My Birth Family : The Life Of My Birth Family

As some of you know, I am adopted. I was adopted when I was 0 years old, so obviously I don’t remember it. Now some of you may think at that age, who cares? But being an adopted child surprisingly affected my innocent childhood. It’s not that being adopted was the hard part, it was the fact that I am an adopted black...or African American child living in an extremely white community. I grew up black on the outside, but white on the inside, although my inner black girl tends to shine through occasionally. I remember as a child I absolutely hated when people would refer to me as African American because I am not from Africa and who knows where my parents derived from. As far as I know, I’m from Georgia and I am an honorary Egyptian because my dad is Egyptian. As I grew up I knew I was adopted. I had no concerns and interests in finding or knowing really anything about my biological parents. In 5th grade, when studying about slaves in school I always felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable considering I was the only black girl surrounded by whites. It was hard for me to

Throughout life I have experienced numerous events that have shaped me into becoming the person I am to this day. Out of all these events, my adoption has been the most significant and life changing event of my life. Two weeks before my first birthday in, I was adopted from Nanchang, China. As I grew up, my parents never once tried to conceal my adoption. Without them, I believe I would have grown to be a totally different person. Although I was adopted and brought in by my adoptive parents, I see myself in the everyday. I see them as nothing less than my real parents and I aspire to be as generous and compassionate as they are. Without them, I would have never been able to experience half of the life changing events I have gone through. As

How does it feel to be adopted? Has life been altered as a result of being adopted? These questions have never fazed my view of being adopted. Awareness of being adopted began as far back as I can recall and has never been a taboo family topic. Adoption didn’t affect my life in any sort of way as a child. As I matured, the realization of the impact being adopted has had on my life has evolved. This insight created a new level of gratitude for my family and my life.

My family has lived here in Oregon since the before the war between the states, and family tells us stories of the good times before all these japs started taking over. Around the turn of the century or so it started to seem like these people were everywhere. It all started with the building of the railroad. The companies brought in those people to build the railroad, and now that the railroad is completed they will not leave. To make matters even worse there is an effort by their leaders to get them to strike for the same pay as us white people that work for the railroad. There has been extremely little or no effort on their part to become like us Americans. I was walking through town the other day and what did I see, there was a huge Buddha statue in front of a new Buddhist temple. They can't even go to church like regular people.

Being an adopted child, the idea of a reunion is always lingering in the back of my mind. I always wondered if my biological father had a very loud laugh like I do, or if my mother liked to shop as much as I do. When I was younger I really didn’t think much about me being adopted, I just knew that I was different from my family. Well,l obviously I was different because I was from South Korea while my adoptive parents were from New Jersey. I never really knew anything about my birth parents, other than the fact that my mother was very young when she had me and my father wasn’t in the picture at the time, so my mother put me up for adoption so I could have the best life possible. At a young age I didn’t ask about my adoption because I didn’t have the ability to identify my experience and articulate my feelings yet, but now since I’m coming to an age where I’m about to start my life as adult, I think it’s time to confront my feelings and thoughts on my adoption.

When I was about 7 I found out that I was adopted. When I found out I was on the playground and my classmates was teasing me about it. I never told my parents because I figured the little kids were lying. One day my family and I were doing some spring cleaning and I found my adoption papers. At that point I started to question my God because I could not understand why my real mommy and daddy did not want me. I cried myself to sleep each and every night. As a little girl I often wondered what I did to deserve to be given up. I questioned why all the other kids got to grow up with their real family and I did not.

