Thesis Presentation
At the start of 2020, there was a significant rise in anti-Asian hate. This created an opportunity for the Asian community to stand up and bring representation to their community. That said, most of this representation came from immigrant and intergenerational experiences. Asian adoptees were left feeling isolated with imposter syndrome, since they didn't feel like their experience fit with what other Asians in the community were talking about. This brought up the question of how could I share the stories of Chinese adoptees in a way that created representation and utilized design through imagery, typography, and color?
Individual poster out in the public.
Mockup showing the mobile website next to the poster. https://www.abrokenredthread.com/ (view on mobile device)
Website recording https://www.abrokenredthread.com/ (view on mobile devices)
Adoptee animations from the website that tie back to the posters
Thesis Presentation
Goals
My goals for this project were to invoke empathy amongst viewers who are not a part of the adoptee community, empower those that do identify as Chinese adoptees, and lastly, create a sense of pride and community for adoptees that may be starting or are in the midst of their healing journey through their adoption trauma.
My target audience was towards Asian adoptees—but more specifically Chinese adoptees. I also wanted this project to be for adoptive parents of Chinese adoptees and those that were considering adoption. Even though this project had a specific audience, it was really for everyone because there are so many Chinese adoptees in the US, and this project itself is about representing a community that many people don't pay much attention to.
Research Process
Since this project focused on Chinese adoptees specifically, I started researching the catalyst for Chinese adoption, the one-child policy. The law aimed to reduce the population in hopes that the number of people would be below 1.2 billion by the end of the 20th century. Though the policy reduced the population successfully, it impacted China’s economy negatively. It resulted in a large gap between men and women in China. Parents often preferred to keep babies that were assigned male at birth because they could inherit the family name and property, and they could take care of their parents when they grew old. The one-child policy also caused an imbalance in age. Due to the drop in birth rates, many elderly people found themselves in the situation too since they heavily relied on children to take care of them at an older age. This information was important to my research, but it wasn’t my main focus.
I wanted this project to be very emotion-based, so I also watched two films One Child Nation and Found. One Child Nation, focused on the impact and effects on the birth parents/family and citizens of China as a whole, and it was narrated and filmed by a Chinese woman that was born during this policy. She went on to interview these individuals that were affected by the policy. The documentary Found focused on three Chinese adoptees who searched for their birth family and dealt with their trauma in a transracial household and predominantly white environment. Both of these films focused on emotion, but differed from the cultural and experience based perspective of Chinese citizens and parents, and transracial Chinese American adoptees.
Anti-Asian hate crimes reported from 2019–2020: Statista, Quantitative chart Showing Sites of Discrimination: Stop AAPI Hate
Consultation
In addition to the research I had done, I also had a consultation with a therapist, Rachel Forbes, who happens to be a Korean American adoptee specializing in adoption trauma. My goal for the consultation was to learn more about how trauma impacts the body and how the past three years have specifically impacted Asian adoptees. When asking her about her profession and how it impacts her, she said, “There’s this simultaneous gratefulness to be able to do this, but it’s also devastating to see the same trauma and pain and agony and helplessness over and over again while society is telling us all of these things about Asian Immigrant stories, and we’re left feeling unheard and totally questioning, “Am I wrong to feel this way? Is it okay to feel this way?’ and then it just feels worse.”
For my second consultation, I met up with Jordan Tran who helped me create a system and suggested the website so that this campaign could live on different formats. His feedback was very helpful for me to push this project even further.
Survey
I started reaching out to adoptees I knew and also reaching out to mutual connections. As I got participants, I sent out a Google form for them to fill out, and I included these questions:
“How has adoption impacted you?”
“If you wanted to, what is something you would say to your birth parents?”
“If you could, would you try to reunite with your birth family?”
“What struggles have you faced as an adoptee if any?”
“How do you find empowerment in your adoption story?”
Visual Inspiration
It was important to me that I draw inspiration from Asian and Chinese graphic designers since my project was about Chinese culture and community. While doing my research, I did notice that there were no graphic design projects that focused on Asian adoptees, so that made me even more emboldened to continue with this emotionally investing project.
