von Markus Hagland von Südkorea in die USA adoptiert.
I early-voted in the U.S. presidential election today, and I was struck by my own feeling of emotion over once again having the privilege to vote. And, once again, I was reminded of my identity as an immigrant to my country, the U.S. I arrived here through international adoption when I was 8 months old, and have been voting now for several decades, but am always acutely conscious that I was not born in this country–and that for many white, native-born (non-immigrant) Americans, I will always be perceived as a foreigner, as a new arrival (even though I arrived more than 59 years ago now).
Indeed, growing up, I had the perpetual feeling that my very existence was somehow conditional, and predicated on achieving some norm of behavior, since I perceived my very existence as somehow transgressing the norms of the society I grew up in (since, growing up, I was constantly othered and made to feel a foreigner). And therein lies some complexity, because while on the one hand, many white Americans will never see me as truly, fully, American, on the other hand, I certainly am no longer a citizen of my birth country, South Korea; and, in the extremely unlikely event that I were given the right to vote in South Korea, I would have absolutely zero capability to make informed voting choices in any case, lacking not only the language, but even more importantly, any social, cultural, historical, or political context for understanding how to make choices with regard to voting in that country (and, to be clear, I don’t think that someone with zero familiarity with the current events of a nation should really be participating in such an important process as voting, in any case).
I should also add that, returning to my birth country three times as an adult, I was made to feel like an absolute foreigner and alien, which only intensified my feelings of complexity around identity and belonging. So my experience today reminded me once again, as an adult transracial and international adoptee, of the complexity of my identity, and of the unusual mindspace in which I will always live.
My identity will never be simple, nor will others’ perceptions of my identity always be hyphenated, and the perception of others in my society will always be complex, layered, and in some cases, conflicted. And the same has been true, as I alluded to above, regarding my interactions with my birth country, and residents of my birth country and immigrants from my birth country. In other words, my very identity continues to be hyphenated for so very many–and always will be so. I’m not sure, but I would imagine that other American intercountry adoptees might be able to relate to this. In any case, thank you for reading and considering it.