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MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

Aeriel Anderson Ashlee

Candidate for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

______Dr. Stephen John Quaye, Director

______Dr. Elisa Abes, Reader

______Dr. David Pérez II, Reader

______Dr. Yu-Fang Cho, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT NEITHER, NOR, BOTH, BETWEEN: UNDERSTANDING TRANSRACIAL ASIAN AMERICAN ADOPTEES’ RACIALIZED EXPERIENCES IN COLLEGE USING BORDER THEORY

Aeriel A. Ashlee

Transracial Asian American adoptee collegians, who for the purposes of this study are Asian Americans raised in and by White adoptive families, are largely absent within college student development and higher education research. Much of the literature on Asian American racial identity referenced in higher education foregrounds familial, ethnic, and cultural factors in racial identity development, which may not resonate with or apply to transracial Asian American adoptees. The purpose of this study was to examine how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college and explore how power shapes participants’ constructions of race.

To do this, I conducted a poststructural narrative study using Thinking with Theory as my data analysis strategy. I interviewed 12 transracial Asian American adoptee collegians, completing two interviews with each participant. By “plugging in” and iteratively moving between transcript data, Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Trenka’s (2003) memoir The Language of Blood, and my own researcher positionality as a transracial Asian American adoptee and adoption scholar, I explored the ways that Border Theory and Trenka’s articulation of “neither, nor, both, between,” opened new meanings and understandings for how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college.

Participants’ narratives reveal the breadth and nuance of transracial Asian American adoptee collegians’ racialized experiences and perspectives. I also identified four emerging assemblages (collections of experiences) across and between participants’ narratives, which indicate that participants experienced feeling: (1) Neither Asian, (2) Nor White, (3) Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner, and (4) Between Races. These assemblages demonstrate how transracial Asian American adoptees push the boundaries of who is and is not considered legitimately Asian; challenge the limits of who can and cannot access White privilege; trapeze the line between model minority and perpetual foreigner, simultaneously reifying and rejecting both stereotypes; and ultimately blur the confines between what it means to be Asian and White respectively.

This study has important implications for student affairs theory and practice including the expansive and liberatory potential of poststructural perspectives, such as Border Theory, in student affairs research. This study also serves as an invitation to student affairs scholars and practitioners to (re)consider hegemonic notions of racial identity as finite and rigid. Furthermore, this study advances the discussion on dominant discourses of racial essentialism and racial authenticity and how they inform educators’ thinking, perceptions, and thus, support of college students.

NEITHER, NOR, BOTH, BETWEEN: UNDERSTANDING TRANSRACIAL ASIAN AMERICAN ADOPTEES’ RACIALIZED EXPERIENCES IN COLLEGE USING BORDER THEORY

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Educational Leadership

Aeriel A. Ashlee

The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2019

Dissertation Director: Dr. Stephen John Quaye

Aeriel Anderson Ashlee

2019

Table of Content

Table of Contents ...... iii List of Tables ...... v List of Figures ...... vi Dedication ...... vii Acknowledgements ...... viii Glossary ...... xii Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1 Problem Statement ...... 5 Purpose of Study ...... 6 Research Questions ...... 7 Significance of Study ...... 7 Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 9 Adoption Scholarship...... 9 Transnational Adoption ...... 10 Transracial Adoption ...... 11 Transracial Asian American Adoption ...... 12 Theories of College Student Racial Identity ...... 15 Racial Identity Development ...... 16 Asian American Racial Identity Development ...... 17 Multiracial Identity Development ...... 19 Racial Identity Formation ...... 22 Asian American Identity Consciousness ...... 24 Southeast Asian American Identity ...... 28 Theoretical Implications for Transracial Asian American Adoptees ...... 30 Racialized Experiences of Asian American College Students ...... 36 Understanding Race and Ethnicity...... 37 Research on Asian American College Students...... 38 Navigating Racial Stereotypes ...... 39 (De)constructing the Model Minority ...... 39 (De)coding the Perpetual Foreigner ...... 40 Summary of Literature Review ...... 41 Chapter Three: Methodology and Methods ...... 42 Paradigm ...... 42 Theoretical Perspective ...... 44 Researcher Positionality...... 46 Methodology ...... 49 Methods...... 50 Participant Selection ...... 51 Data Collection ...... 55 Data Analysis ...... 57

iii Ethics and Trustworthiness ...... 60 Summary of Research Design ...... 62 Chapter Four: Participant Narratives ...... 63 Athena ...... 64 Chris ...... 68 DS ...... 75 Emma ...... 78 Hannah ...... 82 Jessie ...... 86 Karen ...... 90 Kyra...... 94 Mai ...... 98 Mia ...... 101 Sarah ...... 105 Veliqe ...... 108 Chapter Five: Thinking with Theory ...... 113 Neither Asian ...... 113 Nor White...... 116 Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner ...... 121 Between Races ...... 124 Conclusion ...... 127 Chapter Six: Discussion and Implications ...... 128 Discussion ...... 128 Engaging Context...... 129 Exploring Contradictions ...... 132 Embracing Borderlands ...... 135 Implications for Research and Practice...... 138 For Future Research ...... 139 For Future Student Affairs Practice...... 143 Limitations of This Study ...... 145 Conclusion ...... 147 References ...... 154 Appendicies...... 165

iv LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Theories of Asian American and Multiracial Identity Development and Formation ..... 31

Table 2. Overview of Study Participants ...... 54

v LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Point of Entry Model for Asian American Identity Consciousness ...... 25 Figure 2. Asian American Identity Development Model...... 26

vi DEDICATION

To all of the transracial Asian American adoptee collegians who feel–or have ever felt–racially in-between. I see you. You are enough. You are brilliant. You are expansive.

And to Kyle, my loving husband, and Azaelea, my beloved daughter, who remind me daily to find grace in the margins. I am better because of you. I love you fiercely.

vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Despite these acknowledgements coming at the start of this dissertation, I write these reflections as I approach the end of my doctoral journey. In some ways, the task of composing one’s acknowledgements could seem like just another box to check on the list of things to do before graduation. Yet, I choose to experience the act of naming the people who have contributed to this project and my transformation with presence and gratitude. Although I sometimes struggle to find the words to describe the array of emotions and experiences that filled and made meaningful the past four years–and the lifetime that preceded and informed my coursework and dissertation research–here I am, trying to do just that. And so, I approach writing these acknowledgements as a culminating reflective exercise to honor the community who helped to make possible this process. First, I want to extend my deepest appreciation to the 12 participants of this study, without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. Thank you for your time and your brave narrative sharing. Thank you for trusting me with your stories. Thank you for offering thoughtful perspectives on complex topics including race, belonging, kinship, and college. I have drawn inspiration, strength, and insight from your brilliance, and I am honored to occupy, explore, and expand borderlands with you. Next, I would like to thank Dr. Stephen John Quaye, my dissertation chair, long-time faculty mentor, and friend. It was your advice nearly a decade ago to pursue a Ph.D. when I began seeing research questions in my everyday student affairs practice that brought me to Miami University. Thank you for believing in me and the importance of my research for our field. Thank you for cheering me on when I most doubted myself. Thank you for role modeling the importance of acknowledging your own positionality in your scholarship and the power of practicing vulnerability in your writing voice. Thank you for supporting me as a new mom and sharing weekend morning donuts with my family and your beautiful son, Sebastian. To my dissertation committee, thank you for embarking on this journey with me. Your feedback and belief in me and the potential of this project were of paramount importance to my process and persistence. Dr. David Pérez II, I consider your presence in my life a blessing from God. Thank you for your abundant mentorship, sponsorship, and support. I hope to one day model my approach to faculty life after you, centering faith and family, while also passionately advocating for students and pushing institutions of higher education to be more inclusive and

viii socially just. Dr. Elisa Abes, thank you for the introduction to third-wave thinking around student development theory, which served as a critical catalyst for my dissertation. Dr. Yu-Fang Cho, thank you for grounding me in Asian/Asian American Studies and providing valuable insight as I consider how to position my work not only in student affairs in higher education, but also for broader conversations related to subjectivity and the illegibility of identity. To the many academic mentors who have poured into me, offering constructive feedback and heartening perspective as I navigated my PhD, thank you. Dr. Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, thank you for your wisdom and advice about balancing motherhood and life in the academy. Drs. Kim McKee and Kim Park Nelson, I appreciate your leadership in critical adoption studies as an interdisciplinary academic arena and your invitation to reflect upon what it means to be an adoptee scholar conducting adoption research. Drs. Michael Denton and Mitsu Narui, thank you for your guidance in poststructural thinking; the hours I spent flipping through your dissertations were essential to the evolution of my paradigmatic perspective. Dr. Lisa Weems, thank you for your advisement on my comprehensive exam committee; your prompting to engage poststructuralism and embrace my own becoming were integral to my transformation and academic growth. Dr. Sam Museus, thank you for seeing the potential of this project even before I did; encouraging and reminding me to consider the relevance of this study not only for the visibility of transracial Asian American adoptees in higher education, but for how race is understood more broadly. Dr. Marc Johnston-Guerrero, thank you for your seminal work on monoracism, which greatly informed my interest in contesting racial essentialism; and thank you for your generous academic and professional sponsorship. To my cohort–Mika, Wilson, Adam, Mark, and Kyle–what an amazing community of co- learners. I truly feel privileged to have journeyed through these past four years with each of you. Thank you for sharing space, stretching me to grow my ideas, and helping me stay in touch with the applied nature of our field and the realities of everyday life in the world outside of our intellectual bubble. I am thrilled to watch the indelible impact our cohort will make in higher education. To Esther, Serian, Dominique, and Joe–my other Miami EDL family–thank you for listening to my venting, laughing with me, and always finding time to enjoy life and eat good food together. These seemingly small acts of comradery were imperative to maintaining my humanity and perspective these past four years.

ix To Jane Jeong Trenka, and the countless other transracial Asian American adoptees, who have boldly shared their own adoptee narratives for the health and healing of other adoptees like myself, thank you. Thank you for giving me language to articulate that which I have known personally, but did not have the words to describe to others. Thank you for affirming my racialized experience and encouraging me to create space for other adoptees to share their transracial narratives as well. To the brilliant and evocative Gloria Anzaldúa, thank you for courageously sharing your wisdom and autohistoria. Your reflections upon the pain and insight of being situated in the borderlands made me feel profoundly seen and intimately connected to you. May you rest in power. To the Transracial Adoptees in Higher Education Facebook Collective, thank you for engaging in our virtual community, helping me identify potential research participants, and reminding me that I am not alone in my racialized experience. To the NASPA Multiracial Knowledge Community, thank you for so intentionally and explicitly including transracial adoptees in your constituency. To Dr. Joy Hoffman, thank you for helping to pave the way with your scholarship for transracial adoptee visibility in student affairs. Damaris Altomerianos, thank you for affirming my inclination to explore a poststructural renderings of race as perhaps more resonant for transracial adoptees. Lisa Combs, thank you for exploring with me the transformative potential of radical interconnectivity between transracial adoptees and multiracial people. Paul DeWater, thank you for serving as a peer-debriefer for this study and helping me narrow the scope of this first research project; reminding me that there will be many more to come. Jessica Fry, Annabelle Estera, and Dr. Kathryn Kay Coquemont thank you for being my PhD mommy crew. I do not know how I would have made it through the first months of motherhood and last months of dissertation writing without you. Kelsey Castro, thank you for watching my baby girl so that I could finish writing my dissertation baby. Pastor Brian and Chavonne (and the whole Bethel Cincinnati community), thank you for grounding me in God and encouraging my faith along this intellectual, personal, and spiritual journey. To my family–my complex and beautiful, multi-layered family–I love you. To my first/birth mother and family, whose selflessness and love I can barely fathom; I thought of you often in writing these pages, wondering if and hoping I would make you proud. To my foster mother and family, for whose compassion and care I am forever grateful, I hope I honor your

x kindness by how I live my life. To my mom, who always encouraged me to follow my passion, I love you, infinity plus one. To Dad and Carol, who may not have understood my initial desire to pursue yet another degree and more years of school, but lovingly supported me anyway; this is the last degree, I promise. To Rita Bita, you are not only my cousin, you are transracial adoptee kin; I am so grateful that we share this special bond. To Kyle and Azaelea, who bring me indescribable joy and hope, and who teach me every day the profound depths of love; you make me and my life better. And finally, to God, for whom I hope my work brings honor and glory.

xi GLOSSARY

The very nature of poststructuralism hinges on the assumed subjectivity of language (Hewitt, 2009; Hole, 2007; Rasinski, 2011). Thus, it may seem counterintuitive to present a glossary of terms and definitions at the onset of a poststructural dissertation. However, to aid the reader in navigating and understanding this study, I have assembled a set of definitions situated within the specific context of my research. For this study, • Discourse refers to the multiple–and sometimes competing–ways people give meaning to the world (i.e., varied linguistic and cultural representations and ways of organizing knowledge and ideas). • Ethnicity refers to distinct cultural identity groups largely determined based on shared history, language, and tradition (e.g., Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese). • Identity refers to the ways people view themselves and are viewed by others, which is inextricably connected to social and relational contexts. • Language refers to the words used to represent and construct meaning. • People of Color refers to people who are not monoracially White with an emphasis on common experiences related to systemic racism. • Race refers to socially constructed identity categories intended to differentiate groups of people by physical characteristics that reify a White-supremacist hierarchy of oppression (e.g., White, Asian, Black). • Transracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial group (most often a Child of Color) in an adoptive family of another racial group (most often White families). • Whiteness refers to individual privileges, cultural practices, and systemic oppression that benefit people who are monoracially read as White and exclude those who are not.

xii Because when my body is falling it moves faster than when I move myself; because the state of exile is suspension, caught in the middle of an arc, between psyche, body, and place (neither, nor, both, between); because the essence of that which is most present is not visible (like love, like your own eye, like an elusive element leaving only its shadow [evidence of its supposed existence] in a closed laboratory); because life is a ballet of consecutive moments-the grace is in the margins. -Jane Jeong Trenka, The Language of Blood, 2003

Chapter One: Introduction

Neither, nor, both, between. These words reverberate through my bones and knock the wind out of me. I am both amazed and unnerved that an author whom I have never met, can so accurately describe my identity as a transracial Asian American adoptee. Trenka, who is herself also a transracial Asian American adoptee, writes vividly and powerfully about the experience of being betwixt and between. Her written words (2003) breathe life into me as they eerily and exquisitely encapsulate what I have known in my core to be true for as long as I can remember, but which I have struggled to previously articulate. As a transracial Asian American adoptee, I am neither solely Korean nor American. I am of both Asian and White communities. I am between two cultures, two countries, two families, two races. The essence of that which is most present is not visible. This sentence echoes throughout my body. For the past twelve years–the time since I left home and shed the identity thrust upon me by my proximity to my White adoptive family–I have centered being Asian in America as the most salient aspect of my identity. Yet it has been the nuances of my Asian American experience–not immediately visible, but deeply different–as a transracial adoptee that have most profoundly (re)defined how I experience and conceptualize my race. The grace is in the margins. In re-reading this reflection from Trenka (2003), my eyes begin to blur. I am unsure if my vision is obscured due to tears, or because the lens with which I view my work, my life, and myself is shifting. Growing up as a transracial Asian American adoptee, born in Korea and adopted by a White family in the United States, I did not have the language to describe the dissonance I felt every time I looked in the mirror or studied a family photo. It has only been in the past five

1 years or so, through exposure to other adoptee narratives like Trenka’s (2003) memoir The Language of Blood and Park Nelson’s (2016) oral histories project Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism that I have begun to see my life, my racial identity, and my experience as a transracial adoptee as something other than divergent. This access to language used by other transracial adoptees to describe their complex identities–while accidental in origin–has led to a profound (re)constituting of how I describe and make sense of my own identity. This experience of encountering and incorporating new language to describe and understand who I am and how others perceive me has been liberating. I no longer feel like an ugly duckling or a physical manifestation of the Sesame Street tune that sings, “one of these things is not like the other.” My experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee, while largely unknown in dominant discourses about race in the United States and notably absent in analyses of racial identity formation in higher education, is not strange or underdeveloped. Rather, my identity and my desire to write about transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences is an invitation to adoptees, educators, and theorists alike to (re)consider hegemonic notions of racial identity as finite and rigid. This personal and scholarly journey emboldens me to pursue and actively construct language that more accurately describes my racial identity and the nuances I experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee. This process has been integral to my own racial identity formation, my own healing and liberation, and is what fuels my vision for and commitment to this research. The focus of this study is on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college, and how being raised in and by White adoptive families informs the language they use to describe and make sense of their racial identities. For this study, I define transracial Asian American adoptees as Asian American college students who were raised in and by White adoptive families. It is important to note that most transracial Asian American adoptees were adopted internationally (Godon, Green, & Ramsey, 2014; Park Nelson, 2016), making them both transnational and transracial as they have crossed both national borders and racial boundaries through their adoptions. However, within adoption scholarship and adoption communities, people typically distinguish between adoptees who were adopted across national borders (commonly referred to as international, inter-country, or transnational adoptees) and

2 adoptees who were adopted across racial lines within their country of origin (regularly referred to as domestic transracial adoptees). Trenka, Oparah, and Shin (2006) suggest that this is a false dichotomy that creates barriers for adoptees and prevents them from fully recognizing their commonalities as People of Color raised in whiteness. Emphasizing cultural adaptation in transnational adoption (coded language for assimilation), precariously minimizes the ways in which systemic racism impacts transnational Adoptees of Color. Therefore, for this study, and in following the lead of Trenka et al. (2006), I use the term transracial adoption to be inclusive of the connections between all Adoptees of Color raised in and by White families regardless of whether they were adopted domestically or internationally. As a global industry, transracial adoption is steeped in racism, imperialism, capitalism, and the systematic disempowerment of adoptees perpetually cast as children without agency or voice (Park Nelson, 2016). As such, transracial adoption is much more complex than the popularized narrative of benevolent (most often White) Americans saving abandoned and unwanted children (most often Children of Color) from otherwise certain despair and destitution as is often depicted in mainstream media (e.g., NBC’s This is Us and the 2016 feature-length film Lion starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman). In fact, transracial adoption has been characterized by some critical adoption scholars as a legalized form of human trafficking (Hübinette, 2012; McKee, 2013). With the emergence of adoptee scholars–a phenomenon that has materialized over the past fifteen years or so as transracial adoptees are coming of age and pursuing careers in interdisciplinary adoption research–opposing discourses have evolved around transracial adoption. On the one hand, transracial adoption narratives have been dominated by rhetoric of altruistic intentions that romanticize the interests and actions of White adoptive families. Conversely, more recent literature with a critical adoption lens (McKee, 2013; Trenka et al., 2006; Park Nelson, 2016; Pearson, 2010)–primarily led by adoptee scholars–acknowledges and explores the potentially exploitative and oppressive reality of capitalizing on the commodification and transaction of babies’ bodies (most often Babies of Color) across national borders. These works often cite the historical anti-Asian context of the United States as evidenced by Asian exclusionary immigration policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth

3 centuries as well as anti-miscegenation laws that persisted until 1967 and prohibited interracial marriage between Asians and Whites (Choy, 2013). Unfortunately, there is no single resource that tracks transracial adoption statistics in the United States (Choy, 2013). The absence of a centralized data bank on this phenomenon means that there is no accurate count of the total number of transracial Asian American adoptees, or any transracial transnational adoptee demographic, in the country. Instead, over the years, adoption scholars (Choy, 2013; Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Park Nelson, 2016) have pieced together statistics from a variety of different sources–culling government reports, making inquiries to private adoption agencies, and carefully examining transnational migration numbers–to make informed estimations about the total number of transracial Asian American adoptees in the United States. The United States is the top recipient of internationally adopted children, with international adoptions more than doubling between 1991 and 2001 (Choy, 2013). Asian children comprise the majority of children internationally adopted by U.S. citizens with U.S. citizens adopting 156,491 children from Asian countries (59% of all transnational adoptees) between 1971 and 2001 (Choy, 2013). While further disaggregated data on transracial Asian American adoptees is difficult to come by, according to the U.S. State Department (2011) Asian Americans comprise one of largest transracial transnational adoptee demographics in the United States. For many transracial Asian American adoptees, college can be a potentially catalytic context regarding their racial identity, as it may be the first time they are seen not primarily as an extension of their White adoptive families, but racially read as People of Color. While some preliminary adoption research has indicated that traditional college-age transracial adoptees (those in late adolescence to early adulthood) may experience dissonance between the way they feel racially, ethnically, and culturally as contrasted with expectations others have of them racially, ethnically, and culturally (Baden, 2008; Baden, Treweeke, & Ahluwalia, 2012), little empirical research has explicitly examined how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their racial identity in college. As college is a time of significant personal transformation, maturation, and identity development and formation (Abes, 2016a; Jones & Abes, 2011; Kaufman, 2014), the college setting serves as an ideal context in which to study how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their racial identities. However, transracial Asian American

4 adoptees are nearly nonexistent within college student development and higher education research (e.g., Museus, 2014). The absence of this population is particularly concerning given that Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing racial demographics in U.S. higher education (Ching & Agbayani, 2012; Museus, 2014). Not only is literature on Asian American college students virtually void of research on transracial Asian American adoptees, foundational research on Asian American racial identity in higher education (Alvarez, 2002; Kim, 2001; Kodama, McEwen, Liang, & Lee, 2002) foregrounds ethnic and cultural factors in racial identity development, which may not resonate with or apply to transracial Asian American adoptees given their upbringing in predominantly White families and communities. While models of Asian American racial identity development and formation commonly referenced in higher education (e.g., Kim, 2001) were not designed with transracial adoptees in mind, they do reveal some potentially relevant insights about how transracial Asian American adoptees, along with Asian American college students more broadly, experience race in college. These potential parallels are discussed in depth in Chapter Two, where I conduct an extensive literature review on theories relevant to understanding transracial Asian American adoptee collegians’ racial identity. However, rather than assume these theories apply uniformly to transracial Asian American adoptees in college, this study extends existing research on Asian American college students to be more inclusive of the nuanced and disaggregated Asian American college student demographic. Problem Statement Very little empirical research has explicitly studied how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their racial identity in college. Existing models of Asian American college student racial identity describe ethnic, familial, and cultural context as a prerequisite for racial consciousness (Alvarez, 2002; Kim, 2001; Kodama, McEwen, Liang, & Lee, 2002). If educators unreservedly apply these models to transracial Asian American adoptees, they may dubiously situate adoptees’ identities as a deficit or a liability to their Asian American racial identity. This may problematically cast transracial Asian American adoptees as delayed in their racial identity development given their racial socialization takes place in predominantly White contexts. Additionally, given that very little is known about how transracial Asian American adoptees describe or make sense of their race in college, there is the risk that individual transracial Asian American adoptees may be exotified as racial anomalies

5 when and if their racial identity experiences in college diverge from what is expected based upon popular theory. If higher education and student affairs professionals turn to adoption research to help inform their professional practice when working with transracial Asian American adoptees, they will find that much of the existing scholarship on transracial adoption has been written from the gaze of White adoptive parents and adoption professionals (Evans, 2001; Melina, 1986; Simon & Altstein, 1977). While these parties are integral to the practice of transracial adoption, the proliferation of transracial adoption literature from these perspectives has obscured the voices of transracial adoptees themselves (Palmer, 2011; Park Nelson, 2016). As Trenka et al. (2006) note, “as [P]eople of [C]olor who for so long have had our stories told and distorted by others, we know that [the race and role of an author in adoption research] does indeed matter” (p. 3). The historical authoring of transracial adoption research through the gaze of non-adoptees has meant that much of what has been written has been crafted in a way that positions adoption as a benevolent humanitarian act rather than acknowledging the racial complexities and trauma that can also be associated with transracial adoption (Trenka et al., 2006). Prior to the past decade, transracial adoption research has unequivocally asserted that assimilation and colorblind ideology are markers of success in transracial adoption (Park Nelson, 2016). This perspective glorifies transracial adoption as a progressive approach to multiculturalism and renders transracial adoptees voiceless in articulating and constructing their own racial identity narratives. The absence of transracial adoptees’ perspectives in describing their experiences with racism and the tenuous process of developing their racial consciousness as People of Color raised in whiteness has meant that adoptive parents and professionals alike have diminished the racial alienation and isolation experienced by transracial adoptees (Palmer, 2011; Park Nelson, 2016; Trenka et al., 2006). As a result, transracial adoptees’ struggles with their racial identity are often regarded as individual or anecdotal examples of discontent or maladjustment rather than evidence of systemic racial oppression inherent in transracial adoption (Park Nelson, 2016). Purpose of Study The purpose of this study is to examine how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. By studying the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptee collegians as narrated and described by adoptees themselves,

6 I explore the ways in which power shapes the construction of their racial identity. In this study, I pay attention to the ways in which transracial Asian American adoptees navigate the borders of being “neither, nor, both, between” (Trenka, 2003, p. 73) as they describe and experience their race in college. I also consider how being raised in White adoptive families informs what it means to enact and perform an Asian American racial identity for transracial Asian American adoptee collegians. Research questions. The primary research question that guided this study was: What are the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college? Additional sub- questions that I explored included: • What borderland discourses (e.g., neither, nor, both, between) do transracial Asian American adoptees use to describe their race in college? • How does being raised in White adoptive families inform how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and perform their race in college? Significance of Study This study has several implications for contemporary conversations about the social construction of race, how student affairs educators think about and engage in racial identity work, and for transracial Asian American adoptees themselves. Most broadly, this study extends theoretical and philosophical thinking on race as a socially constructed identity category. By examining the ways in which transracial Asian American adoptees navigate their racialized experiences through a Border Theory lens (Anzaldúa, 1987), this study challenges monoracist renderings of racial identity. Additionally, by studying the racialized experiences of Asian American college students who were raised in and by White adoptive families, this study considers how the experience of being transracially adopted informs how racial identity is described and performed. This study also has important implications specific to the field of higher education and student affairs. As stated previously, Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing populations in college (Ching & Agbayani, 2012; Museus, 2014). Unfortunately, much of existing research on Asian American collegians presupposes a monoracial or monoethnic home and family context, which is not reflective of transracial Asian American adoptees’ experiences. As higher education scholars call for the disaggregation of data on Asian American college students, one subpopulation in dire need of further empirical attention is transracial Asian

7 American adoptees (Museus, 2014). Findings from this study provide student affairs educators with needed research on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college, which may enable them to more effectively care for and attend to the unique racial identity experiences of this college student population. Last, but certainly not least, this study has important implications for transracial Asian American adoptees themselves. By focusing on the narratives and racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college, this study moves an otherwise nearly-invisible community out of the margins and into center focus. Whereas transracial Asian American adoptees may have previously experienced being the caveat to hegemonic conceptions of racial identity, this study honors their lived experiences and racialized truths.

8 Chapter Two: Literature Review

Given that transracial Asian American adoptees are largely absent in higher education literature (Museus, 2014), this review necessitated an interdisciplinary approach drawing from adoption studies, higher education and student affairs research, and Asian American studies. To assemble the necessary scaffolding for this study, I have organized this literature review into three sections. First, I present relevant adoption scholarship, providing an overview of the evolution of transnational and transracial adoption separately, and then examining how the two converge in the adoption of children from Asian countries into White U.S. families. Second, I examine literature on college student racial identity to consider how existing conceptualizations of racial identity in higher education may fall short when considering transracial Asian American adoptees. Finally, I delve into the racialized experiences of Asian American college students by reviewing literature on how Asian American college students cope with and respond to race and racism. Specifically, I consider the potential implications of the model minority myth and perpetual foreigner stereotype and the impact these anti-Asian tropes may have for transracial Asian American adoptees collegians’ racialized experiences. Adoption Scholarship There is no single comprehensive source of adoption statistics or scholarship in the United States. Over the years, research on adoption has been pieced together from a combination of government documents, private organizations, and individuals connected to adoption (i.e., prospective adoptive parents, local social workers, and adoptees). The most current data suggest that there are more than 5 million adoptees in the United States and that approximately 58% of Americans have personal experience with adoption; meaning that they or a close family member or friend is part of the adoption triad (a term used to describe the three parties involved in adoption: birth/first families, the adoptee, and the adoptive family) (Herman 2012a; Javier, Baden, Biafora, & Camacho-Gingerich, 2007). The decentralized nature of adoption scholarship has meant that much is still unknown about adoptees and the adoptive experience, even though adoption was first legally recognized in the United States more than 150 years ago (Javier et al., 2007). In 2000, for the first time in history, the U.S. Census included a category for adopted children (Javier et al., 2007). This may prove to be a meaningful step towards a more accurate and open study of adoption in the United States as demographic data can now be collected and

9 reported on adoptees in the U.S. However, it is important to note that adoptees in the U.S. are not documented after turning 18 years old, and to-date higher education institutions have not collected this information at the university level (Suda & Hartlep, 2016). The emergence of this U.S. Census category for adopted children coincides with a broader social-cultural shift around adoption that has unfolded over the past couple of decades. Adoption has emerged as a highly- popularized family-building practice, as evidenced by high-profile celebrity adoptions and the surge of adoptive families featured in television and film. Within the adoption community there are many different forms of adoption, such as kinship adoption, domestic adoption, international adoption, and foster-adoption (Herman, 2012a). For this study, I focus on transnational, transracial adoptions involving Asian adoptees who were adopted in and raised by White families in the United States. Transnational adoption. Transnational adoption, also referred to as “inter-country adoption” and “international adoption” has had a varied reputation in the United States since the practice began in the 1940s (Choy, 2009; Herman, 2012b). Largely a response to children in crisis in the wake of war (Choy, 2009; Oh, 2015), transnational adoption has long been regarded as a benevolent and humanitarian act. As a result, transnational adoption has historically been touted as an altruistic act of global diplomacy necessary in building and strengthening relationships between nation states (Haerens, 2011). More recently however, there has been a growing body of critical adoption scholarship that characterizes the practice of transnational adoption as a reactionary response to post-war trauma, a means for global religious evangelism, and a form of modern day colonialism and legalized human trafficking (Haerens, 2011; Pearson, 2010; Herman, 2012b). Transnational adoption is an expensive practice, regularly costing families between $10,000-$40,000 USD per adopted child (Quiroz, 2007). Given the considerable financial commitment required, transnational adoption in the United States is most common among middle to upper-class families. Relatedly, most families seeking to adopt are White families (Boivin & Hassan, 2015) who have benefited from institutional privilege and thus have the necessary capital to pursue adoption as a part of their family planning process. Transnational adoption is a unique form of immigration, in that tens of thousands of people have immigrated to the United States from a variety of nations abroad without their consent or of their free will. As adoptees are transplanted from their birth/first country to their adoptive cultural and national

10 context not of their own volition, there are several potentially traumatic experiences that are underexplored in transnational adoption research. These include intimate family violence and cultural genocide that can occur as a byproduct of transnational adoption and the lack of social welfare support in birth/first countries to prioritize keeping biological families together in the first place (Park Nelson, 2016). Transracial adoption. The adoption of children across racial groups has been practiced in the United States and abroad for over 60 years (Baden et al., 2012; Choy, 2013). More recently–within the past decade or so–transracial adoption has become a media spectacle and social novelty in U.S. popular culture. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Katherine Heigl, and Madonna, have contributed to the popularization of transracial adoption in the United States (Choy, 2009; Haerens, 2011). Regularly described as a philanthropic, socially progressive approach to family building, transracial adoption has touched the consciousness of even those families who are not formed through adoption. However, the practice of transracial adoption is much more nuanced and complex than glossy pictures of smiling racially diverse families in celebrity magazines might convey. Transracial adoption, and the intricacies and tensions that result from this approach to building interracial families, comprise most studies on adoption (Boivin & Hassan, 2015). Given the many ways that Communities of Color have been systematically oppressed throughout history, there are far more Children of Color relinquished for adoption than there are Families of Color seeking to adopt (Tuan & Shiao, 2011). As a result, most transracial adoptions involve White parents adopting Children of Color (Garber, French, & Grotevant, 2015; Godon et al., 2014). Unfortunately, an unintended byproduct of transracial adoption is the emotional hardship that falls to the adopted child. Navigating the realities of systemic racism as a Person of Color can be difficult on its own, but trying to do so as a Child of Color with parents who do not share one’s racialized experience can be further isolating and traumatic (Tuan & Shiao, 2011). As a result, mental health issues related to emotional and social distress experienced by transracial adoptees have been a large focus within adoption research (Godon et al., 2014). While an investigation of the mental health implications of transracial adoption is important, existing literature has unfairly pathologized adoptees as the source of their own social and interpersonal problems (Park Nelson, 2016). This characterization unsettlingly positions transracial adoptees as delinquents lacking in mental health coping strategies rather than

11 critically examining the environmental and contextual factors related to transracial adoption (e.g., racial battle fatigue because of their forced immersion in White supremacy), which may contribute to transracial adoptees’ presenting mental health symptoms. Much of transracial adoption scholarship can be found in the fields of psychology, sociology, and social work (Boivin & Hassan, 2015). Far less has been published about transracial adoptees’ experiences in educational settings, specifically, higher education contexts (Museus, 2014). Over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a notable shift in transracial adoption scholarship, as adult adoptees have begun contributing their perspectives as adoptee scholars, researchers, and writers (Dorow, 2006; Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Palmer, 2011; Park Nelson, 2016; Pearson, 2010; Suda & Hartlep, 2016; Trenka, 2003; Trenka et al., 2006). This has been in sharp contrast to the majority of adoption research conducted prior to 2000, which was primarily gathered by White adoptive parents and/or commissioned by adoption agencies (Garber et al., 2015; Tuan & Shiao, 2011). As one might expect, these groups’ relationship to and investment in the practice of transracial adoption greatly influenced and biased much of what was previously published. Transracial Asian American adoption. As defined earlier, transnational adoption is the adoption of children across national borders whereas transracial adoption is the adoption of children across racial lines. These are two distinct, and yet not mutually exclusive, adoption practices. For instance, transracial adoptees may be domestically adopted Children of Color or internationally adopted Children of Color. On the other hand, transnational adoption might include same-race or interracial adoptions across national borders. In both adoptive practices– transnational and transracial adoption–there is the potential for the adopted child(ren) to experience trauma, but likely of different variations (Boivin & Hassan, 2015). For instance, transnational adoptees may have challenges with acculturation, whereas transracial adoptees may struggle with insecurities or uncertainty around racial identity. To provide some social-political context to transracial Asian American adoption, the earliest instances of this practice in the United States coincide with some of the first records of mixed-race families in U.S. history (Choy, 2009). Conversely, instances of transnational adoption involving mixed-race children have been documented prior to Loving v. Virginia in the post-World War II and Cold War era, which means that mixed-raced families were formed through transracial adoption before it was legal to marry interracially in the United States.

12 There are more transracial Asian American adoptees raised in White families than any other racial demographic of transnational adoptees in the United States (Choy, 2013; Tuan & Shiao, 2011). However, a bulk of the literature on transracial adoption has been written about Black children raised in White families (Smith, Jacobson, & Juarez, 2011). This is likely due to the pervasive Black and White racial binary that persists in the United States and the relative invisibility of Asians in national discourses on race. Additionally, Asian Americans have long been stereotyped as the model minority and characterized as “honorary Whites.” The implicit bias of adoption social workers and adoptive families alike has facilitated a subtle but pervasive preference held by White adoptive parents for adopting Asian children over Black children throughout U.S. history (Dorow, 2006; Tuan & Shiao, 2011). The model minority stereotype has also contributed to the related misconception that there is less identity dissonance for Asian adoptees raised in White families than there is for Black adoptees raised in White families (Dorow, 2006). Of the existing research on transracial Asian American adoptees, scholars have tended to focus on ethnic identity over race (Tuan & Shiao, 2011). While these researchers have not made the reason for their examination of ethnicity and birth culture explicit, critical adoption scholars have implied that this may be because learning about an adoptee’s country of origin is less threatening than dealing with the realities of institutional racism (Park Nelson, 2016). The encouragement of birth culture hobbies–such as pursuing Chinese dance or Korean drumming–is less political and thus likely less contentious than encouraging adoptees to delve into the hierarchical realities of racial stratification. While ethnicity relates to culture, this identity does not inherently challenge whiteness. Conversely, exploring racial identity and dynamics of racism at play in transracial adoption necessitates a critical examination of systems of privilege and oppression. Through this study, I intend to challenge the literature and language employed by adoptive parents and adoption professionals (the founding scholars in adoption studies who focused primarily on ethnicity and birth culture) by centering racial realities within transracial adoption as (re)defined and described by transracial Asian American adoptees themselves. This demographic, of Asian adoptees raised in White U.S. families, is an important population for scholars interested in studying race as a social construct in the United States as they have the unique experience of being both racially oppressed as People of Color, while also being immersed in and having access to White culture and privilege through their adoptive

13 families (Choy, 2013; Tuan & Shiao, 2011). As People of Color raised in White familial contexts, transracial adoptees may have to deal with racial bias and discrimination that their adoptive families dismiss, ignore, or are simply ill-equipped to handle (Godon et al., 2014). This can unintentionally, and problematically, result in the silencing and dismissal of racial identity (Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Palmer, 2011). Additionally, the pervasiveness of anti-Asian nativist rhetoric in the United States (Chang, 1993) may further complicate transracial Asian American adoptees’ sense of belonging and overall racialized experiences. The study of transracial Asian American adoption is not only important to those directly involved in adoption, but is also relevant to understanding the social construction of race, family formation in the United States, and other transnational social, political, and economic issues including foreign policy, immigration/migration, and reproductive justice (Choy, 2013; McKee, 2018). Much of the literature about transracial adoptees’ racial identity experiences focuses on family and school environments for children and adolescents, thereby ignoring the later phases of adult development (Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Suda & Hartlep, 2016). However, higher education researchers contend that college can be a critical and uniquely difficult time for the racial identity development and adjustment of Students of Color (Harper & Quaye, 2009). Therefore, a needed area of future adoption scholarship is an examination of how transracial Adoptees of Color experience and (re)negotiate race and racism in college. Unfortunately, very few studies have considered the experiences of transracial adoptees in college (Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Suda & Hartlep, 2016). In one study of 12 college-graduated Korean American adoptees, Hoffman and Vallejo Peña (2013) explored how transracial adoptees lived experiences affected their ethnic identity development. Hoffman and Vallejo Peña (2013) found that many participants struggled with identity because they did not look like their parents. According to Hoffman and Vallejo Peña (2013) transracial adoptees’ inability to see themselves in their primary caregivers and family network compounded feelings of isolation and negatively heightened their racial and ethnic identity salience. Furthermore, the visually apparent nature of being transracially adopted caused some adoptees to feel forced to examine their racial identity because others pointed it out and/or emphasized it to them. Hoffman and Vallejo Peña describe transracial adoptees’ awareness of their identity as, “an omnipresent part of their daily lives” (p. 158).

