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of "Spectrum."
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- I grew up in a very rural town in Illinois.
From a young age, I was just very opposed to being Asian.
I'd lie, I'd say, "Oh yeah, my parents got divorced.
One of them's half I'm half,
I don't really look half, but whatever."
(upbeat pensive music)
- [Interviewer] I found out I was adopted at an early age.
Three, two, one, go.
(pensive music)
- I was in the foster system
so I kind of knew I was gonna be adopted
and I wasn't adopted till I was 17.
So it's a little older than younger.
- I mean, I was adopted when I was like seven months.
So my parents told me before I even could understand
and I feel that's what all parents should do,
because if you get older and you don't know
and then you figure out
that can really take a mental toll on you.
- I found out I was adopted
at an early age because my parents are white.
How could I not know? (interviewees laugh)
How could I not know I was adopted?
And growing up on Long Island,
I dealt with a lot of racism, like even in like first grade
like people calling me like chink and gook,
so I realized that obviously I was different.
I would go home and I would ask my parents,
like, "What does this mean?
Like, what is a chink?"
And they would have to talk to me about it.
- I'm also a transracial adoptee, so it was very obvious.
On top of that, I also grew up in Olympia, Washington,
which is very white.
It wasn't strange to talk about adoption.
They were always very open about that
and I'm very grateful for that 'cause again,
I do know people who were not told they were adopted
and you know, it just tears their world apart.
- [Interviewer] I have a healthy relationship
with my adopted family.
Three, two, one, go.
(pensive music)
- It's just more personal issues
like family dynamics that we haven't really gotten along.
It's never been like,
"I don't like you 'cause you're adopted!"
None of that has ever been brought up.
It's just side issues and, as I get older
I really distance myself from them because
as I'm becoming my own person, my views of the world
and what I believe in are drastically different than theirs,
so I think that's where our relationship has kind
of proven to be a lot more distant.
- My adoptive dad passed away about seven years ago.
I had a really great relationship.
You know, he was the person who raised me,
taught me, you know, how to be a good person.
Me and my older brother,
I think we kind of bounce around it,
but I think the reason why we're not as close
as brothers should be is because we're two adopted people.
- I mean, every family's gonna have problems,
but for them literally taking me in when I'm not theirs
and they really have no responsibility to me
and they've given me a life,
they've helped me go through college.
I've always felt kind of bad
to either speak my mind compared
to my sister who's like their biological kid,
and even though I know if I spoke my mind,
they wouldn't say anything about me being adopted,
but because they've like done so much for me,
I subconsciously just felt bad bringing stuff up
and talking about it because I was just so grateful.
- Yeah, I agree.
I have a very good relationship with my parents.
Could it be better? Absolutely.
Despite our differences
and despite some things that happened,
they would die for me.
And that they've sacrificed so much for me.
That phrase, "Blood is thicker than water."
I'm like, "What?
No, like, just look at people who are adopted!"
Like, they're my family.
I don't even use the word adopted parents.
Like, that's insulting to me.
Like, they're just my parents.
- [Interviewer] I want a relationship with my birth family.
Three, two, one, go.
(pensive music)
- I guess for like a long time,
I had no idea who they were.
You know, the only thing I really got was like papers
and like, you know, stuff my mom said,
and so what I found out was
my mother developed a opioid addiction.
Even when I was in the womb, she was drinking,
you know, Hennessy.
The reason why I'm at somewhat disagree
and not strongly disagree is because
there's still a sense of wanting,
because I have no reference to say,
you know, "You're my mother."
- For me, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
Like, I feel like if you share DNA,
that doesn't mean that they love you.
I'm not like mad at my birth parents
for like giving me up because I feel
like they did it for like giving me a better life
and for that like I'm grateful and my adoption was closed,
so I've never like seen or like been able to meet
or talk and like I feel like that's fine.
- I just want to emphasize for my adoption,
I was actually taken away by the government.
So she didn't voluntarily put me in the foster unit.
Just wanted to emphasize that.
- I was in the foster system too,
and my situation is a little different
and not like a lot of foster kids,
because I was put in the system when I was 13,
and I grew up with my mom my whole life
and at that point I knew she was not fit to be a mother.
She was abusive, she was toxic.
Would I go back and see my mom?
No, I'm not ready at least right now,
because I've had to deal
with a lot of therapy, dealing with PTSD from her.
My bio dad also had a drug addiction.
He got deported and he didn't reach out to me
till I was 13 years old and said,
"Sorry, I forgot about you."
So I kind of just gave up on that,
especially when I had this amazing family adopt me
and showed me that they didn't care
that I was the only Mexican in a big family full of Jews.
They didn't care that I looked different, that I had to go
to therapy and that I had to deal with all these things,
because no matter what, I still contributed to the family
and they still treated me the exact same way
that they treated their daughter, so, yeah.
- It really wasn't until actually just a few years ago
that I decided I'm actually ready to reach out
to my birth family and I had a closed adoption
so it was very very hard
to track down all this information and, you know,
agencies are closed after 27 years and all this stuff.
But I did eventually find her on Facebook
and we have reached out, we talk on the phone now.
So we have like kind of a basic communication.
I kind of realized that I kind of felt fulfilled.
I didn't really feel like I needed to do a whole lot more.
I think eventually down the line, once I get the rest
of my life together, I will like to go down there, you know,
meet them and meet all my siblings and all that stuff,
but right now I kind of feel okay.
