Skin and blood are something most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about… You enter the world and you immediately glance up at someone that usually looks a bit like you. For me, my first memories were not this way. Being a Korean-adoptee, the first faces I recognized were full of beautiful white skin, round gentle eyes, and sweet smiles. I do not have a first memory of when I realized I was Korean. But I do have a story my mom has told me; when I was small, I grabbed her face and pointed it toward a mirror and said “we are different”.
It has been a long journey for me, that of shaping my identity. But nothing has made the reality of my need to understand my transracial identity more than adopting my Latina daughter and having a biological son. Both of my children, with varying degrees, will experience the transracial experience. The weight of my need to be critical, passionate, and dedicated to understand differences is at an all time high. I want my kids to have confidence and value their differences.
Five things that I keep in mind as I raise my transracial family are:
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They will have moments of confusion:
When I walk down the street and people pass me, they see a Korean woman. Yet, I do not have all the experiences or feelings of the identity these people see. There have been seasons it has been hard for me to be around other Korean people. It has felt isolating at times to not know the culture, language, and how to connect with the people I look like, and then to have an internal mind of a white suburb family. In high school, to make light of the situation, I referred to myself as a golden oreo, when in reality this was a painful reality. In our family, we are trying our very best to dialogue and create the Latina experience for my girl and give our boy the proper tools to navigate being seen as a half white-Asian man. We hope to give them both the understanding that they don’t have to fit either people group.
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They will have to advocate for a different identity:
Right now, I am their biggest advocate and in our home it’s safe. I want them to have enough understanding and pride in their differences that they will have the courage to speak up for themselves. When our daughter was an infant, we once were in a coffee shop and an older gentlemen came up to us and start speaking to her in made-up Chinese words. I quickly responded, saying I am Korean and she is actually Mexican. To his dismay, I quickly walked away. He did not deserve the power of an explanation. I want my kids to advocate for their differences with people that deserve them. I need to not walk blindly that they won’t face racism. Both by those different than them, and maybe even those like them.
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They will experience racism and need to forgive:
As much as stories like the man in the coffee shop leave me feeling helpless, I know that they are going to happen. I want my kids to hear these stories in my home, be vulnerable, have tools to process, and forgive people. Being transracial, I want to believe my kids have a superpower, that they will be able to transition between racial groups and educate people in both though being courageous in telling their truth.
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They will find identity in places I might not expect:
Being a Korean adoptee, never feeling quite Korean or white, I found a lot of belonging with my best friend’s family. She’s actually half Puerto Rican and African American – another completely different set of people. But the example they gave me of inclusion and the ways our two families blended together made for a beautiful picture for me. No, we weren’t “color blind” but we were family. We treated each other with deep love and understanding.
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I need to give them racial & experience allies:
I personally did grow up with 3 other Korean adoptees. I was thankful for the space to work out our differences during a Korean camp, we attended together. We often found the mutual understanding of adoption to be a gift between us. However, I had no type of adult Asian interaction growing up. I vividly remember befriending my first Korean couple a few years ahead of me and seeing for the first time a pregnant Korean woman. It might sound crazy but these are the things we don’t always think about. In a normal context you have what different stages of your life will look like through the genetic connection you have with your family. I however, never did. So for my family, I am trying my best to raise my kids with other people like them. We are also trying our best to live in areas that they will have the opportunity to have teachers, friends and people on the street that look like them. We all need other adoptive families both for parent and kid friendships. And this is also where my strong beliefs in open adoption come in. It is one of the most beautiful gifts our family has been given – access to our girl’s family heritage. We are trying to adopt her birth families Mexican traditions and maintaining contact with them so that they too can influence her.
These are only 5 things to keep in mind, when in reality each and every person’s transracial experience is different. My biggest hopes for my family is there is always space for conversations and support, that we will always be loving even when it’s painful and that we can use our differences like “Super-Powers” to help others.
Brandi is a transracial adult adoptee and adoptive mom. Brandi was born on an island off the coast of Korea called Jeju, but was raised by her two killer parents here in the States. She finds them and her faith in God to be her inspiration for most things.
Brandi loves love and found her husband and partner in crime, Daniel, during college. The two of them relish filling their days capturing love behind their lens in all different settings: adoptions, weddings, families, and the list goes on. They also have two incredible kids, the first of whom came to them via adoption. She’s their passionate, bright, and spicy Latina daughter. Her story has brought so much healing for Brandi, not to mention this daughter’s amazing birth-parents, making their “extended” family quite the tribe. Their second child, a son, is currently Brandi’s only-known blood relative and his joyful, sweet, and charming ways are making it easy for Brandi to love her Korean heritage more than ever. You can find Brandi and all her “Tribe” is up to at www.ebersoletribe.com along with instagram @ebersoletribe
