Jenna Cook with her adoptive mother Margaret
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Jenna Cook, Chinese name Xia Huasi, was born in China but was abandoned by her biological parents. Though adopted by her American mother and growing up to be an anthropology student at Yale, she has never stopped looking for her birth parents and visited China in May to meet with 44 families who could potentially be her kin.
Jenna was only a month old when she was abandoned in the Qiaokou district of Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei in central China. She knows that she was born on Feb. 2, 1992 and was one of the first group of Chinese children to be adopted by foreign families when her American mother Margaret Cook adopted her, according to the Chinese-language magazine Southern People.
From junior high school, Jenna started to develop an interest in life in developing countries, to some extent a way to understand her country of birth. Her initial understanding of China came from books in which she saw pictures of Chinese vendors carrying buckets of water from poles across their shoulders and pushing watermelons in carts. When she first visited the city of Wuhan in 2008, she asked to see a rural area so she could witness the daily lives of countryside residents for herself.
Jenna knew many Chinese would describe her as fortunate to have the chance to grow up an American but her own feelings are naturally more complex. "I was born here but my life was there. I could have missed the chance to be educated in favor of my brothers because I am a girl," she said. Jenna said she respects the hard work of farming families and that she has done no more to deserve her life than they have. "This made me humble," she said, according to Southern People.
In the eight weeks since Jenna arrived in China on her latest visit on May 17, she and her adoptive mother Margaret met, talked and shared their stories with 44 families and conducted DNA tests with 36 families looking for a match. Although she has so far not found her birth parents, Jenna, Margaret and the families that have suffered from the guilt of abandoning their children in the past have found some solace.
With the help of a local television station, Jenna met with the first couple among the 44 families on June 6. They came all the way from Hangzhou, some 800 kilometers from Wuhan. The wife of the family shed tears as she described how she and her husband abandoned their fourth daughter because they were poor. They have become migrant workers, working ten hours a day in a duvet factory and only taking one day off every month. "Whether you are my daughter are not, I wanted to see you as it would be just like seeing my own daughter," the woman said. Jenna and Margaret insisted on paying the 600 yuan (US$94) fee for the DNA test despite the couple's protests that they were willing to pay. As they left, the woman thanked Margaret for raising Jenna.
The second couple they met said they were forced to abandon their second daughter because of the one-child policy. The mother said she left a note which explained their situation and stated their surname. She thought the child may grow up to hate her and refuse to meet as an adult.
Jenna took photographs with all the families she met. Even though she knew she was adopted and has a 16-year-old sister who was also adopted from China, sometimes the difference between her appearance and that of her adoptive mother still bothered her. Then there were the questions — she remembers being asked "Where are you from?" or "How much did you cost?" Having grown up in a mostly white neighborhood, she set her sights on studying at a university with a more diverse mix of students.
At times she felt she should focus her energy on her schoolwork and her friends instead of thinking about her birth parents, but at her high school graduation ceremony she wished they could be there.
Jenna has learned some Chinese and hopes to tell her birth parents that she loves them. She has spoken to vendors around the district where she was found as a baby and has put posters on their carts so local officials cannot take them down. She has tried to memorize all the names of the stations nearby to guess where her birth parents might come from. An attendant who has been working at a local train station for almost 20 years told her they used to find many abandoned babies there. One of their current staff was one of them.
Another couple traveled to meet Jenna and Margaret from the northern province of Shanxi. The woman said her own mother abandoned her second daughter without her consent. They had many arguments and the grandmother took her own life later by drinking pesticide. The woman said they tried to look for the child in 1995 but to no avail and she and her husband have felt guilty ever since. She then asked what Jenna was looking for in compensation — a shock to Jenna, for whom the idea had never crossed her mind. The man offered 10,000 yuan (US$1,600) — which Jenna and Margaret declined — when they were asked to take a DNA test that costs 600 yuan (US$94), according to the magazine.
The couple's story was so riveting that Margaret and Jenna were still talking about the grandmother who committed suicide when they returned to their room that night. Margaret said she was amazed that these migrant workers had traveled such a long way to see them. She was also glad that she came to China with Jenna, knowing her daughter would face many unexpected situations. Margaret was worried that Jenna might not be able to handle the emotions of the families and the disappointment of the search but was proud to see the way her daughter comforted the sad parents.
When she was younger, Jenna had asked Margaret to adopt another child who looked like her so she could have a sibling she could count on and Margaret subsequently adopted Sara. During the Chinese Moon Festival, she told Jenna her birth parents were probably watching the same scene. At Chinese New Year, Margaret went to Jenna and Sara's classrooms to teach students about Chinese culture and how to make Chinese lanterns and dumplings. At these times, Jenna and Sara were proud to be from China, Southern People said.
At one time during Jenna's search a man from Nanjing interrupted her meeting with one family and claimed he was her father, accusing the foster mother who cared for Jenna briefly of being a baby trafficker and telling her she should stop looking for her birth parents, return to America and treat Margaret like her birth mother. Though the others present at the meeting thought the man was crazy, Jenna listened to his story calmly and treated him with the same courtesy she gave the other families she met.
Jenna said she has been overjoyed to meet these families, who have the same sad story in common. The only sad feeling she had during the trip, she says, was when she went to the place where she was found as a baby, as that was the place she was parted from her birth parents. She has not felt sorrow most of her life, she says, but rather has had the feeling that her birth parents have watched over her well-being.
The last family she met was a mother with four daughters who was seeking a fifth child who was abandoned in a dress they had made in a cardboard box with flowers and a cloth. The daughters were all married and came with their husbands. They and Jenna tried to look for similar body characteristics such as moles or the shape of their toes. The mother and the fourth daughter left DNA samples. When Jenna embraced the family, she felt like they were sisters, Southern People said.
Jenna says she has been surprised to have been able to meet so many families, for whom agreeing to a meeting must have been an act of great courage. It was a "leap of faith," she said. If they felt they needed forgiveness for abandoning their child, Jenna wanted them to believe they were forgiven.
Jenna has left her own DNA sample with a database in China in the hope that other families may come looking for their abandoned child. Though she has yet to find her birth parents, she reamins optimistic, feeling that her next visit to China or even the next family she meets could finally end her quest
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