I Grew Up White - guest blog from This Adoptee Life
I grew up white.
White-washed, absolutely.
But, also white.
Not my skin.
Not my heritage.
Not my looks.
Not my history.
But me.
I grew up white.
Not because I was ever white, but because I only ever knew white.
The fact that I was born in Colombia was always just and only that, a fact.
Minimal efforts were made on my own part and that of my parents, for me to actually have any tangible connection to my first country, culture and/or history.
And I don’t know if my white, very typically Swedish parents would have ever been able to instill in me a sense of being Latina. Even if they would have tried harder.
Any attempt made by them to talk about Colombia, I met with distance. It seemed almost ridiculous to me, hearing my adoptive mother speak of typical Colombian cumbia being played on the buses in Medellin when they were there to pick me up, or of the typical Colombian soup they tried while in Colombia, as if she knew what she was talking about. Yet, her short vacation in my first country gave her more of a sense of knowing the country, than I myself could muster up since I remembered nothing from there. That bothered me and I rejected the topic, although I yearned for it, but not from them. Seeing my mother close her eyes and enjoy the rhythms of Andean music and the sounds of the pan flute as if she could feel it in her soul, seemed to me a huge act of trespassing. That music was mine, that was music I should be able to connect to. It came from my roots.
And I had no recollection of it.
I grew up white.
I grew up Swedish.
It was all I knew.
Not all I felt. Not all I wanted.
But all I knew and all I had experience of.
And I thought I blended in.
A perfect example being when my friend, whose older sister joined the mid-90’s trend in Sweden of becoming prejudice towards immigrants, expressed a certain sympathy with those views, and I was told they didn’t apply to me.
And I found myself continuing being friends with her.
What caused our friendship to end was far more shallow than her slightly agreeing with the racist views of her older step-sister.
I grew up white.
It was all I knew.
It was all I saw.
It was all I had experienced.
But I was never white.
Why does this matter at all?
It matters now more than ever.
It matters because as the world is having difficult conversations about race, I am ill prepared as a person of color, to speak about life as a person of color, because I never lived as a person of color.
And at the same time, my white experience is not mine.
Why does this matter?
It matters now more than ever because as a mother of color, with children of color, I am even more ill-prepared to raise them as people of color, since I have not lived as a person of color, but have had the so-called “privilege” of growing up white.
A privilege that is now more than ever showing its shortcomings.
I grew up white.
I am a person of color.
My experience does not match me.
Just being able to say “I am a person of color” took me 35 years. I don’t know how many more years until I can actually say that I know life as a person of colors.
And why would I want that?
What does it matter?
If I have had a good life and so many opportunities, what does it matter?
It matters now more than ever because stripping away my culture, my history and my heritage from me, placing me to grow up in a country and culture where I would not fit in or feel at home, I am now running a similar risk of disconnect to my children’s reality as the one I grew up with.
And that matters now more than ever, because I feel extremely inadequate in teaching them about where they come from and instilling in them a sense of pride in themselves as Latinas, because what I from growing up white I don’t care to teach them, and what I should know as a person of color, I simply don’t.
And in all of this, I think what has always bothered me the most about my adoptive mother looking ridiculous to me when she, as a white Swedish person speaks of Colombia with more experience than I, is my fear of being considered similarly disconnected and ridiculous if ever I claim Colombia as mine and myself as Colombian.
Or, myself as a person of color…
Baby Amanda
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Amanda was born in Colombia and under circumstances unknown she became an adoptable child. At age 2, she was adopted to Sweden, where she grew up. Amanda moved to the US at age 20. Today she lives in San Diego, after many years in NJ. She runs her own business as a translator and an adoptee centered blog called This Adoptee Life on her free time.
Via her blog, Amanda works to support and help adoptees find their voice and tell their story, inviting fellow adoptees to write and share their story, in their own words, alongside Amanda’s own story as a transnational, transracial adoptee.
Please, read and follow Amanda’s work and story on any, or all, of the following platforms:
Amanda from This Adoptee Life
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So much gratitude to Amanda Medina, founder at This Adoptee Life™ for this jaw-dropingly great post. I’d love to hear your thoughts and will pass all comments onto Amanda.