5 year trauma-versary
For 34 years, I'd built my identity on a foundation of sand. Biracial, half Cuban and half Indian, that's who I was told I was.
That Saturday, I was putting my daughter down for a nap when my phone buzzed with those DNA results. I called out to my wife, and together we looked at the results on the screen.
Speechless, I stared at the screen. 100% Indian. Thinking about it now, I wasn’t surprised by this. I felt a strange sense of understanding. It explained so much - my upbringing, the outsider feeling I'd carried for years, and so much more.
Then came the shock. Shocked by the weight of this revelation. It meant I'd been lied to, deceived repeatedly. I was flooded with all the moments in my life when I questioned the nature of my being, only to be dismissed as imagination. I was gaslighted more times than I can count and made to feel guilty for how I felt. Deep down, I've always known something wasn't right, and I buried that. For years a part of me suppressed it for fear of hurting them. But it was true. I wasn't their biological child.
For five agonizing weeks, my adoptive parents dodged the truth, still clinging to a web of lies. They dismissed the DNA test, claiming my "father's" Indian DNA was stronger. Unable to get honest answers or adoption paperwork, I began a quest to find them elsewhere.
In 2019, I embarked on a frustrating search for my adoption records. I first reached out to the State of Texas as that is where my Certificate of Birth is from. All I could learn was the name of the Court where the adoption was finalized. Requests for records from the court, I discovered, required a compelling reason beyond simply wanting them. Texas, from my research and according to other adoptees, was particularly difficult. A judge's denial could be the end of the road.
Investigating immigration seemed the next logical step. As an adoptee, being brought into the country would mean having to go through immigration. Following the advice of other helpful adoptees, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2020. Their response in April: "No records responsive to your request were located."
I honestly didn’t know what to do next. I felt stuck, a feeling I would become far too familiar with as this journey continued. In 2021, I came across a lawyer through an adoptee led Zoom call and connected with him. Greg, also an adoptee, specialized in adoptee rights.
Straight from his website (https://adopteerightslaw.com/about/) - “I help adult adopted people navigate legal challenges in obtaining their own original birth certificates, securing U.S. citizenship, and seeking information to which they are entitled.”
With Greg’s help, we reached out to the Department of State (DOS) to see what they have on file, as well as US Customs and Border Protection (USCBP).
We also filed a motion to unseal my records in Texas court, citing the lack of information from USCIS to determine my citizenship status, and the judge granted it.
The unsealed documents, received in April 2021, were emotionally and mentally draining to read. Some paperwork originated from India, containing fragments of my identity and origins. However, the vast amount of information missing was heartbreaking, a constant reminder of the gaps in my heritage and identity.
At this point, we still hadn't heard back from DOS and/or USCBP. Finally, nearly two years later in May 2023, the Department of State responded. They had only one passport application from me, filed in 2002. At this point, we had no proof of my US citizenship nor entry into the country on an immigrant vias. Greg then advised me to avoid voting.
When he advised me not to vote, that’s when it all felt serious. It was not only tough to hear but extremely stressful. With my citizenship in question, fear of deportation spiraled through my mind. My wife, kids, job – everything I held dear – felt threatened. I couldn’t exactly talk about it either for fear of what could happen. Greg assured me the chance was slim, as long as I stayed crime-free.
My next mission: to determine the visa used for my first and initial entry. The only lead – my original Indian passport, which might contain an entry stamp. As far as I knew, it was with my adopters.
By this point, contact with my adoptive parents had ceased. I provided Greg with their email addresses. Reaching out to them myself was off the table as I did not want to put myself in a position where I wasn’t sure how I would react.
Fortunately, my younger sister visited India in August 2023 and managed to obtain my passport. It confirmed the correct visa was used and revealed my Alien number from the photos she sent. Armed with this information, Greg submitted another FOIA request to USCIS, and in September 2023, we finally received copies of all my immigration documents.
Relief washed over me. One less thing to stress about. Greg recommended renewing my passport and obtaining a Certificate of Citizenship, which cost around $1200 (excluding passport fees). The price tag forced me to pause. I was also considering a name change, and it made sense to tackle that first. Names, a whole other complicated story for another day.
Thankfully, I recently learned that the Certificate of Citizenship fee is waived for adoptees as of April of ‘24. Procrastination, it seems, has its advantages.
These past five years have been, well, fucked up. I cannot stress enough just how stressed I was those few months where my citizenship status was suddenly unknown. Would there have been a plan or a solution? Yes. But that doesn’t take away from just how shitty everything felt in those moments.
There is still so much for me to process, grieve, and work through. Being adopted is inherently challenging and traumatic, and not knowing the truth for 34 years was grueling.
My journey of self-discovery continues. I’m still trying to figure out where I truly come from. I know nothing about my heritage, and my kin. All still locked away behind my country of origin’s legal system, which I have no knowledge on.
This whole experience leaves me missing people and places I’ve never gotten a chance to know.
As usual, there’s no happy conclusion to a post like this. No easy endings, just the stark reality of many of the issues and traumas caused by adoption.
Adoption is a story of loss, of trauma. And my story is just one of many, a testament to the human cost of a broken system.
It is what it is. And it is what it never should have to be. For anyone.