OPINION | Why Media Representation Matters for Adoptees

by Angela Tucker

Many people can instantly remember a movie they saw as a teenager that became a part of their identity. My husband still talks about The Matrix (1999), and the way it deeply impacted his questions about free will and technology in daily life. Some of my adult friends still dress up like the characters in Clueless (1995) for Halloween; clearly, its exploration of self-perception, fashion, and social status resonated with many people. As a Black adoptee, I remember when I first saw Antwone Fisher (2002) and related to how he grapples with questions about his origins, wondering who he is without knowing where he came from. His search for his biological mother and family symbolizes a desire for self-understanding and a connection to his roots, which was my experience, too. I also saw pieces of that conversation in Losing Isaiah (1995) and Matilda (1996), but they were sensational, rags-to-riches, zero-to-hero stories that fell short of capturing the nuance that most adoptees like me face daily. I ached for shows that reflected the wholeness of the adoptee experience on the silver screen.

The popular representations of adoption do not capture the range and complexity of adoptee experiences with real-life consequences. Adoption comes with trauma; being adopted doubles the odds of having contact with a mental health professional and increases the risk of developing a substance abuse disorder, and adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide. Those adopted by parents of a different race, like me, face additional challenges in forming our identity. If we want to provide lasting, happy lives for adoptees, we must transform how we support them throughout every stage of life.

While working as a caseworker at an adoption agency, I didn’t have many pop culture examples to show adoptive parents to provide a blueprint for how to help their adopted child form a healthy identity. The media was full of tidy, feel-good adoption stories that minimized the reality. Every day, I spoke to well-meaning prospective adoptive parents, listening as they struggled to understand practices that could benefit their adoptee, like an open adoption that would allow their child to maintain a relationship with their biological family. These ideas felt foreign and frightening to many, leading to questions like, “Will the child become confused about who their ‘real’ parents are?”

At the same time, I was going through my own search for my biological parents.

I had a positive upbringing in my adoptive family, but I also felt a hole in my heart that was left from growing up not knowing my birth parents. One evening, after listening to my struggles to communicate with the parents I work with, my husband said, “Why don’t we use the home video footage we have of you meeting your birth mom for the first time and turn it into something you can show your clients?” Our reunion had been captured on camera, though at the time it was just for us, just for the memory.

What began as a casual passion project with our home footage quickly evolved. Film had just been a hobby for my husband, but soon, he started renting professional cameras and lights. He conducted interviews with my parents, my siblings, and others involved in my life and my journey. Friends of ours even offered to compose a soundtrack.

The result was Closure (2013), a documentary that transformed from private family footage into a film that found its way to Netflix. While on the screening tour, I had countless conversations with adoptees who would share their stories with me. Suddenly, they had a real, lived experience that could serve as a blueprint for grappling with the complexities of adoption openly with their parents. Adoptees who were of a different race than their adoptive parents shared that they didn’t get the racial self-identity support they needed and felt alone. 

At the same time, my parents, who often traveled with me to screenings, were having a different kind of encounter. Adoptive parents would praise them for allowing me to meet my birth mother. They believed that because their child didn’t bring up their adoption, it wasn’t weighing on them.

When my parents and I compared notes after these events, we realized something important. Many adoptees didn’t have safe spaces to share their feelings about being adopted — not because their adoptive parents were unkind or indifferent, but because adoption itself wasn’t a normalized topic in their homes. It simply wasn’t discussed. Adoption became a quiet shadow — present but unspoken. The adoptees I spoke to longed for connection, for answers to questions that had been with them their whole lives, but did not want to fracture their relationship with their parents. They needed more ways to share their experiences without fear and to have pathways to deeper understanding and healing along the journey to find their identity and a sense of belonging.

Even though many adoption agencies understand adoption is a lifelong journey, very few can offer the kind of lifelong support adoptees need.

Action and Evolution 

I knew I had to create a space where adoptees could say the things aloud that otherwise were filed away in the “not now/not safe” folder in their brain. These conversations transformed into mentoring hundreds of adoptees via Zoom. The strength, comfort, and mental well-being that came from these conversations inspired me to found the Adoptee Mentoring Society to reach more adoptees. We provide virtual one-on-one and group mentorship facilitated by trained adoptee mentors. Our model serves as an example of the power of offering post-adoption services by adoptees for adoptees. Adoptees need a community and opportunities for individual growth. Spending time with others who just get it by having mentors or talking to other adoptees whose experiences reflect our lives fosters the sense of well-being that is the foundation for a happy, successful life.

We need to make room for these raw, unfiltered truths in public discourse. Only then can we foster real understanding and change for adoptees. I loved working with the writers of NBC’s show This Is Us to ensure Randall’s character was as true to the transracial adoptee experience as possible. Adoptee and screenwriter ​​Marissa Jo Cerar infuses her experience as an adoptee into nearly everything she touches, including the episode she wrote for The Handmaid’s Tale and her television adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel Black Cake.

This National Adoption Month, support the healing work that we’re doing at the Adoptee Mentoring Society by centering adoptees and ensuring our voices are included in mainstream media and public discourse. This will help support the basic needs and joys that lead to a healthy identity formation for adoptees.