Too Asian To Be Irish, Too Irish To Be Asian

There are lots of conversations driven on the impact of intercountry and transracial adoption and many times I see these driven by people who have little to no first-hand experience of this very complex topic. I have seen long conversations (usually lacking nuance) from both people of colour and white people sharing perspectives without actually asking adoptees their perspectives, focusing on centering their views vs those they claim to understand. There is a problem with this because we see it time and time again in diversity and inclusion work. From people making assumptions on what other groups of people need based on their own personal thoughts and experiences, to tech solutions being created without truly listening to those who it affects. Listening vs speaking over is key - it helps us challenge bias, put friction in before decision making and enable us to truly reach people of all backgrounds.

As a transracial adoptee (the situation in which a family adopts a child of a different race), this is my experience, and mine only.

From Sri Lanka to Ireland

I was adopted at three weeks old by a white Irish couple from rural Ireland. This decision was taken because my parents tried for many years to have biological children, and even with IVF, unfortunately/fortunately this wasn’t possible. On their final round of IVF, they met a nurse who knew a couple who had also had similar problems and adopted from Sri Lanka. So, she made the connection.

I am 31, and was adopted in 1991. Adoption (and certainly intercountry adoption) is complicated. I want you to consider how the advancement of technology will have made this more streamlined. No longer do you need to have copies of forms sent to you by post, fill them out by pen, posting them half way across the world and wait for weeks for them to arrive, no less the time waiting for a response. This process took my parents approximately six years to do.

There are a lot of unanswered questions already. Why adopt from Sri Lanka and not Ireland? It’s impossible to answer that question without remembering the role of white saviourism in intercountry adoption. The positioning that brown babies can only be saved by gracious and generous white people. But this isn’t binary and whilst I believe white saviourism certainly played a role in my adoption, there is more to this. Maybe you disagree, however, this is my story and mine alone.

Very often, I talk about the difference in intention and impact. I am fairly confident that my father did not consider his adoption of us as an action of a saviour, but rather as him seeing himself as trying to do a good thing whilst also trying tirelessly to have his own kids. However, that doesn’t excuse the very pertinent impact that (direct or indirect awareness of) white saviourism has on the world. Separately, I am fairly confident my mother did adopt me due to white saviourism. Even with this, I am exceptionally glad to have been adopted, as it has given me access to opportunities I simply would not have had. I was placed for adoption because my birth mother was unable to look after me due to poverty and her husband dying.

I was raised in rural Ireland in the 90s, where ethnic diversity was not overly prevalent. My brother and I faced an extensive amount of racism growing up. Once we passed the cute brown baby stage, we then stood out in school, in friend circles, in our towns and everywhere else. Now, you may argue that’s a good thing but think of this with the context that whiteness is the default. Certainly, at that age, standing out for any reason wasn’t desirable, no less being one of a handful of people of colour in your village.

Whilst growing up, immigration became more popular and then we started to notice an increase in racism, but also, us being viewed as “one of the good ones” or “not like those people” to enable people to be openly racist in front of us, whilst masquerading as friends and relatives who cared.

I went to primary school with my brother, then to an all-girls Roman Catholic grammar school, and finally to university at Queen’s University, Belfast.

The reason I mention this is because all too often, the conversation on intercountry and transracial adoption ignores this nuance. That there are very clear reasons for and against. Whilst my parents ended up disabled and therefore on benefits, whilst I grew up free school meals (a state-provided benefit in the U.K. for underprivileged children), my adoption still gave me access to opportunities I simply would not have had before. It would be facetious for me to ignore that pretend that it hasn’t.

It also would be facetious of me to not acknowledge the very deep issues I have faced because I was adopted, raised in an overwhelming white space as a person of colour. To how I view myself, how others view me and how my society has treated me throughout my life.

I have been back to Sri Lanka and found my biological family - that was more complicated than I expected, naively. I have never had a void from being adopted, despite having a difficult and traumatic childhood. My interest in finding my roots spurred from my honeymoon trip to Sri Lanka and feeling an odd sensation that I could be related to someone walking down the street and not know - an experience I’ve never felt before.

