Category: my philosophy

I’ve always been transparent and believe in disclosing my work and reasons for why I started this blog, and how I intend to continue.

I didn’t set out to be a writer. That was a profession revealed to me through your support. Initially, my goal–as it remains–was to compile an autoethnography of transracial adoption, using my life as the basis for a critical text on race, adoption, and the American family. I still intend to complete that book, one day. But it would seem, like any well-intentioned plan, my mission has slightly transformed.

I briefly put on hold my larger project, choosing instead to focus on building an audience (perhaps to prove to myself that people really do care?) so that, should I ever approach an agent or large publishing house for consideration, I could say, “Yes, people are reading this stuff!” In my quest to build a presence, I found instead a community rife with anger, misplaced blame, and desperation to be heard. Though my online interactions remained secondary to writing, I discovered my scholarly research would fit comfortably alongside this social discovery of truth.

At some point, I realized that I was an expert only on myself. I still had little working insight into the system still creating adoptees and their traumas; to remedy this gap, I recalled a book called I Speak for this Child, by Gay Courter. I read this several years ago, before my unfortunate hospitalization but after my slow awakening to adoption’s more sinister side effects. It described a woman’s experience as a Guardian ad Litem, or what is called in New Jersey and other jurisdictions a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA):

CASA/GAL volunteers are appointed by judges to watch over and advocate for abused and neglected children, to make sure they don’t get lost in the overburdened legal and social service system or languish in inappropriate group or foster homes. Volunteers stay with each case until it is closed and the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. For many abused children, their CASA/GAL volunteer will be the one constant adult presence in their lives.

Volunteering would be my next step to legitimizing my work, so I applied, went through training, and am now a CASA with an active case. (And yes, I know more about the child welfare system than before and I’m encouraged to only work harder.)

Throughout this time, I made and continuing to make new connections with the Asian American community. Although this wasn’t part of my initial strategy, I certainly welcomed these friendships and I’m thrilled at the relationships I’ve formed. It’s through these connections that I’ve cautiously re-examined my role as an Asian woman, questioning–finally–if my discomfort with my race was my fault, or taught. As I continue therapy and forging connections, I’m strongly leaning toward the latter.

What I’ve discovered is non-White community’s need for transracial adoptee voices, something I suspected before setting out on this mission but am content my hunches were confirmed. After all, transracial adoptees spent our lives entangled with Whiteness, not by our choice but by theirs, so the more reflective of us will understand our unique insight into power, privilege, and how both of those aren’t necessarily passed on to us.

Despite this forward momentum, I realized I hadn’t shared my reason for being here, and it’s possibly because I wasn’t exactly sure.

Because of the work I’m doing and the voices speaking up, I see a different future now.

I see a future where those separated from their original families, their rightful heritages, and their intimate histories will link arms while shouting a unified cry for change, rallying for a peace we never experienced.

I see us all, those adopted ones, rising upwards out of grief’s relentless torment, leaving our losses not behind but standing on them to build a stronger future for anyone following our tumultuous paths.

I see us casting stones, finally, at the windows that allowed others to only gaze in at us, trapping us with unrealistic expectations and toxic values, while we–the begotten–see the true weakness in those lies.

I see us gazing outward for the first time in our lives, strengthened by the comfort in our own truths. For once, we’ll stare directly at the policies and legalities and structures directly, seeing clearly they weren’t made for us, but about us.

And I see those who long since watched us emerge from a biology unknown listening as we proclaim ourselves no longer the world’s begotten children, the poor waifs, the needy.

I see them stopping to hear us, not as an angry spiteful mob but a chorus built by fearlessness; they will see us, not as victims of a broken system but as survivors whose towering strength demand they listen.

I see us finally fulfilling not someone else’s dreams but our own, working together with those who long since imagined themselves our keepers. And as we at last come to this victory, we will chant

We belong,
We belong,
We belong.

Perhaps this is idealism. Maybe, but I draw this confidence from you, the one who speaks up and the one who is forcing yourself to listen.

For me, I see myself one day standing together with my son, gazing toward a future where his generation and the ones after will be the instigators of a great empathy we ourselves still do not know. I hope one day my words and your words and those of so many others will coalesce into an apex of bravery, so our work will finally create a future revised.

And that, my friends, is why I do what I do. I will relentlessly pursue this work so our lives will matter to those who want to forget us. I will never soften a painful truth because if I survived it, those listening should survive its telling. I enjoy what I do, and I do it for myself, for you, and for those who will inevitably come next.