Mixed and Adopted Personalities

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
-Elmer G Letterman.


I wanted to start out this entry with this quote because I think this is one common strand that many Adopted/Mixed people have in common, strong personalities. Or at least strong enough to make a good impression.

In the business world and in the social world, people who have an outer shell that is different than the status quo of their surroundings often have strong and outgoing personalities. We can enter any room and just, fit in. No matter what we can find that common ground, that soft footed plane where we can get along and go with the flow.

Some say that it's a gift, some say it's a curse I'd have to agree with both.

In many cases as an adoptee I have found myself to be most successful in the most uncomfortable of surroundings. Have you ever been that one sheep in a pack of wolves? This is what it is like. We walk into a room where nobody looks like us, and although we know everyone is staring; instead of running out, we find ourselves charming the fur off the wolves.

I believe that this started in elementary school when kids started to make fun of us on the playground. Pointing out our differences, laughing, or trying to bully us with verbally abusive language and racial slurs. At first our initial inclination is to put up our dukes and fight. But then we realize that we are greatly outnumbered and would be mopped up by the rest of the kids of the fight was a racial fight. So we swallowed our pain and our hurt and went about our day. Now the easy thing to do would be to just walk the other way. But I believe that it is that same moment where we begin to make the choice to have a breakthrough , and we decide going to show these ignorant kids that we're more then just the color of our skin, the slant of our eyes and the nappiness of our hair. We're going to prove to them that we are worthy of their friendship.

So we do. We prove our loyalty, love and give our friendship to these little shits who's parents have taught them to hate, ridicule, and form racist views about us and our people. We do this in order to find protection, forge alliances, and to just be loved and accepted.

And it works, we do end up finding and making many friends and, depending on how good we are at our new found skill, we may end up making everyone our friend so we have no enemies and we become the most likable person in the school. We have succeeded! We are now accepted as more then just our skin, hair and eyes!

So this is elementary school.

Then comes junior high - we are pretty much hanging out with the same kids from elementary and they are our friends, they see us as people, FINALLY. But then there's a couple of idiots from across the town who we never met. They make some stupid ignorant statements about us, and we fear that the process will begin anew, but we have friends now and they take care of them after school with us (3:00 pm on the playground). Of course it's natural for some of our friends in elementary to find other kids to go hang out with, and we may find at the end of the year, they are making fun of us and talking about us behind our backs. It happens, what can you do?

I feel that these are normal parts of the adolescent growth process. And for the most part when we grow in families that are homogeneous and all members of the family look alike, its much more comforting to come home and find sanctuary amongst all of your family members that share that same difference.

For adoptees who have parents who look visibly different this is a much more difficult transition to negotiate. Once the racial slurs, the nasty remarks, the N words, the Ching-Chong Charlie Chan moments of ignorance become more often and hurtful, we go home to try to talk about things to our parents and they simply cannot relate.

Most of the time our parents say things like, oh that doesn't sound like something someone would say, or just ignore them, or in my case (since I was adopted by italians) my mother would say then the to screw off because they're wrong...I'm Italian! Yes, that was my pitiful defense against racism.

This created my/our first feeling of isolation. And it's at this point where we have to make another decision. Do we engage in self destructive behavior, or do we once again prove to the ignorant crowd that we are more then what they say? In most cases I have found we once again took this opportunity to refine our skill and deepen our social acumen by letting our amazing personalities shine through.

Until next time...

This is

Venti - Soy Tazo Chai...Signing off.


The next entry will cover some experiences about adolescent adopted love.

• What is wrong with me?
• I don't get any attention.
• The decline of self worth and self image.
• Our first boyfriend/girlfriend's flavor. - White, Black, Asian, Hispanic?