Once we found my biological mother, from start to beginning, I had little control of the situation, unsure of what was happening whilst a news team controlled the visit. The story was continually positioned as me “coming home”, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth. I regularly corrected people on this, to no avail. To discount my Irishness in lieu of my Sri Lankaness didn’t make sense, yet it was happening repeatedly to fuel a narrative, as if two things couldn’t exist at once.

I did not get to choose when I met my biological mother, but rather it was sprung onto me. I share this because I am taking control of that moment now.

When I was in Sri Lanka, I had conversations thrust onto me that didn’t feel entirely right for me, as an Irish woman. I would be lying if I said I felt a strong connection to Sri Lankan culture because... well, how could I? I was raised Irish by Irish parents, taught in an Irish school, learned to speak the language and went about my life from there. That however, does not mean I wasn’t and am not interested given it is my place of origin and without it, I simply wouldn’t exist.

I vividly remember one moment, when I was doing a photoshoot for a magazine and they wanted me to wear a sari. I said no because to me, I felt like I was appropriating a culture that wasn’t mine. Cosplaying as a traditional Sri Lankan woman for clicks when my identity was more complicated than that.

Expectations play a core role in biases. What do you expect from someone based on how they look, how they sound, where they’re from and so on. In Ireland, and many places were I’ve worked, I’ve continually had my Irishness challenged. Asked “where are you from?” and then when I say Coalisland (the small town I am from), being asked “no, but where are you really from?”, where it’s clear they aren’t getting the answer I want. Where inappropriate curiosity and subtle racism is more important than my desire to share what I feel comfortable with. Thankfully, now in my 30s, I am much more comfortable with answering how I see fit and leaving the conversation.

Being an Irish woman of Sri Lankan origin is complicated - I balance two identities that have very rich and unique cultures. I am clearly more comfortable and drawn to the one which I have been raised and accustomed to, despite my existence being a bone of contention on many occasions.

I am from the North of Ireland - meaning many processes and policies are separate from the Republic of Ireland. I have always had a British passport because my Irish parents weren’t sure how to get us an Irish passport, despite us being their children. Last year, I was able to start that process, jumping through hoops to get my adoption recognised on the correct register (which all cost a substantial amount of money) and eventually, I finally received my Irish passport. Passports are weird little things - little small books that give us a sense of belonging and inclusion. For me, this was my final “tick box”.

When I posted about my experience on LinkedIn, I received over 40,000 likes and over 1,700 comments. What I received was some lovely comments, but also a plethora of posts from people telling me to go back where I came from, ignoring my experience of racism in Ireland because they didn’t experience it (as white people), and others saying well-intentioned greetings like “welcome to Ireland, you’re now one of us” like I hadn’t lived there my entire life.

Being a person of colour, with an Irish nationality is not streamlined. Being a transracial adoptee is even more complicated because of the two identities I balance between. Depending who I’m talking to or what they view me as, I’m either Irish first or Sri Lankan first, without recognition that these two things make me wholly me.

I’m writing this because fostering inclusion and embracing diversity make all of our experiences better - we learn more, we’re challenged more and we burst our own echo chambers.

I cannot, to this day, say I am for or against transracial adoption because there are too many things to consider. I firmly believe more funds and investment should be provided to biological families to support their children, keeping ties. I am strongly against missionary work, where white ideologies are forced onto different communities because they believe they have a God-given right to do so, which is clearly rooted in white supremacy and racism.

Separately, I also believe that adopting children can provide them with opportunities that may not be possible or feasible in the place they live. I believe that if a child can be loved and cared for, that this is an overwhelming positive thing and I support that.

What I would love is if people remember this nuance, disregard binary conversations and openly recognise that the only way to discuss any of these sensitive topics is to listen to those it has directly affected.

Whilst I feel overwhelmingly privileged to have been adopted, that is not without recognition that on many occasion, I am either too Irish to be Asian or too Asian to be Irish.

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