Truth and Lies

So far, I don't think I've adequately displayed the ups and downs of adoption, and that is to say sometimes it really does suck. Sometimes in that really teenage angst kind of way, and sometimes in that I don't know who I am anymore kind of way.

I don't want to deter others from adoption or encourage others to think adoption is bad, because it's largely good for many reasons-- it was certainly good for me. That said, good still accompanies bad, and a big hurdle for adopted children to jump over is the idea of their current situation is the result of being unwanted. I've been fairly clear that my parents have made sure I felt wanted and loved, so I didn't necessarily go through the stage of thinking my adopted parents didn't love me enough or that my birth parents loved me more. The thought slipped through my lips at least once, but I already knew it was an accusation the moment it hung in the air.

I knew of friends and others who did go through that, though, especially the ones who learned of their adoption later in life. I can't really speak for them, and that was never the intention of this blog in the first place, but I understand what it's liked to be ambushed by a simple fact about your life. One so simple that it utterly destroys everything you thought you knew about. And unfortunately it's so simple that it slipped your parents' mind in the x amount years you were never told.

Fifteen was kind of an odd year in life for me. It wasn't the first year of high school for me and it wasn't the first year the idea of having a boyfriend seemed possible. It isn't quite the milestone of sixteen, but certainly the year learning to drive so sixteen is that memorable. It was, however, the year of heavy involvement in the internet chatting with strangers and snooping through my parents' books and files looking for something interesting about me or about things adults do.

The internet is a magical place. It's common now to talk to someone hundreds or thousands or more miles away without batting an eye. Online dating is more than just a thing now and is a legitimate way to meet a potential mate. But in the late 1990's and early 2000's the internet was still a place for creepy men in their basements to lure away young and impressionable children. It was a thrill to meet strangers in Backstreet Boys fan chatrooms and carve out personal webspace on Angelfire with epileptic gifs and writing in comic sans. For a teenager who was unpopular and wanted a boyfriend, it was a perfect place to talk to boys without a peer giving them the stink eye for daring to associate with me.

Well, talk to "boys," as my mom put it when she caught my friends and I on a long distance phone call to some guys in California. Embarrassed for being caught by my mom and also being caught in front of my friends, we had a tearful exchange where I angst my way into forgiveness by uttering for the first and only time that my birth parents would want me more. My mom, tears nowhere to be seen, promised she wouldn't tell my father about the phone call and left the room.

During the summer of my 15th year I pulled out the multiple adoption files accumulated in a neatly titled file folder bearing my name. I learned my Korean name (though I can't tell you in which order it is pronounced), the district I was born in, and various common Korean words that I later tried to string into smug sounding insults. During my file expedition I came across the translated hospital documents briefly detailing the relationship of my birth parents, but instead of "marriage" or "boyfriend" or something similar, the document listed "cousin."

The next logical step, of course, was to ask my mom if this was true while she was driving me to my driver's ed lesson. There may have been a car swerve involved with an incredulous exclamation, it's all a bit hazy, but what was clear is that she confirmed it was true and she had known it all along.

My mom insisted she and my dad intended to tell me when I was older, and I don't doubt for a second they never intended to do so. The secret, of course, changed me and my perceptions of not only myself, but the people I chose to associate with. It's come to haunt me in my relationships, the possibility of having children, and more recently how much it may have affected my health.

Unlike other secrets parents keep from their children, I always knew this one was kept out of love. We're taught early on, without question, that incest is wrong. It produces disabled children from backwards folks living in the woods. It was often cited as an incident staunchly pro-life advocates would consider a legitimate reason to abort a fetus. A child produced by incest goes against nature, and since it will clearly be a stupid and welfare child, it shouldn't be brought into this world. It no longer became a question of my parents not wanting me, but a world that didn't.

What parent wants their child to grow up in a world like that?

At fifteen I questioned if incest made me stupid. If I should have children in the future. If I thought I deserved to be alive.

If a person found out I was a product of incest, would they still love me?

These are the questions my parents wanted to shield me, their eternal little girl with a mop of black hair playing house in a toy kitchen; to protect those big dreams and bright future where I was always wanted and should always be alive. Sometimes we forget that our biggest enemy is our self, not the world. The world has been largely accepting and caring of my history, it's been me that has questioned my right to exist.

Keeping secrets is not always the best course of action, and largely there is some sort of repercussion for it at the end. While I will never fault my parents for keeping my secret, at fifteen when I read that slip of paper it became my weight to bear. The little girl playing with plastic toys with endless dreams and possibilities still existed for my parents, but I couldn't help thinking it had all been a lie.

