BY ANDRÉ-ANNE CÔTÉ
Since I was young, I always knew I was adopted from China. My parents had adopted children from different origins: China, Haiti, and indigenous people in Canada. My family has always been open to talking about my adoption, and I met many adoptees in Quebec, where I was raised.
Growing up in the only francophone province of Canada, I experienced an invisible wall separating Chinese adoptees and Chinese Canadians. The barrier was mainly linguistic and geographical. It was really hard to communicate with one another because we speak French whereas most Chinese immigrants, living in Chinatown, speak Cantonese or Mandarin, and sometimes English. On one hand, these migrants see us as part of Western society, with white privileges. On the other hand, Quebecers often ask us questions about our origins. “But, I mean, where are really you from?” They would say. When I arrived in China, I also felt like a “banana” – yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. My cultural identity is Western, but my physical appearance is Chinese. I felt like there was still a piece of the puzzle I had to find in order for me to truly understand myself.
Before becoming André-Anne Côté, my former name was Chenxinhua or “???,” which means “new nation.” I was born in 1995 in Nanchang, in the province of Jiangxi. I was part of the generation that was supposed to make China rise again, following the era of reform by former party Chairman Deng Xiaoping, who led the country from 1978 to 1989. Instead, I became an object of collateral damage in China’s period of growth: one of many orphans that became a victim of China’s severe family planning policies during the period. My life started with my abandonment. I was left in a basket in front of a market, and struggled against death before I eventually reached an orphanage. I survived and am here now, able to write these lines – but I know very few details about those initial years of my life. Those years seem to me like a blackout. It feels like my life started from an empty hole.
Photo of all the Nanchang children adopted by Quebecer parents taken at a hotel in 1995. Credit: André-Anne Côté.