But sometimes they do come back

Some of my fellow bloggers and adoptee friends and I have been discussing — separately and with each other — an article appearing in the New York Times called “Adopted in China, Seeking Identity in America,” about the coming of age of the first generation of Chinese-born girls adopted by white American families.

Rich of FamiLee Life and my Korean adoptee friend at Made in Korea have already blogged some of their reactions to the article. And although I could have simply copied & pasted what they wrote — especially Made in Korea’s — I’ve elected to blurt out a few of my thoughts on the piece. (Because evidently, I am a sucker for punishment.)

Adopted at 2, McKenzie (Forbes, age 17) is among the oldest of the current wave of children adopted from China. Like many Americans adopting from overseas at the time, McKenzie’s family turned to China because of a movement started in 1972 by the National Association of Black Social Workers discouraging the placement of African-American children with white adoptive families.

“With an African-American child we had no guarantee that the mother or a social worker wouldn’t come and take the child away,” McKenzie’s mother, Maree Forbes, said. “With the children from China, we felt safe that there wouldn’t be anyone to come back to get them.”

Cripes.

This assumption that all the little children from China are abandoned, ties neatly severed, authorized, safe, emotionally sanitized and packaged for adoption … What the?

Even though Mother Forbes merely echoes the sentiment I’ve already heard from many other white adoptive parents, the assumption that most children — including her daughter — were nothing but extras, mistakes and unwanted castaways, still stings all the same for those of us who know otherwise: Not all international adoptions are tied up in neat bows, stamped and all satisfied customers and happy endings.

(And maybe her quote was taken out of a broader context that I’m missing, but am I to understand that she couldn’t be safely guaranteed lifetime possession of the color of kid she wanted first, so she picked out another color from less indecisive stock??)

Who is “safe”? Why is choosing international vs. domestic adoption about the adopting parents feeling safe from the big bad birth family, rather than what’s best for the child? Is that what they tell their children? “We wanted you. We chose you. If we had chosen an American child, we might not have been able to keep him. But not you. You were safe. Because nobody would want you back.”

My fellow adoptee friends also felt the sting of Forbes’ statement, our breath catching in our throats, faces reddening at the same moment in that article. It was as if we (and our birth mothers) had been collectively bitch-slapped.

It’s a sad reality that white privilege and economic privilege have the power to blind some adoptive parents to the point where they reject that the child had a history, a birthright, and a life before they signed on the dotted line. I have to wonder, is there anything more selfish than wrapping a child’s adoption up in one’s own insecurities instead of committing to the child’s welfare?

Taking the children to Chinese buffets for the New Year (then sinking back into the safety and comfort of their gated communities), buying cheap brocade dresses, passing around made-up lore about red threads and ladybugs — these are not substitutes for more honest dialogue and real interaction with Chinese-American and Asian-American role models. They may be well-meaning gestures, and more than what some of us older intercountry, transracial adoptees had, but it doesn’t make up for the trauma that can be inflicted when a child of one race and ethnicity is displaced, removed from his or her culture, and assigned another one instead, under the assumption that privilege is synonymous with “better off.”

Skeptical that this is a valid kind of trauma? Just look to me and the thousands of other adult Korean adoptees who have returned to Korea, looking to recover something more than photo opportunities and souvenirs, for living proof.

So it galls me, these “safe” parents who presume that their children came guaranteed, as bona fide orphans. The ones who bury their heads in the sand, clap their hands over their ears and sing, La la la, and essentially refuse to acknowledge the countless mothers who did not willingly relinquish their babies of their own accord — whether wronged by a stranger, a family member, or a societal stigma.

No way, not us! It’s hearsay. It’s mean-spirited sensationalism. It’s too bad if it could happen to someone else, but not our babies. What are we supposed to do about it anyway? Why should we pay emotionally for someone else’s mistake? Not mine. Not my child!

But you know what, Mother Forbes? It happens. Political situations change. Personal situations change. Birth mothers do come back. And many of us adoptees seek them out, for answers, for truth. For validation that we came from somewhere besides an airplane or an orphanage or a stack of papers with fictitious stories and blank spaces. For healing.

My Korean mother said she thought of me every single day of her life after she gave me up. She wanted to find me, but she was resigned to her fate and what she saw as her sin. She came back for me in her dreams. When I found her and accepted her for who she was and who I was, she relived the pain of the decision that was made for her all over again. When I reached out and touched her hands, I understood that she had come back for me in her own way, even when physically she could not reach out and claim me.

I’ll never know her heartache from her side of our blood bond, but I feel it from mine. If I could print it up plainly for all to understand on a T-shirt, I’d wear it as a reminder to all adoptive parents that sometimes, there is real, irreparable pain and there are primal wounds inherent in adoption that no privileged upbringing can erase.

Inevitably, as adult adoptees speaking out about our experiences, many of us continually have the question thrust in our faces from defensive souls who think they know our fortunes best: “Would you prefer it if we left the children to rot in a dirty orphanage? Would it be better if you hadn’t been adopted at all?”

But this is not the point we’re making. Diverting the focus to those “dirty orphanages” and that alternate future (implied: the only other alternate future?) of neglect is often naught but a red herring thrown out in a last-ditch attempt to deny a piece of the responsibility for rewriting a child’s identity. To preserve that safe space of theirs, with the walls built on a foundation of assumptions and unknowns. To insinuate that there was no other way. To invalidate our experiences and feelings as adult transracial, transcultural adoptees. And to silence our voices.

So perhaps I blog this as much for the Chinese adoptees, my younger sisters, as I do for myself. To validate that which they have not yet spoken — whatever that might be. To voice the possibility that maybe someone has come back for them already, and it’s OK for them to go find out, when they are ready. To acknowledge and honor their Chinese mothers, many of whom wait for the day when it’s possible to be found and touched and understood.