Adoption Related Resources
Centering Adoptees
Supporting Families
Adoptee Voices
We have collaborated with Chinese adoptees on our programming since 2014.
On our FCCNE Facebook page and in email postcards and newsletters we regularly feature the voices of adoptees. Here are just a few quotes from those who have generously shared their thoughts, feelings and experiences:
“My mom always made sure we knew we did not have to agree on everything with someone to be friends and that there are always people with other feelings, opinions and experiences. I had no idea how true that was for adoption until I was an adult. Adoption is predicated by loss, yes, but no two people have the exact same story or feelings. Every person is different. Some adoptees feel a loss or grief their entire life, others cannot truly understand that, but neither is wrong. Of the parents who read this today, your children who are adoptees will feel as many different ways as there are number of you” – Madeleine Melcher
“Living in China, as a 13-year-old orphan about to be adopted was a difficult feeling. My whole life — the hard times, and the good times — were about to be left behind. In China, children in orphan- ages are often looked down on, and not treated with full human respect, so I did want a family, and a chance to have a different life. My life had not been all bad, though, and it is terrifying looking into a future with everything unknown.” – Ying Lamb
“When I traveled to China … I hoped to find recognition and connectedness in the country that I had been fantasizing about for so long. Reality however, was different. I really felt like a tourist, not being able to even understand the language I was sup- posed to speak fluently and not know- ing the habits of the culture that was supposed to be mine. I realized I had been changed by Western society.” – Nathalie Hoekstra
“I was always angry because I felt like my voice wasn’t being heard. Asian men are viewed as humble, quiet, and smart, but at the same time not sexually attractive or having personalities. We were seen as second best and having secondary options… I decided to help others who had felt the same way with their confidence and self-esteem, and in return, I received confidence and self-esteem.” – Kevin Kreider
“We hold a special place in history. While we all have individual stories, each of us lost our beginning as a direct impact of strict and cruel government policies; each of us left our country of birth with very little information. How many other groups of people started from similarly foggy beginnings? We moved across oceans, lived in interracial families, and are now navigating our lives as young adults—some with kids of our own.” – Eden Roth
“I think there’s a lot of pressure on adoptees when it comes to reuniting with birth parents — like we’re suddenly supposed to have all the answers because that’s why we search in the first place, right?… Language wasn’t the only barrier to connecting. [My birth mother] couldn’t truly understand my life growing up in the U.S. and its nuances, like the uneasiness I always felt being not just an adopted person but also a person of color brought up in a majority-white rural community.” – Ashley Westerman
“Being in China has been so good for me. I can get on a bus and I’m not the one who stands out. It is the white foreigner who hops on next that is stared at and I get to just pass. I’ve never had this experience before, the ability to blend into a crowd, to not be first judged by my race… Yet as much as I resonate with being part of the landscape in China, I still will never fully fit in. I am still on the outside here, not Chinese enough for the locals and not foreign enough for the expatriates. I’m tired of being invisible.” – Kelsi Macklin