The Lost Daughters of China: Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past

by Evans, Karin

  In schools, the unfortunate practice continues of asking children to write about their ancestors or to make family trees. Adoptive parents have to talk to teachers, help their children come up with alternative assignments, or do something like we did—make a family tree that became a forest, including all our wider human and nonhuman connections—from birth parents and other unknown relatives in China, to all the girls adopted from China, to the extended adoptive family, to family friends and all the family pets. That seemed to paper over the dilemma, but not completely erase its potential for making a child feel different if he or she happens to be the sole adopted child in the classroom. On the bright side, help is available. Among other groups, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has pioneered some excellent and useful work aimed at enlightening educators about such issues (www.adoptioninstitute.org). So has Pact, an adoption alliance that offers a variety of services for adoptive families with dual heritages (www.pactadopt.org).

  Often, for children adopted from China, the spotlight shines a little too brightly. In Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, National Public Radio’s book reviewer Maureen Corrigan told the story of carrying her year-old adopted daughter Molly past the bleachers during a neighborhood softball game. “A man’s voice rang out, ‘Hey, is she from China?’” Corrigan recounted, “I unthinkingly answered, ‘Yes,’ and looked up. A bleacher of white faces stared down at us, but no one identified himself as the questioner. I felt as though Molly and I had been turned into curiosities by that bored crowd. I wish I had had the presence of mind to shout back, ‘Where are you all from?’”

  From time to time there also brewed a kind of psychological backlash for adoptive families who’d gone abroad for their children. In the past decade, the whole international adoption movement has come under increased scrutiny, some of it fueled by reports of child abduction, baby smuggling, and irregular adoption practices in different countries. Even in China, with its exemplary adoption procedures, there were reports in 2005 and 2006 of baby smuggling rings, quickly broken up by authorities. Some of the discussion was spurred by young adults who’d been adopted as children and were not happy about the fact.

  I was taken aback the first time I came upon an Internet site called Transracial Abductees, hosted, the site said, by “angry, pissed, ungrateful, little transracially adopted m——f——s from hell.” But I had to admit that it did reveal another side of the experience, and that the young people involved were entitled to their feelings, even if those feelings produced a ripple of trepidation among adoptive parents. Would our daughters find their way to the company of the ungrateful and angry? Would they someday refer to themselves as abductees? Had we adoptive parents committed, as charged, an act of global imperialism as we stood in that orphanage waiting room, hearts thudding?

  Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at Harvard Law School, who has written extensively on the political and humanitarian pros and cons of international adoption, ultimately concluded that given the realities of today’s world—the number of homeless children, the poor prospects for children growing up in orphanages, the fact that adoption within the sending countries has not managed to empty the orphanages—international adoption is a clear improvement over life in an institution. “In my view,” she wrote, “it also pushes us forward on a path to creating a more just world.”3

  No question, though, it takes extra awareness. Hollee McGinnis, whose eloquent words appear on page 268, has gone on to work within the adoption community, offering help to children adopted, as she was, into a mixed world. “At its best, intercountry adoption demonstrates to me the greatness of our human spirits to love across race, nationality, and culture,” McGinnis wrote in a story published on the New York Times adoption website this past fall. “But I also know that it takes a lot more than just love to make a success; it requires courage, honesty, and commitment.

  “This means we must be willing to talk about the hard stuff,” wrote McGinnis, “the discrimination, inequalities, and prejudices that exist in the world. We must also be willing to change and challenge our societies so the gift we give our children—adopted or not—besides the love and security of a permanent family is a world that values them for who they are and who they will be—regardless of race, nationality, culture, or circumstance.”

  One thing is certain: The next outpouring of evaluation and commentary should rightly come from the adoptees themselves. As editors Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin in the book Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, point out, “Over the past fifty years, white adoptive parents, academics, psychiatrists, and social workers have dominated the literature on transracial adoption. These ‘experts’ have been the ones to tell the public—including adoptees—‘what it’s like’ and ‘how we turn out.’ Despite our numbers and the radical way we have transformed the color and kinship of white families, the voices of adult transracial adoptees remain largely unheard.”

  The Bridge to China

  From the moment an adoptive family walks into a Chinese orphanage or is handed a bundle in a Chinese hotel, the relationship with China is put in place. What families make of this connection can vary tremendously. For some adoptive parents, China recedes into the distance and stays there. For a few, China becomes a second home and a frequent destination. Some adoptive parents, like Jenny Bowen, founder of Half the Sky Foundation, are called back to China, to live and work on behalf of the children left behind.

  In the United States and abroad, girls from China now in their teens were joining teen clubs and doing some serious fund-raising for their sisters back in China. A number of adopted girls growing up in the Jewish faith asked that their bat mitzvah donations be sent to particular charities in China. Still other girls turned their birthday parties into fund-raising events. As one girl put it, “This is my way of giving back to the children and the country of my birth.”