14 In a more recent study, researchers found that transracially adopted Asian American college students are a “minoritized and underserved population on [college] campuses across the country in part because they are often an invisible population to their non-adopted peers and university administrators” (Suda & Hartlep, 2016, p. 55). Through a grounded theory study involving 33 college students, Suda and Hartlep (2016) found that transracial Asian American adoptee collegians wrestled with societal perceptions of them, given their phenotypic appearance as monoracially Asian conflicted with their internal identification as multi/biracial. Additionally, transracial Asian American adoptees in the study expressed struggling with racism on their college campuses, feeling like their adoptee identity was not acknowledged, and balancing two worlds while also navigating others’ perceptions of them as transracial adoptees. Suda and Hartlep (2016) contend that to meet the unique needs of transracial adoptees in higher education, student support groups and services specific to transracial adoption are needed in university and college settings. Other adoption research indicates that transracial Asian American adoptees may experience acute racial identity dissonance during their late adolescent and young adult years (Palmer, 2011). Adoptees in this age range often refer to themselves as “bananas” or “twinkies” because of their split identification; on the one hand resonating with their White adoptive families while on the other hand racially identifying with their Asian racial phenotype (Godon et al., 2014). Caught between the expectations of these two groups, transracial Asian American adoptees sometimes feel rejected by White communities because of their physical difference and simultaneously feel distanced from Asian communities because of their lack of cultural knowledge or language proficiency. This hybrid experience may indicate that transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity experiences more closely align with theoretical frameworks for biracial or multiracial identity development than monoracial Asian American racial identity models (Suda & Hartlep, 2016), which is why I review an array of Asian and multiracial identity theories in the next section of this literature review. Theories of College Student Racial Identity Higher education scholars contend that college may be a particularly formative time for racial identity development and formation (Alvarez & Yeh, 1999; Harper & Quaye, 2009). In the following section of my literature review, I review relevant theories of college student racial identity to consider how existing conceptualizations of racial identity inform and may

15 simultaneously fail to fully describe the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Racial identity, according to Helms (1990), refers to a sense of “collective identity based on one’s perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group” (p. 3). For many, college is one of the first environments in which students have access to and interactions with racially diverse others. In a recent study on racial identity salience and campus climate, Hurtado et al. (2015) found that despite living in a characterized post-racial era, race continues to be a salient identity among today’s college students. Although there is considerable variability between racial groups, Hurtado et al. (2015) identified that groups who are often the target of racism or who are underrepresented on campus (i.e., Students of Color) spend more time thinking about their race than their dominant, majority group peers (i.e., students who identify as White). In Hurtado et al.’s (2015) study, students’ pre-college socialization, specifically informal influences through friends and family, were a significant contributor to racial identity salience. Additionally, students’ collegiate curricular and co-curricular activities were strongly related to how often students thought about and reflect upon their racial identity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most strongly associated factor for college students’ racial identity salience was being subject to incidents of discrimination and bias (Hurtado et al., 2015). These findings indicate that further research is needed to understand the role of family in early-life socialization, the impact of college involvement, and the minoritization of Students of Color on college students’ racialized experiences and racial identity salience. Racial identity development. Reviewing theories of racial identity development is an essential step in researching the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptee college students. To conduct informed and substantive research, I situate this study within the relevant context of what has been previously studied related to my specific research topic (Boote & Biele, 2005). According to Alvarez (2002) “racial identity theory explicitly addresses the manner in which individuals internalize and reexamine their experiences regarding race and racism” (p. 35). Given the scope of this study, I review two racial identity development theories: Kim’s (2001) Asian American racial identity model and Renn’s (2000, 2008) patterns of multiracial identity. In addition to providing a brief overview of each theory, I also address the

16 theoretical insights and gaps still in need of exploration to understand the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Central to racial identity theory is the underlying premise that psychological well-being is enhanced by a person’s progression through increasingly mature or complex statuses of development. As such, student affairs educators often use racial identity theories to better understand how students experience and negotiate their race as part of their overall college student development (Kodama & Abreo, 2009). Inherent, however, to racial identity theory is a developmental hierarchy that privileges monoraciality and thus may be inadequate to account for or attend to the complexities of transracial identity experiences. The dearth of research on transracial adoptees’ racial identity in higher education may mean that well-intended student affairs educators–in an attempt to mindfully consider how Asian cultural values influence development–inadvertently draw inaccurate conclusions about transracial Asian American adoptees (e.g., their access to or immersion in Asian ethnic and cultural contexts). This constitutes a racial microaggression rather than developmental student affairs practice and has the potential to negatively inhibit and impact transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity development in college. Asian American racial identity development. Kim’s (2001) model of Asian American Identity Development (AAID) is the foremost theory related to Asian racial identity development referenced in student affairs (Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016; Wijeyesinghe & Jackson III, 2001). According to Kim (2001), a cultural trait unique to Asian Americans and distinctly different from White Americans is their tendency towards group orientation and relatedly, a sensitivity to the expectations of others. Based upon this assumed propensity to be more externally defined than internally focused, Kim suggests that Asian Americans’ racial identity is especially likely to be impacted by social environment. The AAID model is comprised of five sequential stages. In stage one: Ethnic Awareness, Asian Americans become aware of their ethnicity due to interactions with family. A presupposition of this stage is that the primary reference group (family in this context) is also Asian American. This is not the case for transracial Asian American adoptees, thereby complicating the AAID model’s application to the population of interest for this study from the very beginning. The second stage of the AAID model is White Identification, which is characterized by Asian Americans’ strong sense of their racial difference from their peers. This

17 generally coincides with the start of school and a change in primary social environment (different from home). Predominant racial messages in this stage convey that being different is bad, which can lead to internalized oppression as Asian Americans try to measure themselves against White societal standards and values. For transracial Asian American adoptees, this may actually be the first stage of racial identity development, as their predominant social context (even in their home environment) is based in White racial dominance given the adoptive family’s racial identification and culture. The third stage in the AAID model is Awakening to Social Political Consciousness, which involves a shift in worldview. Concurrent with a recognition of racism, Asian Americans in this stage begin to recognize that negative racial self-perceptions or racist encounters with others may stem from societal bias rather than reflect a personal shortcoming. In this stage, White people no longer serve as the aspirational reference group. This can be a moment of unique dissonance for transracial Asian American adoptees, as White people and whiteness continues to be their primary familial and social context. The fourth stage of the AAID model is Redirection to an Asian American Consciousness. Building upon stage three, this stage goes further than critiquing assumed White supremacy and cultivating a non-White identity to specifically beginning to develop an Asian American consciousness. This stage often involves immersion in Asian American communities and experiences, which then facilitate racial pride as a replacement for racial insecurity or internalized oppression. For transracial Asian American adoptees, immersion in Asian American communities may actually lead to anxiety and insecurity rather than a sense of racial pride (Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013; Suda & Hartlep, 2016). The fifth and final stage of the AAID model is Incorporation, which is characterized by confidence in one’s own Asian Americanness. A critique of Kim’s (2001) AAID model is that the stage approach suggests a linear developmental progression of racial identity. According to Accapadi (2012), it is unfair and presumptuous to assume that the sole point of entry for Asian American identity exploration is ethnic awareness. This may be especially true when considering multiracial or multiethnic Asian Americans who, due to their phenotypical presentation and home environments may feel that race or some other identity besides ethnicity is more salient. Relatedly, suggesting that racial identity development starts with ethnic awareness may not be inclusive of the racialized realities of transracial Asian American adoptees raised in White families. Another critique regarding

18 Kim’s AAID model is that it does not allow for the occupation of multiple stages at once, which may be more realistic of how racial identity is actually experienced. A third critique of Kim’s AAID model, and for that matter Helms’ (1995) People of Color Identity Model, is that the last stage suggests that once an individual has examined their racial identity they then seamlessly incorporate that identity with other social identities. Accapadi (2012) contends that this is a problematic assumption as it ignores the possibility that an individual might hold multiple oppressed identities that require simultaneous negotiation. In other words, the final stage of Kim’s AAID model oversimplifies racial identity development and considers race in an identity silo, separate from other intersecting social identities. A central tenet of Kim’s (2001) AAID model is identity conflict, which is characterized by internalized oppression, feelings of self-hatred, and beliefs about one’s own inferiority as Asian American in a White dominant society. According to Alvarez and Helms (2001), when Asian Americans identify with White people, thereby devaluing their Asian American racial identity, their levels of collective self-esteem are low. For Asian Americans to develop a healthy sense of self, they need to make the conscious decision to unlearn White racist messages about their own racial group and commit to intentionally transforming their negative racial identity into a positive one. This may be a particularly difficult undertaking for transracial Asian American adoptees as unlearning White racist messages may involve rejecting familial socialization. Multiracial identity development. Given the bicultural dynamics of transracial adoption, the monoracial conceptualization of racial identity as presented in Kim’s (2001) model may be lacking when considering the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Therefore, I now turn to literature related to biracial and multiracial identity development. Research on the racialized experiences of multiracial college students emerged in the 1990s, prior to which very little acknowledgement was given to biracial and multiracial college students (Renn, 2008). At this point in U.S. higher education, there was no system to count the number of multiracial students in college as campus demographics surveys were based upon U.S. government documents, which only allowed individuals to select one racial category until the 2000 U.S. Census (Ozaki & Renn, 2015). As such, multiracial students have long been missing in higher education research; a similar predicament to the state of transracial Asian American adoptees today who are also not accounted for in higher education.

19 To understand the racialized experiences of multiracial college students, Renn (2000) conducted a grounded theory study and examined five patterns of racial identity that emerged from her findings. In the first pattern, Renn suggests that multiracial students choose one of their heritage backgrounds with which to identify and hold as a monoracial identity. For transracial Asian American adoptees, this may be a very difficult and painful–if not impossible–decision. Choosing to identify with their Asian American racial identity may cause them to feel distant from their adoptive family, and conversely, choosing to identify with their White adoptive family would require them to reject their racialized reality. In the second pattern, Renn argues that students hold multiple monoracial identities, which they shift between. According to Renn (2008), this accounts for personal and contextual factors which may influence an individual’s racial identity. This pattern may lend itself well to understanding transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity experiences as an affinity for one’s Asian racial identity may be more salient in some contexts, and at other times, transracial Asian American adoptees may feel more connected to whiteness. The third pattern identified in Renn’s research (2008) is characterized by the emergence of a distinct multiracial identity. In this pattern, Renn observed students choosing an identity that is neither one heritage nor the other, but rather an entirely new racial category. A similar experience for transracial Asian American adoptees might be racially identifying as transracial rather than solely identifying as monoracially Asian or monoracially White. In the fourth pattern of identity, Renn (2000) asserts that multiracial students opt out of existing social constructions of race. For transracial Asian American adoptees, this pattern might represent an enactment of individual agency and resistance to the hegemonic, monoracial, White supremacist ideology embedded in racial categories. In the fifth and final pattern, Renn (2008) contends that multiracial students develop and hold situational identities, which she defines as fluid racial identities that change in different contexts. While Renn does not describe this as an explicitly poststructural pattern, the rejection of the rigidity of racial categories in favor of a more fluid conceptualization of race is aligned with a poststructural interpretation. In Renn’s research on multiracial students’ experiences in college, participants both rebuffed the rigidity of monoracial categories and created their own racial identity as an act of resistance. The creation of designated space was essential to multiracial college student racial identity development (Renn, 2000). The experience of exclusion and not fitting into monoracial

20 student groups was the catalyst for many of the participants to explore their multiracial identity. As such, Renn contends that reference groups are essential for multiracial students’ racial identity development. They do not necessarily have to share specific combinations of ethnic heritage, but rather can find commonality in the shared experience of navigating college as multiracial students. The same might be inferred about transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity experiences in college. The creation of designated space for transracial adoptees– regardless of differences in race or ethnicity–may be necessary for their racial identity development (Suda & Hartlep, 2016). A notable difference between the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees and multiracial college students is that the former may not experience the dissonant dynamic of being perceived as racially ambiguous. In other words, transracial Asian American adoptees may present as monoracial. This may mean that insecurities around racial enoughness are more likely to manifest internally rather than surface externally. This may result in transracial Asian American adoptees being externally deemed “ethnic enough” to participate in monoracial Student of Color groups, even if they are fraught with internal dissonance due to tensions between their White adoptive familial and cultural connections as contrasted with their racially Asian phenotypical presentation and racialization. Renn’s findings indicate a nonlinear and non-sequential nature of identity patterns, suggesting that no pattern of identification is more desirable than any other. A potential critique of Renn’s work may arise from educators who value students’ critical consciousness (e.g., awareness of White supremacy, monoracism, and other systems of oppression). Educators who approach college student development with a critical race lens, might thus take issue with the implied neutrality of Renn’s identity patterns. The college student racial identity development theories reviewed here (Kim, 2001; Renn, 2000, 2008) offer some insight into possible racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. However, as none of these studies explicitly included the experiences of transracial adoptees, there is need for further research to extend these findings and explore their relevance to the population of interest for this study. For example, while pre- college socialization has been found to play a substantial role in Asian American students’ racial identity development (Hurtado, Alvarado, Guillermo-Wann, 2015; Kim, 2001), what this means for transracial Asian American adoptees–that is People of Color raised in and by White adoptive families–has yet to be explored. Additionally, while some Asian American college students who

21 identify with White communities indicate lower levels of collective self-esteem (Alvarez & Helms, 2001; Kim, 2001), the implications of this for transracial Asian American adoptees–who may see themselves as culturally White given their adoptive family context–has not yet been examined. Lastly, while prior research indicates that Asian Americans may need validation from other Asian Americans to develop a positive racial identity (Alvarez & Helms, 2001; Kim, 2001), there is no indication that this finding applies to transracial Asian American adoptees. In fact, according to Hoffman and Vallejo Peña (2013), some transracial Asian American adoptees express discomfort being around other Asians due to their perception of cultural incompatibility. For all of these reasons, further research is needed to understand the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Racial identity formation. Theories of racial identity development generally have origins in educational psychology and focus on the internal and individual processes of racial identity. In contrast, theories of racial identity formation have sociological underpinnings, and thus focus more on the external social, cultural, and political factors that influence racial identity. Omi and Winant (1994) examine race as a social construct that has been rigidly defined and socially stratified throughout U.S. history. According to Omi and Winant (1994), “racial categories themselves are formed, transformed, destroyed, and reformed” (p. 12). Omi and Winant define racial formation as “the process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings” (p. 12). According to Omi and Winant (1994) how people navigate race relations is largely dependent on preconceived notions of what each racial group phenotypically looks like. This, coupled with social stereotypes about different racial groups’ behaviors and values are what informs people’s constructions and perceptions of racial dominance and subordination. Pendakur and Pendakur (2012) frame Omi and Winant’s definition of race as particularly potent because it acknowledges both the ideological aspect of race as a social construct and the very real implications of how race is enacted upon and ascribed to people’s bodies. In other words, racial formation contends that race is not biologically, physiologically, or anatomically founded and yet that race has very real social, historical, and political ramifications regarding the categorization and hierarchy of different racial groups. Central to the notion of racial formation is the idea of “race making” (Omi & Winant, 2015, p. 105), which can be understood as a

22 process of othering. Deeply rooted in social and historical realities, the construction and classification of people into racial groups has served to maintain and perpetuate hegemonic power differentials in society. The very idea that racial categories are fixed, discrete, and easily identifiable (i.e., observable through phenotypic features) is informed by a philosophy of racial essentialism. Essentialized constructions of race purport that there are innate characteristics that define people’s personality, culture, and ability (Stubblefield, 1995). According to racial essentialism, racial identities are inherited and immutable (Ho, Roberts, & Gelman, 2015). While much of how race is popularly discussed hinges on these essentialist principles, researchers have found that racial essentialism contributes to racial stereotyping, a decreased desire to empathize with diverse others, and undergirds racial category bias (Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Prentice & Miller, 2007; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). Thus, while scholars have found that racial group membership influences how people are perceived by others and how they understand themselves (Tuan & Shiao, 2011), they also express concern about the ways in which racial essentialism problematically masks in-group diversity. For example, essentialized notions of race can be used to justify racial policing, which is a form of dominance asserted by monitoring in- or out-group membership (Gosine, 2002). Racial essentialism serves as the foundation for contemporary stratification and hierarchy by racial categories. In fact, essentialist ideas are what cause people to adhere to socially constructed rendering of race; therefore, reinforcing the idea that race is a meaningful and necessary form of social organization (Hamako, 2014; Heyes, 2009). In actuality, racial essentialism is upheld by monoracism, which is defined as a system of “inequality where individuals who do not fit monoracial categories may be oppressed on systemic and interpersonal levels because of underlying assumptions and beliefs in singular, discrete racial categories” (Johnston & Nadal, 2010, p. 125). Monoracism is a tool of White supremacy that casts people who do not adhere to essentialist definitions of specific racial groups as inauthentic, untrustworthy, and ultimately deviant (Espiritu, 2001; Hamako, 2014). As such, racial essentialism serves as the scaffolding that upholds tests of racial authenticity, which are used to oppress multiracial people and monoracial individuals who challenge or defy essentialized constructions of race (i.e., transracial adoptees). Furthermore, racial essentialism as a form of

23 oppression serves to minimize and dismiss any agency exercised by racialized individuals who transgress or defy externally imposed essentialist constructions of race (Gosine, 2002). Considering racial identity formation when studying the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college may be particularly revealing to an analysis of how race has been constructed to maintain hegemony and stratification in the United States. Therefore, I now review two racial identity formation theories as additional relevant theoretical context for this study. First, I consider Accapadi’s (2012) Asian American identity consciousness model. Second, I review Museus, Vue, Nguyen, and Yeung’s (2013) Southeast Asian American identity model. I have not included any multiracial identity formation theories in this review. This is because despite multiple efforts, I was unable to locate theories of multiracial identity formation. However, one might argue that even though Renn (2000, 2008) describes her research as multiracial identity development work, given her focus on contexts and environmental factors, it could actually be considered multiracial identity formation scholarship. Regardless, like the analysis of racial identity development theories in the previous section of this literature review, I now provide a brief overview of each racial identity formation theory and address the respective theoretical insights and shortcomings when considering transracial Asian American adoptee collegians. Asian American identity consciousness. Rooted in a desire to serve Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) college students with a more critical understanding of their identities, Accapadi (2012) proposed an Asian American identity consciousness model that is informed by Critical Race theory and polyculturalism. Drawing from Critical Race Theory (Chang, 1993), Accapadi contends that APIDA students should be the primary authors of their racial identity and that the racialized experiences of APIDAs are unique and differently situated than other racially oppressed groups. Additionally, Accapadi incorporates polyculturalism in her Asian American identity consciousness model. Polyculturalism extends beyond multiculturalism, cultural celebrations, and the advocacy of diversity awareness to advocate for a critical examination of how social identities perpetuate systems of oppression and domination (Prashad, 2001). Accapadi’s (2012) conceptualization of Asian American identity consciousness is grounded in interdisciplinary scholarship (e.g., Asian American studies). As such, Accapadi seeks to acknowledge and honor the heterogeneity and intersections of Asian American identity.

24 To do so, she presents a honeycomb-shaped model (for a recreation of this model see Figure 1) that offers a different approach to the progressive building blocks structure of Kim’s (2001) Asian American racial identity development model (for a visual representation of this model see Figure 2). Accapadi’s Point of Entry (POE) model depicts identity as nonlinear and nonhierarchical and allows for different points of entry to facilitate racial identity consciousness. This fluid and dynamic approach to racial identity opens the possibility of multiple factors that may catalyze and promote racial identity formation for APIDA college students.

Figure 1. Point of Entry Model for Asian American Identity Consciousness. This figure illustrates multiple factors that might serve as points of entry for Asian American identity formation (Accapadi, 2012).

Figure 2. Asian American Identity Development Model. This figure illustrates the five distinct, sequential, and progressive stages of Asian American Identity Development (Kim, 2001).

In her POE model for Asian American identity consciousness, Accapadi (2012) outlines six different potential points of entry: ethnic attachment, familial influence, immigration history, external influences and perceptions, self as other, and other social identities. Accapadi (2012) describes ethnic attachment as an individual’s relationship to ethnic identity markers such as religion, culture, and language. While this is similar to Kim’s (2001) initial stage of ethnic awareness, Accapadi’s POE model differs in that she acknowledges that salience of ethnic identity may vary by family structure and exposure to ethnic markers. This acknowledgement creates space for the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees, who may not have access to or be immersed in their culturally expected ethnic context. A second potential point of entry in Accapadi’s (2012) POE model is self as other, which refers to the impact of one’s physical appearance on others’ perceptions of racial authenticity. Accapadi explains that many APIDAs experience phenotypical stereotyping in which they are racially typecast or held to specific racialized expectations based on how they physically present. Accapadi references White standards of beauty internalized by Asian American women, the ongoing debate about whether South Asians look “Asian-enough,” and the perceived racial ambiguity of multiracial Asian Americans as examples of the dissonance that leads to the self as other point of entry. For transracial Asian American adoptees, their racial otherness is visibly pronounced when they are in the physical company of their White adoptive families.

26 Family, and the messages APIDA students receive from their family about their racial identity, serves as another point of entry to Asian American racial consciousness. Accapadi (2012) contends that messages received about one’s identity from family can be quickly internalized. She also acknowledges that this point of entry may include a diversity of family structures ranging from that of a White family with an Asian American adoptee to a multigenerational Asian American household. This is the first explicit acknowledgement of transracial Asian American adoptees in any of the racial identity literature reviewed so far, thus making Accapadi's conceptualization of family uniquely inclusive to the family composition of the population of interest for this study. Immigration history and the legacy of how a person arrived to the United States–considering legislative, political, and social contexts–is a fourth point of entry in Accapadi’s (2012) model. Given that transracial Asian American adoptees are the largest demographic of transnational adoptees in the United States, foreign policy and immigration law may be a relevant point of entry for transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial consciousness. Constructed through a polycultural lens, this point of entry provides for consideration of the systems of oppression that have historically disadvantaged, excluded, and marginalized APIDAs in the United States. External influences such as the perceptions, treatment, and racism enacted by others against APIDAs is a fifth point of entry in Accapadi’s (2012) model. Race-related violence, White-dominant perceptions of Asians in America, and interactions with other Communities of Color can jolt individuals out of racial innocence and force them to painfully confront the false- promise of colorblindness. For transracial Asian American adoptees, this may be particularly salient when social interactions outside of the home become more common and when they realize they are racially read (and thus treated) differently than their White adoptive families. Accapadi’s (2012) sixth point of entry to Asian American identity consciousness is the experience of other social identities. Given that social identities do not exist in isolation, Accapadi advocates for the consideration of how multiple identities inform one another. For example, how race is (re)negotiated in relation to one’s gender identity, sexuality, or ability status. Accapadi’s (2012) point of entry model of Asian American identity consciousness underscores the importance of moving beyond stage models of identity development. Accapadi contends that student affairs educators must take into account complex and multidimensional

27 environmental dynamics that may inform Asian American identity processes. Accapadi’s POE model, with its identification and articulation of six different points of entry that can catalyze Asian Americans in their identity journeys, explicitly names transracial adoptees at two different points of entry (e.g., ethnic attachment and familial influence). While Accapadi’s POE model has not yet been empirically studied, this theoretical conceptualization includes a consideration of the contextual and environmental factors that may impact racial identity formation for Asian American college students. Southeast Asian American identity. Similar to Accapadi (2012), Museus et al. (2013) assert that their Southeast Asian American (SEAA) model may contribute to a necessary conversation in higher education around identity formation. As previously stated, racially aggregated research on Asian American college student populations has problematically masked the diverse needs of different ethnic, cultural, and national subgroups. Given that Southeast Asian Americans have been largely understudied in higher education, Museus et al. (2013) created the Southeast Asian American Identity Model to specifically focus on Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Mien and Vietnamese American students’ racial identity. Unique from other Asian racial identity models, Museus et al. (2013) situate their Southeast Asian American identity model within historical, social, and cultural contexts; namely, the refugee experience, socioeconomic inequalities, disparities in educational attainment, cultural adjustment issues, and racial and ethnic discrimination and prejudice. Since most Southeast Asian Americans immigrated out of necessity as refugees (Museus et al., 2013), they have experienced a range of traumatic events, and as a result, are at relatively high-risk for mental health issues. Additionally, the SEAA poverty rate is estimated to be at least two times greater than the national average (Museus, 2014). There are some important potential parallels and points of distinction when considering the relevance of the SEAA identity model to transracial adoptees. For instance, while not all transracial adoptees are refugees, some adoptions (most often transnational adoptions) are in response to war or in the aftermath of a natural disaster (i.e., adoptees from Korea, Vietnam, and Haiti). Additionally, transracial adoptees, like Southeast Asian Americans, may have to navigate cultural adjustment and endure racial/ethnic discrimination. However, transracial Asian American adoptees may not experience the same socioeconomic inequity or educational disparities as Southeast Asian American populations given their proximity to their White adoptive families.

28 The SEAA identity model emphasizes process over phase, stage, or status to convey the interconnections and interactive nature of identity experiences. Building upon the work of previous Asian American racial identity scholars, Museus et al. (2013) acknowledge the importance of both race and ethnicity, and the situational and fluid nature of identity. This may resonate with transracial Asian American adoptees, who similarly negotiate being raced as Asian in America while also acknowledging their birth country, culture, and ethnicity. The first process in the SEAA model is enculturation into one’s ethnic culture, which involves an introduction into and socialization within one’s traditional culture. This process mirrors the ethnic awareness stage of Kim’s model (2001), but differs in that it does not assume as Kim’s AAID model does that enculturation happens only early in life. The SEAA model allows for the possibility that individuals might engage in the process of enculturation at any time during their lifespan. This flexibility may better reflect the experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees than the rigidity of Kim’s AAID model. Process two in the SEAA model is acculturation to the dominant culture. Museus et al. (2013) use acculturation to refer to the process of adapting to dominant, White American cultural values, customs, and norms. This is an ongoing process of adaptation rather than a one-time occurrence necessary to the progression of identity development as previously suggested by Kim (2001). Given transracial Asian American adoptees’ upbringing in their White adoptive families, this second process may be particularly salient for adoptees’ racial identity formation. The third process of the SEAA identity model is awareness of oppression and is characterized by an increase in social and political consciousness, usually resulting from an increased exposure to or knowledge of racial and ethnic inequalities and injustice. It is unclear how this process might manifest for transracial Asian American adoptees, as their consciousness of oppression may be informed by the socialization they receive from their White adoptive families. Awakening to oppression according to the SEAA model can be a consciousness of inequity on a variety of levels, such as racial minorities, as Asian Americans, as a specific ethnic subgroup, and/or as refugees or immigrants. This awakening is generally accompanied by an increased desire and agency to combat injustice. The fourth process of the SEAA model is redirection of salience, which refers to the shifting salience of multiple identities (as a racial minority, an Asian American, an ethnic minority, a refugee). This acknowledgement of multiple identities that may change in salience

29 situationally may fit well for transracial Asian American adoptees. The fifth and final process in the SEAA model is the integration of dispositions, which differs from integration postulated by other theorists (Kim, 2001) in that Museus et al. (2013) describe this as an ongoing process rather than a final destination. This may allow for an iterative conceptualization of racial identity formation rather than a directional conceptualization of racial identity development, which may more accurately reflect the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees. While the SEAA model emphasizes identity construction as an interactive and sustained process (Museus, et al., 2013), the positioning of enculturation into one’s ethnic culture as the beginning of this process may questionably presuppose that one’s ethnic culture (as characterized by language, tradition, and so forth) is easily identified and accessible. Theoretical implications for transracial Asian American adoptees. By reviewing theories of college student racial identity development (Kim, 2001; Renn, 2000, 2008) and racial identity formation models (Accapadi, 2012, Museus et al., 2013), I endeavor to describe the theoretical landscape in which this study–and the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees–is situated (see Table 1 for a comparative analysis of the theories synthesized in this literature review).

30 Table 1 Theories of Asian American and Multiracial Identity Development and Formation

Kim (2001) Renn (2000, 2008) Accapadi (2012) Museus et al. (2013)

Model Asian American Patterns of Points of Entry for Southeast Asian Identity Situational Asian American American Development Identity Among Identity Identity Biracial and Consciousness Multiracial College Students

Paradigm Constructivist Postmodernist Critical Critical

Sample 10 Japanese 24 multiracial None, this model None, this model American women students in 1st has not been has not been born in the U.S. phase + 14 empirically empirically between the ages students in 2nd studied. studied. of 20 and 37 years phase with parents old. from more than one federal, racial, or ethnic designation.

Methodology Grounded Theory, Grounded Theory, N/A N/A & Methods in-depth, open-ended unstructured, interviews, written focused individual responses, focus interviews group

Summary of Stage model: Five patterns of Multiple factors Processes model: Findings ethnic awareness, multiracial model: ethnic enculturation to White identification: attachment, ethnic culture, identification, monoracial familial influence, acculturation to awakening to identity, multiple external dominant culture, social political monoracial influences, awareness of consciousness, identities, immigration, oppression, redirection to multiracial histories, self as redirection of Asian American identity, extra- other, other social salience, consciousness, racial identity, identities integration of incorporation situational identity dispositions

The following is a summary of the important takeaways from each theory, reviewed in the order which they were introduced. In this theoretical analysis, I reflect upon the ways in which these

31 existing college student racial identity theories relate to, depart from, and potentially inform my study on how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. First, I consider Kim’s (2001) model of Asian American racial identity development. Kim’s (2001) model centers identity conflict, which is the idea that an individual may perceive certain attributes about themselves and simultaneously reject those same attributes. An example might be an Asian American woman’s recognition that she has almond shaped eyes and simultaneously feeling ashamed or ugly for possessing this phenotypic trait. Identity conflict is a direct result of living in a racist and White supremacist society (Kim, 2001). These instances of internalized racism are byproducts of living in a context in which being Asian is equated with being different, and in which being different is equated with being inferior. For transracial Asian American adoptees identity conflict may hold unique and elevated risk as the experience of being raised in and by a White adoptive family may (consciously or unconsciously) foster a deep-seated desire to aspire to whiteness. In Kim’s (2001) AAID model, the consciousness required to develop a positive Asian American racial identity is triggered by a strong sense of otherness and being different from one’s peers. For transracial Asian American adoptees, who often grow up surrounded by family and friends who are racially different from them, their tendency towards White identification may be heightened. Kim (2001) describes an active White identification as an idealization of White people, which coincides with a minimization and rejection of seeing oneself as Asian. If as Kim (2001) asserts, “Asian Americans must acquire an awareness of White racism and develop a resistance to being subordinated if they are to move out of the White Identification stage” (p. 77), this stage of racial identity development may spark familial conflict for transracial Asian American adoptees. Additionally, given their predominantly-White context, transracial Asian American adoptees may not have access to critical race perspectives to facilitate their awareness about White hegemony, thereby interfering with racial development as described by Kim (2001). Relatedly, an underlying assumption of Kim’s (2001) AAID model is that Asian American racial identity development requires a conscious decision to unlearn racist messages about Asian Americans. How this unfolds for transracial adoptees may differ from other Asian Americans (namely those who grow up in predominantly Asian households) as adoptees’ White families may not impart critical race perspectives. To move through and past White

32 identification, Kim (2001) contends that Asian Americans must experience racial immersion in their own race group. For transracial Asian American adoptees who may be the only Asian Americans in their immediate families or local communities, this may be difficult if not impossible. An additional consideration related to the dissonance of identity conflict for transracial Asian American adoptees is the potential for Asian Americans to develop a negative reaction against White people as they cultivate their Asian American consciousness (Kim, 2001). This may be particularly difficult for transracial Asian American adoptees, as the White people they end up perceiving with a critical lens are not just strangers, but also intimate family members. According to Kim (2001), the final stage of the AAID model is incorporation, which is characterized by a confidence in one’s Asian American identity. For transracial Asian American adoptees–who may not have a frame of reference for what it means to be Asian American given their predominantly White surroundings–racial identity confidence may be a complicated goal. Future research is needed to understand how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race if educators are to better understand how this specific Asian American subgroup develops their racial identity. I now shift to consider the relevant takeaways from Renn’s (2000) research on multiracial college student identity patterns that may relate to, diverge from, and inform my study on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Renn (2008) contends that mixed-race college students can identify with more than one racial group and that they may choose how they identify situationally. This fluid conceptualization of race may lend itself well to the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees, as they, too, may more strongly resonate or identify with being Asian, transracial, or White in different social, familial, and environmental contexts. According to Renn (2000), there is no accurate way to measure the number of mixed-race college students currently enrolled in higher education. The same is true for transracial Asian American adoptees. While this may seem a minor consideration, the reality is that demographics statistics have very real policy and legal implications. Not having official numbers makes representation and advocacy for both multiracial college students and transracial Asian American adoptees in college more difficult. Renn (2000) suggests that the two major determinants in multiracial college students’ racial identity patterns are campus racial demographics and peer culture. This prompted me to consider what role these same factors played in my study. As such, I asked participants in

33 interviews about their institution type, campus racial demographics, and peer group dynamics. Renn’s research not only explores the language multiracial college students use to describe their racial identities, but also considers whether and how college environments promote or inhibit multiracial students’ racial identity development. Similarly, in my study, I not only invited transracial Asian American adoptees to racially self-identify, but also spent time in interviews with participants reflecting on how their college contexts facilitate and/or impede their racial identity experiences. Renn (2000) suggests that the prevalence of monoracial categories on many college campuses (and in society-at-large), means that communities of like-others for multiracial students are not as readily available. Given that immersion in a peer reference group can help catalyze racial identity exploration, the lack of this comparative community can be seen as a potential limitation or barrier to multiracial college students’ racial identity development. The same may be true for transracial Asian American adoptees in college and may explain why some transracial Asian American adoptees do not feel that predominantly Asian American spaces are a comfortable or relatable peer spaces (Hoffman & Vallejo Peña, 2013). Renn (2000) asserts that multiracial college students engage in racial identity development on campuses that are not setup to accommodate anything beyond previously defined monoracial categories. The same may be true for transracial Asian American adoptees, as these students must navigate their racial identity on campuses that have not been set up to support or even acknowledge their racialized experiences. One of the elements I appreciate most about Renn’s (2000) research is how she advances a reconceptualization of racial identity to situate multiracial college students’ racialized experiences as positive marginality (Daniel, 1996). Rather than deeming multiracial identity as deviant or delayed as compared with monoracial identity, Renn (2000) contends that a multiracial individual’s ability to balance, navigate, and cross racial borders is an empowered example of racial self-definition. I brought this same asset-based perspective to my research on transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences in college. In exploring the potential implications of her research for the broader field of higher education, Renn (2000) mentions that access to theory (namely postmodern theory) seems to have a strong connection to students’ possible racial identities. This reflects my research design, as I approached my

34 narrative study from a poststructural paradigm; I provide details of my research design in Chapter Three. Pivoting now to racial identity formation theories, I consider relevant takeaways from Accapadi’s (2012) Point of Entry (POE) model of Asian American identity consciousness. First and foremost, in all the literature reviewed on Asian American college student racial identity, Accapadi (2012) was the only scholar to explicitly mention Asian American adoptees raised by non-Asian parents. This indicates that Accapadi’s model considers, and thus may include and represent the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees. Accapadi (2012) offers her POE model as an alternative to stage model interpretations of racial identity development. This is refreshing and encouraging as I have previously described in detail the ways in which Kim’s (2001) stage model of Asian American racial identity development may not represent the complex racial identity formation process experienced by transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Accapadi (2012) contends that the exclusion of Asian American perspectives deepens their oppression. As such, Accapadi makes the compelling argument that any theories related to Asian American racial identity should include and represent the lived experiences and perspectives of Asian Americans themselves. This directly reflects my own philosophy on researching transracial Asian American adoptees, and is why the focus of my study is on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college as described and articulated by these students themselves. Last, but not least, I present takeaways from Museus et al. (2013) that relate to and inform my study. A notable difference in Museus et al. (2013) from all the other theories considered is that Museus et al. assert that the Southeast Asian American Identity Model may be applicable to and informative for other racial and ethnic groups. This openness of theoretical application is inspiring and similar to the impact I hope my research might have. As such, while I am hopeful the findings of this study might propel student affairs educators to think more broadly and complexly about race in college, I do not make any claims of transferability. Museus et al. (2013) contend that students can experience multiple cultural socializations. This assumption that students can engage in simultaneous processes of assimilation and identification creates space for more complex forms of identity construction. Whereas Kim (2001) suggests that Asian Americans must progress through White identification (and thus a rejection of their Asian identity), Museus et al. (2013) allow for both an exploration of White

