Searching for Connection, Identity, and Community as a Honduran-Born Adoptee

I wanted her language, her understanding of Honduras, a family like hers. I wanted things she could never give me.

At the end of second grade a Bolivian family moved into our neighborhood, and they looked more like me than my own family did. I was fighting on and off with my best friend, and my mom was insistent on me trying to make new friends, so she signed me up for Y Camp that summer. To my surprise, I met the eldest sister of the family at camp. She wasn’t my counselor, but I wished she were. To a seven-year-old, a fifteen-year-old seems beyond cool—but I didn’t want to be this girl on a superficial level. I didn’t want to be her at all. I wanted to be me, and I also wanted to be part of her family.

I wanted her younger sister to play games with me. I wanted strangers to say they couldn’t tell us apart. I wanted her father to have sweet nicknames for me, and for me to secretly be his favorite child. In this scenario, I wasn’t sure if I wanted my white mom to still be the mom she was, or if I wanted her to be my mom, but Hispanic. I didn’t want to replace my mom—I wanted to add the kind of family I longed for to my own. But I felt guilty for wanting this.

I never told my mom how I felt. Still, I think she saw the longing in my eyes. She tried many times to help me connect with the family, and I kept refusing—I wanted so badly to be close to them, and felt so guilty about it, that I simply couldn’t figure out how to build those relationships.

Eventually, they moved away. I cried when I found out, but could never explain why it made me so sad. Later, as a teenager, I asked my mom why the family had left. She told me it was because there wasn’t enough diversity in Maine, and they said they needed community. At the time, I couldn’t grasp why that would make someone want to move.

It would be eleven years before I met another Hispanic person.

*

During college freshman orientation, I told a group of people that I was born in Honduras. I always liked to be precise with my words—if I said, “I’m from Honduras,” I felt that implied something else.

The moment I said I was born there, a boy my age said his friend’s suitemate was an international student from Honduras. He was excited to make the connection and offered to introduce me to her. I felt as if I had been waiting for this moment my entire life—I would finally meet someone from my homeland of Honduras. This time, I promised myself I wouldn’t hide from them.

All day long, I imagined what our first encounter would be like. I would speak Spanish with her. I would not trip on my pronunciations, or let on that it was not my first language. Just by looking at me, she would know I was just like her.

Except for the fact that I wasn’t.

I had not met her yet and still, I wanted her, in a way that was neither platonic or romantic. I wanted her in a way that was demanding, unfair to her, yet innocent and curious. I felt like a thief when I thought about her, and the identity that had been taken from me when I was adopted. I craved parts of her that she had no obligation to offer, and this ached to the spine. I wanted her language, her immersive and instinctive understanding of Honduras, a family like hers. I wished I could borrow her memories, run away with her sight and see what she had seen. I wanted things that she could never give me.

I wanted her language, her understanding of Honduras, a family like hers. I wanted things she could never give me.

Later that day, my friend Eddy took me back to his dorm and our search for Analu began. “Oye, Analu, recibiste mi texto?” Eddy shouted from across the hallway. He turned to me. “I texted her about you earlier today!”

I wanted to say something that would let Eddy know I understood what he’d said in Spanish. But these words died before they were born. I was afraid that responding in Spanish would lead to a longer conversation I might not be able to keep up with. Instead, I smiled and nodded, with just the right amount of excitement.

A small girl with short fire-engine red hair ran up to us. She was the only Honduran girl I had ever met. She had stories of the country; a history that tied her to what was, for me, both home and foreign land. Her smile opened like a familiar door. I was ready to walk through.

I greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and said it was great to meet her.

“De que parte de honduras eres?” she asked with a magnetic smile.

I had to tell her that I was born in San Pedro Sula. Would I have to tell her I was adopted? That would mean telling her more than I wanted to. I felt my heart wilt at the thought of her thinking less of me. If I explained that I’d been adopted, in her eyes I would no longer be someone like her. Maybe I would no longer be Honduran at all.

The circumstances that led me to my adoption in the States would never resonate with her, I believed—she was an international student attending an expensive private school here. I was a middle-class American on an academic scholarship. I would never be like her. I would never really be Honduran.

If I explained that I’d been adopted, in her eyes I would no longer be someone like her. Maybe I would no longer be Honduran at all.

In the end, I wouldn’t give her a chance to see or to know me. We never became close friends. We never had a full conversation in Spanish. We never danced together to Maná, as I once imagined we would, or talked about politics. But it wasn’t because of her, it was because of me. I was too afraid to show her who I was. I was scared she would reject me, so I rejected her first.

*

After that experience, I decided I couldn’t base a friendship on whether or not someone was Honduran. If you took that away, after all, would Analu and I have had anything in common? Would we have connected at all?

Still, when you grow up with no relationships with anyone of your own ethnic background, no mirrors, it’s hard not to crave it. What I finally learned that I craved, as much as seeing myself in other people, was a sense of community—what the family I’d known in childhood had moved away to find. But I would never be part of any community if I kept hiding myself from others.

As I grew older, I did wonder more about my biological origins. Eventually, though, I became more interested in knowing where I came from, rather than who I came from. I wanted to connect with my culture, my heritage, more than I wanted to find my birth family. Maybe I was scared I would never find my biological family, so the next best thing would be to reconnect with my own culture; find some kind of acceptance there.

After college, I traveled to Southeast Asia, where new Thai friends opened up to me. I became close to a Korean woman and her son. I visited a high school friend in Cambodia and became part of her tight-knit community there. Later, I traveled across Latin America and lived with a host family in Peru. My papito there called me funny nicknames, and I know I was his favorite host student. My mamita and I would sneak off to the movies, or have pollo a la brasa before dinner, and not tell anyone. My two host sisters and I had similar dark, charcoal eyes and brown skin, the same sarcastic sense of humor, but the most important thing we shared was our love for each other. I made these connections because I was no longer so afraid to let people in—I allowed them to know me, and they loved me for who I was.

I became more interested in knowing where I came from, rather than who I came from. I wanted to connect with my culture more than I wanted to find my birth family. 

I made my way to Honduras three separate times. Each visit was different. Each time, the longing I’d once felt to find my biological family lessened. By the third visit, I started to be more present in each moment, and in these moments I became better acquainted with and embedded in the place I was living.

The family I was closest to owned a restaurant across from my apartment, and I would see them every day. Some days I would help in the kitchen, and the mother and I would laugh and laugh. On other days, I’d help the youngest daughter, Ruth, with her homework. I was there for the older daughter, Ana, when she wanted to talk about her newest crush. These relationships were based on something deeper than a shared ethnicity. These people knew me. They loved me. They saw me, and I saw them.

I didn’t find my biological family in Honduras, but I found myself. And, just as important, I found community—that word the Bolivian family had used back when I couldn’t quite understand what it meant, or voice my longing for the same.