little to no idea what they were

saying

and then my birth mother comes down

these stairs with a folder

do you remember the photos we used to

send her when i was growing up

she had them the photos the memories the

letters

she had kept them but she not only kept

them she traveled with them

and clearly she kept them very close to

her heart

we take my birth family out to lunch and

we had this gorgeous feast

of food and i don’t think i could tell

you what i ate that day

but i was taking mental photos of the

moment that i had dreamed of all of my

life

you see i was sitting next to my birth

mother and my adopted mother

i was sitting next to my birth father

and my adopted father

and i was sitting next to a little

sister i didn’t even know that i had

we get permission and we take my little

sister back to our hotel room for the

evening

we walked through the streets together

we found an italian restaurant

and i think she had a cheeseburger for

the first time

and then we take her shopping and

because we didn’t share a language i had

no idea what i could buy for her

so we played hide and seek in the

clothing racks instead

but the most beautiful part was is that

she had this very strange and wonderful

protective instinct over me

and she held my hand to make sure i

didn’t get hit by a motorcycle

on the highway

when we take her back the next day and i

turn around as we’re departing the

street

i see my birth family waving smiling

and hugging as we’re driving away

i was just catching up on lost time

so you may wonder why don’t more

adoptees find their birth family

right like there’s 23 in me and

ancestry.com so

why don’t more adoptees do the search

unfortunately i don’t just have one

answer and frankly i don’t think there

is one

every adoptee has a different unique

experience

and narrative and story every rhyme and

reason as to why

so no i can’t give you one answer but

what i can give you is perhaps guidance

toward understanding just my take and

perspective on the situation

so many times in my life and in many

adoptees lives we’re told that we’re

lucky

that we’re chosen you were hand-picked

you should be so grateful

you were given a better life i once had

a teacher tell me that

i was in trouble of course but this

teacher told me that i should be so

grateful that i’m in this country

that my parents were kind enough to

adopt me i call this the lucky narrative

and what this lucky narrative does is

that it so often assumes

the best of those that adopted us often

calling them saviors

while subconsciously implying that our

ethnic cultures are lesser than

and in doing so it denies access

to the cultures we lost our heritage

and our roots if we only focus on what

adoptees gain

well not also addressing what adoptees

lost

it oftentimes denies the opportunity to

come to terms with the trauma that is

associated were often associated with

that loss

mindy stern a fellow adoptee says this

talking about adoption with idealized

language creates an unrealistic paradigm

one where what we lost isn’t just

diminished

it’s denied you see this is an unusual

position to be in

because when we confine adoptees in this

role of exclusively presenting gratitude

or this luckiness we oftentimes deny

this opportunity of experiencing

identifying and processing through this

wide

spectrum of other emotions that often

come along with adoption

and in doing so we confine them to a

single narrative

many people family members and friends

look toward adoptees for the reassurance

that we’re happy

content grateful and well acclimated

but what is missing and what so often we

forget is this opportunity

to experience these things these

feelings of love and gratefulness and

and and all of these other beautiful

feelings and

and struggling through and grappling

with this trauma and sense of loss

and displacement

this is not to say that all adoptions

cannot contain happiness and love but

when the conversation only includes

happiness and love

the other side of adoption the side

where we look

at adoption through the lens of an

adoptee is not often talked about enough

bringing adoptee voices to the

conversation

is not talked about enough

and i argue that you can’t really have

adoption without an adoptee

right so i feel like we should start

consider

bringing adaptive voices to the part of

adoption and the conversation of

adoption

so you may ask how do i amplify adoptee

voices

well so many adoptees lately are coming

forward with their

experiences stories and narratives

that it’s getting easier to find them

so i encourage you to do what you’re

doing now and hey

you all are doing a great job you’re

listening amazing right

a skill that we so often forget that we

have because

a lot of times we like to jump in with a

conversation about like

your ex-girlfriend’s dog that was

adopted right

but sometimes that’s probably not the

best way to talk about adoption with an

adoptee

so i encourage you to start amplifying

adopting voices

in your life when you’re reading about

adoption think about the adoptee

and i promise you that as you do this

adopting voices are going to become

more beautiful broad and nuanced and

vibrant more so than you can ever

imagine

so thank you for amplifying my voice

today

and thank you for coming to my tedx hope

college talk

[Applause]