All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir

“He pulled his eyes into slits.”

Nicole first experienced racism in the second or third grade, when a boy she carpooled with pulled his eyes and hurled racial slurs at her. She continued to experience overt racism throughout her childhood, which exacerbated her feelings of isolation. Her experiences in the community were also at odds with the values of her colorblind parents, who believed that race was irrelevant.

“Growing up, I often wished I could be more like my adoptive parents.”

Nicole felt like an outsider as a child, largely because of her racialized appearance. In addition to wishing she looked like her adoptive parents, Nicole envied their nonchalant attitude toward her adoption.

“I didn’t know what to tell people about surviving a loss I couldn’t even remember, or how the face I saw reflected in the mirror often seemed like a stranger’s.”

Providing a nuanced account of adoption is one of the most important aspects of Nicole’s memoir. Adoption is often presented in exclusively positive terms, fueling The Myth of Adoption. By contrast, Nicole discusses what she lost by being adopted, in addition to what she gained.

“To be a hero, I thought, you had to be beautiful and adored. To be beautiful and adored, you had to be white.”

This quote underscores the problems Nicole had growing up in a white environment. Nicole’s role models were white. Similarly, the standards of beauty against which she measured herself were white, which exacerbated her sense of isolation.

“I had always been told that my birth parents wished they had been able to keep me. If that were true, why didn’t God care what they wanted?”

This passage describes The Myth of Adoption and Nicole’s early critique of that myth. Nicole’s adoptive parents viewed her adoption in positive terms, calling it divinely ordained. As Nicole grew older, she began questioning the myth—namely, by approaching it from the perspective of her birth parents rather than from the perspective of her adoptive parents.

“They would never be my refuge, my first call in a crisis. Even if you found your birth family, how could you ever be certain they would stick around? How could you think of them as your real family when they hadn’t been there all along?”

Searching for her birth parents did not change how Nicole felt about her adoptive parents. The desire to know her roots fueled her search, not the desire to replace the people who raised her.

“You’re our daughter, no-one else’s!”

Nicole’s adoptive mother spoke these words in jest. However, they bothered Nicole because they slammed the door on her biological parents. The joke is representative of her adoptive parents’ tendency to treat the topic of her birth parents as taboo.

“Who knew what I’d find in pursuit of truth?”

This quote captures Nicole’s reticence as she embarked on her search for her birth parents. Her desire for an updated medical history sparked her search, but she also yearned to know her birth parents. Nicole spent many months considering her options. She chose to reach out to her birth mother, but she also worried about the impact of bringing a stranger into her family’s life.

“Susan. Such a pretty, old-fashioned name.”

This quote comes from Nicole’s first letter to her birth mother. Although she agonized over the content and wording of the letter, she ultimately chose to honor her birth mother’s hard choice by thanking her.

“I’ve had a full, healthy, happy life. And I have you to thank for that life.”

This quote comes from Nicole’s first letter to her birth mother. Although she agonized over the content and wording of the letter, she ultimately chose to honor her birth mother’s hard choice by thanking her.

“That her parents had withheld information, that they had secrets beyond her ability to imagine, was not so shocking. But why had they covered it up? That was the part Cindy couldn’t understand.”

This passage stems from a section focused on Cindy’s perspective. The shift in perspective underscores the impact of Nicole’s adoption on her sisters. Adoption has a broad impact on families, touching not just adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents, but also siblings.

“My daughter would always know me. She would never have to fight to know her story.”

Nicole’s parenting style differs significantly from that of her parents. In contrast to her parents, who were reluctant to share information about her birth parents, Nicole vowed to be open with her daughter. Nicole’s desire to provide her daughter with information about her roots in part spurred the search for her birth parents, speaking to the theme of The Intersection of Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Reunion.

“What sort of power had they exerted over each other. These two people stuck in their wretched marriage?”

