{"id":117,"date":"2026-04-24T15:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/journalists\/cut-off-from-our-past-chinese-american-adoptees-seek-belonging\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T15:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:06:24","slug":"cut-off-from-our-past-chinese-american-adoptees-seek-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/journalists\/cut-off-from-our-past-chinese-american-adoptees-seek-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Cut off from our past, Chinese American adoptees seek belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lian<\/figure>\n

Reading Time: <\/span> 5<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

China\u2019s one-child policy<\/a> was implemented in 1980, restricting families to one child per couple in an effort to curb the country\u2019s population growth rate. <\/p>\n

Until it officially ended on Jan. 1, 2016, this policy was enforced<\/a> at the provincial level through a variety of measures, including contraception, fines, sanctions, intimidation and coercion, and abortion and sterilization \u2014 consensual or otherwise. Additionally, if parents did not comply with the policy, additional children were prevented from being registered<\/a> in the national household system, excluding them from legal documentation and social services.<\/p>\n

Throughout China\u2019s history, families have privileged male children<\/a> due to cultural and social conventions and expectations. These traditions included sons inheriting their family name and property, and providing for their aging parents, whereas daughters were expected to leave their family homes upon marriage. This was further exacerbated during the 1980s<\/a> when birth planning restrictions<\/a> were on the rise and the growing retiree population strained collective welfare.<\/p>\n

In 1991, the central Chinese government issued the Adoption Law of the People\u2019s Republic of China<\/a>. This law raised penalties on households that had an \u201cunauthorized\u201d child, including Chinese children adopted by Chinese families who went unreported in census and surveys. China subsequently opened the country to international adoption. Up until this time, adoptive parents in China were not penalized for violating the birth quota. <\/p>\n

After this loophole closed, abandonment peaked and resulted in around 2 million Chinese children \u2014 primarily girls \u2014 whose biological families deserted them. <\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Department of State<\/a>, American parents adopted 78,257 children from China between 1999 and 2016. More than 60% of adoptees were girls, according to the Pew Research Center<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I was one of them. <\/p>\n

In 1996, an American couple from Boston longing for a child adopted me. The orphanage told them I was abandoned outside a post office in Wuhan, less than 48 hours after I was born.<\/p>\n

My childhood was a happy one, full of dance classes, birthday parties and making my mom play Barbies with me. I lived in Boston\u2019s West End neighborhood, sandwiched between the Charles River and the city\u2019s historic Beacon Hill. <\/p>\n

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\"Lian
Lian Parsons-Thomason as a toddler at Spruce Street nursery school. (Photo courtesy of Lian Parsons-Thomason)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The majority of parents who adopt children internationally were like mine: white<\/a>, wealthy and over the age of 35<\/a>. Many Chinese adoptees are raised in communities drastically different from those they would have experienced with their biological families. <\/p>\n

Though Boston was considerably diverse<\/a> by that time, I was among just a handful of Asian students in my first elementary school and the only one in my grade.<\/p>\n

My parents did their best to explain adoption and what it meant for our family. By the time I learned to talk, I already knew key phrases like \u201cbirth family\u201d and \u201cadoption agency,\u201d and could recite the city and province where I was born (but of which I had no memory). <\/p>\n

I had stacks of picture books on the topics, owned movies like \u201cBig Bird Goes to China\u201d and even attended Chinese culture class for a year, where I sang songs and played games with a class full of other Chinese American adoptees. <\/p>\n

When my parents and I were out in public together, we\u2019d be subjected to stares of curiosity, confusion and sometimes downright hostility.<\/p>\n

When I transferred to a public school located in close proximity to Boston\u2019s Chinatown, many of my classmates were children of Chinese immigrants and lived in lower-income households<\/a>. Many of them spoke English as a second language or spoke exclusively Mandarin or Cantonese<\/a> at home. We had trouble understanding each others\u2019 lived experiences. As children, we did not have the sophisticated communication skills and social awareness to bridge the numerous gaps. <\/p>\n

Because of this divide, I struggled to connect and find community with my fellow Chinese American classmates. Instead, I gravitated toward other children with whom I shared a similar background and life experiences. Many of my childhood friends were from white, upper-middle-class families like mine.<\/p>\n

As I continued to grow up, I was rarely in a social or professional situation where most of the other people were also Asian. I felt isolated and untethered wherever I went, estranged from my own identity, with no blueprint to follow.<\/p>\n

This experience is by no means unique<\/a> for Chinese American adoptees. Because of the disconnect between Chinese adoptees, their American families and the wider Chinese American community, it is difficult for many of us to engage with and embrace the culture we left behind as young children. <\/p>\n

\"Lian
Lian Parsons-Thomason smiles for the camera on the playground at John Hancock Childcare Center in Boston at age 4. (Photo courtesy of Lian Parsons-Thomason)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No connection to the past<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Many of us will never find our biological families. Because child abandonment is illegal<\/a> in China and subject to strict criminal punishment, no documentation connects parents to abandoned babies. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many children were abducted and trafficked<\/a> rather than abandoned. Domestic adoption was prohibitively expensive for average Chinese families, while international adoption was lucrative, and this created a market for kidnappers<\/a> to bring babies to orphanages.<\/p>\n

Fabricated \u201cfinding ads\u201d<\/a> in newspapers that included false information about children in orphanages further obfuscates the process if adoptees or their biological families are searching for one another.<\/p>\n

As adoptees, our pasts prior to being adopted are utterly obscured. In most cases, we do not speak our birth country\u2019s language, practice its customs or celebrate its holidays. We do not have family or members within our community to help us understand expectations, familial roles and personal history across generations.<\/p>\n

But one thing we do share \u2014 with each other and with other members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community \u2014 is the effects of racism.<\/p>\n