Illustration by Angela Cameron
I am Haley Gao Hudler, and I was adopted from China in 1997 by an American family. In my youth, I did not confidently call myself Chinese because I viewed my birth country with shame, and I felt social pressure to fit in with my peers who were majority white, growing up in Connecticut. Because I did not grow up in a Chinese household, I had a hard time claiming my Asian identity, and I would even identify myself as white (because of how my family nurtured me). By the time I reached high school, I was defining my role within our racialized society and came to the “ah-ha” moment that I was a person of color (POC), and since then, my awareness has only grown.
My Asianness is inextricably tied to my adoption. I would not self-identify as “Asian” without my adoption, and I may not have been adopted if it were not for my Asianness.
Now, not every Asian American is adopted, and not every Adoptee is Asian, but for me, they are dependent on each other.
Let’s say I was never adopted and continued my life in China. I would not call myself “Asian” because I would be around other Chinese people who hardly think of their race because of the lack of diversity in rural parts of China. They would not call themselves Asian but just Chinese.
Through adoption, I call myself “Asian” because it was rare to see people of East Asian descent in my community. Being adopted to the US, specifically in Connecticut, I was one of the only Asian girls in my town. It was clear to me my race was something to point out and what made me different from others, and this played a critical factor in how I viewed myself and how others identified me.
My adoption is my immigration story, just like other Asian Americans do not call themselves Asian without their own or their family’s immigration story.
I was adopted because I am Asian.
For my personal family story, my adoptive mom received a list of countries she could adopt from but chose China. Some of her reasons were that she wanted to adopt a girl (and female Chinese babies were highly available then). Also, my mom knew the likely cause for my relinquishment was due to the Chinese One-Child Policy. So, saddened by that reality, she knew children in China needed families because I was unlikely to return to my family of origin.
All of these identities I had, being a Chinese girl and having my birth mother live in a difficult time in China’s history, contributed to my adoption. I may not have been adopted into my family if I were not Chinese and Asian.
I share my story to display how there are many ways to be Asian American. I am proud to be Asian. I am proud to be adopted.
I did not always make this connection between my race and adoptee status. It was only when I found out that there are adoptees in the USA that do not have citizenship and several have been deported back to their birth country.
Not all foreign born children adopted to the USA were granted US citizenship in the process of their adoption.
www.AdopteesForJustice.org
After my adoption was finalized in 1997, I am grateful my adoptive mother correctly filed for my US citizenship which I received naturalization in 2001.
As I claim my immigrant identity, I feel the gap between my perceived distance from the Asian community slowly begin to close. I am comforted that I can connect through this collective struggle between immigrants and internationally adopted children.