The Myth of Colorblindness

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I tried to do that without making people into villains or heroes, certainly not heroes either. That was very much a intention. I think it was something that I came to understand with the girls, with the sisters, through our conversations around identity. But I also came to understand it with my own life. So I was thinking about having a white mother who was raising a child who presented to the world as Asian and like all of the issues that I had with that. And so that was important to me to kind of also structure it in a way that helped you understand this history,. Also, hopefully hold empathy for people in the story, even when they're flawed.

Erika Hayasaki has written for The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Atlantic. Her new book is Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family.

“I don’t subscribe to the belief that it’s our story because we’re the journalist that wrote it — especially when people are sharing these really intimate, deep, painful moments. That is not my story. That’s their story that they've collaborated in a way with me to share through these interviews.”

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