By the time I finished conducting and editing the interviews with other Chinese adoptees, reviewing media items about the pros and cons of international adoption and reading blogs and websites about adoptees searches for identity and their travels to China, I realized that there is no single path to identity. Everyone's experience is different even though there is a lot of common history and circumstance. Some adoptees who had a lot of exposure to Chinese language and opportunities for cultural connection ended up without any strong sense of being 'Chinese' or wanting to be Chinese. Other adoptees who had a similar amount of exposure fully embraced their Chinese heritage and have attempted to make it part of their lives and identities. There isn't any one way, or any right way to approach identity. It's whatever works for each individual. 

For all the adoptees I spoke with the concept of how families are formed and what they mean is very important. Most of the young women I spoke with have good relationships with their parents and feel that families are there to love and support them, and that biological connections are not that important. 

The surprise that came out of my interviews and discussions about the topic was the issue of race. Almost all of the adoptees found that most people, especially white people, don't talk about race and have a lot of confusion about race, culture, and nationality. Most of the adoptees had experienced comments and questions about their origins, ethnicity, language and culture that most white Americans never have. For Chinese adoptees growing up in white families, this adds to the confusion and disconnection. 

I'm left with the feeling that cultural identity as American or Chinese is less of an issue than the fact that obviously Chinese adoptees are racially Chinese, and with a growing awareness that to be American often means being white. This is my own observation, and I hope that this project can help viewers start to think a little more clearly about race, culture, and family.