I always love to hear from other transracial adoptees from around the world. Recently I received an email from a college student in Canada, letting me know how much she valued the experience of reading Outsiders Within and viewing the film Struggle For Identity.
This student, Molly McCullough, sent me her prize-winning essay on transnational adoption. She closed her email message to me by stating:
“While doing the investigation for my essay, I discovered the anthology Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and your video, Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption. These wonderful sources became an integral part of my research. This was the first time that I had encountered narratives that spoke to my own experience as a transnational/transracial adoptee—a refreshing and empowering perspective indeed… I owe my success to your work; I have enclosed a copy of my essay for you. Thank you so very much. ~Molly McCullough”
Needless to say, it was gratifying to hear that my work actually matters to another adoptee, especially one from a younger generation. Then, when I read her essay, I was blown away! Here, with Molly’s permission, are a few excerpts:
A Long Way Home: A Glimpse at Transnational Adoption
“At six and a half months, I was adopted from an orphanage in Calcutta by a single mother from the United States. Raised in a white, middle-class family, I recognized the advantages of my circumstances– the privilege that accords children who cross the borders of the so-called developing Third World, and take up residence in a more prosperous location. Assimilation enabled me to experience Western culture, but only at the expense of my origins.
“In the anthology Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, contributor John Raible exclaims in his essay ‘Lifelong Impact, Enduring Need’ that the ‘paradox that is the inheritance of all adoptees, who arguably have been given a fresh start in life, is rooted in the opposite experience of profound loss’ (186). It is from this location that I scrutinize the politics of transnational adoption. Situated at a juncture where the personal sphere may collide with the academic, I offer a feminist critique (placing the interests of women and transnational adoptees at the centre of my study) from the perspective of an ‘outsider within’…
“As a 20-year-old transnational adoptee, I ask myself what it means that I was given an American name, and that my East Indian given name, Ayla, was placed in a subordinate position as my middle name. I ask what the ramifications have been and will continue to be as the result of growing up in a predominantly white, middle-class milieu, where my ethnic polarity has resulted in exoticization, tokenism, and ostracization, but rarely full acceptance or genuine integration of perceived differences, namely across lines of race. There are no easy solutions, and certainly no shortcuts to mitigate the discomfort as I battle to embrace a hybrid identity…
“When I discovered Outsiders Within, it was the first time that I encountered others who spoke to my experience. I found solace, empowerment, and familiarity in the narratives shared by transracial adoptees across the world. At every turn, I found myself exclaiming ‘Yes! This is my struggle too!’ And by the end of the book, ‘Yes. This is our struggle,’ and I am prepared to come out fighting alongside my impassioned transracial allies.”
by Molly McCullough, University of Victoria (British Columbia)
Winner, 2008 Canadian Women’s Studies Association Undergraduate Essay Prize
