An Adoption Story

This is part of our continuing series of accounts by readers of how they shed the illusions of liberalism and became race realists.

I grew up in a middle-class suburb of Seattle, Washington. My childhood was idyllic. My older brother and I would roam the open forest behind our subdivision, building tree forts, catching lizards, and doing what boys do. Despite being close, my brother and I were very different. I was bookish, while he was something of a jock.

Then my parents decided to adopt a five-year-old girl from China. My parents did their best to make her comfortable, but for those first few weeks she cried and cried. Eventually, my mom learned to cook rice properly and found tutors from Chinatown. Slowly, my new sister learned English. Soon, it was as if she’d always been part of the family.

Buoyed by this early success, my parents decided to try their hand at foster care. A whirlwind of troubled kids of different racial backgrounds and ages entered our household. Some of them were so wild my parents had to send them back to the agency. That same agency put tremendous pressure on my parents to adopt the foster kids — and that’s what they did.

By the time I started high school, our rainbow family was complete: Seven kids in all, black, Hispanic, Asian, and white. At the time, I thought it was cool and gave me “street cred.” I loved the look of surprise people gave me when introducing my two black brothers. “What, you didn’t know I was black?” I’d joke.

But my teenage years were lonely. My parents were so preoccupied with managing the adopted children, who all had behavioral and identity issues, that they largely ignored my brother and I. In my senior year of high school, I fell in with the wrong crowd and started using cocaine and meth. I went from being a straight-A student to barely graduating. At the same time, one of my aforementioned black brothers was in and out of juvenile hall, costing my parents an enormous amount of time, money, and heartache. Against this backdrop, they didn’t notice my deterioration. The downward spiral continued until I was 21, when I did a short stint in prison. Luckily, that was enough of a shock for me to get help and turn my life around. I don’t blame my parents for my own bad choices, but it hurt me deeply when, years later, my mom didn’t even remember this definitive and turbulent period of my life. Instead, her memories of those years are defined by the trials and tribulations of her adopted children.

And what happened to those siblings? Did they conform to racial stereotypes? Yes and no. My juvenile delinquent black brother continued his life of crime, just like his biological dad. He is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. My other black brother showed a lot of promise but had an identity crisis in his late teens and disowned us. Last I heard, he was working some minimum-wage job. My black sister, however, thrived academically and earned a Master’s degree. She’s by far the most financially successful member of the family. In contrast, my Chinese sister struggled in school, but peer pressure from her Ivy League-bound Asian friends compelled her to study harder. It paid off and now she has a good career and family of her own. Notably, her husband is also an Asian adoptee. Finally there’s my Hispanic brother, who is developmentally disabled. He works menial jobs and lives in Section 8 housing. He’s only remotely aware of his ancestry. One time he asked, “I’m Mexican?” obviously confused. Maybe ignorance really is bliss.

And my biological brother? He wasn’t interested in college, so he learned a trade and has been successful in his own way. After years of wondering why we were so different, I finally got my answer: We are only half-brothers. He was a product of our mom’s high-school romance. My father adopted him and raised him as his own. When I finally met his biological father, the resemblance was uncanny, right down to a certain facial tic.

Genetics matter. As the saying goes, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Parenting can only do so much. However, the question of identity is beyond the reality of race. Even if all my adopted  siblings were Nobel Prize winners and all races were the same biologically, transracial adoption would still be wrong. For both the biological and adopted siblings, you’re taking away something. Because parents have limited resources, the biological children are deprived. In a way, you’re also telling them, “Any child, even one from halfway around the world, is just as valuable as you.” Our culture, family, and resources aren’t ours alone — they’re for anyone and everyone to take from. In other words, transracial adoption is the height of pathological altruism. For the adopted children, no matter how posh their new circumstances, they are deprived of their culture and community. Other races are generally against transracial adoption for this reason. I agree with them, not my parents.

For my part, I have started a biological family, and I’m teaching my children to be proud of their lineage, which stretches from Europe to the Pacific Northwest. They’re being raised to be stewards of Western civilization, not enemies of it.

If you have a story about how you became racially aware, we’d like to hear it. If it is well written and compelling, we will publish it. Use a pen name, stay under 1,200 words, and send it to us here.