July 2022

Dear CCI community, 

It’s Charlotte and Laney here, writing on behalf of our 2021-2022 CCI board on the occasion of CCI’s eleventh birthday.

As everyone navigates another post-COVID-19 year, we are eternally grateful to our leadership team and the broader community for your continued support. We would not be where we are if it were not for the behind the scenes work by the leadership team and continued community engagement by our members. This upcoming year we will continue to provide our members with innovative and engaging programs.

We are also pleased to announce that China’s Children International is officially registered on Facebook as a nonprofit that can receive donations through fundraisers. Fundraisers can be started by us, but individual members can also choose to begin a campaign to benefit CCI and the adult Chinese adoptee community. As a completely volunteer organization, 100% of donations go directly back into continuing to provide resources for the community. In the coming year, we are focusing on our project to design a website and platform specifically designed for the adult Chinese adoptee community and on creating a system of reimbursement for certain CCI local chapter fees. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions, concerns.

Thank you again for making our community special - here’s to another wonderful year!

Sincerely, 

Laney and Charlotte on behalf of the CCI 2021-2022 Executive Board

December 2021

Dear CCI Members, 

2020 marked the first year that CCI recognized November as International Adoptee Awareness Month. To be inclusive of our international members and to reflect CCI’s unwavering commitment to creating an adult adoptee-centric and adoptee-driven space, we encouraged members to join us in reclaiming November as International Adoptee Awareness Month. 

This IAAM, CCI continued to center adoptee voices in the adoption narrative. Over the past Month, our Creative and Social Media team shared a campaign to feature adoptee advocates in our community. We held chats for our members to connect with each other in safe and structured environments. We also held our very first hybrid chat that welcomed parents in conversation with adoptees.

As 2021’s International Adoptee Awareness Month comes to a close, we recognize that our existence is not confined to November and that, for adoptees, adoption is not limited to a single month. As adoptees, adoption is a life-long journey and a daily reality, something that affects us every day of our lives, in bigger and smaller ways, regardless of whether we are consciously thinking about it. Similarly, we hope that finding support in the Chinese adoptee community, valuing Chinese adult adoptee voices, and recognizing the diversity of Chinese adoptee paths is something that can extend beyond November, thereby building a strong adoptee community present for us every month of the year. 

To that end, we are confident CCI can help! CCI is incredibly excited to announce the culmination of more than a year and a half’s work on behalf of CCI’s UX team, Carrie Doung, Emma Coath, and Myah Revilock. CCI is kicking off a website GoFundMe fundraiser, aiming to raise $10,000 to create a brand new interactive, user-friendly, and resource rich website tailored to our community’s unique needs. As CCI also celebrated obtaining 501(c)(3) status under United States law this year, all donations to CCI and its fundraisers are tax-deductible! Check out our GoFundMe!

Sincerely, 

CCI Leadership Team 

July 2021

CCI is officially 10 years old! 

We (Charlotte and Laney) started CCI the summer before our senior years in high school. When we first began emailing with one another in April 2011, we envisioned creating a global network for Chinese adoptees like ourselves. Having never met in person, each of us were exploring our individual identities as Chinese adoptees and seeking to find others with whom we could connect. We never could have foreseen everything our community has accomplished together over these past 10 years. 

We want to thank all CCI boards, committees, and volunteers present and past.  Through all of your hard work and desire to give back to the community we have been able to create a one of a kind organization that provides Chinese adoptees a place by and for us. 

We also want to thank all of our members, from members who have supported CCI from the beginning to those who just joined our Facebook group yesterday. You are the beating heart of CCI and of our community. Thank you so much for your continued support. 

Sincerely, 

Laney and Charlotte 

Lunar New Year Celebration 2021

Hi CCI Fam,

Happy Lunar New Year! Xīn Nián Kuài Lè. We are delighted to invite you to our special virtual new year celebration, offered in partnership with Boston’s Pao Arts Center and Families with Children from China: New England (FCCNE). Join us on Saturday, February 13 from 4-5pm EST for a kickoff event when we’ll make wishes and hang hóngbāo on our Lunar New Year Wish Tree. 

Can’t make it? Don’t worry--you can add wishes & enjoy more virtual activities until Feb 26! Learn more here: http://chinaschildreninternational.org/virtual-lunar-new-year-2021.  

If you register, you’ll receive a follow-up email closer to the event with more details, including links to the Zoom kickoff event and the virtual Lunar New Year Wish Tree. All are welcome - please feel free to share the registration link with others who might enjoy the celebration.

