The Search for a Past

An estimated 140,000 Chinese children were adopted by families in the United States, Europe and elsewhere after China opened to the world in the 1990s while maintaining a one-child policy to eliminate poverty. Many of the children, now young adults, and birth parents search for one another. Cathy Shufro describes the search of Yale graduate Jenna Cook for Yale Alumni Magazine. Cook studied Mandarin, volunteered at the orphanage where she was placed, posted notices on streets, arranged an interview with a Wuhan newspaper that attracted national attention and met with 50 families whose details matched her own. “Cook says the families she spoke with were shocked to find out that she had grown up thousands of miles from Wuhan,” Shufro notes. “Even well-educated professionals have told Cook that they knew little or nothing about the large numbers of children adopted abroad.” Cook did not find her birth parents. Though she has ended the active search, she is a graduate student in China and co-writes a free online guide for adopted children to find birth parents in China. – YaleGlobal