I recently reviewed the documentary, CLOSURE, which covers
26-year-old transracial adoptee Angela Tucker’s journey to find her
birthmother. This week, Angela and her husband, filmmaker Bryan Tucker, joined
Adoption at the Movies to share about the search, the filmmaking, and what it’s
meant in their lives. If you want to see the film, you can access it through
their Kickstarter page, through June 3. Also, keep an eye open for a CLOSURE
giveaway on this site in the coming months.
Addison: In some of the materials that Bryan provided, it
said that the desire to search for your birth family has always been in you.
What were the feelings like as a kid, Angela, and how did you actually make the
jump to say, “I’ve wanted to search for a long time, but now I’m going to do
it?”
Angela: I’m a pretty
inquisitive, curious person by nature, curious about all things in general, and
so I think naturally this was a part of it. I was always teased by the idea
that I could have my original birth certificate when I was 21. That always felt
like a lure – you know, OK, I’m going to get that some day – and I tried to get
that, and was not successful, so I was just on the hunt.
Addison: Your family in the film shared some of their
feelings and worries that they had when you started to be looking in earnest.
With you having been talking about it and joking about it your whole life, what
was your experience of your family as you started your search.
Angela: I don’t think
that they ever thought it would go anywhere because we didn’t have enough
information, or maybe they weren’t really realizing the deep need for me to
find them.
Addison: It was really impressive, that when you went to
find your birth family for the first time, you went with your whole family.
Angela: Yeah, I’m so
glad I did. I don’t know how I would have done it without them. Otherwise it
would have been really scary. I hear adoptive families talk like that – “We’ll
let the child find their birth family some day, on their own,” but that sounds
awful. I enjoyed having a safety net.
Addison: Bryan, as a person grafted into Angela’s family
over the last few years, what was it like for you to go on this journey with
her?
Bryan: Our first trip
to Chattanooga was really exciting because of all the clues we had about who
her birthfather was. We were excited to meet this guy, regardless of what
happened. It was adventurous. Once I was there in the moment, and we met him,
and he confirmed, “Yeah, I know your birthmother, I kind of had a relationship
with her,” it started to feel like, “Oh my God – is this guy her dad?” Then it
started to really sink in to me – what this meant to Angela – how incredible it
was that she’s wondered about this guy and who her birthmother is, over all
these years – and I was there with them. That was a privilege I hadn’t really
prepared myself for. Even though in our
dating relationship and our early years of marriage, I did help her search,
brainstorm, and talk about “what if’s,” but being there was a whole different
thing.
Addison: It was her
birthfather’s mom that you met first of all. What was it like to meet her, and
then to meet her birthfather, Sandy?
Angela: I remember
seeing their last name, “Bell” on the callbox. So I called it, and then this
woman answered, and I was kind of confused because it wasn’t a male voice. But
I thought, “OK, I’m just going to go in anyway, because their last name is Bell
and maybe they know my birthdad anyway.” So I went in to this woman’s apartment
and she answered the door and I immediately noticed that we have exactly the
same skin tone. I’ve never seen anyone whose skin tone matched mine so closely.
I explained who I was and what I was looking for, and she confirmed that Sandy
was her son, and I was very excited. But her next sentence was that he was
sterile and could not have children. I left, and went outside. Sandy passed by
on his bike, so we flagged him down to talk with him, and noticed that we
looked exactly alike. I was so overwhelmed, I’m not sure if I even remember
what was said.
Addison: You mentioned in this interview, and in the film –
grandmother had the same skin tone as me, Sandy said he looks exactly like me.
Sometimes, adopting parents talk about being colorblind or not seeing
nationality, and are proud of it – but for you, seeing the physical connection
seemed pretty powerful.
Angela: It was very
powerful. I had wanted that for so long. And I think I had pretended – or just
listened to what everyone else had told me my whole life – you know, people
asking if my African-American (adopted) siblings and I were related because,
you know, ‘all Black people look alike,’ so it was incredible to meet people
who actually have the same skin tone as me.
Addison: Bryan, you said a bit about how this was a real
privilege for you, to meet Sandy. How was meeting Angela’s birthmother Deborah
for the first time, for you?
Bryan: I don’t think I
officially shook her hand or said hi the first time we met her. I kind of stood
back with the camera, and Angela had told me that if I could get a few
pictures, that would be great, because we might not ever get this moment again.
So like you saw in the film, I stood back, and eventually turned off the camera
because Deborah saw I was taking pictures, and I didn’t want to be weird about
that. Shortly after we met her and she said, “No, I’m not the birthmother,” We
all got in the care and left. Our interaction with Deborah probably lasted
like, two minutes. Angela believed that Deborah was not her birthmother,
because she said so – and we were all like, “No, it was her. It was totally
her.” And Angela didn’t believe us because she was so in that moment. But we
all could see – we had some particulars about Deborah on her birth record –
that Deborah was 4’11”, and had gray streaks in her hair – and here’s this
short woman with gray hair, and we’re like, “Yeah, it’s her!” It was hard for
me to see Angela with this slowly sinking in – that she had met this woman that
she had fantasized about all her life, and that the woman didn’t want to have
any kind of interaction with her.
Addison: For a lot of adoptees, one of the big fears is that
they’ll search, find the person, and then be rejected. Sometimes that stops
people from searching. And you guys experienced that with Deborah, and yet you
were able to come back and give her a second try. How did you heal and recover
enough to find the courage to do that?
Angela: I knew that I
have birth siblings, so I shifted myself into wanting to know them and birth
aunts and uncles that I want to know that would maybe want to know me. So I
decided to shift that way. There is pain in being rejected, but I have some
empathy to her reaction.
Addison: You did meet some of your birth siblings. And at a
meeting at a social service office, you learned there is another one. Since the
filming has been completed, how have things gone with that search, and with
your other relatives?
Angela: We’re still
searching for one of my birth-sisters. We know that she’s in Pennsylvania, but
we don’t know anything else. I hope someday, we find her.
Addison: Na-Na always wanted a sister, and was surprised to
find out that she had sisters. Sandy always wanted kids, and was surprised to
find out that he had one. What is it like to be so long-desired, but unknown?
Angela: Sandy
immediately called me his daughter, and was so proud. Part of me can’t realize
that that’s me – is he talking about me? For me, the words “sister,” “dad,”
“mom,” they’re more verbs – they’re actions. It’s not like they’re nouns.
Bryan: Several of
Sandy’s siblings were like, “What if the DNA comes back negative?” They all
resoundingly said, “We’re still family even if it comes back negative.” That
was kind of shocking for me to hear because in my mind, I’m like, “Well, what
makes us family?” But for them, they embraced us so wholeheartedly and so
quickly and they just felt so changed by the whole experience that even if the
DNA turned out that Angela was not his birth daughter, that they still wanted
us in their lives.