Gansu, China -> Colorado, United States
In June 2005, I was adopted from the Gansu province, in China, at a year old. My name changed from Jin Qiao Mei to Sonoma and my home became Colorado.
I have always known I was adopted and I always knew I was Chinese. How could I not? I grew up going to adoption camps and heritage camps, with family friends and my siblings(who were also adopted). Despite knowing I’m Chinese, I have rarely felt that way, in fact, I felt rejected from the culture altogether, I felt different in every way. And honestly, that’s the last thing I wanted to feel.
"When I tried to embrace the culture I lost I ended up feeling more like a stranger to myself, different from the people around me."
When I tried to embrace the culture I lost I ended up feeling more like a stranger to myself, different from the people around me. When I tried to learn Mandarin in my first year of high school, I was told, by my teacher (who was Asian), that I should already know the language and that because I didn’t know the language I was different.
When I visited China, my sister's tanned skin was criticized, and my skin was darker, at the time, so I can only imagine what they thought. Yet again the difference between who I am and who people believed I should be was prominent. I was too Chinese for some and too white for others. I was different from both the "typical Chinese girl" and the "typical white girl." I’ve been trying to find my identity in this strange middle ground between my genetic heritage and the one I primarily grew up with. Trying to find who I am within the differences that surround me.
I think as I get older, I realize more that my identity isn’t just about the culture or about my genetics or how different I feel. It’s about who I want to be and how I use my adoption, Chinese side, and American side to help get me there. I don’t have to choose one identity; I can take bits and pieces to create the person that I desperately want to be. Identity is a hard thing to figure out for me because it isn’t as simple as marking off the Asian box on paperwork. Every day I’m figuring out more of who I am.