Trails: Corky Lee by Kimberly Ong (1,2,3), Museum of Chinese Australia (4,5,6), Singapore Chinese Dance Theater by Studio Roots (7), When Chinese Meets Melayu by Chaterine Andreas (8), I.AM.U.S by Daniel de Boulay
Design Process
I knew that I wanted this project to take the format of a poster series, and I wanted the main emphasis to be on the adoptees. I wanted the posters to also act as an installation that the viewer could look at all together in a series, so it was important that I give them each their own poster. I had to keep in mind how many people would participate, so I set my number to 8 people.
Hand Drawn Sketches
Deciding on Various Chinese Typefaces
Digital Sketches of Layout
The Logo & Title
When I was deciding on a name for my project, I wanted it to really create this sense of power and make a statement. The title comes from the Chinese proverb which says “an invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of the time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break.” This proverb has been used to promote adoptions saying that it is an act of destiny, but in reality it negates the fact that it is also saying birthmothers are equally destined to be in situations in which they have to relinquish their children and that these children are destined to lose their first families, countries, cultures, and everything they know—therefore it is "a broken red thread."
When creating the logo, I wanted it to represent the title, so I used the Chinese word xian 线 which means thread. By breaking up the character, I was further implying its brokenness, and I included the red frame that is repeated throughout the posters to emphasize that theme and system.
Title Poster Alternatives
Reflection
Throughout my process, I had to remain cognizant due to the sensitivity of this project, since it dealt with real people and personal stories. I also wanted to make sure that I was still honoring China and the culture that we share, while also being truthful about the impacts that the one-child policy had on people.
I ran into an obstacle when it came to reaching out to adoptees. Initially I planned on reaching out to Chinese adoptee non-profit organization groups on Facebook that I am a part of, but I ran into the issue of needing approval from the Institution Review Board to share my project because of human participance. Unfortunately, that fell of the back end, and I wasn’t able to share in those groups. That being said, I was able to get the amount of participants needed through mutual connection.
My other obstacle was working with Squarespace for my website. Though it did most of the things I wanted it to, there were some features that were very limiting. I initially planned on making a desktop website as well, but with the formatting for my mobile version, it would then get stretched in desktop and vice versa.
Reflecting back on the process, I am very happy with where I ended up. This project was a very close and personal one to me since this is about my identity too. Navigating this was difficult at times, but getting to connect with new people, and read other adoptees’ stories was empowering.
Sources
Keyes, M. A., Sharma, A., Elkins, I. J., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2008). The mental health of US adolescents adopted in infancy. Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine, 162(5), 419–425. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.162.5.419
Theodora Blanchfield, A. M. F. T. (2022, February 14). What are the mental health effects of being adopted? Verywell Mind. Retrieved April 26, 2023, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-the-mental-health-effects-of-being-adopted-5217799
Kaplan, A. (2020, November 16). Adoption and mental illness. Psychiatric Times. Retrieved April 26, 2023, from https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/adoption-and-mental-illness
Beeston, A. (2023, February 6). Adopted children may develop post traumatic stress. NIHR Evidence. Retrieved April 26, 2023, from https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/adopted-children-may-develop-specific-types-of-post-traumatic-stress/
MPGteam. (2023, March 17). Transracial adoption: Issues that may arise and tips to overcome them. Manhattan Psychology Group. Retrieved April 26, 2023, from https://manhattanpsychologygroup.com/transracial-adoption-issues-that-may-arise-and-tips-to-overcome-them/#:~:text=Donaldson%20Institute%20found%20that%20transracially,ability%20to%20cope%20with%20discrimination.
Feng, E. (2021, July 4). China's former 1-child policy continues to haunt families. NPR. Retrieved February 8, 2023, from https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-lasting-effects-of-chinas-1-child-policy
This article/audio segment interviewed a Chinese mother asking them how the one-child policy impacted her. She shared her experience of having to go into hiding when she found out she was pregnant with her second child, and how her husband went to prison for trying to defend her from city officials. This article also focused on a Chinese activist and lawyer who fought against the government to protect women and their unborn children from being victims to violent acts upon their bodies.