Nicole reached out to her birth family in part because she wanted answers about her adoption, but her birth parents told conflicting stories. Her mother stated that her husband forced her to put Nicole up for adoption, while her father claimed he wanted to prevent his wife from abusing another child. Although Nicole realized she may never know the truth, she was inclined to believe her father, largely because of her relationship with Cindy. The shattering of her idealized vision of selfless parents giving her up is another aspect of The Myth of Adoption that Nicole confronts in her memoir.

“My adoption was hard, and complicated, but it was not a tragedy.”

Nicole recognizes that her adoption myth holds some truth. She was likely better off being put up for adoption than staying with her birth parents. She was raised in a safe and loving home by two people who wanted her. Her memoir calls attention to the hardships and complexities of her adoption without overemphasizing victimhood.

“The peace I’d wanted so badly to give my birth parents, all along, was never in my power to give.”

Throughout her childhood, Nicole was told that her birth parents wanted her, but that they were unable to care for her. She assumed her birth parents felt guilty for putting her up for adoption. In her first letter to her birth mother, Nicole sought to ease her mother’s guilt by telling her that she had been raised by loving parents and thanking her for making the difficult decision to give her up. After reuniting with her birth parents, however, Nicole realized that nothing she said could ease their guilt and that they had to find ways to comfort and forgive themselves.

“She didn’t owe me anything; bonds that might have held us together over a lifetime had been broken, and we could rebuild them only through choice and mutual effort.”

Nicole felt an instant connection to Cindy. From their first email exchange, she was drawn to Cindy’s openness about their parents’ dysfunctional relationship. The two grew close via email, but Nicole wondered if Cindy would continue to pursue the relationship after the novelty of having another sister wore off. Her concerns were unfounded, as the two sisters became very close.

“As we sat side by side, giggling together, I thought, Our voices may not sound alike, but our laughter does.”

Looking and feeling like an outsider marked Nicole’s childhood. Here, Nicole recognized herself in Cindy. Not only did they look alike, but they had the same laugh.

“I would never grow up with her as my big sister, looking out for me.”

A sense of loss pervades Nicole’s memoir, reflecting The Difficulties of Being a Transracial Adoptee. Although her reunion with Cindy is primarily joyful, she grieves not having grown up with her sister and missing out on having a shared history. Reconnecting with her sister is her first major step in reconnecting with her roots.

“As much as I loved my sister, as close as we’d become, I had not gotten my looks, my traits, my flesh and blood and bone from her.”

Cindy was the first blood relative Nicole met, and the one with whom she connected almost instantly. Meeting Cindy, however, was not enough to satisfy Nicole’s need to know her roots and to learn firsthand about the circumstances of her adoption. Two years after connecting with her birth father via email, Nicole agreed to meet him at Cindy’s house in Portland.

“I feared disappointing our father.”

This quote conveys Nicole’s anxiety about meeting her birth father. In contrast to Cindy and many traditional Korean women, Nicole is loud and outspoken. She feared her demeanor would alienate her father and make him ashamed of her.

“If there’s something that everyone should know about adoption, it’s that there is no end to this. There’s no closure.”

Nicole relentlessly pushes back against adoption stereotypes to create a more nuanced picture. The Adoption Myth typically ends with a baby being adopted and being better off for it. Nicole provides a realistic account of adoption by emphasizing its lasting impacts, not just on adoptees, but also on adoptive parents, birth parents, and siblings.

“When I went looking for my past, I told my daughter, I had to take what I found, the good and the bad.”

Abigail first asked Nicole about her adoption when she was four years old. Despite her young age, Nicole chose not to gloss over the difficulties she faced as a transracial adoptee. The account she gave to her daughter is consistent with her memoir’s realistic portrayal of adoption.

“It took me many years to recognize and give voice to this fundamental dissonance: their gain was mine, too, but only after I experienced a deep loss.”

This passage describes the complexity of adoption. As a child, Nicole’s adoptive parents presented her adoption in exclusively positive terms. Only as an adult was Nicole able to articulate that her adoption resulted in losses as well as gains.