In December of 2017, I had an opportunity to review Welcome Home, a collection of short stories centered on adoption edited by Eric Smith. The stories collected here represent such a wide spectrum of backgrounds, themes, and styles that I was very impressed and very excited. If I could, I would put this book in the hands of every single adult and child that needs it. I’ve always known the portrayal of adoptions and foster care on television and in movies were hit and miss.
At times they’re barely above your typical changeling fantasy (think Annie), at times inaccurate, and sometimes overly saccharine to the point of erasing the subject completely. The stories featured in Welcome Home explore issues such as kids working out emotional trauma with their adoptive families in “A Kingdom Bright and Burning” by Dave Connis. Connis writes a story from the perspective of a mute child over fourteen years as he struggles to leave the internal fantasy world he has crafted for himself. His family never gives up and it’s a great look at persistence love and patience for a child that many would say is “broken”.
Several stories touch on transracial adoptions, such as the funny and touching “Carlos and the Fifteen-Year-Old-Heart” by Aldi Asaid, which manages to explore trauma, teenage first love, transracial adoption, and living in a foreign country with troubled history into a swift package. There is even teen actor Tallulah Grey dealing with the scandal of her adoption being unearthed to the press. And…vampires. (“Life: Starring Tallulah Grey”)
These stories are funny, sad, engaging, and perhaps most importantly, they are told by authors who have been involved in adoption and fostering. As adoptees or adoptive parents themselves, because who better to combat the negative attitudes and misunderstandings towards adoption and foster care? As Nicole Chung writes in her essay “Rewriting Adoption”, so many adoptees are natural storytellers and are yet seldom given the opportunity to explore their own stories on their own terms.
Negative attitudes and misgivings towards adoption are so ingrained in pop culture that they’re almost invisible. Many shows and movies make light of it, go for casual “he/she is adopted” jokes to explain bad or socially unacceptable behavior, even using adoption as a plot point and perpetuating negative stereotypes. Often, these jokes can be damaging on several levels, internalized by adopted children as well as their families. The first time I became conscious of this was witnessing the backlash against the movie Orphan, released in 2009. Orphan is a rather campy horror flick about a couple that adopts a nine year old girl from Russia and it doesn’t take long for murderous shenanigans to ensue.
During the movie’s premiere week in the US, several adoption groups and advocates decried its negative portrayal of adoption. My initial perception was that such a schlocky film doomed to home rentals in two weeks surely wasn’t worth anyone’s outrage. But after seeing the movie for myself in theaters (groan), my mind was completely changed. When there is a lack of positive representation in a group, anything negative or inaccurate just serves to increase the stigma and misunderstanding. In essence, things like this seem harmless but they really aren’t helping when there is practically nothing else to combat them.
Reading editor Eric Smith’s statement on the anthology, it’s clear that media on all fronts needs to to be better. Poor representation of adoptions and foster care has contributed to misunderstandings that impact adoptive parents and children. A group that accounts for two percent of the population in the US alone per the 2010 census deserves better than stories that use their experiences as a punchline or the jumping point for a slasher film. Personally, I would like to see more representation of the challenges that interracial adoptees go through. Even some of the best adoption stories in media still largely focus on white families of a certain class.
Children of color are often limited to inspirational tales or stories deep-rooted in trauma just begging for a pale savior (I haven’t forgotten about you, The Blind Side). After reading Welcome Home and really engaging with the adoption and fostering stories that were out there, I realized if I am frustrated then I cannot fathom how adoptees and their families must feel. But I realize that not being an adoptee myself, my perspective is and always will be limited. Because visibility is equally important as representation, I was fortunate enough to talk to Sabra Starnes, therapist and adoption advocate, adoptive parent, as well as an adoptee herself.
One issue that I noticed plaguing any early television shows and movies that show adoption is that they tended to lean more towards fantasy and comedy. These shows can be light-hearted and fun, but when that’s all there is for a young child of color in a white family in a white family, it distorts the experience. Sabra, a black woman adopted into a white family along with her twin sister, told me of her personal experiences with interracial adoption and seeing herself in TV and film. She notes that the closest experience when she was growing up was Diff’rent Strokes, which had it’s poignant moments but was ultimately a comedy. For a different view, Sabra recommends the documentary Closure by Angela Tucker, which shows Angela, a transracial adoptee, searching for her birth family.
When I asked Sabra how she saw the portrayal of adoption in media in 2017, she said that it is going in the right direction. She says the Pearsons going through the highly emotional and extensive process of legally adopting baby Randall in This Is Us is a “profound experience”. And as she points out, these authentic stories have the power to change welfare policy for adoptees: last October, several bills were passed for the benefit of children in foster care and for their caretakers, which Sabra attributes to a better understanding thanks to better portrayals of foster care
As portrayals of adoptions get better and more visible, one aspect Sabra and I are both hoping will gain more focus is families adopting older children. One might assume that the lack of attention to older children may stem from the pop cultural repulsion/glorification of teenagers and their angst, but as Sabra pointed out during our conversation, there also seems to be the idea that older children “don’t want permanent homes or families” and that they still long for connection to their birth parents. Sabra notes The Fosters as a show that shows a family adopting teenagers. Older children are statistically left behind in the adoption process, and often “age out” of foster care without a permanent family and very few resources. Sabra also noted that she would like to see better depictions of runaways and exploring the often complex reasons that leads to children attempting to escape their situations. Another recommendation from Sabra that shows the effects of foster care was Tiffany Haddish’s collected autobiographical essays, The Last Black Unicorn.
Adoptees and adoptive families deserve to have their stories told and have them be taken seriously. They deserve to be able to control their own stories and reclaim them from a pop cultural void that has decided adopted children are strange and perpetually maladjusted. Sabra concurs that the stories should be left up to the individual to tell, to drive conversation and encourage a clearer understanding of what adoptees and their families go through. The lesson of 2017 that must continue into 2018 and onward is that representation matters, and for it to be meaningful we need accurate representation on all fronts.
For more on Sabra Starnes and her work, please check out her website.
Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões/Creative Commons