"Who am I?" Where am I?" Double discrimination based on race and adoption
Found describes the story of three girls, Chloe, Sadie and Lily, who were adopted and raised by American families under China's one-child rule. From an early age, they found themselves looking different from the friends around them—Asians who grew up in the United States were often the only Asians in their communities.
Like most interracial adoptees, they experience the hardest thing to grow up with: society discriminates against these children both "racially" and "adoptively," and some see them as outsiders, non-Americans. In everyday conversations, these children are often confronted with many blunt questions: "Do you know who your 'real' parents are?" "Why don't your parents want you?" Or think of interracial adoption as a "charity" and say to them, "You're so lucky to meet a parent who gives you a complete home!"
However, adolescence is an important period for building self-confidence and image, and finding that they are out of place and that all kinds of external discriminatory voices are pouring in, which will cause many emotional entanglements and conflicts in the hearts of these children, and even think that their existence itself is not beautiful, but a mistake.
If a child cannot find a balance in self-identification as the child grows older, it may also affect the relationship with the adoptive family and even create a rift.
For example, some white parents will see these children as completely American, believing that they do not need to be associated with Asians and ignore their children's true feelings; some parents will feel guilty about their "asian" way of life and education, and their children feel sad and regret that they are Asian-American but lack certain cultural elements. How to find their own foothold in the Eastern and Western cultures is the struggle that many adopted children need to face.
Chloe, Sadie, and Lily, eager to find people with similar faces and black eyes, met through a DNA sample matched with relatives to serve "23andMe" and soon became good sisters because of the same abandoned background. Later, with the support of their adoptive parents in the United States, they partnered with the Chinese company "My China Roots" to travel together to their "hometown", Guangdong in southern China, to find their birth parents and life answers.
The abandoned children of Chinese adopted by American families, the love and pain of relatives across the sea "Seeking", unveil the story behind them.
Because I was a girl and not a boy, my parents didn't want me to be the epitome of society under the "one-child"
The documentary makes no secret of Chloe, Sadie and Lily's search for relatives, digging into their childhood worries:
"Why didn't my parents want me?" "Do they want to know where they are like me?" "Did they ever want to come to me?" Have they ever wondered if I was doing well in the United States?"
Even if the adoptive parents have raised these issues with them since childhood, and gently told them again and again, "Your birth parents live in a poor place, and they can't raise you because they don't want you and don't care about you."
Liu Hao, a family researcher, also revealed that she can empathize with these girls and this profession because she was almost sent away by her parents when she was born, "You know that you were not popular at birth, you were born of the wrong gender, they don't want you." Liu Hao, a family researcher, travels to Guangzhou to find families that may be the original parents of Chloe, Sadie and Lily. Do these families also care about how their biological daughters will fare after being sent away?
Although Liu Hao was "lucky" to be left in the end, the love given by his parents in the process of growing up may not be relatively small, but the deep fear and inferiority of "knowing from childhood that he was once unwanted by his parents" and "afraid of not being loved" may not necessarily fade with time. These abandoned girls don't understand why there is a difference in love (for boys and girls)? They don't dare to know, "Mommy and Daddy, do you love me?" The real answer. Because of the innate limitations of gender, it is doomed to some unfairness at birth, which may be the fate of our previous generation and this generation of girls who are still trying to defend themselves.
The adoption story of Chloe, Sadie, and Lily's cross-sea search for relatives is just a microcosm of China's implementation of a childless girl from 1979 to 2015. The regulations at the time led to a large number of girls eventually being abandoned by their parents and becoming abandoned babies in orphanages. The data estimates that 150,000 Chinese babies have been adopted overseas, mostly girls. "Only one child" implies not only population control, but also makes Asia's patriarchal gender issues and culture come to the fore naked.
A journey through the inner hearts of a girl, adoptive parent, and nanny
One of the most moving parts of the documentary is the efforts of family researcher Liu Hao, where the three girls meet with the nanny who once held them as babies.
When they met their respective nannies, knew that the nannies remembered them, and remembered whether they were doing well in the United States, they finally couldn't stop crying. Among them, Lily found a couple who sent their daughter away, although it is not sure whether it is her biological parents, but when she sees that the parents miss their daughters as well, and even think that if Lily is her own daughter, she can't help but cry.
Although none of them actually found their biological parents in the end, the people they saw during this journey, the places they visited, and the doubts that had long plagued their growth seemed to become less important. They feel "loved and cared for" in their nannies, as well as in their parents who are also looking for their own daughters. It's like responding to their long-standing and repeated questioning: I'm not abandoned because I'm not loved, I'm loved and remembered.
Chloe, Sadie and Lily are surrounded by extraordinary women, whether it is their adoptive parents, blood cousins, and the nanny who loves them so much, and Liu Hao, who has given great help and contribution on this journey, also serves as their translator, tour guide, and emotional support, which is an emotional journey to find roots, deep into the hearts of the three girls, but also into the hearts of parents and nannies.
The "home" they want to find is actually always there. For adoptees, perhaps their concept of "family" and life experience are more complex than others, but Found uses this emotional journey to tell us that love comes in many forms, waiting for you to understand and discover. A happy home is not about its kinship, but about who the family members are and how they treat each other.
Knowing your "family history" can take you farther than you think
This journey of transnational family exploration highlights the importance of "self-identification" and "root-finding". Identity is not only a universal issue of life, but also an important process of self-discovery; the importance of root-finding reminds me of the ending plot of Miyazaki's cartoon "Castle in the Sky": Hilda, as a princess, faces the evil Musca, and describes the reason for Laputa's demise and the truth conveyed by the lyrics of the Kendya Valley:
"Roots should be rooted in the soil, living with the wind, spending the winter with bamboo, singing spring with the birds... As long as you leave the land, you can't survive."
A person who does not understand the past history, origins and culture is like a tree without roots. Understand your cultural background and "where do we come from?" It can help us develop a stronger sense of who we really are and feel that we are unique and special.
When we study family history, it's like connecting people who have been, present, and future to us, and in the process, we build relationships with more people—it's about "what" made us, about the roots, the branches, the leaves, and the whole forest. There are probably more people who can build deep relationships with us than we think. The more we dig, the more we feel a sense of attachment, connection, and belonging.
Most importantly, these connections become an additional complementary mystical force when our energies are withering, or when our sense of self-identity is low. Sometimes, this force pushes you forward and further than you think.