Katie Maurer, 23, a Chinese adoptee, stands in front of the Williamsburg Bridge, March 21, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Katie Maurer

I think when I was younger, [my adoption] didn’t really shape [my identity] as much because I tried to blend in as much as possible. But in some ways, my identity of being Asian grew stronger the more I traveled. Because unfortunately, I have been subjected to verbal harassment and hypersexualization. I’ve come to realize that nobody’s going to ask when they come at me who my family is, what my background is, how I used to identify myself as white with an Asian veneer. So I feel like now it’s ok for me to go back and embrace the Asian side of myself. 

Ilona Kereki, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits at her desk in Brooklyn, March 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Ilona Kereki

I find that when topics like transnational adoption, identity are brought up in casual conversation with other people who aren’t used to it, there’s a clear discomfort, and they clearly can’t manage their discomfort with the information. I’ve also found a recurring theme of “not-enoughness” in my adoption story. But that’s the world’s projection on me, that’s not how I truly feel about myself. I’ve just internalized these ideas of how things “should be.” Whether you think I’m not Chinese enough, whether you think I don’t look like an Asian person. An Asian person can look and behave in a way that you don’t think is traditionally Asian. 

Ben Smith, 27, a Chinese adoptee, sits in his bedroom with a glass of coffee in Brooklyn, April 7, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Ben Smith

Being raised in a nontraditional family, in an LGBTQ family, made me hyper-aware of my differences. Adoption is completely different for every single person. And each adoptee’s experience is completely unique in and of itself. News, and the public, and the media, they like to include adoptees as a blanket group, as a monolith. The reality is, especially with adoptees, that’s just not the case whatsoever. I would love to dispel that false understanding. 

Zoe Arditi, 23, a Chinese adoptee, sits in her bedroom in Manhattan, April 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Zoe Arditi

If I ever bring up that I’m adopted or if it ever comes up in a space, people usually shy away and never ask me about it. I feel like growing up, my identity has been silenced because other people feel uncomfortable. How do I even begin to talk about this if nobody wants to talk about it with me? 

Inga Parkel, 23, a Chinese adoptee, sits at her desk in her bedroom in Manhattan, April 15, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Inga Parkel

Growing up, I never wanted to confront my adoptee or Asian identity, but connecting with so many strong and resilient Asian adoptees has provided me a beautiful community of understanding. This time it’s not a community created by and for the adoptive parents, but it’s a community I choose to seek out on my own terms and on my own timeline. 

Joseph Pinney, 26, a Korean adoptee, sits in Central Park in New York City, March 13, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Joseph Pinney

The narratives for adoptees in most media is of “damaged” individuals. As if being adopted is something others should feel bad or sorry for. I think the best word to describe every single adoptee is resilient, the complete opposite of how the adoptee is expressed in most media sources these days with all of the overly emotional reunion videos. Not that those aren’t wonderful, but they’re definitely shown in a particular context and way for the general public to feel a type of way, which is usually translated to how people sometimes get this idea of fragility or “damaged.” When I think it’s the complete opposite.

Tori Smith, 25, a Korean adoptee, sits at her dining room table in Brooklyn, April 11, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Tori Smith

I was surrounded by white people. My friends were white. I wanted to be white too. I didn’t have any Asian role models to look up to, to say Asian features are beautiful. But as I got older, I started seeking out K-pop and seeing people who looked like me and were beautiful. And I began to think maybe my Asian features aren’t so bad.

Xiaoye Jiang, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits in her bedroom in Brooklyn, March 12, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Xiaoye Jiang

Things like my name, and my age, and where I was born, these are all things I’ve been told and things I have to take at face value as truth, because what else am I going to believe in? I view being adopted as a hard truth, something that’s indisputable that I know about myself. I’ve definitely made that a big part of who I am.

Laura Balcerak, 26, a Chinese adoptee, sits on the stoop of her parent’s apartment building in Brooklyn, March 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Laura Balcerak

I don’t know if it’s a misconception or not, but I feel like a lot of people see [adoption] as a purely good thing. It really bugs me when people say, “oh wow, you must be so grateful,” or “it’s such a blessing.” I mean, you’re not wrong. I am grateful, and it is a blessing, but please don’t just disregard everything else. I am lucky. I do think my quality of life is better than in China. But you’re completely blanking over all the struggles, all the hardships. 