35 identification and a maintenance and further consideration of one’s Asian identity. This both/and conceptualization presents a more complex framework for racial identity formation, and also perhaps a more accurate depiction of the multiple–sometimes simultaneous–dynamics at play in students’ actual racialized experiences. In the third process of the Southeast Asian American Identity Model, Museus et al (2013) contend that students develop an awareness of multiple oppressions. This acknowledgement of oppression as a multi-faceted system that includes and also extends beyond White supremacy and monoracism is a useful framing for oppression awareness, especially for transracial Asian American adoptees as their most salient oppression may not be as Asian Americans, but as transracial adoptees, People of Color, or other historically marginalized identities they hold (e.g., disabled, queer, and so forth). Like Renn (2000) and Accapadi (2012), Museus et al. (2013) offer a more fluid conceptualization of racial identity. Rather than confining specific processes to specific stages of development (e.g., assimilation to White identification) Museus et al. (2013) create theoretical possibilities for multiple processes to happen simultaneously and continuously throughout a person’s life. This perspective contributes to a broader lifespan approach to the study of racial identity, in which college is just one context to consider. Each theoretical model reviewed here has great potential to provide student affairs educators with insights into the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees. However, given that none of these scholars focus explicitly on transracial Asian American adoptees as a unique college student demographic, further research is needed to understand the relevance of these theories to the population of interest. This study addresses this gap in student development theory by drawing upon these existing models and centering the voices of transracial Asian American adoptees in college to better understand how they describe and make sense of their race. Racialized Experiences of Asian American College Students In research on Asian American college students, the tendency to focus on racial identity construction (Accapadi, 2012; Kim, 2001; Museus et al., 2013) has meant that there has been less research on how Asian Americans students actually cope with and respond to race and racism in college. Yet, the prevalence of Asian American studies programs; Asian student, faculty, and staff coalitions on college campuses; and the frequency of highly publicized incidents of anti-Asian violence and harassment underscore the significance of race and racism for Asian American college students today (Museus, 2014). The following is a synthesis of

36 research on the racialized experiences of Asian American college students, with particular attention to two dominant racist tropes of Asians in America: (1) the model minority myth and (2) the perpetual foreigner stereotype. Understanding race and ethnicity. Before delving into contemporary research on how Asian Americans respond to and experience race and racism in college, it is necessary to acknowledge and unpack terms that have been historically conflated and thus resulted in conceptual and empirical confusion and neglect (Alvarez, 2002). For example, the frequent interchangeable use of racial and ethnic identity has perpetuated the false notion that all Asians are the same, and as a result, has unfairly and inaccurately generalized Asian Americans as a monolithic population (Ching & Agbayani, 2012; Museus, 2014). Although the terms racial identity and ethnic identity are often used synonymously, each has been found to uniquely contribute to Asian American college students’ experiences (Iwamoto & Liu, 2010). Ethnicity refers to unique ethnic-cultural subgroups, such as Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese (Alvarez, 2002). By extension, ethnic identity is marked as the relationship one has to their cultural identity and is principally dependent on history, language, and cultural rituals and traditions (Accapadi, 2012). In contrast, racial identity acknowledges and incorporates the impact of oppression based on race and refers to the quality of a person’s identification with Asians and Asian Americans as a larger collective inclusive of all Asian ethnic subgroups. One poignant example of the potential dangers of conflating ethnicity and race can be found in Phinney’s (1990) research around the importance of identity formation during adolescence. Phinney, a developmental psychologist, writes about what she terms “ethnic identity search and commitment among college students” (1990, p. 173). However, while Phinney asserts that the study is an examination of ethnic identity, the categories from which participants could choose on a quantitative questionnaire were all racial identities (e.g., Asian, Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and White), which mask ethnic intra-racial heterogeneity. The term Asian American is commonly used to describe a diverse group of communities that represent different immigration histories, religious identities, languages, phenotypical features, and cultural practices (Accapadi, 2012). According to Kuo (2001), the term Asian American was “developed to represent the commonalities shared by various ethnic groups and helped bridge people’s common experiences of difference and exclusion” (p. 3). According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2010, there were more than 14.7 million Asians in the

37 United States. In part because of the ethnic and cultural diversity within the composite Asian American, the community is commonly disaggregated into four subcategories: (1) East Asian, which includes people of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese descent, (2) Southeast Asian, which includes people from Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, (3) South Asian, which includes people of Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Sri Lankan, Pakistani and Indian descent, and (4) Pacific Islander, which includes people of Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan, Guamanian, and Fijian descent (Accapadi, 2012). Research on Asian American college students. Even though Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States (Ching & Agbayani, 2012), they are grossly underrepresented in higher education research (Museus, 2009; Museus & Kiang, 2009). A recent study of five of the most widely read peer-reviewed academic journals in the field of higher education revealed that less than one percent of articles published specifically focused on Asian American or Pacific Islander college students over the past ten years (Museus, 2009). Of the limited research that exists on Asian American college students, the majority is reported in the aggregate, which problematically masks the ethnic, generation and immigration, socioeconomic, and linguistic heterogeneity within the Asian American community (Alvarez, 2002; Museus et al., 2013). Additionally, much of the existing research on Asian American college students has privileged and centered East Asian communities (Accapadi, 2012). The general lack of consideration and subsequent underrepresentation and erasure of Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander communities in research means that many services and programs in higher education aimed at serving Asian Americans broadly may misrepresent and dangerously oversimplify the experiences of non-East Asian Americans in higher education (Museus, 2014). This is in large part why there is a growing call among researchers to conduct community- specific studies and focus research on bringing to light the complexities and heterogeneity within the Asian American community (Accapadi, 2012). Asian Americanists hope that community- specific research will enable student affairs educators to acknowledge and better serve the diversity within Asian American college populations present in higher education institutions. Rooted in the need to better account for the heterogeneity within Asian Americans, scholars have long called for the disaggregation of data on Asian American college students (Ching & Agbayani, 2012; Museus & Kiang, 2009). However, focusing solely on distinct

38 subgroups (e.g., Korean Americans) has the potential to diminish the shared history and reality of racial oppression experienced by all Asian Americans (Pendakur & Pendakur, 2012). This tension of whether to center race or ethnicity as more salient is felt not only by researchers, but also among Asian American college students themselves. In a 2009 study, Kodama and Abreo found that Asian American college students are split on their preference to identify according to a Pan-Asian label versus a specific ethnic group. This study is situated in the crux of this tension and simultaneously calls for disaggregating data by examining transracial Asian American adoptees as a specific subgroup within Asian American college students, while also prioritizing racial panethnic identity by studying how these students experience and react to racism in college. This research approach is described as strategic (anti)essentialism (Museus, 2014). Focusing on the ways that transracial Asian American adoptees experience racism is not meant to minimize the existence of ethnic or cultural diversity within the community. Rather, centering Asian racial identity formation across ethnic groups is a way to address the impact of White supremacist and monoracial forces on the (de)construction of what it means to be Asian in America for transracial adoptees. By examining race instead of ethnicity, scholars can study how Asian Americans understand themselves, informed by how they are racially perceived and treated by others (Kim, 2001). A tragic, but notable, example of the racialized realities that transcend ethnic categories is the historic murder of Chinese American Vincent Chin (Pendakur & Pendakur, 2012). In 1982, 27-year-old Vincent Chin was brutally beaten to death in Detroit, Michigan. His attackers were two White autoworkers who blamed the Japanese for the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Chin’s murder is just one example of the countless times that Asian Americans have been racially stereotyped and presumed to all look the same, and thus deserving of the same treatment, regardless of differences in ethnic identity. Navigating racial stereotypes. Two of the most common racialized stereotypes of Asians in America are the model minority myth and perpetual foreigner stereotype. Both popularized tropes are highly problematic and have unique implications for college students broadly (Pendakur & Pendakur, 2012) and transracial Asian American adoptees specifically. (De)constructing the model minority. The model minority myth is the generalized stereotype that all Asian Americans achieve unparalleled and universal academic and professional success (Museus & Kiang, 2009). Despite the common perception that this is a

39 harmless or even positive stereotype, the model minority myth has been linked to negative social and individual consequences for Asian American college students (Pendakur & Pendakur, 2012; Museus, 2014). For instance, there is evidence that Asian Americans experience heightened pressure to conform to this unrealistic stereotype, and that this pressure can negatively impact and impede Asian American college students’ learning (Museus & Kiang, 2009). According to Museus and Kiang (2009), the model minority myth is associated with five key misconceptions about Asian Americans in higher education: (1) all Asian Americans are the same, (2) Asian Americans are not real racial/ethnic minorities, (3) Asian Americans do not encounter major challenges (or racism) because of their race, (4) Asian Americans do not seek or require resources of support, and (5) college degree completion is equivalent to success. While literature on the pervasiveness and problematic nature of the model minority myth dates back decades (Alvarez, 2002; Chang, 1993), this racial stereotype continues to be a persistent contextual consideration in contemporary Asian American research. The model minority myth has particular implications for transracial Asian American adoptees. The pervasive positioning of Asian Americans as the ideal or model racially minoritized group has likely impacted, be it consciously or subconsciously, the placement of Asian transracial adoptees in the United States (Dorow, 2006; Tuan & Shiao, 2011). For instance, the cultural prevalence of the model minority myth may have manifested itself through adoption social workers’ tendency to advocate for the placement of Asian children into White adoptive families with greater frequency than other transracial adoptions, citing Asians as more prone to easy or successful assimilation than other racial minorities (Dorow, 2006). In other words, the model minority myth has undergirded a racial preference for Asian children over other Children of Color in transracial, transnational adoption (Dorow, 2006). Relatedly, transracial Asian American adoptees have been referred to as the model, model minority (Park Nelson, 2016) as they represent the most assimilated and culturally compliant version of Asians in America. This problematically plays into the racial triangulation (Kim, 1999) of Asian Americans in the Black/White binary that dominates U.S. racial rhetoric. (De)coding the perpetual foreigner. Another problematic stereotype and hegemonic trope of Asians in America is that they are, regardless of immigration or generational status, eternally un-American (Pendakur & Pendakur, 2012; Museus, 2014). The perception that Asians are always foreign “others” has the effect of literally erasing Asian American history in the

40 United States. The positioning of Asians as inherently and perpetually un-American has had violent and long-term negative repercussions for Asian Americans. For example, the perpetual foreigner stereotype contributed to the national acceptance and advocacy for the forced relocation and imprisonment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps during World War II (Zia, 2000). Given that U.S. national identity is often implicitly connected to whiteness, the development of a positive Asian American identity amid White hegemonic and monoracist stereotypes can be particularly challenging. It is perhaps not surprising then, that Asian American college students seeking to understand their racial identity describe feelings of insecurity, such as being “White-washed” or “too American” (Kuo, 2001, p. 18). Kuo describes this predicament as the tendency to “dichotomize the Asian and American selves” (p. 13) noting that these students may perceive the two cultures–White and Asian–as distinct entities, with mutually exclusive values and beliefs. The perpetual foreigner stereotype has particular implications for transracial adoptees. For instance, the anti-Asian racially microaggressive question of Where are you from? may be uniquely triggering for transracial Asian American adoptees who do not know their birth or origin story. Additionally, the perpetual foreigner stereotype means that there is a constant social skepticism around belonging, which can already be a sensitive issue for transracial Asian American adoptees who may have deeply held insecurities around abandonment and sense of place given their first/birth family relinquishment. Summary of Literature Review In this chapter, I reviewed evidence from adoption studies, Asian American studies, and college student racial identity literature that elucidates the invisibility of transracial Asian American adoptee collegians in describing their own racialized experiences. I contend that while Asian Americans are broadly and stereotypically perceived as model minorities and perpetual foreigners, these racist tropes have unique implications for transracial Asian American adoptee college students. To better understand how transracial Asian American adoptees experience, (re)define, and (de)construct their racial identity in college, I now present the research design used for this study.

41 Chapter Three: Methodology and Methods

This study was an in-depth exploration of the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Given that the aim of this inquiry was to better understand how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college, I conducted a qualitative study. This chapter includes a discussion of my paradigmatic perspective (Postructuralism), an overview of my theoretical perspective (Border Theory), a reflexive statement on my researcher positionality, a description of my methodology (narrative inquiry), an account of my methods for data collection and analysis (participant interviews and Thinking with Theory), and efforts I made regarding ethics and trustworthiness. Paradigm To explore how transracial Asian American adoptees in college describe and make sense of their race, I grounded this study in a poststructural paradigm. Due to its very nature– challenging assumptions of Truth–poststructuralism can be somewhat difficult to define. According to Lather (2007), poststructural theories explore how power, invisibly and overtly, constructs and shapes reality and language. As an extension of structuralism, poststructuralism challenges the structuralist claim that reality is knowable (Bolton, 2012), and rejects the idea of grand narratives (Tierney & Rhoades, 1993). Instead, poststructural scholars view assertions of universal Truth with skepticism, and characterize such declarations as acts to claim or preserve power. Poststructural scholars attend to questions of how power influences reality by examining the socially constructed nature of discourse, that is, how and with what language people make meaning of their lived experiences (Kim, 2016). Poststructuralists view identity as fluid, contextual, and constantly (re)negotiated (Kouhpaeenejad & Gholaminejad, 2014). How people perceive themselves and others is largely determined, defined, and limited by language and the power imbedded in language (Kim, 2016). For example, what it means to be racially Asian is subjective and dependent on how one views herself and is viewed by others. In framing this study through a poststructural paradigm, I question the perceived stability of language as it is used to socially construct the concept of race as it is experienced and described by transracial Asian American adoptees in college. My decision to ground this study in poststructuralism was informed by several reasons. First, in thinking about my own racial identity, I realized that critical race theoretical framing (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2009) had led, at least in part, to some of the

42 deficit-based characterizations I previously held of myself and my racial identity. For example, in reading about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and AsianCrit (Chang, 1993; Museus & Iftikar, 2013), I found myself comparing my experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee to the descriptions of how racism impacts People of Color and Asian Americans in particular. I felt shame and frustration that my racialization was so different, when compared with CRT definitions of racial categories and experiences. Additionally, my upbringing–steeped in whiteness–seemed to position my existence as a physical embodiment of interest convergence (Bell, 1980). This left me feeling complicit in White supremacy, even though I did not consent to my transracial adoption. My experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee did not neatly fit within the dichotomous characterization of “who is White or, perhaps more pointedly, who is not White” (Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 18). Thus, in searching for other ways of conceptualizing and defining race that felt more congruent with my racialized experience, I gravitated toward a poststructural perspective. Second, in developing my dissertation proposal, I shared the premise of my study with a handful of transracial Asian American adoptees. These friends and colleagues expressed a resounding resonance with a poststructural approach. Most vividly, I had a conversation with a recent college graduate and former advisee who explained that rigid conceptualizations of racial identity did not reflect her experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee. She felt strongly drawn to a poststructural rendering of race as such a perspective allowed for more fluidity and nuance regarding her racial identity and race categories more broadly. Relatedly, my third reason for advancing this project within a poststructural paradigm is the assertion that theory has the potential to heal and liberate (Jones & Stewart, 2016). This is the purpose of my research. By approaching this study with a poststructural paradigm, I contend that race as a socially constructed identity is not pre-existing or biological, but rather a performance of discursive practices. As Mirón and Inda (2000) describe, race is an ideological term that exists in culture and which “works performatively to constitute the racial subject” (p. 99). As such, rather than focusing on how transracial Asian American adoptees do or do not adhere to existing conceptualizations of race, which are steeped in monoracism and White supremacy (Johnston & Nadal, 2010), my study sought to explore the ways in which power comes into play (explicitly and implicitly) in how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their

43 race in college with the goal of identifying healing and liberatory understandings of racial identity. Contemporary higher education and student affairs researchers underuse poststructuralism in identity-based scholarship (Denton, 2016). Most research on college student identity is firmly rooted in developmental and constructivist perspectives. Poststructural scholars undertake research that distinguishes between how people socially position themselves and how others perceive them; ultimately interrogating what characteristics (ascribed and/or avowed) constitute identity. Relatedly, poststructural theories account for historical, cultural, and social forces that inform and influence how identity is understood (Abes, 2007; Abes & Kasch, 2007). Poststructural theorists challenge any notion of an enduring or essentialized identity, instead examining the ways people enact or perform identity. In preparing for this research project, I consulted a handful of poststructural approaches to higher education and student affairs research (Abes, 2007, 2009; Abes & Kasch, 2007; Denton, 2016; Narui, 2011); all of which provided poststructural analyses of college students’ experiences with minoritized sexual identities. Familiarizing myself with existing poststructural scholarship related to college student identity was helpful as I conceptualized how my paradigm might shape and inform my research study. In reviewing poststructural student affairs literature, I came across one example of a poststructural perspective on racial identity in higher education. In 2017, Johnson and Quaye authored a conceptual piece on queering Black racial identity development. Reading their work affirmed my poststructural inclinations, especially regarding the fluidity of racial identity, and emboldened me to pursue my dissertation research through a poststructural paradigm. Theoretical Perspective With poststructuralism as my paradigm, I employed Border Theory as my theoretical perspective. Grounded in Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Border Theory emphasizes ambiguity, liminality, and a differential consciousness that arises from a sense of (un)belonging and (mis)fitting in historical, social, and spatial contexts. In the opening pages of Borderlands, Anzaldúa writes that “[b]orders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them” (p. 25; italics in original text). As a transracial Asian American adoptee, I have long battled with the rigidity of borders. For most of my conscious life, I have struggled with what it means to exist culturally as part of us (my White

44 adoptive family) and racially as part of them (Asians in America). This duality of identities has been a source of both distinguishment and depression as I have found this positioning to be both a strength and a space of isolation. In a similar vein, Anzaldúa writes of her experiences as a queer, Chicana, feminist reflecting on how her location ‘in-between’ informs her conceptualization of Border Theory. I have been straddling that tejas-Mexican border, and others, all my life. It is not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape. However, there have also been compensations for this mestiza, and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element… (Preface, para. 3). According to Anzaldúa, those who cannot or do not fit within established categories of us and them (e.g., male/female; White/People of Color; American/foreigner) are deemed different or defective. In this way, Anzaldúa wrote Borderlands as a process of resistance and an active struggle towards her own and other marginalized and oppressed people’s decolonization and liberation. Similarly, I endeavored that this research project served as a process of resistance and movement toward liberation and healing for myself and other transracial Asian American adoptees. While Anzaldúa wrote Borderlands with the specific US-Mexico national border in mind, the ideological underpinnings of Border Theory have influenced many academic fields over the years, including ethnic studies, cultural studies, women’s studies, and queer theory (Orozco- Mendoza, 2008). Anzaldúa (1987) explains that “a borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (p. 25). In La Frontera, Anzaldúa asserts that borderland experiences resound beyond a physical location or geographic borders. Instead, borderlands are a shared experience of emotional otherness. In an interview with AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldúa describes Border Theory as “a metaphor for process of many things, psychological, physical, and mental. A metaphor that does not apply specifically to one thing but can be applied to many things” (Anzaldúa & Keating, 2000). The borderland of interest for this study was that which was produced by the positioning of transracial Asian American adoptees as not fully White and simultaneously not authentically Asian. Through this application of Border Theory, I examined the unique positionality and racial

45 identity of transracial Asian American adoptees. By studying how transracial Asian American adoptees describe their racial border location and identity, I was able to better understand how they experience and make sense of their race in college. Finally, by studying the discourses–the language and ways of thinking–transracial Asian American adoptees use as they construct their racial identity in college, I extended (and contested) the socially (re)produced hierarchy and rigidity of essentialized racial categories in the United States. Researcher Positionality The role of the researcher is an essential consideration in qualitative inquiry (Jones, Torres, & Arminio, 2014). In qualitative research, “it is the role of the researcher to bring understanding, interpretation, and meaning to mere description” (Lichtman, 2006, p. 9). As the architect of this research project, who I am and what I believe serve as the scaffolding for my research design. Every aspect of this study, from how I crafted the guiding research questions to how I conducted sampling, collected data, analyzed data, and then wrote up those data was influenced by my worldview and experiences. As such, it is necessary that I make explicit the experiences and perspectives that inform how I approached this research project. The following is my effort to make plain my positionality regarding this study. As outlined in the previous section, I situated this study in a poststructural paradigm. According to Sullivan (2003), poststructural theories question the idea of objectivity and argue that there are no universal truths. Instead, poststructuralism contends that knowledge is crafted and adapted in ways that are culturally, historically, and systematically reproduced. In this worldview, research is never truly objective or impartial; rather objectivity is a fallacy of empiricism and empiricism is a euphemism for rationality, which is rooted in dominant ways of knowing (i.e., patriarchal, masculine, White ways of knowing). Power, privilege, and oppression shape all human interactions and self-understandings including that which is purported as scholarship. As a transracial Asian American adoptee and as a college student educator, I have multiple vested interests in bringing to light how transracial Asian American adoptees experience their race in college. While some critics might suggest that my in-group positionality as a transracial Asian American adoptee serves as a shortcoming or potential limitation for this study, I believe that my in-group status served as an essential asset to effectively building rapport with research participants.

46 I was born in Seoul, South Korea on April 15, 1985. While the details of my relinquishment are unclear, I was cared for by a Korean foster mother for the first three-and-a- half months of my life. As an adoptee in the mid-1980s, I was one of many proxy-adoptions of that time, meaning that I traveled by commercial airline to my adoptive parents, rather than the common practice today in which adoptive families travel to birth/first/sending countries to retrieve their adopted child(ren). On August 14, 1985, just one day shy of turning 4-months-old, I arrived at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport and I met my adoptive parents for the first time. Many extended family members accompanied my parents, all eagerly awaiting my arrival at the airport terminal gate. Given that my parents present as racially White and that I am read as racially Asian, it was never a secret or a surprise that I was adopted. My adoption was racially visible and thus always socially apparent. For much of my childhood, I identified as a Korean American adoptee. My affinity for an ethnic (e.g., Korean) identity over a racial (e.g., Asian) identity was in large part because my parents raised me within a colorblind ideology. To combat any emotional disconnection or exclusion I might feel as an adoptee, my parents minimized my racial difference. While this was certainly rooted in the best of intentions, an unforeseen and unfortunate byproduct was that this racial avoidance led to a culture of silence around race and racism in our family. Without context or access to language about race and racism, my Asianness was not a salient part of my identity. Not until my own college experience did I began to really wrestle with race and discover my own racial identity. College was the first time I was physically separate from my adoptive parents, as I lived on campus. In social interactions at college, I quickly realized that I could pass for Asian American, rather than be identified as a transracial Asian American adoptee. This coincided with the opportunity to become involved with different student organizations, including the Korean Student Association and Asian American Student Union. Having grown up in a predominantly White suburban community, college was also the first time I encountered a critical mass of People of Color. This exposure, coupled with some of my academic experiences in sociology and anthropology classes, facilitated my initial exploration of my racial identity. Upon graduating from college, I continued my studies to pursue my master’s in counseling and college student personnel. During my master’s program, I finally had access to language to describe my racialized experience. Phrases like “internalized oppression” and

47 “racial microaggressions” enabled me to begin talking about and reflecting upon my experiences with race and racism unlike I had ever previously been able to do. Around this same time, I began to develop my professional identity and found kinship and a sense of professional home in a national Asian Pacific American student affairs network. This community welcomed me as a transracial adoptee without questioning my racial legitimacy or authenticity. During my master’s program, I also experienced same-race mentorship for the first time. This was a pivotal experience for me. At the encouragement and with the support of Dr. Dan Balón, my first Asian American teacher and mentor, I began to more intentionally explore and express my racialized experience as an Asian American Person of Color raised in and by a White adoptive family. My own racialization process–in large part nurtured by Dan’s support–greatly informed my desire to work with college Students of Color to help facilitate and mentor them in their own racial identity journeys. While I felt emboldened by the language and community I discovered in graduate school, I also wondered what my college experience might have been like had I had some of these critical incidents and encounters earlier in my education. As I began working in student affairs, I found that while I held professional positions charged with serving Students of Color broadly, Asian-identified students in particular would often seek me out. Knowing how important Dan had been to my racialization, it did not surprise me that for many of the Asian American students who came knocking on my office door, I was the first Asian American higher education professional they had ever met. Much of my work in higher education centered around racial identity and college students’ experiences with race and racism. As such, I often found myself facilitating dialogues about diversity or speaking at racial justice retreats. During these programs, I would regularly share aspects of my own racial identity journey to demonstrate the importance of vulnerability and self-reflection when engaging in conversations about race (Ashlee & Ashlee, 2016). Through this story sharing, I began to attract the attention of other transracial adoptees, specifically other transracial Asian American adoptees. In the ten years since I entered the field of student affairs, I have guided undergraduate and master’s level research projects related to transracial adoption, consulted with adoptee college student organizations, mentored countless transracial Asian American adoptee collegians, and presented nationally on issues related to transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences. Through these relationships and experiences, I have informally begun to explore various aspects of college students’ adoptee

48 identity processes including birth/first family searching, responding to racism and racial microaggressions, interracial dating, and navigating imposter feelings and insecurities around racial authenticity. I have also written (Ashlee & Ashlee, 2016) and spoken about race and racism in transracial adoption with adoptive parents, in adoption scholar communities, and with other adult transracial adoptees. Much of this work has been with a critical lens, raising awareness about the realities of racism and the shortcomings and dangers of raising Children of Color with colorblind parenting philosophies. I have also worked with adoption nonprofits and adoptive parent learning communities to talk about the trauma and loss inherent in birth/first family relinquishment and subsequent insecurities around sense-of-belonging in transracial adoptions. While I do not have a clear resolution for the complicated array of social issues embedded in transracial adoption, I believe more research, writing, reflection, and advocacy is needed to adequately support transracial adoptees in their racial identity formation. As I think back to my own adoptive experience and racial identity journey, for much of my life I was dependent upon the words and perspectives of others (e.g., my adoptive family, the adoption agency, and other adult adoptees) to make sense of and describe my racialized experience. This resulted in me often feeling frustrated, at a loss for how to articulate my racial identity experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee. This sense of loss, of not having the language to describe my own identity journey, led me to design this study with the goal of centering transracial Asian American adoptees’ voices. Through this study, I provided a platform for transracial Asian American adoptees to author their own stories, putting words to their racialized experiences and racial identity formation. Methodology I employed narrative inquiry as my methodology for this study. An interdisciplinary form of qualitative research, narrative inquiry is used “to understand multidimensional meanings of society, culture, human actions, and life” (Kim, 2016, p. 6) by engaging participants in the process of storytelling. I was drawn to narrative inquiry for its approachability and the value the methodology places on people’s everyday stories. Narrative inquiry is embraced by poststructural scholars, such as Lyotard and Foucault, for demonstrating the importance of situated and personal ways of knowing (Kim, 2016). Through narrative inquiry, individuals are viewed as the authors of their own lives (Holquist, 2011). This understanding of knowledge is

49 congruent with the purpose of my study, which is to explore how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. Clandinin and Connelly (1990) first introduced narrative inquiry to the field of education by publishing an article about the methodology to explore ideas central to educational experiences, such as studying personal and social identities. According to Clandinin and Connelly (1990), “narrative inquiry … is first and foremost a way of thinking about experience” (p. 477). Through narrative inquiry, educational researchers can interrogate the assumed normalcy of dominant meta-stories, instead striving to better understand the lived experiences of individuals and specific groups within educational settings. The stories collected and analyzed through narrative inquiry enable researchers to explore and understand life, experience, and education, which is congruent with this research project. Methods True to Lichtman’s (2006) writing that “qualitative research is thought to be fluid and ever-changing” (p. 9), the research design for this study changed considerably from what I initially proposed. While I conducted a literature review prior to data collection, which was essential to the development of the research questions that guided the study, the methods I intended to employ to pursue those questions changed after my comprehensive examination defense. I originally proposed collecting data through a two-phase interview plan, followed by a focus group experience. However, upon receiving feedback from my dissertation committee to focus my study, I set up a meeting with a peer-debriefer to discuss my data collection plan in greater detail and get input from someone with unique insight into the population of interest. The peer-debriefer identified as a transracial Asian American adoptee and first-year master’s student in a Student Affairs in Higher Education graduate program. As both an adoptee and a student affairs educator with an expressed interest in advancing scholarship and practice to better serve transracial Asian American adoptee collegians, I was grateful for the peer- debriefer’s understanding of the research questions and in-group positionality. Together, we had a thoughtful conversation about my proposed methods for and scope of the study. With the help and generous feedback from the peer-debriefer, I concluded that my data collection plan was (1) too ambitious for a single research project and (2) not necessary to answer the stated research questions. I also realized that my rationale for including the focus group component of the study

50 was primarily due to my interest in facilitating community for transracial Asian American adoptees in college. The peer-debriefer helped me see that while creating community for this demographic is something I value and endeavor to promote in student affairs, it is a separate interest from the stated purpose of this research project, which is to examine how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. Therefore, I revised my data collection plan and issued a memo outlining the changes to my dissertation committee (see Appendix A). What follows is a review of the revised methods used in this study, including my approach to participant selection, data collection, and data analysis. I conclude the chapter with a review of ethical considerations for the study and efforts I made throughout the design to increase trustworthiness. Participant selection. To identify participants for this study, I used purposeful sampling, a participant selection technique widely used in qualitative research (Patton, 2002). Purposeful sampling involves selecting participants who are uniquely knowledgeable about or experienced with the phenomenon under study. Criterion sampling is a specific type of purposeful sampling in which individuals are selected because they meet a pre-articulated set of criteria that makes them uniquely situated as information-rich participants (Patton, 2002). For inclusion in this study, participants had to be: 1. A currently enrolled (part- or full-time) as an undergraduate college student 2. At least 18-years-old 3. An adoptee of Asian descent 4. Adopted by and raised in a White American family I elected not to specify ethnic identity or country of origin as selection criteria for this study as I was most interested in how transracial Asian American adoptees–regardless of their ethnic heritage or birth country–understood and experienced their racial identity in college. I specified that participants must be adopted by and raised in White American families, because I anticipated the racial makeup and national identity of participants’ adoptive families would impact racial socialization, and I was most interested in understanding how transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity is impacted by their proximity to whiteness in a U.S. context. I asked each prospective study participant to complete a brief intake form (see Appendix B). This form collected basic demographic information and asked potential participants to describe

51 their racial identity and explain to what extent (if any) their adoptee identity impacts how they think about their race. To identify individuals who met the criteria for this study, I distributed a national call for participants (see Appendix C). I utilized existing relationships with Asian American adoptee communities and higher education and student affairs professional networks to circulate an invitation via word-of-mouth and through social media. I posted to a Facebook Group called Transracial Adoptees in Higher Education Collective, which I created in spring 2016 independent of this study. I originally created the Facebook Group as a place for transracial adoptees in higher education to be in community together to share experiences, strategies, and research to support one another and adoptee collegians. At the time, I sent out my call for dissertation participants, the Facebook Group included over 100 members, and thus, was instrumental in helping me distribute the call widely. Given my previous work with transracial Asian American adoptees in college (e.g., personal advising as well as speaking and consulting on the topic at various college campuses), I also employed snowball sampling and invited past Asian American adoption-related contacts to help identify potential research participants. I received 21 participant intake forms within four days of distributing the call for participants. Of the 21 intake forms I received, 19 potential participants met all the study criteria. I provided all eligible participants with core information about the study (e.g., purpose of the study, duration, methods of data collection, anticipated risks and benefits associated with participation) so that they could make an informed decision about their participation (Kim, 2016). Additionally, I informed participants that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. While I was not strictly tied to a specific number of participants, I anticipated selecting participants in the order that they expressed interest and based upon their scheduling availability. According to Kim (2016), determining the sample size for qualitative research projects should depend primarily on the quality of data rather than a specific number of participants. As my study focused on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college, I selected participants who represented a range of diverse identities and experiences (e.g., year in school, geographic region, gender identity, sexuality). To be clear, the goal of having a diverse array of experiences and demographics represented in the study sample was not to purport representation for all others who share a given identity (e.g., transracial Asian

52 American adoptees) as this can lead to tokenization (Jones et al., 2014). Instead, I sought a diverse group of transracial Asian American adoptees as study participants to help illuminate the array of racialized experiences and nuances within-group. I exchanged a series of emails regarding scheduling for interviews with all eligible participants. Ultimately, based on their availability, 12 participants took part in the study. I present detailed narratives for each participant in the following chapter and have included a brief overview of participants in Table 2.

53 Table 2 Overview of Study Participants

Pseudonym Race Birth Country State Where Year in School Other Social Grew Up Identities

Athena Chinese- China Pennsylvania Sophomore Female, Middle American Class, Jewish, Straight

Chris Transracial Vietnam California Senior Cisgender Male, Vietnamese Middle Class, Adoptee Christian, Queer

DS Chinese China New Senior Non-binary, (Asian) Jersey/Arizo Lower Class, na Atheist/Agnostic, Homosexual-ish

Emma Asian China Ohio Sophomore Female, Middle Class, Roman Catholic, Straight

Hannah Asian/Asian China New Jersey 5th Year Female, Upper American Middle Class, Agnostic, Heterosexual

Jessie Chinese China Connecticut Freshman Female, Middle American Class, Atheist, Heterosexual

Karen Chinese China Ohio Senior Female, Lower- Middle Class, Spiritual Straight

Kyra Chinese China California Senior Female, Upper Middle Class, Atheist, Asexual

Mai Kazakh Kazakhstan Ohio Junior Female, Upper Middle Class, Straight

Mia Chinese China Delaware Sophomore Female, Upper American Middle Class, Adoptee Atheist,

54 Heterosexual

Sarah Asian Korea Minnesota 3rd Year Female, Upper- American Middle Class, Bisexual

Veliqe Asian or China Ohio 2nd Year Female, Middle Chinese Class, Agnostic, Heterosexual

This table includes participants in alphabetical order by their self-selected pseudonym and includes how they self-identified on their participant intake form racially, by birth country, state where they grew up, year in school, and other salient social identities (i.e., gender, social class, religion, sexual orientation). Data collection. The primary source of data collection for this study were individual, semi-structured interviews. Aligned with narrative inquiry, these interviews were conversational in nature and aimed to provide participants with the opportunity to tell in-depth stories of how they experienced their race in college (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). I conducted two interviews with each participant. These narrative interviews were semi-structured (Patton, 2002), meaning that I prepared initial questions to help prompt participants’ exploration and narrative telling of their racialized experiences. In the first interview, I asked participants to talk about their racialized experiences as transracial Asian American adoptees broadly. Most participants started by sharing their relinquishment stories and recalling what it was like growing up in their White adoptive families (see Appendix D for interview protocol). The focus of the second interview was more explicitly about participants’ racialized experiences in college. To gain clarity and probe further into how participants described and made sense of their race, I engaged in more in- depth questioning in the second-round interviews (see Appendix E for interview protocol). To build rapport with study participants, I started each first-round interview by expressing my gratitude for their willingness to share their stories. I reminded them that I, too, identified as a transracial Asian American adoptee. I explained that while I anticipated there may be similarities in our experiences, I was also eager to hear about the ways in which their experiences may be different from my own. I reviewed my commitment to maintaining their confidentiality (e.g., reviewing the informed consent form, see Appendix F for human participants informed consent form). I also provided a brief re-introduction of the study’s

55 purpose, emphasizing that there was no right or wrong answer, but rather that I was simply looking to learn from them and their experience. After the first-round interviews, I offered to answer any questions the participants might have about me or the research study. I also explained next steps in the research process (e.g., transcription of our interview, soliciting feedback from them on the transcriptions, and scheduling the second interview). Lastly, I offered a detailed list of online resources, films, and books for those who were interested in learning more about transracial Asian American adoption (see Appendix G). Before starting second-round interviews, I had first-round interviews professionally transcribed. I then carefully reviewed each transcript, while simultaneously listening to the original interview audio file, to ensure accuracy of speaker attribution. In listening to the first- round interviews, I observed that some of my open-ended, semi-structured interview questions seemed to result in participants talking about what they thought more than recalling stories of what they experienced. Therefore, I made some adjustments to my second interview protocol. In the hopes of soliciting more stories, I reframed interview questions to be more experience- based. Also, because I wanted to probe further into how participants were describing and making sense of their race, I added additional follow-up questions making the second interview protocol a bit more detailed and structured than the first interview protocol. I conducted all second-round interviews within one to two months after each participant’s first-round interview, depending on their availability. At the start of each second-round interview, I welcomed participants back to the study and thanked them for their continued involvement in the research project. I reminded participants about my commitment to their confidentiality and explained that there would be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the interview. After second-round interviews, I answered participants’ questions, most of which were about the timeline of my dissertation. A handful of participants also asked about initial themes or commonalities I noticed between participants’ narratives. They were curious to hear what, if anything, had resounded across what they shared and what other participants spoke about during their interviews. After responding to participants’ questions, I explained that in the coming months I would draft a summary of our interview conversations. The summary would be unique to each participant and include aspects of their two interviews that stood out to me as the researcher. I explained that I planned to also share preliminary observations across narratives. The invitation to participants was to provide feedback and additional insight on both documents

56 if they wished. I wrapped up the second-round interviews by reminding participants about the resource list I had previously provided and thanking them again for their time and stories. I conducted all participant interviews between early March 2018 and mid-May 2018. The length of each interview varied, depending on how much each participant had to share. All interviews were between 30-90 minutes. Since participants were from colleges and universities across the country, I conducted most interviews by video, or when the internet connection was unreliable, by telephone. Due to geographic proximity and participant preference, I conducted interviews with four participants in person. I audio recorded all interviews and had the audio files professionally transcribed. I saved all audio files and transcription documents under participant-selected pseudonyms and saved on a password protected Dropbox account. To increase trustworthiness of the data collected, I engaged in a couple of different processes to garner participant feedback. I explain these efforts in greater depth in the trustworthiness section of this chapter. Data analysis. According to Lichtman (2006), “in qualitative research the process moves back and forth between data gathering/collection and data analysis rather than in a linear fashion from data collection to data analysis” (p. 14). Given the nonlinear nature of narrative inquiry, I conducted data analysis at various points throughout my study and not solely after I completed data collection. I used Jackson and Mazzei’s (2013) Thinking with Theory to inform my data analysis. I was drawn to Thinking with Theory as an analytical lens for this study because Jackson and Mazzei generated this approach as an avenue to create and describe new ways of thinking philosophically and methodologically. According to Jackson and Mazzei (2013), interpretivist notions of data analysis can be reductive and flawed because they fail to account for the multilayered complexity of data. Whereas interpretivist approaches to qualitative inquiry suggest participants “speak for themselves” and organize complicated and conflicting perspectives into thematic chunks, Jackson and Mazzei (2013) contend that this oversimplifies data and data analysis. Thinking with Theory is about layering knowledges, reading across and between data, theory, and researcher positionality to discover new meaning. Jackson and Mazzei (2013) characterize this as “plugging in” theory and data into one another. The goal with this approach is to illustrate “how knowledge is opened up and proliferated rather than foreclosed and simplified” (p. 261). In essence, Thinking with Theory is a refusal to sort data into themes or

57 categorize data into patterns, when data actually represent fluid and complex experiences. Thinking with Theory fits with my poststructural paradigmatic perspective and is aligned with the work of other post-methodologists such as Patti Lather (2007) and Elizabeth St. Pierre (2009). Rather than centering participants, as interpretivist methodologies strive to do, Jackson and Mazzei's (2013) Thinking with Theory is “about cutting into the center, opening it up to see what newness might be incited” (p. 262). Jackson and Mazzei are not in strict opposition to traditional qualitative research methods and methodology. In fact, they use narrative inquiry in their text Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Viewing Data Across Multiple Perspectives (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). However, they do so with the caveat that their approach aims to work both within and against interviewing practices and other interpretivist research methods. The act of “plugging in” involves confronting multiple texts, such as interview data, theoretical frameworks, and researcher positionality to consider how those layer with one another to create infinite possibilities of understanding and meaning making. By “plugging in” transcript data with Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, and Trenka’s (2003) The Language of Blood, I explored the ways that Border Theory and the idea of “neither nor, both, between” (Trenka, 2003, p. 73) opened new meanings and understandings for how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. Additionally, to account for my own subjectivity as I thought with theory, I diligently kept a researcher journal throughout the dissertation process. My researcher journal spans from April 2016 to February 2019, and includes more than 200 single-spaced pages of researcher reflections. By iteratively moving back and forth between these multiple texts, I explored how I understood participants’ racial narratives to fit within and diverged from “neither, nor, both, between” borderland identity experiences. I started my analysis by conducting an initial reading of each participants’ transcribed interviews. During this first reading, I took notes on patterns I observed of the discourses participants used as they talked through their racialized experiences in college. After this initial read, I composed a narrative memo for each participant. These memos were largely comprised of direct quotes from participants’ interviews as I wanted to document–in participants’ own words–how they described and were making sense of their race as transracial Asian American adoptee collegians. The memos varied in length and content, depending on what participants talked about and how much they chose to disclose in our interviews. I shared the memos with

58 participants, inviting them to read and respond to my initial interpretation of our interviews. Seven of the 12 participants responded, indicating that the memos “look good” and that “everything checks out.” One participant (Chris) made minor editing suggestions to his memo to clarify meaning (i.e., replacing “ways of thinking and knowing” with “a way of thinking and knowing”). I used the memos and feedback to develop participant narratives, which make up Chapter Four of this dissertation. Jackson and Mazzei (2013) describe Thinking with Theory as “a production of knowledge that might emerge as a creation out of chaos” (p. 263). This was my research process. I struggled for the greater part of two years through my dissertation proposal, into data collection and analysis to understand what it was I was even endeavoring to do. Rather than conduct interpretivist research, I ached for a more fluid approach (one that reflected my paradigmatic perspective and my own racialized experience). However, I did not have the language to describe what I felt in my gut was necessary. Only through an iterative (and at points seemingly chaotic) data analysis process do I now understand and appreciate in full Thinking with Theory as a tool for producing new, emerging, continuously moving and evolving assemblages. After crafting individual participant narratives, I looked across and between those narratives to see where there were commonalities and contradictions between how participants described and made sense of their race. During this process, I again moved iteratively between interview transcripts, Anzaldúa (1987), and Trenka (2003) to further explore the idea of borderlands as it related to transracial Asian American adoptee collegians’ racial identity and feelings of neither, nor, both, between. Jackson and Mazzei (2013) explain that Thinking with Theory results in emerging connections that are not a final arrival point, but that plug in and relate to the involved theories, data, methods, and becomings. This cyclical process was messy, but enabled me to consider how each text related to, extended, and diverged from the others. From this process, I identified eight emerging assemblages. Again, wanting to honor participants’ voices in this research process (as I had done in crafting the individual participant memos) I used direct quotes to summarize or title each assemblage (a list of these initial assemblages can be found in Appendix H). I then shared these assemblages with study participants by email, to solicit their feedback and reactions. After more iterative readings, I combined and restructured the findings across and between participants’ narratives into the four neither, nor, both, between assemblages presented in Chapter Five.

