Famous Adopted People

by Alice Stephens

  She offered me her hand. I took it. One foot in front of another. All I had to do was cross the river.

  Epilogue

  “You know, if anybody wants me to say it, in one sentence, what my plays are about: They’re about the nature of identity… Who we are, how we permit ourselves to be viewed, how we permit ourselves to view ourselves, how we practice identity or lack of identity.”

  –Edward Albee

  Posted on famousadoptedpeople.com, February 18, 2012:

  First of all, I want to assure everyone that I am OK, and thank you to all who have expressed concern about me over these last few weeks of silence. Some of you have suggested that I’ve been ill, which is true. Some of you have speculated that there’s been a death in the family, which is also true. Some of you thought I went on a trip, and I did. Some of you feared that I have come to harm, either through my own hand or through the agency of others, or that I had gone back to my pill-popping ways. It’s all true.

  But as adoptees, we know that truth is a squishy thing. Stories are told, myths created, and through constant repetition we come to accept them as real. When we were children, our parents offered us an explanation about how we came into the family, a charming origin story freighted with fate, destiny, and other hazy cosmic forces that purported to join these particular parents with that particular child as if they truly belonged to each other all along. From an early age, we are used to looking upon ourselves as a character in a story, but not the most important one. In the dominant narrative of adoption, the protagonists are the adoptive parents, and the adoptees are the catalyst for the plot, which revolves around the Herculean labors the parent-heroes must perform in order to obtain the object of their desire. Those stories end with a happily ever after at exactly the point that our stories begin, with the baby being brought home.

  We all know there is no happily ever after. As children of chance, we understand it’s not a kumbaya world out there and that not everything happens for the best. There’s a lot of loose talk about fate in adoption circles—we were fated to be adopted by the perfect loving couple, or fated to be reunited with our heartsick birth mother. But sometimes the loving couple gets divorced, or the birth mother’s heart is too sick to give us the love that we crave. Fate isn’t real; it’s a literary device, a retroactive designation: you can’t be fated to be something until you have actually become it. Fate is what you make of your own life, and it’s hard, dirty work. Every day is another slog up a snow-swept mountain, every day you have to prove yourself to yourself all over again.

  From the noxious stereotypes that are still being perpetuated about adoption, it is clear that our side of the story is not being told. In popular culture, either we are a punch line to a joke, a cautionary tale, or a pitiful castaway in need of rescue. In novels, we are a societal anomaly that roils a close-knit community, the vehicle for sappy stories of the power of maternal love, or spunky Victorian foundlings. In movies, we’re the neglected but talented child from an abusive family, an adorable alien from outer space, or the bad seed come to wreck your happy home. Everyone, it seems, is telling our story but us.

  That needs to change.

  Because when we feel like we’re not being heard, we get angry. From reading through your comments and letters, I can say with certainty that we’re an angry bunch. Anger is a healthy emotion, but it is not an identity. In my recent misadventures, I saw how easy it was to turn people who should have been allies against one another, so that instead of helping one another to escape the bizarre situation we had found ourselves in, we fought and skirmished among ourselves, tightening our own chains with each betrayal. We adoptees are a global community with conflicting opinions that reflect the immense variety of our individual experiences. My story does not negate your story; my journey is no more or less legitimate than yours.

  Some of you have demanded to know why I think I’m talking for the whole adoptee community. I don’t. I speak for myself. Though we all share some of the same plot points—the death of or abandonment (coerced or not) by our birth parents, the nagging feeling of being an outsider in our own families, the inevitable crisis of identity—each adoption story is unique. The time has come for us to start getting those stories out there. Though statistics vary, there are approximately five million American adoptees, and each one of us has our own tale to tell.

  I’m told Famous Adopted People gets enough page views to monetize, and plans are in the works for a bigger, better website, which I envision as a forum and a virtual community center for adoptees. There’s still a lot to figure out, but in the meantime, I’m starting a guest blog, which will feature your stories. I want your version of the truth, pustules and running sores and all. I want the raw story: the agony and the ecstasy; the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want to hear you, pushing back against the stereotypes and misinformation.

  I’m still writing too, and I know that sometimes the hardest part of writing is where to start telling a story that has no beginning, middle, or end. My advice is to go with the moment in your life when everything changed, whether it has something to do with being adopted or not (if you really think about it, though, I’m sure you can find some connection from that moment to your adoption). My story starts with an argument with my best friend at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Seoul the day she was to meet her birth mother, an argument I provoked. Why did I provoke that argument? These are the uncomfortable things I have to face as I write my story.

  People have commented that it is hypocritical of me to talk about erasing stigmas while remaining anonymous, as if I’m ashamed that I’m adopted. When I was young, my best friend—she of the Dunkin’ Donuts, the shadow behind the shadow of this website and the first major investor—and I started to keep a list of famous adopted people, which grew to an eclectic assortment of individuals: lots of athletes and entertainers, a few businesspeople, some who were famous because of their parents, several writers, a hate crime victim who inspired a civil rights movement… They were living, visible examples of people like us, people who had grown up and, in many cases, achieved extraordinary things. I vowed to become a famous writer, thinking the admiration, love, and respect of people I didn’t know and would never meet would make up for me not admiring, loving, and respecting myself. But now that I have a chance for the spotlight, I realize it would be premature to reveal my true identity when my true identity is still a work in progress. There are a few other projects I need to work on first, including this website.