Emma Arabia, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits in front of the Bryant Park fountain in Manhattan, April 9, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Emma Arabia

My identity is something that I can determine. For a long time, it felt like it was something that people would determine for me when they would ask those sort of questions that we [adoptees] all hear. Going through losing my mom has really helped me be more present and sincere, and honest with myself. Things happen to your life that you don’t plan and don’t expect.

Riley Burchell, 28, a Korean adoptee, sits on her couch in Manhattan, May 1, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Riley Burchell

I’ve been insulated from the real and very dangerous aspects of racism in this country, just given the socio-economic nature of my upbringing and my parent’s situation. But since especially graduating college and coming here, for all intents and purposes, I navigate the world the same as any other Asian American and am perceived and interacted with by outside parties in that context– as an Asian American. The way that I internalize it is completely different as an adoptee, but those navigation and interactions are still very much the same. I still get called Chinaman on the street sometimes.

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“I’ve been very nervously monitoring Trump’s popularity and chance of winning the election,” said Chris Ahn, a Korean-American man living in Brooklyn. “ I think right now we’re at 75-25 split going towards Biden.”

Hope for many Asian Americans is connected to a Biden victory in November. Many of them had experienced anti-Asian remarks or microaggressions.

Eunice Paik, a Korean-American leasing agent experienced anti-Asian sentiment. Photo Courtesy of Eunice Paik

“I remember I opened the door for a family, two older ladies and their two children and they just gave me the dirtiest look,” said Eunice Paik, a Korean American woman and 13-year New York resident. I was giving a kind gesture, and they sneered at me.”

When the murder of George Floyd inspired nationwide protests over the summer Asian Americans felt a call to action that overrode cultural norms that discourage complaining and speaking out. 

“I definitely was concerned about African-Americans being treated badly and many of my AfricanAmerican friends telling me they were afraid of the police,” said Dr. Alex Pothen, an Indian-American man living in West Lafayette, Indiana. “This cannot go on. This is indicative of a much deeper systemic racial problem in our country that we need to address.”

But addressing the problem proved to be challenging. For some, it was a struggle to know where their own identity fit in a conflict defined by blackness and whiteness.

“There’s kind of this tendency to say, ‘Well, Asians are really kind of white, aren’t they’,” said Chang Kim, a Korean-American man living in Brooklyn. “Kind of carving out Asians as a special kind of person of color, as in like. ‘Well you’re like, kind of a person of color, but you’re also kinda…so I wasn’t sure where I fit in.”

Others wanted to attend protests, but stayed home out of health concerns. Some have found more behind-the-scenes methods to promote racial justice. For families with means, that meant keeping their kids at home this fall so that parents who needed to work would be able to send their kids to school.

Bonita Price, a Canadian citizen of Filipino ancestry struggles to explain racism to her children. Photo Courtesy of Bonita Price

“As a family, we’ve had to make a choice,” said Bonita Price, a mother of four children who has Filipino heritage and Canadian citizenship living in Brooklyn. “…we’re going to try to online school as much as possible and enjoy it so that other kids can actually go to school in your place.”

For some there is a sense that the shine had come off the American dream. The hope of a prosperous life based on equal opportunity had been removed. Underneath was an ugly truth of racism and oppression.

“I think we’re in an apocalyptic moment,” said Kim. “As we all know from Sunday School apocalypse means an unveiling. I think that this unveiling has really made clear to me that there’s something really broken about America.”

The prospect of a Trump victory in November creates anxiety. For Price, it was grounds for moving her family to Canada. Even though her experience was that Canadians were more racist than New Yorkers, she noted that the Canadian government treated people of Asian descent better.

“They were sending televised messages: ‘do not discriminate against Asians because of the virus,’” Price said. “But it’s the opposite in the U.S. We might feel safe in New York, but if your government is sending messages of hate [and] discrimination it’s hostile.”