When you chose to keep a secret, especially from your child, understand that some day they will find out what it is. It may destroy their world and who they are, they may hate you for it, and it also may bring the much needed clarity and questions we often ask ourselves when finding our place in this world. Most importantly we need to remember that once a choice is made, there is no going back, we can only move forward.

I highly suggest that we all try our best to move forward.

A Lesson in Empathy

Normally when people ask questions about my heritage and family, it's often the common and rather uninspired inquiries on what languages I speak and what foods I like to eat. I spent more than enough waking hours fielding questions about why I speak English well and why I don't smell of kimchi. I can't say I haven't answered my own fair share of "Oh, are you adopted, then?" questions with a trite "No."

In fact, the following includes such a story, but I'll get to that in a moment.

In college I was feeling rather smug about my identity and tired of being asked the same questions over and over. I speak English fluently, my name is very white, and if I go so far as to tell you that my parents are, indeed, white, it was very hard for me to not deliver a biting remark in response to not believing I'm adopted. I think I was losing bits of my faith in humanity as this progressed over the years, especially when it occurred multiple times in a week without the influence of alcohol. I couldn't help but roll my eyes and label it as another instance of people not understanding that adoption is real.

In response to my growing irritability, I opted to answer questions honestly and literally, regardless if I knew the true intention of the question. For example, when someone asked me where I'm from, I'd tell them honestly Wenatchee, even though I knew full well they were asking me if I'm from an Asian country or not. It retrospect my stubbornness actually prolonged and turned those conversations into something painful, but at the time I couldn't help but feel a little vindicated.

Right after undergrad I went to a nice salon to have my hair cleaned up. I had forgone haircuts quite a bit while being poor in college and now that I had some interviewers to impress, I felt it was worth shelling out some extra cash in order to look hire worthy. I found myself sitting in the chair of a chatty and a tad fabulous stylist. I'm not speaking of faboo~ men stylists, but one that I quite literally felt was indeed a bit fabulous. He looked polished and was articulate, perhaps that should have been the first tip off.

He was older and obviously experienced in more than just hair styling. He picked up immediately that my name certainly didn't match my face and asked how long my parents have been "here."

I knew exactly what he meant, he wanted to know how long my family had been in the country. Instead, I answered in confusion, telling him I didn't understand as my family isn't from Seattle.

He played along, asking if my parents had immigrated. I responded no, they were born here. He asked the same of my grandparents, and I answered that they were born here, also.

To this day I still find myself in awe about this man. It isn't very often that I'm asked a question with such acute knowledge and sensitivity that it leaves me absolutely floored.

He placed his hand on my shoulder and slightly bowed his head, and apologized for my family being in the internment camps.

Hilarity ensues as confusion and embarrassment erupted around the stylist chair. To his credit, he smoothed over the situation masterfully, laughing and sharing his own stories of coming from Hawaii and expectations from others based on his appearance. I leave the salon with a pretty cut and my mind abuzz from the encounter.

The rest of the story goes that I retell my experience to my friends and their mutual friend whom I was meeting for the first time. I like to say that I learned the importance of respecting sincerity from strangers from that point as the friend struggled to understand that I'm adopted, but I answered with my standard "no." It would still take me some time to practice tolerance in the face of someone trying their best to understand you-- that I wasn't being just a smart ass, but also an ass. If someone is going to take the time to understand me, I should take the time to understand them as well.

Of course, I went to work my shift at Blockbuster not long after the incident, still working hard to make ends meet after receiving my degree, and received the infamous answer that the whole situation was hilarious because internment camps didn't exist in Washington. "We didn't have any Asians, why would we have internment camps?"

In hindsight, I learned from this experience that there are many things to lose faith in humanity over, and people asking about my adoption is no longer on that list.

The Other Identity

After a story about how Asian my boyfriend is, my coworker laughed and said I talk about my boyfriend as if I'm not Asian. I think I've made it clear by now on here that I don't consider myself to be ethnically Asian. I spent the majority of my life identifying as white, for better or for worse.

I mentioned in my history that my parents made it very clear from early on that I was adopted, but it never stopped me from identifying from the long line of white Disney princesses (ignoring that my favorite was Ariel and she's half fish) or wanting Barbie over her Asian friends like Dana. My mom bought me the American Girl Doll Abby even though all the AG books I chose to read were of Samantha. I wanted to be Ariel and sing to the fish. I wanted to be Samantha and go on adventures. Not once did I think I was too yellow, my hair too dark, or my eyes too squinty to be either of these white girls.