  So let’s be quiet no more.

  Acknowledgments

  As an adoptee, I appreciate the roles that chance and luck have played in my life, and it was chance and luck that brought my manuscript to its true and proper home at Unnamed Press. Many thanks and deepest gratitude to Chris Heiser for his insight, wisdom, guidance, and patience during the intense editorial process and for always demanding more than I thought I could give; Olivia Taylor Smith for her support and advice; and Jaya Nicely for a gorgeous book both inside and out. Special thanks to superb copy editor Nancy Tan for cleaning up my manuscript and making it pretty.

  Thanks to the first readers whose support and encouragement sustained me through the years: Betsy Stephens, Polly Stephens, Michael Fatsi, Betsy Goldstein, Mercedes Bryant, Ananya Bhattacharyya, and, most especially, James Prochnik, who urged me to bring my manuscript out of retirement after I’d given up on it, took my stunning author photo, and designed my author web page.

  Thanks to Geri Thoma for taking me on as a client so many years ago and giving me the confidence to keep at it.

  Warm thanks to my writing guru and mentor, Caroline Bock.

  Thank you to my parents, Betsy and Ralph Stephens, for their unwavering support and for instilling in me a love of reading and literature.

  Thanks to all the adoptees out there who are raising their voices and making themselves heard.

  Thanks to Quinn and Auster for the love, laughter, and life lessons.

  Love and gratitude to William Pittman for
being my rock, my inspiration, my career counselor, my traveling companion, and my life partner.

  Sources of Chapter Epigraphs

  1. Moses: Exodus 2, The New Oxford Annotated Bible

  2. Gerald Ford: Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History by James Cannon, The University of Michigan Press, 1998

  3. Dave Thomas: “Dave Thomas” by Marilyn Achiron, People, August 2, 1993 (https://people.com/archive/dave-thomas-vol-40-no-5/)

  4. Michael Reagan: Twice Adopted by Michael Reagan with Jim Denney, Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2004

  5. Faith Hill: “How Faith Hill Found Happiness” by Leah Ginsberg, Good Housekeeping, April 2004 (https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/interviews/a15246/faith-hill-renewed-apr04/)

  6. Vincent Chin: “The Ordeal of Lily Chin” by Colin Covert, Detroit Free Press, July 7, 1983

  7. Liz Phair: “A Conversation with Singer Liz Phair” by Rachel Resnick, Women’s Health, May 11, 2006 (https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a19932276/liz-phair-interview/; http://writersonfire.com/media-press/a-conversation-with-singer-liz-phair/)

  8. Steve Jobs: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011

  9. Soon-Yi Previn: “Soon-Yi: Woody Was Not My Father” by Walter Isaacson and Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, Time, August 31, 1992

  10. Melissa Gilbert: Prairie Tale: A Memoir by Melissa Gilbert, Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2009

  11. Christina Crawford: “Christina Crawford Describes Her Famous, Abusive Mother” CNN Larry King Live, August 10, 2001 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0108/10/lkl.00.html)

  12. Greg Louganis: “‘The Truth Shall Set You Free’” by Michael Quintanilla, the Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1995. (http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-28/news/ls-37032_1_greg-louganis/2)

  13. Nicole Richie: “Nicole Weighs In,” by Leslie Bennetts, Vaity Fair, June 2006. (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/06/richie200606)

  14. Toby Dawson: “Olympian’s Avalanche of ‘Families’” by Barbara Demick, the Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2006 (http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/14/world/fg-dawson14)

  15. Frances McDormand: “Frances McDormand on ‘Olive Kitteridge,’ Dropping LSD, and Her Beef with FX’s ‘Fargo’” by Marlow Stern, Daily Beast, September 3, 2014 (https://www.thedailybeast.com/frances-mcdormand-on-olive-kitteridge-dropping-lsd-and-her-beef-with-fxs-fargo)

  16. Debbie Harry: “Blondie Bombshell: Debbie Harry Interview” by Nina Myskow, Saga Magazine, May 2014 (https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/entertainment/celebrities/debbie-harry)

  17. James Michener: Michener: A Writer’s Journey by Stephen J. May, University of Oklahoma Press, 2005

  Epilogue—Edward Albee: “Playwright Edward Albee, Who Changed and Challenged Audiences, Dies at 88” by Jeff Lunden, NPR Weekend Edition Saturday, September 16, 2016 (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/16/462191417/playwright-edward-albee-who-changed-and-challenged-audiences-dies-at-88)

  PHOTO BY JAMES PROCHNIK

  About the Author

  Born in Korea, Alice Stephens was one of the first generation of transnational, interracial adoptees. Her work has appeared in Urban Mozaik, Flung, Banana Writers, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Washington Independent Review of Books, which publishes her column, Alice in Wordland. She lives with her family and dog in the Washington, DC area. Famous Adopted People is her debut novel.