Embedded Files
There were 3 themes that emerged from the data analysis, the Parent Perspective, the Rediscovery of Story, and Identity Awareness
Parent Stories: “Even if it’s really whitewashed,...they still try to do their best.”
Parent Stories: “Even if it’s really whitewashed,...they still try to do their best.”
This is many adoptee's first interaction with their adoption story, and so this tends to shape how adoptees view adoption, their birth parents and country
Parents focus on factors outside of biological parent's that are paired with a positive lens
"Biological parents and the state of your country at the time,...likely didn't have the financial, or just means at all, to take care of a child...your biological parents weren’t well fitted parents. They didn’t have the means to take care of you." - Luna
"It was always, ‘we chose you,’ ‘your family wanted to give you a big chance at life,’ and ‘oh, they couldn’t take care of you, they loved you, so that's why you’re here and you’re with us." -Arti
Rediscovery of Story: “You don’t know what you’re missing until you’re missing it.”
Rediscovery of Story: “You don’t know what you’re missing until you’re missing it.”
As the adoptees got older, they started questioning these positive stories on their own, realizing the adoption is nuance and complicated. Something the adoptive parents typically struggled to make sense of and communicate to their adopted children
A result of the adoptees questioning their story, they start to explore other adoptee's stories and start to feel less alone and isolated with their own story
Overtime the adoptees start to come to term with their unknowns and the unanswerable questions that come with adoption
Identity Awareness: “Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me.”
Identity Awareness: “Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what it means to me.”
This is when adoptees start to feel out of place or in between cultures and stories
Some felt like because they missed out on experiences, causing them to feel too white for their Asian peers but too Asian for their white peers as they grew up with white parents, and identifying strongly with being American, or not having immigrant parents.
Overtime adoptees realize their identity doesn't have to be clear cut and instead could be both and neither at the same time, and that these identities wouldn't negate eachother
These three themes emerged in order resulting in that...
A person growing up is a person making sense of their story
A person growing up is a person making sense of their story
In which the initial story that is told is important as it dictates when and how adoptee's go about their rediscovery
The story their parents tell them tend to be oversimplified or unchanging as they grow up
As the adoptee reaches adolescence, their exploration of their adoption story becomes more in depth than what was usually shared from their parents
These stories reveal that every adoption story starts with loss, unknowns, and sometimes grief, adoption looks different for everyone so there is a lot of uncertainty which can be difficult for the adoptee to go through
These adoption stories travels with the adoptee as they grow up, it shapes their cultural identity which results in an improved sense of wholeness of the adoptee's personal story
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