'To everyone else, we looked like the perfect family. No one outside our home knew what we knew.'
ByThe author at 16 months old with her parents, one month after she arrived in the U.S. The photo was taken in Park Forest, Illinois, in July 1960.Until last year, I told everyone I was born in Chicago. Every school form, all of my college and job applications, and even my medical records listed my birthplace as Illinois. That was a lie. I was actually born in Hong Kong to a woman I’ve never met. And until last year, more than 60 years after my birth, I kept my adoption a secret.
Three black-and-white photos sent from an adoption agency were enough to convince a Midwestern couple of Chinese origin to bring me into their family. Mom recounted the day I landed in America. In June 1960, she and Dad waited alongside six other couples at O’Hare International Airport for the child they had chosen. I was the last child to emerge from the plane, a sick and scrawny baby, clearly malnourished. No one took a photo of me that day.
In 1969, my parents took their first trip back to Taiwan since they immigrated to America in the 1950s. They were part of the 2 million who fled China to the island in 1949. When we arrived at the airport in Taipei, two dozen relatives and friends greeted us at the airport. Amid the excited Mandarin chatter, fragrant floral bouquets, and long, strong hugs, one woman bent down and said to me, “You look like your mother.”One Saturday afternoon when I was in high school, I played tennis with a boy.
If I’m being honest, there were also times when I enjoyed passing myself off as the daughter of a smart, witty and attractive couple. Dad ― who was 6 feet, 1 inch, which was highly unusual for Chinese men of his time ― had several patents to his name. Mom, who came from a respectable Chinese family, had large brown eyes, glossy permed curls and a highly desired ivory complexion. I nodded affirmatively when people said I resembledTo everyone elsee, we looked like the perfect family.
A month after the piece appeared, my brother gave me a dusty manila file he discovered during pandemic cleaning. It was labeled “Yvonne’s Adoption.” At 62, I finally read the documents my parents deliberately kept from me when they were alive. The yellowed tissue-thin papers held the truth of my beginnings. My heart ached for the baby who languished in that orphanage for 15 long months. Surely a caretaker would have picked up my malnourished and anemic body when I wailed.
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