What was China's 1-child policy and why was it so controversial? South China Morning Post. (2023, January 27). Retrieved February 8, 2023, from https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3135510/chinas-one-child-policy-what-was-it-and-what-impact-did-it?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3135510
This source was straight to the point with data and statistics that explained how the one-child policy affected Chinese citizens. It also included some graphs and data which helped to understand the quantitative data and impact.
Amazon Prime Video. (2019, January). One Child Nation. United States
This documentary helped to paint a clearer picture of how the One Child Policy impacted families. The documentary was narrated and filmed by a woman who was born during the policy and had since gained a new perspective after moving to the US.
Wu, D. (2022, February 28). For Chinese adoptees in the U.S., identity comes in layers. Worldcrunch. Retrieved January 19, 2023, from https://worldcrunch.com/in-search-of-identity-chinese-adoptees39-struggle-in-the-us-2654534251
This article shares the stories of adoptees and how they struggled to accept their identities. This relates to my topic especially because it focuses on emotions and how it can be hard to navigate your life as a transracial adoptee.
NBCUniversal News Group. (2020, March 30). In connecting Chinese adoptees to birth families, couple makes discovery about China's one-child policy. NBCNews.com. Retrieved January 18, 2023,https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/connecting-chinese-adoptees-birth-families-couple-makes-discovery-about-china-n1172301
This article talks about a couple who adopt a daughter from China. As she grows up she continues to question her culture and wonder who her birth parents are. Through research they learn that a lot of orphanages sugar coat how they find these orphans when in reality these orphans were often human trafficked. The parents then start a paid service where the couple looks through Chinese records and birth certificates to see if they can find any birth relatives.
Netflix. (2021, October 20). Found . United States.
Los Angeles Times. (2021, April 16). 'I'm not allowed to feel those things': How adoptees experience anti-Asian hate. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 18, 2023, from https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-04-16/asian-adoptees-and-their-experiences
This article interviews multiple adoptees after the Atlanta spa shooting asking what their thoughts were on it and how it affected them. Many adoptees go into depth about their imposter syndrome and how they don’t feel like they belong in the Asian community.
Published by C. Textor, & 15, D. (2022, December 15). China: Number of registered adoptions. Statista. Retrieved February 8, 2023, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/687360/china-number-of-registered-adoptions/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20about%2012%2C447%20adoption%20cases%20were%20registered%20in%20China.
This source includes qualitative data about the number of adoptions that have taken place in China from 1996 to 2021. By collecting this data, I would use it for my infographic poster.
U.S. Department of State. (n.d.). U.S. Department of State. Retrieved February 8, 2023, from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption.html/
This source includes quantitative data about international adoptions to the US. It is another source that will be implemented into the infographic poster.
Budiman, A., & Lopez, M. H. (2020, May 30). Amid decline in international adoptions to U.S., boys outnumber girls for the first time. Pew Research Center. Retrieved February 8, 2023, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/17/amid-decline-in-international-adoptions-to-u-s-boys-outnumber-girls-for-the-first-time/
This source also includes quantitative and qualitative data about the birth rates in China to the US. It is another source that will be implemented into the infographic poster.
Chaterine Andreas, 2020, Behance https://www.behance.net/gallery/109376477/When-Chinese-Meets-Melayu
Wu Mu Chang / 吳 穆昌, 2018, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/66537317/-Visual-Identity-Design
Sam McGuinness, Louis Johanson, Lucy Zhang, MOCA, 2022, Behance https://www.behance.net/gallery/148548911/MOCA/moodboard
https://www.moca.com.au/
Islam Zayed, 2021, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/126281195/China-BRI-Data-Visualization?tracking_source=search_projects%7Cinfographic+information+design+china
Evgenia Tranevskaya, 2021, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/131370217/Information-design-Tokyo-Japan?tracking_source=search_projects%7Cinfographic+information+design+china
Anisha Chua, 2022, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/145999407/The-Art-of-War-ISTD-Shaping-the-World?tracking_source=search_projects%7Cchinese+design
Daniel DeBoulay, 2018, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/62211349/IAMUS-%28part-1%29?tracking_source=search_projects%7Cchinese+american
Seongjun Yun, 2021, Behance
https://www.behance.net/gallery/111420385/Changes-in-Korean-Chinesevillages-in-China?tracking_source=search_projects%7Cchinese+american+museum
