The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

by Margaret Homans

The Imprint of Another Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility addresses a series of questions about common beliefs about adoption. Underlying these beliefs is the assumption that human qualities are innate and intrinsic, an assumption often held by adoptees and their families, sometimes at great emotional cost. This book explores representations of adoption—transracial, transnational, and domestic same-race adoption—that reimagine human possibility by questioning this assumption and conceiving of alternatives. Literary scholar Margaret Homans examines fiction making’s special relationship to themes of adoption, an “as if” form of family making, fabricated or fictional instead of biological or “real.” Adoption has tended to generate stories rather than uncover bedrock truths. Adoptive families are made, not born; in the words of novelist Jeanette Winterson, “adopted children are self-invented because we have to be.” In attempting to recover their lost histories and identities, adoptees create new stories about themselves. While some believe that adoptees cannot be whole unless they reconnect with their origins, others believe that privileging biology reaffirms hierarchies (such as those of race) that harm societies and individuals. Adoption is lived and represented through an irresolvable tension between belief in the innate nature of human traits and belief in their constructedness, contingency, and changeability. The book shows some of the ways in which literary creation, and a concept of adoption as a form of creativity, manages this tension. The texts examined include fiction (e.g., classic novels such as Silas Marner , What Maisie Knew , and Beloved ); memoirs by adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthmothers; drama, documentary films, advice manuals, social science writing; and published interviews with adoptees, parents, and birth parents. Along the way the book tracks the quests of adoptees who, whether or not they meet their original families, must construct their own stories rather than finding them; follows transnational adoptees as they return, hopes held high, to Korea and China; looks over the shoulders of a generation of girls adopted from China as they watch Disney’s iconic Mulan , with its alluring story of destiny written on the skin; and listens to birthmothers as they struggle to tell painful secrets held for decades. This book engages in debates within adoption studies, women’s and gender studies, transnational studies, and ethnic studies; it will appeal to literary scholars and critics, including specialists in memoir or narrative theory, and to general readers interested in adoption and in race.

Genres: Adoption

312 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 2013

Reviews

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this was the author's original intention in researching and publishing this work, but as an adopted person who's also been in reunion with my biological relatives for more than a decade, this book confirmed a lot of the inner conflict I've felt over the years as justified given the pervasive cultural beliefs about adoption that are in conflict with adoptee experiences of adoption.

It seems that one of Professor Homans' goals was to debunk the narratives of identity that adopted people construct for ourselves when trying to parse out our own stories, but this book had the opposite effect on me, confirming that the many identity conflicts I've felt over the years came from a culture and relatives both adoptive and biological trying to impose a sense of identity on me, not from any falsehoods I constructed for myself.

When I was a kid, I felt that a lot of the adoption stories in books and in movies and on tv shows didn't represent the reality I was actually living. I hadn't been abandoned or abused by my original parents. I wasn't a secret heiress or princess. And while I did have a habit of looking for my siblings' faces everywhere I went, I always doubted if I'd REALLY recognize them if I saw them on a street corner or playground.

My biological history was still important to me, though. My parents told me stories about their parents and their grandparents, and those stories told me a lot about who my parents were, but nothing about who I was or the kind of people I descended from. I appreciated my parents' family stories, but I was never able to internalize them as my own. I was also different from my parents in every way except race. I often felt like I was putting on a specific personality that wasn't me just to please them.

Learning more about my biological heritage was important to me, but I was surrounded by family members and a culture that said my biology shouldn't matter because I was adopted now, and love makes a family, not DNA.

At the same time, as Professor Homans brings up many times throughout this book, American culture is obsessed with blood and genetics and inherited traits, whether it's scientifically sound or not. That's a paradox when it comes to American attitudes about adoption and adoptees. Adoptees who express interest in tracing our biological roots are often questioned about why our adoptive families aren't "enough" for us. For some reason, we're less entitled to the American obsession over genetics than non-adopted people are.

Culture imposed an identity on me that was one of unquestioning belonging to the family that adopted me, even though I often felt conflicted in my family. My parents also created an identity for me of someone who belonged to them and shared their traits because we shared experiences together.

Then I met my siblings and biological relatives. And THEY formed an identity for me that was based on our shared outward appearances and personality quirks—of which there are many uncanny overlaps, even though my siblings and I were all placed for adoption at birth in different households.

I had two different families who had two very different views of what my real identity was, and I had to constantly code switch to meet their expectations. And then I had American culture somewhere in the middle, telling me that blood and genetics are everything but also adoption negates all of that.

No wonder we as adoptees experience so many identity conflicts. We have two families with different expectations of who we're supposed to be. We have an American culture that sends us mixed messages of how important a genetic connection actually is.

Professor Homans' work validates for me all of those external pressures and conflicts I've felt since I was a kid. My "identity crisis" as an adopted person doesn't come from within myself, but rather from a society and family members that can't decide whether biology matters or not. Ultimately, from my own lived experiences as an adoptee, I believe that my identity is made of both my experiences and my inherited biological traits. I'm both and I embrace both, but it was a complicated journey to get there, which mixed cultural beliefs about family didn't do anything to help.