"Which one of these is not like the other?"

Hello from the Region IV West Multiracial Knowledge Community (MRKC). We work to increase our membership of MRKC members, serve as advocates for multiracial people, and develop and disseminate knowledge to Region IV-West about current happenings in higher education that pertain to our multiracial community.  The Multiracial Knowledge Community seeks to stimulate education, develop knowledge, and promote resources and networking opportunities related to multiracial identity in higher education (including transracial adoptee identity). That last part in parenthesis really is a part of our mission; I didn’t just add it so I’d have something to talk about.

Really, check it out here: https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/kcs/multiracial

So I may be new to this whole NASPA Knowledge Community world, but I’m no newbie to the world of multiracial identity or even transracial adoptee identity.  You see, the picture above is of me and my siblings painting our garage when we were growing up. I bet you can’t guess which one is the adopted kid, right? Oftentimes, when people see me with my siblings, I feel like people are thinking about the Sesame Street song “Which one of these things is not like the other?” but I’m often sadly reminded of the next line “One of these things just doesn’t belong.” I’m sure the writers of Sesame Street weren’t meaning to alienate people within their own families and were honestly just trying to come up with a catchy tune to teach young ones how to sort and count and learn shapes and colors. I get it. I really do. It’s just, when you’re an adopted child, transracial or not, the song takes on a whole new meaning. For purposes of this Multiracial Knowledge Community, transracial adoptees are described as an adoptee of color being raised by white adoptive parents in the United States. 

So now you know a little bit about me- I was adopted as a 3 month old multiracial baby into my White family. What you can get from this picture (besides the fact that I clearly missed the memo on showing my hands with the palm side out) is that my 3 older siblings were blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, white kids who rocked 90s clothes in our hand-painted garage (literally). What you can’t tell is that, while I may have looked differently from my siblings, I grew up loved, protected, and cared for by those 3 siblings as if I were biologically related. Adoption can be a really isolating, lonely process; but with the right family, the right support system, and being open and honest about it my entire life, I have embraced adoption as a part of my story. Adoption is at the core of who I am. And while I may not “belong” in terms of looks or biology, I belonged in that garage, on that day, painting those walls, with those siblings because, in the end, when all the walls were painted, no one could tell the race, identity or biological relation among the blue handprint versus the red handprint versus the teal handprint versus the yellow handprint. So, next time you meet a student who is adopted or talk with a person who is going through the adoption process, know that adoption is a beautiful thing; it’s a beautiful way to create a family; and it’s a beautiful process to help someone belong.

What’s Happening in Region IV-West

Region IV-West leaders have partnered with Region IV-East for their regional conference “In the Heart of It All” in St. Louis in November. Members from each region will be meeting up at the summer meeting in early June.

What’s Happening Nationally

The MRKC is already planning for the 2017 Annual conference, and incorporating the Loving Day 50^th anniversary into the conference with a Loving Day 50 proposal. Before the Annual Conference next March, the Critical Mixed Race conference will be held in February in California and some of the MRKC representatives and members will be attending that conference. Our MRKC has had Twitter chats that intertwined Student Affairs graduates with the Multiracial community, and our leaders continue to meet on a monthly basis to discuss current trends and what we can be bringing back to each our of regions. 

Amy Sellers is the Region IV-West Knowledge Community Representative for the Multiracial Knowledge Community (MRKC). For more information about this KC, please visit https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/kcs/multiracial or contact Amy at [email protected].