When Emili Van Volkinburg learned in early September that China is ending international adoptions, she felt conflicted.

Van Volkinburg, a 25-year-old Brighton resident, was adopted from southeast China at age two-and-a-half by white parents from Ohio. Growing up, she had open conversations with her mom about being adopted. Her parents enrolled her and her older sister, who was also adopted from China, in Chinese language and culture classes to keep them connected to their Chinese heritage. They took dance classes and her mom learned how to cook Asian food. For most of her life, Van Volkinburg had a generally positive outlook on her adoption, she said.

In her adult life, she connected with other Chinese and transracial adoptees who had different upbringings. Their parents, she said, many of whom were white, struggled to raise children of different races and ethnicities. It made her question how adoption affected others differently.

“There were probably a lot of families that went into adopting a child from China without thinking about the consequences on themselves and the child (or)thinking about the cultural impact that it may have on the child as they grow up,” said Van Volkinburg.

Now, it appears, Van Volkinburg is part of a final generation of adoptees like her from China. With the program over, she hopes it opens more nuanced conversations about adoption.

At a news conference in early September, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed China is no longer allowing foreign adoptions from the country, saying it was “in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions.” Exceptions would only be made for foreigners adopting children or stepchildren of blood relatives in China, up to the third degree of kinship, she said.

The decision marked the end of a three-decade-long program that resulted in at least 150,000 Chinese children like Van Volkinburg being adopted to other countries, with more than 82,000 going to the U.S.
China’s adoption program began in 1992 after the country introduced its controversial one-child policy in 1979 because of overpopulation concerns. A majority of the orphans were girls or children with disabilities who were put up for adoption, because of the strict policy and cultural preference for boys.
Adoptions began to dip in recent years after China reversed its policy in 2016 after the country faced declining birth rates that led to significant economic and political challenges. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, China suspended adoptions to the U.S. for two years. In 2021, China announced a “three-child policy” with incentives like longer maternity leave and housing subsidies to curb the country’s shrinking population.

Family Bonds, Beyond Blood
As a child, Antonia Martin-Nucatola, 24, of Newton, had always been curious about her and her non-biological sister’s adoptions. She would ask her parents where her sister and she were born, what paperwork they had to fill out, and why more girls were put up for adoption than boys. Her parents were transparent about her adoption experience, she said.

They also immersed the family in Chinese culture. Learning about the Chinese zodiac, Lunar New Year, and Chinese food together as a family brought them closer.

“They were powerful little moments from my childhood, and it makes me very emotional,” Martin-Nucatola said. “I think about my mom, who used to attend my Chinese dance recitals. She’d be the only white woman with all the other Chinese moms … She was the minority in that space, but she did it to give me that exposure.”

The recent development in the program has made Martin-Nucatola reflect on how her life would have looked if she hadn’t been adopted.

“Part of me is like, there are probably kids who could benefit from the privileges that my sister and I were given by our parents, because we got adopted by the best parents in the world,” Martin-Nucatola said.
Martin-Nucatola is concerned about the children stuck in orphanages or the hundreds of American families with pending applications who were left in the dark. China has not provided any details about what would happen to those children.

“It really frustrates me that the Chinese government made this decision in its own vacuum, with zero regard for the damaging impacts it has and will continue to have on all stakeholders,” said Nicole Eigbrett, 31. “But most importantly, on adoptees and children themselves.”

For Eigbrett, who was adopted when the program began in 1992, its legacy brings feelings of abandonment. She grew up in a predominantly white town in New York and was raised by two white and middle-class parents who had foster, adopted, and biological kids. She was the only Asian person in her family.

‘Organized Abandonment’
The search for community and belonging became a pattern throughout her life as she experienced racism and ethnic isolation in her small town, Eigbrett said. When she moved to Boston in 2016, she sought an Asian American community to connect with. From there, she became a volunteer for Dorchester-based nonprofit Asian American Resource Workshop. The group supports pan-Asian communities in Greater Boston experiencing displacement. It offers resources for Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laos refugees at risk of deportation, advocates for community members facing eviction, and drives young Asian American and Pacific Islanders to become civically engaged. Through the organization, she met people with shared political ideologies and other adoptees.

In addition to feelings of grief or worry over the effect the end of the program would have on adoption, she felt a sense of relief that Chinese children would no longer be separated from their biological families, birth country, and culture. Eigbrett is part of the adoption abolition movement, which calls for adoption or “organized abandonment” to be replaced with widespread reproductive health care, economic welfare, and societal support to care for families worldwide.

“There’s this prevailing perception that adoption will automatically lead to a better life for the child,” Eigbrett said. Instead, many experience anguish and trauma associated with their adoption experience, she added.

It also implies that all birth families cannot provide an adequate life for the children, said Maya Bergamasco, 29, from Medford, who is also pleased that China’s adoption program ended and wants China to provide support for children, many who are disabled, currently in orphanages.

Eigbrett believes that instead of promoting adoption, China and other countries should provide sufficient resources to their citizens.

Bergamasco hopes that the ban pushes the Chinese government to recognize the adoptee community as part of the Chinese diaspora. In doing so, adoptees can receive special visas or a clearer path to Chinese citizenship.

Meanwhile, she said the news may lead more adoptees to “come out of the fog,” referring to a multi-layered process where adoptees reflect on how their adoption has impacted them. The news has since brought her closer to those with shared experiences and created a desire to uplift their stories.
“In history, we are a generation that is at risk of being forgotten if cultural preservation and storytelling aren’t prioritized,” Bergamasco said.

Those narratives must also be led by the adoptees themselves, Bergamasco said, which has historically not been the case. Bergamasco said the adoptee perspective gets belittled while adoptive parents’ voices take center stage.

“We also deserve a voice and a platform that adoptive parents have historically had,” Bergamasco said.