WOMAN THOUGHT ADOPTION HADN'T AFFECTED HER—THEN THERAPY CHANGED EVERYTHING
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Emma Ming Fuller was abandoned as a baby in China and adopted by Americans—now she is confronting how that shaped her.
Though the one child policy—China's infamous population control strategy that restricted many families to having just one child—was disbanded in 2015, its 36-year run had a ripple effect across nations that cannot be ignored through increases in recorded abandonment or adoption.
China-born Emma Ming Fuller, now 24, was one of the children adopted from Mingshan District in this period, in her case, by American parents who reside in Los Angeles, California.
Though she has nothing but gratitude and love for her adoptive family, Ming Fuller now finds herself looking back at her circumstances of leaving her birth country before she could remember anything about it and being raised in a predominantly white environment. She has recently embarked on a journey of identity, memory and belonging to better understand where she comes from and who she is, gaining the encouragement and support of fellow Chinese adoptees online.
Being Abandoned in Central China
At just three months old, Ming Fuller was placed in a basket and left outside of a government building. No one knows how long she was there for, but a passerby eventually noticed her, and the handwritten note left with her displaying her birth date, taking both to the local police station for help. Recording her as "abandoned," Ming Fuller was placed in the care of an orphanage in Mingshan for over a year before she was adopted. She was later told she shared a crib with another child during her time there and was malnourished when adopted.
Despite having no memories of that chapter of her life and putting it out of her mind until this point, she has recently come to believe it shaped her all the same.
"When I began dating, I noticed some pretty heavy attachment patterns in myself, and I went to therapy to work through them," Ming Fuller, who was adopted in 2003, told Newsweek. "My therapist helped me piece together that adoption had impacted so many aspects of what I struggle with—and that was genuinely challenging, because it meant confronting a belief I'd held my whole life; that adoption had no impact on me because I was raised by two really loving parents.
"Both of those things turned out to be true at once."
That reckoning has become the foundation of a project Ming Fuller calls "Living Adopted," a video series in which she speaks candidly about what it means to grow up as a Chinese adoptee in the U.S.—and what it means to still be one, decades later, as an adult navigating identity and relationships.
"I [explore] the things I face day-to-day that tie back to my adoption story," she said. "I started sharing on social media because I didn't have many people to talk to about it.
"Putting my feelings into words became a way to connect with other adoptees."
One particular video, posted to Instagram under @emmamingfuller on February 17, has been liked more than 25,000 times. In it, Ming Fuller tells viewers: "I lived in an entirely white community, no one around me looked like me, that's why I'm starting a series about what it's
really like being adopted from China, not as a child but as an adult.
"My whole life I felt like adoption was not part of my identity, because I didn't remember it, I felt it had no impact on me, but as I'm growing up, I am learning how much your body remembers different traumas."
She described the effort as one that would cover "the identity questions," "the self-love journey," "the eating struggles" and "the grief that
shows up in random places," alongside gratitude; all challenges that adoptees often have to work through.
Abandonment and Adoption in China
The one child policy, constitutionally implemented in 1982, was designed to slow the country's rapid population growth by limiting many families to a single child, with some exceptions in rural areas and for ethnic minorities.
Enforced through fines, mandatory contraception and, in some cases, forced sterilizations and abortions, the controversial policy remained in place until it was formally ended in 2015 and replaced with a two-child limit, that was later lifted in 2021.
Its decades-long enforcement, combined with a cultural preference for male heirs, contributed to a sharp rise in the abandonment of infant girls, many of whom were placed in orphanages and later adopted internationally.
For Ming Fuller, questions about that history and her place within it remain unresolved, and she is in no hurry to force an answer.
"I'll be honest, I'm not yet at a place where I've done a lot of work immersing myself in Chinese culture," she said. "Right now, I'm focused on better understanding myself and where I fit into it, and reconnecting with my birthplace is something I'm still figuring out for the future."
Her message to fellow adoptees is one of patience over pressure.
"Unpacking everything has been like pouring out all your garbage and sorting through it—it's been a hard reality to face, but it's really helped me better understand myself," she said. "The reason I wanted to understand myself was so I could see what's been stopping me, and what challenges I've faced that stand between me and what I want to achieve. Even though it's really difficult to unpack the things that adoption may have impacted, I think it's totally worth it—and it's okay to do it in your own time."
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