Kathryn Patricelli writes in “Long-Term Issues for the Adopted Child,” that the child may actually feel grief over the loss of a relationship with their birth parents and want to reach out to them, but she also says that not every child will express an interest in his or her birth family history. All adoptive children will have some sort of feelings about their adoption, and whether the child chooses to search for their biological family or not, parents should support them in their decision. David Livianu states that the more open family discussions are from the beginning, the more likely it is that communication will continue in the event that the child does want to look for his or her birth parents. Although Patricelli and Livianu don’t directly correlate telling a child at an early age and a child wanting to seek their biological family, a child being told at the age of 6 to 8 that they are adopted most likely will not want to seek their biological parents at that time. However, the adoptive parents should prepare themselves for the day their child chooses to search for their parents, if they choose to do

Where we come from is a huge issue. Just as scientists debate the origin of man and the universe, adopted children can have questions about their genetic roots. Questions like: “Why do I look like this?”, “Why do I have these health problems?”, and “Why do I have these emotional issues?” go unanswered if biological parents are never known. In a study of adoptive families, parents were asked how they felt years after their open adoptions. One

My adoptive mother became my legal mother and the only mother that I have ever known. As my other had legal rights to make decisions regarding my well-being, she allowed my biological mother's family to come visit me whenever they wanted. Even though my mother had passed, I was still allowed to form a bond with my biological family. I would have an open adoption with the child that I adopt in order to give them the right to know their bloodline and the same privilege that I had. An open adoption is the practice of sharing information and maintaining contact between biological and adoptive parents throughout the child's life (Benokraitis 320). I was not kept in the dark, nor hidden from my family. I do not think it is right for any child to be kept from the truth of their family. Additionally, I believe that keeping a child from knowing their family/family history could hinder a relationship with the adoptive family. Not only can it hinder the relationship, but if there were ever a life-threatening emergency, who is to say that the child, or later adult- would know how to respond in regards to their family

What do individuals think of when they hear the term First Family? Normally people think of the President, his wife, and their children, but it can be much more extensive. In the book First Family by David Baldacci, Pam Dutton, sister of the First Lady, is murdered. Pam’s daughter, Willa, is kidnapped during the attack on the Dutton family. Tuck, father of the Dutton family, is badly injured in the attack. The Secret Service provides little protection to relatives to the President, so the Dutton family is an open target. Two detectives who arrive at the crime scene while the crime is taking place take upon the investigation. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are appointed to investigate the crime under the orders of the First Lady. The title is

The second corner of the triangle, the adoptee, had very different affects from the adoption. Each adoptee found out a different way and had different feelings about learning they were adopted. While some adjusted and accepted the news as to never give it another thought, there are many that did not. According to The Encyclopedia of Adoption, “Most adults who were adopted as children appear to have successfully resolved any conflicts stemming from their adoption” (Adamec, C. & Miller, L. 2007, p. 30). Having been adopted and knowing many adoptees, I must

History is defined as the study of the science of humanity in the past. It's a broad subject that spans over countless people groups throughout the years that the world has been around. Even before the times we have written word history was still being made, and it is still extremely important. We tend to forget that in our average day to day lives we are still making history. That all over the globe everyone is taking part in what might be in a history book someday.

I was adopted when I was ten months old and brought into an amazing and loving family. My parents had never hidden that fact that I was adopted and I had this knowledge since an early age. However, I only had a small understanding as to what being adopted meant. At the age of five, I only knew that they adopted me from China because

Time flies, and pieces of stories from a family vanishes in time. The best way to record those disappearing valuable history is to record them in writing. There are too many stories to tell and want I am going to write about is the key part of my family history, which makes my family a family. The story is about my great-grandfather Zhiyun, my grandfather Liangai.

I must have been about 4 years old when my family and I came across a cat, he was black and white in color and dirty from being outside. He was standing in the middle of a dirt road and froze in fear when our car pulled up to him. My mother, seeing as she is rather courageous, decided she wanted to save him. My grandmother was very much against this idea, what if he's sick, what if he has rabies? This is one of my earliest memories so my recollection of this is like a dream, just bits and pieces crocheted into one mishmash of a story. I say this because after that point the next thing I remember is being at home with this cat and they had put him in the sink to wash him. He looked rather young and was thin, I couldn't tell you if that was because he was outside or if that was because he was wet, maybe both. I also couldn't tell you if they took him to the vet and got him checked out, and as sure as I am that they are responsible enough to do that, I couldn't tell you for sure. They later named him Gus. Yes, like an old man, I wonder how my younger self felt about it, I kind of like it now.