"Journey Of Self Discovery": Alexis's first visit to India in 20 years

JOURNEY OF SELF DISCOVERY
by Alexis Tompkins-Larrance
Winter 2001/2002 Heartstrings

(Alexis is the daughter of Susan Tompkins, Journeys' executive director. She works for Brand Jordan at Nike.  In January 2001, Alexis returned to India for the first time since her adoption at four months of age. She traveled with her stepfather, David Slansky, who directs Journeys' international programs. This is Alexis' account of her trip:)

Returning to my roots, to my motherland of India, has been the most liberating event of my life and has given me the closure I've needed for many years. At the age of four months I was adopted by my parents blonde-haired, blue-eyed folks, who tried their best to provide me with cultural pride and knowledge of my homeland. Being raised in a racially-mixed family with white parents has made me more open and tolerant of differences, but it has also caused extreme racial displacement.

I recall times, as a child, shopping in the mall with my pale-skinned father. We would be followed from store to store because the security officer could not believe that he was actually my father. As I grew older, the predominant Barbie Doll image of the ideal American woman distorted my personal concept of beauty. White, blond, tall, blue-eyed Barbie was an image I could never achieve. I saw brown skin as a dirty mark, almost a curse. I could not appreciate the value of brown skin, exotic cheekbones, and racial differences.

My middle school and high school years were painful. I knew I wasn't the girl that young boys wanted to date. Sometimes boys were attracted to me for my exotic look only. Others have perceived me as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Black, or even Hawaiian. Ever since I was young I never acknowledged my ethnic heritage, took no pride in being Indian and rejected the Indian race and culture. That left me with no identity. My parents tried introducing me to Indian art, dance, cooking, and dress, but these things left me cold. I wanted no part of activities with other adopted Indian kids. I recall going reluctantly to a slumber party with other Indian girls I knew. We walked into a pizza place, all six of us, and everyone turned around and stared. It felt good to be part of this group, yet I never wanted to repeat the experience of being with others just like me when it was offered.

I certainly experienced racial displacement and confusion, but I also suffered from the lack of specific knowledge about my birth parents. They abandoned me right after my birth, in a box, at a medical clinic in Calcutta.

Finally, at age 21, I felt I was emotionally ready to return to India. I went because my parents had encouraged me to go ever since I was 18. I was well-defended against feeling Indian and had always said, no, I wasn't interested. I knew that India was a land of great poverty and I really didn't want to personally know the poverty I had come from. That could shake my defenses and that scared me. I was still afraid and felt somber as I boarded the plane with my stepfather, David Slansky. During the long flight, my mantra was "I'm an American citizen."

Our plane landed in Bombay and David and I proceeded through immigration. The airport was unreal. It reminded me of an old 1950s elementary school, except that it smelled of urine and there were men with large guns. I still didn't realize that I was almost 13,000 miles from the only home I had ever known until I stepped outside the airport. There were hundreds of brown eyes staring me down. I had never seen so many brown people in my life, let alone Indians, but I felt like a foreign tourist, not an Indian woman.

We continued on to New Delhi where David and I caught a taxi to the hotel. People swarmed the streets at 6:30 in the morning. Venders hawked their cheap products, and young women with babies begged for food. Small children wandered the streets playing with anorexic dogs. While our taxi sat at a stoplight, I turned in my seat and saw a little girl I will never ever forget. She was about four years old, malnourished, with no shoes or shirt on in cold weather. She tapped her little hands on our taxi window begging for food. Her eyes were hollow, haunting, with nothing on the other side except misery. I could not cry, only stare in awe. I struggled to understand how some people could stand by while others were so obviously starving.

We toured many tombs and finally the Taj Mahal which I had never even really thought about seeing. It was the most breathtaking, magnificent structure I had ever seen and that's when it started hitting me I finally realized that MY people had built it. I was starting to feel a relationship with India and its people.

I had been warned that returning to the city of my birth, Calcutta, was going to be difficult because of the poverty and open disregard for human life. But I found it to be one of the most beautiful cities I had ever seen. The streets were jammed with the poorest of humanity. Cardboard shanties filled the sidewalks. Men worked long days making bamboo scaffolding to repair buildings that were 200 years old, and women worked in the craft markets nursing their children.

I called home to my mother and said, in my tears, "These are my people, this is my culture." I felt pride in their struggle for survival and sense of community. I had a great urge to be out on the streets, to mingle with the people, eat the food, and buy the clothing.

We met up with an old friend who had worked for the International Mission of Hope (IMH, the agency that coordinated my adoption) for many years. He took me back to the original IMH orphanage. This was my first visit to an orphanage and little did I know that this run-down building with premature babies and "ayas" (caregivers) in the next room would bring so much closure to my life.

Our Indian friend told one of the ayas, Madhu, who I was. Remarkably, she remembered my nursery name and had cared for me 21 years before! I almost cried but could not because I was so thrilled to know that someone from my motherland actually remembered me as a little baby from so long ago. I embraced her tightly and smiled with great joy. I didn't want to let her go. I also saw my name on a line in the IMH ledger book from 1979. It showed my Indian name, the names of my adopting parents, their address and dates for leaving India, bound for America.

It was there in Calcutta where I learned something about my past that may seem like a small thing, but to me it was huge. I had always assumed that my birth-mother lived on the streets and was among the poorest of the poor. However, I found out that many women who had their babies at the local clinics (where I was born) probably came from middle class backgrounds. They faced being ostracized from their families if they bore a child out of wedlock. I realized that my birth mother was possibly educated enough to read and write.

Thinking of my birth mother as the poorest of the poor had left me feeling badly about myself. But knowing that she probably was not so poor really helped me feel better about me. This visit to the orphanage and the city of my birth left me with many feelings. I felt closer to my birth mother, but also angry at her for not leaving me a trace of herself. I felt swelling pride for being a Bengali born in Calcutta, and a real connection for each of the city's 14.9 million inhabitants.

We left Calcutta for Southern India and continued the journey of self-discovery. While visiting an orphanage in Kottaym I had an incredible experience. I met a woman who looked about my age and had just given birth to a baby boy 15 days earlier. David thought I might like to talk to her since she was placing her baby for adoption, as my birth mother had done years before.

I felt angry at his query and almost barked at him, "Why? She's not my birthmother!" I wanted to meet my birthmother, not someone else's. But I did see my birthmother in her and I listened intently as David spoke to her. David asked her if she would like letters and pictures of her child, whose fate was to be adopted. She smiled broadly and said she would like that arrangement. This child could have some knowledge of his birth mother and more of an identity than I could have even imagined. I could tell that she loved her child more than I've ever seen anyone love another. My eyes welled up with tears of sadness and anger for myself, for her and the baby.

On the last day of the trip, we met Sister Theresa of the Tender Loving Care Home at the airport in Hyderabad. She brought the two babies that David and I were to escort home. When Sister Theresa placed the baby I was responsible for in my arms I began to cry. I didn't want to take her with me. She was losing her country and culture, and would have to search for her racial identity as I have. However, I knew then, after seeing the poverty and problems of India that she had to come with me. I was crying for all of my losses, and this baby's losses. But I had also come to appreciate everything that I, and all the other adopted children, have gained by leaving India.

Observing my people struggle with poverty, disease, hunger and sexism, I see where my survival skills come from. I will always struggle with racial identity in the United States, but I know that my country and my people are only an airplane trip away. This knowledge is a sanctuary in my mind. This journey back to my motherland cannot be described in so many words. There is never enough film in a movie, nor are there enough pages in a book or pictures in cameras to captivate the experience that has helped me begin to shape my identity as proud woman of color.

 

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