  Whether the efforts are as large-scale as paying for a foster care program or as humble as one adoptive child’s gift of her birthday money to a charity that supports the orphanage she came from, the bridge to China is strengthened, and it’s not a one-way proposition. Care and concern flow in both directions across the Pacific.

  When one adopted child became severely ill, a U.S.-China miracle unfolded. Having raised three biological children, Linda and Owen Wells, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had adopted a little girl from an orphanage in Hunan. When Kailee was diagnosed at the age of five with severe aplastic anemia and eventually required a bone marrow transplant, the family literally searched the globe for a match.

  At the time, Asian registries of marrow donors were minimal. Kailee, as is true for most adoptees from China, had no known birth family to turn to. But Linda Wells went to China to seek a match and contacted the Red Cross Society. At the time, China had just begun a drive to increase its national bone marrow donor registry, and the government held a press conference to publicize Kailee’s plight. Linda Wells did everything else she could, checking with her daughter’s institution to see if there was any further information on a birth family. (There wasn’t.) She even went in search of the spot in front of a teachers’ college where Kailee was said to have been found, tucked in a box, ten days old. The building had since been torn down.

  With the help of the Chinese Red Cross and the Chinese donor network, the Wells family widened their search. With the donor drive in China under way, a number of potential matches were tested, but none panned out. Meanwhile, in the United States, adoption groups organized bone marrow donor drives for Kailee. Finally, after a search of two years, a man in China stepped forward. Wang Lin, a young physician from Hangzhou, had seen the publicity about Kailee and the general need for donors. A specialist in blood diseases, he volunteered to be screened because it seemed the right thing to do. To Wang’s great surprise, he turned out to be a near-perfect match. He traveled to Beijing to undergo the procedure that would provide his bone marrow to be sent to the United States and to Kailee, and ultimately save her
life.

  In December 2007, Kailee was well enough to travel with her family to China over the Christmas holidays to meet the doctor. A big celebration was held in Beijing. In a mix of Mandarin and English, Kailee stood at a microphone and thanked everyone in China who had helped. “They had the biggest celebration you could imagine,” Linda Wells told me. “When Wang Lin came to the stage, everyone clapped, and he and Kailee hugged each other. My husband, Owen, gave him a hug and both men cried. I was awestruck. Here was this miracle standing in front of us. His DNA was swirling through him and was now swirling through her.”

  Wang Lin told the Wellses that within a day or two of his donation to Kailee, he and his wife had had their first child, a son. Through the miraculous connection that had saved her life, he said that he now considered Kailee his child as well.

  “How can you thank someone enough, give recognition to someone who saved your child?” said Linda Wells. “It was miraculous, and she got to meet him.” Given all the publicity about Kailee, there’d been another benefit: the donor registry in China had seen a huge increase. So had the U.S. registry of Asian donors.

  Now eleven, Kailee has survived three bone marrow transplants, as well as numerous other medical treatments. At the time of this writing, she was doing well, her mother said, though she still needs to be closely monitored and must stay near her doctors. During her illness, Kailee’s family had moved to Wisconsin to be closer to the team of medical specialists who were treating her.

  It’s been a life filled with miracles, Linda Wells told me. The first miracle was having Kailee come into their lives in the first place. The next miracle was being able to save her. “I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything,” said Wells. When I last spoke with her, she said that Kailee had been to see The Lion King—the first time in six years that the family had been able to take her out to a public gathering without worrying about infection. Linda Wells’s efforts to save her daughter had spanned an ocean and touched thousands of hearts in both countries. “I just did what any mother would have done,” she said.

  Extended, Extended Family

  Every adoption leads to new, often surprising, connections. Information and stories flow so freely in the world of Chinese adoption, in fact, that it is as easy to hear how the adopted children living in Ireland are doing as it is to check in with the adopted children in one’s own city.

  Kelly’s adoption group continues to hold reunions for all eighteen families; there are get-togethers for Franny’s group, too. In between, our northern California group gathers three or four times a year at least—to celebrate holidays or just catch up. When a little girl adopted with Franny’s group fell ill and was diagnosed with leukemia, the adoption group rallied around, providing loving support to the girl and her mother.

  In 2005, the little girls from Jiangmen, Foshan, and Sanshui who had all come home together with Kelly that fall day in 1997 had a reunion in Maine, where two of the cousins live. On the Fourth of July, the girls constructed a float on the theme of the Year of the Rooster, put on their Chinese outfits, and marched through the streets of a small seacoast village, throwing candy. They won first place!

  Other years, the group has gathered on the West Coast. In 2008, we were all going to meet in Maine again, and in 2009, as Kelly and her cousins turned twelve, we all planned to return together to China for a visit—led by Max, our Chinese American adoption facilitator, the hero who had put all our children in our arms.

  In the wide world of Chinese adoption, there are wonderful success stories—adopted children enjoying friends and art and music and sports, excelling in their studies, enjoying their lives. There are uphill battles for those who have experienced developmental delays, learning challenges, or emotional difficulties. And there are tragic tales, too.

