Bastard Forever! : A Personal-to-Political Memoir

by Ian K. Hagemann

(This article first appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

The first step I ever took towards adoptee empowerment was my decision in middle school to quit reacting when people called me a bastard. After all, my illegitimacy seemed true on the face of it - and lashing out in response to the hard truth, no matter how unkindly phrased, only encourages the pretty lies that I hate far more.

The fact is, I thought I had more important battles to fight because "I was adopted, by parents who loved me. They were the same color as the kids who called me `nigger' on the walk home from school." (1) Michael Franti sings these words, and they remain the best brief description of one aspect of transracial adoption. The fact that I am half-white encouraged additional confusion, as "the kids" were only reacting to part of my genetic background and none of my environment.

For their part, my parents seemed uncomfortable talking about racial stuff around me and my brother, who is also adopted and mixed-race. In fact, our mom left the car to talk privately with a gas station attendant who looked in to say that it "looks like there was a nigger in the woodpile back there." I've since found out that she was trying to protect us - and appreciate the fact that they never lied to us about being adopted. At the time, however, I thought she was defending her honor by explaining that she wouldn't ever practice miscegenation, and that experience became the most jarring "bastard moment" I've ever had.

Our family also didn't watch Roots, although our parents always said that they would help us search for our birth families if we wanted and reassured us that they wouldn't take it personally. I certainly heard about the program at school, however, even though I'd retreated to the library during recess much earlier. My brother heard about it even more, since he stayed and fought to defend his human dignity. I've always felt that he showed more courage in this than I did, and part of what drives my activism today is the fact that I've vowed never to be so cowardly again. As Emiliano Zapata said, "it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."(2)

As much as I like that saying, it is never an easy way to live, and it took a real toll on my brother. This got much worse for him in middle school, until our mom found out from a road crew that a group of kids were stoning him on his walk home from school. At that point, our parents transferred us to separate private schools in nearby Seattle and started working to make the schools where we lived a better place for children of color. This wasn't a big stretch, as they had been part of the Berkeley free speech movement and my mom had already set up the first day care center on Bainbridge. In fact, my "chosen child" story is that a TV announcer came on to talk about unwanted children in the foster care system the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot - and suggested that folks who wanted to pick up Kennedy's work and move forward should adopt one of us. I have several reservations about this - in particular, I think it's a mistake for people to start parenting in order to work out their own issues (pun intentional). However, such convictions inspired their activism during my childhood, which modeled how to make a difference in the world and inspired me to be an activist as an adult.

During my second year of private school, my parents also demonstrated the flip-side of Jenny Holtzer's truism that "if you aren't political your personal life should be exemplary"(3) by getting a separation. As a result, they could no longer afford private tuition, and my brother and I were scholastically reunited the following year at a Seattle public middle school. My brother quickly fell in with some black kids and learned how to breakdance and rap, but I couldn't fit in with his new crowd and was rejected as an "oreo." This was probably true on the face of it - my only early memories of racial discussions or analysis came from All in the Family and Mad magazine - but it was also the second most jarring "bastard moment" I had as a child.

I'd tried for years to fit in with my fellow students to no avail, and I quit trying because it seemed like I would never fit in anywhere. It was a tremendous relief to quit denying who I am, and my new-found happiness and authenticity also led to greater social success during the next two years. The experience of being liked for who I am, and the realization that some people wouldn't like me no matter what I did, greatly encouraged me to avoid compromising myself in the future - and inspires my fondness for uncompromising stances such as those taken by Bastard Nation.

I became unable to continue living in Seattle during my sophomore year of high school, and returned to Bainbridge schools the following year to discover that it was less hostile than I'd feared. In fact, more of my fellow students wanted to be friends with me than I really believed. I felt that their prejudice towards me was only an attempt to prove that they weren't like those prejudiced against me, who I ran into frequently enough to keep my guard up. The best example of the latter was the suggestion that I should "whip it out" so we could "find out whether the rumors were true."

This comment caught me with my conversational pants down (so to speak), and my failure to respond at the time encouraged me to be more proactive ever since. In thinking about that hesitation, I also realized that my presumed sexual superiority was based on my adoptive status as well as my racial background - and I hadn't known which front to fight on. As Wednesday coldly replies to another child's fantasy about a stork or a cabbage patch in one of The Addams Family movies, "my parents had sex." Her statement is much less funny for adoptees; our origin is perhaps the biggest single factor behind our treatment by the larger society.

My musings about transracial adoption and the resulting treatment I'd received destroyed the "good" adoptee that I'd been up to that time, and I quickly discovered that I liked my new persona much better. I was especially happy to shed the sexual repression I'd taken on to keep from proving "the rumors" true, and I started learning how to live as though "I was born an original sinner: I was born from original sin." (4) I ensured that birth control was always used when needed in an attempt to be more responsible than I assumed my birth parents were, but one of my partners still wound up pregnant a few years later. I was relieved that she got an abortion, and I'm proud to say that we went on to become best friends. I was also surprised to realize that I'd never thought about fatherhood - and I was shocked by how strongly I felt the obligation to tell any children about their heritage.

I'd always wanted to meet my birth parents, but the abortion drama showed me how much I really needed to search them out. I was quite frustrated to learn that my original birth information was hidden behind a wall of judicial secrecy, and a bit insulted to discover that it would only be released to a confidential intermediary. In particular, I think the secrecy surrounding my birth supports shame about it - and I refuse to be ashamed about being adopted. However, I paid the agency's fee and was quite relieved to learn at their triad support groups that so many fellow adoptees felt as isolated growing up as I did.

Upon our reunion a couple years later, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my birth mother is a fellow activist with different but equally strong beliefs - and quite unhappy to learn that my birth father tried to kill her while she was pregnant with me. I didn't like the apparently obvious conclusion that he had tried to kill ME, and I was disappointed by the inability of the support groups I attended to offer me any other interpretations. My fellow attendees grew increasingly uncomfortable with my resulting exploration of the down sides of adoption, but they were outright hostile when I searched for my birth father. Eventually, I quit attending because I constantly wanted to say "take back your sympathy; I do not need to drink that bitter stuff". (5)

Several years later, I got Internet access and subscribed to alt.adoption, where I found an active discussion of the subjects I'd wanted to explore earlier. Once I started reading the newsgroup, I quickly noticed that most of the folks I enjoyed had "Bastard Nation" or the Bastard Nation URL at the bottom of their posts. I was especially impressed with the webpage, which got me in touch with my own suppressed anger and encouraged me to start healing and become a lifetime member. As soon as it was created, I subscribed to the BEST list - where the posting is so fast and furious that I had to unsubscribe to alt.adoption. Nowadays, I look forward to logging on, reading my mail, and firing off a few responses in a forum where I know that I truly belong.

(1) Franti, Michael, performing in "Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy." Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury (4th and Broadway / Island Records: 1992), "Socio-Genetic Experiment," Side 2, Track 4.
(2) Emiliano Zapata (attributed), quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Fifteenth and 125th Anniversary Ed. (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company: 1980) p. 759: 2.
(3) Holtzer, Jenny. Truisms (http://adaweb.com/cgi-bin/jfsjr/truism).
(4) Stewart, Dave, and Lennox, Annie, performing as "Eurythmics." Revenge (New York, RCA / Ariola Limited: 1986), "Missionary Man," Side 1, Track 1.
(5) Vega, Suzanne. Nine Objects of Desire (Hollywood, A&M Records: 1996), "Casual Match," Side 1, Track 5.

Ian K. Hagemann is a reunited adoptee, activist, writer, and computer consultant living in Seattle, Washington.

(This article first appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

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