I’m pretty predictable.  I like routines, I like rules.  If I write out a schedule, I’ll stick to it.  Just ask my high school roommates: work until 3am, nap 20 minutes, work until 5am, nap 10 minutes… wow, I was kind of compulsive.   I could eat the same thing day in and day out for years and not get tired of it.  Not only could I, I do.  Coffee.  Caesar salad.  Plain chicken. Chocolate. Repeat.  My interests have not drastically changed since the age of 6.  Dance, working with kids, reading, writing, fashion. Check the box.  My friends don’t change much either.  Alex since kindergarten. Janis since first grade.  Priya since sixth grade.  Danielle since tenth.  Courtenay, Ava, Issy since freshman year of college.  And so on.  I’d like to think that I know what I’m looking for so when I find it, I stick to it.  As it turns out, my intellectual interests follow that pattern too.  So I shouldn’t be surprised that six people all saw this New York Times article and sent it to me: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/09adopt.html?_r=1&hp   Obama’s buzzword may have been change. My buzzword would be identity, so predictably this was forwarded straight to my inbox.

I’ve shared with you before that I think a lot about race and racial identity.  How can I not when at least three times a week a total stranger will approach me and ask “what are you?” Growing up, my parents did little to influence ‘what’ my siblings and I saw ourselves as- in fact, if anything, they avoided bringing it up.  I believe it was my sister Kayla who stumbled upon her childhood journal a few years ago and doubled over in laughter when she read her 6-year-old astute observation of: “my grandparents are coming to visit today. They are brown.”  We might have been ignorant about race, or what it meant to be biracial, but the “what are you?” questions let us know that we were different. 

So I found acceptance in every ‘different’ community I could find.  Alex?  Black.  We became kindergarten buddies because someone told her she was black because she drank too much chocolate milk.  She befriended me by saying ‘you must like chocolate milk too.’  Janis?  A Korean adoptee.  Your parents look nothing like you too?! COOL! Now let’s go read chapter books!  Priya? Indian.  You’re brown and skinny.  I’m tan and skinny.  Let’s be BFFs.  Danielle? You speak Spanish.  Everyone thinks I’m Spanish.  Amigas!  It wasn’t until college when I came to realize all of my adopted cultures were just that.  I realized that if I wanted to feel sound in my identity, I would need to define it myself.  “Mixed” means little in today’s world.  “Biracial” means Obama.  But wait, he’s black, right? So what is biracial again?   Going to college in the South meant defining it and defending it.  Coming back to the Northeast has allowed me to embrace it.

I think a lot about how Ashley might understand herself.  If she was adopted, does her family understand?  Do people constantly look at her, look at her adoptive parents, raise their eyebrows and ask her what she is?  If she wasn’t adopted, did she find a support network- perhaps adopt cultures like I did?- and come to understand herself that way?  Does she think of herself as a foster care kid? Does she think of herself as special?  

My brother came home this weekend.  He’s a few months into his freshman year in college.  He was beaming when he told me that kids at his college actually recognize that he’s part black- finally! he said.  My baby brother felt validated because for once he didn’t have to defend a part of himself, but rather it was acknowledged without prompting and accepted.  I hope everyday that Ashley’s identity, as a foster care survivor, or perhaps adoptive daughter, a ‘what are you’ young woman or just a 21-year-old girl is validated.  Because she should be acknowledge and accepted. She should be celebrated and loved. 

With love (for all the people who listen to my identity conversations everyday- and Happy Birthday, Janis!  I'll buy you a Boxcar Children novel of your choice...),

Audra
 
 


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