Hannah Anderson,
Southeastern Community College, IA

>My upbringing was different than most, I visited a majority of North America by 13. As a child I had always adapted to every culture I was placed in, rather than have a full knowledge or identity of my own. Adopted within a year to a white family. My adoptive mom, Irish and raised in the suburbs by her biological parents. My adoptive father had a single father also being white, indigenous, and adopted shared a similar outcaste as me. I grew up attending pow wows and potlucks, a taste of both worlds essentially but never being able to fully claim any identity of my own. I felt more at home at pow wows than pot lucks for sure. Yet I never understood who I was or where I came from other than knowing I was adopted. Until meeting my birth family, I found understanding and closeness as did he. We were able to implicate more parts of our culture into our blended lives through traditions, recipes, celebrations and pastimes. Our birth families helped us better understand the parts of us we felt missing or misunderstood.