59 Thinking with Theory as my data analysis strategy is a threshold. According to Jackson and Mazzei (2013) “a threshold has no function, purpose, or meaning until it is connected to other spaces” (p. 264). For this study, Thinking with Theory did not make sense to me until it became the connection, the hallway of sorts, between data and theory. By traversing back and forth between theory and data and data and theory, a path became so worn that the space separating the two began to merge and meld together. As I engaged in the iterative process of reading back and forth between data and theory, the boundaries between the two became blurred, collapsing the false distinction, dichotomy, and division between theory and data. This is an inherently poststructural approach to research. Ethics and Trustworthiness There are important ethical considerations for poststructural researchers to consider, especially as “poststructuralists question for whom findings are transferrable or dependable” (Denton, 2014, p. 46). Less concerned with the objective validity of my study, which I believe to be a false aspiration within research, I was more interested in defining and establishing trustworthiness by inviting participant feedback. As a poststructuralist, I hold that reality is socially constructed. To help ensure that I represented and interpreted participants’ racialized experiences in a way that was congruent with their narratives, I did this in multiple ways. First, I provided participants with the transcripts of their first-round interviews. I asked them to review the transcription for accuracy in what they recalled communicating and invited participants to add comments or notes for clarification or additional context. Second, I provided participants with individual narrative summaries, which were a composite of what I deemed was most noteworthy from their first and second interviews. I also shared emerging assemblages with participants, which were based upon my interpretation and analytic process thinking with Border Theory (Anzaldúa, 1987) and Trenka’s (2003) concept of being “neither, nor, both, between.” The following are a few of the participants’ reactions and responses: • Thank you for all of your hard work and research done in this category. I’ve learned a lot about myself and it is definitely interesting to hear myself in 3rd person. I wish you great success with your study and all future endeavors. Take care, Veliqe • I think my emotional reaction is about validation. I feel like your narrative accurately captures my voice and much of what it is that I have to say about my experiences. I realize that's part of your work/role as a researcher in this context and that doesn't

60 minimize the impact of the interview and review process as a validating and empowering experience for me. Thank you for the opportunity to openly share my experience and for accurately reflecting those experiences in your work. This narrative is such a gift really because I can reflect further based on what [has] been recorded here. Especially with my grad program at the moment, much of what I'm being asked to do has involved a lot of reflection and this narrative, in a way, represents a marker of where I was in my own growth at the time. This weekend in my student development theory course, we did this exercise where we paired up and asked each other "who are you?" That question has always been challenging for me to answer because there are moments where I'm not sure how to answer. In many ways, this written narrative is a reminder and glimpse of the process of who I am becoming and how the act of reflection itself for me is a way I engage as a student affairs practitioner. Best, Chris • I just read both documents and they both are amazing. I really appreciate the time you took to make all of our voices heard. For me personally you got all of the facts right and I definitely felt like nothing was taken out of context or that my words were twisted. It felt genuine and real. I really enjoyed reading about the similar experiences of all the other participants. It was the first time in a long time where I felt like all of us were connected and that there were people out there that were just like me. I believe that you are sending a very powerful message and I love that. Thank you so much, Jessie In narrative inquiry, the research process is relational rather than objective (Kim, 2016). Through the sharing of life stories, participants and the researcher engage in a dynamic relationship in which both parties and learn and grow (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). There are, however, ethical considerations narrative researchers must be conscious of when employing this type of relational methodology. Navigating these ethical considerations has been described by Mahoney (2007) as a balancing act between the blurred lines of friendship (e.g., sharing intimate life stories) and research. According to Guillemin and Gillam (2004), there are procedural ethics and micro-ethics. Procedural ethics are ethics in general terms and include considerations such as human consent, participant voice, and bias. To address procedural ethics, I adhered to my university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) process as well as the American Educational Research Association (AERA, 2009) research standards. Micro-ethics, also referred to as everyday ethics, are the more nuanced “locally arising ethical issues while conducting qualitative

61 research” (Kim, 2016, p. 103). To prepare for, be conscious of, and responsible for these everyday ethics, I kept a researcher journal throughout this study. I used this journal to stay grounded in and make transparent my research interests as well as reflect on how those interests impacted how I interpreted participant stories. Summary of Research Design In this chapter, I outlined the paradigmatic perspective, theoretical framework, and methodological approach I used for this research project. By approaching this study with a poststructural paradigm, I examined the discourses used by transracial Asian American adoptees to describe and make sense of their race in college. By using Border Theory as my theoretical framework, I focused on the liminality and differential consciousness that arises from existing outside rigid boundaries of racial identity. My own identification as a transracial Asian American adoptee provided me with a valuable in-group status, which lends itself well to building rapport with research participants. Finally, by Thinking with Theory and conducting multiple, iterative close readings of transcripts, consulting Border Theory (Anzaldúa, 1987) and The Language of Blood (Trenka, 2003), I was able to consider points of convergence and divergence between texts, enabling me to I present a compelling account of the narratives of transracial Asian American adoptees in college and emerging assemblages of how they describe and make sense of their race.

62 Chapter Four: Participant Narratives

Given the nature of narrative inquiry, my chosen methodology for this study, this chapter features individually constructed narrative summaries for each of the 12 study participants. I present individual participant narratives to honor and represent the unique racialized experiences of each participant in the study and provide readers with a glimpse into some of the varied racialized perspectives and experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. The narratives presented in this chapter are based upon my interpretation of the two interviews conducted with each participant, and thus, may emphasize or highlight aspects of participants’ stories that I found particularly noteworthy. I crafted the narratives in a relatively neat manner to coherently present participants’ racialized reflections. Whereas, I reserved exploring in greater depth the complexities of participants’ racialized experiences for Chapter Five, which includes more of my analysis. I shared all narrative summaries with participants prior to including them in my dissertation. To center participants’ voices and present their lived identities, experiences, and perspectives as authentically as possible, I used substantial quotations from interview transcripts to construct each narrative. In my role as researcher and author of these participant narratives, I determined what to include and exclude in each summary, as well as what style and chronology to present each individual narrative. This determination process was largely informed by referencing my guiding research question for the study, what are the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college? I occasionally added transitional words in brackets to make participant quotes more understandable. Additionally, if a participant spoke about an idea or topic in multiple instances over the course of the two interviews, I chose to link related quotes to craft a more comprehensive perspective. Aside from these structural decisions, I made very few modifications to participant quotations. The only other edits involved removing minor speech placeholders (e.g., “like” or “um”) and omitting verbal redundancies (e.g., “I think, I think…”) to aid with overall clarity and readability. Participants were generous with their time and their stories, sharing an abundance of anecdotes and insights related to their experiences as transracial Asian American adoptees. For example, a common starting place for rapport building during the first interview was recounting the nature (to the extent known) of participants’ relinquishment and subsequent adoption. However, many of these details are not featured in the participant narratives, as they do not

63 directly relate to the guiding research question and topic of study; namely the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. Relatedly, not all aspects of the interviews appear in the participant summaries. Again, this is a function of space and my desire as the researcher to hone in on the content from participant interviews that I feel is most relevant to this study. In all the narrative summaries, I refer to participants by pseudonyms they chose for themselves. I omitted or replaced all other identifying information (e.g., names of friends and family members, participants’ hometown, college or university) with a pseudonym of my choosing to aid in the protection of participants’ confidentiality. I present the participant narratives in alphabetical order in this chapter according to participant pseudonym. Each participant narrative varies in length, as each participant shared differently levels of detail and discussed different topics in our interviews. The length of individual narratives does not reflect the participant’s investment in the study nor does the narrative length convey anything about my value of participants’ contributions. Athena Athena is a sophomore mechanical engineering student at a mid-size private University in a major city on the East Coast. She was adopted from southern China when she was 11-months- old. Athena has two White moms and an older sister who is also adopted from China. She was raised Jewish. This is a very salient identity for Athena, and one fraught with dissonance as her Jewish identity is often questioned because of her racial (Asian) identity. Early in our first interview together, Athena described being raised Jewish as “an interesting combination.” When I asked her to say more she explained, “You don’t really see a lot of Jewish-Asian people.” For Athena, this has meant others regularly express confusion about her identity. She shared the following story to illustrate her point, There was this one guy at Hillel and he just goes, "So are you here with her?" [pointing to a White girl nearby] and I'm, "No, no, no I'm Jewish too. I'm here because I'm Jewish, not because I'm with a friend." I think it's interesting, people's reactions of what a Jewish person looks like, and how I don't fit in it. Despite these types of interactions at Hillel, Athena asserted, “I still feel very welcome in the community no matter what,” which is quite different from how she felt about the Asian/Asian American student community on her campus.

64 During orientation, Athena approached the Asian Student Union and Chinese Student Union to inquire what it might be like for her to join as an Asian adoptee. She asked if there were any adoptees already involved in the groups, and according to Athena, “They were very cold to me about it. They were like, ‘I don’t know, why would you ask that?’” For Athena, this early-college encounter greatly influenced whom she feels comfortable and uncomfortable with on campus. She explained, “It’s just been the Asian community that kind of ostracized me in a way or they made me feel uncomfortable enough not to want to try and get involved.” Athena revisited this story in our second interview sharing, The Asian American group made me feel very uncomfortable, because I just felt like I didn’t fit in and they didn’t make a point of helping me fit in. I had asked them whether there were students who were adopted and whether I would be alone in that aspect, because my experience is very different than theirs is, and they made me feel weird about it and I was like, “I don’t really want to go back to you guys ever again.” For Athena, these experiences (in Hillel and with the Asian Student Union) of not meeting others’ identity expectations was something that she struggled with even before entering college. She recalled, When I was in high school, there was this expectation for me to be like the kids with Asian families, and obviously, I wasn’t. I think some of that did come up when I was in high school with my friends and I’d have to be, “I’m not the same as they are, and also it’s not fair for you to make those assumptions or put that pressure on me.” During our interviews, Athena talked at length about how her experience is different as an adoptee from other Asian Americans. She shared, “I think my experience is different than a person who would have been raised by Asian parents, because I don’t have the cultural background like other people do.” Athena also referenced being raised in a house that was “race blind” meaning her family celebrated Chinese holidays, but did not talk much about race or racism. Athena juxtaposed this “race blind” mentality at home to experiences outside the house where she would encounter others’ judgments, such as being told “You’re not really Asian.” For Athena, accusations that she wasn’t “being Asian enough” or that she was “just a fake Asian” compelled her to clarify, “I am [Asian], just not in the way you think.” Athena felt that one of the biggest challenges for transracial Asian American adoptees is “the feeling that we don’t fit in somewhere.” According to Athena, transracial and transnational

65 adoption is not something people often talk about, despite being an experience that can be quite emotionally taxing. She explained, “Just being brought into a different country and then having to immerse yourself in the culture with parents who aren’t fully aware of how difficult it is, can be really rough.” In Athena’s opinion, not having a “specific community” of other transracial and transnational adoptees to relate to can be difficult, especially as she believes that adoptees tend to struggle with abandonment and social isolation in a heightened way because of their adoption. Recalling posts she had seen in social media groups for adoptees, Athena recounted vulnerable sharing she’s read about and resonates with, “I don’t know where I belong. I don’t feel like I fit in, and I’m also really afraid that if I get too close to someone they are going to immediately leave me.” For Athena, “That’s really hard to read and hear, but I think that also that’s something that not a lot of people realize and know about.” Athena struggled with some of these issues herself, disclosing, “I’ve had emotional problems. I’ve seen a therapist for a long time, and I think part of that is I think sometimes I don’t get along with my adoptive parents very well.” When asked what was challenging about her relationship with her adoptive parents, Athena talked about how different their experiences are, particularly with regards to race. She shared, As well-meaning as my parents are, they sometimes don't realize it, but just one of my moms more specifically can be, she doesn't realize what she's saying and she doesn't understand how different our experiences are, which is hard for us [Athena and her sister, both of whom are transracial adoptees] because this is difficult for us and you should listen to it, but then [mom is] always trying to equate it back to her being Jewish American and her family being Holocaust survivors. We're like, we understand this is also hard but this is different. These are two separate things and ethnicity is not the same as a race and we have to balance that. You have to understand our experience is so different because being Jewish, it's like a hidden identity, whereas being Asian is like everyone can see it. It's like you as a person. Athena described these conversations with her moms about race and ethnicity as “always a little tense.” For Athena, the differences between race and ethnicity are significant, and thus, comparisons between her moms’ experiences of anti-Semitism with her own experiences of anti- Asian racism fall short. She articulated the difference as, “You have to declare you’re Jewish for

66 them to understand or for them to start being anti-Semitic. Whereas, basically they can be racist maybe just because they see us.” Athena racially self-identified as Asian, explaining, “I might not be as involved in the culture right now, I might not be as active, but I definitely think that that’s who I am and that’s my race.” However, Athena also noted that others sometimes perceive her race differently. She explained, As a college student, I think that actually people forget that I’m Asian because I don’t have a lot of Asian friends and I don’t really speak about [being Asian] as much. So generally speaking, I have had kind of a strange experience because I’m not as much generally represented as an Asian in my friends’ eyes. Athena shared a story about one of her roommates to demonstrate her point. Her roommate works in telecommunications and Athena explained, the roommate recently, Got a call from an Asian woman who asked if someone spoke Mandarin [at the company] and [my roommate] apparently ... her response was vaguely racist, she was like, “why would we speak Mandarin, that's dumb” and she was kind of mocking [the woman] and her name and she’s mocked Asian people's names before ... I was like, oh I think that this wouldn't have happened if I was proudly Asian. If I had Asian parents … if I had identified more as an Asian student and been in the Asian American clubs, I think [my roommate] would have been slightly more sensitive. For Athena, That people forget I’m Asian can be a little frustrating. Like my roommate saying racist things and I’m like you really would not say that if there was a person who was raised in an Asian country or something sitting right next to you. Athena first noted a disconnect between how others perceive her racially and how she feels about herself racially on her participant interest form in which she wrote, As an Asian adoptee, sometimes I have difficulty trying to identify where I lie in the racial spectrum. Sometimes I’m judged solely on my physical appearance, and [people] think I’m Chinese with Chinese parents. Other times, people allow my Asian American (adopted) racial identity as a joke and make some insensitive comments about my mixed culture and heritage. In our first interview, I asked Athena more about this written reflection. She responded,

67 I obviously don’t fit in physically with the White person, but I also have a hard time societally fitting in with the Asian culture … I think that it’s just no matter where I go it’s not exactly like I’m going to be 100% accepted, which is always difficult. In our interviews together, Athena shared that she has been more exposed to White spaces (as compared to Asian spaces), and thus, feels more comfortable in predominantly White communities. However, she expressed some remorse about this, saying, “I think it’s kind of sad. I’ve never gone back to China … I think that a lot of the things that I’ve experienced have been more akin with White people’s experiences in life.” For Athena, being a transracial Asian American adoptee has given her some access and (to an extent) acceptance into White culture. Yet, she wondered if this conditional access is “just because people are like, ‘oh, she’s acting [White]’ or if they’re like, ‘oh, okay she has a White family.’” According to Athena, any comfort or sense of belonging she feels in predominantly White spaces is tempered by frequent questions she receives about her race and identity. She explained, “I just feel like I get more questions than other people do … people find it more acceptable to ask very personal questions and they don’t do that to other [White or non-adopted] people.” Chris Chris is a senior, who is a gender, sexuality, and women’s studies major at a large, public, research University on the West Coast. He was adopted from Vietnam when he was one- year-old by a single White mom. Chris has three younger brothers all of whom are also adopted; one brother is, like Chris, adopted from Vietnam, Chris’ other two brothers are Black/White biracial domestic adoptees. Chris attended community college prior to transferring to his current institution. Growing up, Chris didn’t think much about his adoptee identity. When he was younger, his mom tried to get him to socialize with other Vietnamese adoptees but he recalled, I didn’t want anything to do with them because I didn’t know them. I didn’t understand them … I think in retrospect, having thought about it, I think that was because I wanted to identify with my mother and I wanted to identify with her whiteness. According to Chris, he didn’t have the language to talk about this experience even just a few years ago, but college has been transformative for him regarding the exploration of his racial and adoptee identities.

68 Chris attributes his academic studies and his involvement with the Southeast Asian community in college as factors that have helped facilitate his identity exploration and racial consciousness. Prior to transferring to his current institution, Chris shared, “My community college was really focused on academics, transferring, stuff like that. There wasn’t really anything that would prompt me to explore racial or ethnic identity.” Whereas once he enrolled at his four-year institution, Chris’ identity as a transracial Asian American adoptee became more salient. For Chris, the presence of various cultural and identity centers at his four-year institution made him feel like, “Here’s some space for you to come explore and understand yourself, and explore your identity.” Shortly after transferring to his current campus, Chris attended a retreat for Southeast Asian students. At the retreat, Chris remembered feeling simultaneously invisible and hyper visible because I felt like I knew everyone was going to see me as a fraud. I knew everyone [at the retreat] must know that I’m some sort of a fake because I’m adopted, but then at the same time [adoption] wasn’t a narrative that was included in a lot of the programming. It was like I was invisible in terms of what was going on with the programming, the activities, and the identity development in that space, but I felt hyper-visible because ... I felt like everyone would see me and know that I was just going to be a fake [Asian]. This retreat was the first exposure of what would become sustained involvement and Chris’ emergence as a student leader within the Southeast Asian community on campus. As much as Chris craved the opportunity to engage in this type of identity exploration, he also found the process to be challenging. He explained, I found myself really wanting to engage in the space, but I was coming up against the barrier that I had kind of constructed for myself earlier on. I was having to engage with that internalized racism that I had enabled when I was younger. It’s so funny because when I was younger, I rejected other Asian Americans. I rejected other people that would have seemingly looked like me, and then as I got older and started to engage in the Southeast Asian space, I was in fear of being rejected by them. I was afraid that they were going to reject me, to the same extent that I had initially rejected myself and others that looked like me.

69 According to Chris, his enrollment in a four-year-institution coincided with his introduction to the Southeast Asian student community, which propelled him to begin “dismantling and tearing apart a lot of the things that I had done to myself, in terms of my identity … self-hatred, internalized racism, and sense of rejection … I had to work a lot at undoing that.” This meant working through “that tiny fear of being rejected. [Of being told] ‘Oh … you’re adopted, okay, so you’re not really Asian.’” While Chris admitted that “No one has said that to me, at least not to my face.” He also expressed feeling afraid by the hypothetical of such an interaction, suggesting that if someone ever said that to him, “I [would] probably just shut down.” Chris’ preoccupation around others’ perceptions of his racial authenticity has spurred quite a bit of self-reflection. He wondered aloud in our second interview, Is that all in my head? Is that a fear that I’ve created based on… Is that a mirror of my own interaction with whiteness? It’s kind of like, to me, there are essentialist notions of what it is to be Vietnamese or even what it is to be Asian American. And I wonder if my fear of not feeling enough, not feeling authentic enough, if that is really just an inversion of a White lens on Asian American identities. Am I really projecting my own essentialist view of multiculturalism? According to Chris, unpacking his internalized racism and coming to embrace his unique racialized experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee has led him to [This place where I kind of developed this third-space for myself. That’s probably super abstract and theoretical, but it’s the way that I kind of mentally or intellectually understand my identity. I found that even in Asian spaces, or Southeast Asian spaces, that I am still very insecure … Having friends and getting to know people who grew up with Asian or Southeast Asian parents, I have come to this realization that that was never going to be my experience. That was never going to be something that I could claim. That was never going to be an aspect of my Asian American experience, or the Asian American identity that I can have for myself, because I just simply did not grow up with parents that shared an ethnic or cultural identity with me … I just have different experiences. For me, that space where I can just be an adoptee represents a third-space for me, because I’m never really going to share in the Asian American experience the same way my friends do, but I’m never really ever going to be White either.

70 This idea of a third-space first came up in Chris’ participant interest form, in which he wrote, I identify as a queer, transracial adoptee from Vietnam. I've come to learn that I may be recognized as Asian American/Vietnamese American, however it's sometimes challenging to claim an Asian American/Vietnamese American [identity] wholesale because of my experiences as an adoptee. This is often why, when it comes to questions of racial and ethnic identification, I make it clear that I am a transracial Vietnamese adoptee. I feel as if I'm claiming a "3rd space" or liminal space as it were because I did not grow up traditionally Asian American nor can I claim or identify with a racial or ethnically White experience. In our first interview, Chris further explained this third-space racialized experience, It is kind of like, I am never going to be a White person. That’s just real. I am not. I am not racialized that way. When you see me down the street and you don’t know me, you don’t see a White person, you see an Asian American person. Yes, I know how to navigate White spaces because I grew up around it, but I am not ever going to be a part of those spaces in the same ways that a White person can be. That kind of pushes me out of that space. And then, I have never, or at least I don’t feel like I will ever, feel Asian American in the same sense that Asian Americans feel. Again, I didn’t grow up that way. I don’t share those same experiences. I don’t share the same language … [so] I don’t completely identify with that experience or at least I can’t completely claim it, so that kind of pushes me out of that space … This third space is really me claiming my experience and my identity as an adoptee and saying that that’s okay. It is okay that I was kind of raised outside of what I normally would have been, had I not been adopted. It is a space where I can say it is okay for me not knowing necessarily the language, or all of the cultural cues associated with being Vietnamese and it’s okay for me to explore that. The third space for me is really where I say, my identity as an adoptee is salient and it is okay to be salient. It is okay to explore, it is okay to accept the fact that I didn’t have those Southeast Asian experiences, but those don’t make me less Southeast Asian. Chris offered this conceptualization of a third-space positionality for transracial adoptees as a counter to otherwise deficit-based perspectives couched in insecurities of not being or feeling racially enough. In this way, Chris suggested that transracial adoptees may be endowed

71 with a unique asset or vantage point given their racial and cultural hybridity. He explained that his third-space positionality, “offers a different way of looking at race and the ways it’s constructed, and that even though race is a construct, it has very real world implications.” Chris further explained, My experience as an adoptee and my experiences traversing that middle space [between Asian and White communities] … has enabled me to really think about the process … what sort of privilege that I’ve had. Yes, I get racialized. I get racialized as an Asian American all the time, but I was raised in a middle-class White community. I am not a first-generation college student. My mom has postdoctoral work in health services. I had access to education … I was raised very comfortably, so [I have] this weird sense of duality, kind of like, what is that term… double consciousness? I think [that] is very relevant for me, very real for me because I grew up with a lot of class privilege. Even if I did get racialized, I still know how to navigate White spaces. Chris was quick to add that he does not view his adoptee identity as solely functioning as an oppressed or privileged identity. For Chris, transracial adoption is far more complicated than that. He explained that in his perspective, transracial, transnational adoptees are Transported, literally and figuratively, from one space, an oppressed space, to a privileged space. I think we have experiences and access to a lot of privilege, but it’s complicated. It’s much more complicated than Black and White because it’s like I grew up with a lot of privilege, I grew up with a lot of access. I know how to navigate privileged spaces maybe a little more comfortably than other People of Color … but I still get racialized. While Chris conceptualized this third-space positionality as an asset, it was also sometimes accompanied by insecurity, especially when he has to disclose his adoptee identity in new contexts or to new people. He explained, When I meet someone who I don’t know, I have to go through that process with them. Of telling them, “Oh, but I’m adopted.” I have to rehash that process or kind of share who I am with them, and it gets kind of old … it kind of touches on these ongoing insecurities, “Oh, are they going to think I’m Asian enough?” or are they going to see through some sort of phony-ness. I kind of feel inauthentic, and I’m kind of fearful that they might see that inauthenticity and kind of reject me for it.

72 When asked to expound upon what he meant by his comment about being “Asian enough,” Chris shared that for him It really manifests itself in the form of language … because language is all about articulating identity or articulating experiences and sharing that with people. So for me, not being able to speak Vietnamese when others around me can, really emphasize[s] that lack of belonging. I think because I don’t have the ability to articulate in the same way that they [other Vietnamese people] can, and then that means I don’t have the ability to connect or resonate with them in the same way that they can with each other. Language is so, so… I mean there’s something about language that is so monumental … you know when you’re in a room and everyone can understand what everybody thinks except you. You definitely feel that … so when I cannot engage in that connection, because I cannot speak the language it really emphasizes my dislocation. I use that work intentionally because I feel like it allows me to say that I am simultaneously part of community but also not. For Chris, language as a barrier to feeling fully and authentically Asian is not just about fluency in Vietnamese, it is also about a way of thinking and knowing. He explained, Language articulates and represents concepts and ways of thinking ... there are certain concepts that are captured by words in other languages that don’t maybe take shape in English. That really for me, is indicative of a cultural or ethnic difference or identity that reinforced my feelings of not-belonging. Because it is so much deeper than how I identify. It is the way that I think. Being adopted and raised by White people, has shaped the way that I think. Although Chris cannot remember the first time he heard the language “transracial,” he indicated that it resonated from the start. He recalled, It made a lot of sense. That ‘trans’ part of transracial is about crossing. It is about crossing boundaries. I really feel like that accurately articulates my experience of kind of crossed lines, cross boundaries. I really love Gloria Anzaldúa’s work on the borderlands. I really, really identified with the way Anzaldúa has articulated existing in this third- liminal space, this borderland space. Chris encountered Anzaldúa’s scholarship in his undergraduate coursework as a gender, sexuality, and women’s studies major. He remembered,

73 Anzaldúa was included in some of the theoretical work we read. I was totally taken by it! I was totally just like, absorbed. Because even though Anzaldúa is not speaking to adoptees, she might as well have been. I could have been the only one in the audience for this piece of work and it would have been okay. Chris credited his academic pursuits in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies as well as Asian American Studies as “really [giving] me the language to articulate my experiences and that level of consciousness about what I have experienced, [which] allows me to reflect upon past experiences.” When asked about his racialization and how he racially identifies, Chris described race as very nuanced, I’m identified as Asian American racially. Is that a feeling? Do you feel Asian American? Is that a feeling that you have? Is that something that I do? I know that you don’t see me as White. I know that for sure. I know when I go places I’m not seen as White. I can’t tell you that I always don’t feel that way because sometimes I’m kind of confused about how I feel. Like maybe I feel a little Whiter than others … I know that I’m not perceived as White, and I know that I’m perceived to be Asian American because that’s what people tell me … Yeah, there are moments where maybe I identify as Asian American, but my identities as Asian American or Vietnamese American … those feel like political identities to me. They’re racialized but they don’t feel inherent to who I am. According to Chris, context matters to how he racially identifies. He explained, I know that I feel more or less Asian or more or less White based on what everybody else in the room is. If I’m in a room with a lot of other White people, I probably feel more “other.” Then, the funny thing is if I’m in a room with a lot of other Asian people, I also probably feel “other” but for different reasons. He offered an example of attending an Asian Pacific American Higher Education conference, where “I feel more or less Asian American because I think that’s an identity I want to feel pride in, but I also feel not very Asian American because I’m adopted.” In contrast, Chris shared that if he’s in a White professional space, “I probably feel some sense of White identity, whatever that means, just because I was raised around it, but I also simultaneously feel not White.” For Chris, “Really, it just comes down to context … I know who I am, but sometimes based on the space, different aspects of who I am feel more salient.”

74 DS DS is a mechanical engineering senior at a large public metropolitan research university in the Southwest United States. DS identifies as gender non-binary and uses they/them/their gender pronouns. They were adopted from a southern province of China when they were just over one-year-old. DS’s mother is from England, and DS’s father is American with Italian- French ancestry. According to DS, their mother’s experience as a British American is part of what informs their understanding of their own identity, [My mom has] been here [in the United States] for decades now, so you could almost call her American. But no, she is quite English. If you called her American, she might get insulted … so I think that has actually played more of a part [in how I understand my identity] because she lived in America, but she was not American ... I live in America, but I am still Chinese, and if you forget about that, then you’re missing a part of me. For DS, the cultural caveat of being born outside the United States is pertinent information for people to know if they are to fully understand them and their racialized identity experience. According to DS, these identities are “still pretty distinct in my head, like China versus America.” When asked to say more about this distinction, DS replied, “I think it’s because the cultures are so different. I [was] born in China ... but I’m Americanly cultured.” Throughout our two interviews, DS spoke multiple times about the challenges of reconciling their Chinese/Asian and American/White identities. When asked to describe this experience and their identity as a transracial Asian American adoptee, DS replied, I am Asian, but culturally less so … It’s like how I’m missing out when you hear people talk about family traditions and stuff like that … you have [Asian] friends who have something in common that maybe you missed out on because your family doesn’t celebrate that. That sort of thing. It’s not super ostracizing, but it’s just enough that it’s annoying or confusing. Relatedly, DS expressed similar but opposite discomfort at the thought of being in predominantly Asian or White spaces. For DS, being in predominantly Asian spaces is Probably even weirder than hanging out in a White space because I don’t know how to navigate it as well … people look at you and they’re like, “Yeah you’re Asian. You’re with us. It’s all good … Or they do something super Asian if you will, like speak Chinese or talk about something that maybe only they would understand, and I have no

75 idea what’s going on. Whereas in White spaces I do know what’s going on, but I’m not White so it’s the exact opposite feeling. For DS, being a transracial Asian American adoptee has unique racial implications because of being positioned as the model racial minority when contrasted with other Communities of Color. They explained, It almost feels like I am picking and choosing what I am getting out of those two worlds [Asian and White]. It feels like because I grew up in a White setting that I have gotten the benefits of basically not being a minority like some Blacks or Hispanics, when you’re really looked down on. But I’m also still technically a minority. I am still technically not White, and I still have to deal with that … overall growing up in a White space is just really weird. It’s confusing. DS first learned about the model minority stereotype after attending a talk by an Asian American studies professor in college. According to DS, “Learning about the model minority was really eye-opening, because it explained everything about being Asian, especially being Asian adopted, where you get all this praise for stuff, but you’re still a minority.” DS shared that the tensions of being a model minority really resonated with their experience because People always talk about how good of minorities Asians are, but we are still minorities … and being adopted, it’s like, oh I’m a minority, but also, I act like [and] was raised like [the] majority, so now it’s a double model minority. It’s like my gosh it makes so much sense. While DS has had some insightful moments about their racial identity in college, such as attending the model minority stereotype lecture mentioned previously, DS expressed a general sense of confusion about their racial identity. This first emerged in their participant intake form, in which DS, wrote, “My racial identity is a clusterfuck, where I either feel great about being Chinese or awful about not being White.” In our first interview, I followed up and asked DS to expound upon what they meant by this. They explained that as a transracial adoptee pinpointing their geographic, biological, and cultural origins is quite complex. As a result, efforts to articulate their identity to others can feel cumbersome and annoying. DS explained, Probably my biggest pet peeve, is I hate when people ask me where I’m from. Because I’m like well, I’m adopted from China, I moved to [New England], and now I live in [the Southwest] so you can take your pick about where I’m from. And also, my mother isn’t

76 even American herself, she’s actually English … Actually, if you want to go full depth, I might not be from China. Technically we don’t know, really, my heritage. I never did a DNA test. Y’know I could be Japanese or part Korean or something. I was found in China, adopted by an English mother and an America-Italian-French father, moved to … a predominantly Christian-Italian [state in the US], then came to one of the biggest universities [in the country]. So, what’s my cultural identity? Who the hell knows. It’s so complex … it’s like so many different influences that it’s just hard to say I’m from China, because [that] would ignore all the European influences, but I’m not from America, [because that ignores] my Chinese heritage. It’s just the biggest clusterfuck. It’s super annoying to explain, so that’s the mess of my identity. According to DS, being a transracial Asian American adoptee was quite normalized growing up, as there were several other transracial adoptees in their hometown. However, moving to the Southwest for college has been different, because DS doesn’t know as many adoptees. Instead, they have met more people whose “parents [are] from China, but they were born in America.” DS refers to these American born Chinese peers as opposite of or juxtaposed with their own experience, citing that their “parents are super strict about getting good grades … whereas my parents, because my mother you know she’s not Chinese, she doesn’t have the Asian values, and she was way less strict with me.” According to DS, this and other cultural distinctions in how they were raised compared to other Asian Americans makes “being compared to them [other Asian Americans] really weird.” DS’ most salient identity has changed over time. They explained, “When I was younger, I was more involved with my race identity and then when I got older I didn’t have time for that. Or as much interest. Now, I’m getting back into it again.” According to DS, losing interest in their racial identity coincided with gaining interest in their queer identity. DS described this shift in identity salience as “not correlated or causational” but more about “getting comfy into an identity … and [then] actually kind of wanting to learn more about [another identity].” According to DS, “It’s just hard to work on more than one identity simultaneously. It’s a lot of work to discover yourself in multiple ways, so you gotta start with one at a time.” Regardless of which identity is most salient, DS explained that for them to effectively engage in identity exploration or reflection it’s important to have a community that is “a very safe and inclusive environment.” According to DS this idea of a safe and inclusive environment,

77 “extends more to LGBT stuff … but covers race too.” DS described this environment as a place where, “You’re free to express yourself and you don’t need to feel different, because all of us have things about us that are different, or like non-conforming. So it feels safe, where you can express your non-conforming part.” For DS, this concept of a safe and inclusive environment is mainly related to their queer identity, but “also race, because [in a safe and inclusive environment] it doesn’t feel like I stand out because I’m adopted … I still belong, ‘cause we’re all different. We’re all non-conforming in some way.” Emma Emma is a sophomore bioengineering major at a public teaching-focused university located in the rural Midwest. She was adopted from China and has a younger sister who is also a Chinese American adoptee. Emma grew up in a predominantly White community, but recalls “When I was younger [growing up as an Asian adoptee with White parents] didn’t really influence me that much.” She goes on to explain, In school, especially when I was little, I don’t think I really registered that I was different from the majority of the people. But I definitely noticed if someone looked like me, ‘cause it was a rarity. ‘Cause in [my hometown] there’s not really many Asian people. When asked to share more about her experience as an Asian adoptee in predominantly White spaces, Emma expressed that she doesn’t think about being an adoptee very often, although she’s conscious that other people are aware that she is racially different from her parents. She shared the following example from college to illustrate her point, I’m not super aware of [race] with my parents, but I think I know other people are. Just if I go out to dinner, like if my dad comes to pick me up and we go out to dinner, I know it looks semi-weird when it’s just me and him sitting there … I think it’s just because if you’re just looking at it, you wouldn’t feel like, ‘Oh, that’s her dad, who she’s just having dinner with.’ It’d be like, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a professor that she’s eating with,’ or something like that.” While Emma grew up in a predominantly White community and attends a predominantly White university, she mentioned feeling, More aware, I think, of my race [at college] than when I go home, just because here I’m constantly aware of the fact that when people first see me they’re thinking, “Oh, she’s an international student. She won’t speak very good English.”

