Xiaogan, China --> Denver, Colorado
Hi! My name is Laura and I am 21 years old. My Chinese name is 林浪 (lín làng), which means “tree, wave.” I was adopted at 10 months old from Xiaogan, China in October 2003. Ever since then, I lived all over the Denver metro area.
Growing up as a Chinese adoptee in Colorado was pretty difficult. I often found myself as the only minority in the classroom, and I struggled with being different from everyone else. I found that my white-American family didn’t best understand my struggles and were often clueless when it came to racism. When I became a teenager, I finally started embracing my Chinese heritage and saw it as something special! I started making more POC friends and felt confident in my own skin.
"When I became a teenager, I finally started embracing my Chinese heritage and saw it as something special!"
Now, I attend the University of Colorado-Boulder, where I am entering my fourth year. I’m studying sociology with minors in leadership studies and Chinese. Learning Chinese has been monumental for my identity, even though I’m really bad at it. One day I’d like to be able to speak it conversationally, but that’s definitely going to take a while. This summer I am interning at a financial company. In the future, I would love to be able to volunteer for organizations like Roots of Love or the Nanchang project. It’s so important to me, to have adoptees’ voices be at the front of every narrative and to have their voices represented.
Someday I would love to go back and visit China, specifically where I was born. I would love to learn more about culture, and of course, go on a food tour. It’s unlikely to happen, but I would be interested in working there as well. But first I need to get better at Chinese! I find that being adopted is an identity that shapes every part of your life, and continuously grows with you. For me, it’s been one of the hardest facets of my identity, but it’s also a community I am proud to be a part of.
Thanks for stopping by and reading about me!