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.