Adoptee Alliance Builds Community Around a Shared but Often Unspoken Identity

The group also provides a place where students can find others with backgrounds similar to their own, where they can be at ease and talk about their lives, families, and identities.

The Alliance currently has twenty-eight members. While most are adoptees, others have siblings who are adopted or have another connection to adoption. One member, for instance, was adopted by her stepfather. Scharnau said they share a lot of laughs and also commiserate about some of the harder parts of their childhoods.

Whitney Pellegrino '27, who will step up as the Alliance's president next year, said, "This club gives me a community that I've never had before but always wanted."

Other members say they appreciate the community, as well as the opportunity for greater visibility. "This club is a meaningful opportunity to connect with other students who share this identity, one that often goes unnoticed and unspoken," said Sydney Lillis '27.

In its first year, the Adoptee Alliance has held several events on campus, including screenings of Lion, Found, and Instant Family-films that feature adopted characters or explore themes of adoption. They also invited author Nicole Chung to campus to speak about her memoirs, in which she explores growing up in rural Oregon as a Korean adoptee.

In April the group participated in Bowdoin's Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, organizing a dumpling-making event. (It was at a dumpling event the year before that Scharnau first connected with other Asian adoptees and was inspired to start the club.)

"Demographically, we have a lot of Chinese adoptees in the club," Scharnau said. "And we wanted to take the chance to highlight Asian adoptee stories, especially because a lot of the one-child-policy children are starting to grow up."

China implemented its one-child policy for families in 1980, causing a surge in international adoptions. As these children have grown up, they've begun contributing their perspectives to the public discourse on identity, adoption, and race. "We're getting to be the age where we share our stories," Scharnau said. "A lot of Chinese adoptees are doing their own research or writing books, fleshing out this experience."

Being part of the Adoptee Alliance this year has strengthened Scharnau's connection to her Chinese heritage, she said. "The club has helped me feel that my identity is part of the broader ideas of the Chinese experience. I'm leaving college more confident about the complexities of my identity."