Simply put, I was colorblind.

Looking back there were many instances in my childhood where my parentage and place in the mostly white community were challenged, but at the time it barely registered to me that I was different. Growing up in the type of town I lived in, nearly everyone knew who I was or someone could easily tell them of my family situation. My ethnicity wasn't directly challenged, I wasn't treated as the token minority (though that may have something to do with my more "assertive" personality, ahemahem), and if I never drew attention to the way I looked, neither did anyone else.

I had Hispanic friends who struggled on a near daily basis about their heritage and simply fitting in. For some, it was much easier to just assimilate into the rest of the white student body and pretend that their parents understood English. For others, they fought to be recognized for who they are, and were alienated by the majority for it.

I won't deny that there's a struggle between the white and Hispanic population in Wenatchee, and it certainly escalated. I personally feel that Hispanics were looked down on, and they returned the judgement in kind, including Hispanic educators and persons of authority. Their fight for their identity included the right to be respected, but often times it's the kids that suffered for it. I went out of my way to be friendly because I believed the majority should be obligated to show them kindness. At that age, it hadn't even registered to me that I wasn't part of the majority and that they never considered me to be part of it to begin with.

It wasn't until I enrolled in college that people began to ask questions. Hardly anyone knew me, and those that did certainly didn't have the time or care to inform everyone else of my situation.

Where are you from?
Wenatchee.

But where were you born?
Well, Korea, but I'm from here.

Oh, do you speak Korean?
No.

Didn't your parents teach you?
No, they speak English.

But aren't they also from Korea since you were born there?
My parents are white.

Oh, do you want to go back to Korea?
No.

Why not?

During the first few months I was very stubborn and unwavering about my answers. I'm American. My parents are white. I'm essentially white. I am not Asian at all. But slowly I started to think, if I look Korean, does that make me Korean? Should I be trying to take steps towards being what everyone assumes? Should I start eating fish? But I don't like fish-- will I need to learn to like fish?

Moving to Seattle complicated the matter further. In Wenatchee mentioning adoption stopped most of the questions about my ethnicity and instead barreled down the path of being adopted. In Seattle, mentioning adoption prompted people to ask why I didn't want to be more Korean. Why didn't I make more of an effort to recognize and understand the culture that was effectively estranged from me at four months old?

And to guys I was desired. In high school I was unpopular and the boys didn't want to risk their reputation by associating with me. But in college, being Asian was enough to wash away anything unappealing about me-- to all the boys who weren't Asian, that is. To real Asians I wasn't Asian enough. My name was too American and my mannerism too white. In fact, they considered me to look too white, often assuming that I was half Korean. I didn't speak Korean, I was much too tall, and wouldn't drink tea. What kind of Asian doesn't like tea?

Not a real one, that's for sure, and the real Asian's never gave me a second thought.

So this left me in a really awkward situation. On the one hand, a large portion of people identified me as Asian. On the other hand, the actual Asians considered me as white. Which identity do you appease and which one do you represent? I can identify with the white community, but I can't deny the way I look. I can't stop identifying as Korean because everyone has labeled me as such. After a few more years of trying to represent myself in order to preemptively meet the judgements of others, I gave up.

I can't control what others think about me or judge me for. I can't stop them from offering me tea or speaking to me in Korean. The very best I can do is know who I am, but also try to be understanding when someone labels me as something I'm not. Will I ever consider myself to be Korean? Some days I think it would be easier to answer as such and try to avoid questions from naturally curious people. But I realize it's better to be honest, not only to educate others, but also to remain true and in charge of my identity.

The "Real" Parents

A while ago, a previous boss of my friend made a comment (or joke, he isn't sure which) that he'd rather adopt as you don't need to care as much about kids that aren't actually "yours."

I came from a very loving and supportive family, I have always known without a doubt that my family loved me. I'm often asked about returning to Korea and meeting my "real" parents, and I always reply with "No." I have my real parents, my real family, and I don't need to seek out anything more. But there's always that stage during the adoption cycle where the adoptee proclaims that their real parents would love them better, regardless of how loving and supportive their family actually is.

I'm a bit ashamed saying as much to my parents, as I'm sure many of us are after passing that stage in our lives. We often say such things to be hurtful. I already knew that my birth parents wouldn't love me better, but I was angry and my teenage rebelliousness knew that would hurt my parents the most.

