Twice Removed: Being the Child of a Transracial Adoptee

by Nora Kinney

cover art by Joanne Hong

Archetype by Joanne Hong: “In a time full of unnecessary hate and violence towards Asian Americans, I’ve learned to spend every day thanking and respecting the Asian Americans in my community that have raised me to be who I am today. Through this portrait of my mother, a strong and kindhearted woman who has taught me to appreciate every minimal detail of life, I’ve portrayed the indescribable feelings of thankfulness and admiration I have for not only my mother, but all of the Asian American women that I revere.”

When my mother was a baby, she was abandoned at a bus stop in Seoul. She was ultimately discovered and taken to an orphanage. That is all I have ever heard about her origins - it’s a pretty brief story. No mention of specific people or any agency with a name. There are simply no loose ends in Korea for her, no genetic threads to pull at and unravel. In 1976, she was adopted into a white American family and named Mary Katherine. 

Sometimes, I hesitantly float questions to her about her experiences as an adoptee, about identity, about feeling untethered. Whenever the words “find out” or “would you ever want” leave my lips, I know I’ve struck the wrong chord. There’s always a subtle shift in the air, accompanied by a tightened jaw, a low exhale, a hard stare. The conversation wraps up fairly quickly after that. 

My mother married my father, a white man, after meeting in college and together they had three biracial children. The five of us settled into the quintessential suburban New England life as a perfectly happy family, and looking back, there was nothing particularly jarring about my childhood. Nothing substantially traumatic or harrowing. Nothing particularly ethnic, either. I was just a happy kid who took ballet lessons twice a week, enjoyed trips to my grandparents’ houses, played in the snow with my brothers, and constantly had my nose in a book. But ever since I learned about my mom’s background at a young age, a perpetual curiosity nagged at me. Though like I said, my mom was not big on the questions I asked. 

As I’ve become a teenager, this curiosity has mutated into a deeper source of contention. I am filled to the brim with unaddressed internal conflict. Echoes of dysphoria bounce around my chest, as if my ribcage is a pinball machine. Whispering self-doubt buries its inky fingers against my wrists from the inside, stretching the skin outwards. I now recognize what sets me apart from my white friends, white teachers, white peers, and white family members. But in the same breath, I recognize that I feel just like them. My mother did not grow up in Korean culture, and therefore neither did I. My “Asian-ness” is even further diluted by the fact that I am mixed, and I mean that with the utmost respect and love for my father. Two whole degrees of separation from my ethnicity--the distance feels agonizing sometimes. 

I feel like an imposter. 

Despite this swirling, teetering uncertainty, I’m anchored in knowing that my bloodline runs through Korea. I am desperately trying to educate myself on the culture, language, history, cuisine, and geography of Korea in order to mend this great divide I feel within myself. Sometimes I feel nervous about this exploration, like I’m probing something I shouldn’t be, or overstepping into territory that is not mine. But I remind myself that I have every right to reclaim and appreciate a part of me that has been muted. I know that I will never be fully embraced in either cultural hemisphere that I identify with. I have come to accept that. This is a journey of self-discovery, not an appeal to others. 

I cannot fully love myself if there are pieces of me that I am neglecting.