Looking forward to ringing in the Year of the Ox with you!  

Sincerely,  

CCi Boston Local Meet-up Team & the CCI Board

February 2021

Dear CCI Members,

We wish each and every one of you a very happy Lunar New Year. May the year of the Ox bring you health and happiness.

Sincerely,

The CCI Board

November 2020

Dear CCI Members,

2020 marks CCI’s third year recognizing National Adoption Awareness Month. As such, we are making an important change to include our international members and to reflect our commitment to being an adoptee-centric space. 

Instead of National Adoption Awareness Month, at CCI, we hope members will join us in recognizing International Adoptee Awareness Month. 

While #NAAM is typically a month dominated by the voices of adoptive parents, agencies, and social workers, we here at CCI seek to reclaim and re-focus this month to acknowledge the global community of Chinese adoptees.  We envision #IAAM as a time when adoptee voices and narratives are centered. We want to begin by acknowledging that adoptees of all backgrounds often experience loss, pain, and struggles associated with our relinquishment and subsequent adoption. 

As a global community of Chinese adoptees with diverse lived experiences, we want this month to be about our members, your stories, your work, and your resilience. While we are all Chinese adoptees, we all lead very different lives. We are not a monolith but instead unique individuals with our own stories to tell or as our motto goes, “Same Beginnings, Different Paths.” We want to thank all of our members for being part of our community. The leadership team here at CCI feels so honored to be able to cultivate this beautifully diverse community of Chinese adoptees. Once again, happy International Adoptee Awareness Month.

Sincerely,

The CCI Board

October 2020

Dear CCI Community,  

We hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy. These past 6 months have been life altering, as we continue to come to terms with the realities of COVID19 and the racial reckoning brought on by the continued police brutality against Black people, the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and U.S. protests against police brutality. We realize this has been a difficult time for many in our community as some of you have lost loved ones, struggled with job loss or uncertainty, experienced racism/xenophobia brought on by anti-Chinese COVID19 rhetoric, or faced other personal hardships.  

While it is still 2020, the transition from summer to fall feels like a new chapter as we establish new routines in our lives and some of us return to school. Even for those of us that are no longer in school, this transition in seasons feels like a new beginning. We empathize with our community and want everyone to know that we are here to support one another. CCI will continue our work to provide our members with online digital programs, activities, and events until it is safe once again to also provide our in-person local meetups program. We hope that CCI, our community, and our activities can continue to serve as a resource and place in which you can find friendships and solace in and that CCI can become part of your new routines.  

Finally, as a board and as a community, we mourn the loss of Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen, a Chinese adoptee living in Norway whose life was stolen from her at just 17 years old in August of last year. Please join us in keeping her memory alive and showing up for her as the global Chinese adoptee community. 

Sincerely, 

The CCI Board

June 2020

Dear CCI Community,

For many in our community, 2020 has been the most challenging year they have ever faced. Most of us have been affected by COVID-19 in one way or another, whether it be having a loved one or friend who has contracted the virus, experiencing job loss, pay cuts, or reduced working hours, or having daily routines and schedules upended by social distancing and work at home policies. Our hearts go out especially to those personally affected by the disease in our community and those who may have experienced the loss of a loved-one or friend.

This past month and a half has also been a time of much important discussion within our community. At the end of May, the video of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers demonstrated the pain and suffering African Americans face on a daily basis. George Floyd’s murder subsequently sparked a national and worldwide interest in the existing Black Lives Matter Movement and a louder outcry against police brutality disproportionately directed at African Americans and systemic racism in America. It is now clearer than ever that the injustices faced by Black and Indigenous peoples around the world are due to systemic racism embedded within society's institutions. For people who identify as Asian, this means examining our status as people of color, as well as our position, privilege, and biases. As Chinese adoptees, this examination is made even more complex. As individuals that commonly experience complex racial relations within our own families and as a demographic still maturing and coming into its own, we must ask ourselves how we can be anti-racist and allies to the Black community. [Please refer to our official statement for more information on our decision to support the Black Lives Matter Movement.]

