Hi! I’m Adrienne and I’m a child of New Beginnings! It all began on March 22, 1999 when I made the journey from Seoul, South Korea and was placed in my parent’s arms at JFK International Airport. I was greeted by my older brothers, Justin, also adopted from Korea and Matthew, who was born to my parents. Both sets of grandparents also made the trip from Utica, NY to witness my arrival and greet me with open arms and hearts.
I am presently beginning my senior semester (I’m graduating in December) at Ithaca College. I am a Television-Radio major with a concentration in Broadcast Performance and I aspire to be an on-air news personality post-graduation.
I decided several years ago to develop a platform to help create positivity about adoption, acceptance of multiracial families, and to help people acknowledge adoption as simply an alternate way to form a family. It’s not second best, it’s just an option that creates real families.
If you are an adoptee or a member of an adoptive family, I’m sure you’ve experienced things that were hurtful and you were seen as though you weren’t a “real” son, daughter, brother or sister. Often times the hurtful comments are made unintentionally. When that happens, I now make a conscious effort to explain why their choice of words was hurtful. I want to change the perception of adoption, even if it’s one person at a time. I encourage all of you to do the same!
This video is my final project for a Personal Health class. The assignment was to use theories we learned throughout the course to tell a story about our identity. Naturally, I chose to relate the topic to my life experiences and tell the story of how I joined my family. During my time at Ithaca College, I strived to bring attention to positivity in adoption and every child’s right to have a loving family. For my efforts, I was awarded the Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellowship for social change.
I hope to continue to champion for adoptive families. Thank you to the folks at New Beginnings for giving me the opportunity to tell my story and share my message!