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Congressional candidate Grace Meng spends her mornings greeting potential voters at subway stations around Queens.

On an overcast Friday in October at the Fresh Pond subway station, early morning commuters hustle up the stairs with weary expressions and are greeted cheerily:  “Good morning, I’m Grace Meng; please vote on November 6,” calls out the assemblywoman for New York’s 22^nd district in Queens. Passersby take or refuse a flier wordlessly, but the rejections don’t deter Meng. She is poised to make history.

Having served two terms in the New York State Assembly, the 37-year-old Meng is running to become the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York  this November. Firsts run in the family: Her father Jimmy Meng, former New York State Assemblyman, was the first Asian American to be elected to the New York legislature.

With the city’s recent redrawing of districts to more adequately represent the Asian-American voice, the sixth congressional district that Meng seeks to represent is nearly 40 percent Asian, which bodes well for her Congressional campaign. She only had a short break on a busy Saturday afternoon for an interview, which was conducted in the small storage room of her buzzing Flushing office.

Undoubtedly, Meng’s experiences in both Chinese and American cultures give her a distinct advantage in her assembly district of Flushing, an area commonly known as New York’s second Chinatown. She is a strong promoter of Asian Americans participating in politics and the community and believes that helps combat racism. “There’s a huge perception by many people, including Asians, that we’re not American,” she said. “I think that the more people see Asians around them being citizens who give back to the community, their perception of Asians will change.” Getting Asian Americans to vote can be a challenge, Meng conceded, and noted that Asian senior citizens vote at a much higher rate than people in their 20s and 30s. Her campaign involves high school and college interns to give them exposure to understand the importance of political participation.

In order to achieve policy goals, Meng often reaches out to Democrats and Republicans alike. Her willingness to work with both parties has bolstered her reputation as a likable and atypical character in legislature, a characteristic that could be valuable in a recently gridlocked Congress. “I know Democrats who won’t even talk to Republicans,” she joked. For this fall’s campaign, Meng established a new Forest Hills office in Queens, though she spends most of her time outside, getting to know members of her district by knocking on people’s doors or greeting them in the mornings at subway stations. Eating at a table has become a luxury, Meng said, and for respite, she spends time with her husband and two young children.

Born and raised in Queens, Meng is the daughter of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants. Unlike the district of Flushing that she currently represents, the Queens that Meng grew up in didn’t have many Asian Americans, which is “hard to believe now,” she acknowledged. “I was, for most of my elementary school years, the only Asian girl in the class.” The lack of diversity made her feel different, but not uncomfortable, which is reflected in the way she has successfully courted voters from various sections of the community in her campaigns.

A career in politics was a relatively recent development for Meng. She initially set out to be a teacher or lawyer, studying history at the University of Michigan and returning to New York to study law at Yeshiva University. In New York, Meng spent time interning in various government agencies and began to envision herself working for one as an analyst without any thought of running for office. “It was very exciting to be in the midst of all the policy-making,” she said. After law school, she helped her father campaign for the State Assembly, and a seed of opportunity was planted in Meng’s mind when her father decided not to run for assembly reelection in 2006. Being a shy person by nature, Meng felt nervous about the change of pace, but the chance to represent her community gave her the motivation to run—and win– against incumbent Democratic candidate Ellen Young in 2008.

Her chances of winning are good in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, as she won the Congressional primary in a landslide against the other Democratic candidates and has been endorsed by everyone from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to current Congressman Gary Ackerman, who is retiring from representing the district. There have been setbacks, however, such as when her father, Jimmy, was arrested on bribery charges in July. Meng has tried to separate herself from her father’s misdoings while remaining sympathetic. Her own finances received scrutiny when she failed to file personal financial disclosures four months after the deadline, citing an “administrative oversight.”

At the heart of her political vision remain the needs of the community, which comprises many ethnic groups, not just Asian American. In her historic run for Congress, Meng still considers herself to be all-American, and seeks to be a role model for young women as well as ethnic minorities. “I wish that when I was a kid, I could’ve seen more women in positions of influence,” she said. “Just to see someone who looks like you, it provides some kind of encouragement.”

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