“Have you seen the movie, Lion?”
As an activist for adoptee rights, this is a question I often hear.
Honestly, I watch in silence because the pain is too much to share. Instead, I sit and sob, as the narratives wash over me. It feels cathartic. I feel validated. Adoptees are moving into the mainstream.
My life is not Randall’s or Saroo’s. But theirs uplifts me and gives me hope. Our narrative lines curve and intersect. It’s a dance … a dance of possibilities.
I have boycotted the Oscars for a while, but I may need to make an exception this year. So many movies with actors of color and an adoptee narrative.
It. Feels. Fucking. Good.
Share with me how you feel about these mainstream stories of transracial adoptees. Use #ImTransracial on Twitter. I look forward to hearing your thoughts too.
Feminist columnist, Rosita González is a transracial, Korean-American adoptee. She is married to a Brit and is a mother to two multiracial children. Rosita was adopted in 1968 at the age of one through Holt International. Her road has been speckled with Puerto Rican and Appalachian relatives and her multiracial sister, the natural child of her adoptive parents. While quite content with her role as a “Tennerican,” her curiosity has grown recently as her children explore their own ethnic identities. She considers herself a lost daughter, not only because of the loss of her birth family, but also because of the loss of her adoptive parents. After the death of her adoptive father, she discovered that he had fathered a Korean son two years before her birth; she is searching for him. Rosita recently returned from a five-month stint in Seoul, South Korea, with her family and their three cats. Follow her adventures as an adoptee on her blog, mothermade.