Around the same time of George Floyd’s death, our community was also deeply affected by the news of well-known family/parenting YouTuber Myka Stauffer and her husband James Stauffer “rehoming” their young son, a Chinese adoptee named Huxley. Adoptee members spoke out on a diverse range of topics related to the incident. CCI released an official statement affirming the right of adoptees to tell their own stories and establish their own narrative around their adoption, specifically emphasizing how the Stauffers capitalized on their toddler’s adoptee experience in order to benefit financially. Our discussion connected to one of our fundamental aims: how do we work together to empower our adult Chinese adoptee voices and center our narratives and lived experiences within the larger dialogue on international adoption?

As we grapple with these difficult questions and times, we would like to thank the CCI community for their patience, openness, and respect. We look forward to being there for each other as we continue to do the important work that needs to be done.

Sincerely,

The CCI Board

April 2020

Dear CCI family,

It truly has been a whirlwind of an early Spring. Even just a couple of months ago, no one could have predicted that most of us would soon find ourselves self-quarantined and social distancing for the good of our greater communities. We also realize that this has been a challenging time for many of us. Some of us may have been directly affected by the disease, while others have seen their daily routines upended by the public health measures to keep everyone safe. We’ve also seen an increase in xenophobia and racism directed towards Asian people and people of Asian descent. Here at CCI, we know that no one race is responsible for the disease, and we strongly believe that factually stating the virus’s origin is different than labeling it the “Chinese virus.” The outpouring of support for each other we have seen in our Chinese adoptee and greater international adoptee community has been inspiring. We hope to continue to see this kind of support as this situation unfolds. 

At CCI, we’ve also been responding to some of these changes. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, CCI has decided to suspend all of our Local Meet-ups until further notice. However, because CCI has its roots as an online organization, we have an advantage of existing infrastructure for programs of social distancing! Our Facebook Groups are still going strong, and we have been holding Adoptee Only Chats to connect members on different relevant topics. Our CCI Pride group has planned chats to connect their members in safe and confidential spaces. We also held our very first movie nights, featuring To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and the Netflix remake of Meteor Garden. Finally, we’ve re-organized the way to share Outside announcements with our community to make it easier for members to share other great happenings from other fantastic groups and organizations. We encourage members to take some of this extra time to explore our website and see what else they can get involved in - for instance, you could consider signing up for an adoptee pen pal or getting profiled for our Humans of CCI page.

In conclusion, we wish all members and their families the best, and we hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there. We thank you for the kindness, compassion, and support you’ve shown other members already, and we hope that this kind of support can continue to keep our spirits lifted during this unprecedented time.

Sincerely, 

The CCI Board 

November 2019: (Inter)National Adoption Month

Dear CCI, 

In the United States, National Adoption Awareness Month has been promoted for over two decades. Originating with an Adoption Week announced in 1976 by Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis to raise awareness of the need for adoptive families for children in foster care, the first National Adoption Week was announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. In 1995, a little more than a decade later, President Bill Clinton expanded the awareness week to the entire month of November. 

In the recent years of the internet, National Adoption Awareness Month has unofficially become a time for sharing a myriad of stories about adoption in general, including domestic adoption and foster care, but also expanding to encompass international and transracial adoption. 

A large majority of the stories traditionally shared have been from adoption agencies and adoptive parents. Many of these stories tended to focus on positive stories of adoption, in order to encourage a greater amount of families to adopt those still in foster care. 

But recently a number of adult adoptees have been hoping that the month could also call attention to the lived experiences of adoption once the child has grown up. They noticed that within the vast majority of stories shared for National Adoption Month, one voice in particular seemed to be missing: that of the adoptee him or herself. With groundbreaking campaigns like the November 2014 Twitter hashtag movement #flipthescript headed by Rosita Gonzalez at Lost Daughters, adoptee organizations have been fighting to bring focus to the adoptee voice and bring adoptees into the forefront of the narrative building process.

At CCI we want to recognize the historical and national origins of this National Month, but also acknowledge that there can be multiple purposes to NAAM. At CCI, not all of our community is located within the United States. We also share such varying views on adoption, some that might even challenge the dominant narratives that often circulate during NAAM.

Therefore, CCI hopes to help the adoptee community add yet another purpose to NAAM. We hope to expand NAAM into a time for our global CCI Community to:

• Empower each other to share our own perspectives and lived experiences as Chinese adoptees

• Give prominence to Adoptee voices and adoptee-centric spaces, events, organizations and more

• Provide space to explore where our Chinese adoptee community fits within the larger international adoption community.

To these ends, we are excited to announce the following NAAM 2019 activities. Come celebrate, observe, and discuss NAAM with CCI!

