媒体渲染的，我们知道的，只不过是故事的开头。十年之后，这个孩子要回到美国上大学了，带着她不同寻常的小前半生……
I often found myself waking up in someone else's arms;sometimes it was my mom, occasionally, it was my dad, but mostly, I wasn’t even sure who it was. I just knew that I was being carried by someone to somewhere very far away.
Before then , I remember being like my friends. I loved going to school and having Pizza Friday. Show-n-tell was my favorite, because everyone’s eyes sparkled with astonishment when they found out that my parents were different from me— they are Caucasian and I am Asian.
Soon I realized that I was different from my friends. Their pictures were not on tv or in the newspaper. Strangers did not whisper and point at them. They were never checked out of school to see a special doctor who drew pictures and repeatedly asked the same questions. I’d come home crying to my mom, confused why these things were happening to me. She’d hug me,telling me that everything will be okay, even though we both know it wasn't. It did not make sense then.
I was only eight years old when the arms of a psychologists natched me. She tightly gripped my waist and legs and I held onto the banister as if it were a rope that could save my life. My tears blurred my vision, andsoon, everything else that followed became a blur as well. The next thing I knew, I moved to China. I was introduced to people who were supposedly my“real” family, but I didn't feel that way. In front of the cameras, my biological parents were all smiles. They took me and my siblings out for fancy meals,bragged about my progress since the drastic move, and emphasized their love for me.
But behind close doors, they were the opposite. They sent me to boarding school, lived in a rundown neighborhood, and divorced a few months after moving to China. I felt lonely, and I felt as if my childhood was in the hands of everyone else except for me. I could no longer perceive my reality anymore. I was a puppet, completely lifeless and numb.
From the many new reports to interviews, I soon found myself playing their game of “best interest.” Whatever they wanted out of me, I gave them: The poor, innocent Chinese-American girl who is a victim in two families’ feud for custody. I later realized that I allowed my childhood to define me.After the Supreme Court ruling that decided to send me to my biological parents was official, I felt out of place in China and in the States.
People always associated me with the situation rather than viewing me as a child with actual interests and hobbies that I had. Sometimes,I was envious of other kids my age who had a seemingly normal childhood;occasionally, I was in denial for how my childhood played out in this not-so-ideal way; but mostly, I was lost in my own subconscious. I could not pinpoint which family to claim, but most of all, who I was as an individual.The truth is, it took years to finally realize that my situation helped me find my identity, not hinder it.
My life has been a journey, the departure was frightful, the road was windy, and the destination was deceiving. But I came back home. I learned a new language and went to different countries that were misrepresented. I learned to love my biological family and understand multiple perspectives. I gained courage to share my story that once haunted me. Out of everything that I once couldn’t understand, I learned to use those though circumstances to grow me.
Anna Mae He
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