78 This perception that she is mistakenly identified as an international student has been re-enforced for Emma by multiple experiences, such as when she has been put into lab groups with all international students or when college professors have commented on her English language speaking proficiency or their confusion by her anglicized last name. For Emma, these types of interactions are frustrating because “I feel like that’s not proper. ‘Cause you wouldn’t ask [any White person] like, ‘Oh, where are you from? Because you sound like you speak really good English.’” Emma described feeling discomfort with these types of comments and interactions; especially when they occur between herself and a faculty person whom she perceives to have more authority or power. She shared, At times when I was like interviewed for different things, or just talked to a professor one-on-one … especially when I’m just getting to know them, or I’m there for a completely different reason, [talking about my race and adoption] is something that I don’t feel comfortable just disclosing, but I feel like I have to because they’re a professor and I can’t just be like, “Oh, well I’d rather not talk about it.” While Emma acknowledged that these comments and questions are not likely intended to be rude, but rather form out of curiosity, she also expressed “At the same time … I don’t feel like that’s something that you definitely need to know. How does that qualify me for this job or this trip I want to go on?” According to Emma, “You can’t assume things about people by just looking at them … people often don’t realize that innocent questions or comments can carry a lot of weight when relating to adoption.” In college, Emma has become actively involved with the Asian American student organization on campus. She shared, “I have definitely grown more within my Asian culture while at college and that’s probably because of my own doing, because, like I’ve joined [the Asian American student group] and got more involved with that.” For Emma, getting involved with the Asian community on campus was “something that I really wanted to do. Especially in college, just because I didn’t have that like, as much of a connection to my culture at home.” Emma shared, “I’ve always been like, interested in [Asian culture], but I never had a group of just like, focused on [it]. So I guess when I came to college it was definitely something I was looking for.”

79 Through her involvement with the Asian American student group on campus, Emma has been able to “meet other people who had similar-ish experiences, and I know a few other people who are adoptees as well, that are a part of [the group]. So it’s kind of nice to know that those people are there.” While Emma articulated feeling really comfortable with the Asian American student group on campus, she also expressed some insecurity when surrounded by other Asians. She explained, “If I’m walking around with a ton of other Asian people, I almost feel really self- conscious about it … I think part of it is [the university] culture and the perceptions that all the Asians are just international.” According to Emma, “Obviously [being an Asian international student is] not a bad thing, but it’s something that I know I’m not.” She explained, Culturally I’m not very Asian at all, just because [my family] eats Asian food occasionally and know when the Chinese New Year is happening and stuff like that. But especially in [the Asian American student group] they’ll mention things about their family and stuff, and that’s not my experience at all. For Emma, noting how her racialized experience has been different from both her Asian international and Asian American peers is important to how she situates and understands her transracial Asian American adoptee identity. She explained, I think in a lot of ways [an international student experience] is just different because, I think the international community, because it’s just easier with language barriers and stuff, [they] tend to stay together. And I don’t have a language barrier. In comparing how her experience is different from her peers who are Asian American, Emma shared, They’re really close with their families, and the things that they do, I’ve never done before. Like they all speak their native [language] … and their grandparents live with them and they’re very family centered, which is like, obviously I’m close with my family, but I don’t feel that connection to the extent that they always describe it. Ultimately, while Emma racially identifies as Asian American, she shared that she doesn't feel the Asian box on demographics questionnaires fully captures her experience. She explained, As I said before, I feel like culturally I’m definitely not very Asian. I’m trying to learn more about it, but at the same time, I don’t think I can fully ever understand it because I’ve never been immersed in the situation. I’ve been to China twice, but both times it’s

80 been with groups of American people. They’re like walking around and touring the city. I’ve never been fully immersed in the culture … largely my experience has been a White American family, but then I’m Asian, so I still check off that box. According to Emma, “Everyone has a different experience based on how they want to embrace their Asian culture.” She went on to explain that, “As an adoptee, you don’t have to [embrace your Asian culture] because your parents are White.” For Emma, whiteness and Americanness are intrinsically interconnected. She explained, “When you picture a stereotypical American person, I don’t picture an Asian person… [I picture] a stereotypical White family with a picket fence … I think of a White experience as American.” Due to her diverse lived experiences (e.g., born in China, raised in the Midwest by a White American family, being mistaken for an Asian international student in college), Emma sometimes feels resistant to others’ inquiries about her identity. She explained, In certain circumstances where people are like … “So what are you? What’s your ethnicity?” and stuff like that, I definitely am not as confident as maybe someone else would be if their parents were also Asian to say “Oh, I’m Vietnamese.” Or something like that because, yeah, I guess I’m always slightly hesitant. It is thus, perhaps not surprising that Emma felt adamantly that “It’s important to be open- minded, and be willing to learn about other cultures and other races.” According to Emma, “I am more open to diversity because it has always been a part of my life.” It is worth noting that during our first interview together, Emma became visibly emotional when we spoke about the assumptions others make based upon one’s racial phenotype and the personal questioning that can accompany these assumptions. To honor her process, I paused the audio recorder and subsequently lost the second-half of the audio recording of our interview. Emma added notes from her memory (I also took notes in my researcher journal after the interview concluded) to try to fill in the gaps. When asked if she wanted to talk about why she became emotional, Emma replied, I don’t know, I’ve never really talked about [adoption] for so long, just like straight … I really didn’t think I’d be this upset about it … I don’t know, because I’ve talked about it with my friends, but never just straight through, I guess. It’s always been in little parts. So I guess it’s just a lot to talk about at once.

81 Hannah Hannah is a 5th-year transfer student majoring in East Asian Studies. She completed the first four years of her undergraduate education at a mid-size public institution located in the rural Midwest and then transferred at the start of her 5th year to a large, urban university in the South. Hannah was adopted when she was approximately six-months-old from China. She moved around quite a bit growing up (due to her father’s work) but consistently lived in predominantly White communities. Hannah has an adopted sister also from China and 3 older sisters who are biological to her parents. According to Hannah, I think up until college, I feel like, I look back on myself and I feel like I was pretty clueless. I didn’t really think about being adopted. Being adopted wasn’t a huge part of my identity. My parents always told me I was adopted since I was young, but I just didn’t really explore that part of myself until college. Hannah recalled that as a child, “If I thought about race, I would probably identify as White.” Growing up in predominantly White communities, Hannah remembered, “I was the only Asian girl in my grade and there were probably five other Asian people total in my school. So I was always pretty self-conscious about looking different because I was made fun of a lot back then.” Explaining further, Hannah shared, “I remember back when I was a kid, I would always kind of reject being Asian.” Hannah shared a story about when her family moved and she was unsure who to sit with at lunch at her new school. She explained, There were a group of Asians who were super nice to me and invited me to sit with them, but I decided not to. I think in these examples subconsciously I wanted to fit in and not be seen as Asian, because I was made fun of so much for being Asian at my old schools, so I didn’t want to associate myself with anything that seemed ‘too Asian’. Now I kind of regret that because I realize now, that I was rejecting a huge part of myself.” Hannah recalled that, My family didn’t talk about adoption a lot. We kind of just, I don’t know, just act[ed] like we were like any other average family. Average meaning a family with biological kids I guess … Like I don’t call [my parents] my adoptive parents or anything. I just acted ‘normal,’ I guess. Whatever normal is.

82 At one point, Hannah referred to her experience growing up Asian with White adoptive parents as “whitewashed.” Hannah attributed this feeling to the fact that All my friends were White and I lived in White neighborhoods my whole life. My parents didn’t really do anything to help me connect with my culture other than take me to Chinese restaurants, which are still kind of like American-Chinese restaurants … I was just kind of clueless about Asian culture. Hannah shared that she doesn’t really talk about race or adoption with her parents, “because the subject never really comes up and if I bring it up one time, they’ll get offended.” According to Hannah, her mom, “tries to act like I’ve just been part of the family the whole time, which is nice, but I feel like you can’t really ignore the whole [race] thing too.” Hannah further described her family as “very conservative” revealing that they “say some slightly racist things sometimes.” Hannah described her parents as “kind of low-key racists sometimes” which causes Hannah to “wonder how they see me.” When asked to talk more about her perception of her parents, Hannah shared, Whenever there’s news about the police and Black shootings … they’ll start all these conversations about the and defend the cops … and then sometimes they’ll say stuff about how Indian people smell … my mom has used the word ‘China doll’ to describe me before to someone. Hannah has observed that when her mom “Introduces people to me … she’ll just talk about how I was adopted … but she does it in a way where it’s like, she’s a good person for adopting me.” For Hannah, this is reminiscent of something she read related to transracial adoption called “the White savior complex”. According to Hannah, “I feel like it’s kind of what [my mom] has. And like, it’s not that I’m not grateful or anything, but [my parents] kind of expect me to be grateful.” For Hannah, “College was really the first time I was in a community with a lot more Asian people. So that was really different for me.” In her sophomore year, Hannah joined the Asian American student group on campus, describing them as “So welcoming. And so it felt like I found my place!” As a result, Hannah explained she “became really involved in that, and that really helped me explore my Asian American identity and my adoptive identity, because I met some other adoptees.” Hannah described her first college as “Really conservative and mostly White,” which for her meant

83 My race became an even more prominent part of my identity because I would always run into people making racist remarks and dealt with microaggressions a lot more often than when I was younger; maybe because I just became more aware somehow now that I was more focused on exploring my heritage and my Asian identity. And maybe because I was older and didn’t have my parents around with me to kind of protect me like when I was a kid. But yeah, in college that’s when I started becoming more conscious of the fact that a lot of these racist comments and stuff were negative towards me. I never really had any Asian friends growing up. So once I started making Asian friends [in college], I felt it was a lot easier to relate to them and form deeper connections with them than I had with any of my older friends. Prior to transferring schools, Hannah was involved in the Asian American student group on campus, studied Chinese, and took Asian American Studies classes towards the completion of an academic minor. Through these experiences, she learned about “globalization, transnationalism, and all these like different themes involved with Asian America.” For Hannah, these were really meaningful experiences, Because I never really studied Asian American history in high school or anything. It was mostly about African American, or like White people. [In the Asian American Studies classes] we talked about how Asian people are kind of erased from history in America … it’s just a whole other world that I never knew existed basically. Hannah recalled, Taking all these classes and stuff, I learned more about meanings behind being Asian. What it means to be Asian, and the stereotypes that come with it, and the history of Asian people and stuff like that, so [my Asian identity] became more meaningful during college. Since transferring schools, Hannah has not yet found the same sort of community at her new institution. She has however, observed differences in the student demographics of her two schools. Hannah explained, “There are a lot more Asian Americans here,” whereas Hannah described most of the Asians at her pre-transfer college as “mostly international students.” Hannah described feeling both comfortable and uncomfortable in predominantly Asian spaces,

84 Comfortable because I can kind of relate to them in a way because a lot of Asian people have experienced the same kind of discrimination. But also, it’s kind of weird but, if there’s too many Asians then I feel kind of uncomfortable a little bit. Just a little bit. It’s not as bad now, but I know I used to feel like that all the time. Hannah continued, “When I’m in Asian spaces I’m comfortable because I’m around other people who look like me and share some of the same experiences, but uncomfortable because I feel like our cultures are a little different.” Hannah contrasted this to how she feels in predominantly White spaces, It’s the opposite. I feel comfortable because culturally we are more similar, but uncomfortable because I will always look foreign to them. It’s interesting because with Asian people it’s like I’m not Asian enough, but with White people I’m too Asian. According to Hannah, she doesn’t feel she can fully connect with Asian Americans, although she does identify more with Asian American peers than her Asian international student peers. She explained, I don’t feel like I can completely connect [with Asian American students] just because I don’t have Asian parents or didn’t grow up with a little bit of Asian culture. I don’t relate to international students as much. There’s just a bigger cultural difference. Hannah shared that she has had a similar conversation with some of her adoptee friends and they mutually agree that, “We feel like we have more American culture and we don’t really have that Asian cultural background.” Hannah doesn’t actively disclose her adoptee identity. She explained, “I don’t really tell everyone I’m adopted. I don’t go up to people and be like, ‘Hi, I’m adopted.’” For Hannah, “Only if they keep asking about like where my parents are from and all that” then does she share her adoptee identity. Otherwise when people ask where she’s from, Usually I just say New Jersey because I don’t want to explain … I don’t want to [say] China [because] then they’ll start asking you all these other questions, like, “Can you speak Chinese?” and all this other stuff, so I usually try to avoid that. When asked why she tries to avoid talking about being adopted, Hannah responded, “I’m not sure, that’s a good question. I’m wondering if it has to do with me trying to fit in subconsciously.” Hannah racially self-identifies as Asian or Asian American. She is recently familiar with the term transracial, encountering it for the first time within the past year in an

85 adoptee Facebook group. While Hannah identifies as Asian/Asian American, she also feels that being adopted affects how she experiences and understands this identity. She shared, I can’t really connect to [Asians] because I don’t have their language background or cultural background. But like I said before, I think just because other non-Asian people … just see us all as Asian. So I feel like the adoptee-part doesn’t really affect how people see me. In our second interview, Hannah shared that being adopted “does make it kind of easier to fit in with the other White population just because we grew up in a White family … we have American culture, so it’s kind of easy to navigate both [White/Asian] sides.” Hannah described being an adoptee as both an asset and a challenge, explaining that while sometimes it makes it difficult to fit in, she thinks being adopted “could also be an asset just because you have a different perspective on things.” When asked to say more about this different perspective, Hannah replied, Our culture is not Asian, but we look Asian … so I think we can like understand American culture and talk from both sides. But then just because we look Asian, we also experience the other stereotypes that other Asians experience and the discrimination part, but I don’t really feel Asian or anything sometimes. It’s hard to describe. You know how they say the bananas and Twinkies, so something like that … I guess our perspective is that we can see both sides a little bit. Hannah shared that she sees herself and Asian Americans broadly as, “kind of a bridge between [White] Americans and Asians.” According to Hannah, this is even more true for transracial adoptees, because When we talk to White populations … [they] seem more comfortable with us, because we’re obviously fluent in English. It’s kind of subconscious, I guess. They can kind of sense that we’re not ‘Asian, Asian,’ like international students; how they usually picture it. So, they’re like pleasantly surprised, I guess and they feel more comfortable talking to us. Jessie Jessie is a first-year film student at a small, private university in New England. She was adopted from China at 11-months-old by a single mom. When asked about her experience growing up as an Asian adoptee in a White family, Jessie explained, “Just like, I think, any other

86 adoptee, I’ve kind of also struggled a little bit with understanding who I really am.” She continued, Especially in a very White-based country, it’s hard … because, growing up, kids would always ask questions and suddenly [be] like, “Oh, how is she your mom?” It’s like you know, “She’s White and you’re different.” So it was definitely hard growing up and having kids always kind of looking at your differently. Especially there were a lot of struggles … with my own identity, with trying to figure out, as I grew up, understanding if I’m actually Chinese, if I’m growing up in American and adapting to my mom’s culture. So I kind of struggled with that, with figuring out who exactly I was in my own sense.” On her participant interest form, Jessie indicated that, Growing up in a White predominant country and culture has had a large impact on my racial identity. Without having any kind of Asian person to look up to or to guide me, I lost [a] sense of who I am. I believe that my racial identity has thinned out throughout the years as I experience life in America. In our first interview together, I asked Jessie to talk a bit more about this written reflection. She explained that when she was very young (between two to eight-years-old) she was more heavily involved in Chinese culture, language, and dance classes. However, As I started getting older, from about nine [years-old] ‘til about now … I slowly got involved in other things that weren’t Chinese or culture-related. I think mostly just to do with school, and then we had some financial situations that were going on and then extracurricular activities, and I was trying to focus a lot of my academics. According to Jessie, as she grew up, she “definitely felt more connected … to Chinese culture, but then, as the years went on, it started to thin out because now I’m not really as familiar with it; I’m not connected as much.” Jessie expressed some regret for not staying actively involved in Chinese cultural activities. She shared, I think keeping that throughout my years would’ve been better ‘cause then I would constantly be with those kind of people. Now it’s almost a little harder. It’s more of a struggle for me to get back into that. In a way, after not having been involved in Chinese cultural things, I continue to feel out of place even when I try to attend an event surrounding Chinese culture with or without adoptees.

87 She shared an example of attending a Chinese dance performance and feeling, “connected to China, but then there were times where I didn’t quite feel right there. I felt like a fake Chinese.” As Jessie has gotten older, she continues to wrestle with what has felt like competing interests between trying to learn more about Chinese culture and where she comes from and what she described as “my regularly personal life and academic life.” For Jessie, It was really hard growing up and trying to find people that I fit in with and could kind of expand and explore more of Chinese culture … I always wished I was exposed to more of that, but as I said, my own life around everything else kind of took a toll on that priority of finding out more about my culture. The challenge of reconciling her Chinese heritage and Italian culture have been particularly salient for Jessie when it comes to food and holidays. Jessie shared that celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays with her Italian godparents has left her feeling, “really misplaced, because I was like, ‘but I’m not Italian. I’m Chinese.” Jessie recalled regularly questioning herself, her family, and her identity, wondering, “Well if I’m Chinese, why aren’t we really celebrating this and doing it in the Chinese way?” For Jessie, these holiday celebrations in particular made her, “feel really confused, ‘cause I was like, ‘Well, but I’m not [Italian]. I am [Chinese], but I’m not doing what Chinese people do. I’m doing what the Italians do.” When asked how she racially self-identifies now, Jessie replied, “I tell people I’m Chinese American and I was born in China and I was raised in America in a White culture.” However, she also recognizes that growing up with a White mom is different from what others might expect. She explained, Everyone thinks that my family immigrated from China and I’m a first-generation Chinese in America. They think, ‘oh, your family must just [have] immigrated from China or whatever, and so your parents must be Chinese.’ And I’m like, ‘no, that’s not what it is.’ Or they think that my whole culture at home is all Chinese and that I speak fluent Chinese and I’m like, ‘no, I grew up with a White mom.’ They’re always a little surprised by that. Throughout our interview conversations, Jessie spoke at length about feeling different from what others expect of her. She reflected,

88 I think it’s just different in a sense because I grew up with a White mom who wasn’t from China or from an Asian background. I definitely grew up more Americanized than what people expect. When people ask me questions about Chinese culture, Chinese language, I can’t tell them anything ‘cause I don’t really know too much and so they’re always surprised. Then that kind of affects me ‘cause then it’s like, well maybe I should know more about it. But at the same time, I feel weird and misplaced whenever I try to immerse myself in Chinese culture since it isn’t a large part of my daily life.” This sentiment of feeling “misplaced” came up for Jessie a few times throughout our interviews. For example, Jessie expressed being more comfortable in predominantly White spaces than predominantly Asian spaces because, “I know what [White people] do and I know what their language is and I know what their culture is like, ‘cause I grew up in that space.” Whereas in Asian or Chinese spaces, Jessie expressed feeling “Very misplaced because they’re all talking about things that they know from their own culture and then I feel very American in that sense. Although I look like them, I don’t know anything about them really.” When asked if she talks about the challenges of feeling misplaced with her mom, Jessie indicated, “A little bit yeah ... but not a lot because [my mom] can’t really fully understand, so it’s a little bit hard to talk to her … it’s hard for her to relate and understand what that’s like.” Jessie expressed that being an adoptee has made her more aware of herself and her surroundings. Using the example of her consciousness anytime she sees an Asian store or restaurant, she explained “I think being an adoptee, you kind of search for those little things that draw you towards that culture and remind you of your other home.” For Jessie, even seeing another Asian person has a similar effect. She explained, “If I see another Asian person out in public, I definitely am like, ‘Oh look! It’s another Asian person. Oh, that’s so cool. They’re here in America too.’ Like, there’s someone out there too [who] also looks like me.” This is especially important to Jessie who grew up with very few other Asians in her home community. Jessie expressed that being a transracial adoptee in college is confusing, explaining, It’s really hard to find other people who are also [transracial adoptees] in college. It’s like you’re still figuring out where you belong in a sense, and not everyone can understand you being a transracial adoptee and what that means and what comes along with that.

89 Jessie hasn’t told many peers in college that she’s an adoptee because, “Everyone has a different reaction ... when they find out I’m an adoptee.” According to Jessie, “Some people are very surprised. They’re shocked really. They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, what do you mean you’re an adoptee? You didn’t grow up with Chinese parents?’” In this regard, Jessie described being an adoptee as sometimes challenging, explaining, “Everyone considers you, when they see you, they’re like, ‘oh your Chinese,’ but then you’re like, ‘yes, but I’m also American.’” For Jessie, navigating these multiple identities has been difficult at times, causing her to wonder, “What am I?” Jessie expressed that the most challenging aspect of being a transracial adoptee has been, Trying to figure out where I fit in and where I fall under the spectrum of American and Chinese. Trying to figure that out. Finding balance between the two and make sense of what each word specifically means. What makes me American? But what also makes me feel Chinese in a way? For Jessie, being a transracial adoptee has impacted her college experience because, That’s something I carried with me throughout my life. It’s something that doesn’t go away and it’s something that I’m still learning to process through and how to fit that within my life. It’s something that I think about every day, and [impacts] how I’m going to pick who to be friends with and who to talk to and things like that. According to Jessie, Y’know if I wasn’t a transracial adoptee, I think it’d be easier to interact with people and stuff like that. I definitely think [being adopted] has had a toll on life here at college, I had the intention of meeting a bunch of new people and making all these friends, but I think a part of the issue with me doing that or saying that is because I was thinking about [being transracially adopted]. Karen Karen is a senior art history and East Asian language and culture double major at a rurally located, public teaching-focused institution. She was adopted from southern China when she was eight-months-old. Karen has been primarily raised by her mom. She described their relationship as “Super, super close ‘cause it’s just been the two of us since I was six.” According to Karen, her mom’s approach to talking about race and adoption has played a large impact on her own development, explaining, “I think I would have had a lot more obstacles with finding

90 out who I am and navigating all these identity things in college, but [my mom is] always really positive and she’s always open to talking about it.” Karen grew up in a predominantly Black and White community. She recalled, “I think there was two other Asian people in my school, so I didn’t have very much exposure to other Asian people.” However, once in college Karen became actively involved with the Asian American student group. According to Karen, she usually feels really comfortable with her peers from the Asian American student group because “I’ve grown up with that community for the past four years, so it’s just [a] level of comfort and familiarity.” However, she also described sometimes feeling disconnected from these same peers. She explained, I do feel really comfortable in the [Asian American student group] bubble, but it’s also hard sometimes because when they’re talking about different Asian American experiences, it’s usually like, “My parents are from Asia. I’m first or second generation Asian. I’m growing up with no shoes in the house or eating rice with all of the meals, and all of these very specific cultural dishes that everyone knows about.” It kind of reminds me that I can’t fully relate to my friends, which is okay of course, but I guess that does kind of distance me a little bit. For Karen, hearing about her peers’ Asian American cultural experiences is different than having her own experience with them. She shared, “Sometimes because I’ve heard my friends talk about [their Asian cultural experiences] so much that I can imagine what it would be like, but it’ll never be an authentic personal thought.” In this regard, Karen made a point to distinguish her experience from other Asian American students on campus. When asked to elaborate, she commented, I guess it’s just I notice it mostly when it comes to cultural knowledge. A lot of it has to do with food. When we go out to eat or something and people talk about their parents make this or that, or they’re translating menus and stuff and I’m just sitting there. Twiddling my thumbs. I think, yeah, it’s mostly food-based. Or if we’re having a very specific conversation that’s directly about their experiences growing up. While Karen expresses an appreciation for learning about her friends’ Asian American experiences, these types of interactions also serve as reminders that her racialized experience is different as a transracial adoptee.

91 According to Karen, “I think [the transracial adoptee] experience is really similar to half- White, half-Asian people.” She goes on to describe how her racialized experience as a transracial adoptee may be more similar to the experiences of multiracial White/Asian people than to non-adopted Asian Americans. Karen explained, In high school my best friend was half-Chinese and half-White, and now my best friend in college is half-Japanese and half-White. We always talk about how similar the experiences are [of being transracially adopted and multiracial] because she grew up with some Asian culture but half her family is White. There’s always racial ambiguity. And while I don’t have racial, I have cultural ambiguity … so we have a lot of talks about that. For Karen, it’s “Interesting to see how many similarities there are between our experiences.” In college, Karen started a group with other internationally-adopted students within the Asian American student organization on campus. According to Karen, adoptees are Such a small sector in [the Asian American student group]. I guess in any Asian/Asian American community [adoptees are] a small group. But especially being [at this university] with such a small Asian population. So it was like, it was amazing to have at least five girls in the club that were all adopted. So that was super exciting. We’ve only had a couple of meetings, [things] kind of dissipated this year because [our schedules] got hectic, but it was still nice to at least have one or two conversations. According to Karen, the group “did intros, [shared] how old we were, where we were from, what it was like growing up [and] if we ever thought about [being adopted].” While Karen had positive things to say in general about her involvement in the Asian American student group, she described feeling especially connected with the sub-community of Asian American adoptees. She recalled that with one of the women in particular, they would watch “different documentaries [on adoption] together and cry together, [and] talk about it.” Karen described college as, Such a transformative time and so many things happen in such a short period of time. And identity changes so easily and so fast that I think it’s hard to capture what being Asian American in college is like in a clear and succinct way. She continued, “I definitely feel like my identity has changed a lot [in college]. Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many things to learn about yourself in college, and it goes by so quickly.” In particular, Karen attributes her identity exploration in college to her involvement with the Asian

92 American community, which was a new experience as she did not have access to many Asian Americans growing up. Karen describes her involvement with the Asian American student group on campus as prompting her to think more about her own identity and the extent to which she wants to connect or associate with other Asian Americans. She reflected, “Do I want to engage in this community? Or do I want to not be engaged with it?” Karen described having a “huge identity crisis sophomore year” after a six-week study abroad trip in China. This study abroad trip was the first time she had returned to China since her adoption. She described the experience as “very difficult” and attributes support she received from a couple of close friends in the Asian American student group to her managing through the situation. According to Karen, “They were really helpful in just talking with me about all the things that I had trouble with understanding going there.” The trip occurred the summer between Karen’s first and second years of college. She explained, I was super excited to go, but also really nervous, of course … one of the main things I had a lot of difficulties accepting was the fact that because I think that almost everyone that was in my study abroad group was White, when you go to Asia–especially China– they give White people a lot of special privilege there ... it was hard watching that. She explained further, We stayed in this international dorm and there would be Chinese people that would hear us talking English and then they would try to engage us in conversation; but they would never look at me. They would always look at my White friends. Or they’d speak Chinese and expect me to understand. So there was a lot of expectations because I look Asian and being in Asia. Karen felt this was an understandable assumption, and yet, struggled with “not being able to fit their expectations of what I should be just because I look a certain way.” In Karen’s opinion, “Just because you look a certain way doesn’t mean you’re going to inherently have all of this cultural knowledge.” Karen expressed that as a transracial Asian American adoptee, “You’re never fully going to be accepted into both cultures, but you also get both cultures. So I don’t know if [being adopted is] a good or bad thing.” In our second interview, Karen offered, “I used to feel like I had to be what other people expected.” This was particularly challenging during her study abroad experience, “feeling like I had to be Chinese already when I was studying abroad in

93 China, even though I don’t have that experience. I’m completely American culturally.” This tension of being racially (or phenotypically) perceived one way (e.g., as Asian or Chinese), but identifying culturally another way (e.g., American or Western) has been something Karen has found particularly challenging as a transracial adoptee. She described her experience as, “The being in between; having to play both cultures–not really belonging to both cultures–but still being in both.” Kyra Kyra is a senior computer science major at a small women’s liberal arts college in the Mid-Atlantic. Kyra was adopted from China when she was approximately nine or ten-months- old. Both of her adoptive parents are White. Kyra has a younger sister, who was adopted from Vietnam. For Kyra, adoption was normalized growing up. She explained, I think I was very lucky in how I was brought up. I grew up with a handful of other Chinese adopted girls … When I was five, I remember, I just thought that that’s how it worked; some babies were adopted and some babies were born … The way my mom framed it was, “There are tummy babies and then there are adopted babies.” I just thought it was a 50/50 thing, you know?” Growing up in a large urban area on the West Coast, being Asian was also very normalized. Kyra recalled, “I don’t ever feel like, when I was young anyway, that I stood out. [Being Asian] was a very normal thing.” According to Kyra, being raised in a White family, Made me not really as aware of my Asianness, until much later. I think part of this was because I grew up in such a diverse area. While I did know that I was Chinese, I didn’t have as pointedly racialized of an experience as people who may have grown up in [a] much more predominantly White area. I think I was able for quite a while to see myself as White, even if I wouldn’t say that. Even if I wouldn’t vocalize that if asked; I think I just saw myself as White. For Kyra, being adopted “allowed me to live to an extent as a White person and just not really think about [race].” However, Kyra’s thoughts about her racial identity shifted in college. She reflected, “Maybe it was just coming to college, into a place that was more racialized that made me see myself more as Asian than White.” When asked to explain this shift more, Kyra responded,

94 It was just kind of through college I think. I guess just being in a place where race is talked about so much more … I can’t really point to many very specific moments. I guess it was sort of a gradual shift … I think a lot of places, in this country anyway, race is talked about as sort of a White versus Other thing. There was no way for me to really be on that White side and I realized that, and so I ended up defaulting to the other side. Kyra continued, “I think there was a time when I subconsciously was like, ‘Which side [of racial groups] do I fall on?’ But now I definitely fall more on the People of Color side.” For Kyra, situating herself racially is further complicated by her observation that, People who look Asian are still relatively privileged in that they’re not being shot by police. They’re not subject to that extent of discrimination … I think being Asian affords you a lot of privilege and not necessarily rightfully, when it comes to racial conversations. In our second interview, Kyra shared, “I’ve been in this in between with a lot of the racial issues that have come up in the last couple of years in the United States and of course therefore my campus.” She further explained, Being Asian, I haven’t really had to be on the White side, which is honestly, sometimes very nice. On the other hand, I do feel like I have some of that privilege even though I don’t always need to account for it. In college, Kyra described feeling “a lot more Asian, in a way, and I think that part of it is that my school and where I’m going to college is a lot less diverse than [the city where I grew up].” Due to the predominantly White context of her college campus, Kyra has felt “more like an actual Asian person, I guess, or part of an Asian community” as juxtaposed to how she felt growing up in a more racially diverse environment. When I asked what this environmental shift has been like, she replied, On the one hand it’s kind of like, “Oh, it’s nice” like I’m finding a club. But on the other hand it’s kind of strange, just because I’m not sure if I … I don’t really completely identify as Asian, or even Asian American. Referencing something she read authored by a Korean adoptee, Kyra explained that, A lot of Korean adoptees don’t really feel Korean or American and they identify more with just being a Korean adoptee, and I think that’s definitely how I feel about being a Chinese adoptee. I don’t have the experience of growing up in a family that was full of

95 Asian immigrants, or even second generation Asian immigrants … In a sense, I kind of felt like I was almost like a White person that just had an Asian mask on. When asked how she racially identifies, Kyra indicated that when she was filling out college applications, “I would press the other box and just say Chinese adoptee.” She explained in her participant intake form, I feel that my adoption is the only way to accurately describe my race. I'm not Chinese American, nor am I American Chinese. These tend to imply a person whose parents, at least, were of Chinese heritage. How I look affects how people perceive me and thus who I am. The culture in which I was raised also defines me. For Kyra, her identity as an adoptee greatly informs how she conceptualizes her race, ethnicity, and culture. She explained, International adoption just kind of blurs the lines between race, and ethnicity, and culture so much that it’s most accurate to me to say transnational [adoptee] because it indicates the cross between two nations, and nation indicates culture, and can indicate race. She added, “Race is more on the looks side and ethnicity is sort of the being side … with transnational adoptees, our race doesn’t really match our ethnicity.” Adoption according to Kyra is Always left out whenever there’s a conversation about race. There’s just this expectation that your culture is going to match how you look [your race]. I think that to an extent that’s valid because for the majority of people that is the case ... but I do think that it would benefit people to think about [how race, ethnicity, and culture are different] a little bit more. Kyra acknowledged that these terms can get muddled, offering that they are “so deeply intertwined, even when people try to pull them apart when it comes to transnational adoptees, it’s a mess.” In talking about her complex multiple identities, Kyra explained, I don’t feel like I have an ethnicity … by that I mean, I guess I don’t feel like I fit within one specific understanding of culture in that … I feel like White would kind of match into ethnicity-ish, but not totally just because I think your race really affects your upbringing and so people’s perceptions of your race will inform that. I think even if you are raised in a White background, you won’t have an experience of someone who was totally White.

96 She continued, Being an adoptee, a transnational adoptee anyway, you have to think about what race is to an extent a lot more than other people do. Maybe some people are less comfortable talking about it, but I think that you definitely have to think about it and so there’s just more awareness. Therefore, according to Kyra, as an adoptee you need to “differentiate race and ethnicity before you may even know what those words are. I think that just because you look different from your family then you just have to think about that.” A really important note for Kyra about being a transracial adoptee, was the assumption that adoptees have mental health problems related to their adoption. Kyra explained, I feel like whenever people think of adoption, because it is sort of a root of adversity, to an extent they’re always just talking about mental health. “Make sure you talk all your issues out.” There’s just always this connection of you are an adoptee, you have issues … A lot of adoptees have issues. They shouldn’t shy away from taking care of them in some way or another, but I guess I just wished that there was less of this automatic connection with adoptees and all of the issues they probably have from being adoptees. And yet, Kyra expresses frustration by the regular pathologizing that she feels happens with regards to adoptees and their mental health and wellness. This was a particularly sensitive issue for Kyra in the context of her relationship with her parents. She reflected, When I was younger, like really younger, I would have, I don’t know, like separation anxiety or I would throw tantrums or something like that and so my parents took me to a family therapist when I was seven, and she was terrible. I’m not even going to go into it. She was not a good therapist, but I think that I spent the next good part of my life, one going to terrible therapists and two, just getting to the point where every single time I had a problem it was because of the orphanage or because of China … There was just this level of blaming China, blaming the orphanage for every single tiny thing that might’ve had a completely different cause. Kyra acknowledged, I’m not saying that someone’s beginnings don’t affect them, they do, but … any time anything went wrong even if it was within the bounds of normal childhood development

97 issues [my parents] would be like, “This is a problem because you’re adopted.” … Just treating it in a way that was more pathological than just parenting. Kyra’s concern about the pathologizing of adoptees extended beyond her own personal experience with her parents to college educators. She explained, “I think that when administrators think about adoptees on campus it’s always in a mental health context, rather than just we all have different experiences and some of us have other [adoptee] experiences as well.” Mai Mai is a junior biology major at a public teaching-focused university located in the rural Midwest. She was adopted from Kazakhstan when she was four-and-a-half-years-old. She has one older sister, who is the biological daughter to her parents and one adopted brother who is also from Kazakhstan (although they are not blood related). Mai’s parents are divorced. When asked about her experience talking about race or adoption with her parents, she indicated a different interaction with her mom and dad. According to Mai, her mom feels guilt for “stripp[ing] my brother and I away from our culture,” whereas Mai described her dad as, “I don’t want to say racist, but he likes to make fun of people.” Growing up, Mai’s mom told her that she is Eurasian, but Mai has found that a lot of people don’t know what that means and so she has to explain. In college, Mai joined the Asian American student organization on her campus. She describes this as “not intentional,” but rather because a friend asked her to come. In thinking about her experience in the Asian American student organization, Mai reflected, It’s very weird, because at home, when I’m surrounded by White people … I’m like the Asian person, but here when I’m with the [Asian American student group] members, a lot of them come from different cultures and different countries and they’re very worldly. So I’m like American. White American. For Mai, context influences how she racially identifies. She explains that when she’s with her friends from the Asian American student group, “I’m considered full American and they almost, they view me as a White person, which they told me before. But like when I’m with my family or when I’m with White friends, I’m the token Asian.” Mai does not appreciate being racially tokenized because, “I don’t really feel that way and I can’t give them insight about other cultures or the Kazakh culture. I was raised the same way they [as White people] were raised.”

