BRAND X
Posts tagged identity
So while it seems important that the kids have their own stories, these stories had to begin with the stories of their birth mothers.
Next time you wonder why many adoptees search for their birth families and wish to to learn information about these families, remember that you are who you are because you have your own story. They are only searching for part of their story, a story that is important to their very identity.
”Even though the author isn’t an adoptee, that’s a great way to put it
(via kathrynjin)
It’s good that whatshirface didn’t cop the typical bio spawn routes of “omg family is family not defined by blood!!!1 you’re just emotional” OR the equally oppressive and ableist bullshit that adoptees who don’t find our birth family are doomed to be “primally wounded” and more inclined to “craziness” and mass murder
The search is about reclaiming identity of which we were systemically robbed and decolonizing our selves. Simple and endlessly complex as that.
17 notes (via thechinaadoptee & kathrynjin)
Birthdays.
There are still 5 days before my birthday, but I have to get this off my chest.
I hate my birthday.
Most of you guys are probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with me, so I will explain the best I can.
There are so many reasons why I have hate for this day, but I am only going to talk about one reason….
The main reason why I hate my birthday is because it is kind of like a big slap in the face, or a neon sign saying, “You are a year older and you still have not heard from your birth mother/this is the last day you were with your birth mother”
My birth mother has access to my contact information at the agency in Korea, but who am I kidding? It has been almost 16 years and she probably hasn’t even thought of reaching me.
Doesn’t she remember that I’m her baby girl? How could she push me out of her world, lying to her flesh and blood….
Why should we even be celebrating the day I was born?
I was a mistake, I shouldn’t be here. A fucking mistake.
I know a lot of people say that, but I was legitimately a mistake. I was an accident, I wasn’t suppose to be on this Earth… That is why I got sent to a foster home and put up for adoption, I wasn’t suppose to happen.
My birth mother would be a single mother, meaning she would get shunned by the society and we would be broke if she kept me. So everyone tells me it was for the best, and I am trying my best to understand and not hate her… but I am so close to just giving into the hate.
I feel like my birthday should just not exist, just like how I was supposed to be. Non-existent.
(Source: simply-chaoticx)
15 notes (via bastardplanet & simply-chaoticx)
This probably belongs on my
seriousadoption blog and not my personal one […]True wisdom here. Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve experienced a lot of this, it becomes internalized. This entry gives me a greater understanding for why Islam doesn’t allow ‘adoption’ [sure you can take care of someone but you can’t change their name]. It wasn’t until I was around 14 that I found out my real last name.
I really need to decolonize further and learn more about Islam’s forbidding the entire erasure of adoption children’s identities. Always glorious to encounter another transracial/ethnic adoptee, and I’m glad you managed to recover at least part of your identity. X
p.s. Here’s some relevant info on how white supremacist Evangelicals conspired with anti-Communists to create the international adoption industry.
(Source: fairyonacidbanging)
38 notes (via occupiedmuslim & fairyonacidbanging)
New email
I finally changed my email address to something that doesn’t have my adopters’ surname in it. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, but have always been too lazy to, because EVERYTHING on the internet is connected to that email address. But I bit the bullet, changed everything over, and I feel so much better.
One, because now I don’t have to continuously type that horrible name every time I need to log in somewhere.
Two, because that was the last shred of ties I had to my former life, the one that included them.
And three, because now the only way they could possibly get ahold of me is through phone. They don’t have my physical address or my email address, and that makes me feel great.
Glory & Decolonization. X
6 notes (via hyunsooklee)
SAY HI TO MEMORIES
“my father.
the reason why i liked unbearable lightness of being
is because i related to a scene where the girl is looking at herself
in the mirror not out of vanity, but with a desperate effort
to see beyond genetics, heritage. to see her trueself beyond
her mothers face. desperate attempt to see her soul.
blood is thicker than water.”—DAUL KIM, journal entry, 2009.
52 notes (via tobia)
Images from the series Irandokht by Najaf Shokri, 2006-2009 (via).
According to Shokri, “One day outside the Statistic and Registration Administration in Tehran, I discovered piles of discarded identity cards by the dustbins. They were all of women born in the early 1940s, who were photographed in their youth. The astonishing diversity of hair-dos – only a minority wore a scarf or chador – reflected the variety of choices that women had in the late 1950s and 60s. The ID cards also represented the many different classes and personalities of women of the time, from shy and demure to upfront, confident and glamorous.
When I found these pictures, sometime in 2005, I wondered whether these women had died, never renewed their identity or emigrated. It seemed to me that the government was most probably erasing evidence of our recent and distant past, for these photographs oppose the current dominant culture. I was shocked that these records of our community could be discarded so easily, without remorse. Photography is more about discovering than creating. Being a finder is the dominant, innate state. In Irandokht I have tried to stitch together another aspect of our history, one that is not about throwing away, ignorance and corruption. To me, discarding history reflects the intolerance and negligence of institutions in power. The Irandokht series invites the audience to face a certain period without any judgment. These women lived in Iran, and I feel I am in some way reviving and preserving their memory.” (quote source)
2,215 notes (via analogbrain & touba)
(Source: shotdownartist)
480 notes (via tobia & shotdownartist)
This social death is paradoxically produced precisely so that the orphan can legally become an adoptee, a process that presumably negates her social death through a formal reattachment to kinship and thus a restoration of social identity and personhood.”
(Source: brandx)
24 notes
(Source: brandx)
6 notes
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