DNA: Adopted and Searching for Me
I’ve written for NASPA four times on transracial adoptees. I’m a Queer Honduran/Latinx Transracial Adoptee (raised by a white family). I found out at a very young age I was adopted, and at about 13 I learned that I had been left in an orphanage. That part of my story has always hurt. I write about my adoption a lot, because I found growing up, that it made people uncomfortable. Folks wondered if I was being ungrateful. I think it’s important to say, I can be adopted and grateful, while still being: hurt, curious, angry, hopeful, thoughtful and more intentional about creating relationships with other people than many of my peers. I am convinced my adoption has led me to diversity work.
I have chosen to not look for family, for now. So, I switched gears and thought about completing an ancestry test. I chose 23AndMe because I wanted to purchase the health test to see if there are any health concerns for my future children or medical conditions I may be at risk for. I’m at that age where I am thinking of kids (in a few years) and I don’t know what I’m passing on medically. That’s very scary.
I prepared myself for the results to take 6–8 weeks as stated, but it arrived in 2.5 weeks instead! For the past few weeks all I could think was, I hope my results aren’t scary and I hope I’m not disappointed.
My results:
70% of me is Native American. I mean I’m Latino and could feel those indigenous roots, so this makes all the sense. I actually believe by looking at my body type and my complexion I’m from Yoro, Honduras. That’s where little and stout Hondurans come from! That’s also the one of the areas that is highly indigenous.
12.3% percent of East Asian was kinda weird to see, not going to lie! However, reading into my results it reminded me that before Native Americans some folks ancestors came from Eastern Asia (Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Yakut) and those folks settled in Central American becoming Native Americans. Apparently, I am part Yakut.
11% European had me like:
but then I looked closely, it places me being from Spain. This is awesome because one of my surnames, Ucles is a Spain surname. In fact, there is an entire family from Spain, with my last name that I came across when I was searching my roots and for family.
3% West African has me processing a lot. There’s a good chance that means I am related to a slave. Many don’t know this, but in La Ceiba, Honduras there is a large population of Afro-Latinx folks that originate from slaves. I had the chance to travel there many years ago. So, I may never know what this means, but something I cannot overlook in my ancestry.
.5% Middle Eastern/North Africa, very cool.
.4% Ashkenazi Jew and I am going to tell my Russian Jewish father that we can now say that we are blood related. I think he will laugh.
.1% Oceanian which means indigenous from Papua New Guinea, this is so cool. Is this why I felt a connection to Moana?!
Health reports told me I am not carrying anything scary and I am not at risk for any major health issues genetically speaking, however there could be other factors that put me at risk for complications outside of my genes. What a relief!
My favorite part of my Wellness Report was that it told me that my genetic weight is predisposed to weigh more than average. TAKE THAT BMI CHART! It told me I am likely to be muscular and genetically speaking would be more likely to be good at sprinting than long distance. That I am good at lifting weights, and that I could throw things well, which made me laugh. It guessed that I had lots of hair as a baby, YUP! ( I mean, look above)
It also connected me to a 2nd genetic cousin who lives in NY, and I’ll be exploring that a little later. In conclusion, none of this changes me. It makes me feel a little less alone, connected to my indigenous/Honduran roots and Spain roots. It verifies this suspicion I had, that I was from Spain. While I may never know the intimate details and stories of my relatives and their journey to create me, I know where they come from. For adoptees it is sometimes hard to know we are enough, not being able to celebrate our DNA/family history/medical history often reminds us we are incomplete and lack knowledge of who we are.
This also made me take a hard look at myself. This made me think about where my drive comes from. There is this notion that being adopted means I was given a second chance. That there are days I have this survivor’s guilt of getting out of a third world country knowing my family is still there. While I often feel like a lone immigrant, forced to assimilate to whiteness, I find peace in the work I do, my job, I mentored foster kids for 3 years, creating social justice efforts or simply giving back any way I can. I cannot change my past, but I don’t need to try and make up for something that was beyond my control. I want my fellow transracial adoptees to take that last line to heart. Some of us, are so hard on ourselves. I am hoping to find comfort in knowing I will never take my second chance for granted and that this DNA test reminds me:
I am my relatives and ancestors’ wildest dream.
Julia