98 Even though Mai serendipitously got involved with the Asian American student group on campus, she has taken on a leadership role as an exec board member. When asked why and how she decided to get more involved she replied, I just made a lot of connections with a lot of people. I wouldn’t say that I connected culturally with them, which isn’t bad, that’s just the way it was, but it was very interesting to see how everyone else behaved and what they thought about the U.S. and [our school]. For Mai, meeting and making friends in the Asian American student group has been a new experience as most of her schoolmates growing up were White. According to Mai, when peers from the Asian American student group ask if she sees herself as White or Asian, she replies, “I don’t really care. I don’t know. I feel weird in between.” When I asked her to talk more about this in-between experience, Mai shared, “It changes depending on where I’m at, so I am American that’s how I identify as, but I’m not passably White so I don’t get completely treated all the time like a White American, if that makes sense.” She continued, “I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m Asian … because I don’t feel like that’s an accurate label … it’s so weird in between.” Part of the reason Mai is unsure if she is identified as Asian is because as a Kazakh adoptee, she has been told that she isn’t a “mainstream Asian.” Mai explained that Kazakhstan is not a country many people in the US are familiar with, so they perceive it differently from, “Y’know the main [Asian countries] … Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese. The ones you hear about a lot.” According to Mai, “Kazakhstan is a weird country. We don’t all look the same, so when you look at me … it’s a little ambiguous, where if you saw us in a group [you might not know] where we are from.” For Mai, the phenotypic ambiguity of being Kazakh is different from how she perceives other Asian ethnicities. She offered as an example, “My friend, who’s Chinese, adopted from China, people can generally tell she’s Chinese [just by looking at her].” Whereas, Mai has had a very different racialized experience, she explained, “A lot of people ask me if I’m mixed, and I don’t entirely know how to answer that question … people assume [by looking at me] that maybe one of my parents are White, and one of them is Asian.” For Mai, this is a difficult question to answer because, “I don’t know … I can’t truthfully answer.” Relatedly, Mai spoke at length about racial demographic box checking and how this is particularly precarious for Kazakhs. She shared that she has some Kazakh friends who check Caucasian/White and others who check Asian. When I asked how she responds to these

99 demographics questionnaires, she replied, “It changes just depending on how I feel on the day. Sometimes I’ll put Asian, if they have an Other option I’ll put Other.” Mai added, I wish they didn’t ask me that … Why do they need … for statistics I guess it makes sense, but personally I don’t know if that should really affect whatever it is you need on my [college] application ... I don’t know. I’m just thinking that if an actual Asian person were to check that box, they have different advantages and disadvantages through life and their family does too and they were brought up differently. So it’s not the same situation. Mai does not think an Asian racial label fits her experience very well also because as a transracial adoptee, “I was raised in a White family … I wasn’t raised in a cultural like Asian or Kazakh family, so I don’t have much connection to it.” In her participant interest form, Mai wrote, Being an adoptee puts me in this grey area of racial identity, where I was raised in a White family, and for [a] majority of my life surrounded by White peers, friends, and culture, but I’m not passable as White so I get asked about my racial identity often. Despite being born in Kazakhstan, I have little to no connection to the culture or language. According to Mai, her Asian and Asian American peers “see me basically as a White person … because I am not bilingual and I have White parents and I was raised here.” Mai described this experience as, “walking on a tightrope. If I’m asked about my identity … I have to be careful about what words I choose.” For Mai, “When I meet Kazakhs on campus I tell them immediately I’m adopted because most of the time they assume that I speak Russian … and I just don’t want them to be confused.” Mai further reflected, “When I tell other Kazakhs that I’m adopted, I kind of feel like this sense of disappointment in them, ‘cause I don’t know the culture and I don’t know their language. So there’s a loss of connection.” This disconnect around language and sense of connection or belonging is something Mai talked about as an indicator to her peers that she is different from other Asian Americans. Mai shared a story to illustrate her point, There’s a Korean organization [on campus] and they seem kind of exclusive. If you don’t speak the language, it’s very hard to become acclimated into the group. You’re kind of pushed away … Asian people in generally have very strong pride in their

100 nationality and language and it’s just very strict on what they consider to be whatever racial identity they’re speaking about. According to Mai, her lack of foreign language fluency “furthers [Asian Americans’] reasoning to put me in the American White label, which is not entirely false. I am American. I was raised by a White family. But I don’t get the same advantages as a White person, generally.” In reflecting more about her racial identity and the implications of being raised by a White family, Mai shared, I don’t want to say that I was advantaged because I was in a White family, but there are opportunities that I’ve been given that maybe a lot of people are not given. For Asian families and families where the parents don’t know English as their first language, [or] their English is not as strong, they typically run into a lot of issues. Mai also shared, “I just feel like I connect on a deeper level culturally just with White people.” Mai’s internal sense of self and connection to her White family and cultural upbringing, sometimes conflicts with how others racially perceive her. In our second interview together, Mai shared two stories of college professors asking about her racial identity and/or asking her to speak up and represent the Asian American perspective in class. According to Mai, these interactions, “caught me off guard, I was like, ‘I didn’t know you could ask these kinds of questions.’” For Mai, these interactions are uncomfortable because, “I don’t really have much, like, anything to say about it just ‘cause I’m not like traditional Asian American.” Mia Mia is a sophomore biomedical engineering major at a public, midsize, research university in the Mid-Atlantic. She was adopted from China in 1998 by two White parents. Mia grew up in a predominantly White community and is an only child. Mia’s first memory regarding race in college was during her application process. She recalled, Whether a benefit or detriment, I have a White name, so … it’s just something to navigate, whether I wanted to include my race on the application and whether in my application essay I wanted to talk about my life and experiences as an adoptee and really if I wanted to highlight that or if I wanted to talk about something else about my life. According to Mia, race was something that going into college she, “thought a lot about.” Once in college, Mia anticipated she would have lots in common with her Peers of Color, however, she has found that she doesn’t have the same experiences they do. She explained, “I

101 think just being raised by a White family ... I guess I’m more similar to White people culturally than I am to first-generation [Students of Color] and international students.” When I asked Mia to talk more about this, she continued, Compared to my Asian American peers … it’s like small things that separate me from their experiences … I don’t have the stereotypical tiger mom parents. My parents were always like, ‘Do your best and that’s what we expect you to do. If your best is a B, then your best is a B, and we’re okay with that.’ Whereas, I think a lot of my Asian American peers with Asian parents, that’s not the case. I think they’re pushed a lot more. Mia also spoke about her relationship with her home country as a distinction between herself and her Asian American peers who Have returned to, whether it be China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. They’ve gone back and have met their fifth cousin or something like that, because it’s just like everyone is still family there, which is obviously something that as an adoptee you don’t have. Mia also mentioned “understanding authenticity” as a distinguishing trait between herself and other Asian Americans, explaining, For example, one of my friends is like, ‘yeah, the Chinese food here is horrible’ because they know what true, authentic food cooked from grandma tastes like; whereas, my version of Chinese food is the American Chinese food you get at the takeout place down the street. Yet, at the same time, Mia is also conscious of the ways in which “Racially … I experience a lot of the same things as any other Asian American does.” For Mia, this is particularly true with regards to “how people–how White people, at least–see me, at least right off the bat, when they don’t have a conversation with me. When they just see me, I just look like another American-born Chinese person.” For Mia, this means experiencing “stereotypes from White people … [such as] you’re good at math … I can’t see because my eyes are too squinty … you’re quiet, you’re subordinate … I’m a bad driver.” This duality of racialized experiences, sometimes feeling distinctly different from her Asian American peers and other times being treated the same as them, is one of the reasons Mia finds being a transracial adoptee can be challenging. She explained, “It’s just, you’re not White and you’re not Asian, because racially you’re Asian, culturally you’re White, which is a very unique experience.”

102 Mia wrote more about this unique racialized experience as a transracial adoptee on her participant interest form, Being adopted greatly impacts how I think about my race because I am not an ‘Asian American’ or a Chinese American’ in the traditional sense and context. I was raised with social capital because of my adoptive family but did/do not have racial privileges because I am a Woman of Color. In our first interview, I followed up about this and asked Mia to talk more about how she racially identifies. She replied, “I consider myself a Chinese American adoptee.” Clarifying that she is a Chinese adoptee as opposed to more generally asserting that she is an Asian American adoptee is important to Mia because, As a Chinese adoptee, there is a specific context in which my adoption came about because of the one child policy, because of just the government in China, the infanticide and gendercide, and all of those things that were happening, [which] is why I ended up where I am today. Additionally, Mia is sure to assert her adoptee identity because “It’s something that defines my experience, so I’m not just Chinese American, because when you think of a Chinese American you think of someone who was raised by Chinese parents.” For Mia, disaggregating Asian demographics is really important. She explained, A lot of White people, they don’t really care if you’re Chinese or if you’re Korean or if you’re Japanese … they don’t really care. You’re just Asian, or they just generalize and say, ‘well, it’s all basically just China.’ Which is so wrong! But that’s another issue in itself. Mia attributed her racial consciousness to her involvement in an online organization for Chinese adoptees, with which she first became involved in high school. She recalled that reading other adoptees’ posts online was really affirming, helping her realize, So it’s not just me. I’m not crazy. This is normal for me to be wondering about all of this and how I should identify or how I do identify. It’s not weird that I’m confused because I’m raised by White people, but I’m not 100% White. This online community has been an important space for Mia to work through some of her insecurities and negative feelings about being Asian. She explained,

103 I think for the longest time, I didn’t … I don’t know how to phrase this. I didn’t enjoy being Asian. Like in middle school, everyone’s trying makeup. Well my eyes are different, so I can’t put on eyeshadow or eyeliner the same way as everybody else. Or clothes that complement their skin tone don’t compliment my skin tone. I definitely struggled with that. Mia recalled, “As a kid, I just wanted to look like everyone else, and I didn’t. I didn’t know how to handle that.” As she has gotten older and become connected to other Chinese adoptees and Asian Americans, she has begun to think more critically about her experience, asking questions like, “Why do I feel this way towards Asians? Why aren’t there products for Asian people?” In hindsight, Mia observed, “taking myself out of the White contexts” was what was most influential in her ability to appreciate her differences–instead of “comparing them to White contexts and considering them inferior.” She explained, Exposing myself to other Asian Americans has helped and then exposing myself and becoming a leader in the Chinese adoptee community. Reading, just reading all of the stuff on the internet about race, race relations, and all of it … I think it’s just educating myself outside of the history classes that you’re given in school. For Mia, finding community in the Asian American student group at college has been important because, “I wanted to find a physical group of Asian people to hang out with and to at least try to meet and get to know and to have that community because I really hadn’t had a physical community before.” Mia expressed feeling most comfortable in Asian American and Asian American adoptee spaces like her student organization in college, because I feel able to speak about these experiences that I’ve had, and racism, and White privilege, and all that kind of stuff that you can’t necessarily talk about with White people because you might offend them … I think right now the White community as a whole is not ready to embrace all of that because they have not experienced the social oppression that minority and marginalized people have. However, Mia also recognized that “A lot of people in the adoptee groups I’m in don’t fit in with the Asian student groups or their Chinese American clubs [in college] because they honestly get ostracized, which is really unfortunate.” For Mia, her sense of belonging within the Asian American student group on campus is grounded in her own conviction that, “I come from a

104 different story than [the other Asian Americans students] and that doesn’t negate the fact that I am Asian American.” Sarah Sarah is a junior biological/pre-medical illustration major at a large land-grant research university in the Midwest. She was adopted from Korea at six-months-old by two White parents. Sarah has two adopted brothers, both of whom are also from Korea. Growing up, Sarah was raised in a predominantly White community. She reflected, “It wasn’t that bad … I was just used to it and it didn’t really bother me.” Prior to college, most of Sarah’s friends were White. This is different from the friend group she has made since starting college, where most of her friends are Hispanic. Sarah shares, “I actually don’t have any White friends here [in college], which is shocking to me … [because] it never happened to me before, like not having White friends.” Sarah met most of her college friends in a first-year student multicultural scholarship program. Sarah explained that in the multicultural program, I wasn’t seeing White people for so long. It was fine, but then when I switched back to my normal life and with my own family back at home, it was kinda weird … because [in the program] I was only seeing and interacting with my own race or other minority races. That was more weird to me than actually seeing White people all the time. While Sarah appreciated the opportunity to be “surrounded by so many minorities without seeing White people as often” she also described having some difficulty transitioning back to her predominantly White college campus. She explained, When I came back freshman year, it bothered me a lot. I don’t know [if] it was discomfort, but obviously [my college] was really White, so I feel like I got culture shock or something when I saw a lot of White people and it just made me feel inferior. According to Sarah, part of this feeling of inferiority was related to, When I came to college … I started seeing the international students and I felt like that made me feel worse about myself because I felt like people were defining me as international and there’s a stereotype on campus for international students that [they] don’t really speak English well.

105 For Sarah being perceived as an international student is uncomfortable because, “they stand out a lot in my opinion. I just [don’t] wanna relate to them or be thought of as an international student.” Later in her first-year of college, Sarah joined the Asian Pacific American student organization on campus, and while she met a couple of other adoptees she also realized, “Most of the Asian Americans I met are not adopted … [they] were born here with actual Asian families.” Sarah continued, Since the majority of the organization is non-adoptees, I feel like [adoption] just doesn’t come up … which sometimes I kinda wish [it] would, but I understand ‘cause the majority of them are not adopted so they probably wouldn’t even understand. Sarah shared a couple of examples of times when she felt distinctly different from her non- adopted peers while socializing in the Asian Pacific American student group. For example, There’s a bunch of events we hold, the fashion show for example, where we bring clothes. And I don’t really have any clothes from Korea. I had one, when I was like four-years-old … then we have cultural potlucks sometimes, and [the other Asian American students] have ideas and they make that food, but I don’t know how to make anything. Sarah explained that it is these types of experiences that propel her to openly disclose her adoptee identity. She shared, “I feel like if I don’t say I’m adopted they’re just gonna assume I have all these traditional Asian stereotypes with an Asian family and they’ll think I know some Asian language.” When asked to describe her racial identity in her participant interest form, Sarah wrote, Being an adoptee, I think, definitely blinds you from your real origin [or] descent. [Being] raised in a White family does not have me learn anything about my race/ethnicity, but I do not have a problem with it at all. According to Sarah, “Seeing White people all the time is totally normal to me. I know I’m always the only Asian ... but I don’t really care about that.” In our first interview, I followed up and asked Sarah to tell me more about how she perceives her racialized experience to be similar to or different from non-adopted Asian Americans. Sarah shared, Well definitely some of them know their own language, and I don’t know Korean at all. Also, their last names are Asian and mine’s English … I don’t know any culture

106 compared to my friends who are Vietnamese, for example, who eat Asian food at home and everything. I don’t. Additionally, Sarah observed her non-adopted Asian American peers to be more racially politicized on campus. She explained that some of her peers are “trying to make a space, a physical space on our campus for Asian Americans.” According to Sarah, I feel like they are more concerned than me ‘cause they do come from disadvantaged backgrounds, like low income. I know some of my friends, their parents immigrated here. Compared to my life where I don’t, I haven’t experienced that at all. For Sarah, being a transracial adoptee definitely impacts how others racially perceive her. She explained, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but many Asian Americans I grew up with who are adopted, they get [told] that they’re White or something because they act White and I get that sometimes too. I don’t know if that’s a bad or good thing. I feel like I just connect more with the American side. During our second interview conversation, Sarah mentioned again that she gets “called White a lot.” Initially, Sarah indicated that these comments didn’t bother her, saying “Since they are my friends, I feel like they’re joking.” She also offered, I think one reason why it doesn’t bother me is because when you’re being called White … it’s not a bad thing. But if, for example, I was [told] I was acting ghetto or something, or acting Black, then … I feel like that would be more of [an] offensive thing because just how the stereotypes are for those types of people. I asked Sarah if based on these types of comments, she feels White, to which she replied, “Sometimes I do actually because, well, ‘cause I live in a White family and I have had a lot of White friends.” Related to these racialized characterizations, Sarah expressed feeling exasperated with others’ expectations of her as an Asian woman, specifically related to dating. She explained, Because I have a lot of multicultural friends, the topic of racial dating comes up a lot. I kinda get attacked by that and it bothers me, because I know a lot of Asian girls who date White guys, but I don’t. I haven’t dated any White guy ever. So it just bothers me, because they feel like I would date one [even though] I say I don’t, and I feel like that’s also part of acting White.

107 Towards the end of our second interview, Sarah was adamant in clarifying, “Even though, how much I get called things [like acting White], I really am not. I still identify as Asian American. I do act American, I feel American, but I'm still Asian and that won't change.” Veliqe Veliqe is a sophomore psychology major at a public teaching-focused university located in the rural Midwest. She was adopted from China when she was approximately eight-months- old by her mom who is White and a single parent. Veliqe’s family includes a younger brother and sister, both of whom were also adopted from China. Veliqe and her siblings grew up on a farm near a small, predominantly White agricultural town. According to Veliqe, “I came from a school where 98% of the students were White. Our graduating class was 100 students, and I was one of the two students of diverse color.” Veliqe described feeling Very White on the inside, but also a little bit Chinese. It’s really difficult because I feel like I’m wearing this different skin. I feel more White because I connect with a lot of American culture, but on the outside I don’t look like that. Looking one way and feeling another was something that I struggled with for a while. In further describing her experience growing up as a transracial adoptee, Veliqe offered a metaphor, “There’s the banana, which is white on the inside, yellow on the outside. So I kind of categorize myself as a banana a little bit.” Later, Veliqe expanded upon the banana metaphor, explaining, “For a while I just referred to myself as a banana, because I [felt] that my Asian skin was something I was given, and not something ... [that] really embodied me.” Upon entering college, Veliqe became involved with several Asian/Asian American student organizations on campus. She explained, “I found an Asian community that I never had at home, and that was a really unique feeling.” This involvement in the Asian American community impacted how Veliqe conceptualizes her race. She reflected, Throughout college, I’ve changed my mind about that [banana reference], but I do feel super White at the same time. Because of the fact that people notice and point out that I’m Asian … I am starting to embrace my Asian identity more and more. Also, being around other people that physically look like me has been awesome because I have never had that experience.

108 Veliqe feels that college is an opportunity to explore one’s independence that is uniquely needed for transracial adoptees. She explained that in her hometown People assume that everything is linear, having a family equals having kids, which then means that everyone looks like each other. I grew up in a culture where people assume that my family is all related to each other, including bloodline and everything. Whereas, according to Veliqe, in college “It is more difficult for people to see that things [like family] aren’t linear … so they don’t make as many assumptions. I like that they don’t make assumptions, I like that a lot.” Veliqe identifies as Asian American and feels strongly that her racialized experience as an adoptee raised in a White family is different from others. In her participant interest form, she wrote, I identify as Asian American. For me this means a person of Asian descent but upholds American values, ways of life, social norms, etcetera. As an Asian American adoptee, I am constantly aware that I don't look like everyone else, not even my parents. This is very difficult to deal with but it is something that you become accustomed to. In our first interview, I followed up and asked Veliqe to share more about how she identifies racially; she continued, The whole transracial adoptee part of my identity is a large factor because I have a lot more of my American culture influencing me, than my Asian culture … maybe if I was adopted into an Asian family, maybe I would identify more as Asian. Even though being raised by a White adoptive family impacts how Veliqe identifies racially, she does not regularly disclose that she is an adoptee. In our first interview conversation, she shared, “Not unless I’m really close [to someone], I don’t share that I am an adoptee. It is very personal information that is a really important core identity and something I don’t have a lot of answers to.” Veliqe is somewhat hesitant about sharing that she is an adoptee because I don’t know how they’re gonna react. It’s difficult to answer when people ask, “Where are you from? No, where are you really from? What happened to your birth parents? Do you remember anything? Do you want to go back and find them? Aren’t you glad that you are here in America instead of China?” And it is difficult to not react when people say, “Oh, your birth parents must have been terrible people to leave their child

109 like that.” Or, “You were left on the street? How can someone do that to a child!?” These questions feel unsettling and too personal with someone that I’ve met only five minutes ago, so I don’t like being asked questions about my adoption too often. Veliqe also shared a story about a cousin who made fun of the pronunciation of her Chinese name. This was a critical incident for her, and she reflected, “That’s when I stopped sharing information with people that I didn’t really trust, because it hurts when people joke about things surrounding my core identity or when they just don’t care.” By our second interview, Veliqe indicated that while she is still somewhat selective about whom she discloses her adoptee identity to, that she is also “trying to be a little less uptight about my requirements, because it’s important for people to know that we [as adoptees] are different from them … and sharing our stories is really important.” When I asked Veliqe to talk more about her evolving opinion on disclosing her adoptee identity, she replied, “I like hearing that other people are [adopted] like me. So I feel if I’m more open about my adoption then maybe other adoptees will be as well, so together we won’t feel as alone.” This is important to Veliqe because, “I feel a bit segregated from the people that don’t understand my story [as a transracial adoptee] and I want to bridge that gap.” According to Veliqe, even though her college campus has only 2% Asian identified students enrolled as undergraduate students, she feels “very comfortable.” She explained, Some people come to my university with the mindset of like, “Oh my gosh, this place is horrible! It’s so White and I will never fit in.” But I think it is all about our attitude. My mindset is, “Okay, yeah I’m an outsider, but I’m gonna try my best to be an insider, too.” Veliqe described her racialized experience at her predominantly White institution as, “a paradox” explaining that, she feels Both hyper visible because race is not something you can hide … especially coming from a campus that is not very racially diverse. So I feel very, very, hyper visible in that context … [and] I think Asian American adoptees are kind of invisible, too, because within the Asian community, there are two separate categories. In one category, there are domestically born American students, American born Chinese is what we like to call them, and then in the other category are the international students. There’s not really any cross category there. So transracial adoptee is that weird floater that doesn’t quite belong

110 in either. So I would say that would being a transracial adoptee is an invisible category that people don’t think of. In reflecting on her sense of belonging among different racialized groups on campus, Veliqe shared that she sometimes feels “excluded from international groups.” She continued, “I feel like they don’t think I’m authentic … perhaps because we have cultural differences … language barriers.” Veliqe went on to explain that, “There is this giant Asian community circle, and while we all go under one umbrella, there are many groups within that.” According to Veliqe these groups differ by culture, purpose (social versus professional networking), and ethnicity. When I asked which circle(s) Veliqe felt she fits in with best, she responded, “I don’t really confine myself to any circle … do I feel like one organization fits me? No. But at the same time, this [not fitting into one discrete circle] is a better fit than I’ve ever had before.” Veliqe attributed not fitting in to any one group to her transracial adoptee identity and experience explaining, People who are not transracial adoptees don’t go through the same situations that we do… the fact that you don’t fit into these circles compared to other people that changes the way I look at international students, it changes the way I look at domestic students, and changes our whole point of view. When I asked Veliqe to talk more about this change, she continued, It’s easy to be on the inside and fit in, but when you don’t fit into any of these categories that people set for you, then it changes your point of view, and you start thinking that these [existing circles/groups are] not as great as you think … there are a lot of people who are united by a common way and a common custom, and common demographics and all that. But do I fit into any one of these specific categories? No. I think because of being a transracial adoptee ... because I do not neatly fit into one category, it changes my point of view. But the same can be said for the other point of view. If I was not adopted, then I wouldn’t have these experiences, so of course how would [non-transracially adopted] people know what it’s like to be the outsider looking in, and not fit into these categories? Veliqe described not fitting in is as, Hard at first, because you want friends and similarity. You want to fit in to a category. It’s very easy, it’s comfortable. But I’m grateful [for not fitting in] because it gives me a

111 whole different point of view, and I think you really see the true people’s self when you’re faced with people who are different from you. According to Veliqe, There are a lot more categories of Asians and adoptees … the world is changing and everything is not linear … In my opinion, identities emerge as they’re allowed to. So if you think that there’s only certain categories, then there will only be certain categories. If you open your mind to, there are other possibilities, then there will be infinitely more categories.

112 Chapter Five: Thinking with Theory

The participant narratives presented in the last chapter illustrate the breadth and nuance of the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. The diversity of perspectives represented in the participant narratives is testament that there is no singular experience for this, or any, college student population. Racialized experiences, like all college experiences, vary by social location, cognitive complexity, and a myriad of other mediating factors. In addition to delving into the unique racialized experience of each participant in the study, I also examined the participants’ narratives in relation to each other. Using Jackson and Mazzei’s (2013) analytic process of Thinking with Theory, I moved back and forth between reading participant transcripts, Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands, Trenka’s (2003) memoir The Language of Blood, and my own racialized reflections as a transracial Asian American adoptee. Through a non-linear, chaotic, and cyclical process, I identified four emerging assemblages across and between participants’ narratives. By Thinking with Theory, I engaged in a process of “plugging in.” Instead of identifying finite, thematic patterns within the data (which runs the risk of essentializing transracial Asian American adoptees), plugging in allowed for a continuous process of making and unmaking; of arranging, organizing, connecting, and fitting ideas and multiple texts together (Jackson & Mazzei, 2013). As such, the following assemblages are not fixed or discrete, but rather continuous and ever emerging ideas. Instead of seeking stability or saturation within and among data, Thinking with Theory enabled me to be attentive to differences as well as apparent sameness. This both/and approach allowed for a much more nuanced analysis taking into consideration the contradictions and complexities within the data rather than trying to find themes despite outlier experiences. By iteratively moving between multiple knowledges, I observed four assemblages, or collections of experiences, which I now present using a “neither, nor, both, between” (p. 65) framework drawn from Trenka’s (2003) The Language of Blood. Neither Asian All 12 participants spoke about the ways in which their experience as transracial adoptees made them feel distinctly different from other Asians and Asian Americans. According to Mia, understanding her own racial identity is largely informed by noting how her experience is different from her non-adopted Asian peers. She explained, “I don’t have the same experiences they do.” For Mia, comments she received from other Asian Americans such as, “Oh well, [you]

113 wouldn’t understand the pressures my parents put on me” or “You wouldn’t understand this cultural thing” indicate that although she may appear Asian phenotypically, she does not really understand, and thus, is incapable of fully belonging to this racial group. Mia and other participants cited language, food, cultural norms, family structure, and the lack of a shared ethnic identity with parents as evidence that their racialized experiences are notably different from their non-adopted Asian and Asian American peers. For Chris, not being able to speak or understand an Asian language (in his case as a Vietnamese American adoptee, the Vietnamese language) most embodied his difference, and thus, separation from his Asian and Asian American peers. He shared, For me, it really manifests itself in the form of language … because language is all about articulating identity or articulating experiences and sharing them with people. So for me, not being able to speak Vietnamese when others around me can, really emphasizes that lack of belonging. I think because I don’t have the ability to articulate in the same way that they [other Vietnamese and Vietnamese American college students] can, and then that means I don’t have the ability to connect or resonate with them in the same way that they can with each other. Language is so, so… I mean, there’s something about language that is so monumental. I feel it, you know when you’re in a room and everyone can understand what everybody thinks, except you. You definitely feel that. Emma felt similarly that her inability to speak an Asian language (namely Mandarin as a Chinese adoptee) marked her as distinctly different from other Asian and Asian American college students. She shared an example of a time when she was put into a lab group with all international Asian students. According to Emma, “The other two people were international and so at first they just spoke Chinese to each other, and I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re saying.’” For Emma, this experience was noteworthy because she felt others (including her professor) inaccurately made assumptions about her sameness or similarity with other Asian students in class, when in reality she felt different and isolated from them. Emma also shared differences she observed in family composition and dating expectations between her own experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee and other Asian Americans. She explained, Just comparing my family to my friends who are Asian American, they’re really close with their families and the things that they do, I’ve never done before. Like they all

114 speak their native [language] … and their grandparents live with them and they’re very family centered, which is like… obviously, I’m close with my family, but I don’t feel that connection to the extent that they always describe it. Like one of my [Asian] friends was saying that her mom has expectations for her, like with who she dates and stuff like that, and that’s something that I’ve never really thought of. She has to date another Vietnamese person who’s super successful, and I’ve just never felt those pressures. Here, the multigenerational family household and parental expectations around the race of her friend’s potential dating partners adds to Emma’s feeling that her experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee is considerably different from her non-adopted Asian peers. For Karen, naming differences between her racialized experience and her non-adopted Asian and Asian Americans peers’ racialized experiences is not inherently problematic, but rather demonstrates an important distinction. She explained that when her Asian and Asian Americans friends talk about growing up with parents who are also Asian; or reference the cultural norm of not wearing shoes in the house; or mention eating rice with every meal, these experiences “remind me that I can’t fully relate to my Asian friends, which is okay of course, but I guess that does kind of distance me a little bit.” In this context, Karen’s use of distancing language refers to a gap between her sense of what it means to be Asian and her friends’ experiences of Asianness. Although Karen shared that she feels “really comfortable in the [Asian student organization] bubble,” she is conscious that her experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee is markedly removed and different from her non-adopted Asian American peers. Athena described feeling self-conscious about her caveated Asian American experience as a transracial adoptee, a view which was echoed by other participants. According to Athena, when people find out that she’s transracially adopted, their reaction is usually something like, “oh, so you’re not really Asian, you’re just a fake Asian.” Although Athena and other participants described fielding these types of racial allegations from people of all racial backgrounds, comments from other Asians and Asian Americans seemed to strike a particular chord of insecurity. Veliqe indicated feeling especially excluded by Asian international students on her campus, stating, “I feel that they don’t think I’m authentic. So they’re like, ‘No, no. Bye, bye.’” Similarly, DS confessed, “sometimes when I meet someone who is Asian, like culturally from Asia … I don’t know how they’ll react. If they’ll judge me or whatever.” When asked to

115 expound upon this comment, DS continued, “there are the little pre-reveal anxieties I guess, when you’re talking to someone who is Asian.” For DS and other participants, interactions with other Asians and Asian Americans can feel tense because they worry they will be judged and found lacking as transracial adoptees, particularly with regard to their unfamiliarity with Asian cultural knowledge and their scarce language proficiency. The fear of not meeting others’ racialized expectations and definitions of what it means to be “authentically Asian” was salient for many of the participants in the study. Reflecting on these types of encounters, Chris shared, It kind of touches on these ongoing insecurities, “Oh, are they going to think I’m Asian enough? Or, are they going to see through some sort of phony-ness?” I kind of feel inauthentic, and I’m kind of fearful that they might see that inauthenticity and kind of reject me for it. Racial authenticity is a socio-cultural preoccupation with testing people’s racial legitimacy against essentialist ideals as a means of verifying racial belonging and determining in and outgroup membership. People who do not adhere to predefined and fixed notions of a particular racial group are deemed inauthentic and therefore untrustworthy (Hamako, 2014). When individuals do not meet the arbitrary catalog of physical, social, and/or behavior characteristics that constitute an essentialist definition of a particular racial group, they are considered deviant or disloyal, and subsequently, marginalized and excluded (Hamako, 2014; Heyes, 2009). Participants expressed that their transracial adoption and White family composition called into question their racial authenticity, thereby severing their connection to and belonging within Asian and Asian American communities. Nor White Being transracially adopted not only complicates participants’ feelings and identification with an Asian and Asian American racial identity, it also creates complex dynamics related to whiteness and White privilege. A majority of participants discussed the benefits and challenges of navigating whiteness in relation to their adoptive families. Some participants, like Mia, Sarah, and Athena, described their racialized experiences as more similar to White people’s than Asian people’s experiences. They pointed to their names and cultural dynamics growing up (i.e., eating spaghetti, celebrating Christmas, living in predominantly White suburban neighborhoods) as indicators that they had more White than Asian racial references. For these participants, their

116 exposure to and immersion in White culture meant that they felt greater racial affinity with whiteness than with being Asian. Veliqe confessed, “I do feel super White.” Similarly, Emma shared that as a transracial Asian American adoptee she feels “you can live a very White life.” She went on to explain, My parents were White and most of the people I was around were White … I wasn’t around [Asian culture] so much that I felt like that was the normal thing, I guess. So I guess that’s where that whole idea, and like White people are always a majority, so it’s easy to just assume that experience. Participants' propensity towards whiteness emerged as a survival strategy given their predominantly White surroundings growing up. Many participants shared examples of enduring race-based microaggressions and out-right racist bullying in childhood and adolescence. Mia shared that she had heard comments like, “Mia eats dogs, you’re a bad driver, things like that.” Veliqe recalled an anecdote involving a high school teacher’s racist comments, “when we were applying for colleges and everything like that, [the teacher] told me that the only reason that I would get into college–and I would get into a bunch of different colleges–is because I’m a minority.” For Veliqe, this was a particularly bold and problematic statement because it came from a teacher, who held positional authority, and thus, had the ability to set the tone for what was an acceptable or unacceptable ways of talking about race in her hometown. These repeated confrontations with racism served as painful reminders of participants’ otherness and were not only at the hands of peers and community members, but also perpetrated by participants’ own family members. Kyra described withstanding racist remarks from her extended family, There were these “Kansas City” cousins, who we didn’t really talk to that much. I didn’t notice it when I was younger, but now, looking back on it, and also when I did get older and was more aware of things, I would definitely notice [their] comments … one of the Kansas City cousins, at some whatever, was like, “Oh, and I bet your math skills are great.” Back then, I didn’t really think anything of it, because my math skills were good, back then anyway. I just didn’t really think about it, but now looking back on it, I was like, “He never knew anything about me and he never talked about my school performance with my parents. Why was he bringing that up?”

