“So here I am as a 38 year old mother of three, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, and cousin; lost trying to find my way back to where it all started, in the highlands of Ethiopia, where the days were marked with coffee ceremonies, holy days, family, and so much more.”
Tag Archives: Identity
Life of an Indian Adoptee
“I definitely feel that if I wasn’t adopted my life would be different and probably better. Adoptees are taken from everything, their culture, family, birth mother, country, and people expect us to be ok. My number one trauma growing up, and still until this day, is not knowing who my birth mother is. It’s been frustrating to know how many birthdays, holidays, graduations, and achievements of mine that she’s missed.”
A Space for Grief
“It still happens now. Though the phrasing is different since I’m an adult, the message is still the same: You are lucky. You are living a golden and blessed life. You couldn’t ask for anything more. In recent years, beneath my acquiescent nod and affirming smile, a new question has been churning. Where, in all of this, is the space for grief? Where, in your definition of me, is the space for me?”
Nature and Nurture
“I had grown up with my adoptive mother always putting the emphasis on nurture, and this makes sense. Because as an adoptive parent, she believed that she and my father had the formative weight on their side, that they were shaping me to be the person I would become. Nature wasn’t that important, nurture was the more important dynamic. I would say that I started to question that a couple years ago. I don’t know how to say it other than that my own body, my own psyche, started to feel the presence of “nature.””
A Letter to My Birth Mom
“To a certain extent I blamed you for the hardship of trying to find my identity. I believed, until recently, that you are the reason for my suffering. But mom, you are not. You did what you thought was best for me, but the journey has been long and the road getting here harder.”
Kimchi and Grilled Cheese
“While food brings Korean culture closer to me, I feel part of and separate from it as an adoptee, a tension that’s evident in many small ways. For instance, I remember one of the first times I found myself in a small Korean restaurant filled with only Koreans. It was a new and strange experience to be part of the majority, to blend into a room where I looked like everyone else, where everyone was going about the normal activity of eating dinner.”
A White Adoptee’s Search for Her Birth Culture
“So where do you go to explore your birth family’s culture when you’re white and have a closed adoption? Honestly, I don’t know. I assume that learning about your birth family’s culture is easier if you have an open adoption (at least for getting information—I know it’s certainly not always easier emotionally).”