"She also came to discover a new-found appreciation for Asian culture. It started with the food, and then developed into learning more about the culture more generally. Her interest in her Asian and Chinese identity inspired her to found her school’s very first Asian Club."
Caroline was found at about ten days old outside the adoption door of the Social Welfare Institute in Huaihua city of Hunan province with a note and a red blanket. At eight months old, she was adopted by her mom, a single parent, to the United States. Growing up in Charleston, South Carolina was really hard for Caroline, because she grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and experienced a lot of racism. She distinctly remembers wanting to be white and to fit in with what she perceived as the “cool, popular kids,” but she never felt like she fit in.
Her experiences have informed her participation in AAPI and LGBTQ+ activism in recent years, where she has experienced first hand the toll activism takes on individuals and is practicing setting healthier boundaries for herself. Additionally, when selecting where she wanted to attend college, she specifically sought a more diverse, liberal environment, and ultimately chose to attend Champlain College in Vermont, where she is going into her sophomore year studying digital forensics. As for digital forensics, she saw it as the logical outcome of being good with computers and the fact that she, in her words, “loves crime.”
When COVID hit, Caroline was upset to see so much discrimination against people who look like her. She also came to discover a new-found appreciation for Asian culture. It started with the food, and then developed into learning more about the culture more generally. Her interest in her Asian and Chinese identity inspired her to found her school’s very first Asian Club. She expressed an interest in traveling back to China to try to find her birth parents. As of now, she has signed up for posters, is in the process of getting her papers translated, and did a DNA test, where she found a second cousin who lives in Virginia. She sees her interest in Asia as connected to her desire to fit in and to reclaim her heritage. To younger adoptees, she says “not to be ashamed of being asian” and that it is important to “learn how to stick up for themselves.” In a way, Caroline has found a way to “fit in” that embraces the ways she is different. “I know I’m different from others, but I accept that,” she says. “Now, I love who I am, and I’m not ashamed of being Asian.”
Humans of CCI profiled on Facebook in 2023.