You’ve registered for a negro or part negro baby girl between 3-7 months.

So to paint you a picture. I am adopted and the youngest of four children to a single mom. My dad left when I was two years old, but that story is for another time. Up until I was 8 years old things went smoothly. I was only allowed to watch PBS on the off chance my mom rented a black and white tv. We consumed shows like, The Avengers, Benny Hill and The man from Uncle. My mom is a total Anglophile so everything and anything British and sometimes she would throw in Scottish too.
We were having Narnia Teas before you all heard about Narnia. This consisted of sardines on toast, smoked oysters, cut cucumber sandwiches and cooked tomatoes and oh.. tea with a ton of milk and sugar. You know the usual things families do.
My mother read to me every award winning Caldecott book. Let’s start with One Snowy Day by Ezra Keats. About a little black boy in the snow. Why am I telling you this you ask, as it’s the only book I had with a person of color on the cover or in it. I was miserable being in a white family. I felt like they were freaks.
I have two examples: My sister said that when we went to McDonald’s I sat in a big booth alone and ate my big mac. I refused to move. When I was in my teens I saw my mom at the admiral twin theater and refused to acknowledge her and found out later that I was grounded for giving her attitude. This meant for two weeks I couldn’t skate on Alki Beach or ride the bus.

From 15 on I decided to call the adoption agency every day in search of my mother. How it works is if they call you can contact them if they don’t, you’re out of luck. SO.. finally at 27 my birth-mother Marilyn called. I was in total shock and I think I dropped the phone. I met her and she was an uneducated republican from Colorado and very white. What I mean by that, is very white.. I don’t even think she owns a passport. A passport! I don’t even think she’s passport ready. I don’t even date people who aren’t passport ready. In my family.. if you don’t back pack around Europe then something is wrong with you. My mom did as a roller skating Christian. We all followed minus the skates.
What do I have in common with my Marilyn? She ate sweet and sour shrimp when she was pregnant with me, ate red vines and wore a St. Christopher medal. That’s it. With my mom.. It’s endless.
After so many years of searching for my birth family. I realized I love my wacky family. I love the educated, well-travelled, Narnia tea drinking, PBS watching people they are. I don’t even mind when my mom will call me and tell me to get google out of her computer, because she doesn’t want that page there.

My mom taught me how to hustle, wear lipstick, laugh at myself, appreciate the Queen of England and be proud to be a strong biracial woman.