Exploring Multiracial Identity Through the Adoptee Lens
Chapter 11’s exploration of multiracial identity, particularly the question “What am I?”, deeply resonates with the adoptee experience, especially for international adoptees adopted by parents of different races and ethnicities. The R/CID framework—Conformity, Dissonance, Resistance and Immersion, Introspection, and Integrative Awareness—offers a valuable lens to understand this unique experience.
Conformity: The Adoptee’s Struggle for Identity
Many adoptees grapple with developing self-identity, often conforming to their adoptive families’ values, beliefs, and cultural practices. This phenomenon, known as being “in the fog” within the adoptee community, involves adoptees being defined by others and having their culture and heritage overshadowed or buried. This necessity for survival and belonging leads many to prefer their adoptive families’ culture, similar to multiracial children grappling with their racial identity.
Dissonance: The Absence of Origins
Unlike multiracial individuals with biological parents to discuss their heritage, adoptees often lack information about their ancestry, leading to a profound sense of loss and absence. This lack of a cultural context and origin story can lead to intense dissonance and questioning of their adoption experience, often described as traumatic.
Resistance and Immersion: Navigating Cultural Identity
Adoptive parents may encourage their children to explore their culture or search for biological families, but this can be a double-edged sword for adoptees whose race differs from their adoptive family. This situation can lead to internalized racism and existential questions about their humanity, leading either to resistance or complete immersion into their original culture.
Introspection and Integrative Awareness: A Lifelong Journey
Adoptees may undergo waves of introspection and attempts to integrate their awareness. Their identity is constantly challenged, especially for international adoptees with different racial backgrounds from their adoptive families. This journey of self-reflection and balancing multiple cultures is complex and often doesn’t lead to a harmonious integration of birth and adoptive cultures.
The Importance of Recognizing Nuances in Marginalized Groups
The adoptee experience highlights the importance for therapists to recognize the inclusive and validating nuances and complexities of any group of people that may feel marginalized.
Supporting Scholarly Resources
- Competencies for Counseling the Multiracial Population: This document by the American Counseling Association provides counseling competencies for working with the multiracial population, including interracial couples, multiracial families, multiracial individuals, and transracial adoptees and families. It serves as a resource for counselors to competently and effectively work with and advocate for members of the multiracial population. Read the document here.
- Traveling My Roots: A project by Lisette Austin, exploring ancestral places, family stories, Black history, the immigrant experience, and the complexities of being adopted and multiracial. This personal journey offers insights into the adoptee experience and the quest for identity. Explore the project here.
