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A baby photo of Sarah and her siblings.

“My family is not one color,” Mia Pearce (12) said.

Adopted student Mia Pearce explains

that her family is just like any other family, but they just don’t look quite the same. Pearce’s family is a conglomeration of many different cultures, with another sister from China, two brothers from India and white parents. However, this doesn’t change the way that she looks at her family.

Sarah Pepperman (10), also adopted from China when she was a year old by a white family, explains her interesting dynamic with being Chinese but not having a true connection to her culture.

“It is very interesting looking Asian but being culturally American,” Pepperman said.

In addition to giving presents on their adoption day, both Pearce’s and Pepperman’s parents have made effort to try to connect their children to their cultures by going on trips to their birth country and giving them the choice to learn their native language. Although these gifts give them some hint of their culture, neither feel especially connected to it.

“Being adopted has given me an identity that is a little bit of everything. My family is kind of strange; it’s just not cohesive,” Pearce said.

This lack of cohesion, however, is what Pearce loves about her family and what she says makes them unique. Pearce’s and Pepperman’s identities are shaped by adoption but are not solely defined by it. The same goes for their relationship with their family.

“I’ve accepted my parents as being my parents. It’s just a title: biological,” Pearce said.

Adoption has brought Pearce’s and Pepperman’s families together and countless others. At the end of the day, family is never defined by whether you share the same blood or not.