In solidarity,

CCI Board

September / October 2019

No letter was included in this month’s newsletter.

July / August 2019

Dear CCI,

It may be summer, but the CCI Board is working to deliver some exciting new projects over the summer break.

Thanks to the hard work from our two Summer 2019 interns, our focus this summer is languages - learning the meaning behind our orphanage-given names with Ally Lamb's "Chinese Name Project" and the Humans of CCI: Language of Adoption feature with Hannah-Mei Grisley. More information about both projects down below.

In addition, we are working to expand and raise awareness of CCI's presence and the adoptee community around the world. Our first stop is the UK - we now have a new Facebook group for UK-based adoptees and our first ever UK meetup in London this August.

Sincerely,

CCI Board and Summer 2019 Interns

May / June 2019

Dear CCI,

Late Spring / Early Summer has been an interesting time to think about themes of inclusion and exclusion among overlapping identities and communities. For one, May was Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, a great opportunity for our community to reflect on our place within this larger community and what Asian heritage means to us. In what ways did we see ourselves and our narratives within greater Asian American circles? In what ways did we feel that we do not belong? 

May and June also brought Mother's Day and Father's Day. For some adoptees, this may be a time to celebrate the many iterations of "family." And yet, the neatly packaged "hallmark card" nature of these days can feel invalidating to the lives and narratives of birth parents and feel alien to the complex feelings of loss often felt by adoptees on this day. Some who may have not grown up with either a mother figure or a father figure or both may have questioned the inclusiveness of the day.

Finally, June was also pride month, a great time to include and highlight the voices of our LGBTQ identifying Chinese adoptees. Our CCI Pride group hopes to provide a safe and supportive space for a community that may feel like a minority within a minority. It is a good time for all of us to think about how inclusive we are striving to be as a community.  

But, at the same time that we recognize the existence of circles of inclusivity and exclusivity, we can also realize that these circles aren't set in stone. By telling our own stories, we can to the diversity represented in the narrative. By sharing our own stories, we may also be surprised to find that others are in the same boat. In this way, we may be able to create new circles of inclusivity and belonging. It will never be perfect, but it can be a step in a good direction. We look forward to hearing your thoughts. 

Sincerely,

CCI Board and Committee

February 2019

Dear CCIers, 

Firstly, we'd like to wish you and your family a happy, healthy Year of the Pig! 祝您新年快乐、猪年大吉！In Mandarin, you can wish others a happy new year by saying: 新年快乐 xīn nián kuài lè!

In China, the New Year is a time for family to come together to bid farewell to the current year and usher in the new under auspices of good luck, abundant wealth, and bountiful successes. The Chinese New Year is often a difficult time for adoptees, because it brings up longing for Chinese family and heritage. But at the same time, at CCI, we are all one family, so the New Year can also be a great time for us to come together, such as our 2019 Boston-area Chinese New Year Celebration In that way, CCI recognizes that the New Year can be a bittersweet time for many. 

This month especially, we invite you to join us in dialogue about what it means for Chinese adoptees to connect to heritage and foster a sense of cultural identity. We look forward to hearing your thoughts. 

Sincerely, 

CCI Board and Committee

January 2019

Dear CCI Family,

New Years is a time to reflect on successes and refocus our signposts for the road ahead. We’ve had a great year here at CCI; our 2018 focus was on building the foundation for a growing nation-wide network of local CCI chapters. As of writing, we have founded chapters in Washington DC, Boston, Seattle, and Philadelphia. We’ve also succeeded in bringing back and expanding our e-magazine of written works, set to publish in late January. We’ve hosted guest speakers such as Lynelle Long, Grace Newton, and Amanda Sparso. Our 2018 OneSky / CCI Chinese Adoptee Summer Volunteer trip to a medical care home for orphans successfully completed its 6th year! And, you’re currently reading our newest installment: our email CCI newsletter!

As we enter CCI’s eighth year, we are committed to continuing our tradition of providing quality programs through which adoptees can create life-long connections while also establishing a strong financial foundation and model to sustain the organization for many more years of service to the Chinese adoptee community. We also hope to take more steps to reflect what members hope to see in the community; but, we cannot do this without your input. Please feel free to reach out to us at any time through our main email. 

From our CCI family to yours, we wish you a joyous, healthy, and happy 2019. We thank you for your ongoing support, and we look forward to creating more positivity, connection, and support within the international Chinese adoptee community that we are all a part of.

Warmly,

The CCI Board and Committee