- This is a really unusual case.
My birth father actually reached out
to me through the agency.
Maybe if he didn't, maybe I wouldn't be on this line,
but once he reached out to me,
it did make me curious about Korea,
and then once I learned the Korean language I was like,
"All right, like I really want to get to know these people."
- [Interviewer] I struggle to connect
to my cultural heritage.
Three, two, one.
(pensive music)
- Growing up I would've been strongly agree.
I was literally the only Black person in my town.
So I had no reference of what Black people were doing
or what Black culture was.
And I did go through a lot of the,
"Oh, you talk like a white girl."
"You're an Oreo," or "You don't know every Tupac song
so you're not Black enough."
Like all those kind of stereotypes
of what Black people are supposed to be.
But for me that just kind of pushed me to learn more
about Black culture and read upon our history and all that.
- Because I'm white, I didn't face what you guys face.
But I was also adopted from Russia.
Because I was told from a young age that I was adopted,
I got to celebrate my Russian culture and heritage.
- I started at strongly agree.
And then you mentioned struggle is in the present
and that's what's happening now.
I grew up in a very rural town in Illinois.
From a young age I was just very opposed to being Asian.
I was opposed to being Chinese.
I didn't really suffer from racism really,
which I feel very like blessed and lucky for.
But I still like struggled with myself.
I was like, "I don't like being Chinese."
I'd lie.
I'd say, "Oh yeah, my parents got divorced.
One of them's half, I'm half,
I don't really look half, but whatever."
And then it wasn't until high school
like, my sophomore year, I was like,
"I need to get really connected with my culture,
'cause it feels like there's a part
of me still missing" and there will always be a part
of me missing until I actually discovered that.
- [Interviewer] I would adopt.
Three, two, one, go.
(pensive music)
- It's again, it's just personal issues
with me not having that blood connection to anyone,
but if the adoption scenario ever came up,
I would definitely not be opposed to it.
It's just right now I would want my own kids if I had them.
- A part of me wants to do that as well.
I wanna have my own child.
But then another part of me, I wanna be able
to get kids that are grown
and that they're like 10 years old
and their whole life has been horrible
and I'm the one that's gonna give them a second chance.
But that's only because of what I went through.
- You can do both, absolutely.
But also for me, I don't want to adopt out of obligation
of feeling like I need to adopt 'cause I'm an adoptee.
That doesn't create a healthy environment
either where like I feel like I had to adopt.
I've always kind of teetered on this line
and until I personally figure out what works best for me,
I'm just, nothing's coming over here for a while. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] Parents should be mindful
when it comes cross to cross-cultural adoption.
Three, two, one, go.
(pensive music) (Rebekah laughing)
- I think mindful is like a good word to use.
Just because your parents are a different race doesn't mean
that they like love you any less or anything like that,
like, they should be mindful and take
into consideration that you will have,
like a more difficult time trying to like navigate
and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean
that you shouldn't adopt in different races.
- When you're adopting a child and you're taking them
into your home, no matter what race they are,
you still, I feel like as an adoptive parent,
have a responsibility to kind of connect them
to their culture.
Just acknowledge it, you know?
I don't think they need to be like,
"You need to like go
to Dia de los Muertos 'cause you're Mexican!"
Like, no, "If you want, you can.
Just know it's something that your culture does."
- I feel that I've kind of went through an identity crisis,
especially over the last few years
as I'm trying to connect with my culture.
I was completely unaware.
I was very ignorant to it and I regret that,
because I could feel a lot more confident in myself.
But because I kind of had to do it
on my own because my parents didn't do that,
it's been a lot harder to identify
with white, Asian.
Like where am I in the spectrum of this?
I wish they would've just
like helped me embrace the culture a little more rather
than look at me as a little child going,
"I hate being Asian."
And they just laugh and go, "Ha, ha, ha."
Because again, they've never experienced
that in their life, so they don't understand.
- I feel like mindful is a very kind of cuddly term for it.
For me, I was called the N-word
when I was literally a child.
I had people come up and say to me
and pet me like I was in a petting zoo.
I've gotten spit on, I've gotten all kinds of things
and I couldn't go to my family,
because they don't know anything.
They're white.
They were privileged enough to never ever have to think
about these things.
But there's a whole nother set
of things that come along with raising children of color.
You have to be willing to put your life
on the line for your child of color.
This is not, "Oh, they didn't mean it like that."
"Oh, they're just from the older generation.
They don't understand."
No, like, (participants cheering)
those are the kind of responses I still get to this day,
and it has literally ruined relationships in my family,
because they're so uncomfortable just talking about racism.
You're no longer a white family,
you're a family of multiple races.
Embrace all of it
and it's time to just put the color blind bullshit aside
and really get down to these issues,
because it is literally killing people,
And to me it's just not tolerant at all.
- That was oof.
That was great. (uplifting music)
I'm gonna move on to this line over here.
- Woo!
- Come on guys.
(participants chattering and laughing)
- [All] One, two, three, adoptees!
(participants laughing)
- Big thank you to our adoptees
for having this conversation and teaching us all
about something a lot of people don't know about.
- Absolutely, and thank you so much to Curiosity Stream
for sponsoring this episode of "Spectrum."
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- [Kendra] Unlimited-
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- What was your favorite series?
- Okay, so my favorite series was
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Oh, I love British history.
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- Thanks guys.