Inside Out: Identity, Family, and Narrative (Co)construction of Self Among Chinese International Adoptees

Adolescence is a time in a person's life marked by many changes. These changes often affect the physical, emotional, intellectual and social state of the individual at a time where fitting in is never more important. Making sense of the developing self-identity is complicated by many factors each of which affects the individual to varying degrees. In particular, Chinese transnational adoptees face the additional challenge of searching for their place in a missing family and culture for which they have little to no information. Their narratives are often incomplete, truncated and undiscoverable before their abandonment. The primary focus of this study is to understand the extent of the influence their adoption status has on the development of cultural and ethnic self-identity development for Chinese transnational adoptees raised in American homes. Although some adoptees prefer to think of adoption as a one-time event and not an ongoing phenomena; it remains that their status as an adoptee influences the self-identity development and narrative construction challenges they face throughout their lifetime. This study asks its participants to reflect back on early memories of family and self narrative, cultural experiences and encounters of racism and early sense of self in addition to discussing the ways in which they make meaning now from these earlier experiences. This study asks the following four research questions: 1) What issues surrounding adoption do Chinese transnational adoptees raised in American homes believe to be critical in understanding their self-identity? 2) In what ways does transnational adoption affect the (co)construction of the personal and family narrative of the adoptee? 3) How does the meaning transnational adoptees make of their multi-layered early narratives impact their self-identity? 4) In what ways do American educational institutions impact ethnic/cultural identity and narrative construction on Chinese transnational adoptees? This study used an illustrative sequential mixed-methods design and grounded theory to investigate the ethnic and cultural self-identity and (co)constructed narratives of Chinese adopted adolescent females raised in American homes. It was conducted in three parts in the following order: 1) the survey (n=36), 2) the initial interviews (n=5) and 3) the case studies (n=4) from February 2013 to October 2014. This study found that identity is complex and multi-layered and that the socio-political and cultural socialization practices of the adoptive family influences its development. Additionally, early, frequent and open dialogue among the adoptive family eases later adoptee struggles with identity. This study also indicated that adoptees with an Asian adoptive parent had higher levels of authentic culture exposure and greater fluidity of identity. Furthermore, multicultural curriculum impacts how the adoptee is able to connect to their learning and provides a way to become culturally relevant to their peers. People who may find this study beneficial include; adoptees, adoptive families, adoption professionals and policy makers, mental health practitioners and educational professionals. Future research should include larger sample sizes to increase generalizability and longitudinal study for deeper understanding of identity development over time.