Adoptees Share Perspectives on Transracial Adoption

My surname, Walker, has Scottish origins, but I’m not Scottish.

 

My current surname is not the only one I’ve held because I’m adopted. Before I was adopted, my surname was Yi, the surname given to me by the Chinese orphanage. I was adopted at 12 months and gained the surname Walker, my family’s name.

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How does growing up in a family with a different culture and ethnicity from me affect who I am now? Adoptees who grew up in transracial families have wrestled with these questions and still wrestle with them today. 

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Below are the stories of adoptees at Cedarville University who shared their perspectives on growing up in transracial families and their journeys of thinking through their adoptions. We were all born in foreign countries and grew up in the States, yet each story and journey is unique.

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Will Geist

Will Geist was adopted from Almaty, Kazakhstan, at 8 months, in October of 2001 — a month after 9/11. Family and friends urged Geist’s parents not to go, but Geist’s parents felt God’s call, one beyond their sense of safety.

Geist has no memories of Kazakhstan, but his parents were open about his adoption. They told him his story when he was ready to hear it. Geist’s birth mother couldn’t support him and gave the adoption agency permission to place Geist in another family.

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Soon after learning about his story, Geist heard a sermon at his church on the topic of harbored unforgiveness. He was convicted and decided to pray about forgiving his birth mother. Though he didn’t want to admit it, Geist had been wrestling with the question, “Why did you abandon me?”

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“Even if I didn’t want to admit, I had some animosity, I needed to confess and forgive my birth mother. Not that she had done anything wrong because she made the right choice,” Geist said. “ The Lord was gracious to forgive me of that and give her the forgiveness that Christ has given me.”

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But that doesn’t mean Geist hasn’t grappled internally with coming to terms with his own identity. It is fascinating, to be brought up in and understand a completely different culture and people group than the one you were born into.

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It seems that by nature, adoptees subvert expectations and stereotypes. But that only happens when people are willing to see adoptees past their racial profile. A frustrating phenomenon in Geist’s own experience is being racially generalized. When interacting with adoptees, Geist advises, “Just remember that everybody’s different. Everybody’s unique.”

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“Ask me where I’m from before you make a generalization and say, or assume, that I’m Chinese. Just because I’m adopted or look like someone who’s from over there,” Geist said. “Even if the numbers say that most adoptees come from China, that doesn’t mean the one you’re talking to is going to be from China.”

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Now, Geist is focussing on how his journey with adoption has been a reminder of God’s faithfulness in his life.

 “Is it moving on or moving forward?” Geist asked. “I would say it’s moving forward. I acknowledge what has happened in the past, grasp what I have learned from it, and move forward in life.“I feel like moving on has a connotation of forgetting. And I think that, as an adoptee, I have to be careful not to forget. I don’t want to forget because it’s who I am; it’s what God has used to make me who I am and who I will continue to be.”

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Senait Scheie

Senait Scheie and her brother were adopted from Ethiopia at 6-years-old. When her birth family couldn’t support them anymore, they moved to an orphanage and then a Christian children’s home before being adopted.

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While her family celebrated adoption, Scheie admits the journey of reconciling herself with her identity was hard. Through it all, her adoptive parents gave her the love and support she needed to get through the struggle and encouraged her to seek God through it all.

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“I did struggle with my story a bit and how to reconcile everything, but I think that overall, through the ups and downs, my mom would tell me, ‘This is your story, a clear testament of God’s grace,” Scheie said. “And that’s how I met the Lord and gave my life to him. I knew my powerlessness at that point, how weak I was and how much God had to do.”

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Scheie’s family was intentional about praying for her birth family as she grew up, and she learned some of the cultural traditions in Ethiopia. When she was older, her parents took the time to make her aware of the implications and baggage that came with her ethnicity, particularly about America’s history of racism.

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“At that point, I still didn’t have a name for myself or a category for myself. Because although I looked African-American, I was Ethiopian — but I also didn’t speak the language or have anything from the culture. And, although I was raised in a white family I didn’t look like them,” Scheie said. “I think learning about American history started to get me thinking about the question of ‘Where do I fit in?’ I don’t have the same heritage as Black African-Americans here, and I grew up in a very different culture from them.”

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Scheie’s parents were open about her adoption, and wanted them to ask questions they were wrestling with. While her parents were supportive and present, Scheie had to wrestle with her identity on her own.

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One day, Scheie heard a sermon from a biracial speaker, who spoke about feeling like he didn’t fit in with either side of his family. While the feeling of being “in-between” was isolating, the speaker saw this as a strength and opportunity to be a bridge between different types of people since he related to both groups. Scheie began thinking of her position similarly and realized that Jesus was in a similar situation while on earth.

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“Christ was often the advocate between people groups that didn’t want to get along and didn’t want to fit into each other’s cultures,” Scheie said. “Instead of seeing it as a curse, He saw it as a blessing to be the one that gets to bring people together. I started viewing my position as an adoptee in that way.”