117 Mia shared that her grandmother refers to People of Color as “colored people.” This is uncomfortable for Mia because as she shared, “I’m also a Person of Color, so like what do you think of me?” For some participants, like Mai, racist remarks from family were not only personally hurtful, but also problematic for people about whom they care. Mai explained, “My dad is, I don’t wanna say racist, but he likes to make fun of people.” According to Mai, her brother (who is also a transracial Asian American adoptee) looks up to their dad and copies some of his behaviors and attitudes. She explained, It’s definitely problematic with my dad and just how it impresses on my brother. He [my brother] makes fun of himself a lot and I tell him, “Don’t do that. Don’t let your friend do that. Like why do you let them make fun of you? You let them act kind of racist toward you.” Given the prevalence of racist interactions participants endured within their peer groups, and sometimes within their own families, it is not surprising that some participants expressed a desire to assimilate with whiteness. In fact, about half of the participants described comfort with—and in some instances preference for—predominantly White spaces. Participants, like Jessie and Veliqe, spoke about feeling more at ease maneuvering all White social settings over all Asian social settings, because they had more experience and familiarity within White communities. Moreover, some participants acknowledged that being raised in and by their adoptive families resulted in a close proximity to, and perhaps residual benefit from, White privilege. Kyra explained, I do feel like I have some of that [White] privilege, even though I don’t always need to account for it. I do think that people who are raised in a White culture have… I guess just similar privilege, not... I mean they don’t have White privilege, only White people have White privilege, except similar privilege. Maybe it is cultural, like for instance sometimes maybe it’s just linguistic. Sometimes a friend who is not of this culture, will be on the phone with a customer service rep, and they won’t be getting anywhere. Then I’ll be like, “Give me that phone,” and a few second later, then it’s all settled. Kyra attributed her English language fluency as a privilege directly related to her transracial, transnational adoption. Similarly, for participants like Sarah, being raised in whiteness meant “more benefits than other Asian Americans who have Asian parents or immigrant parents.” Mia explained,

118 I don’t want to say that I was advantaged because I was in a White family, but there are opportunities that I’ve been given that maybe a lot of [other Asian] people are not given. For Asian families and families where the parents don’t know English as their first language, or their English is not as strong, they typically run into a lot of issues. Most participants recognized and wrestled with having a sort of associated privilege due to their proximity to their White adoptive families. The associated privilege participants primarily discussed related to speaking English as their first language and educational access. Hannah explained, “being adopted does make it kind of easier to fit in with the other White population just because we grew up in a White family … we have American culture.” This is an example of conflating race with nationality, which ultimately equates whiteness with Americanness and normalcy. This tendency is not unique to Hannah or even transracial Asian American adoptees broadly, but rather is a symptom of White supremacy and the dominance of whiteness in the United States. DS reflected upon the conundrum of benefiting from their close proximity to whiteness as a transracial Asian American adoptee, Technically as someone Asian, we’re technically within the U.S. minorities, but growing up in a White space … it’s really weird because you feel like, “Well, I’ve reaped the privileges of White privilege, but I’m not White.” I don’t know how to handle this because sometimes we’ll talk about … minority issues, and then I’ll put my two cents in, but then I feel like, I grew up kind of White, so do I have the minority issues still, or did I grow up with the White privilege thing, even though I’m not White? The uncertainty about where transracial Asian American adoptees fit within racial categories and hierarchies is exacerbated by racial triangulation (Kim, 1999) and the socially manipulated stratification that situates Asian Americans as a wedge between Black and White Americans. Whether conscious or not, participants’ desire to associate with White privilege was perhaps a necessary strategy for their emotional wellness and social safety. In other words, participants’ proximity to whiteness and acceptance of any associated privileges may have emerged as a strategy in response to racial trauma (Kumar, 2019), and yet, still reinforces White supremacy. Although many participants noted their associated privilege in relation to their adoptive families, only a handful of participants articulated a concern for eradicating White supremacy or expressed an interest in racial justice. Furthermore, only one participant explicitly acknowledged

119 his own culpability in White supremacy. Chris reflected that his experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee has facilitated “an awareness that I’ve had in terms of my own identity [which] I think has enabled me to really think about the process and what sort of privilege that I’ve had.” He continued, I think it’s really important that people do [social justice] work not just from their marginalized identities. They have to do the work from their privileged identities, because if they don’t then it doesn’t become social justice work. It just becomes racial justice work, or it becomes gender justice work. It has to also be from a place of privileged identities. That’s where they can do the most work. That’s where we can all do the most work. Chris’ awareness of how he has benefited from his adoptive family’s White privilege coupled with his own racial consciousness as a Vietnamese Person of Color fuels his commitment to social justice. Conversely, the majority of participants did not express a consciousness about their privileged position given their proximity to their adoptive families. For example, rather than explore her conditional access to her adoptive family’s privilege, Jessie was more concerned with the challenges she experienced as a transracial Asian American adoptee. She shared an example of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with her White friends and family reflecting, “well, if I’m Chinese, why aren’t we really celebrating this and doing it in the Chinese way?” For Jessie, observing holidays with her adoptive family was not an example of her proximity to their White and Christian privilege, but an example of how she was missing out on her first/birth cultural traditions. Despite participants’ lack of consciousness with regard to dismantling their unearned associated privilege, I argue that participants’ very existence as transracial Asian American adoptees challenges White supremacy. Although participants may not be cognizant of their transgressive existence, the very fact that some of their racialized experiences do not neatly align with essentialist definitions of what it means to “be Asian” complicates and challenges White dominant renderings of race. While not widely addressed by participants, I want to make note of an observation Chris shared about the conditional nature of his associated privilege in relation to his White adoptive family. First, Chris acknowledged that as a transracial adoptee he has gained access to

120 predominantly White spaces, which has afforded him fluency in whiteness, and he recognized this fluency holds tangible social and cultural capital. Chris remarked, I don’t think I feel the same sense of hesitation [like] when maybe other People of Color talk to White people. That’s something that I learned growing up. Having that dynamic, being comfortable with that communication [with White people], I think, is a form of privilege. Yet, as Chris clarified, his associated privilege as a transracial Asian American adoptee (such as knowing how to navigate White spaces) is always caveated by the fact that he is not White. Chris explained, “I grew up with a lot of access. I know how to navigate privileged spaces maybe a little more comfortably than other People of Color … but I still get racialized.” Therefore, despite all of the markers pointing to transracial Asian American adoptees’ proximity to whiteness and their associated privileges given their White adoptive families, the realities of racial essentialism and the dominant notion that race is an observable and impermeable trait ensures that transracial Asian American adoptees will never actually be treated as White. Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner Related to feeling neither Asian, nor White, participants described grappling with two dominant anti-Asian tropes: the model minority myth and the perpetual foreigner stereotype. I define both terms in detail in Chapter Two; both terms serve to ostracize and oppress Asian Americans. Furthermore, both racist characterizations have unique implications for transracial Asian American adoptees as they are equally prevalent stereotypes and yet also the antithesis of each other. This both/and dynamic between seemingly contradictory depictions of Asian Americans creates a complicated juxtaposition for participants to navigate and for the people with whom they interact to grasp. In the case of the model minority myth, the misconception that all Asian Americans are the same masks intra-Asian diversity and renders transracial Asian American adoptees invisible. For Hannah, the model minority myth surfaces when others assume her and her younger sister (who is also a transracial Asian American adoptee) are twins. She sarcastically offered, “I guess we [Asian Americans] all look the same.” Reflecting on the prevalence of this stereotype, Mia referenced the “Asian food section” in grocery stores arguing, “No, you can’t. You can’t just lump them [Asian countries] all together.” According to participants, the model minority myth problematically suggests that all Asians look alike and that all Asian experiences are

121 synonymous. As evidenced by the Neither Asian assemblage presented above, this conflicts with how participants understand their racialized experiences as distinctly different from their non- adopted Asian American peers. Another fallacy of the model minority myth is that Asian Americans are not really People of Color. Athena shared a story in which this dynamic played out when she went to see the feature film Black Panther with a group of her peers. According to Athena, there were some Black students in the group who made her feel unwelcome. She explained, They were kind of just like grilling on you, but essentially, they were like, if you’re not Black [then] don’t be here and I think that made me really uncomfortable because like, you can’t just stand up and be like, “Yeah, I’m also a Person of Color.” Expanding upon the story, she wondered aloud, “Do they [her Black peers] see us [Asians] as People of Color? Or do they just see us as a little model minority that just follows everyone’s orders?” That Asian Americans are somehow not considered racialized People of Color is additionally complicated for transracial Asian American adoptees given their proximity to whiteness through their White adoptive families as described in the Nor White assemblage. The perspective that Asian Americans do not encounter major challenges because of their race, and thus, that Asian Americans do not necessitate resources of support like other Communities of Color are additional assumptions of the model minority myth. Veliqe shared that given the current racial climate on her campus, she feels somewhat invisible as the race conversation is focused on strains between Black and White communities. Similarly, Mia observed that at her college there are resources for some People of Color and not others. She noted, “At this university, we only have a Center for Black Culture. We don’t have one [a Cultural Center] for Asian students.” The omission of Asian Americans from conversations about racial inclusion in higher education and the lack of systems of support for Asian American college students perpetuates the idea that they are not a genuinely racially minoritized population. Although the racialized challenges experienced by transracial Asian American adoptees may differ from their non-adopted peers (in part given their proximity to their White adoptive families and the conditional associated privileges they may access), they still experience racism. Park Nelson (2016) contends that transracial Asian American adoptees are in fact uniquely situated as the epitome of the model minority stereotype. She argues that transracial Asian

122 American adoptees represent the most assimilated Asian American and the most compliant Person of Color, which makes them the most desirable non-White racial option. This portrayal of transracial Asian American adoptees as the most like-White Asian American contrasts and conflicts with the second anti-Asian microaggression participants spoke about experiencing, which is the perpetual foreigner stereotype. Mia described being racially profiled by a White person and being told, “Oh you speak English very well.” Inherent to this comment is the assumption that because Mia phenotypically presents as Asian that English cannot possibly be her native language as she is automatically assumed to be foreign. This is an example of the precarious predicament in which transracial Asian American adoptees may find themselves, wherein they are assumed to be outsiders because of their racial appearance, despite their insider-like socialization given their White adoptive families. Insecurities related to the perpetual foreigner stereotype can surface for transracial Asian American adoptees not only as racialized Asian bodies in predominantly White spaces, such as their colleges or hometowns, but also within personal relationships. Mai shared, “When I’m with my White family or other White friends, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, because I’m not… I don’t look the same as the rest of my family. I definitely don’t look related.” Caught between both the model minority myth and the perpetual foreigner stereotype, many participants indicated feeling like their racialized experiences as transracial Asian American adoptees were often misunderstood by others. As a result, participants spoke about having to deal with and respond to a barrage of questions about their racial and adoptee identities, often in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. Veliqe explained, “If people ask me directly [about my transracial Asian American adoptee identity] and I don’t know them, it gets a little bit awkward because … it feels a bit invasive.” Emma shared a story about a time when she was visiting a professor during office hours and he stated, “So I see your last name is not Asian and you are. How does that work?” Emma explained that this comment made her feel “as though he was trying to verify my Americanness, as if having White parents made me less Asian.” For Emma, and many other participants, these types of questions feel presumptive, especially because they do not believe their White peers are subjected to the same kinds of questions. While participants acknowledged that these questions were likely out of curiosity,

123 they also felt that the questions were overly personal and, at times, inappropriate. Athena shared, “I just feel like I get more questions than other people do … People find it more acceptable to ask very personal questions and they don’t do that to other people, and I get tired of it.” For several participants, anticipating probing personal questions caused them to think carefully about when and with whom they disclose their transracial adoptee identity. Some participants, like Sarah, opt to self-disclose unsolicited, to “avoid the same old questions I always get, such as if I know how to speak Korean.” Similarly, Jessie is cautious about with whom she shares her adoptee identity, because she wants to avoid questions and comments like, “Why were you given up? Did your parents not want you? Oh, you must be so sad all the time.” Other questions Jessie has fielded include, “What’s your real name? Where did you actually come from? Did your mom actually want to adopt you or was it just out of pity?” Mia also recounted a volley of questions to which she has become accustomed when her transracial adoptee identity comes up in conversation and offered, “I understand that it is out of curiosity, and I don’t think it’s malicious, but it is still … especially if I don’t know the person well, it’s annoying.” These invasive questions participants faced are the result of existing at the intersection of both the model minority myth and the perpetual foreigner stereotype. Between Races The most vivid assemblage described by participants was a feeling of being racially in- between. This in-betweenness was characterized by simultaneously aching to embody Asian identity and whiteness, while also actively rejecting both essentialized racial categories. A culmination of the previously described Neither Asian, Nor White, Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner assemblages, this fourth assemblage is at the heart of participants’ racialized experiences. In fact, all 12 participants described having difficulty locating, and therefore, articulating their racial identity. Athena shared, “I just feel like it’s hard for me to figure out where I fit racially.” Hannah expressed a similar sentiment, explaining that “[being a transracial adoptee] gives me a hard time sometimes fitting in with other Asian Americans who have Asian parents or fitting in with other non-Asians just because you’re kind of in that in between zone.” As transracial Asian American adoptees, participants are suspended in-between racial groups, causing them to feel Neither Asian, Nor White. Their racialized experiences as Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner can at times feel conflicting, constituting a complex

124 and contrarian racial identity to embody, let alone express to others. Athena shared, “I just think there’s an expectation of being Asian and then me not meeting [the expectation] and people being confused in some ways.” As a transracial Asian American adoptee raised in a culturally Jewish adoptive home, Athena described her identity as perplexing to others, I recently started going to Hillel at my school, and I won a Birthright last summer, and a lot of people are like, “Oh wait, I’m confused. Why are you Asian? Why are you Jewish?” They were trying to be really subtle about it, but at the same time I knew they were just like, “What’s happening?” Similarly, Jessie has also dealt with not measuring up to others’ expectations based on how she is read racially. She explained, “everyone thinks ... that my whole culture at home is all Chinese and that I speak fluent Chinese, and I’m like, ‘No, I grew up with a White mom.’ They’re always a little surprised by that.” While most participants understand race to be a socially constructed identity that is externally derived and largely based on phenotype, they also wrestled with reconciling how they felt racially with how others perceived them racially. A differential consciousness between their ascribed (self-defined) and avowed (other-defined) racial identities (as described by Boylorn & Orbe, 2014) was evident across participants’ year in college. Jessie, a first-year student shared, You are perceived as one thing, but you consider yourself another thing ... So everyone [is like] “Well, that doesn’t make sense how can you be both?” So I’ve had to overcome that and figure out who I was because I was confused, like what am I? In the passage above, Jessie described her process of trying to make sense of her racial identity as a transracial Asian American adoptee by recounting how she feels caught in-between the way she understands herself versus the way others understand her racially. Likewise, Hannah a fifth- year student, explained, It’s kind of weird for me to say, but I feel like a White person in an Asian body … I just didn’t feel Asian, whatever Asian is supposed to feel like. I felt like what people saw on the outside, and what they thought I should act like, didn’t match how I felt on the inside. Hannah’s reflection is yet another example of participants trying to integrate how they feel with how they look. A few participants referenced food metaphors to illustrate their sense of racial in- betweenness and the disconnect they experienced between their ascribed and avowed racial

125 identities. For instance, Veliqe described her racialized experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee (specifically feeling White on the inside and Asian/yellow on the outside) as similar to a Twinkie or banana. While these comparisons may have initially been made in jest, they point to a very real experience reiterated by multiple participants: that how they think of themselves, and thus how they act, varies from how others view them. This is a manifestation of Butler’s (1999) theory of performativity. While Butler explores performativity in the context of gender, she also supports theoretical thinking that examines and questions racial presumptions. According to Butler (1999), defining the theory of performativity is difficult in part because her own understanding has changed over time. Nonetheless, performativity speaks to the idea that identities like gender and race may not be innate, but rather enacted. In other words, identity is crafted through repeated acts rather than biologically predestined, which is at the core of understanding the in-between nature of participants’ racialized experiences as transracial Asian American adoptees. Sarah shared that she has been told she “acts White” by some of her friends because of “how I dress, and well, I don’t know any Asian language or I don’t… well, mainly because I have a White family too, and I don’t eat Asian food. I feel like I do White girl things, or something.” When asked to explain what she meant in greater detail, Sarah continued, “Like some of the outfits those [White] girls wear, and I guess, Starbucks … so I kinda feel like, “‘Oh, maybe I should be friends with White people.’ I don’t know.” Through a lens of performativity, race is not solely dependent upon how someone looks, but is also informed by how they act (e.g., how they dress, what they eat, who they spend time with). In which case, essentialist notions of race fall short of capturing the complexities of how racial identity is actually experienced. For a majority of participants, their physical appearance would dictate that they racially identify as Asian. However, as Chris explained, because of his upbringing and socialization in his White adoptive family (which involved exposure to and immersion in whiteness) he “didn’t have a self-concept that identified with other Asian Americans.” For Chris, his racialized experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee produced a disconnect between how he felt and acted with how others perceived him. This gap resulted in feeling racially in-between being Asian and White. Some participants, like DS, understood racial in-betweenness as a site of agency to choose with which racial group they belong or feel greater affinity. DS explained that there are parallels between how they understand and embrace their queer and transracial adoptee

126 identities, reflecting “we’re non-conforming, but we’re normalizing that we’re not conforming.” Other participants, like Emma, contend that as transracial Asian American adoptees race does not need to be an either/or construct, but rather can be experienced as both/and by embracing their in-betweenness. For Kyra, neither Asian nor White felt like an adequate racial identification. Instead, she most strongly identifies as an adoptee, which serves as a signifier that helps her describe and make sense of her experience feeling racially in-between. When I asked Mai about how she identifies racially, she responded, “It’s kind of in this like, weird, in-between middle ground where you don’t really belong in one crowd or the other. It’s just kind of like you belong to a little of both, but also you don’t.” When I asked her to say more, she described feeling “like I’m kind of walking on a tightrope … It’s so weird, in between.” This imagery of walking on a tightrope viscerally describes the intense and delicate balance participants feel teetering the fine line between being Neither Asian, Nor White, Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner; in essence, navigating being In-Between. Conclusion The emerging assemblages presented in this chapter illustrate that while transracial Asian American adoptees may be racially perceived as similar to–if not synonymous with–their Asian and Asian American peers in higher education, they understand their racialized experiences to be notably different. In fact, being raised in and by their White adoptive families facilitated an associated access to White privilege unique to their positioning as transracial adoptees. Yet, their Asian phenotype ensures that they will never be fully accepted into whiteness, leaving transracial Asian American adoptees to negotiate a complex racialized experience in between essentialist understandings of what it means to be Asian and White, respectively. So what do these findings mean and why do they matter for higher education and student affairs? How can Anzaldúa’s (1987) Border Theory help make meaning of the ways in which transracial Asian American adoptees conform to and contest racial categories? How do the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees relate to and inform broader cultural discourses related to race and racial identity? I explore and undertake these questions in the next chapter.

127 Chapter Six: Discussion and Implications

Transracial Asian American adoptees are virtually nonexistent in student affairs and higher education research (Museus, 2014). As such, very little is known about how this population experiences or makes sense of their race in college. The shortage of research on transracially adopted Asian American college students is particularly concerning given that the most commonly referenced Asian American racial identity theory (Kim, 2001) employed in higher education and student affairs presupposes ethnic and cultural factors to racial consciousness that may not apply to or reflect the lived experiences of transracial adoptees’ predominantly White familial socialization and context. The narratives and analysis presented in the previous two chapters demonstrate the range of profound and complex racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college. The purpose of this concluding chapter is to discuss my findings in relation to the original research questions. I then offer implications for future research and practice, acknowledge limitations of the study, and share final concluding reflections. Discussion The primary research question guiding this study was, what are the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college? To answer this question, I employed a narrative inquiry methodology and centered the racialized experiences of 12 self- identified transracial Asian American adoptee collegians from a diverse array four-year institutions from across the country. I also explored two additional sub-questions: What borderland discourses (e.g., neither, nor, both, between) do transracial Asian American adoptees use to describe their race in college? How does being raised in White adoptive families inform how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and perform their race in college? These questions informed every aspect of the study from reviewing relevant literature to carrying out data analysis. In the process of completing my dissertation research, I discovered that these are not discrete questions or independently functioning concepts. Rather, these ideas are complexly interwoven and relate to a broader question of power, namely by whom and for what purposes is racial identity constructed, defined, and performed? Anzaldúa’s (1987) Border Theory, the theoretical perspective undergirding this research project, provides a useful framework to discuss the findings of this study. Anzaldúa posits that the social and political dislocation that accompanies crossing borders–whether geopolitical or

128 metaphoric–produces unique knowledge and perspective. The participants of this study are border crossers in multiple senses. All 12 participants were born in Asian countries (China, Korea, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam respectively) and adopted into White families residing in the United States. As such, study participants are national, racial, and familial border crossers by the very nature of their transracial, transnational adoptions. The core philosophy of Anzaldúa’s Border Theory is “that it is possible to both understand and reject, to love and detest, to be loyal and question, and above all to continue to seek enlightenment out of the ambiguity and contradiction of all social existence” (Cantú and Hurtado, 2012, p. 5). The idea that amidst and between apparent contradictions (such as participants’ identification as Asian and White, while also never feeling fully either) are undiscovered possibilities for new ways of being and understanding oneself and the world is at the heart of this discussion. By Thinking with Theory, I identified four emerging assemblages across and between participants’ stories revealing that transracial Asian American adoptees in college are: (1) Neither Asian, (2) Nor White, (3) Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner, and (4) Between Races. These assemblages further demonstrate how transracial Asian American adoptees flirt with and transgress multiple borders. They push the boundaries of who is and is not considered legitimately Asian. They challenge the limits of who can and cannot access White privilege. They trapeze the line between model minority and perpetual foreigner, simultaneously reifying and rejecting both stereotypes. Ultimately, participants blur the confines between what it means to be Asian and White respectively. I now discuss these findings in relation to Border Theory and focus on the ways in which transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences in college gives rise to a differential consciousness and liminal identity as a result of their sense of (un)belonging and (mis)fitting within the confines of existing racial categories. Engaging context. Related to the four emerging assemblages identified in Chapter Five is context, which cannot go unaddressed as it is context that gives meaning to the mixed and multiple racialized experiences described by participants. Thus, a noteworthy border relevant to understanding the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptee collegians is the threshold participants cross when entering college. Participants recounted formative racialized experiences from both pre-college and college. However, traversing this border in particular—

129 changing their physical context from the hometowns where they grew up to the campuses where they went to college—was significant for participants’ racial identity exploration. For participants, college was a notable, valuable, and distinct context in which they were able to explore and reflect upon their racial identity in new and profound ways. This is congruent with scholarship from Alvarez and Yeh (1999) as well as Harper and Quaye (2009), which asserts that college is a particularly formative time for racial identity development and formation. Whether consciously or not, part of moving from home to college involved a shift from being viewed by others primarily in relation to their White adoptive families to being viewed by others primarily as Asian college students (not readily visible as adoptees). This crossing of contextual borders (from pre-college to college) represents a crucial aspect of transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences. As Anzaldúa (1987) describes in her poem Nopalitos, the act of leaving one space for another is replete with mixed emotions and new perspectives: I left and have been gone a long time. I keep leaving and when I am home they remember no one but me had ever left. I listen to the grillos [cicadas] more intently than I do their regaños [scoldings]. I have more languages than they, am aware of every root of my pueblo [village]; they, my people, are not. They are living, sleeping roots (p. 113). For transracial Asian American adoptees, college can be synonymous with leaving home literally and metaphorically. Most of the participants in the study moved out of their parents’ houses for college. However, perhaps more influential than physical distance from their White adoptive families, transracial Asian American adoptees indicated college as a new context corresponded to gaining new language and insights about race, which informed not only how they viewed themselves, but also how they related to their White adoptive families. For many participants, college was a new context (contrasted with the home context in which they grew up) that was important to their identity exploration and formation because of who they met in college. Participants attributed part of their racial consciousness to their

130 involvement in race- and ethnicity-based student organizations and to their exposure to more racially diverse communities in college as compared to their pre-college experiences. According to Karen, “I never had an Asian American community growing up, so having that going through college has made me think a lot about what that [being Asian] means and what I want to do [identify] personally for myself.” Similarly, Emma shared, “I guess that [getting involved in Asian culture] was something that I really wanted to do. Especially in college, just because I didn’t have as much of a connection to my culture at home.” For these participants, crossing the life stage border from pre-college to college coincided with having access to Asian and Asian American communities to which they did not previously have access. Hannah articulated what many other participants expressed, “college was really the first time I was in a community with a lot more Asian people.” In addition to being around more people who looked like them than at any other time in their lives, participants shared that college was a meaningful new context to their racial identity because of the actual words they learned, which helped them articulate and make sense of their racialized experiences. For many participants, the frequency of racial conversations in college meant that they gained new language and ways of thinking about race (e.g., learning the term “model minority myth” and “disaggregate”), which contrasted sharply to their more colorblind experiences at home. Participants observed a newfound racial consciousness that took root in college, which they attributed to an array of new experiences they had in their collegiate context (i.e., taking ethnic studies classes for the first time, being exposed to and immersed in racial climate conversations). Mia explained, I have acquired more vocabulary to express what I’m trying to say, because I knew how I felt and I knew … in my head it all made sense, but there was no way for me to verbalize it. I didn’t know the word “disaggregate.” I knew I was trying to say that Chinese aren’t the same as Koreans aren’t the same as whatever, but I just didn’t know the word for it. So I think I’ve learned more vocabulary, and I’m able to apply that in ways that help make what I’m trying to say and what I’m trying to share with others more clear. According to Veliqe, college is an important time and place for transracial adoptees because, [Y]ou come to college and you have all this freedom and you can pick; and that’s great… You’re not associated with your family, so no offense, but that’s not an issue anymore.

131 You don’t have them telling you who to be, or you don’t have them being beside you so other people are assuming who you are … That’s why I love college, because you can come here and you can tell your own story. Veliqe described what several other participants echoed, which is that college was an important component of their racialized experience as transracial Asian American adoptees, namely because college serves as an opportunity to create and claim a new racial identity independent of their White adoptive families. As participants are no longer regularly seen with their White adoptive families (i.e., running errands around town or going to parent/teacher conferences), participants finally get to craft their own racialized narrative and identities. I was purposeful in conducting interviews with participants during the academic year to try to mitigate the influence (and possible confusion) of context on participants’ racial recollections. For example, in anticipation of the ways that participants’ responses may be shaped by their emotional and racial context at home (in close physical proximity to their White adoptive families), I made efforts to interview participants while they were at school. My hope was that interviewing participants in their collegiate context would enable them to speak freely and authentically about how they understood and experienced race, without fear of upsetting their White adoptive families and without having to reconcile how they may speak about race in college versus at home. Anzaldúa (1987) likens the process of evolving and keeping intact one’s shifting and perhaps multiple identity (which arises from living on borders and occupying margins) to swimming in a new element. For study participants, trying to “swim" in college meant navigating when and with whom to disclose their transracial adoptee identity. For some participants, physical distance from their White adoptive families meant their adoptee identity became less salient in college. Whereas for other participants, due to heightened racial campus climate, their racialized identity as People of Color emerged as more salient. Anzaldúa (1987) describes this aspect of a border experience as, “dormant areas of consciousness are being activated, awakened” (para. 3). Examining the findings of this study through a Border Theory lens helps illuminate how crossing the border between pre-college and college may be facilitative of transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial awakening. Exploring contradictions. To better understand transracial Asian American adoptees in college, I examined how their racialized experiences are both congruent with and diverge from

132 existing conceptions of race. I undertook this investigation with the intent to complicate and advance contemporary conversations about racial identity in higher education. Study participants shared contradicting reflections about their racialized experiences as transracial Asian American adoptees in college. However, rather than question the progression of participants’ racial identity development based upon these contradictions, I chose to examine participants’ borderland experiences–which Anzaldúa (1987) describes as inherently contradictory–as ripe with valuable insights about college students’ racial identity formation. For example, many participants expressed feeling pride in their racial and ethnic identity, as well as in their country of origin (e.g., being Asian, from China, or born in Vietnam). They described purposefully seeking involvement in racial and ethnic student groups in college, as they did not have access to those types of organizations in their pre-college contexts. However, these same participants also lamented the many ways in which they felt distinctly different from their non-adopted Asian peers, sometimes feeling like outsiders in those very organizations. Some participants felt similarly to Sarah who shared, I started seeing the international students, and I felt like that made me feel worse about myself because I felt like people were defining me as international and there’s a stereotype on campus for international students that [they] don’t really speak English well or, I don’t know … They [international students] stand out a lot in my opinion. I just didn’t want to relate to them or be thought of as an international student. This reflection is an example of xenophobia against Asian international students, which may convey a nuanced internalized racism harbored by participants. Thus, participants described both feeling pride in their Asian identity while also expressing an acute desire to disassociate from other Asian college students. In doing so, participants revealed further inconsistency and contradiction in how they view themselves with how they view other Asian peers in college. Study participants described contradictory feelings of hyper racial visibility on campus (as Asian bodies at predominantly White institutions) and problematic racial invisibility (as the only or one of few transracial adoptees on their campuses). They described being both boxed in by others’ anti-Asian racial stereotyping, and also being singled out by others’ interrogative questioning about their racial, ethnic, and cultural legitimacy as Asians in America given their White adoptive families. Participants spoke about their complex proximity to Whiteness, sharing contradictory experiences of sometimes benefiting from their adoptive family’s White privilege,

133 while also acknowledging the racist reality they experienced when independently racialized as People of Color. Another example of the contradictions inherent to occupying borderlands in the context of this study is when participants spoke about the paradoxical dynamic of feeling both comfortable and uncomfortable in predominantly White and Asian social spaces. In predominantly White social spaces, many participants described feeling comfortable given their socialization and upbringing in their White adoptive families. However, they simultaneously expressed a desire to be seen as legitimately Asian regardless of their White socialization. Participants also indicated feeling racially isolated and uncomfortable in those same predominantly White social spaces, as they were often the one or only Asian person present. Conversely, participants shared that in predominantly Asian spaces, they felt more understood than they ever had in predominantly White contexts (specifically with regard to processing racial microaggressions). Yet, they simultaneously described feeling like imposters, fearing they would be deemed racially insufficient due to their lack of fluency with regard to Asian cultural norms as transracial adoptees. This aligns with the finding from Hoffman and Vallejo Peña’s (2013) study on Korean American adoptees that some transracial Asian Americans do not feel that predominantly Asian American spaces are comfortable or relatable. Anzaldúa (1987) fittingly describes inhabiting the borderlands as, “never comfortable… No, not comfortable but home” (para. 3). Many of the contradictions described by transracial Asian American adoptees regarding their racialized experiences in college point to the performative and temporal nature of race. Nadine Ehlers (2012) extends Judith Butler’s (1999) theory of gender performativity by considering what the theory of performativity might mean for race. According to Ehlers, race is constructed in the United States by the manufacturing of normative and essentialized standards for each racial group. Moreover, people are racially categorized based upon how they embody or perform the norms associated with a particular racial designation. In the case of transracial Asian American adoptees, being raised in White adoptive families, and thus, being socialized in predominantly White contexts means they hold seemingly contradictory racial norms (i.e., having pride in their Asian heritage while also desiring to disassociate from other Asian students, being racially read as Asian but having an affinity or sense of comfort for predominantly White spaces).

134 In some instances, participants struggled with the contradictions of their borderlands existence, feeling inauthentic due to the ways in which they did not meet others’ racial stereotypes or expectations of what it meant to be Asian or White. In other instances, participants expressed having unique and profound insight, proudly defying the rigidity of racial categories, because of their liminal racial positionality. This is yet another apparent contradiction, as participants described feeling simultaneously insecure and empowered in their racial in betweenness. Participants’ emotional dissonance related to their racialized experiences in college is also aligned with Anzaldúa’s (1987) description of navigating borders. Anzaldúa writes that straddling borders is “not a comfortable territory to live in … [h]owever, there have also been compensations for this mestiza, and certain joys” (para. 3). The tension of reconciling their racial phenotype (as Asian) with their racial-cultural affinity (with their White adoptive families) caused participants to feel both incongruous and innovative in their racial identity. Embracing borderlands. According to Anzaldúa (1987), “[b]orders are set up to … distinguish us from them” (p. 25; italics in original text). This is the social, historical, political, and economic premise of racial categories: to divide and differentiate racialized groups into a hierarchy built upon and intended to reinforce White supremacy. However, the racialized experiences of study participants did not fit neatly within the rigid borders of monoracial categories. While their racial identity as perceived and defined by others was invariably monoracial Asian, their experiences being raised in and by their White adoptive families left participants feeling like racial caveats, unsure of their claim to Asianness given their proximity to whiteness. This is consistent with adoption research (Godon et al., 2014; Palmer, 2011) that indicates transracial Asian American adoptees experience acute racial identity dissonance, often referring to themselves as “bananas” and “twinkies” due to their split identification. However, rather than reduce participants’ narratives forcing them to confine their racial identities to either Asian or White, I follow the argument that “living in the borderlands creates a third space between cultures and social systems… [in which] antithetical elements mix, neither to obliterate each other nor to be subsumed by a larger whole, but rather to combine in unique and unexpected ways” (Cantú & Hurtado, 2012, p. 6). Anzaldúa’s (1987) conception of borderlands invites a perspective shift that can be transformative and liberatory for border- crossers like transracial Asian American adoptees. Instead of regarding racial categories as discrete, fixating on racial boundaries and borders as demarcations of who is or is not considered

135 in-group, Border Theory points to these dividing lines as sites for further inquiry and healing. From this perspective, the racialized narratives shared by transracial Asian American adoptees in this study might be viewed as a beautiful dance on the border of their in-betweenness (Palmer, 2011), and as such, be considered examples of empowered ways to transgress monoracial and deficit depictions. The third space Anzaldúa (1987) describes is as much an emotional location as it is a theoretical concept. Within a borderlands rendering, transracial Asian Americans adoptees are not measured against monoracial definitions of what it means to be Asian or White. They are not deemed lacking or considered imposters. Instead, transracial Asian American adoptees and the contradictions they describe in their racialized experiences are viewed as insightful; not only to understanding the unique positionality of transracial Asian American adoptees but also in interrogating racial categories more broadly. From a borderlands vantage point, transracial Asian American adoptees are considered brilliant for how they maneuver their monoracial landscape and resist the confines of rigid racial categories. Anzaldúa’s post-oppositional worldview, which embraces in-betweenness rather than considering such a location confused or lacking is in some ways a radical way of thinking as it defies status quo conceptions of race. As such, the responsibility falls to educators to advance a borderlands or third-space perspective, which has the potential to be liberatory and empowering for transracial Asian American adoptees. Central to one’s ability to understand and embrace borderlands is an openness to liminal conceptions of identity. Liminality is defined as, “a state of being betwixt and between social roles and/or identities” (Ibarra & Obodaru, 2016, p. 47). Drawing from the field of sociology, liminality was originally coined to describe the transitional state of adolescence between childhood and adulthood (Turner, 1967). Turner first described this transformation as “that which is neither this, nor, that, but both” (p. 99). This definition of liminality reverberates with the epigraph at the beginning of this dissertation, an excerpt from Trenka’s (2003) memoir, The Language of Blood, in which she describes her racialized experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee: Because when my body is falling it moves faster than when I move it myself; because the state of exile is suspension, caught in the middle of an arc, between psyche, body, and place (neither, nor, both, between); because the essence of that which is most present is

136 not visible … because life is a ballet of consecutive movements—the grace is in the margins (p. 73). As transracial Asian American adoptees navigate their racialized experiences as Neither Asian, Nor White and negotiate simultaneously being viewed as Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner, they develop a Between Races consciousness. By bringing a Border Theory lens (Anzaldúa, 1987) to the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees, educators can better understand their racialized experiences as beautiful, complex, and brilliant. For Anzaldúa, inherent to the unique social and political location of one’s border identity is the ability to “‘see’ the arbitrary nature of all social categories … to exclude while including, to reject while accepting, and to struggle while negotiating” (Cantú & Hurtado, 2012, p. 7). According to Anzaldúa, one’s borderland identity gives rise to an agency to recognize and challenge oppressive realities and the rigidity of the status quo. As such, those who live and dance in the borderlands are exposed to multiple worlds. They have access to multiple cultures, languages, and worldviews resulting in what Anzaldúa describes as an “agility to navigate and challenge monocultural and monolingual conceptions of social reality” (p. 7). For the participants of this study, this happens with regard to the limiting and limited monoracial construction of race. While participants ached to adhere to essentialized notions of what it means to be Asian (e.g., fluency in an Asian language, familiarity with Asian cultural norms), at times expressing anxiety for what it meant if they were deemed lacking, they also lived and looked beyond their ascribed racial identity by articulating a transgressive racialized experience given their transracial adoptions. The findings from this study illustrate how the racialized experiences of transracially adopted Asian American college students–while sometimes isolating and emotionally difficult–also affords them an empowered understanding of identity. Cantú and Hurtado (2012) contend that Anzaldúa’s borderlands are significant not only for the expansive hybridity that takes place in the in-between, but also because an outcome of existing in the borderlands is a unique and profound perspective afforded to borderland inhabitants. Occupying the borderlands gives rise to knowledge of being within a system, while also garnering perspective as an outsider of the system. In the context of this study, participants’ racialized experiences as transracially adopted Asian American college students provide new perspectives on what it means to be Asian and White respectively. The racialized narratives

137 participants shared reveal the performative nature of race, calling into question if race is biologically assigned, phenotypically observed, or behaviorally enacted. Participants’ experiences being racially profiled and targeted with anti-Asian stereotypes, like the model minority myth and perpetual foreigner stereotype, reinforces monoracial conceptualizations of race. Yet, participants’ experiences growing up in their White adoptive families, and therefore, expressing comfort in and sometimes preference for White spaces contests monoracist assumptions of Asianness. It is noteworthy that a number of participants in this study expressed that they felt their racialized experiences were similar to how they perceived their multiracial peers’ racialized experiences. Karen explained, I think that experience [as a transracial Asian American adoptee] is really similar to half- White, half-Asian people. In high school, my best friend was half-Chinese and half- White, and now my best friend in college is half-Japanese and half-White. We always talk about how similar the experiences are because she grew up with some Asian culture but half her family is White. There’s always racial ambiguity, and while I don’t have racial, I have cultural ambiguity, I guess. So we have a lot of talk about that. That’s interesting to see how many similarities there are between our experiences. While participants did not necessarily cite theories of multiracial identity, the similarities they noted between their own racialized experiences and that of multiracial people is mirrored in literature (Ozaki & Renn, 2015). Renn (2000), drawing from Giroux (1992), contends that multiracial identity is informed by an individual’s ability to engage in “a variety of ‘border crossings’ between and among social contexts” (p. 402). Maria Root (1996) generated some of the earliest theory about multiracial identity formation, describing how multiracial people navigate their racial “otherness” through various types of “border crossings.” Any parallels in racialized experience between transracial Asian American adoptees and multiracial individuals (i.e., feeling neither nor, both between) are important to advancing the conversation of race and racial identity in higher education. However, they in no way suggest synonymous experiences, but rather further expose the limitations of monoracial conceptions of race. Implications for Research and Practice In this section, I present implications for future student affairs research and practice based upon the findings from this study. In chapters one and two of this dissertation, I argued that very

138 little is known about transracial Asian American adoptees in higher education contexts. As such, and given their socialization in their predominantly White adoptive families, transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences may in fact be notably different from other Asian and Asian American college student populations. While higher education and student affairs scholars and practitioners may assume that transracial Asian American adoptees have the same or similar racialized experiences as other Asian Americans (and some of the participants’ narratives indicated this is the case), they also wrestle with a host of other issues related to their borderland experiences of not feeling fully Asian or White, and trying to negotiate tensions between their ascribed and avowed racial identities. The following are suggestions and recommendations for student affairs scholars and practitioners in light of the findings from this study. For future research. Border Theory was integral to my expansive approach to examining race, as it informed my investigation of the “in between,” which enabled an assets- based exploration of transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences in college. By studying the apparent contradictions of transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized experiences as a site of possible insight rather than incongruence, I was able to consider the strengths and limitations of existing monoracial categories and contemplate new possibilities for understanding race. Future student affairs research using Border Theory may similarly be able to shift the scholarly gaze such that researchers not only study the systems and structures that shape how they currently understand themselves and each other, but also so that they can extend their understanding beyond what is already known. Such a shift may produce theoretical re-examinations similar to critical adoption scholar Park Nelson’s (2018) exploration of common theoretical grounding between disability studies and adoption studies. According to Park Nelson, there is a related positionality between people with disabilities and adoptees, which could meaningfully advance how these communities are discussed, understood, and positioned in society. Drawing from critical disability scholarship, Park Nelson contends that it is not people who are disabled, but rather systems and structures that fail to adequately attend to the diversity of peoples’ abilities. In this rendering, transracial Asian American adoptees (and other groups whose racial realities extend beyond the rigidity of essentialized notions of identity) are not considered caveats or quandaries of racial identity. Instead, scholars might examine predominant racial systems and structures as the focus of

139 investigation for the ways in which they fail to capture and consider racial liminality. This could result in a profound theoretical shift from problematizing people whose experiences do not fit neatly within existing models, to questioning the models and systems that uphold and reinforce racial stratification in the first place. The predominant model of Asian American college student racial identity (Kim, 2001) describes ethnic, familial, and cultural context as necessary prerequisites for racial consciousness. However, as participants of this study shared, college (not home or family) was often the catalytic context for their racial consciousness and identity exploration. While other theories of Asian American racial identity, such as Accapadi’s (2012) Point of Entry Model, may more closely align with the narratives shared by participants in this study, future research is needed to empirically study Accapadi’s conceptual model. As outlined in Chapter Two, two of the most common anti-Asian racist tropes are the model minority myth and the perpetual foreigner stereotype. While participants in the study referenced both, further research is needed to understand how transracial Asian American adoptees may be uniquely positioned at the intersection of these stereotypes. Furthermore, additional study is needed to consider how transracial Asian American adoptees exemplify what Kim (1999) describes as racial triangulation, which is the strategic and stratifying positioning of Asian Americans in what is often otherwise a Black and White dominant race conversation. In drawing upon Anzaldúa’s (1987) Borderlands to help frame my research on transracial adoptees, I engaged scholarship across academic disciplines and drew connections between diverse communities. Without asserting sameness (e.g., transracial adoptees’ borderland experiences are not the same as Anzaldúa’s or other queer Chicanas’ borderland experiences), there is great potential in excavating commonalities (e.g., there are shared sentiments between those who do not adhere to or neatly fit within the rigidity of monocultural, monolinguistic, or monoracial categories). As such, I believe that theories can and should be used and shared across communities if the integrity and intent of the original design is foregrounded (e.g., challenging and dismantling oppression). Therefore, I hope that future research–specifically that which undertakes an investigation of identity formations and dynamics of power and oppression– will honor scholarly legacies; respect original authorship; and resist debates of theoretical ownership rooted in scarcity and territoriality, which often coincide with a loss of the bigger agenda: liberation for all.