  A beautiful little toddler, Maiya Novitsky, was struck down with Rett syndrome, a progressive degenerative neurological disorder. Over time, her family saw her lose her ability to stand, to speak, to feed herself. Her father, Scott Novitsky, wrote a poignant memoir of the experience, My Silent Angel.

  Instead of the ballet and gymnastics lessons he’d envisioned for his daughter, and get-togethers with a Chinese culture group, Novitsky said, his family wound up with medical appointments and the company of other people with disabled kids. “I never wanted to come to this place,” he wrote, “and wouldn’t ever invite others to come here either, but after being here awhile and taking a deep breath, I have become accustomed to its slower pace and simple joys.” He and his family were savoring every day with their beautiful and very challenged little girl.

  The Novitsky family heard about two other little girls adopted from China who also had Rett syndrome. They met up with one family and the girls enjoyed a visit to Sea World and Disney World, while the parents got to talk and share support and information. Scott Novitsky was soon deeply involved in raising awareness of the disease—in both the United States and China (www.mysilentangel.com). He says it’s estimated that there may be as many as thirty thousand females under the age of thirty with Rett in China, but only about two hundred have been diagnosed and identified. There’s been some promising research, he said, and it’s important to reach the others, in the event a treatment becomes available. Maiya, who was going on six when we last talked, has touched everyone who has met her, her father said. “She brings out the best in people.”

  There were many other stories of extraordinary love and commitment and cross-cultural mixing of fates. One of the most haunting was recounted in the book Saving Levi, by Lisa Bentley, which tells the story of a tiny baby, covered with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body, who’d been left to die in a field in China. An old man had picked up the grievously injured child and gotten him to a local government office, and from there the infant was taken to a hospital. And that’s where Lisa Bentley entered the picture. Bentley, as chronicled in a Los Angeles Times story, was a disaffected American who’d gone to live in China with her husband and four children.4 The couple had founded a Christian orphanage there for special-needs children, but Bentley was feeling adrift.

  When she went to visit that small, severely burned baby in a hospital incubator, Bentley’s life changed in an instant. She looked into the child’s eyes, his eyes stared into hers, and she knew that he needed an advocate—fast. Using every resource she could think of, Bentley succeeded in getting the child to the Boston Shriners Hospital for Children, and his life was saved. Ultimately she and her husband adopted the boy and named him Levi.

  At five, Levi went off to kindergarten, where he cheerfully asked other children for help tying his shoes, since doctors had been unable to save his left arm. By then Levi had gone through twenty surgeries, and faced more. In saving the boy, Bentley said, she also saved herself. Today she continues to live in China with her husband and their six children, two adopted from China. The couple continues to run a foster home and a school for children with hearing loss. On her website (www.lisamisrajebentley.com), Bentley has posted a photo of Levi, wide smile on his face, standing in the field where he was found.

  San Diego reporter Elizabeth Fitzsimons wrote another moving account of the blessings and surprises of orphaned children. The New York Times published her story of keeping the faith when she got to China and found that the child who had been assigned to her seemed to have some extremely serious medical challenges.5 Though she was offered a healthier child, Fitzsimons decided that no matter what the health issues, she knew who her daughter was, and she was not about to abandon her now. In the end, the little girl turned out to be fine, but Fitzsimons had no assurance of that when she made that lifelong commitment in China.

  Families over the Ocean

  When she was four, Franny sat down with paper and paints. On a large sheet of white paper, with unwavering brushstrokes, in colors of black and magenta, she painted a woman, long black hair trailing down her back, her arms reaching ahead of her like a swimmer, and from her hands dangled what looked to be long, looping ribb
ons, like those used in Chinese ribbon dances. The portrait is of a woman seen from the back and she is floating away, into the sky. “My Chinese mother,” said Franny.

  Just recently, five years after she painted that picture, Franny awoke from a dream. “I dreamed of my Chinese mother,” she told me, lying in her bed, still sleepy. “She had long dark hair, shiny dark hair down to her butt. She held it up for me to play with. I had a new little sister,” Franny continued. “I got to name her. When she cried, I held her. A man came and my mother said, ‘This is my husband,’ and I said, ‘I hope not.’”

  “And then what?” I asked. “That’s all,” said Franny. “We went on a train. I can’t remember the rest.” The next time I looked at Franny’s painting I thought of this dream. Maybe what looked like ribbons was actually her Chinese mother’s long, dark hair streaming from her fingers, the hair she let Franny play with.

  I remembered, too, Kelly’s talk about her “grandfather with three broken teeth.”

  The elusive birth families of China, how they have lingered in our children’s hearts, on the edges of our lives. In the early days of Chinese adoption, it was widely thought that few, if any, birth parents would ever be found by adoptive families, much less come forward on their own. Most children, it was assumed, had forever lost the connection to their families of origin, all of whom—parents, extended family, siblings—had slipped permanently away. Kay Johnson had interviewed a number of people who had let their children go, exploring the whole subject in her book Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son, but few adoptive families envisioned a reunion with their counterparts on the other side of the Pacific.