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Once she started thinking this way, Scheie found herself wanting to know more about her culture of origin. She dove into researching Ethiopia and found it was a helpful way to combat Imposter syndrome. Before, Scheie felt uncomfortable when people asked her questions about Ethiopia. By learning about her birth country, Scheie felt like she had an understanding of the six years before her adoption.

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Scheie recalled that people asked her whether she thinks about the fact that she’s Black.

Smiling, she answered, “No.”

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“Do you think that your eyes are brown or green? No one goes around consciously thinking that,” Scheie said. “I think the journey is getting to the balance of knowing your identity is founded in Christ — knowing that He’s given you the way you look, the experiences you’ve had, the people you’ve met as good things — they’re not a waste, they were meant for something.”

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Scheie wants everyone to know: “Ask good questions.”

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Instead of guessing about a family that has adopted children, give them the honor of telling you. Ask what their story is and if they don’t mind sharing it. After asking an adoptee their story, be gentle in your response to them. Even a “thank you” means something to them because it is a big, and possibly painful, part of their life.

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“Asking ‘how are you doing now?’ and ‘how do you see God in this?’ or ‘how can I be praying for you?’ is much better than saying well, ‘that’s so cool,’” Scheie said. “And maybe it is, maybe they agree with you, but sometimes it can be something personal and they’re not healed through it yet.”

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To fellow adoptees, Scheie says, “Give yourself grace.” Grief is something that can often be overlooked as an aspect of an adoptee’s life. It is important to Scheie that adoptees recognize their grief and how they got past it as a part of their story.

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“The reason we have adoption is that there was brokenness at some point. We grieve broken families, broken leadership and government and countries that led to this. And thank goodness for God’s grace that adoption is a thing, but your first step is grief,” Scheie said. “I know that telling your story can get tiring. There are seasons when you’re healing more from things. Don’t be afraid to lean into all of that, there’s no shame in that. It’s just more strengthening in the end to yourself and your story.”

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To echo Scheie, telling one’s adoption story is a brave and sometimes difficult thing to do. In the end, we are all just people made by God, each as complex as the next.

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How significant were those months, years and so on these adoptees spent in their birth countries? How significant is it to our identities where the cultures and ethnicities we were born into are?

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In reading these adoptee stories, perhaps the most accurate answer is that there are no blanket answers. Wrestling with these issues looks different for each adoptee.

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But as Geist put it, “Being an adoptee is a part of us whether we like it or not. The truth transcends perception, and the truth is reality.”

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Gaby

Gaby Bush was adopted from Guatemala as a baby.

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When she was four years old, she went back to Guatemala with her mom to adopt her younger brother. She doesn’t remember a lot of the trip because she was too young, but she got another opportunity to go back on a Cedarville mission trip. During the mission trip, Bush found and met her biological family.

Bush and her mother prayed a lot before deciding to meet her biological family. Bush recalled feeling nervous and excited when the meeting came closer. When she met her family, Bush felt relieved.

“It was more emotional for them because I was a baby when I was adopted,” Bush said.“I didn’t know who they were.”

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Bush met her biological parents and older brother during that trip to Guatemala. Her brother was especially relieved to see her.

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“From what he said, he knew me when I was younger before I was adopted,” Bush said. “But then my birth mother took me to get adopted, and he didn’t know that was happening. So he never got to say goodbye. So seeing me was a sense of relief for him and he was able to close that door, knowing what happened to me.”

Bush remarked that being a transracial adoptee wasn’t part of her identity that she thought about. Her adoptive mother made sure she and her brother always knew they were adopted, but Bush grew up thinking that she was no different than her parents. 

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“For the majority of my life, I just thought of myself as tan, not really from another country. The main question I always got was if I could speak Spanish; I can’t.” Bush said. “The only complication, where I felt identity loss, was not being able to speak Spanish. I always wanted to communicate with others, but I was never able to fully grasp that language.”

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Bush’s background as an adoptee has given her the opportunity to connect with other adoptees. Instead of seeing it as something that sets her apart from others, she sees it as an opportunity to connect with people in similar situations.

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 “I know being an adoptee has helped create conversations with other adoptees, and opening up with them about what their journeys are,” Bush said. “I think that’s a cool way of the Lord showing a small community through our similar backgrounds.”

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Grace

*A pseudonym is used for the adoptee, who wished to remain anonymous.

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Grace was adopted from the Hunan province of China at age 13, a few days before aging out of the adoption system. Not much is known about what happens to children who age out. Several studies have been done and most show unfavorable futures for the children who stayed in the system. Grace sees her adoption as a gift from God, and an unexpected one at that.

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As an older child, Grace wasn’t expecting to be adopted. She remembers being surprised and nervous, not sure what to expect or how she would adjust. After being adopted and coming to live in the states, Grace found it extremely difficult. She grew up in a different environment, spoke a different language and knew an entirely different culture.

