Identity, adoption and China's one-child policy

Whose Century Is It?
February 11, 2016

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Maya Ludtke, born in China, adopted by a Caucasian American single mother, on her first trip back to the country of her birth

Adopted American daughter Maya Ludtke visiting China's Great Wall, and the country of her birth, at age 7 in 2004.

Credit:

Melissa Ludtke

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Culture

Born Chinese, raised American, an adoptee explores her identity

Whose Century Is It?

February 11, 2016

What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be Chinese? And how, as an adopted Chinese daughter of an American Caucasian mother, do you find a balance that works for you? And how did China's one-child policy make that a question faced by tens of thousands of Chinese-born American girls and young women? In search of perspective, Maya Ludtke, 19, traveled back to the town where she was born, meeting girls growing up as she might have, if her parents had kept her.