I did move quickly past that sentiment, though, and this is why:

1) My birth parents are related. I don't know the specifics and we all know it isn't terribly uncommon for families to marry within each other, but it's apparent that whatever situation my birth parents were in, it wasn't ideal as I was immediately put up for adoption. I already know that they wouldn't want to see me, even if they secretly wished to, as I embody the shame and dishonor they brought upon their family.

My case is certainly unique, I haven't met many adoptees with a circumstance that doesn't allow them to second guess whether or not their birth parents wanted to keep them. Because of the circumstances of my birth, I didn't think about what ifs as all of them would be unrealistic.

2) My parents spent so much time and money in my adoption that there's no way they couldn't have been emotionally invested. Foreign adoption is not only expensive, but also very time consuming and intensive. My parents went through many reviews of not only their finances, but also evaluations of their home life and if they were individually suitable to be parents. I would find it incredibly invasive and demoralizing to allow someone else to determine if I'm fit to have a child.

3) My parents specifically picked me with full disclosure to the circumstances of my birth. They weren't looking for the perfect child to fit their perfect lives, but the one that they wanted to love and help the most.

4) My mother was hurt every time someone asked her why I haven't tried to contact my birth mother. She did her best to hide it and often asked me if I needed help arranging a trip to Korea, but I could tell she was deeply affected by the implication she was being unfair to me, as if she was keeping me from learning about myself-- essentially being a bad mother. I sat with her once, after a particularly heavy assault from her mother about my adoption, to talk about my feelings and thoughts about my birth mother. She hasn't asked me about returning to Korea since.

Do I judge those who feel finding their birth parents is important? No, your personal journey of coming to terms with yourself is your business, not mine. Sometimes we need to face our past in order to know how to move forward. Some of us need to return to Korea to see the orphanages and mothers waiting to give up their children to understand the privileges we gained by being adopted, or to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the culture we left behind.

There are many reasons to visit our past and where we come from. I'm not opposed to Korea, I wouldn't turn down the opportunity to visit the country and indulge in the culture. But I would never stop being American and I would never seek out the family I left behind as a baby. The best advice I can give to others is to remember who you are and where you came from, that your identity is more than where you were born and the womb you came from, and appreciate those who gave you the opportunity to make it this far.

Korean = Chinese

I wasn't sure what to write for my first entry. I'm sure the people coming here are wanting to read and relate to experiences growing up adopted in America, and I started to cull through the depths of my memories, pulling for something insightful, poignant, and entertaining. Recently it's been difficult to think of anything but the present. My Chinese boyfriend is about to rage quit his family and live a life of exile with his bad American girlfriend, sure to shame his family for generations to come.

But here's the thing, I wasn't considered the American girlfriend until things became "bad." Until their son began to exhibit a free will and an opinion different from their own. Instead I was the Asian girl that just needed to learn to be more Chinese, some day I'd learn exactly what they expected of me without them having to go through the trouble of asking. Surely an Asian can learn to be of another Asian culture, right?

This is an idea I think many of us can relate to, even beyond a race issue. Being identified as something we're not based on the assumption of our appearance. Because I am physically Korean, I was expected to just be Korean in conjunction with being American. Recently my coworker was taken aback that I gave her the most confused look when she said old Korean phrases to me. Even though she knows I'm adopted and she has met my very white parents, she still expected me to know Korean phrases. She promised to teach me all about them because I ought to know.

This is where I reminded her that I'm American, and while I appreciate learning about other cultures, I shouldn't ought to know cultural peculiarities of a country I was exported from as a baby.

The expectations don't stop there. People often assume that being Korean means I understand and identify with all other Asian countries and their cultures. Aside from being a pro Star Craft player, I should also understand the intricacies of making sushi and the traditions associated with Chinese New Year.

The nationality I do identify with seems to take a backseat to my appearance. Did my boyfriend's parents know that I'm American? Definitely, he told them well before they met me and didn't reveal that I'm Korean until later (whether or not they actually listened to him is debatable). I'm obviously fluent in English and my vocabulary is expansive enough. My mannerism are very American and Western, fork flipping and all. Perhaps I threw them off by being able to use chop sticks?

Yet I'm still offered tea that I decline every time I visit. His family gasps when I remind them I don't like fish. And don't even get me started on everything I didn't know about Chinese New Year.

The biggest lesson here is no matter what you identify yourself as, someone is always going to make an assumption about your identity. Not always do I correct people when they're wrong as some battles are not worth engaging, and sometimes I partake in the assumptions about myself. I wouldn't say assumptions are always harmful, it's just good to be mindful that you are, indeed, making an assumption. At the end of the day it's most important that I know I'm American and won't force myself to eat fish.