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“It was weird because you’re going home with someone you’ve never met or known. It’s really hard to learn a different language and get used to all the food and culture here. I had a hard time adjusting at first, but I did,” Grace said. “I don’t remember this, but my mom told me, when they first adopted me, I didn’t want to communicate because I was not adjusting very well. So I didn’t want to talk to them; I would have a meltdown every day for no reason, and then I wouldn’t communicate with them.”

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But Grace persisted through the difficult transition, she even attended a public school where she had to learn English. While Grace tried to adjust to life in America, her parents tried to adjust their lives to make her feel more comfortable.

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Grace has two siblings also adopted from China, so Grace’s parents make an effort to incorporate their children’s culture into their own. One way was incorporating foods from China into their meals.

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“We eat a lot of rice in China, so my mom tries to have rice twice a week as a meal so we can adjust. We also eat a lot of spices and she tried to keep those spices around,” Grace said. “She’d take us to Asian stores to buy food we like to eat. She does research, she took a Mandarin class and classes about the culture before she adopted us just so she knows.”

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Whether she belonged was another struggle Grace experienced after her adoption. Since she spent so much time in her culture of origin, she sometimes felt as if she didn’t belong with her adopted family.

“When I was first adopted, I wasn’t sure what I thought. There were times when I wondered if I wasn’t part of the family,?” Grace said. “But now I think adoption is one of the best things and more people should adopt. Your family doesn’t have to be related by blood. If they’re your family, then they’re your family.”

The biggest assumption Grace and her family faced is people think that there is a rift between Grace and her siblings.

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“People assume when you adopt kids and have kids of your own that they won’t get along or will dislike each other,” Grace said. “Sometimes that is the case, but not all the time. In my family, they definitely get along. People ask my parents how many kids they have, and they’ll say 9. And then they’ll be like, ‘How many are really yours?’ And then they’ll be like, ‘They’re all my kids.’ Just because we’re adopted doesn’t mean we’re not their kids. They hate to be asked that question.”

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Grace’s parents involved their children in adoption decisions, asking their biological daughter if it was OK to adopt a child who would be older than her, and asking Grace if it was alright to adopt more children. Grace now has many siblings, some adopted and others biological, but she never considers them anything other than family.

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Kate

Kate Suarez was adopted from the Sichuan province of China at 11 months.

“Being adopted hasn’t been a huge struggle for me, it is part of who I am. I am an adoptee,” Suarez said. “But it’s not like if someone asked me, ‘What makes you who you are?’ I would say, ‘Well I’m a Christian, and I was homeschooled.’”

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For Suarez, growing up as an adoptee wasn’t weird for her. There were moments when she was confused about her identity, especially with her appearance.

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“I loved Cinderella, and in my little 5-year-old mind, I looked exactly like her, with blonde hair and blue eyes. And then when I turned seven, I looked in a mirror once and it’s like ‘Huh, I look a lot different than I imagined,” Suarez said.

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As Suarez noted, adoptees and their parents often bear unmistakable differences in appearance. Ethnicity and skin tone shouldn’t affect how a family loves and respects each other, but unfortunately, the world is not always so understanding.

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While being an adoptee isn’t something Suarez considers one of the biggest factors in her identity overall, she admits the most comfortable people to be around for her are other Chinese Americans.

“I feel like I connect with them better to an extent. Like, ‘Oh, you’re one of me, and I’m one of you’,” Suarez said. “They’re also usually adopted into Christian families, and they’re also homeschooled which is so funny. So, we have three things to connect on there. Our relationship with God, our homeschooling experience, and deeper feelings that might have been caused by adoption, like feelings of the fear of abandonment, which I’m not sure if that’s something specific to adoptees or just general. Does everyone fear abandonment or do we just feel it more acutely?”

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The most common assumption Suarez runs into is people think she speaks Chinese first and speaks English as a second language.

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“People come up to me and say, ‘You have great English.’ And the first time someone said that to me I thought they meant I had good English. And it took me a couple of months later to realize that they just thought that English was not my first language,” Suarez said.

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“The biggest thing I’ve strongly felt about being adopted is wondering where my mom is,” Suarez said. “I wonder where she is, she even left me a note once like, ‘I hope you do well in your new life in the future.’ I still have it somewhere, and she left me half of a jade bracelet, and I’m assuming she has the other half. So I’m guessing the one thing I really want to do is go back and see her. And that’s something I feel is different for every adoptee.”

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Adoptees may struggle with the significance of their culture of origin on their lives today, and they may need years to come to terms with it. Each story was different because each adoptee came to a different answer about how important their background was to them. Whether they came to the decision on their own, or with the support of their adopted families, these are stories worth telling. 

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This article was originally published for the Cedars print edition, although in a condensed form. Later, it was published online in January 2023, in two parts.

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Find a PDF of the printed version here.

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Find the online version here and here.