When looking at a person, we may sometimes try to piece together their life story from the way they look or act. What does a simple profile picture say about each of us? What assumptions do we as viewers tend to make, in order to ‘paint’ the person? How does that affect the ‘subject’ posed in the photograph? In Tracing Faces, one’s identity having been adopted internationally, and one’s identity as conveyed via expression and personality, are positioned in such a polarizing way, that we feel the need to step back and see how we could have missed that part, which makes them who they are. Where you may see a variety of faces, of people who could have any backgrounds or lifestyles, the international adoptee (IA) has a uniquely ‘closed’ identity. These individuals either know and promote this fact, or try their best to hide behind the adoptive-given identity, because embodying a cultural heritage that one hasn’t learned about since birth, can be challenging to grasp as an adult.

As a Korean adoptee myself, I often struggle with being comfortable in my own body. I am familiar with the feelings of separation/isolation experienced by IA’s. I hope to inspire conversations about identity and family, and to explore some of the unique challenges we IA’s face, such as establishing meaningful ethnic and cultural identities, while growing in largely Caucasian homes, schools, and communities. We long to embrace our birth cultures, while acknowledging the irony that biases against single parenthood or domestic adoption within those very cultures, may have set us on the IA paths we travel. In 2018, I had the good fortune to connect with a dynamic IA community, through Holt international Children’s Services in Eugene. I’m grateful to members of that group, as well as to my IA siblings, who were enthusiastic about being photographed and joining this conversation.