Adoption and Race: An Interview With 13 Year Old TK

Trans-racial, domestic, or international adoption can be confusing for children. Culture, ethnicity, race, and place in the family present different challenges. In Sliding Into Home Flip meets Ricki whose parents are from Guatemala, and moved to the United States where Ricki was then born. Ricki’s openness about race, ethnicity, and culture give Flip the opening he needs to begin to question these things within himself and with his friend. Here Flip asks Ricki about how he identifies:

    “Do you consider yourself Guatemalan or American?”

    “I was born here so I’m not Guatemalan. But I don’t feel totally American either. I’m Indigena.”

    “Indigena?”

    “Indigenous. Native American. Mayan actually. What about you? Do you see yourself as Guatemalan or American?”

    “I don’t know. I guess both, or maybe neither. I think I act more like a kid from the United States than Guatemala. I don’t really feel Guatemalan, or Latino when I’m around a bunch of Spanish speaking kids.”

And as Flip begins to question his ethnic and racial identity he also begins to see his place within his adoptive family in a way that creates a sense of separation from them:

    “You’re up early this morning, going somewhere?” I see Kaylee in Mom’s face. Not the eyes, Kaylee has our father’s eyes. But her smile and even her pointy little nose looks just like Kaylee’s...Mom scoops the French toast onto a plate beside the stove and turns to hand it to Kaylee. I search for more of Kaylee in the way our mother moves. “You’re up next, one or two?”

    “Two,” I say. Two peas in a pod. Two people made up of the same genetic material.

Kaylee’s eyes close when she takes the first bite of French toast. They always do. So why does she look like a stranger to me right now? Why do they both look like people I’ve never met before?

TK is thirteen years old, and trans-racially adopted from Guatemala. He lives in Marin County. He has three brothers and lives with his two parents.  

NV  Hi TK, thanks for talking with me. So you’ve read Sliding Into Home. What did you think?

TK I thought it was easy to relate to – my parents aren’t divorced, but I’m adopted and from Guatemala. I’ve never been bullied because of my race and no one has ever been mean to me because of the color of my skin but I think that’s because I went to a school that has more kids of color than white kids. The school in your book is really my school I think.

NV   Yes that’s right. Willow Tree Academy is much like Willow Creek Academy. It’s a rare and valuable school that brings children of all backgrounds together and celebrates diversity. 

How is it for you being the only person of color in your immediate family?

TK  It’s hard not looking like everyone else around you. It can be awkward, and you can feel alienated from everyone else. I mean think about it – you have one main color - white, and then one kid of color. The color of our skin isn’t something we really focus on as a family – I mean, I’m just a part of the family. But sometimes I do feel different because I don’t look like everyone else.  

NV  Do you identify as American, Mayan, or Guatemalan?

TK  I don’t know what I identify as. I’ve never had to answer that question. I guess I see myself as American because I know more about being an American. I’ve never been to Guatemala, I don’t know a lot about the Mayan culture either.  

NV  How is it for you looking latino but not speaking Spanish

TK  When others speak Spanish I can understand a lot but I can’t respond.  

NV  Do you wish you spoke Spanish?

TK  Yes, that would be nice but what would I do with it? I don’t want to go to Guatemala.

NV  Why don’t you want to go to Guatemala?

TK  I have no interest in meeting my family. I know it’s not their fault, but I don’t want to be around people who didn’t keep me around.

NV  Have you had contact with your birth family?
 

TK  Yes

NV  How was that?

TK  It was alright. It was nice to see what my birth family looked like and to write letters and receive letters from them. But then I stopped. I don’t know why. I think because I’m angry with them.

NV  Can you talk about what it’s like to be adopted.

TK  Adoption is good if it’s international or domestic. It’s good to get kids out of foster care, or to have less kids living in the streets or in orphanages. They let kids out of the orphanages in Guatemala when they are my age. How can they do that? I couldn’t survive at my age in the streets. They are without food, and love. I want to have family around me, a place to feel safe.   

    What’s hard about adoption is thinking that your birth family hates you. Feeling out of place, confused, and angry at your birth parents. There are a lot of hard emotions. Being a kid of adoption presents you with a lot of stuff like separation anxiety, and trauma. Even with a nice family adopting you it leaves you with a lot of confusion. Do you know what the statistics on teens of adoption and suicide and depression? It’s crazy. It’s really hard, especially as a teenager. You are a part of a family but you are missing out on your real family. The main question that comes up is what did I do wrong not to be with my parents. Some kids blame themselves. Overall it’s just very confusing.

    Even though I know my birth family couldn’t provide for me it still leaves me with anger. Anger even to be born, or that my parents let me go. It’s not their fault but you are still really mad. I can still be mad at them because I am not with them. That’s why I don’t want to see them. I’m mad at them. I’m afraid if I went to Guatemala I wouldn’t want to come back here, I’d want to stay with them, or I wouldn’t be able to leave the hotel room – I wouldn’t go see them once we got there.  

NV  Can you talk a bit about what it’s like being a person of color.

TK  It’s not easy, especially in Marin. It’s all white here, everywhere you go. It’s like being a part of a cake – the entire cake is vanilla with one tiny slice of chocolate. Who baked that cake?

    I saw a cop on the side of the road today when I was with my father. The guy he pulled over was black. If you are a person of color and get stopped by the cops they are harder on you. The stuff going on with the cops and people of color is really scary. You can’t be racist to white people. You can say mean things about them, but that’s not the same as being racist the way white people are to people of color.  I’m not proud of being a person of color. I wish I was white so I could feel normal. I don’t feel normal already because of other stuff, but if I were white it would be easier and I’d feel more normal. Whites have it a lot easer then people of color. We are discriminated against more. What did we do to deserve this? We can’t help being born as a person of color. White people can’t help it either. It’s in our DNA – you are just born the person you are, you can’t change that – unless you are Michael Jackson and bleach your skin. You can always change your personality, your behavior, but your skin color is just what you have. You can’t change that.

NV  What did you like about the book Sliding Into Home?

TK  It was easy to relate to. It was funny. I loved the scene where Flip and Kaylee were kayaking and Kaylee was getting Flip totally wet. I liked Zorba he was really funny. He was his own person – he was free. He could be serious and whacky. He was super cool, a combination of different characters. He’d definitely be my friend if he were real. We’d have tea together on the Good Ship Lollipop all the time.  

    I loved the characters in the book. I liked how you made the scene with Steve and Flip exactly how it really is. I watched some kids being mean to a black kid at the Mill Valley Middle School skate park one day. They were calling him... I can’t use the word they called him... but he didn’t do anything, and they were just calling him that. The emotions were so real. How did you do that? You aren’t a person of color but you got Flip’s emotions so perfect.

NV  Thank you. Is there anything you want people to learn from reading Sliding Into Home?

TK  I hope kids who aren’t adopted, or who are white read this book. Or kids who are from families of divorce, so they can see what it feels like to be a person of color and adopted or a kid with divorced parents.

NV  Thank you so much for talking so honestly with me about being a person of color and being adopted. You are a very wise and insightful boy. I think people have a lot to learn from you.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1.  How many of the issues TK talks about in his interview have you experienced, or can relate to on some level?

2.  If you are not a person of color, or living in a trans-racial family, or adopted – are there other ways in which you feel ‘other than’, or ‘different’ than those in your family, or your greater community? How does that impact you?