Educational Media Reviews Online

An adoptive mother created this documentary project, Somewhere Between, as a means of helping her daughter gain some understanding of cultural identity when she got older. The film serves to provide some understanding of the complexity of transnational identity through adoption, and the struggle that many adoptees go through with “fitting in” to their new culture, while staying connected to their birth culture. While the film focuses on children who have been adopted from China, the issues could be shared by adoptees from any country or culture. Adoptees and adoptive parents are interviewed to gain some insight as to how each maneuvers and struggles with the complexity of knowing one’s identity and culture. One adoptee stated that, “Either in America or China they know I am a foreigner…I am stuck between two countries.” The film also covers such topics as whether international adoptions should continue as it has been documented that some governments have falsified records of children. Additionally, the film recounts the process one girl goes through to locate her birth parents, which results in a meeting of the adoptee, her adoptive parents, and her biological family in China. Each adoptee talks about the struggle to find their identity; many indicate that they are “white on the inside, yellow on the outside.” The film touched on some difficult topics including how adoptees are often viewed as having been “rescued” and brought to a better place (United States). This cultural attitude presents greater issues for adoptees to assimilate into their adopted culture. The film concludes with one adoptee saying that, “the adoptive community has shared experiences, but each has their own journey.” There is a supplementary 45-minute DVD, Beyond Somewhere Between that provides additional interviews with adoption professionals. This film would be a useful resource for social work programs, counseling programs, and sociology programs as they investigate the question of adoption, cultural awareness and identity, and race and ethnicity in any culture.