140 According to Abes (2016b), poststructural theories, such as Border Theory, “not only expose the ways in which some student development theories silence underrepresented students but also create possibilities for new ways to conceptualize student development theory that ‘loosen and empower’ these same students” (p. 10). Indeed, there are liberatory potentialities of theories to open up possibilities and connections rather than foreclose definitions or ideas. By considering poststructural perspectives of racial identity, student affairs scholars can interrogate the notion of race in higher education and consider possibilities that extend beyond monoracial understandings to include those that are more inclusive and fluid. An example of this (beyond the study at hand) is Johnson and Quaye’s (2017) conceptual piece in which they reconsider Black racial identity development using a Queer Theory lens. Poststructural paradigmatic approaches to student affairs research, while not yet common, are essential if scholars and practitioners seek to truly problematize and envision other ways of being, knowing, and relating. In an earlier iteration of my dissertation, I articulated a desire to investigate the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees with different methodologies, namely, collaborative autoethnography and the use of focus groups. These differing methodologies would produce other insightful contributions to research in higher education on transracial adoptees. Given the relational nature of collaborative autoethnography and the experience of being in community with other research participants through focus groups, these methodologies may create valuable points of connection for transracial Asian American adoptees. Such connections may be particularly meaningful for this population, considering that many participants from this study discussed racial isolation as a part of their transracial adoptive experience. In my own racialized journey as a transracial Asian American adoptee–and as I have observed anecdotally through interactions with other transracially adopted Asian Americans and which I have most recently confirmed empirically through my dissertation research–I have found that there is great power (particularly around identity exploration and formation) in encountering new language. There is also great power in the experience of meeting other transracial adoptees and having the opportunity to hear from and share reflections on our racialized experiences. Access to new and different ways of describing one’s transracial adoptee identity, especially if most of an adoptee’s experience has been one of isolation and/or tokenization, can be profoundly empowering and transformative.

141 Anzaldúa (1987) writes that there is an “almost instinctive urge to communicate, to speak, to write about life on the borders, life in the shadows” (para. 4). Participants from this study expressed a similar sentiment, communicating profound gratitude for the opportunity to speak about their racialized experiences and articulating a strong desire to continue doing so. They expressed a hope for future opportunities for other transracially adopted college students to also be able to share their experiences. Therefore, future researchers must continue to center the voices of transracial adoptees, as they have more to say and an urgency to share. As student affairs researchers continue to call for the disaggregation of scholarship on Asian American college student populations, transracial Asian American adoptees must be a demographic of future study. Future researchers need to not only further explore the perspectives and experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees, but also study specific subgroups by ethnicity/country of origin and by other intersecting identities (e.g., queer transracial adoptees, transracial adoptees with disabilities). One finding in particular from this study that warrants further research is the experience of transracial Asian American adoptees in college not meeting others’ racialized expectation. This finding has important implications for broader discourses of racial essentialism and racial authenticity. Future research on racial identity formation in student affairs needs to attend to the role of power to investigate how, by whom, and for what purposes racial categories are defined and ascribed in educational institutions. This is what Omi and Winant (2015) describe as “race making” (p. 105) or the process of constructing stratified classifications rooted in social and historical realities that seek to maintain and perpetuate hegemonic power differentials in society. Specifically, further examination is needed into racial essentialism and racial authenticity as prevailing hegemonic discourses that may inhibit how educators think about, racially perceive, and thus, serve and support students in their racial identity formation. Additionally, research is needed to interrogate why monoracial categories persist in higher education, with attention to the consequences that exist for those who–like transracial adoptees–may not fit neatly within the rigidity of these constructions. These further investigations may not only provide greater understanding of the experiences, perspectives, and needs of transracially adopted Asian American college students, but may also result in important insights about how race and racial identity are defined, theorized, and enforced in higher education. Relatedly, as some study participants described their racialized experiences as more

142 akin to their multiracial peers than their monoracial Asian counterparts, future study is needed of the ways in which transracial adoptees and multiracial college students’ experiences may be similar and different. For future student affairs practice. As very little is known about transracial Asian American adoptees in college, this study makes several contributions to the field of student affairs by centering this otherwise understudied college student demographic. For example, participants in this study described feeling simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable in race- and ethnicity-based student organizations. This finding may complicate student affairs practitioners’ perceptions of how best to advocate for and/or support Asian American college students. Instead of assuming Student of Color organizations or multicultural affairs offices are best situated to support transracial Asian American adoptees in college, the findings from this study may give practitioners pause to consider the unique stories and experiences of each student rather than relying upon monolithic stereotypes about Asian American students broadly. Indeed, the findings of this study may aid student affairs practitioners’ ability to disaggregate Asian American student experiences, which in turn, may enable them to better understand and effectively support intra-Asian diversity. The findings of this study may also alter how student affairs practitioners conceptualize Asian American students, and thus, prompt them to reconsider how they provide race-based services and support to Students of Color; perhaps allowing for more fluid constructions of race. Relatedly, student affairs practitioners may be compelled to work with colleagues in admissions and institutional research to re-examine how and what racial demographics are collected from students. This may involve providing an open-response field on racial reporting forms rather than asking students to select from a finite pre-designated list of racial categories. Alternatively, “transracial adoptee” might be considered a relevant identity to be added to student questionnaires so that higher education administrators can collect actual numbers of this otherwise invisible student population on their campuses. The finding that college is a facilitative time for transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial identity formation indicates that continued funding and administrative support are needed for race-based programming and services. As participants’ narratives from this study problematize assumptions of racial essentialism and racial authenticity, one example of innovative programming undertaken by student affairs practitioners may be to invite dialogue

143 around the idea of racial enoughness, which could help validate transracial adoptees’ experiences as well as other students who may not feel that their racialized experiences fit neatly within existing monoracial categories. Such programming may facilitate important identity exploration, as well as spur solidarity and empathy-building across and between racial categories (Ashlee & Quaye, under review). This has already begun to happen on the national level within student affairs professional associations (e.g., the NASPA Multiracial Knowledge Community has hosted a series of virtual meetups entitled, Mixed Messages: A Dialogue on Multiracial Folks and Transracial Adoptees). According to Anzaldúa (1987), an examination of borderland experiences helps to reveal how people cope with incongruence between one’s self-perceptions and others’ perceptions of them. Cantú and Hurtado (2012) suggest that one possibility (among many) offered by Anzaldúa is to “use the contradiction [of one’s borderland experience] to one’s advantage and rise above the negative assignation to develop a complex view of the social self” (p. 8). The findings of this study might encourage student affairs practitioners to consider transracial Asian American adoptees as racially resilient and innovative, rather than delayed or deficient. Instead of questioning transracial adoptees’ racial identity development or authenticity (in light of their proximity to whiteness), this study may help nudge educators to re-examine the dominant racial identity theories most commonly referenced in higher education. While prevailing theories of racial identity development and formation are important in informing student affairs practitioners about complex identity construction processes with which college students commonly engage, they are also limited (considering the samples used to inform the original construction of these theories) and can be limiting (as they regularly adhere to essentialist notions of race and presuppose cultural/ethnic family norms that may not be true for transracial Asian American adoptees). The findings of this study do not suggest that student affairs practitioners should throw these theories out entirely, but rather reminds educators of the importance of not developing an over-reliance upon these theories to describe or prescribe all students’ racialized processes in college. Instead, student affairs practitioners need to create space for students to explore and articulate their own avowed (how they perceive their own) racial identities.

144 Limitations of This Study As with any research project, there are limitations to this study. One conceptual limitation is that of language. Despite pursuing this study from a poststructural paradigm, intending from the very start to complicate, expand upon, and perhaps transgress existing racial categories, I used familiar racial language (e.g., Asian and Asian American) in my call for participants. To effectively communicate with potential participants, I felt compelled to draw upon dominant racial language and categories even though the heart of the study was to question the very existence and essentialized nature of these categories and labels. My decisions around the language I used to describe the study may have limited the diversity of the participant sample. For instance, no South Asian transracial adoptees (adoptees from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, or Sri Lanka) responded to my call for participants. This may be because the racial label of Asian generally conjures up and is associated with East Asian nations (e.g., China, Japan, Korea). Additionally, no multiracial Asian transracial adoptees responded to my call for participants. Again, this may be in part because of how I framed the call for participants, without explicitly stating the study could be inclusive of multiracial students. Another conceptual limitation of this study was my decision to examine the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees broadly. While I designed this study with strategic anti-essentialist values in mind (Museus, 2014), electing to focus on Pan Asian racial identity within Asian American transracial adoptees rather than exploring a specific ethnicity of transracial Asian American adoptees (e.g., Chinese American adoptees) could be misinterpreted as a perpetuation of aggregated constructions of Asianness, which problematically mask intra- Asian diversity. In my sampling strategy, I intentionally disaggregated Asian American by choosing to study transracial Asian American adoptees in particular. However, by doing so, I opted to focus on Asian racialization broadly among ethnically diverse transracial Asian American adoptees, rather than examine in more depth the unique ethnic, cultural, and/or nationalistic dynamics to different transracial Asian American adoptee subgroups. A third conceptual limitation to this study is the lack of a multidimensional lens. Given that my guiding research question centered on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college, my subsequent interview protocols focused on understanding participants’ racialized experiences. As such, I did not encourage participants to speak about

145 multiple dimensions of identity. I did ask participants one explicit interview question about any other salient social identities. However, I asked this question near the end of the second interview and thus did not integrate a multidimensional perspective throughout the study. Rather, most of my interview questions asked participants pointedly about their racialized experiences in college. While it was not my intent to minimize participants’ other social identities, by centering race I may have inadvertently caused participants to reflect more on their racialized experiences rather than other aspects of identity which may have actually be more salient (e.g., gender, sexuality, social class, religion, (dis)ability). Additionally, by focusing on one singular aspect of identity (e.g., race), this study may fall short of capturing the complexity of how participants’ multiple social identities intersect and impact each other (e.g., how one’s gender identity influences how they experience and understand their race). A final conceptual limitation of this study could be my poststructural paradigmatic perspective. As the field of higher education and student affairs is comprised of faculty and student affairs practitioners, that I approached this study from a poststructural paradigm may be interpreted as disconnected from the applied and practice-based nature of the field. Additionally, readers may construe my analysis of findings using Border Theory as theoretical appropriation as Border Theory is based upon the thinking and writing of Chicana queer feminist Gloria Anzaldúa. Even though poststructuralism is not a common paradigm in the field, I believe that poststructural perspectives are not only valuable, but also necessary as educators seek to question existing practice; complicate contemporary ways of knowing; and imagine new possibilities for higher education. Additionally, I feel strongly that the scope of scholarship should not be limited by fear or territoriality. Instead, intellectual and philosophical exploration (e.g., the application of Border Theory to non-Chicano communities) should be regarded as expansive and progressive, if the theoretical origins are honored and the purpose of the research is congruent; namely, to question hierarchies of power. In addition to the aforementioned conceptual limitations, there are a couple design limitations to note for this study. First, the study sample lacks diversity representative of broader collegiate populations. In the case of gender, of the 12 participants in the study, 10 participants identified as cisgender women, one participant identified as a cisgender man, and one participant identified as transgender. These gendered ratios do not reflect overall college enrollment numbers; notably, college cisgender men are underrepresented in this study. While not

146 numerically representative of the gender ratio of college populations broadly, these numbers may be reflective of the gender bias inherent in child relinquishment and adoption (e.g., due to worldwide sexism and the practice of gendercide in some nations, adoptees are much more likely to be girls). In the case of intra-Asian ethnic representation, 10 participants identified as East Asian (Korean or Chinese), one participant identified as Southeast Asian (Vietnamese), and one participant identified as Eurasian (Kazakh). The absence of any South Asian collegian perspectives may contribute to the under-representation and subsequent erasure of South Asian communities in higher education research (Accapadi, 2012; Museus, 2014). Another limitation of this study was the potentially restricted nature of researcher/participant relational rapport due to interview methods and geographic distance. As some of the participants were located in other states, I relied upon video conferencing technology (and in some cases when the internet connection failed, I used the telephone) to conduct interviews. The impersonalization and instability of these mediums may have impaired participants’ comfort and thus impacted what they were willing to share in our interviews. Conclusion The findings of this study provide insight into the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptee collegians. The four emerging assemblages from this study (Neither Asian, Nor White, Both Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner, Between Races) suggest that race is as much learned and performed as it is assigned or observable. Building upon identity development and identity formation literature, this study fills a gap in college student identity research. The implications related to college as an engaging context for identity exploration, the imperative to explore contradictions as opportunities for new ways of being and understanding oneself, and the invitation to embrace borderlands as a way to resist and transgress the status quo all have relevance for student affairs theory, practice, and policy. To transracial Asian American adoptees in college: I see you. Your experience and voice matters. While your racialized experience may not be common, well known, or expected, your story is absolutely part of what it means to be Asian in America. In fact, your perspective and interrogation of what it means to be “Asian enough” is important not only for your own identity exploration, but may also have great insight and meaning for how race is understood more broadly. Although you may feel at times that your racialized experience is different from what is expected and thus that you are somehow a deviation from what is normal, this is false logic. The

147 questions you wrestle with regarding your racial identity and the courage you exhibit each time you resist how others racially label you, is exquisite. Your experience of living beyond the rigidity of existing racial categories, of occupying racial borderlands, and contemplating contradictions is brilliantly expansive. Rather than accept the racial social structure you have been raised and socialized in, your ache for something more is exactly what is needed for educators to examine the meaning and construction of race. You are the hope for a system that has, since its inception, been broken. For student affairs educators and scholars: instead of questioning transracial Asian American adoptees’ racial realities for the ways in which they extend beyond our expectations, what would it mean to consider their experiences and perspectives as valid and valuable? What is required, and what might it mean if we were to shift our skepticism and subsequent interrogations from the student to the system? What would it take to consider transracial Asian American adoptees’ racialized worldviews as insightful and innovative instead of incongruent or impudent? How might doing so enable us to revisit and perhaps revise our limited and limiting understanding of race and racial identity? As this was a narrative study by design, I want to close with words imparted directly from participants. At the close of my second interview with each participant, I asked them what they wish college educators knew or understood about transracial Asian American adoptees. This is what they said... • “I wish [educators] understood that [transracial adoption] was a thing, honestly. I don’t really share that with my professors. I don’t really share it with higher ups [university administrators], although I think that it would be really great if they just kind of understood that there are different ways that people can end up at this school, and that there are different races and different experiences that we all have. I think that in some ways they do lump together the Asian students … I just think that if [educators] were more aware that there are students coming in that have these experiences and who are adopted, I think the school could be a better place and cultivate more stronger communities.” -Athena • “I think it’ really important for educators to listen. Even in my own experience being an adoptee, I know that there are a lot of different adoptee narrative out there. There are a lot of different adoptee experiences, and I think … it’s important for educators to just listen. To listen to these experiences and listen to where their students are coming from

148 because at the end of the day, if they’re not doing this work for their students, then they need to find another job because why else would you do any of this? … Acknowledge the fact that there are a number of different stories and experiences out there. Be aware of the tools that that you [educators] have, and if there’s something you don’t know, then research it. Find a way, and then create spaces so that people can talk and share their experiences. Don’t make assumptions. Just because I’ve had a very good experience as an adopted person, again in terms of having a very supportive and loving family, [and] that’s not every adoptee’s experience … I think higher education student affairs need to just take into consideration that this is a very broad spectrum in terms of all these [racialized] experiences. Adopted for me may mean one thing, different than it may mean for someone else.” -Chris • “Honestly, the biggest thing for me, as I said before, is just normalizing it. Normalizing adoption, normalizing adoptee kids and normalizing people who are adopted, but also, I want [educators] to normalize it because I don’t want them to make a big deal out of it. Cause I don’t like it when people make a big deal out of things like identities, when they’re not their own. So if someone makes a big deal out of me being adopted, and I’m like, not necessarily. I don’t stop other people from making a big deal out of their own identities, because they’re important to them, but for me, don’t make this a bigger thing because I’m comfortable with myself and if you make it a big deal then I might feel uncomfortable … Just a normalization of adoptions and the normalization of cross cultures too. We’re transracial. So Chinese and also American. So normalizing that you can have more than one culture and it can be totally fine.” -DS • “I think it’s hard because everyone has a different experience based on how they want to embrace their Asian culture … I guess it’s just in terms of asking, I think I talked about this in our last interview as well, but asking questions that [educators] already know [the] answer to. Like, ‘Oh, your last name is not Asian, but you’re Asian, how does that work?’ To ask that kind of question as an introductory thing or something, it’s something that I think, as someone who has more authority, I feel like I have to answer the question, but I’m not always super comfortable with it. I guess it’s more not letting [educators] curiosity of ‘I need to know the answer to what I’m assuming already’ right now drive

149 your interaction, or at least your first interaction with a student. Because [transracial adoption] is something that is personal.” -Emma • “Just not to assume things. A lot of [educators] just group us with the other Asian students and yeah, I’m not sure. Just not to assume that we’re international students or we’re just typical Asian students … kind of assuming stereotypical Asian things … That’s the main thing I guess, try to get to know us more individually, rather than just grouping us with the people who [you] think we are from.” -Hannah • “I definitely wish that educators would understand that there are a lot more adoptees than they think. I wish that they had something for [adoptees] specifically, or took more into consideration as to why maybe some students act a certain way than others. I think there are a lot of things that people make exceptions for, but I feel like when they think of any adoptee in general, they don't really think too much about it. They don't really have any sympathy or any understanding for them. I think I just wish they would have a better understanding of what it's like to be an adoptee in general and what that comes with. Yeah, I don't know. I guess more support for [transracial adoptees] in a sense than just... Yeah, or have something for adoptees to help them process anything that they need to… I think just overall, just acknowledging. I think that’s the biggest thing is [educators] don’t acknowledge about adoptees. So I wish they would acknowledge that more throughout school in general. I think if they had something about adoptees for them to go to, or something like that, [like] an adoptee night or something. That would be something. That would help inform a lot of people. I definitely think educators need to put effort into that instead of excluding [adoptees] and needing adoptees to find each other, because [educators] push so hard on so many things, but they don’t push hard on other kinds of groups or anything like that. They push ethnic groups, but they don’t push any sort of things within that. Realizing that there are people who are transracial and that came from a different country, but yet grew up somewhere else. [Educators] don’t have anything for them. We’re stuck in the middle, so there isn’t anything for us.” -Jessie • “I guess just being open to more diverse experiences. And I know the [diversity] office right now is trying to be more involved in the Asian American community on campus, which is great. I really appreciate that they’re reaching out to [the Asian student group], but I think it would be… I guess just being open and not assuming a certain narrative for

150 a certain group. And maybe for education, may including [ transracial adoption] in more courses. ‘Cause the class I’m in right now, the Asian American gender, sexuality, culture, politics class, this is the first class that we’ve really talked about adoption. And international transracial, transnational adoption and that was a little bit emotional to go through. It was really interesting to be able to learn about it in an academic context. I don’t think [adoptees] really get to do, even in other Asian American classes, we never really talked about that. I think that including [transracial adoption] more, or I guess in the Asian American studies including more diverse Asian American experiences.” -Karen • “There have been a lot of conversations about race on my campus, which I’ve alluded to quite a bit, like a lot of conversations and I feel like the difference between race and ethnicity has largely been left out in every single one of them. It’s always been a White/Black thing … That’s not to say that that isn’t important, but I think that a more nuanced discussion of how you look versus what your culture is might do us all some good … I think [transracial adoption] is just always left out whenever there’s a conversation about race. There’s just this expectation that your culture is going to match how you look. I think that to an extent that’s valid, because for the majority of people that is the case. In some colleges there may be so few Asian adoptees that it doesn’t really make sense to totally change the curriculum, but I do think that it would benefit people to think about [transracial adoption] a little bit more. One because it would make things easier for Asian adoptees, and two, because it would make it easier for people who may not be adopted but still have a lot of special circumstances so to speak around what they look like versus what they feel their culture is.” -Kyra • “I think [educators] are more similar [to transracial adoptees] than I think they’re aware … Like we’re raised the same way, most of the time. Not exactly the same way, obviously, but like I was raised in a White family and the majority, not a majority of the professors, but a lot of the professors here are White, so I’m sure there’s similar upbringings … [Also] probably there’s some [transracial adoptees] who don’t feel comfortable talking about [adoption].” -Mai • “I wish [educators] would recognize their own privileges and do something about it, not just recognize it. I don’t think recognition is enough. I think holding people accountable

151 for things is really important. I think professors need to know that this is something that students are dealing with at the same time as they’re going through taking 16, 17, or more credits and trying to be an all-around just good person. I think realizing that there are no racial mirrors, or if there are, there’s very few of them, and so using their power as faculty to force administration to hire more diversity and talk about it in curriculum … We need a center for Latinx folks. We need a center for Asian American folks. We need a center for LGBTQ folks. We need all these different ones and we don’t have them. I think it’s important to prioritize that. I think because the adoptee community is so small, just overall, even if you include not transracial adoptees, it’s a small community. I really think that the other stuff takes precedent. Would I like to see some time, something for adoptees? Of course I would, but I don’t think, especially if we can’t even get the university on board with making more than just the Center for Black Culture, I think that’s going to be a long way away.” -Mia • “I think [educators] should know that, there's such a small population of us here, and they should know how we feel. Most of the educators here are White, so they can't understand.” -Sarah • “I guess that [transracial adoptees] can’t be categorized as easily as [educators would] like to categorize us. And that we also go through a lot of interesting things, that can be good and bad. So it could be just not fitting in things, that’s really difficult. It could be not living up to the stereotypes you put on yourself. It could be the actual freedom of not having those stereotypes … I wish [educators] understood that there are a lot more categories of Asian and adoptees, especially those two categories together, that the world is changing and that everything is not linear. That stereotypes are a real thing, and they really suck. That to try to support the students as much as possible and that we are just growing and learning … In my opinion, identities emerge as they’re allowed to. So if [educators] think that there is only certain categories, then there will only be certain categories. If you open your mind to, there are other possibilities, then there will be.” -Veliqe Although this study does not claim to represent the lives of all transracial Asian American adoptees, the participants’ narratives raise issues and questions that transcend institutional and demographic boundaries. Imagine the possibilities if educators listened and

152 asked compassionate questions rather than made assumptions about the lives, families, and identities of the students with whom they work and seek to support. Imagine if educators acted more expansively and transgressively, crossing borders in designing and conceptualizing student support resources. More broadly, imagine if educators interrogated by whom and for what purposes race is constructed, defined, and performed rather than adhering to and perpetuating monoracist renderings of race. Imagine if scholars and practitioners shifted their perspectives to regard transracial Asian American adoptees–and all students who resist the rigidity of socially imposed borders–as inventive rather than inauthentic in how they enact and express their identities. Imagine if educators employed Border Theory (Anzaldúa, 1987) and welcomed liminality within identity, enabling them to not only better understand transracial Asian American adoptees, but also explore contradictions, transcend duality, and ultimately embrace the healing and liberatory possibilities of the borderlands; of the neither, nor, both, between.

153 References

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164 Appendix A: Data Collection Memo

December 8, 2017

Dear Dissertation Committee Members:

I am writing to share a change to my data collection plan for my dissertation. In late November, after my dissertation proposal defense, I met with Paul DeWater, a Miami SAHE master’s student who identifies as a transracial Asian American adoptee. He agreed to serve as a peer- debriefer for my dissertation. In this meeting, Paul and I reviewed my dissertation data collection plan, including my proposed interview and focus group protocols. Through this conversation, I had the opportunity to reflect on the evolution of my data collection plan from my initial comps proposal to my dissertation proposal and concluded that my current dissertation data collection plan is (1) too ambitious for a single research project and (2) not necessary to answer the stated research question.

As a refresher, my dissertation proposal data collection plan included, (1) individual semi- structured interviews to learn about participants’ adoption story, pre-college racialized experiences, and college experiences related to race and their transracial Asian American adoptee identity, (2) an optional second unstructured interview, as needed if any participant desired more contact prior to the focus group to build rapport, (3) a focus group experience, and (4) individual semi-structured interviews to process and reflect upon the focus group experience.

In the peer debriefing meeting with Paul, I found that my rationale for adding the focus group component to my data collection plan was largely due to my interest in creating community for transracial Asian American adoptees in college. While creating community for transracial Asian American adoptees in college is something I value and endeavor to promote and facilitate in the future, my conversation with Paul helped me to realize that this is a separate interest from the stated purpose of my dissertation, which is to examine how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. I also realized that a single interview to talk with participants about their adoption story, pre-college racialized experience, and college experiences related to race (the first interview proposed in my current dissertation data collection plan) may be a bit ambitious for a single conversation. Finally, talking with Paul reminded me that while researching transracial Asian American adoptees in higher education is a lifelong research agenda, I and the participants in my dissertation may be best served with a specific scope to this particular research project. As such, I reached out to Stephen, my dissertation chair, to process these revelations and articulate my rationale and desire to amend my dissertation data collection plan moving forward. Stephen has approved this decision. This memo is meant to ensure transparency and open communication with you, my full dissertation committee members, given the significance of this change. I welcome any follow up questions or comments for further consideration.

I have revised my dissertation data collection plan to the following: (1) individual informal introductory interviews to learn about participants’ pre-college racialized experiences and adoption story, and (2) individual semi-structured interviews to focus more specifically on participants’ racialized experiences in college.

165 As I mentioned, Stephen has approved this change. Therefore, no action is required from you. I simply wanted to inform you of this amendment to my dissertation data collection plan. Thank you for your continued support with this project.

In solidarity,

Aeriel A. Ashlee, M.Ed. SAHE PhD Candidate

166 Appendix B: Participant Intake Form Thank you for your interest in participating in this research study. Please fill out this brief questionnaire, which should take approximately 10 minutes. If you have any initial questions or concerns, you are welcome to contact me via email. Your Name:

Participant Pseudonym: Please pick a nickname to protect your identity throughout the research process and in any subsequent publications.

Preferred Email Address: What is the best email address for me to reach you?

Preferred Phone Number: What is the best telephone number for me to reach you?

Participant Criteria: I am seeking participants who meet the following criteria: are at least 18-years-old, of Asian descent, adopted by and raised in a White American family, and currently enrolled as an undergraduate college student.

Do you meet these criteria? Yes or No

How often do you think about your race? Never Almost never Sometimes Often Very Often All of the time

How often do you think about being an adoptee? Never Almost never Sometimes Often Very Often All of the time

Short Reflection: Please write a short reflection describing your racial identity. Include to what extent (if any) being an adoptee impacts how you think about your race.

Almost done!

167 The following questions are for demographic information purposes only. Where were you born? (city, country) Where did you primarily grow up? (city, country) What college or university are you currently attending? What year are you in college? What is your major? What is your race? What is your ethnicity? What is your gender identity? What is your family’s social class background? What is your religious identity? What is your sexual orientation? Are there any other identities you would like me to know?

Please feel free to share this intake form with others you think might interested in participating in this study. Thank you.

168 Appendix C: Call for Participants Hello! My name is Aeriel A. Ashlee. I am an Asian American adoptee. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, adopted at four-months-old, and raised in and by a White American family in Minnesota, USA. I am also a doctoral candidate at Miami University in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program. For my dissertation research, which received IRB approval, I am studying how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. For the purposes of this study, I am defining transracial Asian American adoptees as individuals of Asian descent who were adopted by and raised in White American families.

If you are an adoptee of Asian descent, adopted by and raised in a White American family, currently enrolled as an undergraduate college student, and at least 18-years-old, you are eligible to participate in this study. This is a national study and will involve two individual interviews with me, the principal investigator. Each interview will take approximately 40-60 minutes. Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. All information collected will be confidential.

If you meet the study’s selection criteria and are interested in participating, please complete the enclosed online participant intake form (which should take less than 10 minutes). Please also feel free to share the link to the online intake form with anyone else you think may be interested in participating in this study. Thank you! Aeriel A. Ashlee, M.Ed. Doctoral Candidate, Student Affairs in Higher Education Miami University

169 Appendix D: Interview Protocol #1 Introduction and Greeting

• Welcome and thank participant • Remind participant that all interview materials (e.g., audio recorder, transcripts) will be kept in a secure location, that confidentiality is a priority, and that the pseudonym of their choice (as indicated on their participant intake form) will be used for transcription and all future presentation and/or publication purposes • Explain that this interview is anticipated to last approximately 40-60 minutes and that the participant will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the interview

Introduce the Study “The purpose of this study is to examine how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. I am particularly interested in the language you use to describe your racial identity. Very little has been written about transracial Asian American adoptees in higher education. As such, much is unknown about this population in college contexts. Therefore, this study is an opportunity for transracial Asian American adoptees to speak to their experiences with race in college. There is no right or wrong answer, I am simply looking to learn from you and your experience.” Interview Questions 1. Please tell me a bit about yourself and your family background. 2. What do you know about your adoption story? 3. What was your experience growing up as an Asian adoptee in a White family? 4. As an Asian American adoptee, raised in a White family, what has been your experience navigating White and Asian spaces? 5. Prior to this study, were you familiar with the term “transracial”? What are your thoughts and reactions to this word? What language do you use to describe your racial identity? 6. Is there anything else you would like to tell me that I did not ask?

Closing

• Invite participant to contact me with any follow-up questions as they arise • Explain that I will transcribe interview and send it to the participant for member checking • Provide resources list to participant • Explain that I will be in touch shortly to schedule our second interview • Thank participant for their time and story

170 Appendix E: Interview Protocol #2 Introduction and Greeting • Welcome student and thank them for their continued participation in the study • Remind participant that all interview materials (e.g., audio recorder, transcripts) will be kept in a secure location, that confidentiality is a priority, and that the pseudonym of their choice will be used for all future presentation and/or publication purposes • Explain that this interview is anticipated to last approximately 60 minutes and that the participant will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the interview

Interview Questions • What is it like being a transracial Asian American adoptee in college? • Who knows that you are a transracial Asian American adoptee? o What impacts your choice to disclose this or not? • Please tell me about a time when you did not feel able to express or share your transracial Asian American adoptee identity in college? o What happened? What contributed to you not feeling able to express this identity? • Please tell me about a time when you did feel able to express your transracial Asian American adoptee identity in college? What happened? What conditions made you feel at ease expressing this identity? • Please tell me about a time when you felt hyper-visible or invisible as a transracial Asian American adoptee in college? • Have you experienced racism in college? Can you tell me about a specific example? • Please describe a time in college when you experienced being a transracial Asian American adoptee as a challenge or difficulty. • Please describe a time in college when you experienced being a transracial Asian American adoptee as an asset or strength. • Please talk about a time when you felt like race impacted your relationship with… o Peers in college? o A professor/instructor in college? • How would you describe being Asian/Asian American? o How would you describe be a transracial Asian American adoptee? o How are these the same? How are they different? • With whom (what group/groups of people) do you feel most comfortable on campus o With whom (what group/groups of people) do you feel least comfortable on campus? Please explain. • Has being a transracial Asian American adoptee impacted your experience in college? o If yes, how? • What do you wish college educators understood about your experience as a transracial Asian American adoptee? • I have asked a lot of questions specific to race, however, I know that we all have multiple intersecting identities (i.e., gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, spirituality). Are there other identities that impact how you think about/experience your race? • Is there anything else you would like to tell me that I did not ask?

171 Closing • Invite participant to keep in touch and ask any follow-up questions as they arise • Explain that I will be in touch with member checking opportunity in the coming months o This will look different than round 1 review of transcript o Still working out the details, but this will be an opportunity for participants to provide feedback and additional insights to their previous responses; opportunity to comment (if they wish) on patterns or aspects of their interviews that stood out to me as a researcher and hear some of my initial observations across narratives; my priority is that I understand and represent what they share as they intend • Remind participant of the resources list provided after the first interview • Thank participant for their time and story

172 Appendix F: Human Participants Informed Consent Form

Title: Exploring Racialized Experiences of Transracial Asian American Adoptees in College

Principle Investigator: Aeriel A. Ashlee Miami University 304 McGuffey Hall Oxford, OH 45056 [redacted phone number] [email protected]

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Aeriel A. Ashlee, a doctoral candidate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This dissertation research is being overseen by Associate Professor Dr. Stephen John Quaye and has been approved by the Miami University Human Subjects Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how transracial Asian American adoptees describe and make sense of their race in college. The findings of this study will contribute to a growing body of research about Asian American college students and college student racial identity formation.

Eligibility: Participants in this study must be at least 18-years-old, of Asian descent, adopted in and raised by a White American family, and currently enrolled in undergraduate education.

Procedure: If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to participate in two interviews. Interviews will be conducted in person or virtually (via Google Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype, whichever is your preferred platform). Each interview is anticipated to last between 40- 60 minutes. Interviews will be audio recorded, transcribed, and stored in a secure location under your chosen pseudonym (nickname). By participating in this study, you are granting the principle investigator the permission needed to use the transcripts as data for this research study.

Statement of Confidentiality: Any information that is obtained in connection with this study that can be identified to you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. In all reports of your responses, your confidentiality will be strictly maintained. To maintain your confidentiality, all recordings of interviews will be destroyed after they are transcribed and analyzed. Your real name will never be used in the reporting of data or analysis. All interview transcripts will be stored in a secure password- protected Dropbox folder. All files associated with this study will be destroyed by September 1, 2027. I will be the only researcher who has access to these files. Data used for publications or presentations will not contain any personally identifiable information.

Voluntary Participation: Participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you do not wish to participate in this study or if you wish to withdraw from the study, you are welcome to do so at any time. Refusal to take part in or withdrawing from this study will involve no penalty or loss of benefits. Even if you decide to participate, you are free not to answer any question without penalty.

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Right to Ask Questions: If you have questions about this study at any point, please contact me by email at [email protected] or by phone at [redacted]. You may also contact my advisor Dr. Stephen John Quaye by email at [email protected]. If you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, you should contact the Office for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship at [email protected] or (513) 529-3600.

By participating in this study, you are voluntarily consenting for the data to be used in research on the racialized experiences of transracial Asian American adoptees in college.

174 Appendix G: Resources List Given the personal nature of this study, the following is a compilation of resources for participants who may need support or who desire further exploration of their racial identity as it relates to their transracial adoption.

Online Resources • Adopted Asian Americans (website) • China’s Children International (website) • Gazillion Voices (blog) • Harlow’s Monkey (blog) • Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (website) • Red Thread Broken (blog) • The Lost Daughters (blog) • The Rambler (radio station)

Films • aka SEOUL: A Korean Adoptee Story • Closure • First Person Plural • In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee • Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam • Somewhere Between • Twinsters

Books Anzaldúa, G. (1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Book Company. Nelson, K. P. (2016). Invisible Asians: Korean American adoptees, Asian American experiences, and racial exceptionalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Palmer, J. D. (2011). The dance of identities: Korean adoptees and their journey toward empowerment. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Trenka, J. J. (2003). The language of blood: A memoir. Saint Paul, MN: Borealis Books. Trenka, J. J., Oparah, J. C., and Shin. S. Y. (Eds.). (2006). Outsiders within: Writing on transracial adoption. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Tuan, M., & Shiao, J. L. (2011). Choosing ethnicity, negotiating race: Korean adoptees in America. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

If you would like assistance setting up an appointment with Counseling Services at your university, please let me know. I hold a graduate degree in counseling, and while I am not a licensed practitioner I believe strongly in the value of therapy. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me directly by email at [email protected] or by phone at [redacted]. Thank you! -Aeriel A. Ashlee

175 Appendix H: Eight Initial Emergent Assemblages “[Being a transracial adoptee] gives me a hard time sometimes fitting in with other Asian Americans who have Asian parents or fitting in with other non-Asians just because you’re kind of in that in between zone.” -Hannah

“I definitely don’t have the same experiences that [non-adopted Asians] do.” -Mia

“I just think there’s an expectation of being Asian and then me not meeting [the expectation] and people being confused in some ways.” -Athena

“If people ask me directly [about my transracial Asian American adoptee identity] and I don’t know them, it gets a little bit awkward because … it feels a bit invasive.” -Veliqe

“I feel like I don’t belong, even though they think I do.” -DS

“I do feel like I have some of that [White] privilege.” -Kyra

“I felt really insecure and was coming from a place of isolation, and I felt like I was the only one.” -Chris

“I never had an Asian American community growing up, so having that going through college mas made me think a lot about what that means and what I want to do personally for myself.” -Karen

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